JINX
It was completely dark by the time Glenn finished telling her about everyone else in their group and the five of them had fallen into a not uncomfortable silence for the rest of the journey.
Suddenly that silence was broken by screaming, quickly followed by the sound of gunshots.
The only place those sounds could be coming from was the camp, and they ran the rest of the way.
It was chaos when they reached the small clearing. Jinx ducked off to the side when they got there. She hit one of the monsters with her crowbar, all her frustration finally streaming out of her as she knocked it to the ground and beat it until what had once been a face was unrecognisable and it no longer continued to move. Then she continued to beat it some more.
After what felt like a lifetime, she dropped the crowbar to the ground beside the corpse and her eyes finally began to see what she'd done. She'd killed someone. Maybe they hadn't really been a person anymore, but no one knew what caused people to become these things, no one knew whether there was a cure, it was possible that she'd just killed someone who could have recovered.
Jinx sank to her knees next to the body and looked down at her hands. The blood on her hands looked black in the dim light of the campsite and she couldn't help but notice it coated not only her hands, but most of her forearms and there were even some spots higher up above her elbows.
As she sat unmoving on the bloody, dirty ground she could feel the cool dampness of the blood as it also soaked into her clothes and the tightness as it dried on her skin, even some on her face. In that moment she hated herself, more than she ever had before.
The screams and gunshots around her had begun to die down and the majority of the group had moved to stand beside an RV, but some stayed further away crouched beside bodies of what she supposed were loved ones the monsters had taken from them.
Jinx gradually convinced her limbs to begin moving again and moved towards the rest of the group. Standing on the outskirts the members she had yet to meet didn't even acknowledge her and she preferred it that way.
A blonde woman was cradling the body of a younger blonde and screaming her name "Amy!", thanks to Glenn's descriptions she knew the woman who was still breathing must be Andrea. The sound she made was something Jinx had hoped to never hear again, it was the wail of someone who'd lost one of the most important people in their life. She'd heard it only once before when she'd had the heart wrenching job of calling her uncle's stepdaughter to deliver the news of his death. She'd thought the cry she'd spent so long listening to down the phone had been bad, but in person where you could see the pain as well as hear it was so much worse.
She looked away, unable to stand the sight of Andrea's pain any longer and saw the sheriff holding a woman and younger boy, his wife and child were safe. Jinx breathed a sigh of relief as she continued to survey the rest of the group and found that each of the children Glenn had told her about seemed to be accounted for. Deaths are sad, but children's deaths are devastating.
She didn't sleep that night, though a few of the group did, mostly those with children. She found herself perching on the rocks along the edge of the river the camp was beside. Jinx had always loved the water, even as a child, her dad always told her she could swim before she could walk, and she believed him. She watched the ripples on the surface reflect the moonlight as she tried to ignore the obvious pain of the people not far away. Eventually the sun began to rise and chased the darkness back into the forest a little way away, reminding them all that the world keeps on turning with or without you.
In the half-light of dawn, Jinx moved a little further downstream to an outcropping of rocks where she stripped down to her underwear. Shivering she leant over the water and tried her best to wash the blood from first her hands, then her arms, face and finally her clothes. As she scrubbed the Atlanta sun quickly warmed the air and when she deemed that she'd done the best she could, she laid the clothes over another rock to dry, at least as they were black, they should dry quickly as well as hiding most of the stains.
Moving back closer to the water, Jinx found a relatively smooth rock close enough to the water's edge that she could dip her toes in, but still hidden enough that the others wouldn't see her in her underwear. She lowered herself onto the rock, surprised by the soreness in her weak muscles from defending herself the previous day. She dipped her toes in the water, finally relaxing slightly as she felt the cool liquid against her skin and wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to keep all the emotions the past twenty-four hours had stirred up from spilling out.
She didn't know how long she sat there before she noticed Rick making his way towards the camp holding a walkie talkie of some kind in his hand. She almost didn't recognise him without his hat or sheriff's uniform on. He must have walked that way when she was washing her clothes, or she would've noticed him before. His eyes briefly met hers and he courteously looked away before she even had a chance to blush about her lack of clothing.
As time continued to pass, Jinx tried to lose herself in happier memories, but the faces of everyone she loved quickly began to decompose in her mind's eye, becoming the same as the monsters that now haunted the real world and she wrapped her arms tighter around her small body in a poor attempt to comfort herself.
She heard a gentle rustling sound, much closer to her than she liked and quickly spun around, about to grab the bloody crowbar, before realising she'd left it behind. The woman Rick had been holding the night before stood there she held one hand up sheepishly "Sorry, Rick mentioned you might need some clothes" and Jinx noticed the other hand was holding a small pile of fabric. She racked her mind for a name, sure Glenn had told it to her, but it escaped her now. As if she could read her mind, the woman smiled gently, but still managing to look away and give Jinx her privacy "I'm Lori, Rick's wife".
