A/N: Thank you for the follows and the favorites and for continuing to read. Many thanks to Hongo En for all the reviews.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Walking Dead.

Chapter Eighteen

Marianne drove to the gas station as fast as she could with her newly acquired truck. She wouldn't abandon Jimmy.

The tires screeched as she hit the brakes, coming to a sudden stop that made her body jerk forward. She jumped out of the truck and spotted a big blood stain on the ground where Jimmy should be. He was gone but there were no drag marks. It was as if he had simply stood up and walked away.

"Jimmy?" She walked to the still wet blood stain and scanned the concrete. Drops of blood led away from it. They were small but they were there. She began to follow the trail and it led her to the back of the gas station.

Marianne turned the corner and there he was, standing with his back to her. His shoulders were slouched and his head hung down. Marianne's heart began to pound. He couldn't be…

"Jimmy?" His head turned first and then the rest of this body followed. Jimmy's eyes weren't his eyes anymore. With a snarl he awkwardly lurched towards her, almost tripping over his own feet. Marianne took a step back. Without having to think about it she drew her gun and fired.

Marianne stared at her hands like they belonged to someone else and then at Jimmy splayed out on the ground. It shouldn't be like this.

She walked to his crumpled form and turned him onto his back. She carefully searched for a bite or a scratch but there were none. Daryl had mentioned the same thing about Randall.

A snapped neck. Two gunshot wounds. It didn't matter how you died. We all come back.

This revelation was too much. She needed to get out of there. Marianne grabbed her bow and their bags Frank and Will had left behind. She threw everything in the back seat before taking off in the direction she and Jimmy had been walking in only an hour before.

Marianne pushed the gas pedal down. Going up to 65, 70, 75, and past 80. She flew by a few roads she could've taken but the map and her plan were completely out of her mind. She didn't know where she was.

Jimmy shouldn't be dead. He shouldn't have been murdered in front of a gas station the middle of nowhere by a psycho asshole like in a cheap horror movie. She had failed to protect him and she ran away like a coward without burying him. At the very least he deserved that but it was too late. She couldn't waste the gas to go back. Never go back. Always look forward.

However, that was exactly what the group had done. They didn't go back for her and Jimmy and now Jimmy was dead. It could've been so different. Never say never.

Marianne wanted to keep driving until she ran out of gas but she started slowing down when she saw something might be blocking the entire road ahead. One of the last things she needed was to wreck the truck.

She came to a full stop and stared. In front of her, too close for her liking, was a giant herd of walkers making their way down the road in a mindless parade. At least they all had their backs to her. Marianne slowly reversed the truck, wanting to get more distance between her and them before she turned around.

The sight sobered her enough to look at the map and figure out where she was. She penciled an 'X' where she saw the herd and drew an arrow pointing in the direction they were going. She did the same thing two more times for the other herds she and Jimmy had avoided but neither had looked as big as this latest one.

A drop of blood appeared on the map and all of a sudden the pain hit her full force. She had forgotten about the cut and up until then, it had only been a dull ache in the back of her mind.

"Son of a bitch," she said, cursing more at Will, may he rot in hell, than at the sharp, throbbing sting.

Marianne didn't bother to examine her cheek in the mirror. Instead, she put the map away and drove to the nearest town. The ride was unremarkable and that was the problem. Jimmy wasn't there to talk her ear off about Beth or the dogs he had when he was younger or to sheepishly tell her that he had started thinking about becoming a veterinarian like Hershel. He had hopes and dreams from life before walkers that he had still clung to. Where had her hopes and dreams gone?

Marianne reached a small neighborhood on the outskirts of the town. Afternoon was turning into evening and instead of checking out the rest of the town she holed up in one of the houses. She felt like she'd been up for days and that their happy morning was a lifetime ago.

Instead of immediately nestling into the warmth of a bed, she dragged herself around the house to secure it. She blocked all entrances with a piece of heavy furniture. There was no one to watch her back now.

After she felt she had done all she could to keep out walkers and humans alike, Marianne went into the upstairs bathroom with her new first aid kit. A vainer person would've grimaced at her reflection.

Almost half of her face and part of her neck were caked in dry blood. She used a damp washcloth to wipe it away. Some of the blood was stubborn and she rubbed hard enough to leave behind irritated, red skin but the closer she got to the cut the more careful she was. Marianne gingerly patted right underneath it, trying to keep it from bleeding again.

