It takes him awhile to get back to the road, but when he does, he parks off to the side and he takes a few deep breaths before he gets out of the car. He glances around him and then he turns the flashlight on, facing the bright beam to the ground.
Shane is here to find the bracelet that Annie lost.
He knows how important it was to her and he couldn't sneak out of the house unless she's was knocked out. He didn't want to give her sleeping pills because there's a chance that she could have had an allergic reaction to it. Shane also realizes that leaving her alone wasn't the smartest idea, either, but he's under the assumption that this won't take him that long. The bracelet has to be here somewhere. He remembers where she was before she lost it.
Half an hour goes by and three walkers have been killed during that time. He's becoming more nervous being out in the open like this, in the dark, but he's determined to find that bracelet.
Searching slower, he shines the flashlight on empty water bottles, discarded shoes, bullet casings and…
There's a gnawing sound, the sound of a walker eating someone or something's flesh. Shane moves the flashlight up the walker's leg to its head and it turns around with flesh dangling from its mouth. It snarls, slowly turning its body to stand.
Shane almost stumbles back, but he grabs the walker by its arm and he twirls it to the ground. He kneels down on top of it and then he starts bashing it with the flashlight.
The beam of light turns an off-red when the blood from the walker coats the front of the flashlight and when the walker goes limp, Shane gets up to shine the light on what or who it was eating.
The woman softly sobs, her cheek and shoulder and stomach are exposed, bleeding and raw.
"Please… Help… Please, help me," she reaches out for Shane, and he takes her hand to hold it.
The flashlight shakes in his other hand and with a sickening discovery, he notices a red bracelet around her wrist.
"Hey, hey. Where did you get this bracelet? Did you… Did you find it?"
The woman weakly shakes her head.
"No… My daughter made…" her voice weak. "My daughter made this… She made this for me."
Shane stares at her with wide eyes and he glances over his shoulder when he hears movement in the distance.
"Hey. Hey! Stay with me, alright? Annie, is your daughter's name Annie?"
She slowly tilts her head, trying to lift it.
"You know her? She's… She's alive?" there's relief in her voice.
"Yeah, yeah. She's staying with me in a farmhouse down the road. She's sleeping in a bed right now, stomach full of food and she's warm. Safe."
The woman weakly squeezes his hand.
"Look, you and I both know that there's no coming back from this, so I'll promise you that I'll do whatever it takes to keep your baby girl safe, alright? I'll keep her safe for as long as I can," Shane knows that she doesn't have much long before she dies. He knows that she won't be dead for very long, either.
"Thank… Thank you," she murmurs and then she lies still.
Shane continues to hold her hand and he shuts the flashlight off to conceal him in darkness. He slowly leans back against the car behind him and he sinks down to the ground.
Annie's mother was finally found, but he didn't want to find her like this. What is he going to tell her? Shane looks at the bracelet around her wrist and he let's go of her hand to take it off. He stuffs the bracelet in his pocket and then he unsheathes his knife.
"I'm sorry."
After Shane makes sure that Annie's mother doesn't come back, he removes his coat to cover her upper body with it. He carefully lifts her up and he places her on his shoulder.
Knife draw, Shane makes his way back to his car, which is about a mile away.
As he walks, he shines the flashlight on the ground and then he pauses when something red catches his eye. He reaches down to pick it up and when he turns his hand over, he sees that it's Annie's bracelet.
Shane sighs, closing his eyes for a moment.
He continues to walk until he reaches his car again and then he places Annie's mother in the backseat. He gets into his car and he begins to drive back to the farmhouse.
What a terrible night.
A loud banging from upstairs wakes Shane up and he falls off the couch in the living room. The corner of the table catches the side of his head, so he squeezes his eyes shut before he moves to stand up.
"Shane? Shane, are you out there? Why am I trapped in here?" Annie calls out from upstairs.
"Shit," realizing that he left the belt tied to the door, he runs upstairs to free Annie.
When the belt is untied from the railing, it dangles from the knob when Annie swings the door open. She looks pale and there's a faint smell of vomit coming from somewhere in the room.
Annie blinks her eyes, looking him over.
"What the hell happened to you? You're covered in blood and you smell horrible," she pinches her nose, cringing at the smell that comes from his clothes.
Shane, collapsing from exhaustion on the couch last night, forgot to change out of his dirty clothes. He takes a step back, rubbing the forming bump on the side of his head.
