I was pacing around the living room. Last time there was only one gun shot, Carl almost died.
"I'm going after them." I said.
"Don't. They could be anywhere." Lori replied. "And if Randall comes back, we're gonna need you here."
The door opened and Daryl and Glenn came in.
"Daddy!" Jamie exclaimed and ran into Daryl's arms. Daryl picked him up before looking around the room,
"Rick and Shane ain't back?" Daryl asked.
"No." Lori answered.
"We heard a shot." Daryl said.
"Maybe they found Randall." Lori replied.
"We found him." Daryl responded.
"Is he back in the shed?" Maggie asked.
"He's a walker."
"Did you find the walker that bit him?" I asked.
"No, weird thing is he wasn't bit." Glenn answered.
"His neck was broke." Daryl added.
"So he fought back." Patricia said.
"The thing is, Shane and Randall's tracks were right on top of each other. And Shane ain't no tracker, so he didn't come up behind him. They were together." Daryl said.
"Would you please get back out there, find Rick and Shane and find out what on Earth is going on?" Lori asked.
"You got it." Daryl replied, giving Jamie to me.
"Thank you."
Most of us went outside and I gasped. There were at least a few hundred walkers coming right towards the house.
"Mommy." Jamie whispered.
"Patricia, kill the lights." Hershel said.
"I'll get the guns." Andrea said.
"Maybe they're just passing, like the herd on the highway. Should we just go inside?" Glenn asked.
"Not unless there's a tunnel downstairs that I don't know about. A herd that size would rip the house down." Daryl answered.
That meant we had to leave the house.
"Carl's gone." Lori said, coming outside.
"What?" I asked.
"He was upstairs. I can't find him anymore." She continued.
"Maybe he's hiding." Glenn offered.
"He's supposed to be upstairs. I'm not leaving without my boy." Lori said.
"We're not." Carol replied. "We're gonna look again. We're gonna find him."
Once Andrea put the bag of guns down on the porch I took mine and turned to Jamie,
"Get your back pack on." I told him before we ran inside the house.
I put my bag on my back and looked around for Carl in the process. I also remembered that Hershel put food and water in the basement. I grabbed the bag with the blankets in it and ran downstairs with Jamie.
"I can't find him anywhere." Lori said.
"Maybe he snuck outside." I replied.
"What do I do?!" Lori yelled.
"He was here. He must've run off, maybe looking for Rick or went after Randall himself." Carol said.
"Maybe he set the fire." Patricia said and Lori ran out to find her kid.
"We got to go." Carol said.
"I'll be out in a minute." I told Carol before turning to Jamie, "You stay with her, got it?"
He nodded and I ran down into the basement and started putting food and water into the bag. When I got out, I saw Rick, Carl, and Hershel.
"Rick!" I yelled.
"Vi! Look out!" Rick yelled and I felt something smash on my head and I fell to the ground.
"You've been a bad little bitch." Tyler smiled.
I was seeing black spots dance in my vision before I heard a gunshot and Tyler was gone from my view. I felt myself being picked up and I clutched onto Rick's bloody jacket.
"Rick." I moaned.
"Daryl would kill me if he found out you were left behind." Rick said.
Rick put me into the Hershel's car and Hershel sat next to me. He took the bags off of me and placed them on the floor of the car.
"Let me see your head." Hershel said and I turned around.
"D-did you kill him?" I asked Rick.
"Yeah. He tried to kill you, Vi. I had to do it." Rick answered.
"Thank you." I whispered. "He wasn't a good person."
"I know. He ain't gonna touch you again." Rick replied.
"How'd you know about that?" I questioned.
"We've all seen the bruises and the glares he gives you." He answered.
"The back of your head's bleeding, but nothing to serious." Hershel said.
I nodded and leaned bac against teh seat. Hershel gave one last look at his farm before turning to face the front.
"We should head for the highway." I said.
"Good idea. If anyone else made it, they'll be there." Rick replied.
It was morning when we got there and we stopped the truck in front of where the supplies we left for Sophia were. The four of us got out and looked around. No one was here.
"Where's mom?" Carl asked. "You said she'd be here. We gotta go back for her."
"Carl-"
"No. Why are we running? What are you doing? It is mom. We need to get her and not be a safe mile away." Carl said loudly.
"Shh. You need to be quiet, all right? Please." Rick whispered.
"Please..." Carl begged, "It's mom."
"Look, Carl, listen-"
No." Carl broke away from his dad and walked by the car.
