murky waters | carl grimes¹

28. safe

"there she is"

"Get into the car!" a voice made my eyes shoot open. I pushed against the tree and used it to guide me to the other side. Behind me was a road, a single red car was parked in the middle of it. The walkers moaned in my ears as I broke away from the tree, it was now or never. 

I didn't want to die. If getting into this car could postpone that then I would just have to go for it. 

Every step I took caused pain to run through my body, I don't even know how I was still going but I did it. The car's door was open and I flung myself into it. "The door, the door!" the voice rushed. I listened, I pulled myself up and grabbed the door, slamming it shut just as the walkers fell into it. 

"Drive!" 

The car took off at a decent speed and I fell back onto the backseat. 

I am alive? 

There is no reason for me to be alive right now. I had accepted it, I was going to let the dead rip into me and kill me. 

But here I am. 

In a stranger's car. 

I am in a stranger's car. 

I willing got into a strangers car, that was a first. As someone who preached about being more scared of the living than the dead this wasn't a very Lennox move. I couldn't be too mad at myself, I decided I didn't want to die very last minute so it didn't occur to me that the person telling me to get into the car could be a bad living person. "Who the hell are you," I sat up quickly as my common sense came running back to me. But I didn't stay up for too long, I hissed in pain as my leg hit into the seat and fell back onto the seats. I must have really messed my leg up. 

Whenever no one answered my question, fear arose. I trusted them on the whim that they were saving me from the walkers, now they were just going to kill me or do who knows what with me. I was better off with the walkers, I knew my fate then. 

Laying down did not give me much room to see what was going on around me. There were two men, we were driving straight, so far we hadn't taken any turns, and there was no guns pointed at me. That was good, I could keep track of where we were going, roll out of the car and make my way back to my group. 

Then there was the bad like the unbearable pain my leg was sending throughout my body, my gun was pressed between my bad leg and the seat cushions so I couldn't grab it quietly if I had to, and well, the fact that even if I did try to pull my gun, I would lose. Being injured had taken away any chances of me being able to control this situation.  

I was just going to have to trust them, as funny as that sounds, it wasn't all that hard. They were so unthreatening. Daryl used to tell me that it was easy telling the difference between a good guy and a bad guy, the problem was the ones who were really bad. Like Harley and his men, Daryl knew they were bad guys but he didn't know how bad. The longer I spent in the car the more I realized that they would be very great actors if they turned out to be the villain here. 

The driver of the car brought me back to the real world when he cleared his throat, "this isn't how we usually do things, in fact, this made everything so much more complicated," he sounded concerned. This did mean they had plans for me, they've done this to people before. "Hold on," he announced as he pressed his foot on the gas and swerved the car, I'd imagine he was avoiding hitting one of the dead. 

I grimaced and let out a small cry of pain as he swerved the car again. "You're hurt, pretty badly. Don't look but your ankle is like the size of a balloon," the one from the passenger seat said and shone a flashlight into the direction of my foot. I wanted to look down but I also didn't want to see it, I feel like it would hurt worse if I saw how bad it actually was.