"I think we should talk about that over breakfast. There's something that I need to tell you, too. It's important and you should be sitting down for it," he sighs, remembering the reason why he used to hate being a sheriff deputy.
On rare instances, he'd have to visit certain people to tell them that their loved one was dead. He'd have to see them crumble to the floor or act stoic as if what he said didn't get to them yet. The emotionless people were the worst ones.
"But first, I'm gonna change outta these clothes. Mind getting me some clean clothes? They're in the drawer over there."
Shane heads into the bathroom and he leaves the door ajar as he gets undressed.
He paces as Annie goes to collect the clothes. He's given bad news like this to many, many people before, so why should this be any different? Maybe it's because he made a promise to her mother. He's never made that many promises before. In fact, the last promise he made was to…
"Here, and give me your dirty clothes. I don't want it to stink up the bathroom," Annie holds out a stack of clean clothes and Shane takes it before he gives her his dirty clothes.
Annie walks over to the hamper to drop them in there and she does what many people do before they discard their clothes to be washed. She checks the pockets of his jeans to make sure nothing is in there.
Her fingers brush against something, so she pulls it out.
The jeans fall to the ground, tipping the hamper over, and she stares at the red bracelet in her hand. Annie feels a surge of nauseous hit her stomach and she almost throws up again, but instead, she walks over to the bed and she reaches underneath her pillow to pull out a gun.
She aims it at the door, simply waiting for Shane to emerge.
"I think you and I need to go clothes shopping, eventually, because what we got to use, it ain't too flattering. I'm sure the dead don't mind, though," he opens the door and steps out with a smile, and the smile slowly falters when he sees Annie pointing the gun at him.
He's about to open his mouth, but Annie answers him by tossing the bracelet on the floor. It slides to his toes and he closes his eyes, leaning his muscular shoulder against the frame.
"Annie, I can explain."
"I bet you can. You're a former deputy sheriff. I'm sure you've convinced many people to lower their weapons during hostage negotiations before, but I doubt there's anything you can say that will convince me not to shoot you."
Shane pushes himself away from the frame and he puts his hands on his hips.
"Girl, if that were the case, then I'd already have a bullet in me."
Annie clicks the hammer down and then her gaze intensifies.
Shane tenses up, knowing better than to tease the bull when it's already eager to charge. He hangs his head, seeing no other way out of this situation other than telling Annie the truth.
"After you passed out last night, I went back to the road to find your bracelet because I know how much it meant to you. You told me that it reminded you of your relationship with your mother," he sighs, not eager to continue the story. "Well, I was out there for almost an hour before I stumbled across a walker eating something on the road. I killed it and then I discovered that it wasn't eating something, but someone."
Annie falters, slightly lowering the gun.
"It was your momma, Annie. I'm so goddamn sorry."
The gun falls from her hand and she grips the frame of the bed as her knees begin to wobble. Shane comes over to help her move to the chair and she covers her face with her hand.
"Are you sure… Are you sure it was her?" Annie's eyes fill with tears as she looks up at him.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. She was still alive when I found her and I saw the bracelet on her wrist. I asked her if you were her daughter and she said that you were."
Annie covers her face with her hands again, crying this time.
"And I made a promise to her, Annie, that I'll do whatever I can to keep you safe, so that's what I'm gonna do," he tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear when she leans up to look at him. "I didn't wanna tell you like this, but since I had a gun on me, I didn't really have a choice."
He softly laughs, trying to lighten the mood and get her mind off the bad news. He manages to get a quick smile from her.
"Come on, let's get downstairs and get something to eat. There's a jar of peanut butter and Nutella with your name on it."
Before Shane turns away, Annie stands up and she wraps her arms around his torso and buries her face into his chest. Taken aback by this, Shane feels confused as to what to do at first, but then he moves his arms around her.
"Thank you, Shane. Thank you for going out there to look for my bracelet," she looks up at him. "Because if you didn't, you wouldn't have found my mom. I wouldn't be able to leave this place because I wouldn't want to leave her. But now we can if we need to because I know where she is now. She's… She's dead."
Annie takes a deep breath and then she steps away from Shane. She rubs her eye and she reaches down to pick the bracelet up off the floor. Together, they head downstairs to the kitchen to get something to eat.
