Alone Together

Val zipped her jacket up. The brisk morning air still swirled around her and the more she thought about the last words she’d said to Morgan, the more she regretted having said them. Maybe she should have headed north with him. She didn’t need the company, but she had to recognize it was safer.

Val looked down at her map. No. She had a task to do, a mission she had set for herself, and getting attached to someone would only create another danger where already too many existed.

She had lied to him when she said she would head south. She needed to go north. Instead, she had chosen a different route so that she wouldn’t cross paths with Morgan again.

Since the first day she’d left the army base where she worked, her only goal had been to find any trace of governmental or military action. Some sort of order from the living, now that the world belonged to the dead.

Her dirty finger circled the little dot on the map. Fort Belvoir. With the detour she was making, it would take her a few days, maybe a week, to reach her destination.

Something made her eyes move away from the map, a noise, and Max had heard it too. She watched the dog carefully, as his nose investigated the ground and then the air surrounding them, every second that passed only contributing to his growing agitation. Val kept her feet light as she looked for a place to hide, the sound of footsteps now getting closer.

It had to be people, Val thought as she and Max hid between the dense foliage. And they had to be alive, the dead never got Max that restless.

As she peeked through the leaves and branches, her eyes caught a man, in his mid-forties to early fifties, followed by a younger girl.

“Are you sure?” The girl was obviously afraid of something, her moves hesitant and her face twisted in what could be mistaken for nausea.

“Do you want to keep eating berries for the rest of your life?” The man almost threatened.

“He’s alone.” A second man appeared, much younger than the first, trying to steady his breath like if he had been running for a while. “His backpack’s huge, he’s gotta have food. And probably a lot.”

“Let’s go then.” The older man ordered, following the younger one and disappearing from Val’s sight.

The two men walked in silence, followed closely by the girl. Glimpses of road started to show between the trees. One of the dead, that somehow had gotten tied up to a bunch of roots, tried to reach for them. The younger man stabbed its temple.

“There he is.” The older man pointed further down the road. He turned to face the boy and girl behind them. “Nobody needs to get hurt.” He looked down the road again. “Not even him.”

Morgan walked down the road, trying to ignore the feeling that someone was following him. When leaves started to rustle, and the sound of booted feet hitting the asphalt reached him, he finally stopped.

“Hi.” He smiled, turning to face his pursuers. Two men and a woman. “Nice day for a walk, isn’t it?” He tightened his grip around his staff.

“Can we talk to you for a second?” The younger man tried to look calm, but tension was clear in the way he walked towards Morgan.

“Aren’t you already?” Morgan replied without ever stop smiling.

“We just need what’s in your pack.” The second man, with graying hair, pointed a gun at Morgan. “We don’t want to hurt you, but we won’t let you walk away with your stuff either.”

“We’re just hungry,” the woman almost moaned, being now the only one who wasn’t pointing a weapon at Morgan. “Please, we’ve been trying to find food for a long time.”

“I’m sure we can work something out.” Morgan still smiled, although his eyes never left the two men in front of him. “We can all share a meal; I’d be happy to.”

“No, we don’t want you to share your food with us.” The older man raised his voice. “We want your food. All of it.”

“And your water.” The other man added. “All of it.”

“I’m sorry, but that I can’t do. You need to survive, I get that. But so do I.” Morgan took a step back as the woman finally pointed her gun at him, her shaking hands being the thing that frightened him the most. She could accidently shoot him.

“We really don’t want to hurt you -”

“But we will if we have to.” The older man interrupted the younger one.

Morgan readied himself for the fight, feet spreading apart and body tensing up. He didn’t want to hurt them, but wouldn’t let them walk away with all his things either.

The first gunshot made him jump. Birds flew away and the woman screamed, as her gun fell to the ground. Another shot followed, the bullet damaging the concrete between them and Morgan.

“Drop your weapons or I won’t miss next time!” Morgan recognized the voice immediately.

“He’s not alone,” the woman whimpered as the younger man threw his gun to the ground and raised his hands up.

“You too, asshole!” Another shot was fired, just an inch away from the older man’s feet. His eyes were scanning the forest that surrounded them, but he couldn’t see the attacker.

“You should leave before my friend runs out of patience.” Morgan spoke loudly enough for the person hiding in the woods to hear.

