Ch 16 On the Road again and the farm…

A few hours later around 4pm we end up hitting a massive road block. We slow down to a crawl as we navigate through the abandoned vehicles until we couldn't anymore. Everyone except my truck decides to offload and gather round in a meeting. Duane on top of Rick's truck with Morgan keeping a look out with M4's equipped with silencers.

"Ok so we can't move forward now let's just move these vehicles off the road and raid them before we move on to the next one." Says Rick. Shane agreeing with a small nod of his head.

"This place is a graveyard I don't know how I feel about this." Says Lori as everyone looks at her giving her a look that says 'are you serious right now' and just stays silent.

I come up to her give her a hug. "Moms I know it sucks but think of the kids we need meds and winter supplies so please for us can you help?" I ask her in a pleading tone. Her face softens and relents to my reasoning Rick nodding in gratitude while Shane and Daryl just scoffs and gets to work T-dog follows up behind Daryl. Shane just walking around digging through cars looking for a decent one with good mileage to take off in.

Duane decided to take out his drone and lets it take flight. Morgan looks proudly at his boy. He looks down towards Bjorn and sends a small prayer of gratitude and appreciation for him and his family. Because him and his boy are together alive, and healthy all because of a 19 year old boy. Carrying a burden far heavier than any man should for his age. Then makes a silent vow to try and ease his burden.

Carol finds a beautiful red dress and acts a bit giddy at the thought of wearing it. Lori looks at her not with judgment but rather understanding.

"Ed never let me wear nice things." She says.

Then they get on with the small raid. Carl and Sophia walking close to them. Fully geared because they weren't allowed to leave the truck if they weren't due to Bjorn's orders.

Then Rick holds up his rifle after he spots a walker. Dale sees another coming from the side of another car. But Duane quickly gets everyone to get under the cars through the ear buds and while looking at the screen gets his dad to lay down flat on the roof of the truck same as Dale. While still looking at the camera feed he shows his dad.

Morgan pales because he counted at least a hundred walkers. Just by the aerial view he was seeing on the screen. Tells his boy to shush.

Just like in canon the horde passed by no issues thanks to the comms. But wait Sophia in her infinite wisdom decided to do her own thing and starts to panic and take off into the woods and gets lost. Rick and I taking off after her. I have my M4 and spear. I shoot the walkers following Rick but couldn't get the ones going after Sophia.

I quickly try to catch up but couldn't even find them. I ordered Cora to triangulate their location. She complies. I get to the creek Rick comes back with Daryl and Shane after he kills the walkers. I try to talk to Sophia with the comms, but to no avail.

"Why isn't she wearing the ear buds?" I barked out. Everyone flinched and Rick tried to calm me down.

"She said they hurt her ears a lot, she probably took them off." Responds Carol.

I look down and relent to that and asked Cora to make some better ones.

It was already dark when Duane and Carl ran to Daryl and showed him the screens.

"Daryl Daryl look look we found Sophia she's safe. We've been using the drones to look for her this whole time." They say in urgency.

Everyone gets up and starts to move quickly after releasing more drones with Cora's control equipped with bullets so Cora can keep her safe until we show up. Merle stays back with Dale and Morgan to guard the convoy. The women elated at the news of Sophia being found and soon to be back. Carol crying tears of joy and relief.

Duane gives her the Nintendo Switch looking set up to Carol tell her not to push the triggers or it'll shoot the bullets. She nods in understanding and thanks him with a big hug and a kiss. Morgan, and Lori proud of what their boys did tells them to rest. Their job is done for the moment and they need to rest to keep doing better. Carl agreed with Morgan and goes to lay down with Duane on their own bunks still talking and planning.

Daryl rushing through the trees with the help of Cora to get to Sophia quickly.

"Daryl another 300 meters and you'll reach her. I just shot down another three walkers she seems to be exhausted and hurt. She's limping." Cora gives an update and he just keeps pace.

Calm and collected while having his crossbow at the ready the entire time. A man on a mission. No one knowing what's on his mind but him. He breaks through a clearing and tackles Sophia to the ground and hugs her tight calling her a stupid girl. But Sophia can hear the love and panic in his harsh words as she passes out. Rick, Shane and I burst through killing another six while Glenn cleanly takes off the heads of two more walkers. I put a bullet in each of their heads.

We look over Sophia to see her condition I take Daryl's crossbow as he looks at me questioningly and I just point at Sophia. He understood. No words needed he nods in gratitude. And picks her up in a princess carry and we return.

Everyone back at the convoy relieved and Carol crying tears of happiness as we come into view. Heartfelt gratitude and happiness goes around. I take Sophia back to my truck for the night and hook her up to a monitor and give her an I.V. for hydration and general antibiotics just in case. Then treat her ankle. And her shoulder that she somehow dislocated. We all rest up for the night after showers.

The next day we hear church bells and head towards the sound of the bells. We clear the property of walkers, Glenn cuts the bell system. I look around and ask if we should rest here for awhile or go back to clear the road again. Rick, Shane and Carl stay back with Daryl to hunt some food and we head back together.

I didn't know why they never stayed geared but I'm not gonna remind them anymore not now not yet.

While the rest goes like in canon and we get back to the highway and report what was going on. They all move to the farm quickly while I tell them I'm gonna head to the school nearby. Give my girls hugs and kisses Amy included and tell them to behave and alert. They all hug me tell me to be careful and come home soon. I kiss them all one more time and I take off walking.

