Chapter 3

No one thought the day could get any worse than it already was, but they were all wrong. Everyone was working quietly, when one of the woman shouted that someone named Jim was bit, which made everyone panic. The group surrounded the man, demanding to see the bite, but he refused and grabbed a shovel to protect himself. T-Dog grabbed the man's arms pinning them behind his back as Daryl pulled his shirt up for everyone to see the angry red bite mark on his torso. Jim was escorted to the back of the RV, where he sat as everyone else talked about what to do about it. Adrian and Kale kept away from the discussion since they weren't part of the group and had no say in what happened to any of them.

Daryl was firmly rooting for putting a pick axe in Jim and Amy's head.

Rick believed that they should head to the city and look for help at the CDC.

Shane believed they should head to Fort Benning, a military base over 100 miles.

Adrian believed both ideas seemed a little far fetched, but everybody needed a dream. Their's was safety and security.

Daryl tried to put his pick axe into Jim;s head, but was abruptly stopped by Rick and Shane, the former who was holding his gun to the back of Daryl's head. After that Jim was relocated so another part of the camp. It wasn't long after that a gunshot rang through the camp. Amy had finally reanimated and Andrea had finally done what needed to be done.

A short while later, Daryl was standing in front of the RV, axing any of their people who hadn't had something driven into their heads yet. Daryl was standing in front of a body that had been eaten pretty badly when Carol slowly came towards him. Daryl moved aside so Carol could stand in front of the body, silently asking for the pick axe.

"He was my husband. I should do it." she said in a timid voice.

After a minute Daryl handed her the pick axe. It took a minute for Carol to bring the pick axe down on her husbands head. She pulled the axe out of his head and then slammed it down again and again and again, releasing a breathy gasp each time she slammed the pick axe into his head. Daryl looked at her a little confused before he seen Adrian slowly walking up to the distraught woman.

After Carol dropped the pick axe, she stood there and cried as she looked at the mutilated body of her husband. Carol nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a small on her shoulder. She turned to see the red haired stranger standing behind her, looking at her with sympathy and understanding. "It's okay, Carol. He's gone now. He can't hurt you anymore. He can never hurt you again. It will be a while before you fully come to accept that, but eventually, you will. And once you fully and finally understand that, you can finally start to be the woman you've always wanted to be." Adrian said. She gave the woman a small smile before she walked away, two pairs of eyes on her back as she walked away.

Jim was moved into the RV and his wound treated as much as it could be with what they had in camp while Rick and Shane walked up the hill to better prepare the graves for their dead. Eventually the first load of their dead were loaded into the back of Daryl's truck, which he drove up the hill to their small graveyard as the rest of the group slowly followed. Adrian and Kale decided to stay back in the camp, it didn't feel right for them to attend funerals for people they didn't even know.

"So what are we going to do when they leave? They made it clear they plan to pack up and move onto the CDC in Atlanta before the end of the day." Kale asked, sitting on a log facing the RV, taking a long pull of his water.

It was hotter than a barbecue in Hell, and it was only getting hotter.

"What we originally planned. We pack up, pick a direction, and move on. We can't stay at the cabin, the woods are becoming more infested by the day, which makes it harder to hunt or fish." she told him, taking a drink of her own water. Adrian then noticed the uncomfortable silence. She looked at Kale and noticed he had a slightly troubled look on his face and she noticed his eyes flicker towards her, only to quickly dart away.

"Spit it out before you explode, kid." she said, looking over at the clearly troubled teen.

"How would you want me to do it?" Kale asked quickly. Adrian just raised her eyebrow in a silent question.

"They're burying their dead. How do you want me to do it, put you to rest, if I had to?" he asked a little more clearly.

"Ah." she finally said in understanding. They had never really discussed how they would do it, if they were had to put the other down.

"Fire. Some ancient civilizations used to burn their warriors on a pyre. And what are we these days if not warriors fighting to survive?" she said, looking into the distance but not really taking anything in.

TWD

After the group came back down the hill Adrian and Kale headed down to the quarry to get more water and wash up. It had been a few days since they had last washed up and they were in desperate need of a good washing after helping clean up the campsite. Adrian had found a rock to hide behind and she stripped her clothes off and gave them as good of a washing as she could with just her hands.

After scrubbing her clothes as best as she could, she put them on the rock to dry a little while she dipped herself into the warm water. After she scrubbed all the dirt and dried blood off of her body that she could she unbound her ginger locks, dunked her head under the water and made sure it was all soaked. She ran her fingers through her hair to help dislodge any dirt and such from her hair and scalp.

