South Tree * TWD

23. Close Call

LILLIAN BENT DOWN to grab some berries off of a bush. Beth had taught her which berries were good to eat and which ones were poisonous so when Lillian found berries she had to stop to inspect them.

This time, she got Daryl to let her go out with him while he went to hunt. She used to excuse that she needed to learn as she was getting older. He barely agreed, telling her to be real quiet and keep up.

But of course, when Lillian found a berry bush, she stopped and Daryl didn't notice. She held the dark reddish black berries in her hands, holding them to her face to smell them.

"Huckleberries." Lillian murmured proudly to herself, a wide smile on her face. Beth said that Huckleberries were one of the good types, people made jams and stuff out of it. Lillian picked every berry that she could off the bush and used the bottom of her shirt as a cup to carry them.

Lillian heard leaves crunching from behind her, she figured it was just Daryl circling back.

"Daryl, look what i found!" Lillian turned around quickly, only to be met with... well, definitely not Daryl.

A walker threw itself jaw forward, chopping towards her. She let out a panicked whimper as she dropped her shirt and held out a hand towards the walker. Her other hand trembled as it searched her pocket for her knife. Lillian slipped back as the walker pushed more, she finally grasped her knife and pulled it out of her pocket. That's when she realized that she was too short to reach up and actually stab the walkers head. She had to some how get it onto the ground.

Lillian tried to give it one big shove with both of her hands but the walker only got closer to biting her as it gripped onto her clothing. She then remembered something that a kid did to her in 4th grade, wrapping their leg behind hers and shoving her back which ended her up in the ground.

She used the same tactic, shoving the walker on the ground but it ended up pulling her down with it.

"Son of a bitch." She exclaimed as she fell onto the mushy, rotten skin. She was immediately disgusted 10x more. She reached up and stabbed the walker as hard as she could with her knife. She let out a breath of air that she didn't realize she was holding as she pulled the knife out of the now dead, limp walker.

"Lilli." She heard a quiet voice, she looked up to see Daryl walking towards her warily with his crossbow ready and pointed at the walker.

Lillian pushed herself off it, trying her best not to think of the walker skin of guts that went with her as she stood.

"Killed it." Lillian mumbled as she looked down at the walker.

"What were ya doin'?"

"Trying to collect some Huckleberries." She pointed to the bush. "Dropped 'em all though." She sighed, seeing that the berries were basically all crushed on the ground. She took a step back over to the bush, crouching to see if there were any more berries and to her surprise there were.

Daryl only grunted in response before turning away from her."C'mon. Let's head back." He told her.

Lillian quickly gathered as much berries as she could, dropping them into the flannel pocket before hopped into step right next to him. She examined her now disgusting knife was as they walked. She almost wanted to wipe it on her shirt like she's seen Daryl do before but the shirt was basically still new as they found it last week in one of the houses they stopped at and she still wore Daryl flannel.

She looked down at her shirt and was surprised by the lack of walker guts that was on her. A little bit of blood and dirt but Carol would probably wash it for her and it would be almost good as new.