Chapter 20: I Thought You Were Dead
"Did you find her?"
Facing Carol's hopeful eyes, Rick unconsciously lowered his head, feeling a sense of guilt.
"We didn't find her. We only found this."
Rick pulled a piece of torn fabric from his pocket. Carol recognized it at a glance as being from Sophia's pants; she had dressed her in them herself. Looking at the fragment, Carol stumbled back two steps in disbelief.
She couldn't believe Sophia was gone just like that. In her memory, she could still vaguely see Sophia hugging her doll. In her own bag, she still had the new clothes she had asked Glenn to find for Sophia…
She sobbed and trembled, her knees suddenly losing all their strength as she collapsed to the ground. The warm setting sun in the distance began to feel exceptionally cold, its piercing golden light washing out the silhouette of the figure in Carol's memory.
"Carol, listen to me. We found walkers in the woods, but they didn't hurt Sophia."
"How can you be sure?" T-Dog suddenly spoke up.
Rick glanced at Shane, who was standing beside him. Shane touched the knife at his waist. "We cut them open."
They hadn't found any fresh human flesh in the walkers' stomachs, which naturally meant Sophia was safe for now.
"It's getting dark. It's easy for someone to get hurt. We'll continue looking for Soph—"
"How could you!" Before Rick could finish, Carol let out a cry of grief. She looked at Rick with reddened eyes, but her fierce demeanor deflated in an instant. She spoke in broken sentences.
"How could you… leave her alone… in the woods…"
Remembering what had happened just a short while ago, Rick looked up and met the eyes of the others in the group. Old Dale shook his head at him. Lori anxiously gripped little Carl's shoulders.
"I'm sorry. We will find her. We will find Sophia," Rick promised again.
But after this ordeal, a heavy gloom filled the entire group. Everyone knew that Sophia, lost alone in the woods, was probably…
-----
At this very moment, on the other side.
Shawn sat in the Red Tyrant. In the passenger seat was Sophia, hugging her doll. They drove west, toward the camp. But halfway there, Shawn slowly brought the fire truck to a stop.
Ahead of them, the only main road to the Farm was blocked by two thick tree trunks.
Shawn let out a laugh. He didn't even need to use his brain to guess which idiot was responsible for this kind of banditry.
Opening the window, Shawn stuck his head out. A gun barrel was silently pressed against the back of his head.
"Merle, you don't really think I didn't see you in the mirror, do you?"
As soon as he said this, Merle's loud, dry laugh erupted from behind him. He lowered the sniper rifle and walked over to the driver's side, slapping the fire truck's door hard.
"You were gone for two days. My little brother thought you'd been bitten and killed one night."
Daryl? Shawn raised an eyebrow. Daryl wouldn't worry. Daryl would just give him the middle finger and say 'fuck you' when he saw him return to camp. Or, if he heard Shawn had been killed, he would silently pick up his crossbow and avenge him.
His gaze fell on the ever-cheerful Merle, and Shawn couldn't help but sneer. "You two-faced son of a bitch. Look who this is."
Shawn leaned back, and Sophia climbed over from the passenger seat.
"Hello, Uncle Merle~~"
"Who's your uncle? Damn it!" Merle cursed upon seeing Sophia, but Shawn knew this was Merle's primary way of expressing affection. You could even call it Merle's brand of tenderness.
The Dixon brothers were more or less similar in some ways.
They moved the logs blocking the road. Merle lifted Sophia from the passenger seat and put her in the 6-seater section in the back and he cheerfully sat down in the passenger seat.
Shawn watched Merle's every move with a deadpan expression. His eyes said only one thing: 'Are you serious?'
Noticing Shawn's strange gaze, Merle said with a straight face, "Let's go, what are you lookin' at me for? I ain't one of the whores on Loudiec Street…"
"Ahem—" Shawn shot him a disapproving look. Didn't he see there was a child in the back?
With a low roar, the Red Tyrant started up again and headed for the Farm.
-----
The fire truck was large, different from a small car. Shawn was still not very skilled at driving it, so he couldn't go too fast. By the time he returned to the camp, the sky had completely darkened. Looking out, the only thing visible on the entire farm was the light from Hershel's house.
'Putt-putt-putt—'
The fire truck slowly came to a stop.
Daryl and Andrea were the first to run over, weapons in hand. The tip of Daryl's crossbow was aimed squarely at the two people in the driver's cabin. Only when the fire truck's headlights turned off and Daryl saw Shawn and Merle get out did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
"Fuck you!" Daryl cursed at Shawn in a low voice. "You didn't come back for two days. Merle thought you were dead."
…The Dixon brothers really were more or less similar.
Shawn looked at Daryl with surprise, not expecting that he would genuinely worry about him.
"Don't be like that. I was doing just fine out there," Shawn said irritably, opening the back door. "And I brought someone back. Look who's here."
Shawn lifted Sophia down from the 6-seater section. Seeing her, Daryl's brows furrowed. "Sophia? Where's your mom?"
Sophia's presence here was not necessarily good news. If Sophia was here, what happened to the others? What kind of trouble had they gotten into that they couldn't even look after one child? For a moment, a hundred thoughts raced through Daryl's mind.
"We got separated," Sophia said in a small, wronged voice, subconsciously clutching Shawn's collar.
"Is that how you talk to a child?" Shawn glanced at Daryl and carried Sophia toward the camp.
"Where did you find her? Do you know what it means for her to be here?" Daryl's questions kept coming. He was getting agitated.
"Don't worry, they're fine. They just got separated from Sophia. I don't know the woods and couldn't find them, so I just brought her straight back."
Placing Sophia on a chair made from a tree stump, Shawn ladled some meat broth from the iron pot over the fire and handed it to her before turning back to Daryl.
"If nothing goes wrong, they should be able to find their way here in the next couple of days."
It was still early, and Hershel's family hadn't gone to bed yet. Seeing a fire truck drive onto the Farm, Hershel put on a coat and walked over with his daughters and employees.
"Shawn?"
"I thought you were dead."
Hershel's words made Shawn roll his eyes. Did everyone have to say the same thing when they saw him? What a jinx!