The rest of the group shows up at the farm freaking out the hosts with the vehicles we came in. They looked awesome! Rick comes out and he asks why I was missing and they tell him I went to find the school that's nearby because this place is remote so it may have been made into a fema shelter or something catching everyone by surprise by my intelligence and foresight (but we all know why wink wink).

Amy says that I had blood bags in the truck because I'm a universal donor. And I'm always ready for when anything, and everything falls apart. That he'll be back tonight. And to let Cora download any maps while there's still time if we need it and not have it it'll be worse but if we have it and not need it then it's just a wasted day.

They agree to that reasoning. But wonder why I went alone. Amy responded with just ask him through the comms silly. And gets on everyone's case about adding to my burden when I'm constantly telling them to be in gear. As she gestured over to the twins. Then says they're always geared except when they sleep. Because we have no stability. And we should also do the same. They looked down ashamed. Andrea calms her down and everyone agrees not to upset her in the future. And to try and stay geared.

We get everything situated. In a small circle. Only vehicles that drive out are the motorcycles as the trucks stay parked just outside of the tree lines shadow to stay powered. The motorcycles have built in heating and cooling systems to ride in comfort no matter what environment.

Hershel brings out all the maps they had with his eldest daughters help. Glenn pulls out a palm sized camera and instructs Cora to start analyzing and updating.

This surprises Maggie as she thinks while she checks out Glenn. Haha cute and smart. And the action not going unnoticed by the women of the camp as they chuckle at the thought.

They all resume the work of getting camp in order while Rick, Lori and Shane stay by carls side Otis out trying to help everyone. He looks downcast and ashamed. Amy comes up with my twin shield-maidens and they give him a big hug because he looked sad. Everyone looked at the hart warming scene for a moment and got back to work.

"It's ok big sir." Says ZaZa blunt as ever.

"He's ok biggie sir." Agrees NaNa just as bluntly making everyone in ear shot bust out laughing.

He chuckles and hugs them back. They look at Amy and tell her she had beautiful daughters. She said they weren't hers and he asks where's the parents at.

"Mama is in Valhalla." Says NaNa with complete happiness taking everyone by surprise.

"Yeah she drinks with grandpa one eye." Adds ZaZa. Wondering what's going on.

Amy tells them about the twins and Bjorn's religion and customs and they nod in understanding. Amy says that her fiancé is going to the school because if anything happens you might need something to help with a possible surgery. Taking Hershel by surprise at my foresight again (wink wink).

Amy pulls a portable cooling container from the truck that has blood bags, I.V. bags, hoses or tubings, stoppers. Clean sterile needles and syringes. Suture needles and stitches. Both steel ones that need to be removed professionally or glue based that come out by themselves when completely healed properly and need little to no maintenance other than cleaning it and keeping it that way.

Med gloves, and sterilization liquid for hands wounds and surgical tools. All this stuff Bjorn looted from the hospital at the beginning and the crates around the CDC. They were impressed at the variety of things prepared to be used at a moments notice.

Then Hershel looks over Sophia and is impressed by the care and professionalism that were don't to help her recover.

As it got dark Rick, was told some news about carls condition with Lori by Hershel. He tells Rick what he needed Otis volunteers to go with Shane and take off in a hurry while Lori and Rick get anxious inside.

Maggie tells everyone what's going on. Amy calls them all idiots. Maggie looks at her with disbelief and before she questions Amy about anything she was on the comms with Bjorn.

"Babe you there?" She asks with her finger on her ear. Taking Maggie by surprise.

"Yeah hun read you loud and clear, what's up?" I asked in a hushed tone as I get close to the school while moving silently with my M4 at the ready. My new spear in its compact form on my back. (It can extend if need be).

"Shane and a big fella named Otis decided to go to the school to get some things they need to do a surgery on Carl." She answers. She flinches at my angry rant and hears explosions in the background and is surprised at my outburst.

Maggie standing there wondering what was going on Amy looks at her and just says that I'm just a tiny bit upset that no one told him or reminded them to tell me to better coordinate or meet up because there were hundreds of them at the school. She chuckles at the absurdity of just talking to each other could fix everything. But then was also upset because we had the ability to talk to each other and they didn't do that.

Amy looks at her and reassures her that they'll be fine. And to relax because no matter the situation I always came out on top and brought our people home.

"Amy babe why does no one bother using the gear I provide? Is this all a fucking joke to everyone? That this is some kind of shared fucking nightmare that we'll wake up from? This isn't a game! Call a meeting and tell them to get their heads out of their asses because I'm done with the bullshit!!!" I yell out to the comms.

I was giving away my position so I toss a frag to a still usable car and blow it the fuck up and another and another. Then take out a claymore from the shop and set it as I see all the walkers nearby coming. Maybe about half a K of walker.

AN: a thousand is 1k so half a k is 500 the audio feature sometimes says five oh oh instead of five hundred. I don't know why it does. It's not always just sometimes so I gotta do things like this. So after I upload a chapter I play the audio and fix my mistakes as much as possible. My baby is always hitting my phone screen so I miss a few so just tell me what to fix and I'll try to. Thanks for your patience and I'm working on the next chapter give me a few it'll be up by tonight or tomorrow. Have a good day.

Next time on TWD…