Dinner is Served

XX

All morning, and no sign of Sophia. It was getting pretty obvious that the girl was zombie chow, but Daryl knew he had to keep looking around; partly because Carol would whine about it nonstop if he didn't, and partly because it wasn't like he had anything else to do. If the girl was alive, she sure had a knack for covering huge distances in no time at all. Maybe those zombies had chased her right over state lines.

Daryl was tired of trotting around the forest all day on Herschel's borrowed horse with nothing to show for it. And nobody else had helped him search, either! So maybe he woke up a bit early to get a head start on the search. And maybe people were in a bad mood after being forced to set up camp outside when Herschel's huge farmhouse was in plain sight. But still, those were no excuse. The faster they could find that girl, the faster they could get the hell out of dodge and go to that army base or whatever it was. Not that Daryl really wanted to go there, but he didn't want to stick around the farm for very long, either. There was just something about that old man Herschel that Daryl didn't quite like, even if his daughter was smoking hot.

Now that he had given up his search, Daryl stood at the mouth of a well near the barn. It was hot, and he needed a drink. He lowered a bucket into the well, and for a moment, there was a sudden jerk at the rope – he must had gotten it caught on the well's stone side – but then it got loose, and he lowered it the rest of the way before bringing it back up again. As the bucket rose, he stared at the barn door; Herschel had asked them not to go inside, although nobody had pressed the man on the subject.

The bucket reached the top. Daryl laid it on the lip of the well and took a handful of water in his cupped hands, about to drink greedily, but before he could even swallow, the bitter, sour taste of decay flooded his mouth. It tasted just like that time his brother left the possum out in the sun too long before they threw it in the stew pot. "Agh!" he yelled, spitting it back out. "What the hell?"

Daryl peered more closely into the bucket. Then, he leaned over the edge of the well, looking down into its black depths. Something reached him from below; a whiff of something. He breathed in. There it was - not just a smell, but a stench. Paying closer attention, he tilted his head and strained his ears, catching a faint moan rising up from the well's depths. He straightened abruptly, frowning at the bucket before turning and marching back to the camp.

What the hell was this? A zombie, taking a bath in their drinking water?

Daryl's amazement grew even greater once he reached the camp. It was spread out in a copse of trees, near the parked camper, and although it was nearly noon, the only person up was Lori, poking at some bacon on a griddle over a small campfire. He noticed Rick stumbling out of his tent just as he arrived. "Hey," he said, "am I gonna get any help searchin' for Sophia today or what?"

"Oh, the girl," said Rick. "Sorry, I spent all night havin' a philosophical conversation with Lori about whether or not it's right to have a child in this world, and what's the point of goin' on, and how it's important to have hope no matter how bad things get. I dunno why she was talkin' about kids. Guess she just had Carl on her mind."

Lori coughed nervously.

"Where's everybody else?" asked Daryl.

As if in answer to his question, Glenn and Herschel's hot daughter came up on a pair of horses. He squinted at the two of them, confused; hadn't they gone to town the night before? "Where've you two been?" he asked. "Off havin' a philosophical conversation?" he added with a smirk.

"No, we were having sex!"

Maggie slapped Glenn in response to his comment.

"Did you get my, uh – supplies?" asked Lori

"Yeah, I didn't forget," said Glenn after nursing his sore cheek and jumping off the horse. He fumbled through his backpack until he found what he was looking for. "Here's your pregnancy test and your abortion pills."

Lori slapped him on his other cheek. Rick gaped in shock at his wife before dragging her by the arm back to her tent. Clearly, he had no idea his wife was pregnant. Daryl was amused at the sight – he barely even knew Glenn, but he had already seen enough of the boy to tell Lori he was probably the last person she could count on keeping a secret. He just seemed like a bit of an airhead, was all. Daryl had almost forgotten what he had come to camp to complain about, but the sight of Glenn staggering around woozily after the two vicious cheek slaps jogged his memory. "By the way, anybody here noticed the freakin' zombie in our well?"

"What?"

The camp's voices rose up in unison – even Shane popped his head out of a tent to ask the question.

