Shane makes sure to listen to the girl as she moves around the upper floor with her backpack, and he listens to the shower turn on after she closes and locks the bathroom door. He waits in the living room for an hour before the shower turns off, and the bathroom door opens again. Steam drifts into the hallway, the light turns off, and the girl steps out with a towel wrapped around her head. She's wearing one of Beth's white tank tops and a long-sleeve flannel shirt and dark blue jeans. She pauses when she looks at Shane, but then she moves to sit on the chair near the window. The girl unravels the towel from her head and a stream of curly red hair falls pass her shoulders. She leans over to dry her locks with the towel.
"Why didn't you leave with the group that was here? Were you hurt or something?" she asks as she continues to towel-dry her hair.
"Yeah, I was hurt. I'm still recovering."
Shane rubs his palms together to warm his hands, and he looks at the girl, noticing how different she looks now that she's clean. He remembers when he used to do his police training and he had to go through the obstacle course. He didn't look too pretty after a few runs, either.
"How did you get hurt?"
She whips her head back and she wraps the towel around her shoulders to make sure that her hair doesn't make her clothes wet. She rocks back and forth on the chair, watching him.
Shane lies again.
"The walkers were coming and Rick got scared, so he accidentally shot me. He grazed my thigh and he couldn't carry me, so I got left behind."
The girl scoffs, shaking her head.
"And you called this man your best friend? I wouldn't leave my best friend behind."
"Yeah, well, people do stupid things when they're afraid."
That comment is more about him than it is about Rick.
"Since you're coming with me tomorrow, are we going to leave early?" she stops rocking in her chair and she pulls out a bottle of fingernail polish from her pocket. She slides the rocking chair a little to the left to the moonlight shine on the table.
She places her foot on the edge of the table and she starts to paint her toenails.
"We can leave as early as six o'clock," Shane stares at her. "Are you actually painting your toenails?"
"Well, I'm certainly not planting seeds, Farmer Shane," she retorts.
"I see that shower washed away the dirt and sweat, but it didn't wash away that attitude of yours," and Shane fires back at her.
The girl gives him the dirtiest look and then she continues to paint her toenails.
The two of them sit in silence for several minutes and Shane rises from the couch, stretching.
"I usually sleep on the couch, but tonight, I'm gonna be sleeping in the bedroom with you. And before you get the wrong idea because you think I'm some pedophile, I'll sleep in the chair while you sleep in the bed. I don't trust you to wander the house while I'm asleep."
She begins to paint her other set of toenails, concentrating on the task at hand.
"In that case, you're going to have to wait 10 minutes until my toenails dry and then we get head upstairs to sleep."
Slightly annoyed, Shane sits back down on the couch and he looks at the magazines on the table with distaste. He begins to strum his fingers on the armrest.
"Where were you and your mother headed before you two got separated?"
"We were heading to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Georgia, but I told her that it was a bullshit plan."
"Hey, watch your mouth," he scolds her.
"Or what, you're going to ground me? You're not my father, Shane. My father was some asshole that decided to bang our neighbor, and he decided to divorce my mom and leave us when I was twelve years old. I don't want another father in my life."
Shane shifts in his seat, more than a little irritated by her attitude at this point. Instead of responding, he goes quiet and he tries to calm himself down before he speaks again.
"I was at the CDC with the group before we came here to the farm," he nips at his finger as he stares into the empty hearth. "It's gone."
The girl finishes painting her toenails and she closes the fingernail polish before she grabs a magazine off the pile and then she starts to fan her feet.
"I knew my mother should have listened to me. I told her it was a stupid idea, but she still wanted to go. I wanted to go the other way," she sounds annoyed, but she looks at the boarded up window to her left. She thinks about her mother, who's out there in the dark, lost somewhere.
"She must be sleeping in a car or hiding out in a house somewhere," Shane guesses at what she's thinking, so he tries to comfort her. "If your mother is like you in any way, I'm sure she can take care of herself."
