Living Like You're Dead

Daryl was nearly to the pond when he heard Glenn. No, not just Glenn, but T Dog and Andrea all ready and able to help look for Addie.

“Everyone else is going to check the house, and places close by.” Glenn said.

Daryl nodded in compliance, “were they helping him, or did they just care for Addie?” he wondered. Either way, it was nice to have help, even if they were noisy and alerted any animals of their presence. But Daryl reminded himself that he wasn’t hunting; he was searching.

The four of them were able to make a good sweep of the grounds. She hadn’t been at he pond, and they had circled the entire perimeter for at least a mile radius: but no Addie. Rick had told them over the walkie that no cars were missing, so she must have left on foot.

A small thought kept peaking in the back of Daryl’s mind, Merle. Did he have something to do with this?

Nearly everyone was out looking for her now, and the range of search had greatly increased. Daryl couldn’t understand why she would’ve gone out this far without him, without even a weapon.

“STOP!” Glenn said to Daryl. They stopped moving, Glenn put his hand to Daryl’s chest to stop him from moving… he listened, and over the roar of the river they could hear a faint scream.

Together they took off in that direction, they were following the river, heading back towards where they had killed the Redferns. T only noticed them running, and joined in – but he had yet to hear the scream.
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Addie pulled her leg from the walker as far as she could. Her leg muscles were strong, but it only seemed to be helping the dead man further out of the grave. Organisms trying to break down the flesh had eaten the skin; the eyes were glassy, but still showed the unmistakable look of bloodlust.

Addie feared that she wouldn’t be able to get away, but she realized that it would cause all of her pain to go away. If she simply stopped fighting she wouldn’t see the hurt look on Daryl’s face when she said she wasn’t pregnant… she wouldn’t have to deal with seeing Lori’s beautiful baby, and she wouldn’t have to live with the nightmares of Merle.

She simply let the tension in her arms relax and she expected the force of the undead man on her leg pull her towards him, but instead she never moved. She lifted her head and saw a single arrow protruding from its eye.

T quickly had his arms around her and pulled her far from the grave. Daryl gave her one curious look, as if he had noticed her surrender to the undead man. Addie’s eyes filled with tears at the decision she had made… her rope had simply snapped, and now finding herself breathing shocked her.

Glenn and Daryl were standing over the grave that now had a dead walker protruding out form the grave. They immediately thought of the second body in the grave. Without hesitation Daryl began to kick away the dirt, the grave had been shallow, but the first walker, likely John, had dug itself almost to the surface. Jason was likely to have done the same. And sure enough, Daryl found the second undead being clawing at his legs. Daryl shot it too, and it stopped moving again, for the second time.

The four of them looked at each other in amazement. The Redfern’s had never been bitten, at least to their knowledge.