She closely examined the cut and it was a tossup whether or not it needed stitches but regardless she wouldn't attempt any since she'd only make it worse. What she could say with absolute certainty was that it would leave a scar.

She didn't sleep the whole night through. Marianne kept waking up disoriented and ready to fight. At one point she woke up sitting in bed with her Ruger aimed at the door and her finger on the trigger. The safety was off and who knew how many walkers she would've drawn to her location if she had fired.

That morning she grabbed breakfast, a granola bar and a tiny box of raisins, and crawled back into bed to eat. She didn't feel like getting ready for the day and sticking to her usual morning routine. What was the point? She had all the time in the world until she was murdered or the walkers got her. Old age definitely wouldn't kill her.

A couple hours later she found herself dressed and ready to kill. Marianne had bandaged her cheek the best she could and tied a bandana over part of her face as an extra precaution against blood splatter when she killed walkers in close quarters.

She couldn't be one hundred percent sure but she believed that walker blood or saliva or both transferred into open wounds would cause the infection that killed you. The virus or whatever it was behaved strangely. From Randall and Jimmy's death she guessed that people were already carriers but then why hadn't her cut become infected if the unknown agent was already in her blood? What was the difference between her blood and walker blood? Did the virus or whatever it was fundamentally change when living in a walker host?

These questions and more raced through her mind as she walked through the neighborhood in the direction of the town but the closer she got to the main part of town the more walkers she had to kill. She was retrieving arrows from a cluster of four walkers when she decided the risk was too great so she headed back to the house. If she bothered scouting the town she'd have to use the truck.

Marianne turned onto her street and immediately noticed something was different. There was a new car she didn't recognize parked in a driveway six houses down from hers. Marianne took cover, scanning the area carefully for any movement. When she found none she trained her eyes on the house where the beige Honda was parked. She looked at the windows waiting for a sign of life but after a few minutes of nothing Marianne decided to go into the house.

She carefully made her way towards it and glanced in the car when she reached the driveway. The entire back seat was full of stuff which meant only two people could fit in there. Good. She could easily handle two.

The front door was unlocked and she eased it open. Marianne listened for people before she fully stepped into the house but all was quiet. She shut the front door because, no matter how slim the chance was, she didn't need a walker wandering in.

The house had two stories and with her bow ready Marianne swept through the first floor. Nobody was there so she went up the stairs and paused at the top.

There was blood on the hallway carpet and it made a trail between one of the closed doors and the only open one. Marianne silently walked towards the open door. With her bow raised, she looked into the room.

A woman was leaning on the bathroom counter with her eyes closed. There was blood all over it and in the sink. On her neck was a bite mark that was still bleeding. The woman opened her eyes and looked up. She saw Marianne in the mirror.

"I'm going to die, aren't I?"

Marianne gave the woman a terse nod but didn't lower her bow.

"Are you going to shoot me with that thing?"

"Not yet." This made the woman laugh.

"I'm Julia."

"You alone?"

"It's just me and you."

"I'm gonna search you for weapons. Keep your hands on the counter."

Marianne patted Julia down and checked her shoes but didn't find anything. She stood back up and kept her bow relaxed.

"Better safe than sorry, right?" Julia gave her a weak smile.

"You got a fever yet?"

"No."

"It'll come. Best get you to bed."

Marianne was right. Julia began burning up only a few minutes after she had settled into bed, propped up by pillows.

"This really sucks." Julia's hands shook as she took a sip of water.

"It's only gonna get worse." Marianne took the glass of water and put it back onto the nightstand before Julia could spill it.

"Your bedside manner needs a little work but I appreciate your honesty."

"You don't have time for lies. Do you want me to do it now or when you're dead?" Julia looked surprised and a little alarmed at the question. The woman glanced at Marianne's bow.

"I want to live as long as I can. You only get one life. Is that silly?"

"Don't know." Marianne began to pace, conflicted on whether or not she should leave. She'd done more than enough for this stranger.

"You never told me your name. I don't know who to thank."

"Marianne."

Julia smiled. "That's a nice name."

"I guess." Marianne walked to one of the windows and parted the blinds to look outside. The street was still deserted.

"I rushed in here and left my things in the car. There's a backpack in the front seat. Could you get it for me? The doors should be unlocked."

Marianne let the blinds close with a snap. She turned to Julia and stared at the woman. She had short black hair and a dusting of freckles across her cheeks. There was an edge about her that you could only get from being out there on your own which meant she could be dangerous.

