Lottie

The Herd

After a few minutes of looking, Lottie finally found some tins, canned beans and canned fruit. She opened her bag, placed it carefully inside which filled half of it and put it back on her back.

It was practically silent in the little store, all except the rustling from Daryl and Rick and each others footsteps.

Gripping her knife tightlty and holding it in front of her chest, Lottie made her way around to the women's hygiene shelf, picking up some pads and tampons for the ladies as she thought Daryl and Rick might not think of that. She grabbed some crisps from a rack on the far side of the store and she managed to squeeze in a chocolate bar for Carl into her bag.

"My bags full!" Lottie shouted to Rick and Daryl as she pulled the zip shut.

"Mine is too, come to us!" Rick shouted back.

It suddenly became eerily silent, Lottie carefully made her way to the centre aisle and looked down through open door.

It was at that point she saw Maggie, Glenn and T-Dog desperately running back towards the cars. Glenn turned to see Lottie and realised she hadn't seen whatever he had. He sprinted through the open door towards the frozen Lottie as Rick and Daryl appeared next to her.

"We need to go! Now!" He screamed at them. After they didn't move he shouted again, "There's a herd, move now!"

Lottie gasped as Daryl clenched her arm pulling her until she was through the door. They looked, in shock, down towards the pharmacy. Unfortunately, Glenn was right.

Hundreds of walkers dragged themselves from one side of the road to the other. The groans and moans were terrifyingly deafening. Rick stood still in thought, Maggie raced over to them.

"We need to get away, now!" Maggie pleaded with Rick.

"No," Rick replied in a whisper "If we start the engines they'll hear it, they aren't going towards the farm we have to wait this out."

Everyone looked at Rick with horrified expressions. Lottie thought they couldn't possibly hear an engine over their own groans.

"Where?" Lottie asked quietly. "I don't want to go back into a building, we could become surrounded and trapped so quickly."

"You're right," Rick said "Maggie, Glenn did any of the buildings have a ladder to the roof?"

"Are you mad?" T-Dog said, suddenly panicked.

"This one does on the other side, saw it when we were coming back." Glenn said pointing to the opposite side of the general store, ignoring T-Dogs panic.

"Right one by one, quietly move from here to that ladder, no running, no screaming and no guns!" Maggie instructed them all. "T-Dog you go first."

He did so, the others watched as he practically tip-toed towards the opposite side of the building and he dissappeared behind it. The building was only ground floor, no upper floors, an easy climb. T-Dog appeared on top of the front of the store and Maggie made her way around too.

Glenn went next, then Rick. Lottie froze again.

"Go on!" Daryl said in a hushed voice.

"No, yo- you go first." Lottie said, her eyes fixed on the herd of walkers that still slowly trapsed their way across the road with no sign of stopping.

"No I won't go unless you do." Daryl said firmly.

"Please!" Lottie said "Just go now!" She looked straight at Daryl who looked up at Rick who nodded back. Daryl reluctantly but silently made his way to the ladder too.