Chapter 15 "El Río"

Day 35

The house had been quite nice to live in. It had a beautiful front porch where they liked to have breakfasts. They had really enjoyed having more meat in them, as well. It had been a few weeks since they had last had meat before now.

Everyone got rooms and roommates they were happy with. Sierra and Amanda bunked in one room; Hershel and Maggie shared the biggest room; Robert, Lyrik, and Xavier shared a room; Shawn and Beth stayed together; Otis and Patricia got their own room; and Seth decided to stay with Jessie and Ron. There was one extra room, but everyone was too scared to sleep in a room alone.

Two days after arriving, Patricia and Otis went to the river to check how clean the water looked. They wouldn't trust it at all without boiling it first, but it did seem to be clear enough for them to wash their clothes in. They headed back for people to help them take their old clothes out and wash them. Later, they planned for everyone to bathe in the river if this proved to be a good. Obviously, they wouldn't all bathe at once, but they also would not have anyone go alone.

Jessie and Lyrik volunteered to help out with washing, and everyone aside from Jessie, who was refusing to learn how to shoot, took a gun with them. Now that Jessie had her son, she believed that shooting, especially at strangers, was the worst thing you could do, and that she would never fire another gun again. Despite many members of the group constantly reminding her that the gun is only for protection, she still refused to take or use a gun.

At the river, the four were washing the laundry, making small talk.

"And how Sierra and Xavier called walkers 'D.K.s'?" Otis said. "I actually thought that was pretty cool, though."

"So did I," Patricia said. "I like the different names people have for them. Allison called them lurkers once."

"Yeah," Jessie said, half-frowning to herself. She wanted to change the subject to avoid getting sad about Erin. She remembered the razors Robert had found and asked, "Otis, why didn't you shave with the other guys?"

"I dunno," he said. "I think I look kinda good with a bit of a beard, don't y'all? Hershel, too."

Patricia laughed and reached over to put her arm around his shoulder and kissed him. "I think you look 'kinda good' any way, Otis. Hershel, too." Everyone laughed.

"God, I can't believe what those other fools look like now," Lyrik said.

"Tell me about it," Patricia said, laughing. "Seth looks the weirdest."

Jessie hummed an mm-hm. "I can't believe how much of a difference shaving can make in a guy's appearance."

"Well, at least some of them still look pretty cute," Lyrik said. "Like Xavier. Yes, ma'am, he looks good."

Everyone laughed at Lyrik. The air of the group slowly dissipated, and just as Otis was about to speak, hoping to change the subject from gossiping about cute boys, voices could be heard in the distance. What they were saying was very hard to determine. Jessie and Patricia quickly gathered up the clothes in the stream and put them in their baskets, making an attempt to run back to the house. As they got up, Patricia grabbed her gun out of her pocket and put it on top of the clothes in her basket, ready to shoot just in case. Otis and Lyrik stayed behind, their guns pointed at the now moderately-visible figures. It appeared to be a group of five, and they could faintly be seen through the thick brush of the forest. They had large backpacks, and some were in clothes stained with blood. Though they looked like a very troubled group, they still seemed moderately happy. As they got closer and their voices got louder and what they were saying was more clear. "I think they're speaking Mexican," Otis said.

"Spanish, you mean?"

"Whatever. It's not English."

As the group came through the thick forest, a very thin boy pointed Otis and Lyrik out, and they all drew their guns. The scene was very much like an unfair Mexican standoff, both groups on opposite sides of a river. A woman in the front of the group who appeared to be the leader spoke up. "Hola," she said calmly.

"No habla español," Lyrik said.

"Okay, sorry," the woman said in reply. "Um, what's this?" she asked. Soon, she noticed movement by a house in the distance, and it appeared that people were lining up along the fence of it with sniper rifles. "Put down your guns," she quickly said to her people in Spanish.

"Why?" asked a short, blonde girl. The leader pointed over Otis and Lyrik's heads to the house where the group had their guns trained on the Spanish survivors. The members of the group immediately put down their guns, other than the blonde, who put hers down hesitantly after everyone else had. When she finally did, she looked very angry, as though she were a child in time-out.

"No more Spanish," Otis said. "We don't need y'all keepin' secrets, makin' plans right in our face."

"Now, cross the stream," Lyrik said, her voice shaking slightly.

"You want us to just trudge through this water?" the leader said, looking a bit offended.

"Well, if you don't want to get wet, find another way around," Lyrik said.

Otis looked to her as if she were making a mistake. "Keep your hands up the whole time, though," he said.

The group trekked down stream, finding a part where the river thinned and they could easily jump across. Lyrik and Otis kept their guns trained on them all as they made their way across the river. The woman made it to them and introduced herself as Selenis. Her companions were a fat man named Gabriel, a thin teenager named Oscar, the blonde mouthy girl as Abi-Maria, and a very beautiful though short brunette as Shakira. "No relation," she said after getting an inquisitive look from Lyrik. All of them were clearly Latino, and apparently fluent in Spanish.

"Mr. Garza?" Lyrik asked, awestruck, to the fat man.

He squinted, and then his eyes grew very large. "Lyrik?"

Lyrik kept her gun up, but awkwardly smiled at him. "Uh, hi."

Otis took the weapons they had and Hershel came out to them, followed Xavier, Seth, and Shawn who were armed to the teeth, and the wall of snipers still in action. The Hispanic group kept their hands up, ready to be spoken to. "So, you haven't fired at my group," Hershel said. "You haven't tried anything to resist. I'm going to assume you're good people. But you need to answer to me. Where did you come from, where were you going, and what do you want?"

"What do we want?" Abi-Maria yelled. "You stopped us!"

Selenis looked to her, giving her a death glare and checking around for any incoming walkers. Just as she expected, a few materialized from the woods. "Mirónes!" she said to her group, who turned to the walkers, or mirónes as they called them, lifted their guns, and opened fire, all of them going down with nearly only one shot per walker.

Seth whistled, impressed. "Hersh, you gotta let these guys join us. We need that kind of firepower."

The fiery blonde Latina turned to Seth, looking angry as ever. "What makes you think we want to join your little group?" she said, her accent noticeably thick.

"Well," the fat man apparently named Gabriel spoke up, "staying in one place for a while wouldn't be the worst thing."

Selenis and Shakira nodded their heads. Abi-Maria crossed her arms angrily and continued trying to convince her group to move on. "Fine, let's stay here with these complete strangers and let them kill us in our sleep."

"Abi, we're all strangers. Stop it right now." Selenis turned to Hershel, "So, can we stay? Promise I'll keep an eye on this one here for you," she said, pointing to Abi-Maria, who angrily gasped.

Hershel turned to his people. Seth and Otis shrugged, Lyrik and Shawn nodded, and Xavier shook his head no. "They may be kind of useful, but I don't trust that mouthy one."

Hershel nodded and turned back to Selenis and her group. "Well, so long as you don't make trouble. But if any of you hurt any of my family, my people, in any way, we are not afraid to kick you out, or kill you if it comes to it."

The group of five nodded understandably, aside from Abi-Maria, of course. Hershel narrowed his eyes at her and she groaned, "Sí, I get it."

Hershel led the group back, with the same gut feeling he had about letting in the past two groups. Those two groups had proved to be good people, though, so he brushed off the feeling. 'Third time's the charm' is just a dumb old saying, right?