-say goodbye-

THE SMOKE OF THE DEAD WALKERS was gliding along the sky. I sat watching it dance in the wind. The sun was out and was shinning very brightly. Andrea was still in the same spot, over her sister. It was tragic what happened to Amy, what happened here. Andrea was not ready to let her go.

I watched Daryl wield his pickaxe into a dead walker. Just to make sure it was for sure dead so Glenn and T-dog can take the body and put it in a pile. My friends and my brother were helping as well while I just sat here. Lori was soon at my side, she was over trying to convince Andrea to let them take Amy's body. She wasn't cooperating though.

"She still won't move?" Rick walks over and notices.

"She won't even talk to us. She's been there all night. What do we do?" Lori asks.

"We can't just leave Amy like that. We need to deal with it same as the others." Shane's voice was low and regretful. Amy didn't deserve what came to her. It was hard to understand but the risk of others are at stake.

"I'll tell her how it is." Rick makes his way over to Andrea. We all watch him. He goes to kneel down to tell her but within seconds of him getting even close she pulls out a gun and turns the safety off. He backs up slowly. Everyone over here stands up from their seat. Worried for Rick. Rick slowly backs away from the girl and she slowly lowers the gun.

I'm sitting down by Carol while the others are on their feet discussing this.

"Y'all can't be serious. Let that girl hamstring us? The dead girl's a time bomb." Daryl paced.

"What do you suggest?" Rick questioned.

Daryl walked closer to Rick, looking him dead in the eye, "Take the shot. Clean, in the brain from here. Hell, I can hit a turkey between the eyes from this distance."

"No. For god's sake, let her be." Lori's eyes still on the girls. She sat down saying what she thought.

Daryl scoffed before going back to help with the bodies he passed Jim, Jim was just staring up at the sky. "Wake up, Jimbo. We've got some work to do."

He dropped his weapon and helped Morales drag a body closer to the fire. Till Glenn came up behind them, "What are you guys doing? This is for geeks. Our people go over there." He pointed.

"What's the difference? They're all infected." Daryl muttered.

"Our people go over in that row over there. We don't burn them! We bury them. Understand?" Glenn obviously wasn't having it.

Daryl and Morales didn't feel the need to question or say anything back to him. They just did what he asked. Dragging the body to the other side, "You reap what you sow."

"You know what? Shut up, man." Morales hissed.
Daryl let go of the body instantly.

"Y'all left my brother for dead. You had this coming." He walked away shouting. I couldn't help but roll my eyes as I looked over at Lori. She pressed her lips in a thin line.

"Do you think Merle survived?" I say in a hush to Lori.

"Hell if he did, he's one lucky guy." She shrugged. I was told from Atlas that they found Merle's hand sawed off. That sounds like something you wouldn't survive if you didn't have good medical assistance. And I doubt Merle did.

"Well-" I try to continue the conversation but Jacqui ends up loudly talking to Jim. She seems to be demanding him something, I couldn't really hear at first but everyone seems to be interested in what's going on.

"A walker got him. A walker bit Jim!" She announces. We all are up on our feet, watching.

I'm standing next to Lori, my hand wrapped around her arm. Jim begins to back up in fear. The guys surround him.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." He mumbles.

"Show it to us." Daryl yells at him pacing with his pickaxe draped on his shoulder. "Show it to us."

Jim is scared, he turns quickly to look for a weapon and immediately grabs a shovel from the ground. Everyone starts to shout.

"Woah. woah."

"-Easy, Jim-"

"-Grab him-"

"Put it down Jim." Shane's arm is up in defense.

Words are being thrown around and T-dog listens to Daryl's voice as he goes up behind Jim to grab him. Jim ends up dropping the shovel when T-dog gets ahold of him.

"I'm okay. I'm okay." He repeats. Daryl runs over to lift his shirt up and we are revealed a bloody bite mark. "I'm okay. I'm okay."

Daryl lets go of his shirt, and backs up. T-dog is no longer holding onto Jim. "I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay." We are all silent. Just staring at him, not knowing how to react.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

I'm okay.

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it." Daryl is telling us. We are all gathered in a circle to discuss what is to be done. Andrea is still with Amy, who is soon to be turned into a walker.

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane snaps his head over to Daryl.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it." Daryl shows no remorse or hesitation in his answer.

"I agree with Daryl, at least we'd not be putting anyone else in danger." Atlas confesses as well.

"I hate to say it- I never thought I would but maybe Daryl's right." Dale also says.

"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog." Rick seems angry. His tone is sharp.

"I'm not suggesting-" Dale goes to defend himself.

"He's sick. A sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line?" Rick questions.

"The line's pretty clear. Zero tolerance for walkers, or them to be." Daryl states. And he's right, there has been no trouble before now. If you're bit you're a walker. There's not ifs, ands, or buts.

