The Fear (The Walking Dead / Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 21 - Not A Democracy

It was maybe three hours before Rick honked his horn, getting us to stop.

"You out?" Daryl asked Rick once we all had piled out of the cars.

"Running on fumes." He confirmed.

"We can't stay here." Maggie noted as we looked around at our surrounding, woods on either side.

"We can't all fit in two cars." Glenn said.

"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning." Rick said.

"Spend the night here?" Carol asked.

"I'm freezing." Carl spoke up.

"We'll build a fire, yeah?" Lori asked her husband.

"If you go out looking for firewood stay close. Only got so many arrows. How you doing on ammo?" Daryl asked no one in particular.

"Not enough." Rick replied. "All right, we'll set up a perimeter. In the morning we'll find gas and some supplies. We keep pushing on."

"Glenn and I can go make a run now, try and scrounge up some gas." Maggie offered.

"No, we stay together. God forbid something happens and people get stranded without a car."

"Rick, we're stranded now." Glenn stated.

"I know it looks bad. We've all been through hell and worse, but at least we found each other. I wasn't sure, I really wasn't, but we did. We're together. We keep it that way. We'll find shelter somewhere. There's gotta be a place." Rick persisted.

"Rick, look around, okay? There's walkers everywhere. They're migrating or something." Glenn added.

"There's gotta be a place not just where we hole up, but that we fortify, hunker down, pull ourselves together, build a life for each other. I know it's out there. We just have to find it!" I gave him credit for not giving up hope, but I wasn't so sure in that moment.

"Even if we do find a place we think is safe, we can never be sure for how long." Maggie said. "Look what happened with the farm. We fooled ourselves into thinking that that was safe."

"We won't make that mistake again." Dad said.

"The farm was out in the open... we need walls." I stated.

"We'll find some." Rick nodded. "We'll make camp tonight over there. Get on the road at the break of day." He pointed over to where a stone dam wall and bridge had been built. It wasn't shelter, but it was safer than the road.

"What if walkers come through or another group like Randall's?" Beth asked.

"You know we found Randall, right?" Daryl spoke. "He'd turned, but he wasn't bit."

"Rick, what the hell happened?" Lori demanded.

"Shane killed Randall. Just like he always wanted to." Daryl answered.

"And then the herd got him?" Lori asked.

Rick didn't say much else, not about Shane anyway. "We're all infected."

"What?" Daryl asked.

"At the CDC, Jenner told me." Rick explained. His group had gone to the CDC before they had found our farm. They had lost one member of their group there when the building blew itself up. "Whatever it is, we all carry it."

"And you never said anything?" Carol questioned.

"Would it have made a difference?"

"You knew this whole time?" Glenn asked.