Chapter 4: Eye's Open and Mouth Shut

Authors Note: Thank you all once again for your support and reviews. I am glad you all enjoyed my last chapter and I hope you enjoy this next one.

Disclaimer: I do not own Walking Dead of any kind.

After we cleaned out all of the rooms and burned the bodies. We started to talk about turning the inn into a safe house for the time being. The only problem was that we didn't have much food. Aside from the small stuff I had in my truck and whatever Kenny had, it wasn't much to last us long.

So our first priority was to find food.

"Where are we going to find food?" Carley asked. We were all sitting by the fire behind the RV in the center of the lot while Larry took watch on top.

"What about the grocery stores or mini-marts?" Lee suggested. That wasn't a bad idea.

"No, it won't work." Carley sighed. Kenny quickly threw a glance at her direction.

"What are you talking about?" He asked.

"When we were driving over, before we met up with Devon, we saw a bunch of people raiding the Save-Lots." Everyone let out a frustrated growl when they heard that. "Who knows, maybe a group moved in and claimed it for their own."

I leaned down backwards and rested on the cold concrete. I turned my head over and glanced at Duck, Katjaa and Clementine who were all sleeping. They were pretty hungry before going to sleep. We needed to get some food fast. All we had were a few cans of beans and fruit from my partner's house.

"I got it!" Lily exclaimed. "The air force base where I use to work. We had a whole truck load of food we were going to fly out before all this had happened." Everyone's spirits started to lift.

"There's a chance it might still be there." Kenny chuckled. "No one would think about robbing an air base for food."

"Well I guess it's settled." I smiled. "I'll go first thing tomorrow."

"Wait, I know where it is." Lily stated. "I'll go with you."

"Okay, anyone else want to tag along?" I invited. "There is plenty of room for volunteers."

"I'll go." Lee said, raising his hand.

I nodded and was ready to turn in for the night before I heard a familiar yell.

"Out of the question!"

Lily must have told him the plan for tomorrow. I didn't have the energy to tell Larry that she had made up her mind. Then again, I didn't even care. Lily already knows she's going with or without her father's permission.

The next morning we all set out and made our way to the air base. We took my truck and drove off at first light. I took the wheel, Lee had shotgun and Lily had the backseat. We were confident in our plan. Lily had her rifle, Lee had his ax and I had my shotgun. I left Kenny the other rifle and Larry my handgun. I was uneasy about it, but he kept giving me shit about being a hoarder with my guns. I wanted to tell him how I was only trying to keep them out of undisciplined hands, but then I remembered I was arguing with stubborn, self-absorbed asshole.

"This is close enough, stop here." Lily said as we closely approached the base. I pulled over and shut off the engine. "Let's go." Lily quickly stepped out of the truck and we soon followed her.

There were walkers wandering around all over the place as usual. I hate seeing them like this. It made me feel like that could be me one day, wandering around without a soul while some hungry scavengers take a baseball bat to my head, and that would be that.

It pains me every time I kill a walker.

Lily and Lee rush in and take them out silently with their blades. I take my shotgun and bash their heads in with the butt of my gun. We were about to make our way inside a main hangar when we heard gunfire from the distance. A man was running across the field with a handgun and straight towards us.

"No, don't go in there!"

Lily and I raise our guns slowly and steady. The man took notice of this and raised his hands in surrender.

"Whoa, hold it!" He shouted. He was a young man with black hair and glasses. He didn't look like much of a soldier. "You don't want to go in there. I just checked and there is nothing but geeks in there!"

"What!?" Lily snapped. "That's where all the food is!"

I felt that heavy feeling creep up on me again. Was this shit ever going to end?

"N-No." The man wheezed. "I worked here. I was getting the food ready for shipping before this crap happened." He was panting badly at this point. I noticed that his face was red and he was sweating badly.

"Are you okay?" I asked out of concern and old habits from my job.

"Y-Yeah just got an empty stomach." He chuckled. "I've been on the move ever since this happened."

"We can help you." Lee suggested earning a disgruntled look from Lily.

