I'm Not the Only One

Chapter Ten: Gasoline

You may want to take a look at the map I included at the top. It's important.

In the next few weeks routine was normal. I blacked every other day or so. I really hoped that would stop because Eugene was right - what if I ran into walkers and blacked out? What if I was driving and black out? Well, that resulted in me not touching the wheel for two weeks. At this rate I won't drive for months.

Now we were extremely close to ZSF! Tom found a map and showed us where we were from signs around our current town and where Zone Seventy-Four was located. Daryl reckoned it would take us four more days to get there.

As I looked on the map I noticed something. We were extremely close to the beach. Maybe once we got Char and Beth we could go to the beach! This was gonna be great. I was going to have my sister back and we'd all be together and maybe we could start our own little town and possibly after a while we could start to let people in. We could be good again. I could begin a life with Carl and we'd all be happy. Well, as happy as you can be in the current situation. We would take Eugene to Washington and he could stop the apocolyspse.

The first step to all of this was finding Charlotte and Beth. I smiled to myself as Carl connected our hands and Glenn winked at me as Maggie slept on his chest. I stuck my youngest out at him but he just smiled.

Three hours later we stopped at a grocery store to look for food since we were running out. Judith had enough baby food to last her a few more weeks because she was eating small portions of regular food now. Soon enough we wouldn't need to find baby food for her at all. Diapers were a bit of a problem though. We had six left, which would go for two more days. Nobody wanted to tie cloth around her if we ran out.

We all hopped out of the car and met up at the entrance. I stood next to Daryl and Maggie as everyone discussed plans and orders of supplies they needed to retrieve. Suddenly I heard that I'd be staying in the car with Judith.

"What? No way!" Each member of the group looked at me. "I haven't been in a run in weeks. I'm fine, I don't feel like I'm going to black out. I'll never get better if I don't train, right?"

Rick whispered to Daryl and Eugene for a few seconds before switching his focus to the group. "Alright, you can come Jade. But you're staying with Daryl and Carol at all times. Euegene will watch Judith with Rosita." He looked at Rosita knowing that Euegene already agreed.

She nodded her head joking that she needed to go one day without running into something to wanted to "taste my insides".

We regrouped and got ready to go inside. Sheriff walked over to me and kissed my temple before getting ready with Michonne. Daryl and Carol winked at me as I stuck my tounge out at the pair.

In the next minute we had all entered the building. Daryl, Carol and I were supposed to find things that we could drink and things Judith could eat (that was everyone's second job). We found a few crates of water bottles in the very back of the store. Unfortunately, we ran into some walkers on the way. I handled the walkers fine, but moving around that much did make me tiny bit dizzy. I sat down and drank a half a bottle of water before we loaded the water up to a large cart and headed down the other isles to look for food that Judith could eat. Carol found some diapers instead of finding food. I looked around the cashier stand for candy or something that hadn't gone bad. Instead I found a couple lighters. These could probably come in handy. I checked to see if they were all working before I slid them both into my pocket. When we met up with the rest of the group in the front of the building only ten or so people were there. Michonne, Carl, and Abraham were missing.

We waited a few more minutes and then started to look around. They should be back by now. I started to get scared. Tara grabbed my hand while Maggie held onto my should and told me they'd be back. I bit my lip and looked at the silent isles once again. I turned to Rick to see what he was thinking about this before we heard a crash and a manly scream. From a distance we could hear Michonne scream "Carl!" Predictably we were all in shock for a second.

Then I loaded my bow and started sprinting as fast as a I could towards the direction Michonne screamed from. Gun shots were heard and Rick was screaming orders before he and Daryl set after me. I could tell because Ricks shouting was getting closer and Daryl was telling me to go to the car. But I couldn't. I couldn't let Abraham, Michonne or especially Carl die. Not when I could help them. When I saw my (kinda?) boyfriend and two of my friends running towards me shooting off all three of their guns I understood why they were making a lot of racket. There was a herd of a hundred or more running after them. I stood silent for a few seconds before deciding we were all going to die if something drastic didn't happen. We needed these walkers to die - quickly.

The army side of me started working on the trio was about fifty feet away. I saw gallons of gasoline across the room and tried to think. If I shot them nothing would happen. I need fire. Then I thought about my lighter and my arrows. They won't be strong enough to make an explosion.

"Jade! What the hell? Help us!" Daryl screamed as he took down three walkers. I frantically started looking around.

"Jade!" Maggie screamed as she and Glenn joined the fight.

I finally saw something that would help: hairspray. "Get out!" I screamed as I tore the top off the the hairspray.

"What?" Abraham screamed from the isle next to us. He had taken a baseball bat he'd found and was now killing walkers left and right.

"GET OUT!" I screached as in three seconds I had covered the tip of an arrow with hairspray and caught it on fire. As quick as I could I aimed at a gas tank and blew it up. I never thought about the chain reaction though because I had just taken out maybe half of the walkers that were left. Now we had about twenty but everyone was really tired.

"Somebody push them back!" I loaded another arrow and set it on fire. I aimed at a single can and killed seven walkers. Rick and Carl were now helping Michonne out of the store. Daryl stopped fighting, but before he took Abraham he asked Maggie, Glenn and I if it was okay. After a few minutes none of the three of us had taken out a lone walker.

Maggie twisted her ankle and let out a cry of pain before she fell to the floor. "Get her out, Glenn," I said as he picked her up. I killed the walker I was working on and told him that I would cover them. He ran as fast as he could towards the entrance with Maggie in his arms I finished off walkers until there were three walkers left. They cornered me into a shelf. I tried to get my knife, but I saw it lying on the cement ground ten feet away. I reached behind me and found various cans of soup.

I grabbed one and smashed into into a walkers head. After that one fell I took another can and smashed it into another walkers skull until it no longer moved. I turned to the last walker who was was getting way too close to my arm. I snatched my arm to my side and then took out the last walker with the but of my gun. In exhaustion I fell to my knees. Unfortunately one of my knees happened to fall into the walkers stomach, guts spreading all over my knee like wildfire.

I got up and started to grab guns and knives that had fallen when the worst thing I could have imagined happened. No, not another herd - the roof started caving from the heat. A five by five foot piece landed two feet from me. I screamed and jumped. Then a few more pieces started to fall. And more. And more. I heard people screaming outside. I looked back and noticed almost the entire building was on fire. The isles surrounding me ignited and things started to fall off of the shelves in little balls of fire. One hit my arm setting my jacket sleeve on fire I screamed in pain and tore of my jacket but my shirt was caught on fire now too. So I did what they taught me in preschool: stop. Drop. And roll.

I must've looked insane, rolling on the floor in the middle of a fire. I peeked at my arm and tried not to regurgitate all of the food in my stomach.

It was a mess.

I was a mess.

I picked myself up and ran to the door the best I could. A walker popped up out of nowhere when I was twenty feet from the front door and threw me to the floor with it. I scrambled around for my knife and stabbed it in the head once I found it. I was extremely careful not to get any of the guts on my injured arm because then I would be infected. I stumbled out of the door and collapsed on the spot. Right before I hit the ground I could've sworn I heard a building collapse.