“Come on!” The younger man pulled by the other’s shirt. “There’s no use in having food if you’re not alive to eat it.” The three strangers finally ran away.

Morgan sighed in relief, a smile appearing in his lips again. His eyes tried to catch a glimpse of the person who had just saved him. “Thank you, Val.” But she was no longer there.

---

It had stopped raining. The last drops fell from the mausoleum’s roof, each one slower than the previous one. Taking its time to reach the overgrown grass. To reach the broken vases by the mausoleum entrance.

Time had passed slowly. Painfully slowly. The clouds had cleared, making the moonlight more intense. She had remained alert, mainly because her wet clothes forced her to. At least now her body had stopped shaking involuntarily.

Sitting on the floor, with her back against the mausoleum stone wall, she could feel Max’s body against hers. Crammed against hers. Her dog’s desperate attempt to keep her warm.

She looked ahead, at the silhouette of the man she barely knew and that for the last hour hadn’t exchanged a word with. First out of scare of being found out, then out of tiredness. Now, she just didn’t know what to say.

“Who were they?” Her voice came out lower than she expected and for a second she wondered if he had heard her.

“Don’t know.” His eyes wandered to the stained glass and so did hers.

Her lips drew a thin line, as she tried to collect her thoughts before asking another question. “How long have you been in Alexandria?” Val finally asked. There was no doubt that Daryl, Sasha, Abraham and probably others like Rick and Michonne were outsiders in that improvised city. She had watched them in action long enough, shutting down their fears unlike the ones that had stayed inside the walls, to know that they were different.

The question took a few seconds to be answered, mainly because Daryl wasn’t expecting it. “A few weeks. Been on the road for a long time before that.”

Val nodded. “Me too. Ever since Fort Benning.”

Daryl’s head snapped to her direction, surprise filling his features. His mind instantly reeled to the moment where his group had considered going to Ford Benning. They had met and lost so many people since then. “Did it get overrun?”

“Not a first.” Val smoothed Max’s fur, the dog finally giving up from trying to transfer his body heat to his owner and lying down next to her. “I don’t know exactly how it happened, I was part of the task force designated to secure Atlanta.” A sad smile played on her lips as memories threatened to take over her. “When the mission was aborted and we got back, it was already too late.”

Images of the people she knew, then turned into mindless bodies trying to eat her, haunted her mind. She had tried hard to forget them, to forget what had happened to her family, to her friends, to people she had fought next to. Most of them were dead, she was sure of it. Some she had to kill them herself.

“The same happened in Fort Jackson. Fort Bragg. Fort Belvoir. There was nothing left but destruction.” Val let the feeling of uselessness sink in, realizing not for the first time how much time she had wasted looking for something impossible to obtain. Hope.

“We were in Atlanta.” Daryl decided to share, without really knowing why. “We were at the CDC.”

Val widened her eyes, curiosity taking over her. She had thought about going there too, but decided against. She wasn’t a scientist, she wouldn’t help anyone in there, military bases seemed more like the logic places for her to go. “What happened?”

Before Daryl could answer, the sound of an engine’s vehicle made them spring to their feet. It was a big vehicle, Val quickly concluded, unsheathing her machete and trying to catch a glimpse of the road that led to the graveyard through the stained glass.

As soon as the vehicle came into view, a small tank truck with its headlights off, she heard Daryl move to open the mausoleum’s door. “What are you doing?”

“It’s Sasha and Abraham,” he stated casually, not caring about the way she glared at him.

“What?” Val blinked at him, and then at the truck now stopped in front of the graveyard. She wondered how did they know where to find them, watching as Daryl jogged to the truck, killing two of the undead that had acknowledged his presence. Max made her break from her dazed state, charging against the dead woman that got closer.

Val worked to stab the woman’s head, before watching Sasha jump from the truck. “Are you coming with us?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she found herself doing something she did before when on a mission, and now all the time. She analyzed her options. Considered the pros and cons. It was the middle of the night. Her clothes were soaking wet. She had lost her backpack. They could run into the people who were after them. The only weapon left to protect herself and Max was her machete.

“You’re either in or out!” Abraham yelled from the driver’s seat. Val sheathed the machete, finally giving in. “I guess I’m in.”