When it began to dawn they set up their camp in the forest. Around their sleeping places, they pulled a line with cans and other things that made noise.

Fred also offered himself as guard for the night.

Jodie accepted the offer. Who knew when she would get the next sleep? Roderick had already gone to sleep and when Jodie also snuggled into her sleeping bag, Fred approached her.

"I know I wasn't fair to you, Jodie, and I'm sorry. And I'll probably never be able to make it up to you, but I'm grateful to you now that you did. And no matter what happens, if I can't do it anymore, please take care of my boy, okay?" he asked her. She nodded confusedly but seriously and looked at him. He looked tired, exhausted, but that was no wonder. They all were.

Jodie snuggled down deeper into the sleeping bag and also fell asleep very quickly. One restless dream after another haunted her. And again and again, she woke up, but soon fell asleep again.

In the morning she was awakened by the sun, which let its sunrays fall on her face. Drowsy, she sat up and blinked. Light mist wafted over the forest floor. She listened. No walker or anything but the chirping of the birds could be heard.

She glanced beside her at Roderick, who was still fast asleep. She smiled slightly and then looked over at Fred's guard. He lay on the ground and didn't move.

Annoyed, Jodie frowned. He had really fallen asleep on guard duty?! With that he had exposed them all to great danger! They had to find a house as quickly as possible where they could hide better. Or better yet, others from the group. Jodie pulled herself out of her sleeping bag and went over to Fred to shake him awake. Since he was lying on his side, she turned him on his back and shook him slightly. He didn't react. Jodie shook even harder and now a little rougher. Still no reaction. A little confused, Jodie slapped him lightly on the cheeks to wake him up. When her fingertips touched his skin, she was surprised at how cold he felt.

As autumn slowly came, she knew it was a bit colder in the morning, but he was much colder than he should have been. Now a little more worried she shook him again, but that did not help. She looked at him more closely. His body seemed a bit strange as well. Much limper and somehow more rigid than a normal sleeping person. Was it possible that...?

Jodie took his wrist and felt his pulse. She turned very cold inside when she realized there was no pulse. To be on the safe side, she quickly rummaged through her backpack, pulled out a small mirror and held it in front of Fred's nose and mouth. Please, fog up now, she begged internally.

Nothing happened. The surface of the mirror remained clear and unchanged. Jodie stared stunned at Fred's dead body. Shit, this couldn't be true. Automatically, she pulled out her knife to end it, but then she stopped. Even though she didn't know how much time was left, Roderick should at least have a chance to say goodbye to his father before she had to kill him for the second time.

So she woke Roderick with a gentle shake. Sleepily, he looked at her as he looked into her worried and sad face.

"What is it?" he asked softly.

Jodie crouched down next to Fred, took his wrist and shook her head sadly. It took Roderick a moment to understand what Jodie meant. His expression changed from confused to stunned.

"This... this can't..." he started. Jodie looked at him in silence. Even if she could have spoken, she wouldn't have known what to say.

Roderick knelt stunned next to his dead father and looked at him. He took his hand.

He shook his head as if he could not believe it. As if it was not real in front of him. A bad joke.

"But...how?," he whispered finally, he finally asked in a whisper. His voice sounded broken.

He looked at Jodie, tears gleaming in his eyes. Jodie shrugged her shoulders in confusion. Then she wrote something on her arm and held it out to Roderick.

"You need to say goodbye now". Roderick looked at her from the writing and shook his head.

"No, no, I can' t," he whispered again and again. Jodie sighed. She didn't quite know what to do.

It was understandable that Roderick wasn't ready to say goodbye to Fred yet, but still, Fred could turn back at any moment and attack them both. She had to stop the imminent danger first.

She pulled her hunting knife out of her belt and wanted to bend over Fred to do the necessary deed.

"No!", Roderick pulled her back. Angry and in pain, he stared at her.

"He is my dad. You are not hurting him! He just died and now you want to kill him again?! Don't you have any decency at all?!" he shouted at her.

Jodie looked at him calmly before she wrote something on her arm again and showed it to Roderick.

"If we don't do it, he'll turn and kill us both. If I do it now, he'll stay your dad and you'll remember him like that. I know it's hard, but we're running out of time."

Roderick's features have softened a bit. He seemed to understand that Jodie didn't mean any harm. He turned to his father and the first tears began to roll down his cheeks.