"Yeah, down at the bottom of that well over there," he said, pointing in the direction of the barn. "I was thinkin' maybe we could lower Glenn down on a rope and get him to lasso the thing so we can bring it up outta there before it contaminates our drinkin' water. I mean, you're Asian – you know all that ninja stuff, right?"

Glenn frowned. "I'm American. I've never been to Asia."

"Yeah, but you don't know, like, karate? Zippin' down walls on ninja ropes and stuff?"

"No, I don't. Besides, I don't want to go down in some well – if I got eaten by a zombie I couldn't have sex with Maggie anymore, could I?"

Maggie slapped him again. Daryl thought about it; the boy had a point.

"Don't worry," said Maggie. "We got about five wells all over our property. We already knew there was a zombie in that one, anyway. He's like a pet to us now. We call him Tubbers."

Daryl's eyes bugged out in amazement. A pet zombie? How could these people be so stupid? Then again, according to Glenn, Asians didn't automatically know kung fu, so maybe it was best not to get too judgmental. He tore a water bottle from a pack that was laying near a cooler by the side of a tree, hoping to get the taste of sour zombie meat out of his mouth. That bacon Lori was cooking smelled mighty nice, too. Just as he was about to go find a paper plate and grab a couple slices, he saw Herschel approaching the camp from the farmhouse. Daryl smirked at the sight of Maggie shooting Glenn an angry glance. He was amazed that boy had hooked up with a hot farmer's daughter in the first place, but apparently, she didn't want daddy finding out about it.

"Back from town?" asked Herschel when he reached the camp. "What took you so long?"

"We were just-"

"We thought it was better to sleep there than come back in the dark," said Maggie, after slapping Glenn on the back with a mock-playfulness that almost sent him collapsing to the ground.

"Did you find any medical supplies for Andrea and Carl?"

The two of them looked sheepishly at each other.

"No. We forgot."

Herschel frowned. "Well, then," he said, "that is certainly bad news. We may have to go visit the high school down the highway – I believe they set up an emergency medical center there while the plague was spreading. Perhaps they still have some supplies left over. I'm sure Otis would be willing to come along, considering he was the one who shot your blonde friend, even if she tried to shoot him first. Would anyone else like to volunteer? Someone good with a gun?"

By this time, Shane had stumbled out of his tent and stood with the group listening to Herschel. Rick, who had been talking to his wife in their own tent, darted out after hearing Herschel's question and slapped his friend on the shoulder. He pointed enthusiastically at Shane. "This guy!" he said. "This guy'd like to volunteer!"

Shane tore his hat off his head and threw it on the ground. "Dammit!"

XX

The afternoon was wearing on, and Rick hadn't gotten a chance to talk to Lori much about her news, seeing as Glenn and Maggie had just gotten back to the camp when Glenn spilled it. He had also been busy volunteering his good buddy Shane for a night of zombie killing. He knew how Shane loved firing those guns; his friend could thank him later. Since then, Rick had spent much of the afternoon wandering around the woods with Daryl in a fruitless search for Sophia. They had found a church, where Rick wanted to pray to the good Lord for all the great things he'd been doing for them lately – for instance, killing only a few of them instead of all of them - but Daryl started getting antsy after he was there in the pews for an hour or so. So now they were back at the farm with nothing to show for their efforts.

"Did you find my daughter?" asked Carol, running out of the farmhouse.

"Not yet," said Daryl. "We'll keep searching tomorrow."

The two of them headed for the stables, Carol following along. "We did find a big pile of gore," he said, getting off the horse and grabbing a halter, "but we're pretty sure it was just a deer or somethin'. Hard to tell."

Carol sobbed and ran off back to the farmhouse as they finished putting their horses away. Outside, the sun was already starting to go down; Rick wondered if Shane and Otis were doing alright. They had taken the pickup truck, but he wasn't sure how far away this high school was supposed to be. Hopefully they'd be back in time to treat Andrea; she was starting to get worse, although Rick could have sworn she wanted to die at the CDC anyway. Maybe being shot with a hunting rifle had a way of changing a person's mind about dying. Just as his son crossed his mind, Rick saw Lori walking towards the farmhouse. He motioned for her to step onto the porch with him.

