I sat in silence over the freshly covered grave for some time, waiting until I saw that the others were about ready to go. When they looked to be finished I began to stand and made my way down to the truck, carrying two items. I put the shovel in the back and then the prosthetic leg.
"What is that?" Martinez asked.
"He doesn't need it anymore. Someone else might." Was all I said and aside from the somewhat disturbed and shocked look on his face he let it be. "Sun will be up in a few hours."
"We're all ready. Nothing's left inside." I glanced into the back of the truck to double check and saw all the bags including the guitar and my black leather one. I grabbed it though and put it over my shoulder, not particularly wanting to part with it just yet.
"There's one more thing."
"Mmmm?"
"I saw something up there." I nodded back to my father's grave on the hill. "Across the paddock, that might come in handy. It'll make us burn through more fuel, but we'll still have enough to make it back to the prison and on a bit further and when we do run out she'll be useful."
"She?" Luke questioned before Martinez could.
"Reverse the truck back down to the shed and hitch up the horse float. I got a horse to catch."
Third Person
Beth and Daryl sat around their camp fire for the night, the both of them sitting as far apart as they could get, this being Daryl's doing as he stared into the flame not speaking or really moving at all.
Beth stared at him for a while before finally speaking.
"We should do something." Daryl's eyes flicked up, but he didn't really move. "We aren't the only survivors. We can't be. Rick, Michonne, they could be out here. Maggie and Glenn could have made it out of A Block." Daryl looked back to the fire. "They could of!" Daryl remained silent and Beth got to her feet in frustration. "You're a tracker. You can track. Come on! The sun will be up soon. If we head out now we can..." She wasn't sure what. Find them was the end of that sentence, but there was enough doubt in her mind to stop her from finishing. "Fine! If you won't track, I will." Beth's grabbed her knife and stormed off into the night. Daryl watched her go and waited a while before finally getting to his feet to follow after, but not before stomping out the fire. The only thing he had on him was the crossbow. The automatic rifle he left at the prison once he ran out of ammo. His crossbow and Beth's knife. That was it. He kept pace behind her and they kept moving well after the sun had come up.
Daryl knelt down and uncovered a few tracks. Small ones, kids size.
"They could be Luke's or Molly's. Lizzie or Micas." Beth offered. "Means they're alive."
"No. It means they were alive four or five hours ago."
"They're alive." Beth said firmly and began to walk away but stopped at a tree. "What's this?"
"Marker." Daryl replied, inspecting the scratch into the tree. "All along here, look." He pointed at a few more trees and then looked around realising that this was the last one. "It's the last one. There's tyre marks here too, they're heading back out that way. Towards the road."
"Should we follow it?"
"No. We got no hope of catching up to a car, but here." He pointed over to some more tracks. "About three people went that way, tracks are fresher than the kids. We'll follow those."
Beth sort of took the lead, but was looking over her shoulder to Daryl who kept his eyes on the ground, following the marks, so that she could turn when he did.
"Picked up the pace right here. Got out in a hurry. Things went bad."
"Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith." Beth shot back.
"Faith." Daryl scoffed. "Faith ain't done shit for us. Sure as hell didn't do nothing for you're father." Beth spun around, but didn't say anything. Daryl looked like he at least regretted saying it and that was enough. He was mad; at the governor, at his men, at karma, at whatever he could blame. Beth was optimistic. She was optimistic because she had to believe she would see her sisters again even if she would never see her father. She could see Carl and Judith. Lizzie Mica, Molly, Luke; the kids she looked after all the time in the prison because that was her job.
But there was one truth that Daryl hadn't mentioned. Something that had been eating at him since they left the prison. This horrible stomach turning feeling that Beth hadn't seemed to realise... one he had only realised after the panic to get out had subsided and they were sitting at a fire place in the dark, in silence...
If Beth wasn't on that bus...
Kat sure as hell wouldn't have been.
They moved on until they reached the train tracks. A small group of walkers were there, surrounded by blood and torn bits of meat as they ripped apart three bodies. Daryl took them out with a few arrows and collected them before going to move on, the only sound stopping him being Beth's sudden outburst of sobs as she stared at the bodies.
It wasn't them. They weren't even identifiable. It was the sudden reality kick that they could have been anyone. Glenn, Maggie. She didn't believe they were, but that didn't mean anybody else was safe.
Daryl waited, they moved on and lit another fire for the second night.
-
Glenn woke on the collapsed walkway after being knocked down by the explosion, neither him nor Kat noticing the other bellow or above. She had only just left the prison, going back with Martinez to find Luke and Molly and had never seen him. He went back inside and packed a bag filled with supplies and armoured himself up in the prison guard body suits before ramming his way through the herd. But he stopped when he saw a girl, hidden behind the enclosed barricade that went into one of the Cell blocks. He didn't recognise her, she wasn't one of their people. But Glenn found himself going back. He took out the walker at the fence trying to get to her and opened the gate, quickly snatching the gun she held in her hand. It was fully loaded. He took off his helmet to speak to her, but she hadn't so much as looked his way yet.