"Okay, I'll...just give me a moment," he asked her and Jodie nodded. Respectfully, she took a few steps back. She started packing her things together while she thought about the best way to proceed. She had already been completely alone, she had also been on the road with several people. But this was different.

She had had someone to look after her or she had looked after herself. But never before had she had someone to look after herself.

"I am...we...let's do it," Roderick said weakly. Jodie turned to him and watched as he breathed heavily.

She nodded, took her knife and raised Fred's head with one hand to push the knife into the back of his head. His face shouldn't have to be destroyed unnecessarily.

"Wait...I should do it," Roderick murmured and now also pulled his knife. His hand moved trembling towards Fred's face.

Jodie gently put her hand on his arm and shook his head. No son should have to kill his father unless there was another way. Roderick looked at her with tears in his eyes. Jodie smiled gently and shook her head again.

Roderick hesitated and then lowered the knife. Jodie plunged the knife into the back of his head with a single movement, leaving him still Fred. No walker, no undead creature. No shell. Just Fred. Jodie gently lowered his head back to the ground after she pulled out the knife.

Roderick swallowed, then began to breathe heavily. Jodie looked at him. Worried about his next reaction. Then Roderick jumped up, ran behind the next tree and threw up violently.

Jodie looked at him for a moment, worried and pitied, before she began to examine Fred's body more closely. She wanted to know how his sudden death could have happened. It might have been a heart defect or something similar, but Jodie remembered last night. His words to her before she had gone to sleep.

"And no matter what happens, if I can't do it anymore, please take care of my boy, okay?"

Jodie bit her lip. He had known. Maybe he had been sick before. Maybe one of the walkers got him when they found him again yesterday. Jodie opened his jacket and started examining his body for bite marks. His legs seemed okay. As she examined his arms and torso, Roderick joined in.

"What...what are you doing?", he asked distressed. Jodie didn't answer him. She had found what she was looking for. A bite in the armpit. Not visible and therefore easily hidden. Jodie also remembered how sickly and weak he had seemed last night.

Probably the first symptoms had already started there.

Jodie showed Roderick the bite. He looked at it closely, then turned away in silence as if nothing more mattered to him.

"Let's go," he just said. Those were his last words for the next two days.

The fact that Roderick was no longer talking caused Jodie great concern, after all, she knew what it had done to her.

But Roderick's behavior was taking on quite alarming features. He hardly reacted to anything, he only ate and drank when Jodie specifically told him to. He seemed completely numb. Jodie knew he was grieving, but still it was dangerous to be in that state because if he acted as if he didn't care at all, it could be dangerous.

For a week they fought their way through the forest and through neighboring villages. Jodie had to take care of everything. Roderick helped, but only when she asked him to. In the meantime, walkers met them only a very few times, so they were easy to avoid.

But whatever must have happened that night with Roderick after nine days, it must have been serious.

They had slept in the forest, on the soft ground, and it was getting colder and colder.

While Jodie had set up the alarm system, Roderick had been on the lookout for walkers. And then Jodie had noticed it from the corner of her eye. His attitude had changed. He had become tense. Jodie tightened the cords before she went over to Roderick. His gaze had turned to a single walker. Jodie followed his gaze. It was a very small walker. A child.

Roderick trembled. His hands just held the hunting rifle tighter.

Jodie put his hand on his arm and lowered the gun. They couldn't risk a shot. He could attract more.

Roderick allowed it to happen. Then he turned around and went back to their little camp. Jodie pulled out her knife and finished off the walker. She looked at him a little closer as he lay on the ground.

The boy was perhaps nine or ten years old. Too young to die. Too young for this world. This cruelty.

Whatever was different about this walker, it had completely captured Roderick. All evening he sat there trembling, staring into the flames as if he could see something there that Jodie couldn't see.

Only when she told him to go to sleep did he actually do the job after her third request.

Jodie herself lay awake for some time, watching Roderick first seemingly stare for hours and then finally fall asleep, but seemed to be dreaming uneasily as he rolled back and forth.

**************************************************

When Jodie woke up the next morning, Roderick was gone. His things were gone, too. It was as if he had never been here. A bad feeling came over Jodie. She jumped up and hastily gathered her things together before searching for clues.

