WHITE FLAG
chapter fourteen : chick on a horse
{ season two - episode two }
"WHAT SONG ARE you trying to play?" Zayn asked. Kloe lifted her head away from her guitar that she had been holding for around an hour. "You've been sitting here for ages."
"I'm trying to make my own song," she answered truthfully. Making a song was extremely difficult, especially when she only had a limited amount of time before she had to eat dinner and do her homework.
She was partly shocked that Zayn had appeared himself. After all, for the past two months he had locked himself in his room for most of the time.
"I'm sure you can do it one day, I believe in you," he smiled, patting his hand against his younger sister's head. "I just had a long talk with mom, and she said we'll go to the beach tomorrow if that's what you want. It's your choice, after all, it is your sixteenth birthday."
The smile that was on the younger Schmidt's face slowly drifted away into some sort of sadness, "My first birthday where dad won't be there." She blinked back the few forming tears in her eyes. Their father died a few months back at the time for an unknown cause. He worked for the U.S army and sacrificed himself in a miniature war somewhere in Europe.
Before he left, he had given Kloe a very special bow that one of his co-workers crafted. She remembered her father telling her all about his co-worker, Vickie all the time when the woman wasn't available to see them. Her whole world shattered and fell down onto her with the two words that spilled out her mother's mouth,
'He's gone'.
Kloe's head immediately snapped up to the gunshot in the far distance. She turned to the direction it came from and fear and worry settled in the pit of her stomach. She waited patiently for another shot to ring out, to be sure that maybe they had been surrounded by some walkers. But even then, Carl was with them, and knowing a child was out there made the pit in her stomach bigger.
"What was that?" the elder Schmidt asked, his eyes set in the same direction his sister's were. She noticed the whole group was looking in the exact direction, meaning it wasn't just her imagining it. "Why was there a gunshot?"
"Must be from Rick or Shane," Daryl grunted like usual. There was something Kloe noticed about Daryl ever since she first met him back in Atlanta camp is that he would consistently grunt. Not that she had anything against it, of course, "Nothing to worry about."
Lori had a wary look on her face. She knew what she was thinking. Why would they waste - risk - a single gunshot on something they could've used their melee weapon? But everyone else ignored it and continued to walk.
...
Every two minutes, Lori would turn around with paranoia. Who could blame her, though? Her son and husband were out there; anything could've happened.
It took Kloe instantly to realize she came to another stop, but the group continued to walk. She snapped her fingers to catch their attention as they all turned around and came to an immediate stop.
"You still worrying about it?" Andrea questioned, exhaling sharply. A few strands of her light blonde hair were sticking to her sweaty forehead. She shifted her weight onto her right leg, causing her hip to point outwards to the side.
Lori bopped her head faintly, "It was a gunshot."
"We all heard it," Daryl moderately stepped towards her.
Lori abruptly spun her head around to face the group. "Why one? Why just one gunshot?" Kloe had the same thought running through her mind. She had been around Rick and Shane long enough to know that they wouldn't risk doing anything stupid.
Daryl shrugged, "Maybe they took down a walker." Kloe's shoulders dropped as she subconsciously rolled her eyes at the man's comment.
"Please don't patronize me," the Grimes woman snapped, "You know Rick wouldn't risk a gunshot to put down one walker. Or Shane. They'd do it quietly."
"Shouldn't they have caught up with us by now?" Carol queried, worry lacing through her soft voice.
"There's nothing we can do about it anyway," Daryl stepped forward, searching the woods. "Can't run around these woods chasing echoes."
"So what do we do?" Kloe asked, siding with Lori. The younger Schmidt shot the Dixon a glare as she waited for an answer. All she wanted to do at that moment was to sprint towards the direction the shot came from and hope she'd find something - or someone.
Although, Daryl ignored the glare the girl was giving him and returned it, "Same as we've been. Beat the bush for Sophia, work our way back to the highway." A part of Kloe wanted to say something back, but another part of her thought it was the best idea. Sometimes it wasn't an option to search for two things at the time. In this circumstance, two kids.
"I'm sure they'll hook up with us back at the RV," Andrea assured, her eyes flickering between Lori and Kloe's.
Lori nodded and started to move ahead, whereas Kloe hesitantly moved. She began to chew the flesh inside her cheek with the same feeling in her stomach. She couldn't comprehend what it was, but she figured it was a mix of all sorts of emotions: anger, sadness, fear, guilt and sympathy.
"I'm sorry for what you're going through," she heard Andrea say, causing them to swivel their bodies and spot Andrea facing Carol, who was still standing in the same place. "I know how you feel," she sighed.
"I suppose you do," Carol weakly smiled at the woman. "Thank you," she switched her gaze to the rest of the group, "The thought of her out here by herself... It's the not knowing that's killing me," her voice began to crack, the sympathy began to overtake the rest of the emotions circling around Kloe's body. "I just keep hoping and praying she doesn't wind up like Amy."
