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The whole group was gathered near the front porch. Andrea and Shane had meant to leave, but Andrea was still here, and Rick and Shane were nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Daryl had risked his life to follow Sophia and no one was out following his trail. Carol found it frustrating, but she had no skills to go out on her own, and no say in the group's decisions.
Shane came out of the fields near the house, walking purposefully. He looked angry. Well, Shane always looked angry, but this felt like … more than usual. He was loaded down with guns.
"What's all this?" Daryl asked him.
"You with me, man?"
"Yeah." Daryl took a rifle from him as Shane stalked past.
"Time to grow up." He glanced at Andrea. "You already got yours?"
"Yeah. Where's Dale?"
"He's on his way."
T-Dog took a gun from Shane, frowning. "Thought we couldn't carry."
"We can and we have to."
Everyone was standing, staring at Shane, which was what he always wanted, Carol thought.
He looked around at the assembled group. "Look, it was one thing sitting around here picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe. But now we know it ain't." He approached Glenn, shoving a gun at him. "How about you, man? You gonna protect yours?" Glenn glanced awkwardly at Maggie before taking the weapon. Shane looked at her, too. "Can you shoot?"
"Can you stop?" she demanded. "You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight."
"We have to stay, Shane," Carl said seriously. His little boy voice got through when nothing else would have.
Shane's face softened as he glanced over his shoulder. "We ain't goin' nowhere, okay? Now, look, Herschel, he's just gotta understand. Okay? He—well, he's gonna have to. Now, we need to find Sophia, am I right? Huh?" He knelt in front of Carl, holding out a pistol. "Now I want you to take this."
From anyone else, Carol might have felt assured by the reminder that her daughter was out there, waiting to be found. But Shane would have left Sophia from the start, so having him call out her name was distressing, more than anything else.
Shane was shaking the gun in Carl's face. "You take it, Carl, you keep your mother safe. You do whatever it takes. You know how. Go on, take the gun and do it."
Before Carl could reach for it, Lori put herself in between the boy and the weapon. "Rick said no guns. This is not your call. This is not your decision to make."
Before Shane could respond, T-Dog called out. He was looking the other way, and they all followed his gaze. Rick and Herschel and the boy were emerging from the woods with two walkers held by some kind of loop around their necks. Everyone went running toward them.
Carol was at the rear, not entirely sure what was happening, but certain that it was going to go badly.
Shane circled Rick and Herschel and the two walkers, yelling, even as they tried to move past him toward the barn. He was screaming about the walkers being dead, being killers, and he was right. If it was up to Daryl, there'd be a crossbow bolt in their heads right now.
But it wasn't up to Daryl. It never had been. It had never been up to Shane, either, not really, and that was what was really burning him up. He started shooting at the walkers, in the chest, not in the head. It looked like he was trying to make a point, but Daryl thought he mostly just wanted to shoot something. Shane had always been that kind of person.
Then he shot the first walker in the head. She fell, nearly dragging Herschel with her. Everyone stood silent, waiting for his reaction, but Shane wasn't done.
"Enough!" he shouted. "Risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!"
Daryl glanced at Carol. She had heard, all right, and she wasn't surprised. Shane had never wanted to go after her little girl, not from the first. But it hurt her, all the same, the words like a bullet, the way Shane had meant them to be.
They all stood there listening to Shane scream. While Rick tried to get through to Herschel, Shane attacked the lock on the barn door with a pickaxe, breaking it. He ignored everyone who pleaded with him to stop, tearing down the bar that held the doors closed. Then he stepped back and waited.
And the walkers came, pushing the barn doors open, coming toward the group, who started shooting. Daryl took his place there, picking off walkers with clean shots to the head, saving ammunition. He knew Herschel and his family were hurt by this—he knew that to them, these were friends and relatives, people they loved. But everyone had lost people they loved by now, everyone had been forced to make these choices. They were no different, here on their farm pretending nothing had changed.
Daryl shot grimly, hoping to get this done as fast as possible.
Finally it was over, the last of the walkers down, silence where there had been the thunder of gunfire. No one moved, no one spoke. They just stood there looking at the carnage.
Then the barn door moved one more time. One more dead person came out of it, moving toward them.
From behind him, Daryl heard Carol cry out "Sophia! Sophia!" and he moved just in time to catch her and hold her back, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to the ground, holding her as she cried helplessly.
She just kept coming on, this little girl they had been looking for, who had been under their noses the whole time. Daryl would have done it, put her out of their misery, but he had his arms around Carol, and he was afraid of what she would do if he let go. And he couldn't let go—he couldn't let her get herself bit, not now.
It was different when it was someone you loved, someone who mattered to you. He felt for Herschel and his family now, understanding better what they had done.
Then Rick walked forward, Rick who hadn't joined in the shooting before. He closed with Sophia and did what the rest of them couldn't. It hurt him to do it, Daryl could see, and he respected him for doing it anyway.
"Don't look," he said to Carol, although the words were too late. "Don't look." He stood up, hauling her with him.
Carol fought him off, turning to glare at him, and hurried away. Daryl let her go, recognizing the need to take the bad news alone.