Andrea Continued...

Rick got in the driver's seat while Daryl took shotgun. Andrea and I got in the backseat; we had found a new liking for each other. Something that I thought couldn’t be possible, not after all the crap we’d been through.

The only time we spoke was when we were trying to figure out where to go. We had all seen the explosion but from different angles. Andrea had seen it from upstairs; Rick saw it from downstairs while Daryl saw it from the barn. I kept my input out of it, I was too focused on imagining what we were going to find there to try to help.

Finally after what seemed like hours, we came to a large town. The buildings were pretty tall for not being a huge city like Atlanta. Of course, the roads were deserted except for a couple of crashes. The thing that creeped me out the most, however, was the absence of walkers. Where had they all gone?

Rick suddenly let out a sigh of frustration.

“We’re out of gas.” He announced.

“Guess that means we’ll have to go on foot.” Daryl didn’t seem to mind at all.

We all hopped out of the car; knowing that what we were doing was very, very precarious. If we had to run back into the car, there was no way for us to drive off to safety. I hoped my offer to volunteer was the right decision.

“There, you see that?” Rick pointed straight ahead, “Smoke.”

And sure enough, we saw clouds of black rising from the ground.

“Let’s get there slowly, I don’t want walkers to hear us running.” He said.

So we continued our task on foot. Daryl and Rick walked ahead with their weapons drawn and Andrea and I took up the rear. As we were making our way to the smoke signal, Andrea muttered,

“This place is too empty.”

I nodded, “That’s what I was thinking. I’m not exactly complaining, I wouldn’t wanna go through what Rick and Shane did—” I broke off. Me mentioning Shane to Andrea was a good way to end a strong friendship we were so close from creating.

“I… uhh, yeah you’re right.” She said without looking at me.

Even though I was really starting to like her, I couldn’t help but feel angry whenever I thought of the two together. I instinctively glared at her as I reminisced on the day I began to loath her…

Flashback

I had hated her as much as I hated Lori when I found out they had been together. The person I should’ve hated was Shane; I knew that. But it was much easier to hate the women he was with than him himself; especially after being with him for over a year.

“Shane was a good man before all this,” I suddenly admitted to Andrea, “A good policeman, a good friend, a good boyfriend…”

“I’m sure we can just forget about it all.” She half smiled at me.

“Yeah… you’re right. It’s over.” But to me it wasn’t. I still missed him more than anything.

It was then that I realized we had made it to the middle of the town. Still no walkers were found; it’s not like I wasn’t thankful for it, I just found it strange.

“They still don’t know we’re here… I’d like to keep it that way.” Rick whispered, reading my mind.

I was about to mention something about the strangeness of the town to the entire group when we came to the cause of the smoke. It was a gas station and it was still in flames. Across the street from it was what looked to be like the tallest building in the town; a giant white sheet hung off the side that said, “SOS”.

“Somebody must be in there.” Andrea stated.

“You think they’re the ones that did this?” Daryl motioned to the flaming building.

“Can’t see what else would.” She looked between the two structures.

“Well, let’s pair off then. Daryl and Lin, where do you wanna head off to?” Rick turned to me.

I glanced at the smoke filled sky, then at the SOS sign before picking…

-The Gas Station

-The Tall Building