"Fine." Marianne strode out of the room and made quick time retrieving the backpack. She returned to the bedroom and dumped everything out of the bag onto the floor. She searched the backpack and found a pocketknife, which she took. Satisfied that there weren't any weapons stashed in it, Marianne stuffed everything back into the bag and handed it to Julia.

"You're a paranoid one."

"Cautious." Marianne watched in silence as Julia sorted through her belongings. She set aside a notebook, a bottle of water, and a photo before zipping up the backpack. Julia picked up the photo with a shaky hand and looked at it. Marianne could make out two women and a little girl. One of the women looked like it was Julia but with longer hair.

"Can you do me one more favor? My—I came here to be with my niece and her mom but I was too late." Julia looked up at her. "My niece is in the next room. She's still…I know it's a lot to ask."

Thoughts of Sophia surfaced. She didn't want to see another child like that. "I'll do it."

"Thank you," Julia called out as Marianne walked down the hall.

Marianne stared at the blood smeared on the closed door. She opened it and cautiously stepped into a girl's room. There was a dead walker that used to be a woman on the ground at the foot of a white bed, a knife sticking out of its head.

What caught her attention was the walker girl tucked into bed so tightly all it could do was wriggle around. When it saw Marianne it lifted its head off of the pillow, snapped its teeth at her, and began thrashing wildly under the covers.

Ready for this to be over, Marianne strode towards the bed and stabbed the girl's head. The childish snarling stopped. She pulled the knife out and wiped the blood off with a pink blanket.

"You hesitated," Marianne said as soon as she returned to Julia. "You loved them so you froze."

"It was a shock. I spent months trying to get here and all I found was death."

"How far away?"

"I came here from Toronto. I was with people but we parted ways in Virginia. They found a good place to stay. After that I was alone."

"You're lucky you didn't run into anyone." Marianne thought about Will and Frank. She felt a new wave of anger rise up inside of her.

"I know. You worry so much about the dead you forget the living can be just as dangerous."

"I never forget."

"You don't look like a person who does." Julia pointed to her bandaged cheek."What happened? If you don't mind my asking."

"Had a run in with a man who liked knives."

"Is he dead?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

There was another silence. Marianne was content looking out the window again and Julia was writing in her notebook.

"I try to write in here every day," Julia said without prompting, "but it was hard to do out on the road."

"Why bother?"

"I used to ask myself that all the time. I guess it makes me feel less alone."

Marianne supposed that was a good enough reason as any but she still didn't understand it. What was worth recording in this hellhole of a world? She was about to ask but Julia spoke before she could.

"Do you know how long it takes?" Marianne was confused by the question until she realized Julia was asking when she was going to die.

"I knew a man who'd been bit and I don't think he lasted more than a day."

"So I could have hours left."

Marianne nodded. "I can read to ya."

"What?"

"To distract you from the pain." Marianne had noticed that Julia was now sweating profusely and kept shifting around like she couldn't get comfortable.

"You'd really do that for me?" Julia sounded really grateful and Marianne didn't know what to think about that so she thought about what kind of book she should read.

She wanted to choose something short that Julia would live through so she would know how it ended. Personally, she didn't like not knowing how things ended. Marianne remembered spotting a suitable book but she'd have to go into the girl's room.

"Be right back." Marianne zoomed in and out of the girl's bedroom, keeping her eyes glued to a yellow book.

"How does 'Nancy Drew and the Witch Tree Symbol' sound to you?"

"Sounds good. I don't think I've read that one before."

"Me neither. When I was eight I got banned from checking out books at the local library after I returned one of them covered in mud."

"That seems a little harsh." Julia pushed the comforter off of herself.

"There may've been a little blood mixed in."

"Blood?"

"My brother took me camping and we did some huntin'. Taught me how to skin and gut a rabbit." Marianne pulled an armchair next to the bed.

"You killed Thumper?"

"Who?"

"You know, the bunny from Bambi."

Marianne shook her head. "Never seen it."

"You've never seen Bambi? What, did you live under a rock when you were a kid?"

"Somethin' like that." Marianne looked down at the book in her hands and began picking at the frayed corner of the front cover.

Julia must have noticed her discomfort. "Can you show me the pictures too?"

"Sure."

