Lottie Grimes in the Apocalypse

Chapter 03

Lottie's POV
I watch as Dale and Jim work on the RV "Boy, that hose isn't long for this world, is it?" Dale asked and Jim shook his head while saying "No sir" and Dale asks "Where the hell are we gonna find a replacement?" making Jim shrug.

Thunder rumbles as Amy paces back and forth "It's late. They should've been back by now" Amy says, concerned for Andrea and the others. If I'm being honest, so am I "Worrying won't make it better" Dale tells her before Jim hands Dale another tool.

Lori removes her laundry from the string as she watches Shane teach Carl how to tie knots in front of me by the fireplace.

"Attaboy!" Shane says when Carl gets it right drawing my attention to them "Yeah!" Carl cheers making me smile as the normalcy returns. They begin tying again "And three, two, one—Pull it!" Shane coaches "Ah! Aww" Carl whines when the rope comes apart and they both laugh "Start it over. Make your 'P' the other way, around your finger" Shane instructs.

"Oops" Carl mutters and redoes it "Good, just tie it like around your finger......Attaboy!" Shane encourages making me chuckle. This drew attention onto me from the two males and Shane asks "What's so funny?" I shrugged and said "I was just remembering fun Shane. It's been awhile since I've seen him" Carl then asks "Shane was fun?" as he reached into the yellow bucket full of berries.

I lightly smacked his hand away "Yes, but it's been years since I've seen him, and don't eat those. Those are Ed's special treats" Shane scoffs and retorts "I've always been fun" but Carl asks "But I thought you didn't like Ed...." I nodded and said "And that's why I'm giving him these, instead of these" I handed Carl a blue bucket with berries in it. He swipes a wild black berry from it and munches on it "So why does he get those ones?" Carl asks.

There were three buckets;

The red one was for deadly poisonous berries like baneberry and pokeweed.

The yellow ones were for berries that would make you sick like American bittersweet, holly, and juniper.

While the blue bucket was for edible berries like wild strawberries and blackberries.

We didn't find any edible mushrooms so they were all dumped.

"When?" Carl asks as he walked over and sat by me. He laid his head on my lap and I ran my fingers through his hair "The last memory I have of fun Shane is New Year's Eve just before you were born. Shane managed to convince Lori and dad to let me stay up late and watch the ball drop on tv. He helped me stay up all night too. We set off fireworks, played games, wreaked havoc throughout the neighborhood, and drove dad nuts" Carl giggled at that.

Shane smiled fondly "I remember that night. Back when you had that giant crush on me" I flushed and Carl crinkled his face "You had a crush on Shane?" Shane laughed and answered before I could "Oh! It was huge buddy! She used to follow me around, make love letters and gifts for me, and even referred to me as her future husband! I remember that I was dating this girl and I was talking to Rick about purposing to her, and Lottie burst inside and started sobbing;

"You can't marry her, Shane! I'm supposed to marry you! If you marry her than I can't! Please, don't marry her! Please be my husband instead! I'll be the best wife ever! I'll cook and clean for you! I'll get a job to help with bills! I'll do whatever it takes to be a good wife for you Shane!"

Shane started laughing his ass off with Carl as my face turned beet red. Lori was scowling at the three of us, but it all came to a halt when the radio suddenly squawked to life.

A voice that sounded like T-Dog's came through and said "Hello, base camp! Can anybody out there hear me?" Shane gets up and goes over to the located up on the RV. Lori, Carl, Amy, and I hurry over too "Base camp, this is T-Dog. Anybody hear me?" T-Dog says and Dale grabs the speaker and says "Hello? Hello? Reception's bad on this end" we quickly move the C.B. up onto the roof of the R.V. hoping to get better reception.