"What if we can get him help? I heard the C.D.C was working on a cure." Rick suggests.

"I heard that too. Heard a lot of things before the world went to hell." Shane was next to say.

"What if the C.D.C is still up and running?" Rick finally through out the question.

"Man, that is a stretch right there." Shane mumbles.

"Why? If there's any government left, any structure at all, they'd protect the C.D.C at all costs. Wouldn't they? I think it's our best shot. Shelter, protection-" Rick seemed to know what he wanted.

"Okay, Rick, you want those things, all right? I do too, okay? Now if they exist, they're at the army base. Fort Benning." Shane tells. I couldn't help but not like where this was going, the travel. I'm pushing eight months already, almost nine soon, I believe.

"That's 100 miles in the opposite direction." Lori commented.

"That is right. But it's away from the hot zone. Now listen to me. If that place is operational, it'll be heavily armed. We'd be safe there." Shane was all so sure. I looked over to my brother, he shared the same worried look back.

"The military were on the front lines of this thing. They got overrun. We've all seen that. The C.D.C is our best choice and Jim's only chance." Purely silence was driven after Rick's dry words. Almost every didn't know what to say.

"You go looking for aspirin, do what you need to do." Daryl slowly started backing up, toward Jim, "Someone needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!"

Rick didn't seem to think it through when we already had his gun out and aiming right at the back of Daryl's head causing Daryl to freeze with the pickaxe mid air.

"We don't kill the living." Rick huffed. Shane walked over in front of Daryl. He dropped his arms to the side and turned to look a Rick, the gun right in his face.

"That's funny coming from a man who just put a gun to my head." Daryl talked back.

"We may disagree on some things, not on this. You put it down. Go on." Shane looked down at his hands. Daryl grunted as he threw the axe down and walking away.

I closed my eyes for a minute while I sighed deeply, throwing my hands above my head in an anxious manner.

"You okay?" A familiar voice rang out. I opened my eyes to see the a small worried look on Glenn's face. The first time I meet Glenn he seemed to have asked that question and the first week out here, we seemed to have always had something to talk about. Small stuff though, like movies, how work, stuff that seemed to matter. That all kind of just faded and didn't seem relevant.

"Yeah, yeah. Just scared, I guess." I confessed. He just nodded, glad I was honest. "How, uh, are you?"

"Oh, um," He didn't seem ready for that question. "No, yeah. Same."

I realized we haven't had a chance to actually just talk in a few days. I narrow my eyes at him knowing that's probably all he needs right now to talk. "How was the trip?" I point my head over to a seat so he can follow me, I needed to sit.

"To be honest, you don't want to know, I wouldn't even know where to start." He sort of chuckles thinking back to moment.

"I don't? Alright then." I accepted.

"How was it here?" He brought the question back around. My mind instantly goes to the small incident with Ed, then how just when things seemed good, we got attacked.

"Trust me Glenn, you don't want to know either." I shook my head side to side with a suppressed smile.

"I really do, what happened here?" He pointed at the now bruised arm I hadn't seen to notice. I had no idea when that formed but it was obviously fresh and was also obviously from when Ed grabbed me to push me.

"It was just Ed being a prick." My voice was sharp.

Glenn seemed like he didn't know what to say. Ed Peletier was now dead because of the attack last night."You okay, though?"

I looked down at my arm and just nodded, "Always."

A gunshot went off.

I was too in conversation to notice Amy was now turned into a walker and Andrea had put her down. I jumped just slightly due to it being out of nowhere. My face immediately saddened seeing the broken sisters. Oh my god I whispered to myself.

Without realizing there was a hand on my back comforting me. It was going in circles putting me in a comforting trance. Thinking I was feeling better. I look over to Glenn and he's giving me a soft smile to reassure me.

Later we all had to gather around to bury Amy. Jim was in the RV for his and our safety. We all stood around as we watched Dale follow Andrea dragging Amy's body into a hole that Rick dug up.

Although Andrea seemed to begin to struggle  Dale almost went to help her but she objected, "I can do it. I can do it. I can do it." Her voice seemed dragged out because she's been crying. She still is as of right now.

She drops Amy's body down, still holding onto her head. She rests her head gently then goes to grab Dale's hand so she can get out of the hole. A moment of silence fell over everyone then soon enough we were back on our way to camp.

Everything felt like it was moving slower even though my thoughts sure as hell were moving ten times faster than usual. Nothing seemed to feel real like thinking back to it, Jim got bit and at any given moment he can turn and get us killed. Sitting with that on my mind didn't make me feel any more safer. I was zoned out staring at the RV, where Jim was resting.

We all have yet still to decide what we are going to do. I couldn't care less what we did we just needed to find out soon.

