Feral Citizens

The End of Civilisation

It was like we were cursed, because only half an hour after leaving, Carol's car began to groan from loss of gas. It finally spluttered to a stop in the middle of nowhere, on a road surrounded by trees.

"What's wrong?" Rick asked.

"We've been riding red for the past hour." Carol answered. "we've got no gas left to spare." In response, the group erupted into a cacophony of questions and worries.

"We can't stay here."

"We can't all fit in these cars either."

"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning." Rick made the conversation final.

"We can't just sit here with our asses hanging out." Maggie snapped at him. Her cheeks had gone red with the cold. With winter on our heels, it wouldn't be long before we'd be forced to take shelter. Her father admonished her for her language and tried to direct everyone back to the matter at hand.

"Everyone stop panicking and listen to Rick." He commanded. Rick looked at Hershel, and they exchanged a respectful nod.

"All right," Rick finally decided. "we'll set up a perimeter. In the morning, we'll find gas and some supplies. We'll keep pushing on."

"Or we could go now-"

"No, we stay together. God forbid something happens and people get stranded without a car."

"Rick, we're stranded now." T-Dog pointed out. The ex-officer took a deep breath. I could imagine that he was counting to ten in his head to stop himself from exploding. So far, nobody else seemed to be swaying towards his plan. If anything, they were looking at him like he was insane. It seemed like only Hershel, me and maybe Daryl were convinced that Rick had some idea of what he was doing.

"I know it looks bad, we've all been through hell and worse, but at least we found each other. I wasn't sure... I really wasn't... but we did. We're together. We keep it that way. We'll find shelter somewhere. There's gotta be a place." Rick insisted. Self-doubt was slowly creeping in. His words weren't aimed at us, that much was for sure. I peered into the woods and tried to ignore Lori and Rick's argument. My mind was already made up. We'd find somewhere to stay. Anywhere would be better than the roadside, but at least out here was -so far- void of walkers.

I walked by Maggie and Glenn for a while as we looked for a place to camp out by the road. We couldn't afford to be out too close to the open. Not right now. Eventually, the conversation flowed down a different current, and Randall was brought up.

"You know I found Randall, right?" Daryl said to Rick. "he had turned, but he wasn't bit." And once again, a whole new type of panic erupted in the group. Seeing as Daryl had already told me at the farm, I couldn't do anything more than wish for the constant badgering to be done with.

"How's that possible?"

"Rick, what the hell happened?" He wouldn't speak. Instead, Daryl gave them the answer.

"Shane killed Randall. Just like he always wanted to. And then the herd got hi-"

"-we're all infected." The words flew like a dust cloud from Rick's lips. Though I had suspicions about what he meant, it still sent icy shivers down my spine.

"What?"

"At the CDC, Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it." Holy shit. I felt frozen in place. It was like my body had realised the same thing and was now attempting to stop me from doing anything. The words kept ringing through my ears, 'we're all infected...we're all infected'.