With red and slightly puffy eyes, Annie smears some Nutella on a slice of bread. She folds it like a taco and then she takes a bite out of it. Shane comes back from the living room and he places Annie's bracelet on the tabletop.
"When I was heading back to the car, I found it," he pulls his chair out and he sits down. "And there is something else that I have to tell you."
Annie places the piece of bread down on the napkin and she lowers her head, almost expecting it to be more bad news.
"Your momma, I brought her back with me. I thought we'd give her a proper burial because I didn't wanna just leave her out there."
"You… You brought her here?" Annie perks up and she glances at the hallway. "Can I see her?"
She pushes her chair back, but Shane stands before her and he shakes his head.
"You don't wanna do that, Annie. The state that I found her in… I don't want you to have to see her like that."
"That's not for you to decide," she stands up and then she heads out into the hallway to the back door. Shane sighs, following her outside.
When they're outside, Annie wordlessly glances around to see if she can spot her mother's body without having to ask Shane. She assumes that he won't tell her.
"Annie, the last time you saw your momma, what did she look like?"
Grasshoppers strum their legs in in the tall grass, flies buzz by their ears. The sun glares down at them and there's the faint smell of rotting flesh on the breeze.
"She'd always have at least two smudges of dirt on her face, no matter how many times she'd try to keep herself clean. One of the only things that she managed to keep clean and beautiful was her hair. She had curly hair, you see, and she'd always complain about how crazy it looked. But I loved it," Annie looks down at the grass. "Her eyes were green and they twinkled every time she thought of something clever or when she completed a task."
A crow flies overhead, crying out its only song, and Shane looks up at it as it stretches its wings. Its black wings look out of place among the white clouds and blue sky, but at the same time, it truly does belong there.
When Shane lowers his head, Annie is facing him and she's closer now.
"You're right, I don't want to see what happened to her. I want to remember her just the way that she was," she touches Shane's upper arm and then she turns to head back inside.
When both of them are back inside of the house, Shane sits down on the couch in the living room and he sighs, grateful to be out of the sun. Annie sits in the rocking chair near the boarded up window, biting her fingernail.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Shane reaches under the cushion of the couch and he retrieves Annie's bracelet. He tosses it to her and she clumsily catches it.
She turns her palm over and her fingers uncurl, so that she can look at it. There's a bead that has the letter A on it and there are two red strings that are woven together. When she made it, she felt like it should symbolize her connection with her mother. Now, she doesn't know what it symbolizes. Annie touches her stomach, furrowing her eyebrows.
"Something wrong?"
"No. Yes, I guess. I'm still feeling sick from drinking last night. It's weird because I didn't even drink that much. So, with that said, excuse me…"
Annie gets up to leave the room and she heads upstairs to find the trashcan.
Shane stays on the couch and he bends his knees to place his feet up on the table. He looks at the mantle, staring at a picture of Beth, Maggie and Hershel. He wonders if they made it out alive. He didn't find any remains when he cleaned up the area around the farmhouse. When he thinks about it a little more, he wonders if Lo…
In the distance, an explosion goes off and it's close enough to make the farmhouse rock. Dust falls from the ceiling, and Shane is on his feet before the ground stops shaking.
"Shane! Shane, what was that?" Annie leans over the railing with large eyes.
"I don't know, I don't know! Are you alright?"
Shane braces his hand on the mantle and then another explosion goes off.
It's not followed by silence this time. Men are shouting, there's gunfire and there's the revving of engines. Reluctantly, Shane moves to look out the boarded up window and he can see two trucks heading towards the house. He runs into the kitchen.
"Annie, grab whatever you can! People are attacking the house, so we best be gone by the time they reach us!"
Upstairs, Annie runs back into the room and she grabs a large duffel bag to fill it with medicine from the bathroom, toiletries, clothes and other supplies. After she collects as much as she can, she runs downstairs to find Shane. He's packing the backpacks with canned food, bottles of water and cutlery, mostly knives.
"Shane, what's going on? Who's attacking us?" she tries to look out the window above the sink.
"I don't know, but they'll be here any minute. I think they're holding off because they don't know how many of us are in here or if we're armed. Either way, we can't stay here anymore. It's not safe," he jams the last can of food into his backpack.
Outside, there's a spray of dirt that hits the front door and the rumbling of the engines stops. Four doors open and close, and there's the shuffling of feet.
