⌜ chapter twenty-two ⌟

MJ and Daryl walk into the house, and everyone looks at them. They look at all of the faces in the room, and MJ sighs. "Rick and Shane ain't back?" Daryl asks as everyone stands up.

"No." Lori shakes her head.

"We heard a shot."

"Damn it." MJ hisses.

"Maybe they found Randall." Lori suggests.

"We found him." Daryl tells them.

"Is he back in the shed?" Maggie asks.

"He was a walker." MJ says.

"Did you find the walker that bit him?" Hershel asks.

"He wasn't bit." Daryl says. "His neck was broke."

"So, he fought back?" Patricia asks.

"The thing is, Shane and Randall's tracks were right on top of each other." He tells them. "And Shane ain't no tracker, so he didn't come up behind him. They were together."

"Dean, let's go." MJ says, and they all look at her. "We're going after Rick and Shane."

They head outside, and the three of them see what's gotta be at least a hundred walkers making their way to the farm. MJ looks up at Dean, and he turns to go tell the others, who soon spill out onto the porch as well.

Hershel tells Patricia to kill the lights.

"I'll get the guns." Andrea says and then walks away from them​.

"Maybe they're just passing by, like the herd on the highway." Glenn says. "Should we just go inside?"

"Not unless there's a tunnel downstairs I don't know about." MJ tells him.

"A herd that size would rip the house down." Daryl says.

"Carl and Ellie are gone." Lori says as she comes outside.

"What?" MJ turns to look at her.

"They— They were upstairs. I can't find them anymore."

"How hard is it to watch two kids?" She looks at Matt.

"Maybe they're hiding." Glenn suggests.

"They're supposed to be in her room." Matt says. "She said that she was tired of being babysat. I thought—"

"Find our daughter." MJ cuts him off. "Now."

Matt, Lori, Carol, and Sophia disappear into the house as Andrea hurries back out onto the porch with their duffle bag full of guns.

"M?" Jack steps closer to her.

"You remember what Rick taught you?" She asks, and he nods. "Good."

"Maggie." Glenn looks at her when she hands him a rifle; she's going through their weapons bag.

"You grow up country, you pick up a thing or two." She tells him.

"I got the number — it's no use." Daryl says, looking out at the herd that's headed straight for them.

"You can go if you want." Hershel tells him as he loads a rifle.

"You gonna take 'em all on?"

"We have guns. We have cars."

"You heard the man." MJ says as she passes out a few guns. "We kill as many as we can, and we use the cars to lead the rest of them off the farm."

"Are you serious?" Daryl asks.

"I don't know where my daughter is. I'm not leaving this farm without her." She tells him. "If you don't want to help us with the walkers, you know where your motorcycle is. Go get it and leave. Nobody's holding you here."

Little does she know, she's wrong about that. She is what's holding him here. Whether he knows why or not — whether he'll ever admit it or not, it's just a fact.

She looks up at him. "Or... You ready to see what we Winchesters live and die doing?"

"It's as good a night as any." He says and then goes to get his motorcycle. It's faster than trying to kill them on foot.

"Who set the barn on fire?" Jack asks, and MJ glances over at it.

"Rick or Shane is my best guess." She tells him as she hands him a gun. "You and Jess stay at the house with the others. Kill any of those damn things that get too close."

"M!" He calls after her when she turns to join the others who are shooting the walkers.

"I always come back." She holds her pinky out, and he smiles as he quickly wraps his around hers. "Always." She promises, and he nods. "Be careful, hun."

MJ's shooting as she runs out and she sees the R.V. head over toward the barn. Rick hops on top with two small figures with him — Carl and Ellie. MJ immediately runs in their direction.

John's driving the Impala with Dean hanging out a window to shoot the walkers, and Mary in another. T-Dog's driving the blue truck with Andrea in the passenger seat doing the same thing as Dean and Mary. Maggie's driving one of their cars and she has Glenn with her. Jimmy's the one in the R.V. Daryl's still driving around on the motorcycle.

Rick's shooting walkers as the kids climb down the ladder on the back of the RV to get to the ground. MJ's shooting as well as she makes it to them.

"This way!" She yells, and Rick grabs the kids, immediately following behind her. The screams in the R.V. continue, and they know that there's nothing they can do to save Jimmy.

"Mommy!" Ellie yells, and MJ pulls her closer to her.

They're running through the woods when they hear more screaming. MJ turns to see what looks like Andrea and Carol getting closed in on by walkers. "You stay with Rick. Do you hear me?" She tells her daughter. "Go! Run!"

MJ runs over to Andrea and Carol, reloading her gun as she goes. She shoots as many as she can and yells at them to get the hell out of there. They both run, and MJ keeps shooting the walkers as she backs away.

MJ looks around then and she sees T-Dog's truck leaving the farm, then Maggie's car. "Son of a bitch." She mutters as she keeps shooting.

Wherever they went, Carol and Andrea are long gone. She doesn't know who got out where, or where any of her family ended up, and she's now completely out of ammo.

"Shit!" She uses the barrel of the gun to bash in a walker's head, and then she pulls out her machete.

