Chapter 13

~Charlotte~

I sit on the porch right next to the door. Lori and Rick are sitting on the steps, Shane is leaning on the car, T-Dog is sitting on the rocking chair, resting his arm. Everyone waits for the news on Carl. Glenn and Maggie are inside, Hershel and Patricia are still working on him. Everyone sits outside patiently. It's night time. I have nothing to do so I look at the stars, see if I can see any shooting stars. I can't see the moon, it must be behind the house.

I don't manage to see any shooting stars. I rarely ever see them. I don't really look up at the stars, but the apocalypse can be quite boring, so when you have nothing else to do, looking at the stars is an option.

As I begin to count all the stars that I can see the front door opens and Hershel comes out. Everyone stands up to hear the news.

"He seems to have stabilised." he tells us. Everyone smiles at the news, Rick and Lori of course look the happiest out of all of us.

Rick goes up the steps and hugs Hershel to thank him for his services. When they pull apart Lori speaks.

"I don't have words." she says, a huge grin plastered on her face.

"I don't either. I wish I did." Hershel says. "How do I tell Patricia about Otis?"

When he asks the question I look at Shane.

"You go to Carl." Rick tells Lori. "I'll go with Hershel."

One by one everyone goes into the house, Hershel first, then Rick, Maggie, Glenn, T-Dog, Lori then Shane. I stay outside, wanting to take in the stars a little longer. I make my way over to the rocking chair that T-Dog was sitting in. I rock in the chair gently, I've rarely ever sat in a rocking chair. As I stare into the black sky, I hear weeping from inside the house. I get up from the rocking chair and walk to the window that will show me who is crying.

In the kitchen I see Patricia, being comforted by Rick and Hershel. She looks like she is about to fall, but they grab her before she can collapse. I step away from the window and walk back to the chair. I sit down and put my legs up to my chest. I rest my chin on my knees.

I cannot start on how glad I am to hear that Carl will be alright, but I feel so sorry for Patricia, losing her husband.

It has been a long day.

We all start our day by collecting rocks. I was told it was for Otis' grave. Everyone except for Hershel, Rick and Lori are collecting rocks. Shane decided to get a new haircut last night, shaving all his hair off. I don't know why. I talked to Glenn about it, but he doesn't know either. I've finally met Beth and Jimmy. Beth is Hershel's other daughter and Jimmy is her boyfriend. We haven't talked a lot today, but hopefully I will learn more as the days go by.

We've spent over ten minutes, possibly twenty gathering rocks and throwing them in a nearby wheelbarrow. As I chuck a couple in the wheelbarrow, a low rumble of an engine can be heard in the distance. Everyone stops what they are doing and looks at what is making the noise.

Coming round the corner is Daryl, riding his motorbike, a car and the RV. They continue driving down the road, about to make their way to us.

"I'll go get Lori and Rick." T-Dog says and starts to jog back to the house. The three vehicles drive past us and they all park near the house. Everyone starts to head back to the house, leaving the wheelbarrow.

T-Dog, Rick, Lori and Hershel all walk out of the house. Carol, Daryl, Andrea and Dale start making their way up to the front of the house.

"How is he?" Dale asks when he gets close to them.

"He'll pull through," Lori answers, with a smile on her face. "thanks to Hershel and his people."

"And Shane." Rick tells them. "We'd have lost Carl if not for him."

Dale nods, looking happy with the news and hugs Rick.

"Thank God." Carol says and hugs Lori. "We were so worried."

"How'd it happen?" Dale asks as he stops hugging Rick.

"Hunting accident. That's all. Just a stupid accident." Rick answers.

"We're gonna have a memorial for Otis. We lost him last night, he was getting supplies for Carl with Shane. Care to join us?" Hershel asks.

"Of course." Carol says.

Everyone stands in a semi-circle formtion, around the grave. The rocks that we collected make a huge pile. I stand in between Lori and Carol.