"Then you obviously don't know my mother. She'd probably ask you how many shotgun shells go into a pistol."
The girl places her foot back on the table and she softly touches her big toenail. The coating doesn't move and her fingers remain dry.
"Okay, we can go upstairs now."
She tosses the magazine back onto the pile and she walks pass Shane and then she heads down the hallway to head upstairs again. He follows her a few steps behind.
Once they're inside of Hershel's bedroom, he closes the door and he pushes the horizontal dresser in front of it. The girl, a little on edge, takes a few steps away from him and she stands near the window. Shane turns to look at her and he moves to sit down on the chair on the other side of the room.
"It's been a long day for me and I'm sure it's been a long day for you. I just wanna sleep. Don't you?"
She looks at him and then she moves to pull the sheets back on the bed. She hugs a pillow to her chest before lying down on her side, her back facing away from him.
Shane leans over to open the middle drawer of the vertical dresser to take out a gun. He gets up from the chair and he walks over to her, holding it out for her to take.
"Here, take it. It's obvious that you still don't trust me, so you can tuck this gun underneath your pillow and sleep with it," he reveals the clip to show her that it has rounds in it and that it's ready to fire. "At this point, you could kill me and take all of my supplies, but I'm trusting you not to do that, so here."
She hesitantly takes the gun and she looks at it.
By the time she looks up again, Shane is covering himself with a blanket and he's trying to get comfortable on the chair.
"Annie," she murmurs.
"What?" Shane pauses and he turns his head to look over his shoulder.
"You wanted to know my name. My name is Annie."
He slowly nods and then he rests his head down.
"Nice to meet you, Annie. Sweet dreams."
Hours later, Shane stirs in his chair and he stretches his leg out to touch the floor. He yawns and his eyes water before he opens them. When he looks at the bed, he notices that Annie is out of it and the dresser is pushed away from the door enough for her to have slipped out into the hallway.
Shane flips the blanket off of him and he heads out of the bedroom to run downstairs.
When he runs into the kitchen, he pauses in the doorway when he sees Annie sitting at the table, eating some toast.
She stares at him, unblinking.
"Oh, you thought I left," she wipes the crumbs off her mouth and then she nods her head at the other plate with two pieces of toast on it. "I hope you don't mind that I 'made' some breakfast. I was hungry and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't get far without some food in us."
Shane sighs, leaning against the doorframe.
"Are you sure your momma didn't try to lose you on purpose?"
He softly laughs and then he enters the kitchen to join her at the table.
A few bites into his toast, he gets up from the table and he starts gathering cans of food and water like he promised.
"Where were you when you last say your momma? Was it far from here?"
"I walked about 5 miles to get here. We were staying at a post office off the main road and she went out to get supplies like usual. She was late, though, and then those things starting knocking on the windows, so I think they must have seen or heard me. They broke through one of the windows, so I had to get out of there. I couldn't wait for my mom because they chased me away from there. I just ran and I ran until I saw a mailbox with the word 'Greene' painted on it."
She shrugs her shoulders after explaining and then she scratches her head.
Her sleeve droops down her forearm and Shane notices that she's wearing a bracelet. He remembers seeing it on her wrist.
"Nice bracelet."
Annie glances at her wrist and then she starts helping Shane put the cans of food into another backpack, one of Maggie's old ones.
"Thanks. I made one for my mom and I when I was in school two years ago. It's stupid, but I'm used to having it on my wrist, so I just keep it there. My mom still wears hers, too."
Shane finishes packing the backpack and then he zips it up. He eats the rest of his toast, and he dusts the crumbs off his hands before he offers her a bottle of water. He squints his eyes, moving the board aside to look out the window. There are three walkers in the yard, but only three.
"The sun is rising. We should head out now. Do you still have the gun?"
"Yes," she holds it up to show him and Shane nods his head.
