Alone Together

“Try again.” The demand came from an Asian man, slightly younger than Val. People were running behind her, sweaty and scared, too scared to even realize they didn’t know her. No one had spoken to her or asked her any questions.

“Tobin, it's not stopping. Light it up. You hear me?” Rick desperately tried to make contact. “Tobin!”

Michonne’s sleek blade cut a growling dead in two, almost not stopping from her sprint to reach Rick. Val was surprised with her skills, but now more important things occupied her mind.

She had considered the chance of turning around and leaving too many times, always ending up convincing herself that she wouldn’t be doing the right thing. But that horn didn’t stop and Val grew more agitated by the second.

“Rick!” Someone finally spoke through the radio, but Val recognized that it wasn’t Tobin’s voice.

“I'm here.” Rick breathed out.

“What's going on back there?”

“Half of them broke off. They're going towards Alexandria.”

“Towards you?” A second different voice spoke.

“We ran ahead. There's a horn or something. Loud, coming from the east. It's not stopping.” Despite the conversation they did not stop. Val could see Max running slightly ahead of her and constantly looking back to check on her.

“I'm gonna gas it up, turn back.” The first stranger’s voice spoke again.

“We have it. You keep going.”

“They're gonna need our help.”

“Gotta keep the herd moving.” Rick insisted.

“Not if it's going down, we don't.”

Val frowned. By now she had understood that Rick was the leader, or at least this operation’s leader, and still there was always someone who would question his decisions. Another reason why she liked being on her own.

“The rest of that herd turns around, the bad back there gets worse.” Rick spit back. He waited a few seconds, but there was no answer from the other side. “Daryl?”

“Yeah, I heard ya.”

Val rolled her eyes. Thank God that was over.

A scream came just from behind her and a girl with braided hair had fallen to the ground. The Asian guy quickly helped her get up and everybody kept on walking.

“Alright listen up,” Rick began to speak when everybody gathered around him. “This is Val, she knows Morgan and she agreed to help us.” He glanced at her and she gave him a short nod.

“Here’s the new plan. Me and Val, we go back, get the RV, circle around the woods on Redding. We'll get in front of them before they get there, we can lead them away again.”

“Glenn, Michonne.” Rick asked them to step away from the group with him and Val couldn’t help but notice how his relationship with them was tighter than with the rest of the group. It made her wonder if they trusted the others at all.

“Oh God!” A sudden scream made them all turn towards it.

Val watched them run to the man now lying on the floor, his neck being devoured by one of the dead. She watched them ripping it apart from him, and their faces of distress as they all knew that there was no other thing to do then to kill the man whose back was on the leaf covered ground, his blood gurgling from his throat.

Michonne was the one to do it. In times like this Val’s convictions only grew stronger. She knew she was alive exactly because she didn’t have people like this, slowing her down or getting her killed.

The horn stopped. Rick proceeded to take everything of importance from the still warm body, something some of the others seemed to be shocked about.

“Get back safe.”

---

Rick ran fast, she had to give him credit for it. The sunlight was intense, heat lines rising up from the paved road. She could barely keep up, mainly because her military backpack was almost full. But she was not going to stop or get rid of it, so she just kept pushing. Max ran by her side, the run looking like a walk in the park to him, until he caught the sight of a group of corpses, feeding on a body that hadn’t been dead for too long.

He ran ahead of Rick and Val, Rick’s radio coming to life as Max took down one of the living dead.

“Rick, it’s Glenn. We're in a town five degrees east of the green marker. If you get around on Redding in the next 20 minutes, you should be good. I think that's how far we're ahead of the herd.”

Rick took down one of them with a knife while Val silenced the one Max had pinned to the road.

“I'm gonna try to set a fire and distract them. If you don't see smoke, they're still coming your way.”

She decapitated the one that launched at her, glancing at Rick to see if he had finished off the others. Her eyes widened as she saw his left hand covered in blood and running down his arm.

“I got to go. Good luck, dumbass.” Glenn signed off. Rick had started to scavenge the body that had been being eaten, pain clear in his face.

“I’ve got a first aid kit in my pack.” She suggested.

“Not now.” He stood up and started running again.

After what seemed about ten minutes they reached what she assumed to be her destination, a big metal barricade with an RV parked on the other side and bodies piled against it.

“No,” Val spoke when Rick took the driver’s seat and led the keys to the ignition. She dropped her backpack with a loud thud and pointed at it. “Outside pocket, right side.” Her finger moved to Rick’s injured hand. “You take care of that, I drive.”

He moved to the passenger seat and she turned the ignition on, the tires complaining against the hot concrete as she turned them to drive down the road.

“Stop here.” Rick informed her a few minutes later and she complied.

“Glenn. I'm in place by my best guess. You guys make it back yet?” He paused and stared at the radio. “Glenn?” He waited a few more seconds but there was nothing but static on the other side. “Tobin, you there?” Still nothing.

Val observed him and couldn’t help but feel sorry for the situation he was in. He knew these people and obviously cared about them, not to mention the ones from the camp they were staying in.

He took a deep breath. “Daryl?”

“I'm here.”

Rick seemed relieved. “It won't be long now. They're almost here. I'll get them going your way again.”

“How about that, Daryl?” For the first time she heard a female voice and she didn’t seem happy about what was going on. “He's gonna be coming our way.”

Shots echoed. From the driver’s seat, Val glanced at the road ahead of them and then to Rick.

“There's gunfire coming from back home.” He explained, to both Val and the people on the other side of the transmission. “We gotta sit with it and hope they can handle it. I think they can. They have to. We keep going forward for them. We can't turn back because we're afraid. This is for them. Going back now before it's done, that'd be for us.” Val narrowed her eyes, knowing he was mainly talking to the guy that had questioned his decision earlier.

Rick took a deep breath. “The herd has to be almost here.”

Val got up from her seat, switching places with Rick and reaching her backpack to fetch a rag to clean her sweaty face. Her heart rate was still high but she figured the hardest part was now over. Little she knew how wrong she was.

Rick was about to use his radio again, when Max started to bark, not giving time for Val to react, as a guy slammed the RV’s door open and started shooting inside.

She jumped to the ground instinctively, reaching her gun from her holster and shooting the man in the head. Another man jumped inside and struggled to restrain Rick. His name was shouted through the radio over and over again, distracting Val.

“Max!” She shouted, the dog lunging into the attacker’s back and making him hit the RV’s table. Without hesitation, Rick shot him right on his temple.

They stared at each other for a while, ragged breathing now the only sound inside the vehicle. She glanced at the road ahead of them once more and her eyes caught something on the rearview mirror. Whoever these people that had just attacked them were, there were more of them outside.

Val nudged Rick’s arm. Slowly, he grabbed his rifle, trying to be as silent as possible and, on one single fit of rage, he unloaded an entire magazine on the side of the RV.
She glanced at the rearview mirror again. Now there was nothing but a pile of dead bodies in her line of sight. She knew any other person would have hesitated to kill them, but she was glad he didn’t. She would have done the same thing.

Val nodded at him, moving to the side so that he could get into the driver’s seat. He tried to turn the engine on but it only caused it to stutter and die. He tried again. And again. Desperation started to cloud their faces. The RV didn’t want to start no matter how many times Rick turned the ignition keys.

Val’s eyes widened as she heard the all too familiar sound of groaning and shuffling. The sound the dead were now associated with.

“Oh no.” Rick hit the driving wheel. “No, no, no.”

Max started to growl, his attention shifting between the dead and Val, waiting for her order. Her grip around her gun tightened and her left hand landed on her machete.

No, the hardest part was definitely not over.