Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back

Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can."
― Nicholas Sparks

Chapter 10

I went back to camp and sat down, I was only sitting for about a minute before I stood up to adjust my chair so I could sit and look at the barn. I knew that I had been at the camp for only a few days, and the rest of the group had been there longer than that.but it was still unnerving. I mean.come on! There are walkers in the barn! Even if they had a million chances to kill us and didn't.it still makes you feel...I don't know, like easy pickings.

I leaned forward and put an elbow on my leg and rested my head on my hand and just starred, I started chewing on my bottom lip without really realizing it.

Why was Hershel keeping these things in his barn? Didn't he care about his family's safety? Didn't he think they were a threat at all?

"Unless he still thinks of them as people," I muttered to myself.

That's when it dawned on me; it's like why I could kill Micah. I still looked at him as being Micah, and not as being a walker. I didn't want to kill the walker because it would have been like killing Micah.

Maybe...maybe those walkers were people that Hershel and his family knew. Well, used to know. Maybe they were keeping them locked up in there because if somehow there was ever a cure made, they would be able to save them.

But they're going to risk their lives doing that, with the slim chance that there would be some cure maybe one day. But that day could be 20 years from now, or it could possibly never come.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement; I looked over and saw Daryl limping over.

"You okay?" I called over to him.

He stopped and looked at me, then back to his tent then back to me again before he walked to me slowly.

"Carol pissed me off," he grunted before sitting in the chair beside me that would usually be occupied Glenn.

I sat up to look at him, "What happened?"

He scoffed, adjusting himself to look at me, "Why do ya care?"

I laughed and rolled my eyes, "After the conversation we just had ten minutes ago, I figured we were almost kind of on friendly terms."

He smirked and looked down, "Whatever," he said then paused for a moment. I didn't bother to push him on the subject, he'd probably yell at me. Again.

He leaned back in the chair and sighed, "She's tellin me that I shouldn't go out and look for Sophia. Worried bout my safety or something."

"And what did you say back to her?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again.

"I take it by your silence it wasn't the best thing then?" I asked casually.

He shot me a look but nodded nonetheless, "Called her a stupid bitch."

I sighed and shook my head, "Not the best thing to say. Why would you say that to her?"

"Cause she pissed me off! Don't she want her girl found? Been spending all this time lookin, but I finally get a lead and suddenly her own mom don't want me lookin!" he said getting louder with each word.

I was silent, "Maybe...and seriously, don't yell at me. But maybe she coming to the realization that it's possible that maybe Sophia isn't out there anymore. I'm not saying that's true!" I said quickly when he looked up at me, "But I dunno.maybe it's different from a mother's perspective. Maybe she can sense something."

I turned my head to look at the barn, partially to take a look to be safe. But the other part of my reasoning of looking away was so Daryl didn't get angry about what I had said. I could feel his eyes on my though, searching maybe for more of an explanation.

I looked back at him after a few more seconds, his eyes looked solemn and almost sad, "Never thought of it that way, I s'pose," he muttered before standing up with a grimace.

"Are you okay?" I asked and reaching out for him, if he needed my help. I put my hand on his bicep.

He stiffened, but he looked at me, "I'm fine. I'm gonna talk to Carol," he said.

I dropped my hand from him and nodded, "That would be a good idea, I think."

He nodded once, "I'm not gunna stop lookin for that little girl until we know one way or another what happened."

I smiled, "I admire you for that."

He stopped mid-step and looked me up and down once, he nodded and started walking again. I sat back down and looked at the barn again.

"Hey, Em!" Daryl called to me.

I looked over to him, surprised, "Yeah?"

He hesitated, "Thanks," he said after a brief pause; he turned and was on his way again.

I smiled to myself and sat back. I picked up the book I had borrowed from Dale the day previous that was on the ground beside my chair, opened it to where I had dog-eared it and started reading again.

--

No one really came around for the next few hours. I dog eared the book and put it on the grass again beside my chair. I stood up to stretch and to see if I could find anyone.

I looked behind me at the RV and saw Glenn on the roof; I made my way over to him.

"Hey," I called; he shielded his eyes and looked at me.

"Hey, Emerson," he said.

I tilted my head to look at him, "Where's your hat?" I asked.

"Huh.Maggie...it's a long story," he said awkwardly.

I snorted, "Whatever you say, Glenn. Where's Dale?"

He shrugged, "Dunno. Shane seems to think he distracted me for some reason."

I looked at him confused, "Why would he do that?" I asked.

"No idea," he answered back to me.

"Glenn!"

I looked behind me and saw Maggie coming over to us, "Hey, Emerson," she said with a smile.