"Good, you can use that to protect yourself when we're out there. But don't shoot unless you really have to. Your ammo is limited and the shots will only bring more of them to you, so you better use it wisely."
"Yeah, I think I'll just stick with my hatchet. It's quieter and I'm used to it."
Annie tucks the gun behind her and then she unzips her backpack to pull out her hatchet. She shoulders her backpack and Shane shoulders the other one with the supplies.
They head outside to the truck in the back of the house, and Shane places the backpack on the floor near Annie's feet. She shuts and locks the door after she puts her seatbelt on.
She looks out the window at the corpses that roam the front yard, and Shane starts the truck and then he drives away.
About a mile down the road, Shane glances over at Annie.
"Have you ever played a game called 'I Spy' before?"
She tucks an unruly red curl behind her ear, looking at him.
"No."
"Perfect, alright. I'm gonna teach you how to play that game right now. First, you look around you and then you spot something up ahead. Second, you begin your sentence with, 'I spy' and then you say whatever it is you're looking at and the person has to guess what it is. For example, you see that red van up ahead? I'd say; I spy something red. You'd look in front of you and then you guess a fire hydrant or your hair or you'd say that van. If you guess correctly, you get a point. And we switch back and forth, of course. You get it?"
"We're seriously not going to play this right now, are we?" she raises her eyebrow, looking at him.
"You got a better way to pass time?" he raises his eyebrow back at her and then Annie sighs. "Yeah, I figured. Okay, you go first."
She thumps her head against the seat and she turns to the side to watch the streets signs blur pass her. She leans up to look forward and she starts searching for something.
"I spy something pink."
Shane squints his eyes and he leans from left to right, trying to find what she's seeing.
"I can't see any… That jacket on the side of the road, the one near the flat tire."
"And we have a winner. I guess that means it's your turn now."
Annie shakes her head, but there's a small smile on her face.
"I spy something yellow."
Shane leans back and he drives a little slower, giving her a chance to see what he's seeing. He glances at her, wondering if she's going to be able to get it before they pass it.
"There's, like, nothing yellow."
He points to the left and there's a yield sign on the grass in between the two roads. Annie leans over to look at it and then she leans back.
"You're such a cheater! I couldn't even see it from here."
"Two points for me, no points for you. Your turn."
Annie folds her arms and she taps her finger on her bicep, looking at what she has to use in front of her. There's not much, nothing that wouldn't be too obvious or too broad.
Instead, she turns to look at Shane.
"I spy a cheater."
He looks at her, amused.
"Really now? If that's the case, then I spy a spoiled loser."
Annie playfully pushes his arm, but then she looks at the road just in time to warn him.
"Shane!"
He turns his attention back to the road and before he can step on the breaks, the truck rams into a walker and they swerve, breaking through the guardrail on the right. The truck rushes down a hill and into the woods and then they hit a tree.
Everything goes black.
Annie opens her eyes to the sound of a car horn wailing and she touches her wrist, feeling it throb with pain. She clenches her teeth, hugging her hand to her chest.
"Shane," her voice is tense.
He's unconscious and leaning against the steering wheel, so Annie touches his shoulder and she leans him back. The car horn stops wailing.
"Shane. Shane! Wake up!" she shakes him, but he doesn't open his eyes.
Annie touches his neck to search for his pulse and thankfully; she finds one. He's not bleeding anywhere, surprisingly, so she's the only one that's visibly hurt.
Beside her, a walker starts to bang on her window and it makes her jump. Annie keeps her arm against her chest and then she reaches down to pick up her hatchet. The windows are shattered and there's smoke coming out from under the hood, but nothing smells like it's burning.
How much longer before more walkers find them? She has to get them out of here if she can. If not, she's going to have to wait until Shane wakes up and pray that nothing else heard the horn.