"Rick. You've got to get your boy to safety. I'll wait here for my girls and the others." Hershel said, "I know a few places. We'll meet up at one of them later."
"Where? Where is safe?" Rick questioned. "We're not splitting up."
"Please, keep your boy safe. I'll hide in one of the cars. If a walker gets me, so be it. I've lost my farm. I've lost my wife and maybe my daughters." Hershel said.
"You don't know that." I replied. "They'll be here. I'm not leaving, either. Jamie and Daryl are still out there."
"And you don't know that." Hershel responded.
"You're a man of God." Rick said. "Have some faith."
"I can't profess to understand God's plan, but Christ promised the resurrection of the dead. I just thought he had something a little different in mind." Hershel replied.
"We stick together." Rick said before walking over to his kid.
A while later a walker was coming down the highway and we hid behind the car. Why we don't kill it with a knife, I don't know.
"I don't know how much longer we can stay here." Hershel whispered.
"I ain't leaving without Jamie or Daryl." I said.
"And I'm not leaving without mom." Carl added.
"So we're just gonna walk away?" Rick asked Hershel, "Not knowing if my wife, Vi's kid, your girls are still out there? How do we live with that?"
"You've only got one concern now, just one, keeping him alive." Hershel replied, looking at Carl. "Nature may be throwing us a curveball, but that law is still true."
Rick looked around before bending down to look at Carl, "Carl. It's not safe here. I'm sorry. We'll-"
We then heard a motorcycle and I knew who's it was. I looked behind me and saw Daryl, Carol, and Jamie on Daryl's bike. They were certainly squeezed together on there. Jamie was in the front, mostly on Daryl's lap, and Carol was behind them. And behind the motorcycle was the Hyundai, and then it was the blue truck.
We ran to the front of the truck and I let out a sob when I saw Jamie.
"Mommy!" He yelled and practically jumped off the bike before Daryl even had the kickstand up.
He ran towards me, his backpack bouncing behind him, and I picked him up. When Daryl got off his bike I ran over and hugged him, Jamie between us.
"Thank you." I whispered.
Daryl pulled back before kissing me. I smiled before turning to Carol.
"Thanks." I said, hugging her, too, before going back to Daryl.
"Where'd you find everyone?" Rick asked him.
"Well, those guys' tail lights zigzagging all over the road, figured he had to be Asian, driving like that." Daryl answered.
"Good one." Glenn chuckled.
"Where's the rest of us?" Daryl asked.
"We're the only ones who made it so far." Rick answered.
"Shane?" Lori asked and Rick shook his head.
"Andrea?" Glenn asked.
"She saved Jamie and I, then I lost her." Carol answered.
"We saw her go down." T-Dog said.
"Patricia?" Hershel asked.
"They got her too, took her right in front of me. I was holdin' onto her, daddy. She just-" Hershel held her daughter close. Pour girl was about to burst into tears. "What about Jimmy? Did you see Jimmy?"
"He was in the RV. It got overrun." Rick answered.
And this time the girl did cry. The blonde sobbed into Hershel's chest.
"Tyler?" T-Dog asked.
Rick and I looked at each other, "Didn't make it."
"You definitely saw Andrea?" Carol asked.
"There were walkers everywhere." Lori said.
"Did you see her?" Carol looked at T-Dog.
"I'm gonna go back." Daryl said, breaking away from Jamie and I and grabbing onto his bike.
"No."
"We can't just leave her." Daryl told him.
"We don't even know if she's there." Lori replied.
"She isn't there. She isn't. She's somewhere else or she's dead." Rick responded. "There's no way to find her."
"So we're not even gonna look for her?" I asked.
"We gotta keep moving." Rick answered. "There have been walkers crawling all over here."
"I say head east." T-Dog said.
"Stay off the main road." Daryl said, grabbing his crossbow, "The bigger the road, the more walkers. More assholes like this one. I got him."
Daryl shot the walker in the eye before grabbing his arrow. We all headed towards cars, not before grabbing the supplies that we left for Sophia. I told them that I have a bag with a few blankets and food and water.
"Are you bleeding?" Daryl asked, looking at my head.
"I fell." I told him.
"What happened?" He questioned.
"Let's just say Tyler didn't die from a walker." I answered.
"You gonna tell me later?"
I nodded before getting on the bike with him. I had Jamie go in Hershel's car with Rick, Lori, T-Dog, Carol, and Carl. After a few hours of driving, we heard the red truck honk. We all pulled over and I got off.
