Beside the highway, deep inside a tangled stretch of woods, Rick Grimes crouched in front of a terrified little girl and held her firmly by the shoulders.
Sophia still had her doll clutched against her chest, but her frightened eyes kept drifting toward the Colt Python at Rick’s hip.
“Shoot them,” she whispered breathlessly.
“Please…
shoot them.” The walkers that had chased them off the highway had scared her so badly that she could barely get the words out.
Rick took one of her hands and lowered his voice.
“I can shoot them, but if I do, every walker back on that highway could hear it.
Then we won’t be dealing with two of them.
We could have dozens coming through these woods.” He hated putting that kind of fear into a child, but Sophia needed to understand why the gun wasn’t the answer.
At that moment, Rick found himself wishing Magnus Vane were there.
Nobody from the quarry group had been better at killing walkers quietly in close quarters.
During the attack on their old camp, Magnus had moved through the dead with that oversized sledgehammer as if he had spent his entire life preparing for exactly that kind of fight.
Even Daryl had trouble matching the sheer efficiency of his kills.
If Magnus were here now, Rick doubted two walkers would have forced them this deep into the woods in the first place.
Rick pushed the thought aside when another low growl sounded nearby.
“Come here.” He picked Sophia up and carried her toward a hollow beneath the exposed roots of a tree near the creek.
“You stay right here and don’t move until I come back.
No matter what you hear, you stay hidden.
Understand?”
Sophia nodded quickly.
Rick set her down inside the hollow and made sure she was concealed from the trail.
Then he moved away, drawing the two approaching walkers after him.
He never saw Sophia crawl back out several minutes later.
The little girl emerged slowly, hugged her doll against her chest, and looked around in confusion.
Rick was gone, and every direction through the woods looked the same.
Fear quickly overwhelmed whatever instructions she had been given.
Sophia chose a path almost at random and started walking.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered to the doll.
“We’ll find Mom.”
She crossed a damp fallen tree, carefully balancing with both arms before stepping down into the leaves.
The words were meant for the doll, but Sophia was really trying to convince herself.
Every crack of a branch made her stop and look over one shoulder.
She wanted Carol more than anything.
Sophia placed the doll on the ground so she could climb over a broken section of rock.
Once she pulled herself up, she reached down and picked it up again.
Her head had barely risen when something moved beneath the leaves ahead.
A walker slowly pushed itself upright.
Its clothes and body had blended into the forest floor so well that Sophia hadn’t noticed it until she was almost on top of it.
The dead man might have fallen there days earlier and remained trapped beneath the brush until her movement disturbed him.
Leaves slid from its shoulders as it staggered to its feet and turned toward her.
Sophia’s face went white.
She backed away.
One step.
Then another.
Her heel touched the edge of a short rocky drop.
There was nowhere else to go.
Sophia looked desperately through the trees, searching for Rick, Carol, or anyone from the old quarry camp.
For one frightened instant, she even remembered Magnus—the strange man with the huge hammer who had joined them shortly before everyone separated.
Anybody familiar would have been enough.
The walker shuffled closer.
Sophia squeezed the doll harder against her chest.
“Please…” Her voice trembled violently.
“If you eat me…
don’t eat her too.
She’s scared.”
The walker continued forward.
Sophia shut her eyes.
Her legs had gone completely stiff, leaving her unable to run even if she wanted to.
She remembered Carol brushing her hair, holding her close at night, and trying to smile even when Ed made everything miserable.
Strangely, Sophia couldn’t cry yet; she could only hold the doll tighter, almost as though protecting something even more helpless than herself.
Dead leaves crunched beneath approaching feet.
Closer.
Closer.
Sophia’s heart hammered against her ribs.
The smell reached her next.
Rot.
Blood.
Decay.
“Mom!”
Sophia screamed.
The pain she expected never came.
Instead, something cold and wet splattered across her face.
Sophia’s eyelashes trembled.
Then a deep voice spoke right beside her.
“Keep your eyes closed.”
She obeyed instantly.
The voice was familiar.
Sophia knew she had heard it before, but fear made it difficult to place.
She wrinkled her nose at the awful smell covering her face, then heard a brutal wet crunch only a few feet away.
Something heavy collapsed beside her boots.
Another strike followed.
Crack!
Silence.
Sophia could hear thick liquid dripping onto the leaves.
Then someone stepped closer.
Warm breath brushed her forehead, and a piece of cloth gently wiped the blood and gore from her cheeks.
The terrible smell gradually faded.
“All right,” the man said.
“You can open them now.”
Sophia slowly opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was an enormous Stone Sledgehammer planted upright beside her.
Her gaze followed the long handle upward until she recognized the man standing behind it.
“Magnus…”
Her doll nearly slipped from her hand as she lunged forward.
Magnus barely had time to brace himself before Sophia wrapped both arms around him and buried her face against his neck.
Her whole body trembled so badly that he could feel it through his clothes.
He immediately put one arm around her and gently patted her back.
“You’re okay,” Magnus said quietly.
“I’ve got you.”
That was enough.
Sophia finally started crying.
Even then, she tried to keep the sound down, muffling her sobs against Magnus’s shoulder instead of screaming.
Magnus noticed it immediately and felt a strange heaviness in his chest.
A child her age already understood that making too much noise could bring the dead.
He let her cry for a moment before asking, “Where are Rick and your mom?”
Sophia lifted her head, tears covering her freckled face.
“I don’t know.
Rick told me to hide, but I came out, and then I couldn’t find him.” Her voice cracked again.
“I can’t find Mom.”
Magnus glanced through the woods.
So this was that moment.
The highway.
Sophia getting separated.
Except this time, the story wasn’t going to end the same way.
Magnus shifted the Stone Sledgehammer into one hand and lifted Sophia with the other.
“They’ll be looking for you.
We’ll find them.” She immediately wrapped one arm around his neck while keeping the doll pressed between them.
Sophia sniffled.
Magnus looked down at the toy and tried to lighten her fear.
“Better stop crying so hard, though.
You’re gonna scare your doll.”
Sophia gasped.
She immediately pulled the doll back far enough to inspect its face.
Magnus almost laughed.
The little girl studied it for several serious seconds before finally relaxing when she decided the doll was apparently fine.
Magnus shook his head with an amused smile and adjusted his grip on her.
“Come on.
My fire engine is nearby.
We’ll get somewhere safe first, then figure out where Rick and Carol went.”
“Okay,” Sophia whispered.
She buried her face against his shoulder again.
Magnus carried her through the woods toward the highway, dragging the Stone Sledgehammer behind him with his free hand.
Neither of them noticed the torn section of fabric near the bottom of Sophia’s pant leg.
Or the fresh scrape beneath it.