Carefully, she rolls the window down just enough to slide the blade of the hatchet out and then she swipes it at it. The walker lifts its rotting arm off and it knocks the hatchet out of Annie's hand. With the window being partially shattered, it starts to crack under the extra pressure.
The walker presses and presses, and the glass falls away from the door. Annie screams and she leans back, using her feet to keep it away from her.
"Shane!" she presses her back against his arm and with the struggling and the yelling, Shane slowly opens his eyes and then he acts.
He gets out of the car, which makes Annie land on the seat and she keeps kicking at the walker. Shane clumsily runs around to the other side and he pulls the walker away from the door. The corpse lands on the slope of the hill and then Shane crushes its head.
Still spooked and disheveled, Annie slowly leans up to look out the window and she brushes her hair away from her face.
"Are you okay? Did it bite you? Scratch you?"
Shane walks over to her door and he picks the hatchet from the ground. Offering it back to her, Annie wraps her fingers around its handle and she leans back.
"No… No, it…"
Noticing the tone in her voice, Shane touches the back of her hand.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. It's dead," he smiles, shrugging his shoulders, "Well, it's deader."
Annie softly laughs and then it quickly dies when she sees the bushes rustle in front of the car. She touches the dashboard, tensing up. Shane follows her line of sight, and he removes the knife from his belt. A walker emerges from the bushes and he touches its chest before stabbing it in the head. It falls on the ground and then it rolls down the hill.
"We need to get out of here, Shane. The car is wrecked and it probably made enough noise to draw walkers to us. We need to find another car to use on the highway and get out of here."
Annie opens the door and she jumps out with the backpacks. Shane looks at the hood of the car and he knows that he doesn't have to crouch down to see that the belly of the car is gutted. He can smell gasoline leaking from it, and where there's smoke, there's possibly a fire.
"You're right. Come on, we best get moving."
He takes the backpacks from her hand he slings both of them around his shoulder. Annie and Shane head up the hill to the highway, and he ducks down when he sees three walkers roaming nearby. He holds his finger up to his lips, silently telling Annie to remain quiet. He nods to the blue car on the left and she follows him to it.
"Start checking to see if any doors are open, search for car keys. If you find one, call me over."
"We're going to separate?"
"You got a faster way for us to find a working car?"
Annie looks at him and she takes a deep breath.
"Fine."
Their steps are soft and their breathing is softer. Shane crouches beside a door and he looks underneath the car to watch a walker stagger pass him. He leans back up to try the door, but it's locked. He wipes a bead of sweat away from his eye, and he keeps moving.
About half an hour goes by, and Shane runs over to Annie. She slowly moves to sit down and she thumps her back against a car's tire.
"I take it you haven't found anything."
"Some cars were unlocked, but I couldn't find any keys. I don't wanna mess with the wires because a car can sputter. It won't be worth it."
He sighs, looking in the direction that they came from.
"We're more than two miles away from the farm. There's a working car there and we should go back for it. I don't want us to be out in the open like this, especially in this kind of heat. These supplies are you for and your momma. It won't be any good if we use it now."
Annie looks at the blade of the hatchet and she slightly turns her wrist to let the curve of her weapon catch the sunlight. It glares back at her.
"Look, I know you wanna get back, but we need to be smart about this. If we return to the farm early enough and there's still light, we can come back tonight. We just need a vehicle that works and more supplies for this trip. Does that sound good to you?"
She's about to agree with him, but then she starts running in the opposite direction. She bangs on the top of the cars as she passes them. The walkers, one after the other, begin to turn their dead eyes on the person making the noise.
"I'll draw them away, while you wire a car!"
Shane watches in horror, eyes wide and full of worry. The last thing he wants is to watch her get devoured by those things, but he can't run after her. He has no choice but to do as she says. He swings the car door open and then he sits inside.
He reaches under the steering wheel to snap open the plastic panel and then he glances down to look for the right wires. There are three different colored wires that are stuck together. One is for the lights and cruise control, the other for the wipers and seat warmers, and the last one is for the battery and the ignition.