Kloe's lips formed into a straight line at what the woman had just said. Yes, she also hoped Sophia wouldn't wind up like Amy too, but it wasn't the right thing to say in front of the girl's sister. Once the realization struck Carol, her eyes immediately widened, "Oh, God," she took one step forward and grabbed onto Andrea's hands, "That's the worst thing I ever said."
Andrea shook her head, forcing a sympathetic smile across her dried-out lips. "We're all hoping and praying with you," she gulped, "for what it's worth."
Daryl again walked over to the two women, but his eyes directly set on Carol. "I'll tell you what it's worth, not a damn thing," Carol and Andrea shared a glance with disbelief. "It's a waste of time, all this hoping and praying. 'Cause we're gonna locate that little girl, she's gonna be just fine. Am I the only one zen around here? Good Lord."
A small grin tugged at Kloe's lips as she turned back to start walking again. She stared at the ground, syncing her steps with Glenn's, who was in front of the brunette.
From then, they began to walk again and make their way back to the highway.
...
Silence. That was quite common in the group when half of it was missing. The silence became a part of the group. Usually, with groups, you'd be having fun and you'd be laughing at the smallest things. But this time, the group was coated in worry and silence.
The only thing the group wanted was the knowledge that the little girl was okay and safe. The temperature rose as the sun lowered. The golden light shone on the skin of their arms. It felt like they had been chasing the sun for hours on end, but it had only been two hours at least.
A fly buzzed in Kloe's ear, making her swat at it to get it away. She thought she would've been used to all the bugs and nature since she lived in it for her entire childhood. Maybe she had just gotten used to living outside the city since her mother dragged Zayn and her into a whole new state called Georgia.
Kloe's tired legs promptly stopped as she realized the group had come to a stop. They all stood side by side and faced the setting sun. "We'll lose the light before too long," Daryl stated softly, which was quite surprising in Kloe's eyes since Daryl was never usually the softy, "I think we should call it."
Lori inhaled sharply, "Let's head back." She shared an abrupt glance with the group before staring forward. She had her machete resting on her shoulder.
Simultaneously, the group looked at her as Carol spoke up next to her, "We'll pick it up again tomorrow?" she questioned.
Lori nodded in an instant, "Yeah, we'll find her tomorrow."
Daryl whistled loudly, signaling to turn back, which they did. They followed him and the familiar sound came back: silence. No one spoke except the birds in the tall trees.
Someone tapped the younger Schmidt's shoulder gently, making her set her gaze on the person. Zayn had a look in his eyes, something like an 'are you okay' look. As if she could read his mind, she nodded lightly, sending a forced smile.
...
Kloe looked up at the trees from time to time, admiring the scenery. Her legs became more and more tired as they continued to stumble through the woods, making their way back to the highway where Dale and T-Dog were. All she wanted to do was fall and stare up at the sky.
There were some moments when she was tempted to ask her brother for a piggyback, but she held back. She noticed that some other people in their small group grew tired since they were slowing down and got out of breath quicker than usual.
"How much farther?" Lori asked. She was one of the few people who weren't tired.
"Not much," Daryl replied, not exhausted whatsoever, "Maybe a hundred yards as the crow flies."
"Too bad we're not crows," Andrea panted. Kloe groaned in tiredness as she dragged her feet across the soil, making some of the group bite back their laughs. "Oh. Oh," Andrea exclaimed in disgust, making Kloe turn around, a grin forming on her lips as she watched Andrea frustratingly pull off the white web she had got tangled in, "As a crow flies my ass."
Kloe glanced at Zayn and Glenn, who both had grins on their faces. Their grins suddenly dropped and stopped dead in their tracks as they heard Andrea scream with fear, "Andrea?!"
Kloe's hand instinctively wrapped on the wooden handle of her knife as she sprinted over to the woman's screams. As she got closer and closer, she saw Andrea on the ground with her knife and a walker on top of her, attempting to sink his teeth into her skin.
Kloe's heart was practically thumping out of her chest as she forced her feet to run fast. She completely froze as she heard horseshoes hitting against the ground close by. Her head snapped to a girl on a horse - the horse she had previously heard - with a baseball bat in her grasp. She swung the baseball bat across the walker's skull, making Andrea's desperate screams come to an end. "Lori?" she called out with a thick country voice, "Lori Grimes? Woah."
The girl had short Havana brown hair. She looked around Kloe's age. She was wearing a rouge pink tank top, a flower print jacket on, and ripped jeans with cowgirl boots. She placed her baseball bat into a pocket on her saddle.
