Chapter 17

~Charlotte~

I stand there, completely still, my mouth wide open. My mind can't form any sentences to represent my shock. I set my gaze on my feet, processing what Glenn has just told me. I then look at the large barn, not too far away.

"How many?" I ask quietly.

"I dunno." he murmurs.

"Well, how many did it look like? Five? Ten?" I snap.

"I think it was over ten. There were a lot."

I look back at the barn, seeing if it looks secure.

"You need to tell Rick."

"No. I can't. I promised Mag-"

"So, you would rather our safety be at risk, just so you can keep on banging Maggie?" I hiss at him.

He looks at me with shock, his mouth open and eyes wide. "Please, just keep it a secret for now. Please. I can't handle keeping a secret, I'll probably end up telling them tomorrow."

"Why not now?" I say spitefully and turn to make my way to the group.

"No!" He grabs onto my shoulder painfully, his fingers digging into me.

"Ow!" I yell, turning back around to face Glenn. I punch his arm to get him to let go of me.

"Charlie, I'm sorry. Please, I need time to think this through, okay?" He tells me.

I bite the inside of my cheek and look away from him. I stare at the ground, at the grass, not wanting to look at him. I think it through, the thoughts processing through my head.

I take a deep breath in and look at him. He stares at me, waiting for an answer.

"Your secret is safe with me." I mutter in a somewhat sarcastic tone.

"Thanks, Charlie. You and Dale are the only ones who know and he is keeping it a secret, at least I think he is. You'll be doing me a huge favour by not telling anyone."

"Whatever." I say as I roll my eyes.

The rest of the day went by fast. I continued to read, sitting up in the massive tree at our camp, listening into the conversations that people were having. Everyone was still excited from the gun training. Andrea and Shane were out for most of the time, trying to find Sophia and I couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous when Andrea got to go. I know she is a better shot than I am, she showed that at the gun training, but I wanted that excitement of going out. Just like my time out with the group in Atlanta.

Glenn kept on looking at me, as if I was going to tell someone at any time. He asked me at one point if I had and I reassured him that I didn't tell anyone. Even though I wanted to so badly. I wanted to shout down from the tree and tell everyone about the walkers in the barn, but something was holding me back.

I couldn't get the words to form into sentences. And the group may want us to leave if they knew about the walkers and I like it here. I don't want it to be a CDC.

I ended up getting a lot of sleep that night. I ended up falling asleep whilst reading the book, so I woke up with my head on the pages, accidentally creasing one of the pages really badly and drooling on it.

When I woke up, there was only a couple of us up. Carol was wandering around camp, getting items of food ready for breakfast. Andrea was sitting on a log, fiddling with her knife. Glenn was hanging up some washing and Dale was coming out of the RV.

"Good morning." I whisper to Dale as I make my way past him.

"Morning, Charlotte." he replies, "Good read?" he gestures to the book in my hands.

"Yeah, it was really good. Mind if I get another one?" I ask.

"Read as many as you want." he says with a smile.

I smile back at him before going into the RV quietly. I put the book back on the shelf where I took it out from and see if any of the other book titles catch my eye. I take out a book with an interesting cover, not taking note of the title and exit the RV.

I put the book in my tent and look around the camp to see what I can do.

"Carol, do you need any help with breakfast?" I ask her.

"No thanks Charlie, but it looks like Glenn needs some help with the washing."

I look at Glenn as he hangs up the damp washing. His head snaps around when he hears the mention of his name.

I sigh and despite the fact that I don't want to speak to him, I make my way over to Glenn anyway.

"Hey, did you have a nice sleep?" he asks me.

"It was alright, but you know... I couldn't stop thinking about the walkers." I whisper to him.

Glenn groans.

"I'm sorry Glenn, but you're gonna have to tell them at some point and I think you should do it today. Preferably this morning so we can deal with it."

"Gosh, Charlie I don't know-"

"You said that Dale knows, right?"

"I know what?" Dale speaks up from behind us.

Glenn sighs, "Yeah, he does."

Dale walks towards us as we continue to hand washing on the line.

"That you know about the walkers..." I mutter.

"Yeah, I do and I was thinking that you should tell them, Glenn."

"See, Dale agrees with me. And if you don't do it Glenn, then I will. You said yesterday that you hated keeping secrets. So just tell them and get it over and done with."

"Fuck..." Glenn whispered. "I'll think about it."

"Good." Dale said before walking off.

We continued to hang up the washing in silence. I couldn't think of what to say. If I should keep on talking about the walkers or bring up a different subject. It has recently felt like I can talk to people a lot more, ever since the CDC I have been able to communicate with the rest of the group, not like before.

I ended up not speaking a word to Glenn for the rest of the time we were putting up the washing. Rick, Lori and Carl woke up, so did T-Dog and Daryl. Shane came out last and I saw that people in the Greene house were waking up. I spotted Maggie on the porch, wandering around.

Everyone at our camp was eating breakfast. I sat on the ground, my legs crossed together with the plate of scrambled eggs in my lap. Carol was still cooking, finishing up the rest of the meal, pouring the eggs onto Daryl's plate.

I was almost done with my food when I hear Glenn get up from where he was sitting. He stands in the middle of the group, wanting to tell us all something and my heart skips a beat when I realise what it is.

"Erm, guys..." We all look up at him with anticipation. My heart starts racing and I stare at Glenn. "So, the barn's full of walkers."

