Chapter 19: Sophia
Next to the highway, in a dense section of woods.
"Shh, shhh, hey! Listen to me."
Rick knelt, holding the frantic little girl tightly. She was clutching a doll and not letting go, but the first thing she looked at was the revolver on Rick's hip.
"Shoot them, hit them…" Sophia's words were incoherent. The chase with the walkers had terrified her so much that she could barely speak clearly, just mumbling and stuttering.
Rick took Sophia's small hand, his voice low and patient. "I can shoot them, but if I do, all the walkers from the highway will come over. Then we won't just be facing a few, but dozens, maybe hundreds of them."
To be honest, at this moment, Rick kind of missed Shawn. At least when it came to killing walkers with melee weapons, no one in the entire Quarry Camp could say they did it better than Shawn. During the battle at the quarry, Shawn's performance had been absolutely brilliant. Walkers were helpless before him. He was like someone born without fear of them, exceptionally fierce.
If Shawn were here, maybe the group wouldn't have to flee in such a hurry, even if they couldn't wipe out the entire highway horde.
Shaking his head, Rick broke free from his thoughts. The constant, low growls of walkers circling in the woods grated on his nerves.
"Here, come here." Rick picked Sophia up in his arms. "You have to do exactly what I say. Just stay here quietly, and we'll both survive, understand?"
Sophia nodded, frightened, and Rick hid her in a hollow by a creek bed.
Rick lured the two approaching walkers in another direction, but he didn't know that after he left, a terrified Sophia carefully crawled out of her hiding spot. She looked around, hugged her doll tightly, and cautiously started to walk away in one direction.
"Don't worry, we'll definitely find mommy," Sophia whispered constantly to her doll, as if to comfort it. But everyone knew it was Sophia who was scared, and she was just trying to comfort herself.
She placed the doll on the ground, used her hands to climb up a rock, and then picked the doll up again. But in the moment she looked down and then back up, a walker had appeared before her.
The walker slowly rose from behind the leaves that had concealed it. Who knew how this walker had died here originally, but its movements had a hint of 'stealth' to them.
(Note: Early walkers still retained some muscle memory, like using bricks.)
If Sophia hadn't happened to come this way, this walker would probably have rotted here forever, undiscovered.
Seeing the walker stand up unsteadily and start coming toward her, Sophia's face went pale with fright, and she kept backing away. But before she could take two steps back, she found herself at the edge of a small rock ledge.
Sophia hugged her doll, looking around helplessly, but she couldn't find Carol or Rick anywhere. She desperately missed her family from the Quarry Camp—every single one of them, including Shawn, who had parted ways with them not long after joining.
"I hope… I hope after you eat me, you don't eat my doll, she's very scared…" Sophia trembled, trying to 'reason' with it. But everyone knew that the person who was scared right now was still Sophia herself.
She squeezed her eyes shut in terror, her two thin legs having already lost the ability to move. She was completely frozen in place.
Recalling all the moments with her mother, Carol, Sophia found she couldn't cry, only hug her doll tighter with her pale little hands, as if her own frail body was protecting an even weaker version of herself.
The sound of footsteps on pine needles drew closer and closer. Sophia's heart pounded wildly. She wasn't ready to face death; she didn't even understand what death truly meant. Standing at the edge of the small cliff, Sophia let out a low, whimpering sound, like a small animal at the end of its rope.
In just a few seconds, she could even smell the foul stench from the walker's mouth.
"Mommy!"
At the very last second, Sophia's scream echoed through the forest. But the pain of being eaten that she expected never came. Instead, she only felt a cold, sticky sensation on her face.
Her eyelashes trembled. Just as she was about to open her eyes, she heard a deep, calm voice next to her ear.
"Don't open your eyes."
The sudden voice scared Sophia into squeezing her eyes shut again, not daring to open them. That voice… it was familiar, but… where had she heard it before? Sophia wrinkled her small, freckled nose. The smell coming from nearby was almost unbearable.
She heard a 'splat' next to her ear, and then something heavy suddenly fell at her feet. It was less than 10 centimeters away. Sophia could even hear a viscous sound coming from it.
But immediately after, she felt a warm breath on her face. A soft little cloth wiped across her skin, and the disgusting, pungent smell quickly disappeared.
"Alright, you can open your eyes now."
Sophia could no longer bear it, but she only dared to carefully open her eyes after hearing that familiar voice speak again.
The first thing she saw was a tall sledgehammer standing upright. Following the long handle of the hammer up, Sophia finally saw the face that was the last to appear in her memories.
'Rustle—'
The little girl suddenly threw herself into Shawn's arms, her increasingly rapid breathing tickling his neck. Her soft body seemed to want to melt right into his embrace, and she refused to let go.
Gently patting Sophia's back, Shawn comforted her in a soft voice. "It's okay now. I'm here. Everything's alright."
Sophia clutched her doll tightly with one hand and wrapped the other around the back of Shawn's neck. Hearing his comforting words, her nose tingled, and she began to let out suppressed sobs.
'Such a good kid,' Shawn thought to himself. 'Even crying, she keeps her voice down. Is it because she's worried about attracting more walkers?'
"Alright," Shawn said again. "Where are they? Carol, Rick… where did they go?"
Only then did Sophia lift her head from Shawn's warm embrace, her small face covered in tear tracks. She sniffled slightly. "I don't know. Rick told me to hide, but I ran out and couldn't find them."
Shawn picked Sophia up with one arm and dragged the sledgehammer with the other. "Hey now, it's okay, it's okay, don't cry… If you cry too much, your doll will start crying too," Shawn 'threatened'.
'Gasp!'
Sophia was instantly terrified. She didn't even have time to wipe away her tears and quickly looked at the doll in her hand. She only breathed a small sigh of relief when she saw it was still the same.
Shawn looked at the obedient little girl with a smile. "Your mother and Rick will be fine. First, come back to camp with big brother, and then I'll help you find them, okay?"
"Mhm," Sophia nodded obediently and buried her head in Shawn's embrace again.
Holding Sophia, Shawn walked in the direction of the fire truck. But neither of them noticed that a piece of cloth was missing from Sophia.