To be Seen or Heard

Chapter Twelve: Revelations (pt3)

Mamí was not happy that I'd gone out with Glenn to walk Dottie, but she wasn't angry at me either. It was more like she was upset at herself for not having come to physically check up on us herself, so that there wouldn't have had to have been an intervention on Glenn's part in the first place.

Though, we were pleased to learn that we'd actually be allowed to go outside as long as she was around. Apparently, Mr. Hershel had said that the farm hadn't been plagued by many muertos, and that they really hadn't actually seen any since the very beginning of the pandemic... which was almost as unbelievable as the idea of muertos walking around in the first place.

The Greene farm was huge, with a large field separating the house and the area where the RV's were parked from the forest's edge--which meant that with someone on watch, there'd be plenty of time to see any muerto stumbling onto the property. There was still the underlying concern that a huge herd, like the one from the highway, could accidentally stumble upon the farm... so that was why Mamí was making it an official rule that we weren't allowed to wander around and that we always had to be at a sprinting distance from our RV.

That, and we weren't allowed to go out when she wasn't around to supervise or without her permission. Which made sense... and no one was allowed to go out at night. Not even to take Dottie out to pee. The group would be staying at the farm until Carl recovered and the grownups found Sophia, so Mamí felt that firmly establishing the ground rules was real important before any of us got any harebrained ideas.

My mother had even spoken to Mr. Hershel about Dottie and her puppies. Mostly to let him know that they existed -this was his property, after all- and that we'd keep them inside the RV except for brief moments to let Dottie use the bathroom.

He'd been really kind about it. Said that we could let her out whenever we wanted as long as Dottie was on a leash, so that she wouldn't be able to chase his chickens, and that he'd be happy to give her and the puppies a check-up. Apparently, Mr. Hershel had been a veterinarian before the Fall and not a people doctor. Xavier's eyes had nearly popped out at that revelation, not that I'd been much better.

-We were right about certain other individuals in the group getting angry about the golden retriever. But it wasn't like you could stay angry at Dottie's goofy doggy grin for long, especially not after she went around giving wet kisses to everyone who came too close.

Mamí said that it helped that Dottie was a quiet dog, and that she'd had training as a service dog. She said that we'd keep the puppies in the RV, a secret from the sheriff's group for a while longer, even if Mr. Hershel already knew about them.-

Mamí was even less pleased about our observations on Shane... because she didn't really like him either. Something about how he'd looked -half-crazed, already gone- last night when he dropped off Carl's life-saving supplies. She made us promise not to be around him if we could avoid it.

Shane had also been the one most... expressive of his anger over Dottie's existence. He'd downright glared at me the whole time I stuttered over how I'd gotten her into our RV when I saw that she'd been abandoned in Mr. Nielson's yard. He didn't even stop when Mamí put her arm around my shoulders and pulled me against her side. I'm pretty sure that I continued to feel his angry eyes on my back the whole time I walked Dottie to our RV.

With the RVs, no one really needed to set up tents, but I could still spot two of them being set up under the shade of the tiny grove of trees. Even with the new-found space to roam outside, Mamí was taking a well-deserved nap in the bedroom with the little kids, while we entertained Dottie and her puppies in the front.