Just as everyone was at a loss, Miranda's voice came from outside: "Maybe this can help."
She had walked over with the children at some point, holding a folded local map and a small compass.
"I picked it up from the emergency cabinet on my way out of the CDC."
She handed over a black weapon bag: "And these. There are no guns, but it's better than being empty-handed."
Looking at the map and weapons, Andrea's tense nerves finally loosened slightly.
She forced a pale smile: "Thank you, Miranda, you're always so thoughtful and calm."
Miranda's hand trembled slightly as she distributed the weapons, and she forced a pale, bitter smile: "Calm? I'm just holding it together."
She lowered her head, her voice carrying a hint of a sob: "...The children are still watching me. I just hope Morales and the others are okay."
Looking at her trembling hands and reddened eyes, Andrea thought of Amy, whose fate was unknown, and the others who had been taken away, and her mood also plummeted:
"...Me too."
The atmosphere became somber once again.
"Regardless of whether they are okay or not," a calm voice interrupted the oppressive silence, "we can't let anything happen to ourselves right now."
Louis had already crawled out from the wreckage.
He looked at the demoralized group and continued: "Rick and the others are very strong. It's useless for us to sit here and overthink things."
"The most important thing right now is to protect Amy and then find a place to settle down temporarily."
"We must pull ourselves together! Only by steadying ourselves first can we have hope of reuniting with them in the future."
Dale glanced at Louis, feeling incredibly ashamed in his heart.
The recent news had dealt him a heavy blow; he hadn't expected that at a time like this, their group of adults would actually need a child to stabilize the situation.
"My mom... will she be okay?" Sophia clutched her rag doll, sobbing softly.
Louis looked her straight in the eye: "I don't know."
"But your mother hid you so that you could live."
His voice softened a bit, "She is very strong, so you must be strong too."
"Protect yourself and stay close to us. Okay?"
Sophia looked at him, eyes filled with tears, and nodded vigorously.
"Alright." Louis stood up, "We have more important things to do next."
He looked around, directing the shaken crowd: "Glenn, Grandpa Dale, there should still be intact curtain fabric in the RV!"
"Aunt Miranda, please find a few unbroken poles with the children!"
Under Louis's direction, everyone suppressed their grief and fear and began to act.
Soon, a simple stretcher was made, and they carefully lifted Amy onto it.
"Wait!" Louis stopped everyone as they prepared to set off.
He glanced at the sky, "Walkers will be very active at night. We'd better make some camouflage."
Next, he grabbed a dagger and walked over to the corpse of a Walker that had been caught in the explosion, enduring the nausea as he prepared to gut it.
"I'll do it."
Andrea stopped him. She wiped the tear stains and dirt from her face and pulled a machete from the weapon bag Miranda had handed over.
"Squelch—!"
As if to vent all the resentment and fear in her heart, she swung the blade down violently, frantically hacking at the rotting corpse, black blood splattering everywhere.
The scene was so bloody that the people present turned their heads away one after another.
There were no raincoats left in the RV, so they found several large coats. Everyone worked in silence, smearing the flesh and blood onto the coats and carefully covering Amy on the stretcher as well.
Just as everything was nearly ready, a strange voice suddenly came from the woods behind them:
"Hey! Are you guys okay?"
Everyone instantly raised their weapons, nervously aiming at the source of the sound!
A plump man wearing a camouflage baseball cap emerged from behind a large tree with his hands raised.
"Don't shoot! My name is Otis! I live near here!"
The man explained hurriedly, his voice sounding very honest, "I heard the explosion and came to check things out!"
Glenn and the others looked at him warily, their muzzles not lowering in the slightest.
"Your friends were taken away, right?" Otis pointed toward the road, a hint of shared indignation and anger on his face.
"I saw it, those damn guys... they call themselves 'The Believers,' and they're bad news."
He glanced at the unconscious Amy on the stretcher, and his expression immediately became serious: "You won't survive the night in the woods with a wounded person and children."
"I know a place that's safe; there's a doctor there, maybe he can save her."
"Oh, really?" Glenn gripped his gun nervously; he was the only young adult male in this temporary squad and had to take responsibility for protecting the others, "Why should we trust..."
"We'll go with you."
Glenn turned in surprise; Louis had already stood up beside him, looking at Otis calmly and nodding to Glenn.
For some reason, seeing Louis nod, the wariness in Glenn's heart miraculously relaxed a bit.
Everyone exchanged glances, and Louis urged, "Lead the way, Mr. Otis."
They tacitly lifted Amy and followed Otis.
Louis, Glenn, Dale, Andrea, Miranda, and the three children carried the heavily injured Amy, trekking through the dark forest and leaving the groans of Walkers behind them.
Glenn and Andrea carried the ends of the stretcher.
Whether it was the crisis stimulating their adrenaline or not, although the two were panting, their steps felt lighter as they walked, as if the weight of the stretcher wasn't as heavy as imagined.
Otis led everyone through the woods to a farm surrounded by a high fence.
A serious-looking old man with a white beard was already waiting at the gate with a lantern.
He had clearly been notified in advance by Otis via walkie-talkie.
"Quick! Bring her in!" The old man was the farm owner here, Hershel. He took one look at the injury and immediately directed everyone to bring Amy inside.
A blonde girl ran out of the house at the sound, holding the medical kit Hershel wanted. Otis's wife also brought hot water and towels.
Hershel carefully examined Amy's wound, his eyes widening slightly.
"I provided emergency treatment for her on the way."
Louis's voice came over, "She has mostly lost too much blood and may need a transfusion. Do you have the equipment here?"
Hershel looked up in surprise; he glanced at the exceptionally professionally handled wound and suppressed the shock in his heart: "We have stored blood bags, but I don't know if the blood type matches."
"I have the same blood type as her!" Andrea said immediately.
"Good." Hershel wasted no more words, "You come over for the transfusion, everyone else wait outside."
Everyone retreated to the living room, and the bedroom door was closed.
Everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief, their tense nerves completely collapsing at this moment.
This house, glowing with warm light, gave them a long-lost sense of security, yet that security was so fragile.
Miranda and Dale comforted the three children, who had already fallen asleep on the sofa from exhaustion.
Glenn, however, could not remain calm; he paced nervously back and forth in the living room, trying to distract himself by observing the room's furnishings.
Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.
His gaze was fixed intently on a family portrait above the fireplace.
"She..." Glenn's voice was trembling as he slowly raised his hand, pointing at the photo.
"Glenn, what's wrong?" Louis noticed something was off with him.
The photo appeared to be a family portrait of Hershel's family. And in the photo, a familiar short-haired girl was smiling at the camera.
She was the very woman who, a few hours ago, had inspected Glenn's "corpse" on the highway and let them off: Maggie!
"Bang!"
Just then, the bedroom door was pushed open, and Hershel walked out with weariness on his face.
"Alright, your companion is out of danger..."
"What the hell is going on?!"
Before he could finish, Glenn lunged forward, pointing at the photo and roaring:
"Is she your daughter?! Are you in league with those bastards?!"
[T/N: The Believers do not appear to be any canon group on the wiki.]