"Hey Maggie, how are you?" I asked.

She smiled, "Oh I'm just fine, and yourself?"

I smiled back at her, "I'm fine, thanks. I'll leave you and Glenn to talk," I said before turning and walking away from them.

I made my way over to the stairs leading up to the Hershel's house and sat there. Not too long after I sat there, the group started coming over and asking if anyone had seen Rick, I shrugged and told them I wasn't sure where he went. Glenn and Maggie joined us followed by Daryl and Carol,

"Damn it, isn't anybody takin' this seriously?" Daryl said pointing in the opposite direction, "We got us a damn trail." That's when Shane appeared with the bag of guns that Dale kept in the RV. But where was Dale?

"Oh, here we go." Daryl started walking towards Shane, "What's all this?"

Shane pulled out a rifle and extended it to Daryl, "You with me, man?"

Daryl hesitated, he briefly shot me a look and raised his eyebrows, I shrugged slightly. Daryl took the rifle from Shane's hands silently.

"You already got yours?" Shane asked Andrea.

"Where's Dale?" she asked.

"He's on his way," he replied quickly.

I took my hair out of its ponytail and ran my hand through it. Did Shane do something to Dale? I had heard rumbles from Glenn that he thought Shane killed Otis, rather than Otis sacrificing himself to save Shane. Maybe he was right.

"Thought we couldn't carry," T-Dog said as Shane handed him a gun.

"Is Hershel okay with this?" I asked as Shane came over to me with the bag of guns.

Shane snorted and handed me a gun, "You gonna earn your keep now, Emerson?"

My jaw clinched in irritation. Was he saying, basically, I wouldn't be part of this group unless I did this?

I took my gun from Shane's hand and he nodded at me, satisfied.

"We can and we have to," Shane told us, responding, I guess, to T-Dog's questions, "Look, it was one thing sitting around here picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe, but now we know it ain't," Shane said glancing behind him at the barn.

He held out another rifle to Glenn, "How 'bout you, man? You gonna protect yours?" Glenn hesitated. I knew why, he knew that we weren't supposed to be doing this on the farm. He knew Hershel would kick us out of here. And he cared for Maggie...he wanted her safe. He took the rifle from Shane.

Shane then looked at Maggie, "Can you shoot?"

"Can you stop? You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight," she told him angrily, crossing her arms across her chest.

I looked at the faces of people in the group, Lori looked horrified, as did Carol.

"Oh shit!" T-Dog said looking towards the barn. We turned to look too, and saw Rick walking with Hershel and Jimmy, holding poles that were attached to the walkers around their necks.

"What is he doin?" Shane asked quietly. He grabbed the bag and started running towards Rick, with the rest of us following.

"Rick!" Shane shouted, "What are you doin?" he yelled to him.

Rick looked at all of us, "Rick, why do they have their guns on my land?" Hershel asked harshly.

"Are you kidding me? You see? You see what they're holding onto?" Shane yelled, turning to look at the rest of us. I didn't know what to do.

Hershel narrowed his eyes at us, "I see who I'm holdin on to."

"Shane, just go back to the camp, leave this to us! This is Hershel's land, and we will do as he asks! He thinks of them as people, Shane! We need to stay here, so we will do what Hershel says!"

I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. The fact that Rick, our leader, was leading these walkers onto the land that the group, including his wife and child, were at was unbelievable to me. But even more unbelievable to me was Shane. I hadn't known Shane long, but he was going much too far. We were still on Hershel's land. If we wanted to stay...if we wanted to live...we needed to stick to his rules. And Shane was not making this easy on any of us. But he was going psycho.

Shane scoffed, "These things ain't sick. They're not people. They're dead. Ain't gonna feel nothing for them 'cause all they do, they kill! These things right here, they're the things that killed Amy. They killed Otis. They're gonna kill all of us," Shane pulled his gun out. Daryl was standing beside me and put his arm out in front of me.

"What are you doing?" I asked quietly.

He looked down at me, "Makin sure ya don' get yer head blown off, too."

"Hey, Hershel, man, let me ask you something. Can a living breathing person, could they walk away from this?" Shane looked at Hershel and shot the female walker in the chest a few times.

The sound caught me off guard and I gasped and covered my mouth, Daryl wrapped his arm around the front of me and pulled me towards him.

"No! Stop it!" Rick yelled at Shane, Shane shook his head.

"That's three rounds in the chest. Could someone who's alive, can they just take that? Why is it still coming?" Shane shot twice more into the walker's chest. Beth started crying behind me.