"Blessed be God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be to Him for the gift of our brother Otis, for his span of years, for his abundance of character. Otis, who gave hs life to save a child's, now more than ever, our most precious asset. We thank you, God, for the peace he enjoys in your embrace. He died as he lived, in grace." said Hershel. " Shane, will you speak for Otis." he asks him.

"I'm not good at it. I'm sorry." he says, staring at the ground.

"You were the last one with him." Patricia sobs. Shane looks up from the ground and at her. "You shared his final moments. Please. I need to hear. I need to know his death had meaning."

To be honest, I am not too sure if Shane killed Otis. I get paranoid and think of these situations that never happened.

Everyone stares at Shane.

"Okay." he whispers. "We were about done. Almost out of ammo. We were down to pistols by then. I was limping. It was bad. Ankle all swollen up. 'We gotta save the boy.' See, that's what he said. He gave me his backpack. He shoved me ahead. 'Run,' he said. He said, 'I'll take the rear end. I'll cover you.' And when I looked back..." he pauses. He starts limping to the wheelbarrow full of rocks that sits by the grave. "If not for Otis, I'd have never made it out alive. And that goes for Carl, too. It was Otis. He save us both. if any death had meaning, it was his." he grabs a rock from the wheelbarrow and places it on the pile.

I sit by a tree, resting my head on the truck. He have a camp set out now. The Greene family help us set up. They're nice and kind, helped us out a lot.

In front of me, Daryl, Shane, Andrea, Maggie, Rick and Hershel stand around the hood of the car, a map spread out in front of them. Glenn is under the cover of trees behind me setting up a tent. I get up from where I was sitting and start walking over to him.

"Want some help?" I ask him as he connects a couple tent poles together.

"Sure." he says, a smile on his face.

I bend down and pick up two tent poles and connect them. I've been camping before, but I didn't have to set up the tent. I don't really know what I'm doing right now, but I'm coping what Glenn is doing.

"I've only been camping once. Worst weekend of my life." I laugh.

"Couldn't of been that bad." He said.

"Well, looking back at it, I remember doing a lot of fun things. But, it was cold, so cold that I was sure I got hypothermia."

"Oh, yeah that mustn't of been nice."

"No. It wasn't. I got home and had the nicest shower of my life. I was shivering for the whole day, my lips were purple and I was pale." I say. He extends his arm as a gesture for me to give him the poles I connected. He attaches them to the poles that he was putting together.

As he does so, he stares at the group by the car and mumbles quietly, "I hope they find her."

"They will." I tell him, looking at Carol who is close by.

The group at the car slowly disperse, clearly having finished their discussion. The only ones left were Rick, Maggie and Hershel. Lori comes over to Glenn and I and helps us with the tent.

I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I continued looking, hoping that they will speak louder.

We make quick progress on the tent. And it's up in no time with the help of Lori.

"Yay!" I say over-enthusiastically, celebrating getting a tent up and ready. Lori and Glenn look at me and smile, Glenn gives a light chuckle.

I smile back at him and then look at Lori who looks at Glenn, then to me, then raises her eyebrows whilst giving off a grin.

Oh, God. No, she probably thinks I like him or that he likes me. Fuck.

Not wanting to look at her smirk, I look around, trying to find a distraction. I feel my face turning red and hot. I continue to look around and I fortunately see Carol, sitting on the ground and immediately call for her.

"Hey, Carol! Need anyhelp?"

She is currently setting up another tent.

"If you want." she calls back.

I quickly walk over to her, stumbling over some sticks. I get to her and sit down next to her. It's uncomfortable as I am sitting on sticks and leaves, but I can't really complain about stuff like this when I'm living in the apocalypse.

Yeah, this chapter is short compared to my others, in fact it's the smallest chapter yet. Writing has become really tough recently and it's gonna get tougher. In the UK, when you're in Year 11 (15-16 years old), you gotta take GCSE's, which is a bunch of tests (nine) in a week and the grades you get are gonna help you get into college or sixth form. These are basically putting so much stress on me and I've been unable to get round to writing as when I have other things to do, like revising for the GCSE's.

But anyway, thank you so much for reading and I will try to write more.

xxx