ᗯᕼEᑎ TᕼE ᗪEᗩᗪ ᑕOᗰE ᗩᒪIᐯE [ ᴅᴀʀʏʟ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ]

- 27 -

Um. . . it's extra long. . . oops 🙊
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"She needs a doctor" was the first thing I heard come out of Ricks mouth when I zoned back into reality. We were positioned on a dirt road—stopped—trying to figure out another rout we could take. It was obvious that Maggie desperately needed a doctor as her condition continued to worsen.

"There are two more routs north from here" Sasha stated quietly as she was examining the paper map, hopping one would work for us.

"They're probably waiting for us right now" Aaron said with hinted defeat in his voice, he seemed to be thinking the worst as every road we tried has been blocked. There was no guarantee that we would even make it to Hilltop at this rate without being stopped at every road we try.

"So there ahead of us" Eugene interrupted "probably behind us" he added "—but they're not waiting on us, per se, they're waiting on this rust bucket. They don't know the moment to moment occupancy of said rust bucket. . . and the sun sets soon" he stated. Everyone seemed to quickly come to realization of what Eugene words my have revealed. The room was silenced as our minds ran rampant at the possibility that this newfound idea sparked.

Rick nodded, suggesting he had already came up with a plan. His gazed eyes and parted lips showed his thoughts had taken over his mind completely as he scrambled to sort out the details of his idea.

.• *Time Skip* •.

As soon as sun set came around, it was our time.

Everyone gathered around as we all were taking positions, many of the strong arms were carrying Maggie who was on a stretcher while myself and a few others were to provide protection on our trip.

Eugene was going to be left behind with the RV to carry out his side of the plan. Distract the saviors.

People quickly had their centennial moments with Eugene just in case things were to go south before we went our separate ways. With the slight distance made, we could hear the echo of the RV as Eugene started the engine and drove off.

In the forest, the growl of walkers slowly made their way towards us. With the nearing of each one, a knife or blade was quickly impaled into the skulls of the undead, taking them rightfully back to the peace of their graves. Small chatter was exchanged among the men to pass the time—that was until we all forcefully went silent.

The sound of whistling could be heard making us stop in our tracks and look around. Then another whistle sounded from a different direction, one after another after another . . . It was surrounding us.

We all looked around in a state of panic, fear, and confusion. Shit was about to go down and we all knew it that moment as we heard the number of whistles echoing through the forest. That meant numbers.

"GO, GO!" Rick quickly said as we took of in a sprint through the woods while trying not to drop Maggie or have anyone fall behind. The whistles never stopped, they continued all around us, sounding closer and farther away with each one, but never fully being able to tell which it was due to the echo. It was truly frightening, our enemies had us right where they wanted and we couldn't do SHIT to save ourselves except run and hope luck is on our side.

Unfortunately for us, luck wasn't with us as we quickly ran straight into a clearing where we were instantly blinded by a bright light. The whistling suddenly sounded all at once on all sides of us. As soon as we were able to see again, we saw how we were now completely surrounded by people.

Fuck!

Looking around I could see men upon men all around, our RV was off to the side as part of the circle, and a few odd vehicles were mixed in with the male figures.