Shane laughed humourlessly, "That's its heart, its lungs. Why is it still coming?"

"Shane, enough!" Rick shouted again, still holding onto the pole attached to the male walker.

Shane scoffed, "Yeah, you're right, man. That is enough," he said, then pulled the trigger and shooting the walker in the head. Killing it.

Hershel dropped the pole that was attached to female walker that Shane had been shooting at. He looked shocked, and sad, and disgusted.

"Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!" Shane yelled at all of us, he looked beyond crazy. It was as if a crazy second personality had taken over Shane. He had this look in his eyes. It's not even something that can be described. He had gone way over the line.

"Enough! Living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us! Enough. Rick it ain't like it was before! Now if y'all want to live, if you want to survive, you gotta fight for it! I'm talking about fighting right here, right now!"

Shane ran at the barn, he grabbed a pic-axe that was near the door. He started hitting the lock on the door, trying to open it. Once he got that open he started working on removing the chains. The whole time Rick was shouting at him to stop, and yelling to Hershel to take the walker from him so he could try and stop Shane. Shane finally managed to the doors.

Shane stood, gun at the ready, waiting for the walkers to start pouring out of the barn. I was still standing beside Daryl; he still had his arm wrapped around the front of me tightly.

The walker slowly started to stumble out, Andrea, T-Dog and Glenn went to stand next to Shane to start shooting. I made a movement to go forward with them to 'earn my keep,' as Shane put it.

"Daryl, we have to help," I said to him.

He looked down at me for a few seconds with a questioning look on his face, he hesitated, "You stay beside me, understand? You don' leave my side, ya hear me?"

I looked back at him curiously, why did he care? I nodded my head nonetheless. He moved his arm but took hold of my wrist to pull me behind him; he positioned me between him and T-Dog.

I aimed and started shooting. I could faintly hear Rick yelling at Hershel to take the walker from him. I could hear Beth crying somewhere behind me. Mostly...mostly what I could hear was just gun shots, walkers, and bodies falling to the ground. It was bringing back memories from when my group was overrun that night. A part of me was worried that I would see Ryan among the walkers in the barn. But I didn't.

Daryl shot the last walker to come out. We dropped our arms to our sides and breathed heavily. I looked back to Hershel and saw such sadness in his eyes. I felt badly for him...but he had to finally have realized that these weren't people anymore. They were nothing more than the walking dead.

I ran my unoccupied hand through my hair and looked at Daryl. He was looking at me intently.

"You good?" I asked him.

He nodded, "You?"

"Yeah," I said with a sigh.

There was suddenly movement again from the barn. Were there more walkers inside that didn't come out with the rest of them?

I raised my arm back up with my gin and aimed. A girl walked out. I thought foolishly that maybe she had gone into the barn to hide. That maybe this little girl was alive. But obviously that doesn't make sense.

I glanced over at Andrea and saw her hand over her mouth. I looked behind me and saw Carol. She looked horrified and just overcome with grief.

"Sophia!" she cired.

I put my arm down and looked to Daryl. He was looking at Sophia with an unreadable face. After all his time searching to find her like this...

"Sophia!" Carol cried again, she came running up between me and Daryl; Daryl grabbed her and held onto her. They both feel to the ground.

Tears started welling up in my eyes. I didn't even know her...but she was only a kid. Just a little girl that deserved so much better than to be walking out of a barn. She deserved so much more than being bitten and to have become a walker. She deserved so much more than this shitty life.

I looked down the line and saw Andrea crying, Shane looked distraught, surprisingly. After everything he said, maybe Shane still had a bit of a heart after all. Glenn had his hat off and his hands on the top of his head. T-Dog was staring at her; he looked so upset as well.

Sophia was still coming towards us, but none of us made a move to try and stop her.

Rick suddenly walked towards her. I knew what he was going to do. What he had to do. Rick raised his gun, looked at her for a second longer, and pulled the trigger. Sophia collapsed to the ground, and I let out the breath I had been holding. I was overcome with such sadness for the group.

I could understand why Hershel had been doing what he was doing. These were people he loved and knew and that he wanted to save. He wanted to save Sophia because of how young she was. But some of the other walkers in there he must have known one way or another. He wanted to give them a chance to live again if it was possible. He couldn't kill the people he knew. Just like how I couldn't kill Micah. Just like how no one in the group could kill Sophia.

I fell to the ground in tears. What had I just done? Hershel really and truly believed these were still people. Hershel just witnessed us killing people that he held near to him. My God...Hershel will think that we're the monsters now. We had basically just forfeited a safe place to live. We just signed our own death warrants because Hershel was going to kick us off of this land.