Lost Too Much 【REDONE】 ║ Daryl/OC or Shane/OC

Chapter 17: I haven't felt anything but misery since the farm.

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(DAY 431) This morning has been the first day in a couple that we've found some actual food that could serve us nutrition. Granted, it's still not enough to be a normal meal, but we haven't eaten anything but packets of sauce the past few days, so after we found a jar of peanut butter and an owl upstairs that Daryl shot (and more mustard packets), it felt like a mini moment of heaven.

Daryl, Carl, Rick, Glenn, and I have been a search team. I haven't really been sharing many details about the past few months but it's all really been the same. The five of us raid a house, make sure it's safe, gather all the food we can, and we all rest up until the herd catches up to us and we need to take off. Then the cars just follow Daryl and me on his bike wherever we're told to head, and the cycle repeats. Over the course of the winter, we took shelter in these storage lockers, and I think that was the closest to safe we ever were. We didn't have food, though, so it wasn't a good stopping point.

We've decided to head through Newnan. We're gonna pick through this one town we already searched before heading out, but I'm starting to lose faith. Newnan is only about a 45-minute drive from the Woodbury walls. Right now, we're closer, actually. Still, if Rick is planning on holing up in Newnan, I don't know how comfortable I feel.

I think I need to tell them about Woodbury. I decided a while ago that if things got too rough, where we were going weeks without water or shelter, that I'd tell them and recommend heading out. I'd risk getting separated from them if it meant we'd all be okay.

I have to go. T-Dog just signaled that the herd is here.

Signing out,
Cory Jenner
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As T-Dog pointed to the window, gesturing that the herd of at least 150 had reached us yet again, we all got back up to our feet. Lori needed assistance due to her nine-month belly. The rest of us, meanwhile, gathered our things and got ready to make a run for the vehicles. I threw my journal and pen into my duffel bag, slinging it over my shoulder and waiting for the signal for us to run.

At the same time, we all trekked back outside through the back door, booking it through the overgrown bushes and weeds into the almost deafening sound of walker moans. As we each split up, going to the same vehicles we had been the past so many months, we watched for geeks that strayed too close. Daryl and I were on Merle's motorcycle, so we had to watch our backs especially. Months ago, Rick had given us the rule to completely take off without the rest of them if they started coming in too close. It was logical, obviously, due to the fact that them being in their cars protected them much more. They could make it out and catch up, but we couldn't wait around.

I chucked my duffel bag into the back of Rick's new truck like I did every time we left, then threw myself onto the motorcycle behind Daryl and held on tight as he started taking off almost immediately. As decided, we needed to leave without making sure the others were behind us. It was one thing to wait for them when we weren't on the run from walkers, but right now, they were coming in at an alarming rate.

I knew where we were. I knew how damn close we were at this moment to coming across Woodbury. It could happen any day, really. Well, we weren't amazingly close in distance but we had been around this area multiple times. One of these times, Rick was going to decide to head in that direction and we were just going to come right up to the walls. I had no clue what I would do.

Phillip will never let me go if he finds me. At least that's how it seems. He barely let me out of his sight after I returned from that four-day vacation when he went full-psycho. God, that was horrifying. He scared the living shit out of the civilians that day, shooting his gun up in the air like it was justified. Basically stole beer, trashed our house. I was only gone four days. Of course, he did think I was dead, but still. He thought I was dead and did all that. How the hell did he react after I was gone for a week after leaving without telling anyone? If he ever sees me again, who knows what he'll do.