Chapter 3
"Can't we stop?" Carol asked tiredly as she pulled her arm around Sophia's shoulder.
"Not here. We stop here, anybody could come along and take the truck, take our supplies. We'll go on up a ways, find a country road. We'll stop back there. We gotta stay away from town." He fumbled with the knob on the radio, getting nothing but static.
"If we get closer to a bigger city, we might pick up a station," Carol pointed out. Daryl could hear the fear in her voice, and he slowed the truck a little.
"You wanna go to the city, we can go, but I ain't sure what we're gonna find. You gotta trust that the farther we are away from Atlanta, the better off we'll be."
"I'm hungry," Sophia murmured.
"Can we stop?" Carol asked, her voice quivering as she stared out at the empty road ahead. Daryl swallowed the lump in his throat, hoping he hadn't worried the little girl too much. But at the same time, it was going to be necessary to stay worried, because the second they let their guards down could be the second that killed them all.
"We'll stop," he promised. "Just wanna get up the road a ways." Carol noticed the way he kept looking in the rear view mirror, as if expecting someone to be following them, chasing them. She decided against asking him about it and instead settled back in her seat, handing Sophia a pack of crackers she'd picked up when they'd stopped earlier. Sophia gave her mother a thankful smile before tucking into the treat.
Daryl pulled off the old highway onto an old country road. It was hilly and quiet, and there seemed to be no cars around. Carol's stomach felt like a bundle of nerves coiling and tightening by the second, but she took a deep breath and tried not to show her anxiety at being all alone out in the middle of nowhere with her daughter and a virtual stranger.
Daryl cleared his throat and hopped out of the truck first. Sophia looked at Carol questioningly, and then the two silently slid out of the vehicle and joined Daryl behind the truck as he pulled down the tailgate and hopped in to rifle through the supply sack. He handed a bottle of water each to Carol and Sophia before retrieving one for himself. Inside a cooler was a bunch of half-melted ice with some cold deli sandwiches they'd retrieved at an abandoned gas station. They'd only be good for so long, they figured, so they might as well take them.
Daryl handed out sandwiches, and the three sat there in the back of the truck, eating a small lunch in silence. Every once in a while, Carol would glance at Daryl, who seemed lost in thought, his gaze concentrated and moving about their surroundings.
"You got any kids?" Sophia finally asked, looking up at Daryl with wide, innocent eyes. Daryl shifted uncomfortably and swallowed down a piece of sandwich.
"Naw," he murmured.
"Got a wife?" she wondered.
"Ain't got one of them either," he muttered. He took a sip of water and glanced at Carol. She caught his gaze for a moment before turning her gaze toward the road and finishing her lunch.
"Oh," Sophia said quietly. "I guess that's good. You don't have to worry about anybody you love getting hurt, then." Daryl gave a little shrug and hopped out of the back of the truck.
"We best get going." He cleared his throat and popped the last bit of sandwich in his mouth. He was the first back into the cab of the truck, and Sophia glanced at her mother.
"Did I say something wrong, Mama?"
"No, honey. I just don't think Mr. Dixon—Daryl—likes to talk much." Sophia nodded.
"We're not gonna die, are we?" Her daughter's lower lip trembled, and her eyes welled with tears, and Carol pulled her into a loving hug.
"I'm gonna do everything I can to keep you safe, you hear me? You're gonna be ok. We're gonna be ok." Sophia nodded, and Carol kissed the top of her head. "Come on. You ready?"
"Yeah," Sophia whispered. Carol gave her a brave smile and nodded.
"Let's get out of here, huh?" Sophia nodded, and she followed her mother around to the front of the truck and slid in next to Daryl. Within moments, they were pulling back out on the old highway and continuing on their journey, hoping somewhere along the way they'd find some answers.
The truck ran out of gas just before sunset. Daryl filled up the tank using the gas cans in the back of the truck, and then he'd ended up siphoning gas out of an abandoned car on the highway to replace his reserves. It was getting cold and a fog was settling in, making visibility particularly bad. So, they'd stopped at the first place they could find, a little house off the highway. The front door had been unlocked, and the television was still on in the living room, only it was static instead of a program.
Daryl had checked the house first, and when he'd deemed it safe, he'd motioned for Carol and Sophia to get out of the truck and join him inside. He pulled the truck around the back of the house to keep it out of sight should any looters come down the highway that night.
"Dunno how long the electricity's gonna be on," Daryl murmured, clicking on the mouse of a computer in the corner. The server was down, and he figured the whole existence of the Internet would be a distant memory within a week or two. He powered it down and pulled down all the shades in the living room.
"Same as last night. No lights unless we need 'em. Don't need to draw no attention to ourselves." Carol nodded.