"Any luck?" she asked.

"No, no luck. Lori, we need to talk about this pregnancy."

Lori shied away from his touch. "What about it?"

"Well, why didn't you tell me about it? How can you leave a man in the dark about his own family?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do about it, okay? That's why. That's why I asked Glenn for those morning after pills, that's why I tried to keep it a secret from you, I just don't know what-"

"Honey," said Rick, patting Lori on the back, "you know morning after pills only work the morning after, right?"

Lori thought about it. "Oh. That's why they're called that."

"Why would you want to get rid of our baby, anyway?"

There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of people setting dishes and moving about inside the farmhouse as they got ready for an evening meal. The birds chirped in the trees around them. Lori looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes. "Look around you," she said. "This world – this world we have now – it's no place for a child, Rick. Do you want to bring a baby into this world?"

"We got to have hope," said Rick. "There are still beautiful things in this world, honey. Me and Daryl, when we were out in the forest, we saw this pile of gore the zombies must have torn up, but it used to be a deer. It wasn't pretty, but I imagined that deer before it got torn apart, and I thought, what a beautiful sight! If only Carl could walk up to it and touch it, everything bad that's happened, well – it'd be okay, because he'd know there's still some beauty in-"

"Wait, you want Carl to touch a pile of gore?"

"No, I meant when it used to be a deer, if he could-"

Daryl poked his head out of the door.

"What the hell are you two talking about?"

Rick stared at him, his thought process interrupted.

"There ain't no beauty in this world anymore," said Daryl. "Everything's shit now. And by the way, you don't let some kid walk up to a deer and pet it like it's in a zoo or something, just like you don't let 'em go running around in the middle of the highway like they're ringin' a zombie dinner bell. Speakin' of which, dinner is ready."

Daryl popped back inside the house, leaving Rick and Lori alone on the porch. The two of them stood silently, thinking about what he had said. Maybe he was right. And now that they were on the subject of Carl, Rick couldn't help thinking about his son's future. The transformation seemed to be taking a while, but there was no doubt about it – Carl was going to change eventually. He had been bitten, and he was going to change. Rick had been trying to avoid thinking about the issue, to pretend it didn't happen, but if they didn't take care of it soon, Carl would be having them for dinner.

"We need this baby, honey," he said.

"Why?"

"Because we're gonna lose the one we have."

Lori looked surprised, but then fell into thought. Rick knew it was an awkward way to put it, but hey, if they were going to lose one kid, they could replace him with another. Maybe this was God's screwed up way of trying to even things out or something. Rick knew talking for an hour to that Jesus statue was worth it.

XX

"Dammit!"

Shane threw another flare, but it was no use; either the zombies had wised up or a flare wasn't very interesting compared to a couple bags of live meat running around and making noise. They were still following close behind, and Otis was starting to slow down as his weight caught up to him. Shane felt a flash of anger go through him – how could a guy still be that fat in a zombie apocalypse, anyway? Wouldn't all the food run out? And with all the running from zombies his group had been doing n Atlanta, Shane felt like anybody would have lost a few dozen pounds by now.

"Keep up!" he said, turning another corner.

"I'm tryin'! It ain't like I've been getting' much exercise lately."

"How's that? We're stuck in zombie armageddon and you ain't been doin' any running around?"

"Well, no. Runnin' around is what you do when you screw up. If you do things right, you don't go out of the house unless you have to."

Shane had to admit Otis had a point on that one.

"Where are we going, anyway?"

"They blocked off the pickup truck," said Shane. "We have to try to lead them around the school and come back the other way around."

The sound of ravenous groans drew closer behind them. Shane risked a glance back and saw shambling forms stumbling forward, gloomy in the evening light, hands outstretched like claws aching to pierce flesh. The two of them passed a chain link fence, and Shane skirted along its side, looking for an opening. Finally, he found a gate. Unfortunately, it was locked.

