Malevolent. The Walking Dead

[ 010 ] cope with the worst

Bill offered them a simple smile and nod, while Finn kept his head on his knees, looking to Joey for some sort of reassurance. Nothing in return. The two of them held hands for the slightest bit of comfort. Joey noticed how his palms were sweating.

The whole group of them sat in silence for the greater majority of the time. There wasn't much to be talking about. Joey didn't want to speak.

"So, where were you guys coming from?" a woman, that Joey had assumed to be Tara, asked. She had a permanent look of worry of her face, and Joey saw the lines forming on her forehead. "Uhm ━ well, we've kinda been floatin' from place to place since the beginning. Me n' Joey started off in California. Made our way to Colorado . . . that's where we met him," he nodded towards Finn, who gripped Joey's hand harder. "So uh. We've been goin' from place to place. No real home," his voice got quiet by the end, and the group seemed to grow silent.

"Well shit. You've put yourself through the shit hole and back," a red headed man, with an impressive mustache and stature, muttered from the corner of the train car. Joey still kept silent.

There was another long, awkward silence that was only broken by the occasional attempt at small talk or whisper among the other survivors. Joey tapped her foot in anticipation. It was like they were waiting for a death sentence. She felt pathetic and useless, just sitting there, but there was no way out. The man with the mullet made sure to remind her of that every time she tried to pry the door open. Or bang her fists angrily on the wall. Her gaze was currently shifted up to the roof as night fell.

"You should try and get some sleep," Bill whispered to her, a coaxing hand placed on her shoulder. She shrugged it off. "I'm fine. You sleep,"

"I'm not asking, I'm telling,"

"Alright, well you're not my fucking dad, okay?" she snapped, pushing his arm away. Joey averted her gaze somewhere else. The tension in the air grew stiff and uncomfortable. It was clear no one else was sleeping either. Bill stared at her, gripping his hand into a fist. He didn't know how to handle it other than just letting it go.

Joey stayed up all night. She wasn't sure if anyone else did too. It was the longest night of her life. She wasn't sure what to expect, if someone was going to drag them out and kill them one by one when they were at their most vulnerable ━ as if they weren't all at their most vulnerable. It was hard to even get herself in the state of mind to sleep. She felt sour after snapping at Bill, but she couldn't help. She wasn't sure what was pushing her away from him recently. But they always seemed to be getting themselves into heavy predicaments and Joey couldn't help but believe it was her own fault. She tried to grip her hands into fists to quell the shaking.

When morning came, her stomach was growling. She couldn't decipher if it was because she was hungry, or her human helping from the day before wasn't settling correctly. It haunted her to think that she could be so stupid. Venison goulash. My ass.

The humidity in the train car amplified overnight. Joey had to shed her sweatshirt off and fiddled with the strings on the hood to pass the time. Finn wasn't even talking, either, and she knew he was scared, too.

"How long have you guys been here?" Bill asked the group, and Glenn winced. "Got here probably a few hours before you guys,"

"Shit," Joey put her head in her hands. The dirt made her eyes sting. "I saw other train cars. There were people in there. Are they just gonna let us starve to death, or some shit?"

There was a beat of silence before an echo of gunshots rang through the perimeter. They were muffled, Joey assumed from the distance, but they got closer and closer. She ran to the door and looked through the cracks, as the others scrambled to do the same. "What in God's name is that?" Abraham grumbled, and the other stayed silent. "You think someone's coming for us?" Finn questioned, pushing Joey over slightly to look through the cracks. "Hey," she muttered, punching him in the arm.