Chapter 2: Lost

They had driven a few miles nearby, to Aaerie it was a foreign feeling being in a moving vehicle again. She felt the terrain change just by the bumps in the road causing everyone in the back to hold onto the walls of the van. When the cargo van came to a complete stop she heard Glenn warn them all to stay put and prepare themselves to take down walkers (which is what Aaerie discovered they called the dead) as soon as the doors opened.

The rest of the group and herself grabbed their weapons and stood by the door, when Glenn and Shane opened it she could see walkers coming from out of bushes and behind trees. A crowd but nothing the group couldn't handle. Carol, Lori and the children stayed in the van while the remaining began retaliating.

Adrenaline was pumping through her veins, mostly attributed to the fear. Taking on these things out here in the world were different from opening a dorm room and having a clean blow to their head. Here, she needed to keep a 360 degree look out while multiple walkers attacked at once. And just like that a walker grabbed her arm while she was pulling her knife out of the one in front while fending off the female walker to her right.

"Shit!" She found herself screaming doing everything she could to prevent the walkers from biting into her. She saw Glenn rush forward but then the weight was gone, both the walker bodies were lying on the floor on top of one another with a single arrow sticking out from the head. She looked behind and saw the hunter and nodded her thanks before pulling out her knife and running towards Glenn and went after some more this time sticking close to him.

It felt like ages before finally there was no dragging of feet or groaning. The group stood stationary for a while panting. Aaerie looked at what the group was trying to get to and saw an RV and a motorcycle.

Rick, Dale and Daryl began fueling the vehicles with the empty canisters and siphoning the cargo van, "Much safer in here and we can use it as a look out," Glenn explained, he went on to say that it was their original vehicles minus two additional cars that they decided to ditch near the CDC due to walkers crowding them.

She frowned, it was already a tight space in the Cargo Van, let alone a trailer. It would now be accommodating 4 women, 2 children and 4 men, as if reading her thoughts Lori spoke up, "It's not the comfiest but there's enough room for all of us to sit down, we'll just find another small car on the way."

"Why not keep the cargo?"

"'Cause it's loud, too smooth to stand on top, another big vehicle to worry about and it's eating up the gas," T-Dog offered.

"The grownups let Carl, mom and me use the bed...you can have my spot if you want," Sophia had been staring at her all day, she was holding her breath waiting for Aaerie to answer, Aaerie laughed softly,

"Thank you Sophia, that's so sweet of you but I'll manage," The little girl finally took in some air and grinned at Aaerie.

"Alright let's make a move on," Rick addressed the group,

"One of y'all can ride with me, as long as yer' a good shot," Daryl mumbled, everyone looked at one another, obviously not wanting to ride with the redneck.

Aaerie looked at Glenn who seemed to be thinking really hard, so to avoid the awkward silence that followed his offer she decided that she would take the position that no one else for whatever reason did not want,

"I'll ride with you."
"I'll come," Andrea said at the same time.

"I'll take rookie, I never seen blondie shoot a gun," was all he said before climbing onto his bike, Aaerie felt Glenn grab her hand and she looked at him, oblivious to the blonde that was glaring angrily at the biker,
"He's a good guy, just a little headfirst into walkers, I'd kind of rather you stayed with me...you never know when people get separated."

"We'll never be separated again, even if it means I roll off a speeding vehicle," Glenn grinned at her response. He gave her a tight hug and she returned a quick kiss to his cheek before balancing her rifle on her back, she checked her gun on her waist and satisfied seeing her knife safely tucked on the other side of her waist she sighed making her way to the man.

She climbed behind the older man and waited till everyone got into the RV before holding onto his waist. She sighed knowing it was going to be a long, stiff and uncomfortable ride.

The group had reached some highway by late afternoon, she was startled awake and found herself sleeping against Daryl's back. She was so embarrassed that her blush glowed through her lightly tanned face. She was surprised that she hadn't fallen off and looked down to see the sweater that was originally loosely wrapped around her own waist was now tying her to his waist preventing her from moving.

"Awake?"
"Uh...yeah, sorry...not a great watch am I?" She thought she saw a fleeting smirk on his face but it was gone before she could take a second look. She looked around and gasped, there was a mass car pileup in the distance and dead bodies everywhere.

"We'll scout 'head n' check if there's a way through..."
"And we're running out of gas," she guessed they had been travelling for over 6 hours by the sight of the afternoon sun.

They went ahead of the van and realized there wasn't an easy way of getting through, maybe if they moved some vehicles the trailer could squeeze through, not an easy feat but not impossible. The trailer stopped behind them and she heard the door open and people step out, she looked down and awkwardly wondered if she should untie herself which would require her to wrap her arms around him or if she should wait till he untied her. She didn't ponder for much longer, the redneck had quickly untied her from him. She hopped off and wrapped her sweater back around her waist.

Shane whistled at the sight of the cars, "Man there must be shit loads of stuff we can take,"
"This is a graveyard Shane..." Lori shot at him, Shane sent her a challenging look.