"This way," he said, following the fence away from the school. Otis panted as he kept close behind, but the zombies were definitely gaining on them. The fence changed direction, running parallel to a side building adjacent to the school, and Shane followed the narrow alley, shotgun at the ready. At this rate, they were going to get lost pretty quickly, unless Otis knew where they were going in the darkness. He saw a light shining to his right – it was near a door to the school building. Must be a generator running, he thought. The fence left off, and they headed back towards the school. Just before they were about to head for the other end, though, another group of zombies crested the lip of a hill ahead of them, moaning with hunger.

"Dammit," he said. "We gotta go back-"

The zombies behind them were closing in. One of them was closer than the others, maybe more excited about its meal, and Shane took parts of its head off with a shotgun blast from close range. He looked back at the other group of zombies approaching from the hill by the edge of the school. They were about to be surrounded. Their only option was the school door with the light shining above it, but it was surrounded by the chain link fence enclosure they had just gone around. Some kind of backyard utility area, from the looks of it. As a matter of fact, Shane thought that big lumpy thing over there was probably the generator itself.

"Any ideas?" he asked Otis. The fence's gate, even if they could open it, was now on the other side, past the zombies. Shane and Otis both backed up against the fence's cold metal, guns held at the ready as the zombies drew closer. A rotten stench filled the air, and Shane suppressed a gag.

"Hold on," said Otis.

"Whatever you're gonna do, now's the time."

Otis, for some reason, took a few steps towards the approaching zombies, and Shane couldn't help yelling out a hoarse warning, but then the man turned back and ran towards the fence as fast as he could. Shane had to step aside a bit as Otis hit the fence running. It was weak, and it collapsed easily under his weight. Shane smiled; maybe he shouldn't have criticized the man. Those extra pounds sure came in handy. "This way," said Otis, headed for the door.

They tried the handle; it was open.

The two of them darted inside and slammed the door shut just as the first of the zombies reached them. One of them actually managed to stick a hand through the frame just before Shane could close the door, but he slammed it shut so hard that it took off one of the thing's fingers, which dropped to the floor, curled up like a dead insect. Shane looked down at it, suppressing yet another gag. He could hear the zombies scratching desperately on the other side of the door. The moans were more muted, but the scratching was there.

Like insects again. Crawling just beyond the walls.

"That was close," said Otis.

"Yeah. Come on, let's check this place out."

XX

As far as dinners went, this was one of the more awkward ones Daryl had ever experienced. Herschel didn't seem to be very welcoming towards his new guests – and that was even before Glenn had accidentally brought up the sex he had with Maggie all night in town. "Pass the chicken?" asked Daryl.

Herschel looked at him in stony silence for a moment before handing over the plate. Daryl grabbed a stray leg that had miraculously survived the first ravenous attack when everyone sat down. He tore off a chunk of flesh and watched in amusement as Herschel narrowed his eyes, shooting daggers at Glenn. From what he could tell, Daryl thought maybe Glenn and Maggie were playing footsie under the table, too.

"By the way," said Herschel, "I would like to institute a rule for our guests."

"What's that?" asked Rick.

"I would prefer if no guns were used on this farm."

Daryl spat out his chunk of chicken. He watched as Rick, Lori, Dale, and Carol all nodded quickly in agreement. Was he going insane here? At least Glenn looked surprised, although he couldn't tell if that was because he had heard what Herschel said or because Maggie had just thrust a foot in his crotch or something. "Uh, why?" he asked.

"I don't want anybody shooting each other on my property."

So that was it. Now it made a little more sense; Herschel was worried about Andrea. Daryl couldn't blame him for that, as the girl seemed to be obsessed with handling weapons even if it meant mistaking everyone for zombies and blowing them away. And it made sense that guns were no good except as a last resort, seeing as the sound of a weapon going off might attract zombies from miles around.

Daryl wondered why nobody wanted to take any of his crossbow lessons; if more people knew how to shoot a crossbow, they could steal some more from a sporting goods store eventually. Maybe he just needed to be a little more charming and persuasive. Merle was always the one with the charm, especially when it came to the ladies.

"Well," said Dale, "I could gather them all up and go store them in the barn."

"Not in the barn," said Herschel.

"Why not?"

