The Fear (The Walking Dead / Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 4 - Cherokee Rose

For the time being, Dad had set up Rick's group in our backyard until Carl was well enough to travel, which wouldn't be long at the rate he was recovering. He had already woken up, slipping in out, but it was more than we were expecting for today. For the moment we were going to help them look for the missing girl whose name was Sophia, Carol's daughter.

Dad and I stood by the bonnet of their Cherokee with Rick, Shane, Daryl and Andrea as Maggie had gone to find a map.

"How long has this girl been lost?" Dad asked.

"This'll be day three." Rick responded promptly just as Maggie had made it back.

"County survey map." She said, unrolling the large poster sized map. "Shows terrain and elevations."

"This is perfect." Shane stated as everyone looked over the page.

"We can finally get this thing organized." Rick added. "We'll grid the whole area, start searching in teams."

"Not you. Not today." Dad shook his head. "You gave three units of blood. You wouldn't be hiking five minutes in this heat before passing out." Dad then turned to Shane. "And your ankle... pushing it now, you'll be laid up a month, no good to anybody."

"Guess it's just me." Daryl spoke up. "I'm gonna head back to the creek, work my way from there."

"I can still be useful." Shane said. "I'll drive up the interstate, see if Sophia wandered back."

"All right, tomorrow then." Rick nodded. "We'll start doing this right."

"That means we can't have our people out there with just knives. They need the gun training we've been promising them." What Shane said made sense, but I didn't like the idea of strangers shooting on our property.

"I'd prefer you not carrying guns on my property." My dad said, basically thinking what I was. "We've managed so far without turning this into an armed camp."

"All due respect, you get a crowd of those things wandering in here..." Shane said, trailing off.

"We're guests here." Rick cut in. "This is your property and we will respect that."

"Hang on." I chimed in and I felt my dad's stern gaze on me so I turned to face him as I began to speak. "Everyone who doesn't already know how to shoot should have training. Shane's right, if a heard or pack, crowd, whatever you want to call it," I nodded at Shane, "comes past the house, guns may be the only option, but for nothing less then that." I quickly added. "Small groups of them, at least less the ten should be handled with quietly, no gun shots anywhere near the house or it may draw a larger heard to us. If you want to train your people, that's your call." I nodded at Rick. "But not here, there's an empty field a few miles down the road." I pointed it out the on map. "The noise won't carry this far and it's well off our land." I turned to my dad. "But no firing here." I said looking at him waiting to see if he would approve and he soon nodded.

"Right." Rick nodded, pulling out his gun and placing it on the bonnet. "We hand in our guns. Keep them together and hand them back out again if we have to. Train anyone who wants to learn up by that clearing, but first things first. Set up camp, find Sophia."

"I hate to be the one to ask, but somebody's got to." Shane began. "What happens if we find her and she's bit? I think we should all be clear on how we handle that."

"You do what has to be done." Rick stated.

"And her mother? What do you tell her?" Maggie asked, shocked.

"The truth." Andrea replied.

Maggie looked back at our dad, not liking the idea of someone shooting a little girl while he just shook his head back, silently telling her not to say anything. I turned my head back to the map, feeling guilty for believing in Rick's point of view instead of my father's, but... If she was bit she was dead. It was better to put her out of her misery... if that was even something the dead could register.