Kloe looked at Lori, who had widened eyes. Kloe also realized she wasn't the only one with pure shock written across her appearance, but all of them were shocked. Her mind couldn't comprehend what was happening. One second they were all laughing, then the next Andrea gets attacked and a random cowgirl shows up asking for Lori?
"I'm Lori," she stated, making the mystery brunette pay attention to her.
"Rick sent me. You've got to come now," she desperately said. Kloe's breath got caught in her throat.
"What?" Lori furrowed with confusion, breathing heavily from running.
The girl sucked in a deep breath before speaking again, "There's been an accident. Carl's been shot." Kloe's lips parted with shock. That's what that single gunshot was: the bullet that ended up going through Carl. A wave of nausea ran through Kloe's veins and placed itself in her stomach. "He's still alive but you've gotta come now." Lori stayed in the same spot, still shocked from what she had just got informed. "Rick needs you. Just come!"
Desperately, Lori unwrapped the backpack straps that were around her shoulders and dropped it to the ground. Daryl's brows connected and stared at the woman as if she was crazy, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! We don't know this girl," he pointed at her as Lori hastily walked over to her, "You can't get on that horse."
The girl shifted forward to make room for Lori, "Rick said you had others on the highway, that big traffic snarl?" her eyes switched between everyone's, but they all stayed quiet. Once her eyes set on Kloe's, she quickly nodded and hummed. "Backtrack to Fairburn Road. Two miles down is our farm. You'll see the mailbox. The name's Greene. Hi-yah!" the horse took off, the galloping fading off into the distance.
Kloe shared a confused and shocked glance with everyone else. Everything happened so fast. Her chest heaved and the nausea was still there. The two children of the group had something bad happen to them. The girl went missing and was out there without her mother, and the boy had been shot. Both of them were in life-threatening situations.
The walker that the girl hit with her baseball bat growled and sat upright. Daryl scowled and aimed his crossbow at its head, "Shut up." He pulled the trigger, the arrow flew through the air and into the side of its head.
As the walker's lifeless body fell back down, it caused Carol to jolt back in surprise. Glenn, Zayn, and Kloe all stood there, their lips parted with just as much shock as everyone was when they found out the world had gone to shit.
...
"Shot?" Dale asked with wide-open eyes. The group made their way back to the highway, and now the sun was at its final last twenty minutes for the night. "What do you mean shot?" he took a few steps closer to Glenn, Zayn, and Kloe for answers.
Kloe parted her lips to speak, but no words came out. "We don't know, Dale," Glenn answered, stepping over the metal railing, "we weren't there. All I know is this chick rode out of nowhere like Zorro on a horse and took Lori." He extended his hand to help Kloe climb over the metal railing, and she appreciatively accepted.
"You let her?" Dale inquired in disbelief, staring at Daryl who was now stepping over the railing.
"Climb down out of my asshole, man," Daryl replied, harshly stepping away towards the old man's RV. "Rick sent her. She knew Lori's name and Carl's."
Dale, who hadn't blinked once from shock, drifted his eyes to a still shaken Andrea who stepped onto the concrete road, "I heard screams. Was that you?" Andrea ignored the man and hurried past him.
"She got attacked by a walker," Zayn informed, squinting his eyes from the low sun, "It was a close call."
"Andrea," the man called out to her, "are you all right?"
She turned around reluctantly and sent a glare, nodding her head, and frustratingly sighed. She yanked open the door to the RV and stepped inside. Kloe's body jumped as the blonde woman slammed it shut.
Kloe swallowed thickly, still trying to accept that the two children she cared for deeply were in danger. She watched as her older brother walked away into the midst of the cars, Carol sat on the metal railing like normal, and Dale stood in between Glenn and Kloe in shock.
To take her mind off of things, Kloe stepped away in search to find something to rest on. She examined every car she walked past until she found one that looked just right. In an instant, she set her bow and quiver full of arrows on the roof of the car and hauled herself up onto it.
She laid herself down across it with her eyes shut, preparing herself to see the beautiful sky that always held something in my heart. Excitedly, her eyes fluttered open and they adjusted to the sky. She couldn't see the sky too well, but the clouds were enough to take her mind away from the world.
"Are you okay? You're looking at the sky which means something's wrong," a voice startled the girl slightly, but just by the tone her body settled down as she turned her head. Glenn leaned against the car that was next to the car she was on and sympathetically smiled.
She pursed her lips and nodded lightly, "Yeah. Well, no, not really," she answered honestly. "I can't believe that bad things are happening to the children; the ones who won't have a fun childhood like we did. If I could, I wouldn't think twice into jumping in front of that bullet if it was to save him."
"Don't say that," Glenn interrupted, pushing himself off the car and rested his arms on the car roof his best friend was on, "It shouldn't happen to anyone. If you ever got shot, I don't know what I'd do with myself."