"It's full. You didn't fire a shot?" She shook her head. "Alright. Let's go." She didn't move. "Let's go. You just gonna stay here, huh? You just gonna die?"
"I was apart of this."
"I know."
"So what are you doing?"
"I need your help."
Glenn shoved a piece of cloth into a bottle of alcohol and then handed her back her gun. "We're gonna run out of bullets. Back up." He lit the cloth on fire, kicked the gate open and threw it at a parked car, ignighting the bonent before closing he gate again and allowing the walkers to gravitate towards the flame. "Alright. I need you to stay ahead of me. I'll cover you but I can't do it alone. Alright?" She nodded as Glenn put his helmet back on and picked up the backpack.
They left, firing as they ran and sprinting into the cover of the trees. They came out at a road and finally were allowed a moment to breathe.
"Did you see if any of my people got out?"
"All I saw was my sister in that field. She wasn't supposed to be there. She had a gun, by they just... swarmed her. She wasn't supossed to be there. I did it for him. I trusted him. And then he just killed that old man."
Glenn froze "Hershel?" He asked, knowing there could only be one answer. The girl, who he now knew as Tara, took a few more steps and stopped. "Was his name Hershel?"
She turned back, pushing back sobs and quickly nodded her head, "I'm sorry." She whispered. "I'm so sorry. Brian... he told us you were bad people. I know it's not true. I can see it's not so what we did, what I did... I'm a piece of shit." She shrugged. "why would you want my help?" She began to walk away.
"I don't want it... I need it. I have to find Maggie."
She turned back around. "Who's Maggie?"
"She's my wife."
"You got separated."
"I was on the bus, but I got off and she didn't see me."
"How do you know she made it?"
"i don't know." He shook his head. "But Hershel, Maggie's father was a great man and he told me all I had to do was believe. That's what I'm going to do. Neither one of us should be alive right now. She got out so... you're going to help me find her. Things aren't over."
"Wait." Tara called. "There was a girl. She came back to the prison. She didn't see me. She came in to get supplies Ithink. Left with bag loads of it and drove off in a truck. A blue one."
"Did she have dark hair? Short hair, bruette."
"No." Tara shook her head. "Dark blonde"
"Kat." Glenn whispered. "Did she have a machete."
"Not at first, but she came out of the buildings with one. She had a sheet over her covered in blood, dead blood."
"It would have been Kat." Glenn nodded. "Maggie's sister. You didn't see another girl with her, light blonde hair, about 17? That's Beth. There's 3 of them, Beth's the youngest, she's the reason Maggie didn't stay on the bus."
"No I didn't see anyone else."
A group of five walkers came up to the road, breaking their conversation. Glenn went for the first few and Tara the next, but a coughing fit began to I take over and by the time the walkers were down so was Glenn.
"Glenn!" Tara ran to him, trying to shake him awake before another walker came up behind her. She just turned in time and drove a knife through it's head before turning to see a great big army truck stopped before three people jumped out.
"You enjoy the show assholes?"
"You got quite the mouth on you." The man in the middle said with red hair and an army air to his being. To his left was a woman in shorts and a mid drift with great big hoop earring and on the other side was an awkward guy with a mullet. "What else you got?"
Kat POV
Nervous Nelly; somewhat of a flight risk, had a bad reputation for throwing anyone who had ever been on her, but my favourite horse by far that we had. She was the fastest and I always found her unpredictability a good ride. But she was loyal. Proven in how after all this time she was still around the property. She came to a whistle, an old one she could never forget and with some grass to give her and a familiar rub down she accepted the halter and lead with ease. I threw some riding gear into the float with her, hung it up on a hook and a few bales of hay for her to eat while we drove also filling up a bucket of water. It was potentially a bad idea, but the car would run out of fuel and we couldn't carry all the supplies. Four people could, but not if two of them were an 8 and 9 year old.
Pulling the float would burn through more fuel, but we still had enough to make it back and carry on. The sun had risen and we were about half way there and driving at good highway speeds. I was surprisingly not tired, too worked up despite the crying I had done and Molly and Luke were also wide awake, but Martinez had gone to try and get some sleep in the back under the tarp.
Within a few more hours we came to the intersection we would have came to if we had turned right coming out of the woods. I kept going in the direction I assumed the bus would take and followed it down. We made it 10km until we found it.
The back had been ripped open and laying strewn over the ground was everyone that had been inside. I stared at the mess from inside the car as I slowly got out, not even remembering to tell the kids to stay inside. They had been taken out, maybe by a survivor form inside or maybe by someone like us who caught up. I made my way over and began to flip the bodies, inspecting everyone, my heart pounding more with each new face. Faces I knew, but not the ones I was looking for.
"They're not here." I said, taking a step back.
"Who's not?" Martinez had apparently woken up and was now standing by the truck with Molly and Luke.
"Beth. Maggie, Glenn. They're not here."