Daryl's Girl

Chapter 27

"Don't look. Don't look." Daryl croaked and I opened my eyes to see him dragging Carol to her feet. Her daughters body lay on the ground in front of us, amongst the others. My heart breaking for her.

The second she she was standing, Carol broke free from Daryl's grasp and pushed him away, turning and jogging back to the camp, sobbing. I can't say I blame her. She'd seen it happen with her own eyes and Rick still had his gun raised, hovering over Sophia which didn't help. For the rest of us, the sight alone had us all broken so for Carol, I don't think words could even begin to describe how she was feeling. That went for Hershal and his people too.

He was still on his knees as Rick slowly lowered his gun, staring at the barn. Maggie clinging to me, crying. Everyone else around us just stood looking at the corpses that scattered the ground by the barn doors and it angered me to think that I could've prevented all of this. If I'd gone after Sophia in the first place, then she wouldn't have gone missing, they wouldn't have had to go looking, Carl wouldn't have gotten shot, we wouldn't be standing here now and she wouldn't be dead. Maybe even Tyler might still be here, but I didn't know whether that was a good or a bad thing.

The sudden sound of footsteps caught my attention as Beth ran past me, sobbing, heading for the pile of bodies. 

"Wait. Wait." Rick reached out, trying to stop her, but she pushed him off and managed to slip around, making her way over to what looked like a woman's body. I just watched as she moved one of the walkers from on top of the woman and knelt down besides her. No one else moved as Beth rolled the walker onto its back and shook it a little.

"Mom?" She cried. 

All of a sudden, the walker sprung to life and grabbed hold of Beth's arms, snarling.

The second Beth screamed, everyone ran over without any form of hesitation. Maggie quickly letting go of me and running towards her sister, leaving me as I helped Hershal to his feet. The two of us following on behind.

"Pull her away! Pull her away!"

Rick and Shane were the first there and together they pulled Beth away and into the arms of Hershal and Maggie, where I then put myself between them. Tdog kicking the woman back down, only it was faster and lunged for Glenn. Before it could sink its teeth into his skin, Andrea swung a large spike through its head and it fell into his lap.

It all happened so fast that it ended up with everyone just yelling at each other once again, like Shane had before with his rant. I didn't say anything and just watched as Jimmy made his way over to Beth and took her in his arms. Hershal then nudging mine and gesturing back up to the house. I knew what he meant and nodded following him, Maggie, Patricia, Beth and Jimmy back up the driveway, away from the others.

All of this because of Shane. Hershal was right. Not everyone would be so understanding.

As we made our way up, Jimmy and Maggie walked on ahead, each with an arm around Beth where Hershal put his around my shoulder leaving Patricia walking along side us. This family has been through so much already. The last thing they needed was all of this. They needed time to grieve. I had to find someway of making it right.

I glanced behind to see that Rick and the others hadn't noticed me walking away with Hershal, which I was glad about. They were all too busy arguing by the sound of it. All of them now gathered around Sophia. The guilt washing over me, not just for her, but for the rest of them too. We all could've died out there looking for her. Daryl, Carl and I almost did, and she was in the barn the whole time. There was no way we could've known and I had to believe Hershal didn't either.

We were just walking through the gate and up the drive way when I heard Shane yelling after us. Spoken too soon. "We've been out...We've been combing these woods looking for her and she was in here all along!" He yelled. "You knew!"