The table looked at Herschel expectantly as he stopped in mid-bite of chicken. The dining room grew silent, other than the occasional groan coming from Carl in the bedroom nearby. Daryl listened carefully; not zombie groans yet, as far as he could tell. And they had the boy tied up, too, so that was good. Herschel finally put his fork down and cleared his throat to speak.

"There's zombies in the barn," he said.

Everyone stared at him in shock. Maggie looked like she was about to say something, but Herschel held up a hand to silence her. "That's where we keep our relatives," he continued. "I didn't want to tell you all, but there it is."

"Your relatives?" asked Daryl. "You mean like folks that are all corpsified?"

"They're not 'corpsified'. They're just somewhat living impaired."

Daryl dropped his chicken to the plate with a thud and threw up his hands. First the guns, and now this – clearly they had moved in with a family of farmhouse freaks. It was getting obvious now - the zombies were the least of their worries!

"They may be dead," said Herschel, "but they're still our relatives. They deserve respect, in this life or in this death, and there may be a cure for their little problem."

"Ain't no cure for death!" said Daryl. "We gotta kill them all before they kill us!"

Rick held up a hand, asking for everyone to calm down a little. "Well, now," he said, "let's think about this a minute. Maybe Herschel has a point here. I mean, just because the CDC couldn't find a cure yet doesn't mean there isn't one. And we're here as guests on Herschel's farm – we need to respect our host and obey his wishes. If he wants all the guns put away and a bunch of zombies living right next to us, crazy with man-hunger and separated only by some flimsy lock and chain on a wooden door, well, that's his right as a private property owner."

Herschel nodded in thanks, and the group went back to their meal. Daryl stared around him, mouth gaping, his appetite suddenly gone. There was no way everyone was going to accept this – how could they? Maybe Rick and Lori just had their son in mind, making them a little too gullible when Herschel talked about zombies being part of the family.

Either way, Daryl was getting a mighty powerful urge to get far away from the farm.

XX

Ice cream. Oodles and oodles of ice cream.

Shane could barely believe his eyes, but there it was, stacked up in the walk-in freezer in the school's kitchen. He and Otis had made the rounds through the school, finding it surprisingly empty of zombies – other than a couple they managed to lock into the principal's office. This, however, was their biggest discovery of the night. Shane licked his lips as he stared at the flavors: Bananarama, Chocolate Choo (with a picture of a train sliding wildly through a slick of chocolate on the front of the box); even his personal favorite, Blueberry Bonanza. Shane was pretty sure he hadn't eaten any ice cream since before the outbreak, and from the look Otis was giving the ice cream, it was probably the same for him.

"We gotta take this back to the farmhouse," he said.

Otis nodded in agreement.

"How we gonna carry all this stuff?"

Almost before he had asked the question, Shane noticed a plastic cooler sitting in a corner of the kitchen. Sometimes God works in mysterious ways, he thought. The two of them would have to carry the thing out of the school and back to the pickup truck if they filled it up with ice cream, but how hard could it be? All the zombies had followed them around to the back of the school. All they had to do was go through the front. "Help me out," he said as he grabbed the cooler and shoveled ice cream out of the fridge into it.

"Oh, man," said Otis, "I can't remember the last time I ate ice cream."

"Me neither."

"Maybe I can give it to Andrea to make up for my shooting her."

"I'm not sure if givin' people ice cream makes up for shootin' 'em," said Shane, "but I guess since she shot you first, we can probably keep it all to ourselves anyway. Besides, we're the ones doin' the hard work here, aren't we?"

"True. I might give her some ice cream anyway, though. She's a good lookin' girl. Wanna get on her good side, you know what I mean? Maybe I'll get lucky. This is a zombie apocalypse, after all. How picky can she be?"

Shane's good mood at finding so much ice cream suddenly turned sour. He didn't like hearing Otis talk about going after Andrea. Partly because the guy had shot her, and partly because he had been planning to make a move on her himself. She was a good looking woman, no doubt about it, and like Otis said, now that most people were undead abominations bent on consuming the living, there weren't a whole lot of hot girls just walking around everywhere. Unless you were talking about some of the dead ones that were still pretty fresh. But Shane didn't swing that way.

