Not Alone ✔

Ch. 45 - At Least We Know

Daryl

We were walking farther through the woods, Anna as close to me as she could possibly be, when we heard leaves rustling up ahead. “Get down,” I whispered quickly to Anna as we all three knelt down and I had my crossbow aimed in the direction the sound came from. We took a few steps forward until we could see what it was, a walker. Rick and Anna looked to me as I nodded then motioned for Rick to go one way and Anna and I would go another. They both nodded as we split up and Rick went to go grab the walker’s attention. I heard him whistle at it, definitely gaining it’s attention as Anna and I circled around behind it and I aim my crossbow at the head. “Bull’s-eye,” I heard Anna say as I released an arrow into its head.

We walked over to the walker, meeting back up with Rick, where I pulled my arrow out of the head and looked around. “Sophia,” I shouted as I continued looking around. “Sophia,” Anna shouted, “sweetie where are you?!” I looked down while Anna continued to look around and noticed Rick was messing with the walker. “What are ya lookin’ for,” I asked as Anna walked away from us. “Skin under the fingernails,” Rick said and Anna came to a sudden stop, looking back to us. I bent down and looked closer while Anna walked a little bit closer to us. “It fed recently,” he said and I could almost sense Anna stiffening from the information, “there’s flesh caught in its teeth.” “What kind,” Anna asked as I looked up at her then back to Rick. “Yeah what kind of flesh,” I asked as he looked from her to me. “Only one way to know for sure,” Rick said as he pulled out his small knife.

“Here I’ll do it,” I said as I pushed his hand aside and pulled out mine, “how many kills you skin and gut in your life? Anyway mine is sharper.” “And bigger,” I heard Anna whisper.  I don’t think Rick noticed the way she said that but when I looked up at her she had a certain gleam in her eyes. I glared playfully at her as I grabbed the knife in both my hands and looked back down at the corpse under me and slammed my knife down into its gut. I heard Anna groan as I started sawing it open and glanced up at her to see she had turned her back to us and looked like she was ready to hurl. This confused me for a second because she’s never been one to have a weak stomach, even with these walkers. I shoved that aside and went back to cutting the walker open to see what it had recently fed on.

I glanced over at Rick as I continued to saw away, he looked like he was gonna hurl from this. “Now comes the bad part,” I said looking over at him then looking up at Anna. She turned her head a little to look back at us but I knew once I began digging into the belly she’d turn around again if me just cutting into it was making her sick. I started digging into the walker and as soon as I began making squishing noises I heard the sound of someone throwing up. I looked up to see Anna was bent over again, this time puking. “You alright,” Rick asked as we both watched her. She lifted one hand up holding a thumb up signaling she was fine and I went back to digging. “Yeah,” I said as I finally found its stomach, “hoss had a big meal not too long ago. I feel it in there.”

As soon as I said that, I heard Anna start to puke again. “Ya alright Little Mouse,” I asked looking up at her with my arm still inside the walker. “Fine,” she mumbled as she wiped at her mouth. “Here’s the gut bag,” I said pulling the stomach out and throwing it down onto the ground. “I got this,” Rick said as he pulled his knife back out and cut into it. “This gross bastard had himself a woodchuck for lunch,” I said picking up a skull with the blade of my knife. “At least we know,” Rick said as I stood up taking my gloves off as I made my way over to Anna. “At least we know,” I repeated as I got closer to Anna, “ya sure ya alright?” “Fine,” she said taking a deep breath as she looked back at me. “Let’s head back to the others,” Rick said, “it’ll be dark soon.” “Right,” Anna muttered as she nodded and we followed behind him. I know she’s keeping something from me, just don’t know what.