Shane quietly moves Annie away from the kitchen window.
"I'm gonna need you to take this and hide. Whatever you hear, I don't want you to come out, even if they threaten my life. I want you to stay wherever you are and when they leave, if they do, get out and get out fast. Head for the woods, not the road. They won't be able to follow you, nor will they wanna risk their lives to follow you."
"But Shane…"
"No, stop. I need you to listen to me. I know you wanna be an adult and help me, but I promised your momma that I'd keep you safe, so that's exactly what I'm gonna do."
Annie looks into his eyes and she lowers her gaze to the gun. She takes it and then both of them look towards the front door when one of the men kick it with his boot.
"Alright, I'll hide. Just… Just stay safe, okay? I already lost my mother. I don't want to… I don't want to lose you, too."
She quickly turns and goes to find a place to hide.
Shane watches her leave, and he turns to step into the kitchen. The sunlight is momentarily blocked out when a man passes the window, and Shane quietly moves into the living room and he stands beside the front door.
A board of wood clatters on the floor as the door begins to give way, and Shane presses the front sight of firearm against the peephole.
And then he pulls the trigger.
The bullet flies through the door and it strikes its target in the head. One of the men falls to the ground and the others step back, raising their weapons in defense and fear.
"Get back, get back! Someone is in there!"
"Remember, these are the people that kidnapped Randall! Fuck it, just open fire!"
Bullets fly through the living room wall and Shane ducks behind the couch to take cover.
As wood from the wall splinters and dust rains down, little figurines are shot off the mantle, Shane clutches his gun as he thinks about the name that was mentioned.
"Randall," he shakes his head and he fires back at the men.
Suddenly, all fire ceases and Shane wiggles forward to look at the door. The wall looks like Swiss cheese, sunlight shining through the bullet-holes.
The hinges of the door creak and then it collapses on the floor. The men can't be seen, but what can be seen next makes Shane widen his eyes.
A grenade rolls into the room and Shane scrambles to his feet, attempting to make a run for it.
The grenade goes off and it sends him flying into a bookshelf in the next room. He slowly raises his head, his vision blurry as boots can be seen heading down the hallway to him and then he passes out.
"Hey, wake up," faintly, Shane can hear a voice speaking to him. "I said wake up!"
The words are followed by a strike the face and Shane is nearly knocked out of the chair he's tied to. He's definitely awake now.
Blood drips from his nose and he blinks his eyes, trying to bear the pain. His nose is still tender from the New Zealand greeting he gave the tree the night of the fire.
He spits blood out of his mouth and he looks up at the man standing in front of him.
"I'm awake."
The other two men are looking around the room, one of them knocking books off the shelf, the other looking out the window at the woods. Shane shoots a quick glance at the staircase, hoping that Annie will continue to stay hidden.
"Do you know why we're here?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do."
Shane grips the ropes that bind his wrists and hands, and they don't give him any room to free himself. He looks at the two men and then he nods his head.
"We brought Randall here, but that's only because you and your men abandoned him," Shane lies again. "And as you can see, he ain't here. He ran off with the others. You and your pals should go and look for him."
The three men look at each other, and the man in front of Shane pulls out a knife from his back pocket. He walks over to the desk and he rests his backside on it.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he speaks as he uses the tip of the knife to clean the dirt out from under his fingernails. "We were here on the night of the fire. To be more specific, we were here a few hours before the fire started, and we saw you."
The man looks up from his grooming, and Shane stares back at him. There's a look of dread on his face, queasy realization.
"Ron was hiding in the woods, waiting for one of your people to come through and we were going to take one of them, ask for a trade. But he said that he saw you go into the woods with Randall, and he said that you were the only one to come back out."
He leans away from the desk and he tucks his knife back into its sheath.
"You and I both know what kind of person Randall was. He was weak, both physically and mentally. Ron told me that he 'broke' your nose and ran off, but we know that's not what happened. It couldn't have happened. Randall wasn't the type, which is why he was left behind." he squints his eyes as he whispers. "So, what really happened to Randall?"
Shane becomes pale and he slightly rocks back and forth in the chair. He knows that Annie is still in the house somewhere, hiding, and he knows that she can probably hear all of this. She will hear all of this. Shane stomps his foot on the floor, knowing that he needs to be honest, so he tells them everything.