I look at everyone in the group as they show some sign of shock and disbelief.

My main attention is drawn onto Rick, he doesn't look as shocked as the rest. With everyone else, you see the fear in their eyes, but in Rick, I see anger burning inside of him.

"Walkers? In the barn?" Andrea questions.

"Yeah..." Glenn mutters.

The sound of knife and forks clattering on plates send a chill down my spine. Shane starts looking furious. He sets down the plate onto the ground.

"How long did you know?" he asks Glenn.

"A day... or two..." he mumbles.

Shane takes a step forward, like he is about to hurt Glenn.

"Let's just go and check it out." Rick stops Shane before he can move further.

Everyone from the group go to the barn cautiously. I stay at the back of the crowd with Glenn.

"Thank God you told them." I tell him.

"Well, I had to, otherwise you would never speak to me again."

I chuckle at the comment.

"Yes! I made you laugh, I have succeeded in becoming your friend again!" He says in an over enthusiastic tone, trying to get me to laugh again. And it works.

"Keep your voice down." I tell him, still slightly giggling.

Everyone gets to the barn, Shane being one of the bravest, goes up to the locked doors of the barn and peers in.

He looks in for a while before walking back to the rest of the group that stands several feet behind him.

"You cannot tell me you're all right with this." Shane tells Rick.

"Not, I'm not. But we're guests here. This isn't our land."

"Oh, God. This is our lives, man!" Shane screams.

"Lower your voice!" Lori tells the screaming Shane. "We can't just sweep this under the rug."

"It ain't right." Shane speaks up once again. "We either gotta go in there, we gotta make things right, or we just gotta go. Now, we have been talking about Fort Benning for a long time."

"We can't go!" Rick cuts him off.

"Why not, Rick?"

"Because my daughter is still out there." Carol chimes in.

"Ok," Shane sighs. "I think it's time that we all start to just consider the other possibility."

I hate thinking that Shane might be right, that Sophia is dead and that we will never see her again. It's hard to be hopeful with something like that.

"Shane, we are not leaving Sophia behind." Rick tells him.

"I'm close to finding this girl. I just found her damn doll a few days ago." Daryl speaks up, also not wanting to leave the Greene farm so we can find Sophia.

"You found her doll, Daryl. That's what you did. You found a doll." Shane snaps at him.

"You don't know what the hell you are talking about!"

"Hey, look I'm just saying what needs to be said here." Shane screams back at Daryl. I take a step back as the two men get closer to each other, hatred in both of their eyes and I can sense what is coming.

Rick stands in between the middle of the two men as they both shout at each other.

"Let me tell you something else, man. If she was alive out there, saw you coming, all methed out with your buck knife and geek ears around your neck, she would run in the other direction, man!"

Daryl starts throwing punches, angry at the comments that Shane is shouting at him. Everyone steps forward to separate Daryl and Shane before they can kill each other. They all yell stop at them, but they continue to try at get at each other's throats.

They all manage to get them away from each other, Shane walking away as he mutters, "Keep your hands off of me."

"Now, let me talk to Hershel." Rick tells him before he can walk away. "Let me figure it out."

Shane then starts yelling at Rick, making me jump because he finally started looking calm. Lori pushes Shane away from him and Shane calms down once more.

"If we are gonna stay, if we are gonna clear this barn, I have to talk him into it. This is his land."

"Hershel sees those things in there as people, sick people." Dale speaks up. Finally, everything feels silent when Dale says that. I had no idea that Hershel saw them as that. I had no idea why he kept them in there, but I guess now I know. "His wife, his stepson."

"You knew?" Rick questions him.

"Yesterday, I talked to Hershel." Dale tells him. My heart races when I feel like I have to speak up too, let them know that I knew too.

"And you waited the night?" Shane shouts at Dale.

"I knew as well." I say quietly, silently raising my hand. "Found out yesterday too." That gets everyone's attention. My face feels hot when everyone stares at me. I look at Shane and the fury in his eyes shrinks down, as he realises that the girl with social anxiety knew as well.

"I didn't say anything, because I thought we could survive one more night." Dale tells Shane. "We did. I was waiting until this morning to say something. But Glenn wanted to be the one."

"The man is crazy, Rick." Shane tells him, slightly sounding more calm. "If Hershel thinks those things are alive or-"

Shane gets cut off by the sounds of loud banging and growling. Everyone starts backing up as the door gets jolted forward a couple times, threatening to open up and release hell.

Author Note:

Wow, it's been a while.

I already have the next chapter written and it's a long one. And I'm really proud of it.

Writing has been seriously hard. I just haven't got time to do it, GCSE's are coming up in a couple months and I've been trying to do revision so I can pass my subjects. Next year I'm doing A Levels and I actually can't wait to start doing them. I doing English Literature, History, Film Studies and my favourite choice: Creative Writing. I can finally do what I love as a subject! Well, that is if I get into the college.

The main reason I wanted to post this chapter is because on Thursday, it'll be this story's one year anniversary *mini celebration*

It's been an awesome year writing this story, I've enjoyed it so much

Anyway, I'll post the next chapter on Thursday, but I doubt that after that you'll get another one shortly after that. After I post the next one, it'll be a year until you get the following chapter. I hope it won't be like that, but it sadly might be true. And I love writing this story.

See you soon (hopefully) xx

(by the way guys, holly crap that last episode. I'm really enjoying the storyline in Alexandria and I've read the comics so I have theories as to where the story is heading. And I can't wait)