"Good God," he said as the two of them lugged the cooler out of the lunch room, "I had no idea ice cream could be this heavy."

"Hopefully it ain't gonna melt before we get into the pickup and back to the farm."

The school's halls were empty, dark, and gloomy, save for an emergency light shining over the door to the basement, as well as the moonlight washing faintly across the walls as it filtered in through the windows. Shane listened hard for the sound of shuffling feet and telltale groans, but there was only silence. It wasn't long before they reached the front doors. Shane peered through the glass; it was smudged and smeared, definitely in need of a little Windex, but he couldn't see anything moving outside. He propped the door open as the two of them grabbed each end of the cooler and took it outside. It was a muggy night. A warm breeze wafted over him as they headed in the direction of the pickup truck. They'd definitely have to make it fast if they didn't want the ice cream to melt.

And that was when the zombies came.

The two of them actually dropped the cooler for a moment and fired off several shots in a panic; a few of the zombies were close enough that they almost hadn't seen those grasping hands in time. They grabbed the cooler again and picked up their pace, heading down the road away from the high school as more zombies appeared, just vague hints of movement in the darkness among the trees lining the road. Apparently, they hadn't drawn all of them towards the back. Probably they'd drawn more after firing off those shots earlier before they got into the school, but everything had been a mess since they got out of that medical trailer.

"Come on," he said, "we gotta move faster!"

Otis huffed and puffed as he tried to keep up with Shane, but they weren't going fast enough. A number of zombies were out on the road now, lumbering towards them disturbingly quickly. Sometimes Shane got the impression that the hungriest ones went the fastest. Groans filled the air as they kept lugging the cooler towards the pickup; why did they have to park so far away from the school?

"Wait up," said Otis, "I can't keep up at this rate."

They stopped and fired a few more shots, taking out some of the zombies in the lead. Fortunately, there were only one or two of those things ahead of them; most of the zombies had been milling around the school, maybe remembering some recent feast they had made out of luckless people attending the medical setup before things went from bad to worse. The truck still wasn't in sight, though. And Rick had just used up the last of his shotgun bullets. He pulled out a pistol and took out another zombie coming from the side; the thing gaped in surprise as a hole opened up in its forehead before toppling forward like a Jenga tower. Rick snorted with amusement at the sight.

"After all that walkin' around inside the school," said Otis, "and then all those stale funyuns we ate in the lunch room – my stomach's starting to hurt. I can't keep up!"

Shane looked at Otis in irritation as he let the ice cream cooler slip out of his hands. He dragged it along the ground with one hand while keeping his pistol raised in the other. There were more zombies, more and more, as if they had all been waiting in the forest, watching for their dinner to come out of the school. Shane watched as Otis leaned over, hands on his knees, and realized he only had one choice. There was no way they could both get to the pickup truck at the rate they were going. The zombies were unstoppable. They needed food. They needed meat.

And Shane sure as hell wasn't going to let them take a bite.

"Sorry," he said.

"What?"

Otis screamed as Shane shot him in the leg. He fell to the ground, looking back in terror at the rapidly approaching zombie, who seemed to smell the fresh blood almost as soon as it was exposed to the air. Shane holstered his pistol and picked up the cooler with both hands, picking up the pace as he headed for the pickup. Now he could see it, just around a bend in the road.

"Why'd you shoot me?" screamed Otis. "We coulda just dropped the ice cream!"

Shane glanced back just in time to see the zombies piling around Otis in a wild frenzy.

"I didn't think of that!"

The man's screams rent the air. Shane felt bad about what he had done. Maybe he didn't want Otis making any moves on Andrea, but it wasn't like that influenced his decision. It was survival, plain and simple. There were no other options.

Although now that Otis had mentioned it, he could have just left the ice cream.

XX

Notes - Man, I almost forgot the show was restarting yesterday. The episode was fun enough - I definitely enjoyed the last third, with the two new characters who were up to no good and ended up shot by Rick. Hopefully the second half of season 2 will speed things up. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.