"Sophia, why don't you take a change of clothes to the bathroom and get yourself a shower?" Sophia nodded and did as her mother asked. For all they knew, tonight might be their last opportunity to have hot water and electricity for a long time. Maybe for the rest of their lives.
"Try the radio," Daryl said with a nod in the direction of a high-tech radio on a table near Carol. She pressed the power button and moved the knob around, hearing nothing but static. With a sigh, she turned it off, and Sophia came rushing down the hall.
"Mama, Mr. Dixon, come quick!" The two rushed down the hall after her, following her into a little office in the back. On one of the tables was what looked like a CB radio, and a male voice was speaking over it.
"Anyone out there? This is Sheriff Rick Grimes. I'm asking if anybody can hear this transmission." Carol and Daryl stared at the machine for a moment before Carol reached for it.
"Hello? Yes! We hear you!"
"Who's this?"
"My name's Carol. Sheriff, what's happening?"
"Atlanta's burning. Don't go to Atlanta." Carol gripped the walkie, her hand shaking. "It's not viral. Can't catch it. Shoot 'em in the head. They get up, you shoot 'em in the head." Daryl grabbed the walkie from Carol.
"Where you at, Sheriff?"
"'Bout twenty miles outside Atlanta. We got a camp set up. About twenty of us. There were thirty, but we were attacked."
"Mama," Sophia whimpered.
"Sophia, it's alright," Carol murmured, hugging her daughter and stroking her hair. "It's gonna be alright. We're gonna be alright." Sophia trembled as her mother held her, and Carol and Daryl's eyes met.
"No cure?" Daryl asked.
"Last transmission I picked up from the station…they said the CDC had fallen. It's lost. Godspeed to you folks." The transmission faded out.
"Sheriff? Sheriff!" Nothing. Carol ushered Sophia into the bathroom and returned, her hand rubbing the back of her neck.
"There's really nothing we can do, is there?" she asked softly. "It's hopeless."
"We're still breathin' ain't we? Ain't hopeless. Not yet." Daryl tried switching channels to see if he could reach someone else, but all he got was static. Carol paced nervously for a moment.
"We could stay here. We could…just stay here for a few days and wait it out."
"Maybe," Daryl said with a thoughtful nod. "But we stay here, and they could come to us. We keep movin', maybe…"
"They're going to be everywhere. If what Sheriff Grimes said was true, there's no escaping it."
"Then we fight," Daryl muttered. "We find a place that's got walls. We just fight and try not to die." He left the room, stalking down the hall toward the kitchen. Carol followed him.
"Daryl?" she asked.
"What?" He sat down at the kitchen table and stared at her as she leaned against the doorway.
"Sophia's just a child," she murmured. "She's been…she's been through so much, and I just want to keep her safe. I need to keep her safe."
"'Course you do. She's your girl," he murmured. "I ain't gonna let nothin' happen to you. Or her. Not if I can help it." He fan his fingers through his short hair and looked up toward the ceiling. "We stay here a couple days, three tops. Then we get moving."
"Thank you," she said quietly. "We can…we can make some sort of plan." She sat down across from him. "When I heard the news, I panicked. Everything went…numb. I just kind of went on autopilot and started packing. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know what to do. I just knew. I knew I had to take my daughter and run, because my gut told me that that everything was falling apart around me, and I didn't want to be there right in the middle of it when it was happening."
"You done good. You done right for your girl. That's all you can do," he murmured. "That's smart."
"The smart thing to do would have been to…to…"
"To what? This ain't ever happened before. You went with your gut, and you're still alive. I'd say ya did the right thing." Carol sighed and shook her head.
"What is the right thing? The world's chaos. Everything's…"
"A mess," Daryl muttered. Carol nodded her head.
"Yeah." She swallowed hard. "This can't be…it can it? The…the end of times."
"We're still here," he shrugged. "Ain't the end for us." Carol considered that for a moment, watching the way he drummed his fingers on the table. She glanced over at the kitchen counter where a nice, fancy coffee maker sat just waiting to be used.
"You like coffee, Daryl?"
"I could use a cup," he admitted. She gave him a weak smile and nodded her head.
"Yeah. Me too." Carol got up and went about making a pot of coffee, and Daryl watched the way she moved about the room like it was her own home. He didn't know her. She didn't know him. They were two people, three including Sophia, that were stuck together as the world was thrown into chaos. They had nowhere to go, didn't know what the hell to do, and all they had was each other. Tonight, in this little house, they had the dim light above the stove and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee to hold them until morning, though Daryl could feel it. The last strands of the world they were knew were hanging by a frayed thread. Everything they'd ever known was about to be lost forever.