Sneaky

Chapter 133

'Why do walkers make growling noises?' I set up the gas stove in the middle of the dusty living room floor.

It's not like they need to breathe or communicate with each other or anything.

They have no reason to make noise. So why do they?

It's not like it's particularly easy to make noise.

Maybe it's muscle memory? But that would mean they do have some type of memory.

Whether or not they know it's their memory is another story. To them — assuming they remember it the way a person does — it might just seem like a story.

A whisper they once heard, if they even know what whispers are.

I finished setting up the cooking space for Carol, and stood up. The scuffed hardwood floor in desperate need of a wash and a new varnish, creaking beneath my step. Even I would have a hard time not making any noise on this floor.

The door in the kitchen behind me opened, the others filing in with their backpacks and sleeping gear, pausing in the living room to find a spot for the night. I returned some nods and gave a small smile, ruffling Carl's hair as I passed. He looked up and I jerked my head.

Nodding, he followed me to the door again. His footsteps made more noise than mine on the 3 steps to the frost-clung snowy grass. It's not even an inch of powder. It looks like someone sprinkled powdered sugar over the blades.

This isn't a crammed neighborhood we've decided to hole up in tonight, and the house has a fence. Dark wood planks lined in an endless fence around the entire house, made even darker by the damp of melting snow.

This is the kinda house I could see myself in, before. A person who enjoys their privacy and the security of a tall fence but not unfriendly in color.

It's modern and sleek but something homey about it. I like it.

And it's surrounded by trees. The enormous yard of overgrown grass and the wildflowers of weeds. It's very open.

I took a slow, long lungful of crisp cold air. My breath coming out in a puffs of steam as I blew it from my mouth, and walked to the tan-stone gravel driveway (perfect skipping rocks), to my truck.

Daryl and Hershel stood at the back, Daryl in the bed and Hershel holding a heavy-duty plastic bin, watching him riffle through the stuff in the back.

"It almost feels like we're moving in. Doesn't it?" Carl looked up at me.

I smiled, humming in agreement as I dropped my arm around his shoulders. Freaky, since when was he tall enough that my elbow is almost resting on his shoulder instead of my forearm.

It would actually be nice to move in though.

This house is more secure than most of the others I've seen in our wandering.

The high fence, the black metal gate that's tall enough a person couldn't look over it. T's & Randall's perimeter checks confirmed no breaks in the fence. It's big, 2 floors. Large yard and it's near the skirts of the town so less walkers.

Only problem I can see is that it might look too secure to outside eyes.

If anyone else wanders around here, they might pick this place to set up too. We could end up in a tight spot, defending or fleeing the place.

Still, we need to hole up somewhere for at least the coldest part of winter (which we're on the cusp of), the car heaters aren't gonna cut it anymore if we can't run them at night.