Dusk is slowly approaching from the horizon and Michael is seen wandering around the woods, carrying a sack of dried woods.
In the town, the two women are also busy gathering gas from the abandoned cars on the road.
Michael did not want to leave the body of the mutated walker as it is and instead plans to burn it as he's afraid that its corpse might create more trouble for them than if it was alive.
"It's a pity that we have to burn the corpse." Andrea said while carrying a jerry can in her hand.
Rosita, who is holding on to a short hose and another jerrycan replied. "It's something we need to do. We don't know what its resulting death may bring. Like what if other walkers eat and they become something like it? We were only able to kill it because we have Michael and we are lucky to possess high caliber weapons with us, but the same can't be said to other survivors whose arsenal of weapons are limited to hardware tools or lower caliber firearms."
"Makes sense." Andrea shrugged her shoulders with raised eyebrows. "But isn't it actually weird how these slow moving monsters were able to overwhelm the army? Like we have missiles, countless tanks, helicopters and hundreds of thousands of active duty soldiers. How did the army get defeated while ordinary survivors like us barely had any trouble dealing with them and possessing the same high caliber weapons. I asked Michael and the others about their thoughts on this before, but even they don't have any clue how it happened."
"Why are you assuming that the army was already defeated? We don't really know what's happening outside of Georgia or even in other states. There might already be safe zones set up by the army somewhere in the country. We just don't know it yet since they're either busy dealing with the walker problem themselves or we're just too far away from them to even bother sending a rescue team to this place." Rosita was more positive about it compared to Andrea who had already accepted that the army is not around anymore.
"Huh that makes sense, but if they're also dealing with walkers like that one earlier. Then they have a lot of problems on their hands." Andrea replied with a shrug.
"Worse if it's not the only kind of walker that mutated into something else." Just imagining hundreds of this kind attacking a base sent a shiver down Rosita's spine.
While the two walked as they discussed serious and random things.
Further away from them, near the edge of the town center. The same two people that had been watching them since are currently holed up inside one of the rooms on the second floor of an apartment building.
"Isn't it better if we just leave them be? What if they see us?" The little girl looked worried for them, she's confused as to why her companion is so adamant on following and watching the strangers.
"They're potential neighbors and also enemies. Besides, you saw how dangerous they are. We don't even have those kinds of weapons they have. We need to at least find out if they plan to stay here before heading back" said the dark skinned man standing at the corner of the window and watching the two women down the street behind the curtain.
BAM!
The man barely finished his words when the door to their room blasted open and the man they had been following since earlier came walking in with a handgun pointed towards them. "Well, well, well, what do we have here? I knew I smelled some rats earlier."
The little girl got scared and immediately hid behind her companion.
"Don't shoot. We're not bad people." The man immediately raised his hands in the air and remained calm. He'd probably gotten so used to people pointing their guns at him that he does not even look disturbed by it and looks more confused instead.
Michael scoffed at his excuse. "That's what every bad person would say when they get exposed. So you better start talking about why you're following us or I'm gonna put some extra holes on you two."
He says that but he's actually surprised to see these two individuals here.
'What the heck is happening? Why are these two here?'
Crackle! Crackle!
The sun had just set on the horizon and Michael and the two women alongside the two new faces had gathered in what used to be a community garden and surrounded by fences. They stood a little distance away from a small bonfire, fueled by the body of the mutated walker earlier.
"So your group came all the way from Macon and just arrived a week ago at Savannah, which is just north of here?" Rosita looked at the dark skinned man with only a slight wariness this time compared to when they first met earlier. She figured that someone taking care of a kid, not even his own, couldn't be a bad person, but her slight wariness is there in case the guy is actually a predator.
The man being questioned slightly shook his head. "Yes, but we only stayed there for almost three days before making our escape a couple of days earlier. Right now, we're camped out in a small community not far from here. We lost a lot of people along the way. Now, there's only a couple of us left."
"Sorry to hear that." Andrea felt sorry for them, especially when she remembered her parents. Which she just assumed were already dead with how the world had become. It was why she was so excited when she heard they're heading down to Florida midway through their journey south, but in the end, her hope was shattered when what greeted them was a massive herd of walkers blocking the way.
Till now, she's still not sure if her decision to hide this from Michael was the right thing to do, because she did not want to burden him.
"Did you find her parents then?"
"Yeah, they're gone."
When the discussion about the girl's parents came up, Rosita couldn't help but inquire when she remembered her nephew and the sadness on the man's face became visible. The little girl on the other hand, who's already on her second can of sausages paused and stared at the food on her hands, lost in her thoughts.
There was a short silence between them after that before it resumed when Andrea brought up another topic that made them forget about the depressing stuff.
Michael on the other hand had been silent this whole time and had been quietly listening to them, obviously deep in his thoughts while glancing at the two new faces from time to time.
'Why is he still alive? Shouldn't he be dead already at this point?' Looking at that one armed man beside the little girl, Michael still feels utterly confused as to why this man is still alive and kicking before him.
'My existence must be causing a huge butterfly effect to this world that I'm even meeting people from other series. Well, considering Carol and Tyreese look totally different from their TV series characters, I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but seriously this guy? This is extremely surprising.'
The one armed guy kept staring at the dead body slowly being burned to ashes. "It's a pity. We could have sent this body to a lab or something. That abomination almost killed us two days ago. We were lucky that we even managed to get away from it."
Andrea turned her sight towards the fire and responded. "Yeah, we could have sent it to the CDC for research. Unfortunately, it's gone after it went up in flames."
Hearing her words, Rosita and the others became curious since it sounded like she had been there.
"Well, we stayed there for a night and met the only surviving researcher there, Dr. Jenner. We thought we were finally safe. Then the next day came and we found out that he wanted to blow up the facility because he became hopeless for the world's future. If only he could see this, I doubt he'd still proceed with it." Andrea thought that those few hours that they stayed there were the best day they had since. There were hot showers, comfy beds and a sturdy wall that could protect them from the walking dead.
"Anyway, we never actually got your name. I'm Andrea, and you two are?"
"I'm Lee, and this little one here is Clementine."