"Thanks. I had a truck, but the damn thing won't start. I think the battery is dead." He panicked.

"I have a truck. I'll go get it." I said as I started running back towards the truck. "Lee, Lily you guys go back and help get the food ready!"

I rushed towards the truck and noticed that the walkers were getting more crowded by the main roads. I moved in close to the truck and fired at a few of them. When one got close I smashed it's head in with my gun.

One moved in closer and I aimed my gun and fired, only for that damn clicking sound to come out. The walker moved closer and I reached for my handgun except I ended up grabbing at my empty holster.

"Dammit Larry!" The walker reached out and grabbed me and knocked me on my ass.

I fended it off with my shotgun and fought back the vomit when it breathed its wretched breath into my nose. In our struggle I managed to work the bottom of my foot under its stomach and managed to kick it off.

I quickly pulled out my nightstick and bashed its damn brains out. I didn't have time to take a breath or load a shell before more of them crawled out after me. I quickly threw my stuff in the truck and slammed the door behind me.

I fumbled with the keys trying to get the right one into the ignition. I could hear their moans, feel them bumping into the sides and the screeching of their nails scratching against the glass. I finally found the right key and started the damn truck up.

I sped through all of these undead bastards and towards my friends. I pulled up and opened up all of the doors for them. They didn't waste a second before piling boxes into the back of my truck. I kept glancing back at the walkers as they slowly approached us. Once Lee got the last box in, he and I started to tie it down with bungee cables.

"You guys, they're coming!"

I looked back and saw that the walkers were approaching us. I quickly smashed my nightstick into an oncoming walker's skull that was creeping up behind me. I didn't kill it, as it was still twitching on the ground.

It clawed at me, causing me to jumped back right into a walker. Its rotten hands gripped me and my heart was racing at the thought of being bitten. It snarled in my ear, but I managed to shove the stick in its mouth, keeping it from biting me.

I was starting to lose control and could feel its teeth get closer to my throat. Lee rushed over and struck it in the back of its skull with his ax. I quickly pushed the now truly deceased carcass off of me and got the hell in the truck.

I sped off out of the air base and back to the inn without a single glance back.

We made it back at the motor inn and started unloading the food. Larry and Kenny had cleared a room out for our food storage. The furniture we put outside in the lot and the rest for barricading the lots entrances.

I looked over at Clementine who had her arms locked around Lee's waist. I had to smile at that. I guess Lee isn't that blood thirsty killer the boys at the precinct had made him out to be. Larry and Lily were still annoying pains in the ass.

The only people I could tolerate were Kenny and his family, Carley and our new friend Mark. On the ride over Mark told us how he use to work at the air base and how he handled the food and shipping departments.

Lily was uneasy about bringing along another mouth to feed, but Lee and I convinced her that he was the reason we could feed those mouths at all. So, she swallowed her attitude and allowed him to be a part of our group.

The next day we fixed up the wall that sealed up the lot. We used some of the dumpsters and couches to barricade the place. Things got a little better when I found some barbed wire in the back of truck.

Lee gave me a hand setting up the wire along the perimeter the next morning.

"Thanks again Lee." I said as we tied the wire to the dumpsters. "It's a pain in the ass to do this by myself."

"No problem." He smiled. "Besides, if it gets Larry off my ass it'll be worth it."

"Larry can go to hell." I snapped. "You've done more to keep this group together than him or Lily."

"Yeah, I can't say I blame her for her attitude." He said in a sympathetic tone. "That man treats her as bad as me. He acts like he loves her and respects her every choice, then he completely disregards her when it's something he doesn't want to hear." He looked over at Lily who was perched up on the RV with her rifle on her lap. I looked at Lee and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"At least Clementine doesn't have that problem." I reassured. He turned towards me with a confused look.

"She isn't my daughter though." He stated a little defensively. I shrugged my shoulders.

"You could have fooled me. I'm just saying that I am glad that you found her and not him."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

We fished up with the wire and I called it a day.

