A Moment of Truth

At this moment if I wanted to stay alive I couldn't sit here and cry about being left behind, there was no time. I had to get up and fight. As tired as I was, as little ammo I had left, I needed to get myself the hell out of here. I mustered up all of my strength and rolled the large walker off of me. I had only seconds to run behind the house and into the woods before I was spotted again.

I picked up my backpack and sprinted to my left. Of course, there was no easy pathway to get there, I still had to fight my way through the odd walker, but what I was most afraid of was the herd that mauled Dale and Patricia, spotting me. I was running full speed ahead to the back of the house but when I turned the corner I was met with another herd. I was trapped. Locking their dead eyes with mine, their gurgling amplified as they spotted their next meal. I began to fire off shots, trying to take at least a few of the close ones down, but that only attracted the herds from behind me.

I was overwhelmed, how the hell am I supposed to get myself out of here alive. I was just about to turn and attempt to dart for the forest when a car came speeding past me, crushing most of the walkers up against the back of the house.

"Get in!" Maggie screamed out of the rolled-down window. Without hesitation I ran for the backseat, throwing myself into the car, into safety. My heart was racing, I couldn't catch my breath, I wanted to cry.

Glenn turned around in the driver's seat, looking out the back window so he could reverse, "What did you say again, how you didn't want me to be a hero?" Glenn asked, trying to crack a joke at a time like this.

I huffed, "I love you, you know that right?" I laughed, beyond thankful for him.

"I know," he said, before speeding off down the dirt road and out of this graveyard.

The sun was rising as we drove, it had been a long and terrifying night, I truly began to feel my tiredness begin to overcome me. We decided our best bet was to head back to the highway where we first stopped before we were taken to the farm, hoping that the rest of the group had the same idea. The only thing that kept me awake was the anxious feeling in my gut, not knowing who made it out alive or if we would even find anyone there.

Blood drenched my body and the scent wafting in the car was horrendous as the smell of rotting flesh stuck to our clothes. I felt nauseous, I could probably puke if I had anything left in my stomach to throw up.

I could feel Glenn start to weave the car which meant we had reached the graveyard on the highway. I immediately sat up so I could sit with my head between the two front seats. It was difficult to see through the large splotches of blood on the windshield and I couldn't make out another human being up ahead. We were silent as Glenn drove, all of us on the edge of our seat, wanting to come across at least one person.

We were just coming up to the car that we had written 'Sophia stay here, we will be back every day' on the windshield when I finally saw someone. It was Rick, then more people appeared in my line of sight, Carl, T-Dog, Carol. I let go of a breath of relief, she had gotten away, someone had found her after she ran.

Glenn slammed on the breaks, all of us wanting to get out of the car to be reunited with our people. My mind immediately went to Daryl, I hadn't seen him since the beginning of the night, I hoped with all my being that he was alive. The three of us rounded one of the cars and made our presence known to the rest of the group, we looked like the last car to arrive. They all turned, smiles on their faces as they spotted us, most of them were shocked to even see me alive. Maggie immediately ran into her father's arms.

My eyes prickled with tears, a feeling of glee filling my heart as a good amount of them stood before me. My eyes then landed on Daryl, he was already staring at me. He got up from his bike and walked over to me, I was unsure of what he was about to do before he wrapped me up in a hug. Squeezing me tight around my waist I hugged him back, crying.

"I thought you were dead- they said you were dead," he said quietly, letting go of me. His eyes were glossy.

"I thought I told you, there isn't anything that can kill me," I laughed through my sniffles, trying to make a joke. He smiled.

"Where's the rest of us?" T-Dog asked, cutting off everyone's moment of happiness.

"We're the only ones who made it so far," Rick answered.

"Shane?" Lori asked. Rick's faced dropped, he looked uneasy. All he did was shake his head to say no, he couldn't speak.

"Andrea and Dale?" Glenn then asked.

"Dale tried to help me… b-but he didn't make it," Carol responded, covering her mouth in guilt as she thought about it.

"And Andrea, she got separated from me and I saw her go down," T-Dog said.

"Patricia?" Herschel asked.

Beth now began to cry in his arms, "They got her too. Took her right from me, I was holdin' onto her daddy," she cried harder. "What about Jimmy, did you see Jimmy?"

"He was in the RV, it got overrun," Rick said.

"You guys definitely saw Andrea?" Carol continued to ask.

"There were walkers everywhere-"

"Yeah, but did you see her?" she pressed further. No one answered because no one that was there knew for sure.

"I'm gonna go back," Daryl said, going to hop back onto his bike.

"No," Rick immediately shut down that idea.

"You can't just leave her," he shot back.

"We don't even know she's there," Lori budded in.