Knowing very well that messing with the wrong wires will get him electrocuted, he tries to remember what he learned. Most battery wires are red, while the ignition wires are brown. After some careful choosing and manipulation, he's able to get the engine to start. He pounds his fist against the steering wheel and then he begins to maneuver his way around the other cars to get back to Annie.
After pushing a few cars aside with the front and back of his car, he sees Annie standing on top of an overturned school bus. She's surrounded by a dozen walkers and more are headed her way.
"Annie," he shouts at her as he sticks his arm out the window and waves it.
He steps on the gas and then he proceeds to ram four walkers out of his way. He sticks his head out the window to look up.
"Jump on the hood of the car and slip into the backseat window, hurry!"
She does as she's told and when she's safely inside of the car, she moves to sit in the passenger's seat. The back window closes and then Shane drives away.
Annie, breathing hard from the excitement, looks over at Shane with big eyes. He glances at her with the same wild, adrenaline-fueled gaze, but he doesn't say anything. He's feeling angry and relieved at the same time. He can't talk, so he just drives.
When they return to the farmhouse, it's almost mid-afternoon. Shane gets out of the car and he removes his keys from his pocket to unbolt the lock on the back door to let themselves back inside. Once they step into the cool, dusty-darkness, Shane locks the door again. With one hand on his hip and the other hand over his mouth, he turns to look at Annie.
"Girl, are you out of your damn mind? I don't care what happens next time, you are not to do that again. You understand me? Because as long as you're away from your momma, that makes you my responsibility."
Annie stares at him and then she walks around him to look out through the crack of the kitchen window. She thinks about her mother, rubbing her naked wrist.
"Maybe I should leave then, try to find my mother by myself. Because I'm not going to stop doing what I want to do because it makes you nervous," she turns around, green eyes twinkling.
"Don't get lippy with me, you almost got yourself killed three times since I met you! You think that you can survive out there on your own? Think again."
"Whatever, I don't need your charity. And it's no wonder why you were ditch by your best friend," the words are out of her mouth before she can stop them. Shane tenses up, remembering what really happened that night, and he turns away.
Annie turns away as well, knowing that what she said was harsh.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I'm just worried about my mom," her voice soft.
"No, you did mean it," Shane rubs the back of his head. "It ain't always one or the other."
He softly chuckles, showing her that he's alright. But God, does he want to tell her what really happened. Annie is young, but she understands what this world has become. She understands what people have become.
Maybe that's not what matters the most here. What if Shane tells Annie and she finds him untrustworthy? What if she runs away during the night and he finds her roaming the front yard as a walker the next morning? He's been living with so many things already. He wouldn't be able to live with that.
"I know you ain't eager to waste time, but I think we should make time. If your momma's smart as you, she'd know to stay close to where you were and come back to check every day to see if you've returned. I knew a woman that did the same thing."
"Yeah?" Annie thinks about it. "Did she find her child?"
Shane remembers how that turned out, but he nods his head.
"Yeah, she found her daughter," he answers, even though he doesn't state that she was found dead. That was a horrible day, not only for Carol, but for everyone else, too. They lost Jacqui, Jim and others, but this was a little girl. She was the symbol of innocence and naivety. In this world, if you keep your innocence and naivety, you pay the ultimate price by dying.
Some think it's better to die that way, while others will sacrifice anything to stay alive.
Anything.
"Being out there in the dark is dangerous, even with flashlights and a working car. I say we stay in tonight, gorge on food, and get to bed early. We can leave even earlier than we did yesterday. How does that sound?" he tilts his head with a smile.
Annie puckers her lips, blowing a lock of hair away from her face.
"I guess that's cool with me. I'm hungry again and my head hurts a little. Do we have medicine around here?" she touches the side of her head, wincing.
Shane nods his head and he opens the cabinet to grab a bottle of pills. He places it on the table with a bottle of water and then he walks around, collecting cans of food and spoons.
