LXVII

—/<3/—

They spent the next few nights in the car and the lack of sleep was starting to get to Rory. She'd driven around the area surrounding the prison of the first day, keeping her eyes peeled for anyone she knew that could still be wandering about.

She found the bus and the pile of walkers at the back of it, all people that had escaped. She was incredibly glad that her family didn't end up getting on it but also deeply saddened that the people that did get on didn't make it out alive.

The next day was spent rowing the woods on foot with Judith strapped to her chest. Thankfully, the baby remained asleep for the majority of the time they were they were searching the woods, and there was only one close call with walkers when she started crying for a bottle.

The third day, she gave up all hope. She was going crazy. Rory didn't know how to properly take care of a baby with all the proper resources let alone with the bare minimum, so they laid low in the car. Judith sat in Rory's lap whilst the latter sang her songs and spoke to her in french to keep her entertained. It wasn't until she spotted a particularly large group of walkers in her wing mirror that she moved on, driving back to the street where they'd spent that first night alone.

She tried a different house that time and got lucky with a stash of food for herself. Rory got a good nights rest for the first time in three days and bucked her shit up. They needed baby formula and they needed to find people.

She drove whilst singing along to an ABBA CD she found in the house, Judith cooing in the passengers seat. They were on their way to an industrial park that had a Costco and a Walmart, hoping that no one else had a baby young enough for formula in the past year.

Rory had been trying some canned fruits with Judith, but she was terrified of the baby having any allergies so she really needed to find milk.

Rory didn't know how she was going to pull this off. Doing a run to an unknown location on her own was risky. They could be hundreds of walkers inside of the Costco and there was no way she could so it with the baby strapped to her chest, but leaving her in the car was not an option.

She pulled up and took a deep breath to calm herself. The parking lot was clear aside from a walker trapped inside of an upside down shopping cart, so that was a good sign, but who knew what could be lurking inside.

"I'm gonna go investigate. I can't bring you in if it's full of walkers," Rory spoke. Judith waved her arms about, blowing raspberries as she stared at Rory wide eyed.

Rory hummed. "I will leave you here. Give me five minutes and I'll be back. Don't cry and don't go anywhere, okay?"

No one was around but she still felt stupid for conversing with the baby as if she was an adult. She'd heard it was good for a baby's development to be spoken to like you would speak to a normal person, but it didn't change how strange it felt.

Rory gently pushed the car door closed so as to not spook Judith and jogged up to the large industrial doors of the Costco. She pressed her ear up against it and focused her hearing on anything happening inside. There wasn't a peep, but the doors were thick so her guard was still up.

She readied her torch and slowly opened the door, peeking inside like a scared child. The front of the store looked clear and there were no noises other than a dripping sound from a leaky roof.

She didn't trust the eerie silence in the slightest, but if the store had already been raided, the likelihood of all potential walkers being dispatched was high. Nonetheless, Rory was still wary, so she clanked her torch against the door twice and braced herself for what might come.

When no growls permeated the thick silence that had settled, Rory decided to head back to the car and grab Judith, she didn't want to leave her outside, not in such a lawless place that someone could come along and steal the car and the baby in tow.

"Come on, Princess, let's go shopping." Rory lifted the baby out of the car seat and quickly strapped her into the carrier, holding Judith close to her chest. "Try not to cry, it may be clear in there but you never know."

Judith babbled as if she understood what Rory was saying and then proceeded to blow raspberries, leaving behind a wet patch of spittle on Rory's shirt.

She crept into the supermarket without a single sound, her head snapping in the direction of each creak and drip that echoed throughout the room. After climbing over the rubble and trash that littered the front of the store, she pointed her torch at the signs overhead, eyes flitting between them until she found the one she needed.

She crept towards the aisle with her heart pounding, pleading with the universe to let there be baby supplies still stocked and in date. She stepped over the body of a fallen walker only after checking for a wound on its head and turned the corner to the baby aisle. She had almost jumped for joy when she saw the formula shelf was, for the most part, untouched.

Rory had wished she brought a cart, but with the place clear as far as she knew, it wouldn't hurt to go back and get one. "We got so lucky, Judith!" she proclaimed as she stepped back over the walker and proceeded back towards the front to grab an abandoned cart she'd seen on the way in.

But she froze in place and retreated back into the pile as quietly as she could when she heard distant voices, fear curling in her gut. They sounded male, which was the worst case scenario.

"There's a car parked out front. That weren't here when we scouted the place yesterday," one man said with a thick southern accent. It wasn't one she recognised so they weren't from the prison.

"Might be someone here, keep an eye out," another said. She heard the faint sound of a gun cocking.

"We got lucky, looks like whoever it is cleared the place out already, saved us the job."

A third voice. Three men, likely lawless brutes, and she was alone with a baby. She could get out unscathed with as much formula as she could carry as soon as they went further into the store, it wasn't likely they'd come for baby supplies as she had. She willed Judith to stay quiet as she turned off her torch and grabbed two tubs of formula, she could always come back and get more once the three men had left.

"Could take the car too, it'd be good to have another." The voices got closer and Rory climbed into the shelves, making herself as small as possible without crushing Judith.

Judith made a noise of contempt at the sudden movement, beginning to fuss. She was hungry, Rory noted, and the realisation that Judith was about a minute away from crying made panic surge through her.

—/<3/—