How I Live Now • The Walking Dead

8

Once everyone was over the fence, Rick began to dig out the bag of weapons he had hid before they entered. Agnes knelt over next to him, grabbing the knives she had put in there. Rick pulled out guns and rifles from the bag and held them out to the group.

"Use these rifles, take out the rest of them," Rick said.

"What?" Glenn asked, grabbing a rifle.

"They don't get to live."

"Rick, we got out. It's over."

"It's not over till they're all dead." Rick protested.

"The hell it isn't," Abraham spoke up now, "that place is on fire. Full of walkers. I'm not dicking around with this crap."

As the group disputed, Agnes heard a walker and saw it coming behind Daryl. She flung her knife at it, hitting dead-center between the eyes. Daryl grabbed her knife from the walker's head before it could fall over. He walked over, handing it to her, his attention on Rick and Abraham's words. Their words silenced, and then Agnes heard a chuckle. She whipped around, and her vision fogged a little. She got slightly dizzy, from sleep deprivation and the prolonged lack of food and water, but once her vision cleared, she couldn't believe her eyes.

Carol?

Before anyone processed what was happening, Daryl ran to her and engulfed her in a hug. It lasted a while, and everyone understood.Their hug seemed like something else, and she felt energy coming from them, warmth. She had always sensed something between them, security, emotional confidence, a strong bond. She eyed around, and her gaze met Agnes's. She smiled even more, and for the first time in weeks Agnes smiled, too. She pulled back from Daryl, and turned to Rick.

"Did you do that?" Rick asked, smiling. Carol nodded, smiling lightly, tears forming in her eyes. Rick hugged her.

"You have to come with me."

***

After walking for a while, following Carol, they reached a small cabin. Standing outside of it, was Tyreese. Tyreese, holding baby Judith.

Baby Judith, alive and well.

Rick and Carl dropped everything, running over to her. Sasha ran to Tyreese.

The icy, diminished feeling in Agnes's heart warmed a little, seeing a family reunited. She felt the love coming from them, the tears of joy. She felt herself feel again.

Then, it died down, back to the melancholic dullness. Her memories flooded back, thinking of her family.
Her family, if it could be called that. Before the world went to hell, Agnes lived with her two parents. She was an only child, living in picture-perfect White Suburbia, with two working parents. Her mother was a nurse, her father an accountant. The perfect, middle class couple had Agnes after they married, and after that, their relationship crumbled. Their love died down. Agnes, even at birth, it seemed, had brought nothing but melancholy and desolation to those around her. Her father began cheating on her mother when Agnes was only 2, and he had done so even up to the end of the world. Her mother acted like nothing was wrong, though. Agnes later figured that she did so because she didn't want Agnes to grow up with divorced parents. Towards her adolescence, Agnes had noticed the growing tension between her parents, and she couldn't help but think it was her fault. They kept having house parties, barbecues, being the envy of their equally fake friends, seeming like the perfect couple with the perfect house and the perfect child.

Agnes could have been considered the perfect child. Strikingly beautiful, outgoing and polite, the poster-child of academic excellence. She was the polar opposite of how she was now, the bitch-faced knife thrower who didn't take shit from anyone.