"You out?" Daryl asked as Rick ran up to is.
"Running on fumes." He answered.
"We can't stay here." Maggie said.
"We all can't fit into one car."
"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning." Rick said.
"Spend the night here?" Carol questioned.
"I'm freezing." Carl commented.
"Me, too." Jamie said from next to me.
"I'll get you a blanket." I told him.
I left the group and went down to Hershel's car and got the supply bag I made and grabbed the blankets. When I got back, I gave the blankets to Carl and Jamie.
"We'll make camp tonight over there, get on the road at the break of day." Rick said, looking at some stone structures.
"Does this feel right to you?" Carol asked Daryl.
"What if walkers come through or another group like Randall's?" Beth asked.
"You know I found Randall, right?" Daryl told Rick, "He had turned, but he wasn't bit."
"How's that possible?" Beth asked.
"Rick, what the hell happened?" Lori questioned.
"Shane killed Randall. Just like he always wanted to." Daryl answered.
"And then the herd got him?"
"We're all infected." Rick said after a moment of silence.
We're all infected?
"What?" Daryl asked.
"At the CDC, Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it." Rick continued.
"And you never said anything?" Carol questioned.
"Would it have made a difference?" Rick replied.
"You knew this whole time?" Glenn asked.
"How could I have known for sure?" Rick responded, "You saw how crazy that mo-"
"That isn't your call." Glenn interrupted before Rick could finish off that word, "Okay, when I found out about the walkers in the barn, I told, for the good of everyone."
"Well, I thought it would be best that people didn't know." Rick said before walking down the road.
Daryl nudged me, "Come on, we'll go hunt."
"Jamie stay here." I told the kid before going off with Daryl.
"You gonna tell me what happened?" Daryl asked after he shot a squirrel.
"Tyler tried to kill me." Daryl stopped to stare at me, "He hit my in the back of my head, I'm guessing he tried to knock me out, he wanted to leave me behind for the walkers."
"And then?"
"Rick shot him." I finished.
We only got three squirrels before darkness fell, so we had to head back to the group. When we got back to the others, they already had a small fire set up. I walked around and saw behind Jamie and he leaned into me. Daryl sat next to me and started skinning the squirrels. When he was done, he laid them over the fire.
"We're not safe with him. Keeping something like that from us." Carol whispered to Daryl. "Why do you need him? He's just gonna pull you down."
"Nah. Rick's done alright by me." Daryl replied.
"You're his henchman and I'm a burden." Carol said. "You deserve better."
"What do you want?" Daryl asked.
"A man of honor."
"Rick has honor." Daryl replied.
"I think we should take our chances." Maggie said.
"Don't be foolish. There's no food, no fuel, no ammo." Hershel replied.
Some leaves rustled and we all sat up, "What was that?"
"Could be anythin'." Daryl answered, standing up, "Racoon, possum."
"Walker."
"We need to leave. What are we waiting for?" Carol asked.
"Which way?" Glenn asked.
"It came from over there." Maggie answered, looking off towards some trees.
"back from where we came." Beth said.
"The last thing we need is for everyone to be running off in the dark. We don't have the vehicles. No one's traveling on foot." Rick said and a branch snapped.
"Don't panic." Hershel said.
"I'm not sitting in here, waiting for another herd to blow through We need to move, now." Maggie told Rick.
"No one is going anywhere." Rick ordered.
"Do something."
"I am doing something! I'm keeping this group together, alive. I've been doing that all along, no matter what. I didn't ask for this. I killed my best friend for you people, for Christ's sake!" Rick exclaimed.
Oh my god. Rick killed Shane? I mean, I don't blame him, he was going of the deep end. He wasn't the same man he used to be.
"You saw what he was like, how he pushed me, how he compromised us, how he threatened us. He staged the whole Randall thing, led me out to put a bullet in my back. He gave me no choice. He was my friend, but he came after me." Rick said and Carl started crying into his mother's chest.
"My hands are clean." Rick continued, and no one really looked at him. "Maybe you people are better off without me. Go ahead, I say there's a place for us, bu maybe it's just another pipe dream. Maybe I'm fooling myself again. Why don't you go and find out for yourself? Send me a postcard." When no one moved, Rick continued to speak, "Go on, there's the door. You can do better? Let's see how far you get. No takers? Fine. But get one thing straight, you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore."