We stop a few miles down the road. When a plan goes south, that's what we do, we get the hell out of wherever and we stop a few miles down the road.

This truck's at the end of the caravan. Carl and I jump out as soon as we're stopped, armed, of course. We jog up ahead, to the front car – I've heard its real name, this shiny little car, but I always think of it just as Silver. Up here, my dad's getting off his motorcycle, Rick's looking down the road, and the others – not Lori, Lori's still in the truck – are gathering around Silver's hood as Maggie spreads a map over it.

"You're on point," Rick tells Carl, and then his eyes meet mine, therefore giving me the order, too. Not really necessary, since it's long been understood that Carl and me are a packaged deal. I snap my trigger, closing the jaws of the release around my bowstring, before stepping up next to Carl while Rick goes back, back to the others and Silver and the map.

"We got no place left to go," I hear T-Dog say. Maggie talks about getting cut off, not being able to go south. Glenn and Dad talk walker numbers, Hershel says something about a river, it all sounds like stuff I've heard before, again and again. A long time ago, I was all ears towards these kinds of conversations, but now they make me tired. I scan the trees on my side of the road and let the map-talk blend and roll and drone on, like white noise. I see something way off, deep in the green of the brush and the black of the shadows, something that darts, shaking the leaves around it. Probably something worth eating. My mouth waters and I dig my heels into the asphalt, clenching my bow, and saying that I'm itching to use it is not strong enough.

My bow. It's a compound bow, with a camouflage paint job, like most things hunters used to use, except maybe for guns. Five months I've had it, and Dad's only let me carry it for the past three weeks. Not because I wasn't good until then – I'm a natural, Dad says, and I am – but because it takes a lot of practice to be really, really good. Good enough that you can keep your cool and aim in on a walker as it reaches its arms out towards you, trying to tear you open and –

And . . . the droning's stopped. I twist my head around. Only Hershel and Carol are by Silver now. Beth's down a ways, by the truck, holding an axe. I think I still see Lori's shape behind the truck's windshield. "Where'd everybody go?" I ask lowly, just for Carl to hear.

"Our dads went hunting. The others went to get water from that creek back there." He doesn't ask how I missed this. He's used to me blocking out all the talking . . . Dad went hunting without me. I hate it when he does that.

I swallow. "So where're we goin'? They decide?"

"Uh, my dad said we're gonna double back. To somewhere. Then go west from there."

"We've already been all over the state."

"My dad said we haven't been there."

I sigh. "Aw, screw it. I say you 'n me grab Silver, make our way 'cross to Florida . . . See if Disney World's been overrun . . . Pick up every damn can of dog food we can find on the way."

That last part, that makes him crack a smile, at least.

. . . . .

But we don't double back to somewhere. T-Dog, Maggie, and Glenn come back with jugs of water, dripping with sweat. Then my dad and Rick are back, too, just a minute later. And Rick, he's worked up about something. But in a good way, I think.

Rick says he's found something he wants to show us. A prison.

. . . . .

Getting there is the easy part. It's just a short walk through the woods, and we only have to deal with three walkers on the way. Then we break away from the woods and it comes into view, this building, big and grey, looking kind of how schools used to look, except gloomier. The fence around it is a chain-link fence, yeah, but it's about three times taller than one you could find around a playground or something. There are towers, taller even than the building itself, placed next to the fence and right up in the thick of the building. Inside the fence, in the field that surrounds the prison, there are abandoned cars and there are walkers. Even from far away, I can tell they're all dressed pretty much the same. Prisoners, I guess. They were prisoners, and then the walkers started up, and the prisoners never had a chance, did they? Trapped in there . . .

Doesn't matter.

We make our way down a slope, that's the last leg of the walk. There's a shallow creek with a bridge to cross. Then we're there. We're here. The fence, it's even taller than it looked from a ways away. I'm short, but I ain't that short – this is a tall fence by any standard. And there are these looping, spiky wires at the top . . . Serious business. This fence, it's gotta be good at keeping things in. And out.

Rick brought a pair of wire cutters with him. He shrugs a bag off his shoulder, gets on his knees, and starts in on the fence without a word. This won't get us right into the field, because there are a few layers of fences, so there's one on the outside and one a few yards tighter in. The space these two sections make will let us walk along the edge of the field safely, still separated from the walkers in the field.

But there are walkers out here, too. Right now, Glenn stabs one with a long garden tool, pinning it to the fence, and Maggie crushes the head with a hammer. "Watch the back side!" T-Dog warns.

"Got it," Lori replies, but we're already moving, because Rick has cut through enough of the fence to make a sort of door. He and my dad hold it open and the rest of us go through, fast, watching all around us as we do, because we have to be careful, always. T-Dog's last, and then my dad and Glenn tie the hole together with some orange wire.

Now we have walkers on either side of us. More on the prison side, though, much more.

There's a tower behind us, so the only way to go is forward, along a gravel path about the width of a road. My dad leads the way, running. I go after him, trying to keep up. I'm better at it than I used to be, but I'm still pretty young.

Down the path, around a corner, and Dad pushes an already-open gate open a little wider. It squeaks. The path widens out, melting into a big rectangle. A tower's in here. The rectangle is still protected by fencing, of course, but at the end of the rectangle is a small gate that leads right into the field. Rick drops the bag he's carrying, steps up to this fence, and pants out, "It's perfect."

I'm breathing hard, we all are, but I study the place anyway. Perfect? If we could get in the place, it'd be safe, sure. Safer than anywhere we've been in a while. But getting in is going to be the thing that ain't so safe. The gravel below us keeps going beyond the fencing in front of us. It makes a path into the field and up a hill and to some more fencing. To another gate, actually, a gate that I think is the last one before you're actually right by the prison, and I can see walkers past this gate, too. Rick, he's pointing up there now. "If we can shut that gate," he says, "prevent more from filling the yard, we can pick off these walkers. We'll take the field by tonight."

Hershel asks how we'll shut the gate. Glenn says he'll do it, Maggie says no, it's a suicide run. Glenn argues that he's the fastest, but then Rick says no, we won't do that, and he starts dishing out the plan. Rick's good at plans. He says Glenn, Maggie, T-Dog, and Beth will lead as many as they can away from the gate, by distracting them at the edge of the fence, and they'll stab them when they get there. My dad and Carol, they'll go back to the first tower, and they'll shoot from there. And me and Carl and Hershel, we'll go up the tower that's here. Rick's going to run for the gate.

We break.

I lead the way up the stairs, up the tower. The stairway is dark and the air is thick, and moving out into the balcony at the top is like coming up from being underwater. The view from here is, oddly, sort of nice. I can see the top of trees for what feels like miles, and the walkers spread out before me are no threat at all. Not to me, anyway. But my eyes find Rick, waiting below us by the small gate, and I inhale. But Carl's right beside me, so I act like this ain't a big deal. I adjust my quiver, getting my arrows right where they should be.

True to the plan, Glenn and the others lead the walkers off, banging against the fence to get the geeks' attention. I watch as one walker reaches the fence and wraps its fingers around it just as Glenn shoves something through its eye. One down. A lot more to go.

I can see my dad and Carol in the other tower. We're all in place, then. I peer over the side of the balcony and see Lori next to Rick, gripping the gate. They look at each other, and then Lori pulls the gate open and Rick moves forward. A car is on its side right in front of him, giving him a shield for a few seconds, but then he has to go around it, and he's out there, out in the open.

Gunfire all around me, hurting my ears, and I take my first walker down with a sound so small it gets lost in everything else. Six arrows later I've killed six more walkers, but my quiver's empty and I have to switch to my revolver, and I'm not as good with a gun as I used to be, but I do what I can. By that point, though, Rick's almost to the gate, and I turn away from him to pop one walker, and by the time I look back, the gate's closed, the walkers beyond it trapped away, trapped in the cement courtyard around the prison. This field's shut off, and all we have to do is take care of the walkers still here –

There's a tower beside the closed gate, and Rick takes a few shots and disappears into it, reappears at the top a minute later. And then, then it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

"Light it up!" I hear my dad yell, and we do.

. . . . .

Hershel and Carl and me meet Carol and Dad at the bottom of our tower. Carol looks happier than I've seen her in a long time. "Fantastic!" she says, grinning at all of us.

My dad's hand touches on my head. "Nice shootin'." And I smile. The four of us, we pass Lori at the gate she let Rick through. Carol asks if she's okay, and Lori, she's smiling, and it's weird to see that look on her these days, but it's nice. "Haven't felt this good in weeks," she says.

The field's littered with bodies. Bodies that don't move, the best kind. I pause, swiping my hand over my forehead. Field's ours. All of this room, with the tall, strong fence around it. Ours.

"Oh!" Carol moans as she moves forward. "We haven't had this much space since we left the farm!"

The farm –

– the barn and the RV and a pile of rocks, a falling-apart shed and a dusty piano, a swamp and a walker without a shirt on, and even with all of the walkers I've seen, there are only two I can remember clearly, so clearly –

Movement to my left. I jerk my head around in time to see one of the corpses lift its head up. I go for my revolver, but Glenn's already there. He takes care of it. I hear T-Dog laugh behind me, an excited laugh, victorious. This is good. This is good, this is nice, and I have to focus on now, on this good, nice moment.

. . . . .

A canal under the fence to bring us fresh water and our own crops growing in the fertile soil. These are the plans we make that night as we sit around the campfire, filling our stomachs with the meat of rats and crows. Which isn't a bad meal, really. Rick paces around the perimeter time and time again, a steady shape against the thrashing ones beyond the fence. I lie down with my head on Carl's back, watching my dad's shape instead. He's on top of that overturned car by the entry gate, pacing, just him and his crossbow. And Carol, now. Yeah, Carol's brought him food. She's never said it to me straight, but I know she doesn't think he eats as much as he should. Beth's telling Lori that this'll be a good place to have the baby, and I turn my head, and in the fire light, I see Lori's lips come up, just a bit. Another one of her tight smiles.

Carl ducks his head, drawing pictures in the dirt.

Hershel asks Beth to sing some song he says he hasn't heard since her mother died. Maggie says not that one, please. Hershel names another. "Parting Glass," it's called. And Beth says no one wants to hear and Glenn says why not. And why not, really? So Beth sings, and we listen. All of us. Even the crickets get quiet. Not the walkers, but the crickets.

"Of all the money that e'er I had

I've spent it in good company

And all the harm e'er I've ever done

Alas, it was to none but me

And all I've done for want of wit

To memory now I can't recall

So fill me to the parting glass

Good night and joy be with you all."

I lie on my side and watch the flames flicker. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad and Carol walk up. Maggie starts singing along with Beth and I lose track of the words, listen only to the sound, the tune. This isn't the kind of song I know anything about, and I can't decide if I like it. No, that's not true. I like it, I like that it's music. But it's weird music, for sure.

Rick appears on the other side of Carl. He crouches down and his son hands him food. I crane my neck and see Rick give it to Lori. Of course he does. Does Rick eat any more? He must, but I never see him do it.

It's quiet now. The weird music, it's over. The fire snaps, the crickets go back to business as usual. "Beautiful," Hershel says, like it's a simple fact. Glenn rubs Maggie's leg. They're together, and that makes me happy for some reason. And kind of sad, too, because Rick never does things like that with Lori anymore. Carl and I don't talk about that much, though.

And now Rick's speaking, his voice like gravel. "Better all turn in." He nods. "I'll take watch over there. Got a big day tomorrow."

And that, that makes me sit up and turn around, facing him. "What do you mean?" Glenn asks as I do so, and already I'm uneasy, why . . . ?

Rick looks at Carl, then at the ground, before he answers, "Look, I know we're all exhausted. This was a great win. But we gotta push just a little bit more."

My hand decides to go to my bow. I pull it to me and hold it with both hands, propping it in my lap and leaning my head on it, watching the ground, listening to Rick. Not liking a word he says.

"Most of the walkers are dressed as guards and prisoners. Looks like this place fell pretty early. Could mean the supplies may be intact. They'd have an infirmary. A commissary."

"An armory?" my dad asks.

"That'd be outside the prison itself, but not too far away. Warden's offices would have info on the location . . . Weapons, food, medicine. This place could be a gold mine."

I need to wax my bowstring. I have Vaseline somewhere, but most of our bags are still with the vehicles, now parked outside of the gate. I run my fingers over the frays, willing them smooth, as Hershel says, "We're dangerously low on ammo. We'll run out before we make a dent."

So let's not do this, Rick. Let's rest.

"That's why we have to go in there. Hand-to-hand."

One of my hands leaves my bow. It comes to my mouth, my knuckle meets my teeth, and my teeth go at the skin.

"After all we've been through," says Rick, "We can handle it, I know it . . . These assholes don't stand a chance."

It's quiet.

Rick stands and walks away. The air's heavy now. After a second, my dad steps over to me and uses his boot to nudge my hand from my teeth.