Marianne began reading and only stopped when Julia made comments. At one point she turned the book around to show Julia one of the pictures but the woman's eyes were closed. Every few pages Marianne checked to see if she was alive.

She finished the book in a few hours and Julia had made it to the end but it looked like she was close to her own.

"That was nice. Thank you." Julia could barely speak above a whisper.

"It was nothin'."

"No, it was something." Julia opened her eyes and gave her a meaningful look that made Marianne suddenly find the landscape painting on the far wall very interesting.

"You should rest."

"Okay." Julia nodded and closed her eyes again. "It was nice to meet you Marianne. I'm glad I did."

It didn't take long after that for Julia to die. Marianne watched the life drain out of the woman and knew down to the second when she was gone.

She stared at Julia before her eyes wandered to the notebook. Marianne opened it to the next blank page and uncapped the pen.

She did not die alone and afraid. I didn't know her long but I think she was a good person.

Marianne read what she wrote several times and almost ripped the page out, thinking it was stupid. No one would ever read this. It was pointless and why should she care about some stranger's journal?

In the end, she signed her name instead.

She set the notebook aside. The time had come to fulfill her promise. Marianne pulled out her knife and made sure the other woman would never come back.

Marianne stepped away from the bed. All the air rushed out of her lungs and she couldn't catch her breath. It was as if stabbing Julia had broken open a dam inside of her. She threw the bloody knife across the room and backed up against a wall. She slid down it, fighting against the hot tears that ran down her face but Marianne lost the battle.

Sobbing shook her entire body and all she could feel anymore was an overwhelming ache in her chest. She furiously wiped her tears away but forgot about her cut so now there was fresh blood on her hands.

Marianne was a scared little girl again who needed her big brother to make everything all right. She leaned her elbows on her bent knees and pressed the bottom of the palm of her hands into her eyes until they ached. She was alone, truly alone. No one in the world knew she was alive.

She cried for Jimmy. She cried for Julia. She cried for herself.

Marianne struggled to wake up. She was lying on her back on the bedroom floor pressed up against the wall. Her head was groggy and her cheek ached. The room was beginning to smell like death.

When she left the house she could tell night would be over in a couple of hours. She sleepily walked back to her house but was still on the alert for walkers. It'd be a stupid and pointless way to die.

She didn't bother washing her blood off of her and opted to burrow under the thick blankets of the queen sized bed in the downstairs bedroom. The coolness of the sheets made a shiver go down her back but her trapped body heat warmed everything up in no time.

When she woke up again it was early afternoon. She had slept too long so instead of feeling refreshed she still felt like crap. A groan escaped her as she rolled out of bed. She was starving and dying of thirst and the flaking dry blood was making her skin itch.

After taking care of herself, Marianne decided the first task of the day was to scavenge for supplies in Julia's car. The woman didn't need her things anymore and sentimentality had no place when you were surviving.

There was food and a first aid kit. Most of the rest of the useful items she already had and didn't need doubles of but there was a small tent Marianne took since she hadn't bothered to pack any of the men's tents when she had rushed to get back to Jimmy. The best find was the large containers of water in the trunk. Marianne had plenty of her own so she decided a bath was in order. There was even enough to wash her hair.

For the rest of the day she searched houses. More walkers showed up in the streets she had cleared yesterday. She couldn't be sure how many of them infested the town that could potentially migrate into the neighborhood so she'd only risk one more night there before taking off at dawn.

It was in the evening while there was still enough light outside to see when she spread the map out on the bed, careful to make sure her damp hair didn't get it wet. She was wearing a sweatshirt and had pulled a knit blanket over her shoulders. There were two layers of socks on her feet. The temperature was dropping and she was getting too skinny. The cold bath hadn't helped but she believed it was worth it.

Smoothing out the map one last time Marianne finally took a good look at it but her eyes began to lose focus as she stared at the map. It became smudges of color with black veins. She bet walkers had black veins that their sludge of black blood stagnated inside of. Did the heart still pump and did it turn black too?

Had Jimmy been a walker long enough for his blood to start turning black? She closed her eyes to escape her thoughts only to see Jimmy bleeding out on the ground. He must have been in so much pain and so afraid.

Marianne slammed her hand on her knee and her eyes flew open. She still had a mission: find Daryl and find the group. She couldn't afford to fall apart.

She focused back on the map and traced her options with the pencil eraser. Screw Rick. She didn't want to think like him anymore. Marianne was going to go where she wanted and no more rushing off to the next destination after one day. It was exhausting and now that she was alone she wasn't going to drive herself crazy.