She gulped deeply as she watched him stare at the car roof. "Hey, don't think about something that won't happen. Come on," she patted the space next to her on the roof. His brows connected with confusion, which made the brunette girl dramatically roll her eyes, "Oh, don't be the same dumbass you were that time we saved Rick."
The cute grin that Kloe always liked grew on his face and climbed up onto the car. She switched her dark brown eyes to the sky, noticing more and more clouds were blocking the sky, "Damn. Clouds love to ruin everything."
"I thought you liked cloud-gazing?" Glenn tried to hide his smile, but he failed miserably.
"Yeah, I do. But you can't make out the shapes if they're all connected," Kloe laughed, her daze landed onto Glenn's eyes, "Can we just stay here until someone calls out for us? It's so peaceful."
Glenn nodded, which only made the girl smile even more. They were smiling at each other continuously, like stupid teenagers. And they both liked that.
...
"I won't do it. We can't just leave," Carol shook her head as she looked at all of the group with a judging expression. It hadn't even been ten minutes and Daryl had called for Glenn and Kloe. The younger Schmidt seemed to come at ease though, she wasn't as worried as she was before. They had been discussing who was going to the Greene farm. As much as Kloe wanted to go to the farm to make sure Carl was okay, a part of her wanted to stay at the highway in case Sophia would return.
"Carol, the group is split," Dale stated firmly, his hand resting on the door of his RV. "We're scattered and weak."
"What if she comes back and we're not here?" she retorted in disbelief. "It could happen."
Kloe knew it could happen. All she wanted to do was split her body in half and keep one half on the highway and the other half at the farm. It felt like they had to make a decision like you had to choose if you live with just food or water.
Carol stared at Andrea, waiting for her to speak up, which she did, "If Sophia found her way back and we were gone, that would be awful."
Daryl nodded in agreement, "Okay. We got to plan for this," he said, drifting his eyes over the group, "I say tomorrow morning is soon enough to pull up stakes. Give us a chance to rig a big sign, leave her some supplies. I'll hold up here tonight, stay with the RV."
"If the RV is staying, I am too," Dale said, quickly smiling at the Peletier woman.
She appreciatively smiled at the two men, "Thank you. Thank you both." Daryl nodded his head as everyone's gaze set on Andrea, waiting for her decision.
"I'm in," she raised both her hands and she pursed her lips into a smile.
"Yep, me too," Zayn also said, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at Glenn, who the group guessed was going to be next to answer.
"Well if you're all staying then I'm-" Glenn began to speak, but immediately got cut off by Dale.
"Not you, Glenn. You're going. Matter of fact, you can go too, Kloe." The younger Schmidt's eyebrows quickly furrowed as to why it had to be Glenn and her going. She quickly looked at Zayn in hope he would back his sister up, but instead he was smirking. "Take Carol's Cherokee."
Glenn scoffed, "Us? Why is it always us?"
"You have to find this farm, reconnect with our people and see what's going on," Dale listed, making Glenn roll his eyes and making Kloe cross her arms over her chest frustratingly. "But most importantly, you both have to get T-Dog there. This is not an option." Glenn and Kloe's eyes scattered the area to look for the missing man. Their eyes landed on him and he was hunched over with a towel wrapped around his back. "The cut has gone from bad to worse. He has a very serious blood infection. Get him to that farm. See if they have any antibiotics. Because if not, T-Dog will die, no joke."
The group's gazes fell onto Daryl, who was scavenging through a bag on his brother's motorcycle and gripped onto a plastic bag that was filled with tubs of pills. In his other hand he held a cloth. He walked over to them and threw the cloth over to Dale, "Keep your oily rags off my brother's motorcycle," he set the plastic bag on a car hood and rummaged through it.
"Why'd you wait 'til now to say anything?" Dale asked as we waited for Daryl to hand over some antibiotics.
"Got my brother's stash." Kloe watched as he pulled out tubs and read the labels. "Crystal, X. Don't need that," he then pulled out a tub and lifted it, preparing to toss it over to Glenn, "Got some kick ass painkillers." Glenn, who caught it with one hand, examined the tub as Kloe stumbled over to his side to read too. "Oxycycline." She swiftly looked up and as soon as she did, Daryl threw the tub over to her. She took a few steps back to catch the tub, which she succeeded.
"Not the generic stuff neither. It's first class," Daryl explained, pointing at the tub that sat in the palm of Kloe's hands, "Merle got the clap on occasion." Her face scrunched up with disgust as the man walked away.
Dale, on the other hand, was smiling brightly since the pills Daryl just gave Glenn and Kloe would help T-Dog for a short while.
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Words: 3865
- 20th January 2022
okay, but this chapter is a little rushed so i apologize in advance. but i hope you enjoyed it! your comments and votes are greatly appreciated!