When Adrian checked her clothes after leaving the water, she was pleasantly surprised to find her clothes only slightly damp. She looked around as she was walking up the road that lead back towards camp and noticed that Kale wasn't there. She could only assume that he had finished before her and had decided to head back instead of waiting for her.

Adrian was still finger combing her hair when she walked into the camp. She noticed that everyone, minus Kale, was seated around the fire pit. She could hear Shane telling everyone that it was important to stay together and that they were going to leave for Atlanta come morning for those that wanted to follow them.

After hearing what the group had planned to do, Adrian decided that it was as good a time as any to go their separate ways. Adrian walked towards Rick and Lori, with Kale trailing a few steps behind her, a silent shadow. Carl was sitting behind his parents, drawing in the dirt with a stick. The three pairs of eyes that belonged to the Grimes looked up at her when she approached.

"We're about to head out. Now that y'all have your next plan set, it's a good a time as any for us to pack up and figure out what we're gonna do next. We just wanted to say goodbye to Carl before we left, if that's okay you you two." she said looking at Rick and Lori. Carl had abandoned his stick in the dirt and walked up to his parents when he heard Adrian say that they were leaving.

Rick and Lori stood up, the latter putting her arm around Carl's shoulders. "You're leaving? But why? Why aren't you coming with us?" Carl asked her, not understanding why they would want to leave. Adrian looked down to Carl and then knelt down to his level, giving him a soft smile as she wiped a smudge of dirt from his face. She could tell from the way Lori tensed up that she didn't like Adrian touching her son very much.

"Oh, sweetie. This was always our plan. We came to warn the camp about the zombies but we were too late so we decided to stay and help out because cleaning up was a big job. But now your mom and dad and Shane have decided that it's a good idea to look for help for Jim. He's very sick right now and he needs help to get better. Now that everyone knows where they're going to go, me and Kale need to get our stuff and figure out where we want to go next. The cabin isn't safe anymore." she told him. She only looked at Carl as she said this but she could feel Lori and Rick's eyes on her as she spoke to their son.

"What if you didn't have to leave? What if you came with us?" Rick asked after a moment of silence. Adrian's bright green eyes shot to Rick's blue one.

She was surprised to find he was completely serious.

Adrian straightened up before saying anything. "Why would you want us to come with you? You don't even know us." Adrian said cautiously. "Because of what you did for Carl. You took in and cared for a boy you didn't even know before you returned him to his family. You could've kept him and no one would've ever known the difference. You traveled to a camp in the middle of the night to warn a group of strangers that a large group of walkers were heading toward them and then helped us when we were under attack, saving more than one of us. And then instead of leaving you stayed to help us clean up. I think that tells me everything I need to know about what kind of people you are." Rick told her.

"Rick." Lori said gently beside him, not as sure of the idea. "No, you said it Lori. We're weaker with less people now. Well, they're even weaker than we are, just the two of them. Safety in numbers." Rick said, looking to his wife. After a minute, Lori nodded her head in agreement. Adrian turned to look at Kale to see what he thought of the idea.

Bright green met chocolate brown and after a minute, Kale nodded his head yes. "Okay." she said, turning back to Rick and Lori. "If you're sure." she said. "Yeah, we're sure." Rick said, firmly believing it was the right decision. "Okay then. We still have to head back though. It's getting dark and we have five miles to walk before we get home. We'll stay at the cabin tonight, pack up our stuff and head out when we can tomorrow. Chances are we won't meet you on the road to Atlanta so we'll meet up at the CDC as soon as possible." Adrian told him.

"Okay. It's settled then. We'll see you tomorrow at the CDC." Rick said holding his hand out to her. Adrian looked at his hand for a beat before she took his hand and shook it. The Rick turned towards Kale and did the same.

"So, you're coming with us? You're going to be a part of our group now?" Carl asked excitedly, his pale blue eyes bright.

"You bet." she said, flicking his nose, causing him to giggle.

"Will you bring the books? We never got to finish them and I wanna know what happens next." he asked.

"Sure thing, buddy. I'll grab everything I can get my hands on. We have to build your love of good books." she said smiling down at him.

Adrian looked up at Rick and Lori and dipped her head in a silent goodbye before she and Kale exited the camp and started their long walk back to their cabin. They had a lot to do and a short amount of time to do it.

TWD

Adrian and Kale had packed what they could in the dim light of the fire, wanting to save the batteries in their battery powered lanterns, before they called it a night, trying to get as much asleep as they could before their long a stressful trip to Atlanta the next morning.

