To many mistakes

ch. 24

I'm sitting on the back of Daryls bike as he is leading the way.

Honk

I hear Ricks car honk at us to stop. We do.

I get off and make my way to Rick hopping it's nothing too big.

Everybody gets out of their cars.

"You out?" I ask.

"Running on fumes." Rick answers.

Awesome.

"We cant stay here." Maggie says.

"We can't all fit in one car."

"We'll have to make a run for gas in the morning"

"Spend the night here?" Carol asks.

"It could be worse." I say. "It could of been the highway."

"I'm freezing." Carl complains.

I walk over to him and Lori. I take off my hoodie and put it over him.

Lori actually attempts to smile at me, I nod back.

"We'll build a fire, yeah?"

"If you go out looking for firewood, stay close." I say.

We definitely don't need any more problems.

"Only got so many arrows, how you doing on ammo?" Daryls asks.

I check my .40 calibers chamber, a little more then half loaded.

"Not enough."

"We cant just sit here with our asses hanging out." Maggie said.

"Watch your mouth."

I snicker at the fact that Hershel still treats Maggie like shes Beth's age. I would give it all to have a dad like him.

"Everyone's stop panicking and listen to Rick."

"We're all doomed." I mutter under my breath.

They all look at me in shock.

"Kidding!" I say.

Not really.

Lori shakes her head in dismay.

"All right we'll set up a perimeter, in the morning we'll find gas and some supplies. We'll keep pushing on."

"I can go and make a run now, try and find a bit of gas." I offer. I'm not doing much of anything else.

"Nah, we stay together. God forbid something happens and people get stranded without a car." Rick says.

"I know what I'm doing Rick. None of this is new to me. I know how to take care of myself even if I do get lost, I always make my way back." I defend.

"The answer is still no."

"Rick we're literally stranded now."

He sighs. "I know it looks bad. We've all been through hell and back but at least we found eachother. I wasn't sure, I-I really wasn't but we did! We're together, we keep it that way."

I look at him a moment before nodding.

"All right. We'll find shelter somewhere, theres gotta be a place." I say.

"Guys look around, theres walkers everywhere. They're migrating or something." Glenn says.

I look at him and shake my head to let him know that what he said was totally uncool. These people are terrified, not everyone's been through this before and Ricky and I are just trying to calm their nerves a little bit.

"There's gotta be a place, nor just where we hole up, but where we fortify." Ricky states.

I've noticed that he talks with his hands. He has a gun in his hand that he moves when hes trying to emphasize sonething, it's kinda funny. I know he doesn't even realize it.

"Hunker down, pull ourselves together, build a life for eachother. I know it's out there we just have to find it!"

Hes getting stressed out, I can tell by the vein that pops out of his kneck when he gets too worried.

I stare at him intently, trying to find the right thing to say to both reassure everyone and calm him down a little bit.

"Hey, we will." I say to him. "The world isn't completely gone. There is salvation but it isnt easy to achieve it." I look around at them. "Its depends on how bad we want it."

"Even if we find a place that's safe, we can never be too sure on how long." Maggie butts in.

"Maggie we can never be too sure of anything anymore. We can never be too sure how long we have until the sun explodes or how long until the air becomes just monoxide. All we have is right now. This moment. And arguing, although can be fun, wastes what we have." I say.

"Look what happened with the farm. We fooled ourselves into thinking that was safe."

"We wont make that mistake again." Hershel promised.

Personally I never thought the farm was safe, made that mistake with my sister and look where that got her

"We'll make camp tonight over there." I pointed to a bunch of rocks. "Get on the road at the break of day."

"Exactly what I thought we should do." Rick confirms.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Carol walk over to Daryl. "Does this feel right to you?" She asks him.

I furrow my eyebrows.

"What if walkers come through or another group like Randells?" Beth asks worriedly.

Daryl, Glenn and I share a look.

"You know we found Randell..." I start. "He had turned but he was never bit. Or scratched."

Rick looks away and realizes something in his head.

"Hows that possible-"

"Rick, what the hell happened?" Lori demandly asked.

"I think we all know what happened." I say.

"Shane killed Randell, just like he always wanted to. Kelsey figured it out from the jump but I still wanted to find the body."

"And then the herd got him?"

Rick ponders something for a few seconds. Hiding something but not wanting to share it.

I stare at him trying to read him.
He looks down and clenches his jaw before speaking.

"We're all infected."

No. Fucking. Way.