Future Ghosts • TWD

17. The Bells.

"You didn't find her?!" Carol cried when Rick came walking back out onto the highway by himself. He had chased after the girls as soon as the walkers passed. "What if the walkers got her?!"

"They didn't. The walkers were both dead when I found them. One of them must've had a knife," Rick replied, walking closer to the group that was gathered by the guardrails.

"Rosie did," Carl said, remembering the knife Rosie had found in the car. He turned to Carol and placed a comforting hand on her arm. "Rosie is strong. She'll protect Sophia."

Shane made eye contact with Rick for a moment, trying to speak with his eyes. Rick seemed to nod at whatever he was asking. "Let's get a group out there looking. Glenn, Daryl," Shane said, grabbing his gun and nodding towards the woods.

Once they were far enough away so that no one else could hear them, Rick started explaining what he found as he led them to the dead walkers. "They aren't together," he announced once they got to the second dead walker, "Tracks go the same way for awhile, but they got separated here."

Daryl pulled a knife out of the first walker's skull and examined it for a moment. He remembered it as the knife he once pulled out of David's eye socket, so he pocketed it. He'd return it to her as soon as they found her.

He studied the ground around the walkers. "Got clear prints in two different directions," he said, gesturing towards the ground. There were bigger footprints from regular tennis shoes that seemed to be chaotic and uneven, and there were smaller prints made by cowboy boots in a straight line. "My guess is Rosie killed the walkers and Sophia kept running. Sophia's prints are scattered, messy, that way," he pointed off in one direction, "Rosie's are clean, in a straight line, that way," he gestured towards a different direction.

"Alright, let's spread out," Rick said, looking at the tracks Daryl was referring to.

"Rosie'll be fine. She knows her shit," Daryl said.

"Yeah, but Sophia doesn't. She's a scared little kid, out here on her own," Rick said.

"Hey," Shane said, patting him on the back, "We're gonna find her. She'll be tuckered out hiding in a bush somewhere."

•

Night was beginning to fall and Rosie still hadn't found Sophia. She was getting worried- extremely worried- for Sophia. Rosie knew she'd be fine for a night at least, she'd been lost before, but she wasn't so sure about Sophia.

The only thing Rosie was worried for herself about was food. She hadn't eaten in days, and she couldn't use her knife because it was covered in walker blood. Until she could find some sort of water source, she couldn't eat anything she killed using that knife. She was even more worried for Sophia, though, because Sophia didn't even have a knife. Sophia didn't even know how to hunt. How would she find food?

Rosie kept walking, calling out Sophia's name, until the sun was completely down. She decided that it wouldn't be efficient to keep going. There would be more walkers after dark, and she was just plain exhausted. She hadn't slept much in the RV; the sound of everyone's breathing kept her up.

So, Rosie climbed the nearest tree and leaned across the thickest branch she could find. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was better than lying on the ground as walker bait.

•

"You didn't find them?" Carol asked with a heartbroken voice when Daryl and Rick returned to the highway.

"Trail went cold. We'll pick it up again at first light," Rick said.

Carol huffed, crossing her arms across her stomach to try and comfort herself. "You can't leave my daughter out there on here own to spend the night alone in the woods," she said, her voice wavering as she held back cries.