"Maybe if we just get what we need, nothing more..." Carol suggested
"And checking the cars for some gas would be good," T-Dog said making his way towards the cars.

They soon began looking through the vehicles, collecting food, weapons, water, despite Lori's distaste, even Aaerie felt uncomfortable going through a mass of bodies. Glenn was with Dale fixing up the engine on the trailer. Aaerie found herself looking with Carl, she was opening doors just in case any of them were walkers.

"Penny for your thoughts? Though that won't do much good now," Aaerie looked behind and saw T-Dog and smiled at the darker man,

"Nothing interesting in my head,"

"You seemed pretty spaced out to me, entertain me,"

Aaerie grinned, "Well…just doesn't make sense. Based on the news that was still on before everything shut off, this was happening all around the world right?"

"Yeah, you're right," Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rick make his way closer,

"So the idea of a contained government release of a neurological airborne virus doesn't really make sense because in a span of less than 10 hours there was mass outbreaks all around the world…" She knew she was ranting but it was all she could think about after seeing the dead bodies, nothing was adding up, "The bodies sitting outside…the ones that aren't moving have bullets…knives…you name it to their brains. The bodies outside that are walkers were obviously infected…and we all know that the virus is transferred through bodily fluids. And I feel like it's not the bite that reanimates them, it's the virus that comes along with the bite," She saw T-Dog's look of confusion, she knew she was ranting like a mad scientist, but what really caught her attention was Rick walking away in the opposite direction.

"You know what…never mind," She laughed, she was going to add that the body Carl and her stumbled on had no bite marks, not anywhere she could see, just a bullet to the head but decided unless she could come to any definite conclusions, she should keep her thoughts to herself,

"Uh well…when you figure out a cure, let me know," T-Dog grinned at her and walked off.

Sighing she tracked down Carl's wandering figure and followed him. Lori, Sophia and Carol were nearby too. It wasn't long before she noticed how quiet it was, the sound of Dale's and Rick's voices were not present. There was a sound, a very faint rumble, like a hundred-

"Everyone down!" Rick hissed, "A herd!" Aaerie's head shot in the direction they had come from and in the distance she saw hundreds of them. Her heart raced and she grabbed Carl and shoved him under a car and rolled in beside him, her knife out in her hands. She looked over and saw Lori and Carol to her right. Lori gave her a look of thanks and went back to shushing Carol who was panicking. Her eyes drifted to the direction Carol was crying towards and saw Sophia by herself under a car ahead.

She hated that she couldn't see Glenn or the others and closed her eyes waiting for the herd to get closer. After what seemed like hours, that sound, the sound that made her sick, the dragging feet and groaning was close by. Some bumping into vehicles but none seemed to notice all the living breathing bodies hiding. Sophia kept glancing in the direction of her mother and Aaerie prayed the young girl would stay put.

Carl released a small scream to her left and she saw a walker pressed up against the floor, without thinking twice she shoved her knife into its head and kept it steady not wanting to attract any more attention. Her palms were sweating and her heart was racing, she only pulled the knife out when she didn't see any feet to her left. Lori's face was blanched but relieved.

After over an hour the last of the walkers passed but no one moved, everyone stayed put until they couldn't hear the groaning. But no one moved even after, she heard Carol call out for Sophia and saw Sophia slowly drag herself out but something was telling her it wasn't safe yet, as if reading her mind she saw a walker come from a blind spot and crouch beside Sophia's car. Her soft cry attracted another. With whatever courage was left she prepared herself to roll out when she saw Rick make it to the car just as Sophia had dislodged herself and had made it into the trees with the walkers on her tail. Rick disappeared behind her.

Carol let out a cry and scrambled out from under and ran towards the blocker that divided the forest from the highway. Lori was soon behind her, "Rick will find her." Carl and she followed and through the corner of her eye she saw the rest of the group make themselves towards the Carol.

She couldn't imagine what the lady was going through and decided to just keep an eye on the surroundings as everyone, even Shane, looked distraught. Over an hour passed again and the evening was approaching. Rick hadn't returned and neither had Sophia. The group stood and paced, no one willing to state their fears but she knew they couldn't be standing in the dark, it was too dangerous.

"I think we should either look for them or settle….we won't be able to see anything soon," Some of the men nodded, but a look of panic grazed over Carol's face, "I think they're fine…maybe just lost or might need some back up?"

Daryl, Shane, Glenn and her decided to go search, and with Daryl's tracking skills it wasn't long before they saw him. Rick was pacing around a swamp, sweat pouring down his neck like big drops of rain. He noticed the group, "I told her stay here, I told her if it was clear to keep the sun on her left shoulder and get out.

A silence fell over the group, suddenly she wasn't so sure that they were just lost.

A/N I haven't written in a long time, so I'm very rusty. Please let me know if I can make any changes to make it better. I also am reading on writing accents which is why there's not much dialogue with Rick, Shane and Daryl haha.IlysraChance: Thank you so much! That means a lot, I will definitely work on regular updates and hope that this continues to please you. Any feedback would be great! Good and bad :)