We all gathered around the burnt out fire no word was exchanged, we were waiting on Shane and Rick. When they did get here my eyes fell on Rick, waiting for a solution.

"I've been, uh- I've been thinking about Rick's plan. Now look, there are no- there are no guarantees either way. I'll be the first one to admit that. I've known this man a long time. I trust his instincts. I say the most important thing here is we need to stay together. So those of you that agree, we leave first thing in the morning. Okay?"

I shared glances between Aj, Damien and Atlas. Each of us asking the others with our eyes if we are going or not. I think they were mainly looking to me to see if I had any problem with this since I was pregnant. But I honestly didn't know what I wanted. We had to go with them right? It seems the only logical decision.

Everybody was stuck in thought on this. Some it was easy to say what they wanted to others, it was a lot harder than it seemed.

We had to go, we had to because if this was our life now, the caution of getting bit and the chances of having to leave a safe place like this just to try to save someone, I'd do it, I'd do it with these people. This group I felt most safe and cared for with. I know this was the right decision, it had to be.

Atlas had his light blue jeep, the jeep we all were in on our way out of the city where we met all these people on the highway. So he'd his car with Damien and follow behind us. I was going in the RV with Aj and some others.

"Alright, everybody listen up. Those of you with C.B.s, we're gonna be on channel 40. Let's keep the chatter down, okay? Now you got a problem, don't have a C.B., can't get a signal or anything at all, you're gonna hit your horn one time. That'll stop the caravan. Any questions?" Shane ran through.

"We're, uh..." Morales mumbled. "We're not going." He seemed to silence everyone.

"We have family in Birmingham. We want to be with our people." His wife explained.

"You go on your own, you won't have anyone to watch your back." Shane reminded them.

Morales nodded a little, "We'll take the chance. I gotta do what's best for my family."

"You sure?" Rick gives them another chance.

"We talked about it. We're sure." He was so smooth and quick with it. It was almost scary. I've grown to know all these people and everything is moving fast in a way.

"All right."

Rick goes in his sheriff bag to take a gun out and hand it over to Morales. Soon after everyone is starting to give out hugs and say their goodbyes. The kids were in tears saying bye the Carl and Sophia. I just know everything was going to be so different so quickly. I gave them all a goodbye hug, not knowing if I'd ever see them again.

"Let's go, let's move out." Shane's voice grew loud.

I grabbed Amelia's hand and just gave Damien and Atlas a small hug knowing I'll see them next time we make a stop but I feel the hug was needed.

Aj and I made our way into the RV and had a seat next to each other, we stared out one of the windows watching Morales and his family's car part away from us. A little piece of my heart broke but there was no going back. She tightened her grip a little on my hand. I leaned back to close my eyes.

Jim's groans just got louder and louder I couldn't blame him I knew he was in so much pain. It was painful for us to see.

Out of no where the RV comes to a small dramatic stop. I stay with Aj waiting for everyone else to let us know what's going on. Jacqui is down the other side of the RV with Jim trying to give him comfort and make him feel any better.

He's in so much pain I can hear him crying a little, he groans more and Jacqui gets up quickly and walks over to us, "I don't think he's getting any better."

"Tell the others." I point with my head outside. To where everyone else was. Focusing on the engine of the RV.

She was out instantly to tell them and soon enough she's back inside. Any sort of emotion, drained from her face, she sits across from me in a tremendous amount of worry. Jacqui was very sympathetic and caring.

Rick follows in shortly after and makes his way over to Jim. I can hear them mumbling. I get up on my own to go outside and get some air maybe even see what the fuss with the engine is about.

I walk over to my brother and just stare at the thing like he was doing. "So?" I start. "Dad's skills coming in handy?" I squint a little looking at him because the sun was very unsettling.

He shakes his head a little with his lips pressed together. I couldn't help but roll my eyes and laugh.

My eye catches Rick walking out with Aj and Jacqui following behind him. We all walked over to the side to see what Jim had to say to Rick.

"It's what he says he wants." Jim told Rick he wanted to be left here. He doesn't think he was going to make it any longer.

"And he's lucid?" Carol asks.

"He seems to be. I would say yes." Rick sighed deeply.

"Back in the camp when I said Daryl might be right and you shut me down. You misunderstood. I would never go along with callously killing a man. I was just gonna suggest that we ask Jim what he wants. And I think we have an answer." Dales words were so quiet and soft. No one wanted his to be right but he was. Is Jim says he wants to be left here to die and be with his family, if that's really what he wants then I'd say we let him.

"We just leave him here? We take off? Man, I'm not sure I could live with that." Shane mumbles.

"It's not your call. Either one of you." Lori says.

At that Shane and Rick took Jim out and placed him gently up again a tree. I stayed my distance behind a little because I didn't know Jim that well but once everyone took their turns with their last words I gave him a small smile.

Everyone watched him as we drove away.

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