Siphoning gas was a chore she'd be more than happy to hand over to someone else when she rejoined the group. T-Dog, Daryl, and Shane were usually the ones that did it and she didn't know how they managed to walk around afterwards looking like they hadn't tasted gasoline. It could linger on the tongue for hours.

A sudden thought made her heart skip a beat. She couldn't remember if he had but she hoped Daryl wouldn't do something as stupid as smoke a cigarette anytime soon after. That was asking for a fiery death and she was glad she'd never picked up the habit.

The steady stream of gas turned into a dribble and Marianne pulled the hose out. She tested the weight of the gas container. One more car couldn't hurt. She walked to the next one in the small pileup and began the process again.

Four days had passed since Jimmy's death. If it wasn't for the steady undercurrent of rage threatening to overtake her at a moment's notice Marianne would've been numb inside. She was better off alone, at least for the moment. People meant talking and talking about what happened was something she didn't want to do, would probably never want to do.

Finished siphoning gas and running on a full tank, Marianne continued her journey. She was traveling southeast for the moment but next week she might go north again. She didn't know. Her new strategy was to drive until a high density of walkers in the area made her change directions.

According the truck's clock it was a quarter past five when she came upon a strip mall. There was room for five businesses but there were only two, a food mart and a hair salon. It was a good place as any to stop for the night and it beat having to sleep in the truck like last night.

Marianne went into the hair salon first. Inside, half of the ceiling tiles were missing and it looked like they were undergoing some renovations or repairs. She found some snacks in the back. At the last second she also took shampoo, a comb, and scissors.

While the hair salon had been unlocked, the food mart doors were chained. Marianne took the bolt cutters from the tool box she was glad to find when she had made an inventory of her supplies the other day.

After she cut open the lock Marianne put the bolt cutters back in the toolbox. They were too useful to be careless with.

She opened the door but stayed at the entrance to survey the building. The dirty windows didn't let in a lot of sunlight but just enough to see the place without having to squint. The food mart was bigger than expected and the shelves were tall. She'd need more than a truck to take all of the food with her. This would be a good place to mark on the map in case she was in the area again.

The store was walker free so Marianne went to work. She had to be strategic about what she took. Space was becoming an issue and the heavier the truck was the more gas it consumed.

She methodically made her way through the store from right to left. The last aisle on the left didn't contain food. It included household supplies, office supplies, and even had a small toy section. Marianne was drawn to what was trying to be the hardware section. There were some cheap tools, duct tape, light bulbs, batteries, a wide selection of superglue, and on the bottom shelf, almost hidden away, were spray paint cans. She picked one up. Marianne had an idea.

At the food mart's entrance she wrote 'MD was here' and under that '17th day.' She had been obsessively keeping track and it had been seventeen days since the farm fell. If her group came across it they'd know when she'd been there. She hoped they were counting the days too. They should be for Lori's pregnancy but she couldn't be sure.

Staring at her handiwork, Marianne thought long and hard if she should point them in the right direction but she couldn't risk it. What if someone unfriendly with nothing better to do decided to follow her trail?

"Seventeenth day? What does that mean?" Glenn asked.

"Seventeen days since we left the farm," Daryl said, breaking his lengthy silence and making everyone look at him. "Marianne wrote this."

"How long has it been? Has anyone been keeping track?" Rick looked around at the group. Most of them had left the cars and gathered outside when Glenn had pointed out the strange message.

"It's been more than two weeks, maybe three," Hershel said.

"So she could've been here only days ago." Excitement was in Maggie's voice.

"Or yesterday," T-Dog added. "How far can she get?"

"Depends, we don't know if she has a car," Rick said.

Daryl ran his hand through his hair. "It won't matter if we go in the wrong direction."

Hershel sighed. "Well, I don't think she's in the direction we've come from. That leaves us one choice."

A/N: Hmm, so I'm not completely satisfied with how this chapter turned out and I'm not sure why. I've edited it down to the last second and I think I've done all I can for it aside from taking another week to mess around with it but I did say I'd post it this week.

I don't have a timeline for when chapter 19 will come out. I've got a whopping three sentences written for it and I think I'll take a two day break from writing to clear my head. If the chapter isn't up by next Saturday I'll post an update of my progress on my profile so I won't be disappearing again.