. . . . .

T-Dog snores and Beth talks in her sleep. Sometimes Glenn looks like his eyes are open even when he's out cold. Carl moves a lot and Carol barely moves at all. These are the kinds of nighttime behaviors you learn about people you live with. The kinds of things that you stop noticing until you can't sleep one night. Or a lot of nights.

An hour after Rick's speech, I'm still up. I lay down for a while, closed my eyes, did everything I was supposed to do. But I knew sleep wouldn't come. I've gotten to where I can tell. So now I'm sitting up. I have my arms wrapped around my knees and I watch the fire. My dad watches the fire when he's thinking. I thought about reading, I've probably got a book tucked away in one of the bags, somewhere, but I don't feel like reading, really. I feel like thinking.

Carl rolls over. He's on the other side of the fire, so I can see his face pretty well. Sleeping and without his hat, he looks younger than he is. More like he was when I first met him. But he and I both have grown a lot since then, in a lot of ways. He has faint signs of stubble, I have a bra strap constantly digging into my skin, and we both put walkers down by ourselves. We would never have dreamed of doing that, back when we were playing tag at the survivors' camp in Atlanta. Or sneaking into the swamps at Hershel's farm . . .

I've figured out why that song seemed so strange. "Parting Glass," I mean. Thing is, my mother would never sing a song like that. Wasn't her style. "Piano Man," was her favorite song. Mom, she liked Billy Joel, and she really liked rock. That was one of the few things she had in common with Merle, actually. My Uncle Merle taught me the lyrics to "Highway to Hell" when I was four, and I got caught singing it in Sunday School the next weekend, and my mother was embarrassed and chewed me out all the way home. But later that night, I overheard her singing it while she was making dinner. It blew my mind.

I have a picture of Mom, so I won't forget her face. Can't quite remember what Merle looked like, though. But their voices, their voices are both clear. Hers, all soft and smooth, and his, raspy and drawling. I hear Mom singing and Merle laughing better than either of them just talking, though. And Mom's piano, I definitely hear Mom playing the piano –

Something hits me from behind, wrapping its way over my shoulders and around my neck. "You should be sleepin'."

I reach up and take handfuls of the poncho now tossed over me. My dad picked it up a few months ago, and I like it, for all it's kind of scratchy. "Maybe I am sleepin' and you're just dreamin'."

I hear him snort. We're ten feet off from the others, who are as close as they can get to the campfire. My dad, he likes to be a little ways off when he can be, and tonight I felt like sleeping close to him. I'm not so crazy about being away from the others, but ten feet off is still a lot of progress from how we were eight months ago, living out of sight from the others, at the very edge of Hershel's farm. It was lonely back then, though I didn't realize it was lonely until after the farm was a thing of the past.

Before I really know what's happening, Dad's sitting beside me. He takes the bow and arrow I have in my lap and sets them off to the side. "Don't be worryin' about tomorrow." Special gentle voice. He uses that more often than he used to, which I think is a good thing.

How can I not be worrying, though?

Hand-to-hand. They've done it before. They meaning my dad, Rick, T-Dog, Maggie, and Glenn. They're the ones who'll be going in, they'll be right in there, right in the middle of the walker-filled prison, putting down corpses the way they do. The way they've done a million times. But not with so many. Past that last fence blocking the prison from us – and us from the prison – dozens of walkers stumble around. Groaning, snarling, eager to eat something besides the rats they must be surviving on. Human flesh has to be a step up, after all.

"I ain't," I say, wishing for my bow back. My hands feel empty. "I just . . . I think we should wait a few days. Think we should rest."

That's when Dad starts rubbing my neck. He's got good timing, I'll give him that. "Ain't our first rodeo, Syd. We'll be fine."

"Yeah, I know."

But I don't know. And Dad sighs, probably because he knows I don't know and fact is, he don't know, either.

A minute passes, and I don't look at him, and finally he gives my neck one last squeeze and pushes himself into a crouching position. "I'm gonna go take over watch for Rick," he whispers, scanning the field before eyeing me again. He wraps his poncho tighter around me. "Try to sleep."

It's a lost cause, but I lie back down as Dad stands. I hear him sling his crossbow on his back and walk off. When I can't hear his footsteps anymore, I reach for my bow. I draw it in close and wait for morning, trying to remember the second verse of "Piano Man."