They woke up and ate a quick breakfast a few hours after sunrise before they finished packing everything they were going to bring with them. Kale filled every water jug, bottle, canteen, and thermos they could find with water they had collected in their water barrel outside and carefully packed them in the extra large cooler that they had already packed into the back of the old truck that was parked behind the cabin.

Adrian was inside packing every crumb of food they had. Adrian had a medium sized duffle bag sitting on the counter that she was throwing every can her hand touched into. They had ate the last of their fresh meat the night before but they had handfuls of bags of jerky. It was tough and dry but better than nothing. After she had all of the food in the bag, Adrian walked to the fridge and grabbed a large shoe box sitting on top. Pulling the box down she quickly flipped the lip off the box and looked down into the box. The contents of that box were just as important as the food in the bag next to her.

Medicine.

Adrian and Kale hadn't touched any of the medicine in the box, they hadn't needed any. There was a large mix of medications in the box. Everything from cough medicine to antibiotics. Some of the medicine had already been in the cabin when Adrian had found it. The rest was a mix between what Adrian had brought with her and what her and Kale had managed to pilfer here and there.

Adrian grabbed the box and dumped it into the duffle bag half full of food. Adrian zipped up the bag and yelled at Kale that it was ready to be loaded up. Adrian then went her room and grabbed her pack. She opened the bag and started to grab the few pairs of clothes she had and just stuffed them inside. She then grabbed a small plastic case that held her toothpaste and toothbrush and threw it in next.

Adrian still had at least half a bag worth of space left in her pack. She looked up to see the small stack of books by the fireplace. She remembered telling Carl that she would bring books, so we collected the four books and then looked at her bag before she pulled all of her clothes out and carefully stacked the books inside before she went to the large bookshelf and grabbed a few more books, five being a completed fantasy series, and two more fantasy books that she thought Carl and Sophia might like. After she carefully packed the books inside she shoved her clothes and toothbrush case inside and quickly zipped the bag, throwing it out the door for Kale to grab when he went to load his own pack, which he was currently packing up.

It was close to noon before they had everything packed into the truck and pulled away from the cabin for the final time. It was a long drive back to Atlanta so they had agreed to split the driving between them. Kale volunteered to drive the first half, which Adrian agreed to. When they hit the half way mark they decided to take advantage of the stop to stretch their legs and use the bathroom, if needed. Once they finished their short break they climbed back inside the truck and started the last half of their journey.

They reached Atlanta just as the sun started to set. "It's too risky to keep going from here. We're going to have to find a place to hunker down for the night." Adrian said as she looked at the sky through the windshield. Being from Atlanta Adrian knew that there was a nursing home close to where they were and decided they should check it out. She parked the truck as close to the nursing home as she could get.

They had attracted a few zombies when they parked the truck and they quickly killed them before Adrian turned to Kale.

"Okay, this is what we're going to do. We go in together, and quietly check each room. Bottom to top. If it's clear, we'll come back out and get our bags and bring them in." she whispered, quickly but clearly to the determined teen behind her. Kale nodded, silently telling her he understood the plan.

The front was blocked off so they quietly made their way to the back of the building. It was completely silent inside the building, which made Adrian's skin crawl. They carefully checked the building and were deeply disturbed by what they found throughout the building.

She would have preferred zombies to what they found.

They found countless bodies of the elderly people that had lived there. The bodies couldn't have been very old if the smell was anything to go by.

"What the hell happened here? This doesn't look like zombies." Kale said, just as disturbed as his red headed friend.

"This wasn't zombies. This was people, which is worse in my opinion. They were all executed." she told him softly.

Adrian sadly looked at all of the defenseless old people that were killed for a reason that only the murderers knew. "It takes a seriously heartless fucker to put and old man or woman on their knees and then shoot them in the back of the head." she angrily huffed before she turned away, no longer able to look at the bodies.

After confirming that the whole building was clear Adrian and Kale went outside and grabbed everything but the water cooler and brought it inside and up onto the second floor of the building. By the time they got everything settled night had officially fallen.

"I'll take first watch." Adrian said, grabbing her rifle and bow. "Get whatever sleep you can. We meet back up with the group tomorrow." she said as she left the room to take watch at the top of the stairs.

Neither of them got much sleep that night.

TWD

Adrian had never appreciated alarm clocks before. Most of the time they were loud and annoying and very rarely gave her a heart attack after jerking her out of a dead sleep. But someone up high had decided to have a laugh at her expense and wake her up with a mini heart attack, which was exactly what happened when she and Kale were jerked awake to an earth shattering explosion.