"She isn't there, she isn't. She's somewhere else or she's dead, there's no way to find her," Rick made it clear. "We gotta keep movin', there'll be walkers crawling all over here."

"Well what do we do now, we have no place to go? We're right back where we started," I asked. That left a thought in everyone's head

"I say we head East," T-Dog suggested.

"Stay off the main roads," Daryl agreed, now walking over to pick up his crossbow, there was a stray walker headed our way, "bigger the road, the more walkers, the more assholes like these," he said before shooting off an arrow, piercing the walker directly in the right eye.

The decision was then unanimous. There weren't too many choices to pick between in the first place, so that left us all in agreement, to head East.

-----

We had been driving for about three hours before Rick honked his car horn from the back of the assembly line. We slowed our car to a stop to see what was wrong.

"I'm runnin' on fumes," he said, all of us grouping in the middle of the road.

"We can't stay here," Maggie said, her shotgun held tight in her hands. We were parked dead center of the road, only trees surround us, there was no sign of any sort of civilization for miles.

"We can��t all fit in one car," Glenn said. He sounded stressed, no one wanted to be out here after the night we had.

"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning, it's gettin' too late now," Rick said. It was freezing out already, we were coming into the colder months, this was going to be another long night.

"I'll get a fire going," T-dog offered.

"Scar can I talk to you a moment?" Rick asked, walking past me and down the road so he was out of earshot of everyone else. I followed him.

"What's up?"

He rubbed his forehead and sighed, "I need your help with something," he said, unable to fully make eye contact with me, "y-you seem to be a level-headed person, and aside from Dale you managed to be the only one to notice how unhinged Shane truly was."

"Where are you going with this?"

"He devised this whole plan, to lead me into the woods last night to find Randall… he was going to kill me, h-he wanted Lori and Carl to himself, and he saw me as an obstacle," he explained.

"You killed Shane," I cut him off, piecing together what he was saying.

"He left me no choice," he defended himself.

"So you tell them that," I responded, "they may not understand at first, but they will. I wasn't the only one who noticed how dangerous he was becoming," I reassured him. The thought of it made my stomach turn, Rick killing Shane, but I understood why he had to do it. "You have to tell Lori first."

He looked off into the distance thinking about it, I could tell he was scared, but he'd have to tell them eventually. Rick wasn't the kind of guy to keep skeletons in his closet. He nodded his head agreeing.

------

We all sat around the fire, trying to get as close to it as possible to find some sort of relief from the cold. The sun had completely disappeared now, dropping the temperature to below 0. We found a little area of broken down bricks, what looked to be part of an old bridge, it provided us with enough coverage.

"We're not safe with him," I overheard Carol whisper to Darly, I sat just on the other side of him. "Why do you need him? He's just gonna pull you down," she said.

"Daryl shook his head, "Nah, Rick's done alright by me," he stood up for him.

"You're his henchman," Carol responded, "and I'm a burden. We deserve better."

"What do you want?" I now stepped in, asking her.

"A man of honor," she looked at me, I nearly laughed.

"Rick has honor, he saved all of our asses thus far," I snapped.

We then hear a noise coming from the bush, it sounded like something stepping on leaves.

"We need to leave," Carol immediately stood up.

"The last thing we need is for everyone to be runnin' off in the dark. We don't have the vehicles, no one's traveling on foot," Rick cut her off.

"Don't panic," Herschel tried to calm people down.

"I'm not, I'm just not sittin' here waitin' for another herd to blow through," Maggie said, "We need to move now."

"No one is going anywhere," Rick was firm with that, he was angry now. Angry with how untrustful they all became of him after all he's done for us.

"Do something!" Carol whispered angrily.

"I am doing something, I'm keeping this group together, alive! I've been doing it all along, no matter what," he responded, "I didn't ask for this! I killed my best friend for you people for Christ's sake!" he yelled, without being too loud. Everyone's faces dropped, he was finally telling them.

"You saw what he was like, how he pushed me… how he compromised us, how he threatened us. He staged the whole Randall thing, led me out to the woods to put a bullet in my back, he gave me no choice! He was my friend but he came after me, my hands are clean." Everyone was silent as he spoke. He was fed up with how everyone had been looking at him. They were looking to him for answers but were never pleased with his choices.

"Maybe you people are better off without me. Go ahead," he pointed to the open road allowing them to leave. "I say there's a place for us but maybe it's just another dead end, maybe I'm foolin' myself again. Why don't you go and find out yourself, send me a postcard, go on there's the door."

I looked around at the group, taking in what he was saying. They had their brows furrowed and looked concerned from Rick's outburst, but no one moved. They knew they couldn't make it nearly as far without him.

"If you can do better, let's see how far you get… no takers? Fine, but get one thing straight, if you're stayin'... this isn't a democracy anymore."