She keeps thinking about Jack and Ellie, how she's promised them every time she went on a hunt or on a supply run that she would always come back. That was the one promise she never wanted to break. She didn't want to leave them without a mom.

So much for that.

"Come on!" She yells as she kills more of the ugly sons of bitches. "Come on!"

And then she hears it, the familiar sound of the motorcycle behind her. "MJ!" Daryl yells, and she immediately turns around and starts running.

She swings her leg over the back of the bike and quickly sits on the seat behind him. He starts driving down the dirt road, and she holds onto him tightly. They leave the large herd of walkers behind them.

MJ's mind is racing as she clings to Daryl — she keeps thinking about anyone who might not have made it off the farm. Images of Jr. as a walker flash through her mind. When he came back his eyes were so different. They weren't the same vibrant blue that they always were, a color that reminded her of his father's. They were glassy and lifeless.

Fear takes over as she imagines the same thing happening to Ellie or Jack. She doesn't want to think it, but she can't help it. And then she remembers the sight of Kelly walking out of the barn that day. What if the same thing happened to Jess? Or to Mary? What if they came back just to turn like Kelly had?

Daryl feels her arms tighten around his torso as she rests her forehead on the back of his shoulder. He sighs and keeps driving past the walkers on the sides of the road that turn when they hear the motorcycle.

The sun's coming up as MJ's mind wanders to her brothers. She finally had Dean back, and their parents. Now she's lost them all again. And they never even found Sam. She feels like she failed him more than anyone. She wasn't even looking, she was holed up on a farm playing house — pretending that things would be okay.

Daryl soon pulls up behind the silver car that Maggie was driving; Glenn seems to be behind the wheel now. MJ hears something behind her and she turns around as much as she can. She sees the blue truck behind them as Daryl passes Glenn and Maggie.

They make it to the highway, and Daryl stops his bike by the car that Rick drove off the farm with the two kids and Hershel. MJ quickly climbs off the back, and her daughter immediately runs over to her. Daryl has to stop the girls from falling over as they hug.

"Parker Elizabeth Winchester, do you realize how much trouble you'd be in right now if you had a room to be grounded to?" MJ asks as Matt gets out of the back of Maggie's car.

"I love you too." Ellie says, and her mom chuckles as Matt runs over. MJ pulls him to them, and the family hugs.

"M?" Jack gets her attention, and she immediately turns to him. He slams into her, and she holds him tight.

MJ looks around and sees Lori with Carl and Rick. Maggie's running over to her dad, and Beth quickly finds them. Carol's climbing out of the truck bed.

"Where did you find everyone?" Rick asks.

"Well, those guys' tail lights zigzagging all over the road — figured he had to be Asian driving like that." Daryl says, and MJ reaches out and smacks his arm.

Glenn chuckles. "Good one."

"And the rest of us?"

"We're the only ones who made it so far." Rick tells him.

"Grandma and Grandpa?" Ellie asks. "And where's Uncle Dean?"

"Hey, come on, mama. They made it out. I mean, no one escapes death quite like we do." MJ says, but they hear the uncertainty in her voice. "Wh— Where's Jess?"

"She ran for Sophia." Jack tells her. "Uh, I think Dean got them in the Impala." He says, and she nods.

"Would they think to come here?" Matt asks.

"Probably not." MJ says.

"Shane?" Lori asks, looking at Rick. He just shakes his head.

"Andrea?" Glenn looks around.

"MJ saved us." Carol says. "Andrea and I ran, then I lost her."

"We saw her go down." T tells them.

"Patricia?" Hershel asks.

"They got her too, took her right in front of me." Beth says. "I was— I was holdin' onto her, Daddy. She just—" She starts crying, and he hugs her. "What about Jimmy? Did you see Jimmy?" She asks as she looks around.

"He was in the R.V." MJ says. "It got overrun."

"Dean got Sophia?" Carol asks. "Are you sure?"

Jack nods. "The Impala stopped next to them, and Dean got out. He picked up Sophia and got her in the back with Mary."

"And Jess?" MJ looks at him.

"She climbed in after Sophia. Dean was covering them until he got back in." He tells her. "And then John drove off. That was all I saw before Matt grabbed me, and we started running for Maggie and Glenn's car."

"And you definitely saw Andrea?" She asks as she turns to T-Dog.

"There were walkers everywhere." Lori says.

"But did you see her?"

"I'm gonna go back." Daryl says as he starts for the bike when no one can give her a definite yes.

"No." Rick stops him.

"We can't just leave her."

"We don't even know if she's there." Lori says.

"She isn't there." Rick insists. "She isn't."

"He's right." MJ says. "She's somewhere else or she's dead. There's no way to find her."

"So we're not even gonna look for her?" Glenn questions.

"We gotta keep moving." Rick says. "There have been walkers crawling all over here."

"I say head east." T says.

"Stay off the main roads." Daryl adds as he goes to get his crossbow from his bike to kill the walker headed toward them. "The bigger the roads, the more walkers, more assholes like this one. I got him." He shoots it.

"What about Sophia?" Carol asks.

"She's as safe as we are." MJ tells her. "Trust me, I know my brother. He won't let anything happen to a kid. She'll be alright."