CHAPTER FOUR — angels on horseback
THE church was the perfect example of hope being dangled right in front of you and ripped away as painfully as possible.
There were no bells nor steeple, only a speaker with the sound of church bells on a timer that was set to play every half-hour.
Now, Carol was praying to whatever higher power was listening to help her daughter; to make sure she's alive and safe. The rest of the group was silent as she finished her prayers and slowly made her way back outside with the rest of the group, Lori holding her along the way to comfort her.
Shane cleared his throat as he approached the group, catching everyone's attention. "Y'all gonna follow the creek bed back. Okay, Daryl, you're in charge. Me and Rick, we're just gonna hang back, search this area another hour or so just to be thorough."
"You're splitting us up. You sure?" Daryl questioned. From his experience he knew being split from the group wasn't always the greatest idea.
"Yeah, we'll catch up to you."
Out of the corner of Riley's eye, she spotted Carl taking a step forward. "I wanna stay, too. I'm her friend."
Shane and Rick shared a look but didn't get the chance to answer Carl. Lori answered for them, deciding who her son was going with. "Just be careful, okay?"
"I will."
"When did you start growing up?" Lori and Rick brought their son in for a sentimental moment, giving Riley and the rest of the group the signal to start getting ready to head back to the highway.
"Here, take this." Rick said, handing Lori his only gun. "Remember how to use it?"
"I'm not taking your gun and leaving you unarmed."
Daryl pulled out a gun from behind his shirt, "Here, got a spare. Take it." Lori nodded once, taking the gun and checking the bullet count.
With that, Riley heard Andrea scoff under her breath. It was clear she was pissed that Lori got a gun over her, but Lori was a police officers wife who clearly knew how to handle a weapon. Andrea had only shot a gun once in her life and it was to shoot her undead sister at close range.
She couldn't be trusted with a gun yet.
Before anymore time has passed, the larger group set off and started their walk back to the highway.
☠︎︎
The heat was coming down hard on the group. The closer they got to the highway, the more stops they needed to take to get there.
"So this is it?" Carol asked, resting on a fallen tree trunk, "This the whole plan?"
"I guess the plan is to whittle us down into smaller and smaller groups." Daryl sighed, leaning against a tree that was almost the width of him.
"Carrying knives and pointy sticks." Andrea side-eyed Lori, "I see you have a gun."
"Why, you want it? Here, take it." Lori held the gun for Andrea to take. "I'm sick of the looks you're givin' me." Andrea took the gun from Lori, shock on her features as she realized Lori had seen all of the side-eyes and glares thrown her way. "All of you."
With a thump of the fallen tree, Lori sat down and pulled her water bottle from her bag. She looked towards Carol before taking a sip, "Honey, i can't imagine what you're going through. And i would do anything to stop it. But you have got to stop blaming Rick. It is in your face every time you look at him."
"When Sophia ran he didn't hesitate, did he? Not for a second. I don't know that any of us would have gone after her the way he did or made the hard decisions that he had to make or that anybody could have done it any differently. Anybody?" Lori looked around for anyone that protested her statement, only to find shut mouths of those who usually have a lot to say.
"Y'all look to him and then blame him when he's not perfect. If you think you can do this without him, go right ahead. Nobody is stopping you." Taking an angry final sip of her water, Lori got ready to move on with the rest of the group.
Andrea handed the gun back to Lori, realizing that Lori was much more capable than she thought she was.
"We should keep moving."
☠︎︎
"You still worrying about it?" Riley asked Lori as she had stopped again, looking around for any sign of Shane, Rick or Carl after the gunshot had gone off earlier.
"It was a gunshot." She stated.
"We all heard it."
"Why one? Why just one gunshot?" She asked. It was abnormal to only hear one gunshot when it was easier to take singular walkers out with their knives.
"Maybe they took down a walker." Daryl tried to rationalize the situation in an attempt to settle Lori's nerves.
"Please don't patronize me. You know Rick wouldn't risk a gunshot to put down one walker. Or Shane. They'd do it quietly." Riley agreed with Lori. Both former policemen knew better than to risk walkers hearing the shot if it wasn't completely necessary.
"Shouldn't they have caught up with us by now?" Carol pointed out, realizing it had been way too long since they had separated from the two men and Carl.
"There's nothing we can do about it anyway." Daryl brushed off any more concerns, "Can't run around these woods chasing echoes."
"So what do we do?" Riley asked, now facing Daryl.
"Same as we've been. Beat the bush for Sophia, work our way back to the highway."
"I'm sure they'll hook up with us back at the RV." Andrea said to Lori, trying to calm her nerves about the lone gunshot.
Half the group started moving, only to find Carol and Andrea talking behind them. "We're all hoping and praying with you, for what it's worth."
Daryl took a step towards them, "I'll tell you what it's worth; not a damn thing. It's a waste of time all this hoping and praying. 'Cause we're gonna locate that little girl, and she's gonna be just fine. Am i the only one Zen around here? Good lord."
Riley snorted shortly in an attempt to suppress the laugh bubbling up at the last sentence that spewed from the hicks mouth.
☠︎︎
"How much farther?"
The air around them started cool as they got closer to the interstate. The sun was beginning it's decent into the earth and the bugs were starting to make an appearance.
"Not much. Maybe a hundred yards as the crow flies." Daryl answered Lori. They were getting tired but they needed to press on. Stopping and taking a break now would mean they were stuck in the woods once the sun was down.
"Too bad we're not crows."
A few moments of silence passed only to be broken by Andrea's screams. The group turned to find Andrea fighting off a walker, it's teeth chomping down as it tried to take a bite out of her.
"Help me!"
Andrea tripped on a log, falling on her back. The group took off sprinting towards Andrea, but didn't make it before a woman riding a horse came out of nowhere, knocking the walker on the head with a bat and killing it.
"Lori? Lori Grimes?" The woman came to a halt in front of the group, calling for the married woman.
"I'm lori."
"Rick sent me. You've gotta come now." The woman spoke fast and panicked.
"What?"
"There's been an accident. Carl's been shot. He's still alive but you've got to come now. Rick needs you. Just come." Lori tossed her bag off, heading towards the horse without a second thought.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't know this girl. You can't get on that horse." Daryl protested. For all he knew they could have Rick and the others held captive.
"Rick said you had others on the highway, that big traffic snarl?" The woman asked Glenn, completely ignoring Daryl's protests.
"Uh-huh."
"Backtrack to Fairburn Road. Two miles down is our farm. You'll see the mailbox. The name's Greene." And with that, the woman and Lori had taken off back to her farm, leaving the group confused and concerned.