All of the windows were boarded up she she and Kale had found a door that gave them roof access the night before while they were exploring. "What in the holy hell was that?!" Kale yelled as they met up in the hallway. "Don't know. Roof." was all she said as she ran towards the door that would let them outside.

They were blinded by the sun as soon as they opened the door but quickly forced themselves to adjust to the brightness. Once their eyes were adjusted they looked around and quickly found where the explosion came from. A large black cloud slowly climbed towards the sky. "That's in the same direction as the CDC. What the fuck is going on out there? Jesus Christ, that explosion is going to attract every freaking zombie in the whole damn city." Adrian said, starting to feel the adrenaline leave her system.

"What do we do? The group were at the CDC. What if they were inside when it exploded?" Kale asked her, unsure of what their next step should be. "We stay here. That explosion just rang the dinner bell across the entire city. They'll be swarming by here soon. It's safer to wait until the excitement had died down before we venture outside." she told him as they both continued to look at the large cloud of black smoke.

TWD

It was late afternoon when they heard noise from downstairs. They quietly walked to the end of the stairs when they heard it again. Voices. "I'm going down to check it out. You stay here and guard the stairs. If I don't signal before I come up, you shoot at whoever comes up those stairs." she told him quietly.

"Dammit, why's it always gotta be you?" Kale demanded. "Because I said so, damn it, that's why. Now stay up here and guard the fucking supplies. We die without it." she growled before she quietly crept down the stairs. Adrian reached the bottom of the stair case when she heard the voices close by. She had barely got a peek around the corner when she seen something fly towards her face. She quickly ducked back around the corner to see an arrow embed itself into the wall across from her, which caused her to breath a sigh of relief.

"Didn't your mama ever tell you it's rude to shoot a lady in the face, Daryl?" Adrian said, speaking loud enough for the group to hear her.

"I don't see no lady. Just a red headed stalker." he growled as he walked past her and pulled his arrow from the wall before he reloaded his crossbow.

"The hell you doin' here anyway?" he asked looking at her as the rest of the group joined them at the corner.

"How rude. I'm not stalking. I was invited on this little adventure. Granted we were supposed to meet up at the CDC yesterday. What the hell happened over there? We heard the explosion and could see the smoke from here." she said, aiming the last bit towards Rick, who looked upset to say the least.

"It blew up." he said. When he didn't continue she gave him a deadpanned look.

"You don't say." she responded sarcastically.

"Okay, well, the building is clear, we checked it yesterday and upstairs is secure so if you have anything to bring in, grab it and you can put everything upstairs and figure out what comes next." she told the group.

Daryl went to charge past her to go up the stairs when she firmly put a hand against his chest, halting his charge upstairs.

"The hell, woman?" Daryl asked, pushing her hand off of his chest.

"You wanna get shot in the face? I've got a twitchy teenager up there with a loaded shotgun ready to shoot anyone who comes up those stairs that isn't me." Adrian told him. Adrian looked up the staircase and gave a long wolf whistle, which was quickly answered with a quick one-tone whistle.

"It's just the group. We're coming up." she said loudly up the dark staircase. "Got it." they heard from the darkened stairs. "All clear." she said turning and walking up the stairs ahead of Daryl.

Daryl wasn't looking at her ass on purpose.

Well, not entirely on purpose.

She was walking up ahead of him and he really had nowhere else to look but up. It wasn't the worst view in the world, but he'd shoot himself in the foot before he admitted it.

Rick, Shane, and Glenn had brought in a few bags before they secured the door downstairs. By the time they had made it upstairs everyone was huddled into one room close to the end of the hall. Adrian and Kale looked around at the group, taking in the mood of everyone. It was depressing to say the least.

Glenn, Lori, Carl, Carol, and Sophia all looked scared and pale. Shane and Rick looked like they were riding an emotional roller coaster, so many emotions flickering across their faces. Daryl and T-Dog looked mildly shell shocked. Andrea sat away from the group, looking as if her mind was far away, and Dale was looking sadly at Andrea. Adrian had no clue what had happened to them since they left the camp, but they looked like they had been put through the emotional ringer.

The group shared a meager meal of cold beans and potato chips. Kale and Adrian turned down the offer of food, claiming they had some if they got hungry, but offered the group the one jug of water they had brought in, which Rick had accepted. Dale brought over a plate for Andrea, who took it with quite and attitude.

Adrian had lasted all of fifteen minutes of Andrea's complaining before she started to get annoyed.

"Jesus." Adrian said, grabbing her rifle before she pushed herself off of the wall she had been leaning against.

