Alone Together

The sun crept high in the sky. The dense foliage concealed her from most of its rays, but sweat was still clear on her forehead. She walked slowly, knees bent and eyes and ears ready to take in any sound or movement around her.

After a few hours spent tracking a boar, the girl knew she was close to catch it and, luckily, one of her traps would. She wished she’d still have her hunting rifle, the one that had been stolen by two men she had run into a couple of days ago. The two men that had given her the patched up wound she now carried on her left arm.

The deep and loud sound of a motorcycle engine was the first thing to hit her. The wild boar screeched and fled away from one of the bushes, disappearing out of her line of sight.

“Let it go Max,” she whispered, standing as straight as she could to observe the road to her left and momentarily forgetting the need to conceal herself. “What the hell?”

An old, beat up car, followed the man that was on the motorbike and just a few steps away from them, the biggest herd she had ever laid her eyes on.

Her jaw dropped, her mind questioning the reason why those people were leading a herd of dead and their sanity, when footsteps and the crack of nearby dry branches caught her attention.

“Max,” she hissed, quickly hiding behind a larger bush and waiting for the strangers to appear.

Only a guy in a red and blue plaid shirt came running, but what she didn’t expect was to see him being attacked just as he reached the outskirts of the woods.

The brown haired girl cringed as the man started to scream, blood oozing from his right cheek. Her first thought was to put an end to his misery before more of those corpses could be drawn by his cries of pain, but before she could move a muscle another man came running up to him. He pushed the man to the ground and away from the dead, giving it a single stab on its head.

The guy in the plaid shirt didn’t stop screaming and she could see more of those things starting to take a detour from the road.

“Carter, take a breath.” The other man demanded, fear and tension clear in his voice. “Carter, be quiet!”

She couldn’t help but shift her attention between the two men and the undead that now where starting to get into the woods. Despite the efforts of his friend to shut up the man that had been bitten, he still cried and yelled at full lungs. She was going to get herself killed because of them if she didn’t do something about it.

She stepped out of the bush aiming her 9mm with attached silencer at the man lying on the ground, just to witness his friend thrusting a knife into the base of his skull. In a heartbeat the shouts were gone, the sound of shots being fired replacing them.

“Val?” With all the commotion, she hadn’t seen a man approaching them and when she swiftly turned around she didn’t expect to see a familiar face.

“Morgan?” She glanced at the woman besides him, holding a katana and a menacing look. She lowered her gun, the transmission by handheld radio on the other man’s possession being the only sound echoing between them.

“It's working. The gunfire is bringing them back on the road.”

Val watched the man with the radio carefully, as his demeanor indicated that he wouldn’t hesitate to attack her if he needed to.

“You know her?” He asked Morgan, who had now stepped closer to Val.

“I do, she’s a good person, Rick. She saved my life.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, the effort to put Val at ease not working at all as she still studied the strangers in front of her.

“You got them, Tobin,” Rick finally replied to the voice in the radio.

“Copy that. What was that screaming?”

Everybody looked down at the lifeless man that Rick stood next to. “That was Carter. He got bit right in the face. I stopped him.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Val took the chance to speak before anything else could happen. “Where on earth are you taking them?”

“Away from where we live,” Rick answered, grabbing the dead man’s shotgun before directing himself only toward Morgan and the woman. “We have a good hour until we have them to green when we hand them off to Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham.” He shifted his attention to Val. “Are you alone?”

“It’s just me and Max.” Before the man could say anything she produced a short whistle, the nearby bushes starting to move and a German shepherd appearing. For the first time she saw the katana girl relax her body.

“Why don't you head back, tell everyone what's happening?” Rick asked Morgan.

“Are you sure?” Morgan glanced between Val and Rick. He knew Val wasn’t a danger to them, but the others didn’t.

“They should know.”

“Okay, Rick, I just -”

“I trust you.” Rick lowered his voice. “And if you trust her, then I do too.”

The shuffle of leafs caught Val’s attention. “I’ll take care of that one.” Rick pointed to a dead woman stumbling toward them. “Michonne, you take point.” He disappearing leaving the three of them staring at Carter on the ground.

“I know it's how it is,” Morgan spoke. “I do.”

Val knew what he meant. They didn’t know each other that well, but enough to know the inner fight going on inside Morgan’s mind.

“Yeah. I do, too.” Michonne whispered before leaving as well.

“Are you okay?” Val asked Morgan once they were alone.

“You should help him.” He ignored her question, glancing back at Rick. “We need people like you right now. Can you?”

Val looked around, buying herself some time. She didn’t like being around people, it had proven to be a waste of time and effort more than once, but Morgan was a good man and so did these people seem.

Once she nodded, Morgan walked away. Val grabbed her large backpack and went after Rick, signaling for Max to follow her, when a loud, heart-stopping horn started to echo throughout the entire forest. She stopped, her eyes widening before she sprinted in Rick’s direction.

“What is this?!” Val shouted above the horn, but quickly regretted asking as the look on Michonne’s and Rick’s face showed nothing more than fear.

Michonne squinted, trying to find out the sound’s source. “Whatever that is, it sounds far. It sounds like is coming from…”

“Home.” Rick’s somber face made Val swallow hard. What had she put herself into?