He tells him about the family that lived here and what he did to Otis, what he did for Carl and Lori. He tells them about how he tried to kill Rick, and he tells them about what he did to Randall. Silenced by shame and his impending doom and his judgement, Shane lowers his head.
Hiding in the hallway closet upstairs, Annie has her hand over her mouth. She did hear everything, and she doesn't know what to think or do. She can feel a breeze blow through the bottom of the closet door and she knows that there's a window open somewhere.
Annie holds the gun to her chest, thinking it over.
"Just get it over with, man. Just don't…" Shane lifts his face. "Just don't hurt the girl."
"What girl?"
The three men glance at each other, confused and alerted. At the top of the staircase, Annie is aiming her firearm at the man standing in front of Shane.
"This girl," she closes one eye and then she fires.
Blood splatters on Shane's face and the man in front of him collapses on the floor. The other two men reach for their weapons, but Annie opens fire at them. She shoots one in eye, killing him instantly, and the other in the shoulder. He drops his gun and then he falls on the floor with his hand over his shoulder.
Annie runs downstairs and she points her firearm at the man with a trembling hand. With a slight amount of pressure, she pulls the trigger and then man falls still. The gun falls from her hand and she backs up when she realizes what she's done. She takes a deep breath before she turns to cut Shane free from the chair.
Once Shane is free, he immediately turns to gather Annie into his arms. He straightens up as he hugs her, which causes her feet to hover nine inches off the floor. Once he sets Annie back down on her feet, he touches her shoulders and he levels his gaze with hers.
"I'm sorry that I wasn't honest about what I did, but I wasn't ready to talk about it and frankly, I was afraid that if I told you, you'd run off because you'd think that I was unhinged."
"No, I get it. To be honest, I did consider leaving, but I couldn't."
He doesn't ask why because he knows. She's all he has left and he's all she has left.
Annie tucks a lock of her hair behind her ear and she looks at the blood that's surrounding their feet. Shane looks around at the fallen bodies, and he walks over to the one closest to him to search his pockets.
"I'm sorry you had to do this. Was this your…" he hates even having to ask this. "Was this your first time killing someone?"
He puts a few bullets into his back pocket and he rubs his left wrist, attempting to soothe the friction that the rope caused. Annie walks over to the man that she shot in the eye and she nudges his side with the tip of her boot.
"No, I've had to kill people before. My mom could never pull the trigger, so I had to in order to keep us safe."
Shane sighs as he straightens up and he looks through the cracks of the boards of wood that cover the window to the backyard. His eyes slowly widen.
"Annie," he reaches for her and she comes over to look out the window with him.
Several yards away, a small horde of walkers is making their way to the house.
"Shit, they must have heard the gunshots."
They whip around when they hear a groaning sound coming down the hallway. With the front door gone, the walkers are going to be flooding the house in minutes.
"Shane, we need to leave!"
He raises his gun at the first walker to step into the house and he puts a bullet in his head.
"Get upstairs to that open window, Annie. Now!" he commands her as another walker wanders into the house.
Annie runs upstairs and she goes into the bedroom to gather as much things as she can. She stuffs it into a small backpack and she straddles the open window as she listens to the gunshots. She's about to call out for Shane, but he comes running upstairs with two of the prepacked backpacks.
"There's more coming our way! We won't be able to keep them from coming in the front and keep the others from coming in the back, so we leave or we die! Come on," he helps her out the window and he follows her.
Shane carefully jumps down first, still minding his leg, and he holds his hands up to catch her backpack first. Annie drops it down to him and once it's on his shoulder, she falls into his arms. He sets her on her feet and both of them unsheathed their knives.
"Follow me to the back. We need to get to the car," he lunges forward, stabbing a walker in its head.
Carefully, the duo moves to the back of the house and the dead ones fall around their feet as they're knifed in the head. They get into the car and the doors are locked out of habit. Shane fumbles with the key and he looks at Annie before he attempts to start the engine.
To their relief, the car starts and Shane stomps on the gas to run-over the walkers that are in his way. The ground is smooth until they reach the dirt road and they drive slow once they reach the highway.
"Shane, where are we going to go?"
He glances in the rear-view mirror to see the walkers swarming Hershel's land like they did before and then he keeps his eyes on the road in front of them.
"I don't know, Annie. I don't know."