Once the cans are opened and Shane is seated on the table and the pills have entered Annie's system, she's staring at the jar of peanut butter. Her eyes are distant.
"I miss my job," Shane breaks the silence. "It wasn't exciting all the time. Sometimes, Rick and I would just sit in our patrol car for hours, talking about the good old days before we joined the force. We'd eat junk food until our stomachs were sore."
"That sounds like my type of job," Annie smiles as she retrieves her spoon from the jar of peanut butter. "You're still kind of doing your job. I'm sure someone came to you with a missing person's case. My mom is missing and you're helping me find her."
Shane slowly nods his head, realizing that she's right.
"You're a wise girl, Annie. Real wise."
He strums his fingers on the tabletop with a smile on his face and then he abruptly leaves the kitchen. Annie leans over to see where he's going and she can hear his heavy feet heading up the stairs to the second floor. She leans back, stirring the contents of the open can with her spoon.
A few moments later, Shane returns to the kitchen and he thuds a bottle of whiskey down on the tabletop. He sits back down, pulling the bottle closer to him, so that he can open it.
"Found it on a run a few weeks ago. Thank God nothing happened to it when the place was overrun," he pours the golden liquid into two glasses.
Shane slides one glass over to Annie and he pulls his glass closer to him.
"You ever try whiskey before? Doubt you have," he swirls the whiskey in his glass and he takes a gulp of it, not even wincing. Annie huffs, annoyed by Shane's assumption, even though he's right. Her mother would never allow her to try it.
"No, but I heard it's gross," she eyes the glass. "But I guess I'll try it. I doubt I'll survive long enough to turn twenty-one, so I might as well enjoy myself now."
Shane slightly frowns at her pessimism, but he doesn't comment on it because he understands how hard it is to remain hopeful in a world like this.
Annie tips the glass to her lips and she coughs, cringing at the taste.
"God, that's terrible," she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and she stares at the glass as if it insulted her. Shane reaches over to grab it, but Annie pulls the glass farther from his reach. "I said it's terrible. I didn't say that I didn't want to keep drinking it."
He laughs, liking her attitude. He raises his glass to her and Annie raises her glass back. They take small sips for the rest of the evening until it's completely dark outside. When Shane glances at the clock, it's 9:47PM.
"Hey, look, if we're gonna be up early tomorrow, we should hit the hay."
"Oh, come on. Just a little more?"
Annie holds up her glasses and Shane hesitates, considering it, but he shakes his head.
"I think you've had enough for one night. Never thought I'd say that to anyone, but since this is your first time drinking, I don't know how it's gonna hit you tomorrow. You might not be right enough to go out there. You know, unless you could vomit on those things," Shane nods to the hallway. "Come on, I'll help you upstairs."
The kitchen light is turned off and Shane wraps his arm around Annie's side to help her up the stairs. He walks carefully in the dark, making sure neither of them trip on something.
When he pushes the bedroom door open, he helps Annie get on the bed and he pulls the blanket over her to keep her warm. He walks over to the rocking chair, but he doesn't sit on it to get comfortable. He stares at Annie, who's already fast asleep.
Shane places his hand on his belt and he slowly unfastens it. Once it's undone, he pulls the belt from his waist and he walks over to Annie's bedside.
There was a reason he let her drink alcohol tonight.
"I'm not a bad man, Annie," he whispers before touching the side of her head.
Quietly, he steps out into the hallway and he wraps his bed around the knob and he wraps the other end around the railing to keep the door shut. In case something gets into the house, it won't be able to get to her. The last thing he wants is for her to wander out into the dark hallway and fall down the stairs because she's still drunk.
Shane heads downstairs to grab a flashlight and two knives from the kitchen drawer, knowing that they'll be more effective than using a gun in the middle of the night. After he arms himself, he pulls on a jacket and then he heads outside to the car.