The herd came upon them all so quickly that they were forced to hide wherever they could just to escape detection. Everything would have been fine, if little Sophia hadn't have been found by one of the walkers and nearly forced from her hiding place underneath the car across from Rick and her mother.

The thing that had found her had started crawling under the car to reach her, causing the child to panic and let out a small shriek of fear, drawing even more attention to her as she quickly moved to crawl out from under the car that she had been using to hide and moved towards the railing to climb over it, when something that could only be described as a fast moving blur- appeared, startling the already frightened child so badly that she let out a shrill scream of terror.

Rick didn't know why she would make so much noise.

He knew that she was scared. Outright terrified even. But the way that she screamed nearly made Carol give their position away herself. Her fear for her daughter was already causing her to thrash about in his grasp as he tried to stop her from doing anything stupid that could get her killed.

He had every intention of going after Sophia to bring her back safe and sound, at first anyways. Now though, wandering out there himself to get her, would be the same as a death sentence.

There was a series of thuds, as a few of the walkers fell followed by someone shouting the name, 'Ali' before a whole lot of other walkers fell to the ground in pieces.

"Someone grab the girl! Don't let them get to her!" A man's voice shouted as there was a series of snaps that caused Rick to flinch slightly as his mind identified the source of the sounds.

Bones snapping and being savagely broken.

In a matter of minutes the herd thinned and then after a big sounding Boom that sounded like a mini explosion there were only a few stragglers left.

A few more moments passed and the noise level died down to practically nothing. Yet Rick and several others could hear Sophia's muffled crying and hear the heavy foot falls of several males as a small foot touched the ground just within his view as someone spoke up.

"What the hell were you doing wandering away like that Ali?! You know what happens when you do! Are you trying to leave us all?"

"No. I just wanted to go for a walk," Came the simple reply from a feminine sounding person that could easily have been a young child due to the size of the feet that he could see as the same feminine voice called out softly. "Hey kid, you gonna stop crying anytime soon?"

Sophia hiccupped a few times and then said loud enough for them to hear, "I-I want my momma."

At which point Rick slowly loosened his hold on Carol and slowly removed his hand before mouthing to her to stay quiet and wait. Just wait. He wanted to make sure that whoever had saved Sophia was 'good' so that they could expose themselves to them and perhaps see if they had any information, or maybe food and water and medicine since T-dog wasn't doing so well after he had injured himself back at the CDC.

"Is your mom around here?" A masculine voice asked as someone knelt down next to the unknown girl/child and began to check over the corpses laying on the ground. No doubt looking for possible weapons or something.

Sophia hesitated to answer, earning a soft sigh of frustration from someone as the girl's voice said, "It's okay if you don't want to answer us. We get it. But at the same time we can't leave you out here alone. So how about we leave a note for your mom, with directions to our place, and she can come and get you when she's ready. Sound good?"

"Are you sure that that is a good idea?" One person asked while another said,

"You're assuming that that herd sent her mother running in fear."

"Wouldn't you run if your were possibly alone, with a kid, and outnumbered by those things?" The girl retorted.

"If I recall right, he did run- screaming like a little girl- the first time he ever came across those things." Someone else said.

"Hey! I'm barely seventeen here and those things as you all like to call them, tried to eat me! Of course I ran screaming! Any sane person would!"

"Ali's never run."

"Yeah well, Ali is a freak of nature and we all know it. After all, how many people have we met thus far that can go for a casual stroll in the woods, get surrounded on all sides by those things, and still managed to walk herself right back home without having to fight her way out. If she were anyone else- she'd be dead a zillion times over."

"You're just jealous that she can walk among them and not get attacked."

"Nu-uh."

"Guys..."

"You are too."

"Am not."

"Guys-"

"Are too-"

Are not!"

"GUYS! Shut up! Your both scaring the kid and making the rest of us incredibly uncomfortable. So just knock it off. We need to leave anyways and go back home. Those things that we found before won't do anyone any good unless we get home to use them." The girl's voice said in a peevish tone. Obviously whoever the girl was, she wasn't amused by her friends behavior.

"Right."

"Sorry Ali."

The girl made a barely audible humming sound and then picked up Sophia and said, "Hey, how about I show you some of the really neat animals that we have back home? We have all kinds. And we can get you some clean clothing and food too. Sound good?"

"B-But momma," Sophia started to say when the girl holding her smiled and said softly,

"She'll be along shortly, I'm sure. So don't worry. We'll have some food and stuff ready for her too."

"But...what about Carl and his mom and dad? And Dale and the others?" Sophia asked innocently.

"You have a group?" The girl asked curiously, earning a small nod from Sophia before then asking, "Could you tell me how many people are in your group?"

Sophia made a small sound as she thought. She wanted to be able to give an accurate number to the nice girl holding her, but she couldn't really recall the number. so instead she listed their names in hopes that the girl and her nice friends would be able to tell how many there were.

"Rick. Carl. Lori. Glen. Daryl. Shane. Dale. T-dog. Andrea. And Momma and me."

"So without you there are ten total. That's a decent sized group. I'm impressed," The girl said and she playfully kissed Sophia on the cheek before saying, "Don't worry, we have more than enough food and stuff for everyone."

"Really?"

"Sure."

"But...what if they want to stay? We've been looking for a place to stay." Sophia asked. Again that innocent way of questioning others would one day get her in a fix that she probably wouldn't be able to get out of. At least not without some heavy handed help anyways.

Ali was quiet for a moment as she thought before finally saying, "Ah. Well that would bring about a whole new slew of issues, wouldn't it. But try not to worry so much kiddo. We wouldn't turn them away. Especially with winter right around the corner."

"Really?" Sophia asked, sounding hopeful.

Ali chuckled at the puppy dog look the kid was giving her before saying enthusiastically, "Yeah. You and your group will probably be among the first we've seen around these parts in a while. So the chance to sit down and converse with others and learn more about the world isn't exactly something that we can afford to pass up. Besides, it'd be nice to be social again, right? We haven't had any new friends in a good long while."