She quickly found what she was looking for and realized that Roderick could not have gone far. The trail was not even an hour old. She hastily followed the trail until she finally reached a spot where the forest slope was steeply descending. And that was at least several meters. The trail ended at the edge of the slope.

The bad feeling in Jodie intensified and finally she looked over the edge of the slope.

Roderick's body lay on the ground in an unnatural position. He lay on his stomach, his arms and head strangely twisted around his body. Under his body, even on the forest floor, a small pool of blood was visible.

He wasn't moving. Jodie tried to breathe calmly, but then it broke out of her. Her body trembled and she got down on her knees. She breathed heavily and finally she threw up. Trembling, she choked up the last scraps of her yesterday's food and as she still trembled as she sat up, the first tears burst out of her.

It didn't matter if Roderick wanted to kill himself or maybe it was just an accident. She was alone again. All alone. That was what she had been afraid of. She could get by on her own, but she didn't want to be alone. And alone, finding the others suddenly seemed impossible.

Maybe she would never see them again. Who knew that in this world? How many might have survived? How many families might have been torn apart?

Jodie sobbed and buried her face in her hands. More and more tears made their way to the surface. She would never see Carl and Rick again. Not Beth and Carol and Maggie. Not Cole. Or Daryl...

But then she calmed down again. She remembered what he had taught her. No matter how alone you were, giving up would never be an option. In an emergency, you still had to hold on to a thought: You're alive and you know how to survive.

And she was still alive. She made it through.

This thought made her calm down again. Finally the tears dried up, she wiped them away and she stood up.

She looked for a safe place to climb down and went to Roderick's body. She turned him on his back.

His head was dented. Crushed. Still, Jodie plunged her knife into the back of his head. She didn't want to take any chances.

Then she examined him. He hadn't been bitten and he was still carrying his backpack. She took it off and started to clean it out. He wouldn't need these things anymore anyway. Among the things she found a family photo. It showed Roderick with his dad and a little boy next to him. He and Roderick looked alike. Probably his little brother. Jodie sighed and pushed the photo back into Roderick's pocket.

When Jodie was finished, she took his body and leaned it carefully against the rock with her upper body.

She closed his eyes and took one last look at him before she left. Also on the way back to her former camp, she saw the Walker Kid again, which seemed to have kept Roderick so busy yesterday.

Something seemed to be different about him this time, though.

Jodie moved closer to him and then she saw it. A note with big black letters was placed on his torso. This had definitely not been there yesterday.

She read the letters.

"When my dad and brother were alive, I had something to live for. Now both are gone and I don't want to be the last survivor. I'd rather lose myself before I lose more. You still have something to live for, Jodie. You hold on to it. R."

That was it. It hadn't been an accident. He had jumped. Had ended his life. And suddenly, Jodie felt a deep anger.

How could he do that? Just bail out like that without telling her. And leave her here! All alone. He had given her a hard time, she had saved him, and this is how he thanked her?!

In that moment, everything around didn't matter to Jodie. All the suppressed anger, all the frustration and pain burst out of her and she screamed! Screamed as loud as she could through the forest. Screamed out everything that had been building up since the moment she was silent. Let the world hear it for the first time.

Let the walkers hear it, let everyone hear it. She was so sick of it! It felt good to scream and let out all that anger.

And finally the screams subsided. Breathing heavily, Jodie looked into the distance. For the first time, she had no idea what to do now. She had no one left with her. She could search for the others, but where would she start?

Where should she go now?

********************************************

Jodie had finally decided to continue following the direction she was taking. The others would hide either in the forest or in villages. Somewhere where it was safe.

Maybe they had fled in smaller groups. As she roamed the forest, she probably wondered who might have survived.

Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Michonne, Maggie, Carl.... They would certainly live. Carol, maybe they would, even if she had been gone for a while.

But what about Beth? Or Cole? They weren't the kind of guys who went outside every day. Cole had been going out on tours regularly and he knew how to defend himself. But surviving outside without community? She wasn't sure he could, either. And Beth? She had never actually been outside. She wasn't the type to survive outside for long. Hopefully she was with some good people who could.

Jodie was torn from her thoughts, however, when she suddenly heard a loud cry of pain. And without much thought, she just ran towards the screams.

Here we are again, I hope you like the chapter. Leave a comment or a vote, or if you like both. I am always looking forward to read your opinions.

Love, liz;)