"What was that?" she heard Andrea snap. Adrian turned to look at the blonde and pale green eyes clashed with bright green ones. "Uh oh." she heard Kale mumble behind her.

"I said, Jesus Christ. You've done nothing but complain since you opened your mouth fifteen minutes ago and I'm tired of hearing it. I mean, Lord above, you complain more than my son ever did while hitting puberty." Adrian said, fully facing the blonde woman on the floor.

"What do you care? He's standing right behind you." Andrea said, throwing a hand in Kale's direction. Everyone could feel the tension that suddenly filled the small room.

"No. No, my son is dead." Adrian said very quietly, but it sounded loud in the very quiet room.

"I'm going downstairs to take watch." she said as she walked toward the door. She turned to Andrea after she had opened the door. "And If you don't like the smell, take your complaining ass outside. I'm sure the zombies would enjoy the meal." she said before she turned and slammed the door behind her.

"Way to go. Why don't you throw a little salt in the wound next time?" Kale said, breaking the silence.

"How the hell was I supposed to know?" Andrea snapped at the teen leaning against the wall.

"You weren't. That's the point. You're so wrapped up in your own grief that you haven't even considered other people have lost loved ones to all of this shit. Adrian found me two days after my parents were killed. Torn apart right in front of me, trying to protect me. You got to say goodbye." Kale said, taking a step away from the wall.

"Alright, that's enough." Shane snapped from across the room, seeing the scared faces of the women and kids across from him.

"I'll be on the damn roof." Kale said, also slamming the door behind him.

"And I thought I was bad with people." Daryl scoffed, breaking the heavy silence. Daryl decided to leave the room when Glenn started rambling about all of the dead bodies downstairs.

Daryl wondered to the first floor, not realizing he was looking for her until he found her. She was in one of the rooms, her shoulder and head resting against the boarded up window. He could see she was holding something in her hand, looking at it in the moonlight that was slipping through the cracks in the boards.

"I can hear you thinking from here." Adrian mumbled, not looking away from whatever she was looking at. Daryl took her acknowledgment as an invitation to go in, so he walked towards her by the window. Once he was close enough, he could see her holding a picture. She wasn't crying, but she looked extremely sad as she looked at it.

They stood in silence for a few minutes before Adrian offered him the picture. It was well worn in the middle of the picture, as if she took it out and looked at it often. Using the moonlight, Daryl looked at the picture. The first thing to catch his attention was that she was laughing. She was a little paler and her cheeks were fuller in the picture. She had her hair twisted up into a knot on the top of her head and she was wearing a dark green bikini. A shirtless boy about half a head taller than her stood behind her. He had golden tan skin, bright green eyes, and shaggy white blonde hair. He had a large smile on his face with both of his arms wrapped over her collarbone, Adrian's pale hands holding onto his arms. They were standing on a beach, the sand and sea and clear blue sky stretched out behind them.

"I took him to Florida for his fourteenth birthday. Rented a hotel room for three days. He would drag me out of bed at the crack of dawn every morning, said he wanted to find a good spot by the water before everyone else got there." she said. Daryl heard the sob she tried to hold back as she lightly laughed, could see the wetness build up in her eyes as she spoke.

"He liked to swim to the bottom and find sand dollars. He collected a small bucket full one day. When I asked him what he could possibly want with them, he said it was for a project." she said quietly, the wetness gone from her voice, but not her eyes.

"We would stay until just before dark every day. We would go shopping and then I would let him pick out where to eat." she said, a silent tear falling from her eyes as she looked at the picture. "That was taken on the third afternoon. He walked up to a random stranger and asked them to take the picture." she said before she started laughing.

"Say bird shit. He whispered that into my ear just before they snapped the picture. It was so unexpected that I burst out laughing. Later when I asked him what his favorite part of the weekend was, he said it was when he made me laugh." she said, her voice trembling, tears freely falling down her face.

"Sounds like a great kid." he said, handing the picture back to her.

"He was. His love knew no bounds." she said, gently running her thumb over the picture.

"What was the project?" Daryl asked, his gravelly voice sounding loud in the silent room. Adrian looked up at him, the silent question written in her eyes.

"You said that he wanted the sand dollars for something. What did he want them for?" he asked. Adrian gave a small smile, her eyes falling back to the picture.

"He used them to make me a sand dollar wind chime for my birthday." she said, gently folding the picture and placing it in her back pocket.

"What was his name?" Daryl asked her, never once hearing her say his name during her story. She was quiet so long that he didn't think she would answer him.

But she did.

"Seth. Seth Alexander Hunter." she whispered.

They didn't say another word for the rest of the night.