Just Gone

37: Go Fish in Silence 🎁

The group talked together in private many times, separate from the newcomers; Tyreese and Sasha. They had more or less agreed it was time to move on from where they were. The circles they'd been running since leaving the farm was doing more harm than good, they were losing supplies and finding nothing to replenish them.

T-Dog, Daryl and Carl were the most enthusiastic about leaving. Carl was excited to see new places, he said to his father they might find more people to join their group.

Toby didn't offer an opinion, Guillermo said he would follow anywhere, he had nowhere else to be.

Lori and Rick were the most skeptical about leaving, being further away from the farm, with the possibility of never being able to go back, but they knew they had to go.

The group didn't tell Tyreese and Sasha that they were thinking of joining them, of course they still had to ask the two if they wanted the company. But they didn't want to pressure the two so they waited.

Tyreese and Sasha stayed with the group longer then they meant to, although skeptical of them, Sasha was glad for the human contact. It was hard to watch for the corpses when it was just her and her brother, they always had to take turns sleeping. With seven other people, they felt safer, and they enjoyed the safety.

A few days after the storage unit incident, they were a few miles away scavenging some houses. Carl was allowed to help scout out the home to make sure they were safe before scavenging. He was glad for something to do, especially something so important. He was careful, knowing he could not mess up if he wanted his mother's and father's trust that he could do it.

The group tried their best to mostly use melee weapons instead of wasting ammo, but Carl was an exception. He was shorter and it was harder for him to overpower a Walker. He was given a silencer to attach to his hand gun. For when he took on rooms alone. Carl had taken out a few Walkers since he was allowed to start helping, he couldn't help but feel pride every time. And every time they finished, he would run to Toby right after and tell her all about it.

In the beginning, when they first left the farm, every time Carl tried talking to her she would pretend he didn't exist. No matter what he said, she wouldn't even look at him. But lately, she'd been somewhat responsive, looking at him while he talked as if she was listening intently.

He wondered if it was because his topics had changed. He used to talk about where they would go, if they would find a big place for everyone, and try to come up with other things they could do. Games and such. But now he was talking about scavenging, the Walkers he'd killed himself and ones he'd watched others kill. He talked about Tyreese a few times, how the man refused to use anything else but his hammer and never had any difficulty with a Walker.

Carl was disappointed when they found there were no Walkers lurking in the current house they were in.

After searching the house for threats, Carl was in the kitchen with T-Dog, searching through the drawers. After finding nothing but silverware and junk mail, Carl moved over to the fridge, gripping the handle and prepared to yank it open.

"Woah! No no!" T-Dog grabbed Carl's arm just in time to pull him away from the fridge.

"We do the fridge last remember?"

"Oh." Carl realized his mistake. "Right, I forgot. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry." T-Dog chuckled. "I caught myself almost doing it a few times too."

The group learned the hard way that opening a fridge when scavenging should always be done last. If they stayed the night in a house, they wouldn't check the fridge until the next day. The first time it happened, months of rotting meat, cheese, milk and many other mystery items took over the house. The stench had been so bad, no one had been able to stay in the house to finish scavenging, and Lori's morning sickness had been triggered to the worse it had ever been. She was bedridden and constantly nauseous for two days, claiming the smell would not leave her nose.