Mushaboom • Daryl Dixon

6

~Buckle up, this is a longg read.

Rachel

"Dude, we should try to make raisins, or jelly. It'd be nice to have snacks." Milo said as he picked grapes off the vines and let them fall into my bag.

I snorted and shrugged, "We can ask Matt if he knows how, I have no clue. And dude, I'm your mom."

He smirked and continued, "Juice!" Milo's voice cracked and he quickly cleared his throat. He let out a light laugh out of embarrassment. His voice dropped not even a week ago, and I'm not gonna lie, it was very entertaining for us all. And he was a pretty good sport about it. I smiled at him and he continued, "We can make grape juice!"

I laughed and nodded quickly, "Yeah! I think that's our best bet." Milo nodded excitedly and laughed.

We found a huge bush full of grapes not too far from the house after coming back from filling our water jugs. And Milo and I were overexcited. We hadn't seen fresh fruit that we actually liked in months. We filled my bag with tons of grapes and started on back.

We snacked on a handful, enjoying the walk back. I hadn't seen him this relaxed and happy in a long while. There was a breeze that made the summer heat bearable. This season was coming to an end; the nights were cool, and everything seemed to slow down, in a quiet way.

I looked up at my boy, who was definitely a couple of inches taller than me now, and smiled to myself, "I've missed this."

He looked over to me, "What?"

"Fruit.. And it being just us. Not like- I mean us having time just to ourselves"

"Yeah, I get it. Me too." He smiled and popped another grape into his mouth. I nudged him with my elbow.

By the time we got back, Matt was already packed and ready for him and Ricky to go hunting.

They both were sitting outside, loading their rifles and Milo went jogging over to them with the backpack. I watched their eyes light up when Milo unzipped the bag, and they all started digging in.

When I walked up, Milo spoke up, "Nino said he'd help get more and juice them, only if you're wanting to hunt instead."

I looked to Ricky and he shrugged, "You're better out there, I'm good with either though."

I nodded and looked to Matt. He smiled, "It'd be nice to come back to some juice."

"Alrighty, that's fine." I reached for Ricky's gun and he handed it over to me. "We'll be back in a couple hours."

————————

We were out there maybe twenty minutes, and couldn't seem to track a damn thing. Occasionally we'd talk, but for the most part, we kept quiet just incase we found anything.

We were about half a mile past the creek, when we came across a group of about a dozen roamers. We carefully backtracked, and walked along the water so we could continue going unheard. We stopped along the tree line and watched the roamers. Some were already in the water, more were appearing through the opposite tree line. It seemed like the group was doubling in size. The numbers made me uneasy.