Later at dinner time, we all sat in the lot around a fire. I noticed Lily had given us small portions of the food supply. The kids got some snack packs, Mark had some fruit for his low metabolism and the rest of us got some assorted snacks. Kenny looked down at his granola bar and scowled at Lily.

"You want to tell me why we are getting a snack instead of a meal?" He snapped. Lily didn't look up from the fire and her face still held that tired expression.

"We have to conserve food Kenny." She deadpanned, eating her fruit cup. Kenny got up from his chair and made his way to the food room. Sensing that a fight was about to erupt, I quickly stood up in front of Kenny.

"Kenny, she is right." I started. He was still marching forward. "We need to be conservative. It's only temporary until we get more food and figure out our next move."

He seemed to calm down a bit, especially when Lee walked up next to him.

"Kenny, he has a point." Lee said, sticking up for me. "Plus you said that you wanted to leave and go find your boat or something like that."

"What?" Lily asked. She quickly got up from her seat and walked towards us. "What do you mean leaving and what boat?"

"We pack up what we can and head off towards Savannah." Kenny argued. He and Lily were now face to face. Larry of course got up to defend his daughter. "Then we head to the pier and find a boat."

"And then what?" Lily snapped, Kenny didn't answer, not that he had any time before Lily bombardment him with more questions. "Let me guess, we go out into the middle of the ocean, run out of gas and then we starve to death?"

"Well what the hell are we going to do here?" He snapped back. "What's here that's so important?"

"It's safe!"

"We're sitting ducks out here in the open. Even if we do stay here we'll all just be dinner for the walkers!"

"Enough!" I shouted. I got everyone's attention after that. "Look first of all we don't even have a car, second of all Kenny is right. This place is good for now, but walkers or some sort of bandits will come here and gun us down. Third, Lily is right, we can't just run off an strand ourselves in the middle of nowhere. We need a real plan."

"He has a point you guys." Lee said. "We can't stay here forever and we can't just run away. So let's be conservative with our food and figure out our next move."

Kenny and Lily met eyes and they were still pissed off at each other, but they calmed themselves down and sat back down around the fire.

We got nothing solved.

Frustrated, I stormed off to my room.

"Devon."

I looked over at Kenny who was leaning on the hood of the RV. His arms were crossed and his expression was calm, so he wasn't looking for a fight.

"What's up Kenny?" I walked over to him, and he popped open the hood of the truck.

"This RV is in pretty good condition. It could hold us all and get us to Savannah with a little work of course." The engine didn't look too bad and our cars were busted up pretty bad.

"Sounds good, my tire popped and your truck stalled out didn't it?"

"Yeah…look I get where you are coming from alright?" He sighed before closing the hood. "I'm just looking out for my family."

"Yeah…It's not like I have anyone to look after anymore." I grumbled. Kenny patted me on the shoulder.

"Hey, we'll look out for each other. In the meantime I'm gonna need a hand with this truck." I smiled and nodded.

"Sure."

(Three Months Later)

Food was running low and tension was rising. Fall was upon us, judging from the color of the leaves. We decided to go hunting this morning. We needed some real food aside from the nibbles Lily handed out to us and even then there were still some of us going on a day without food.

Kenny, Lee, Mark and I would go out today in search for food. Larry said he would keep working on the wall, Lily would keep watch and Carley and Katjaa would watch the kids.

It would be a simple day, hopefully. When the four of us made it deeper into the woods we made our move.

"Okay so no shooting unless you have to and the key to hunting is patience." My dad took me hunting a lot when I was a kid so I knew what I was talking about. "Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut."

"Yeah, you got it." Mark nodded as she walked off with his rifle.

"Stay safe." Lee said as he shouldered his ax.

"Let's go Kenny, we're burning daylight." I cocked my shotgun and we made our way into the forest.

While we walked my old cop instincts were telling me that something eerie was lurking in this forest. My instincts were right when I saw a few broken arrows and shell casings lying next to large, freshly made blood stains. I knew we weren't alone in this forest.