As Lori handed her the clothes, Jinx quietly thanked her and introduced herself, this time not bothering with her full name as she decided that the unfortunate nickname most definitely still seemed appropriate. Lori seemed kind and Jinx watched her walk away for a second before she unfolded the clothes.
Lori was taller than her and the clothes were a little big on her emaciated frame, but with a lack of other options Jinx was just grateful to have something clean and dry to wear. She sat back down on a rock further from the water, giving her feet a chance to dry in the sun before sliding them back into her bloody trainers. Damp clothes she could have handled, but there was no way she was going to try and wash the shoes and risk having to walk around in wet shoes, they would just have to continue to remind her of the previous night, not that the state of everything else around them didn't already do that.
After a little longer staring into the refreshing water, Jinx realised it was time she head back to the group, she couldn't hide forever, the only options she had were to introduce herself or run and it seemed rude to run after the few people she did know had been so kind to her.
Walking to where the group gradually seemed to be congregating, a few metres from the RV she could hear Daryl and Rick arguing again as the former frustratedly called a dead girl a time bomb. As she got closer, she could see what the argument was about, Andrea was still crouched beside her sister's body.
Jinx stayed back, she didn't know these people well enough to expect them to want her opinion and she didn't feel like she could add anything to what was already being said anyway. She was always good at being objective and this was no different, she could see both sides, but she mostly agreed with Daryl, Amy was a risk to everyone else, especially Andrea if someone didn't do something.
Once Daryl stormed off and Andrea had pointed her gun at Rick for attempting to speak to her, Jinx finally moved closer and sat beside Lori on what seemed to be a pair of car seats on the ground. She thanked her for the clothes and in turn Lori introduced her to a few other people including Shane, Rick's partner, and Dale, the older man who seemed to own the RV and always wore a fishing hat.
Jinx wasn't sure about Shane, he seemed like he could be as much of a loose cannon as Daryl, maybe more so, but Dale seemed kind and she instantly took a liking to him.
It didn't take long until Jinx found herself exhausted by the small talk, she hadn't been the most sociable person prior to all this and after spending so long alone in a basement, she discovered people were even more tiring to her than before. She picked herself up, tracked down her crowbar, still lying a little away from the group and wandered over to where Daryl and a couple of others were stabbing the dead in their heads to stop them from coming back as monsters.
Before she could be of any help though, a woman with short grey hair spoke to Daryl, taking the pickaxe from him, telling them that one of the men on the ground was her husband and she would do it. From Glenn's description Jinx was able to guess this was Carol and that meant the dead man must be Ed, the man Glenn had warned her to stay away from.
Her eyes met Daryl's for a second as Carol hesitated, but then the woman brought the pickaxe down on her late husband's head. Once. Twice. Over and over several more times after that. Jinx could only begin to guess the misery this man had caused her. Neither her nor Daryl said anything as Carol thanked him and handed the pickaxe back before turning and going back the way Jinx had come.
She didn't manage to help for long as her muscles were so weak from disuse and defending herself the previous day that they quickly felt as though they turned to jelly. She apologised so quietly it was unlikely that anyone heard her and moved away to once again sit slightly removed from the group.
As she sat and watched she observed more arguing, there was a lot of tension in the group, but she didn't believe it was all caused by the chaos of the night before. In time she was sure she'd figure out the dynamics of the group, but for now she decided to stick to the side-lines.
It turned out some of the arguing had been about where to go next, it was obvious they could no longer stay this close to the city. Everyone was sitting around the fire when Shane sat down and gave a speech supporting Rick's plan to move on to the CDC and it was decided they would move on the next morning.
Over the course of the day, Jinx collected her now dry clothes and ate a small amount of food, feeling guilty that she had contributed so little to this group and yet they were being so kind to her.
Carol offered for her to share a tent with her and her little girl Sophia, but Jinx decided to stay out beside the fire. She said it was to keep watch, but truthfully, she just couldn't stand the idea of another enclosed space and knew she wouldn't sleep anyway.
The next morning came and everyone packed up ready to leave. Part of the group, a family with two young children decided to go their separate way, they had family elsewhere and they decided to go look for them instead. Jinx was sad to see the kids go, she found the children made the world seem a little less awful and were easier to be around, but she understood. If she could've gone to look for her family too she would, but she knew there weren't going to be any planes back to England any time soon.
There was no space for Jinx in the RV or any of the cars, so Rick suggested she ride in Daryl's truck. Neither of them were too pleased by the idea, but Jinx thanked them both and Daryl gave a grunt of acknowledgement as she got in.