When I went out to bring Jimmy that bottle of water, we saw some walkers out in the distance. Jimmy is really afraid of walkers. He's not used to them like I am. I mean, I'm afraid of them, too, but when I see them, I don't go sprinting off back to the house. Jimmy did. And I followed after him as best I could.

Maggie and Hershel were talking in the kitchen when me and Jimmy got inside, and Jimmy alerted Hershel of the walkers. I offered to get my dad because he knows how to take care of walkers, but Hershel told me to go upstairs with Beth.

I'm not one to argue, so here I am, upstairs with Beth. I can still watch out the window, though. Hershel got Rick to help with the walkers, which is good. I know Rick knows how to deal with walkers. He's tough, that Rick. But I know Dad's gonna be mad once he finds out that Rick and Andrea still haven't left to go out looking for Sophia.

Now that I know what's going on with the walkers, I don't feel so nervous about it. I can look around the rest of the room, now. One really cool thing about Beth's room is that she's got four American Girl dolls. Four. I always wanted an American Girl doll. I wanted the Molly doll, more specifically.

Molly was on my Christmas list every single year, but I never got her. Problem with American Girl dolls is that they're, like, a ba-jillion dollars. Dad could never afford to get me Molly, and Santa never brought her, either. One time, though, me and Dad found a Bitty-Baby doll at a garage sale. It was only ten dollars at the garage sale, so Dad let me get it. I named her Jill. I wonder if Jill is alright, back at my house. I hope she is.

Anyway, the dolls that Beth has got aren't all ones that I know. I can recognize one of them as Julie and another as Josefina, but I don't know the other two.

"What are these two called?" I ask Beth, pointing to the two dolls on the shelf. I'd pick 'em up, but I know some people don't like when you touch their stuff without asking. Especially with expensive things, like American Girl dolls.

"That one doesn't have a name. It's a Just Like You doll, so you pick 'em out to look like you. I got this one when I was just a lil' girl. She's supposed to look like me," Beth explains, pointing at the blonde doll with wavy hair. Then she points to the other, which has brown, curly hair. "I got her just because I thought she was pretty. She was the Girl of the Year in either 2006 or 2007. I can't remember. I think her name's Nicki. Did you have any American Girl dolls?"

"No. My dad said they were too much money. But I got a Bitty Baby at a garage sale. Her name is Jill," I explain as I admire her dolls.

"You can have one of mine, if you want. I don't really play with 'em anymore," Beth tells me.

My eyes widen like crazy. No way she'd just let me keep her. "Really? I can just- I can just choose?" I ask, bouncing on my toes.

"Yeah. Whichever one you want," Beth says, smiling at me.

I practically squeal with excitement. "Can I have Nicki?" I ask. My stomach is all full of excited butterflies as Beth nods and gets the doll off of the shelf. She hands her to me and I can't hardly believe that I've got an American Girl doll in my hands. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I say.

"Of course. I have a box full of clothes for them under my bed. You can have that, too," Beth says. She crouches down in front of her bed and pulls that box out. It's got little stars all over it. When she opens it up, I can't believe how full it is.

I'm practically vibrating with how excited I am. I sit down on the floor and begin to sort through all the clothes. There are so many clothes. She's got dresses and shirts and skirts and pants and shoes and pajamas and even swimsuits. It's crazy. I think Beth's got more clothes for this doll than I ever had clothes for myself. I thank her about fifty more times.

I pull a pink hoodie out of the box. It has the American Girl logo across the front of it, and just as I'm holding it up, Beth shoots up off the ground and rushes over to the closet. She starts digging around the bag of her old clothes and pulls out a hoodie. A pink hoodie with the American Girl logo on the front. But this one is my size.

"Look. This'll probably fit you," Beth says, smiling as she hands the hoodie over to me. This is crazy. This is so, so, so exciting. I thank Beth fifty more times. "You're gonna need it. It'll start getting chilly out soon."

"Thank you, Beth. Really, really. Thank you," I say, pulling the hoodie over my t-shirt. I'm not wearing the Tinkerbell one anymore. That's being washed, along with my skirt. Now I'm wearing blue jeans and a gray t-shirt with Wonder Woman on it. And now the pink American Girl hoodie, too.

"I'm gonna go see what's going on with my dad. I'll be right back," Beth tells me. I nod, only having heard half of what she said, being so preoccupied with the doll's clothes.

Sophia would love this. She had that doll of her own. It wasn't American Girl, but it was still pretty. I don't know what she named it. I bet, when we find her, Beth will let her have a doll, too, and we can share these clothes. She'd love it. She will love it.

After a long time of sorting through the outfits, I decide to put Nicki in a blue shirt with a butterfly on it, and a gray skirt. I put the pink hoodie over top, so me and her are matching. And, also, I found some sparkly cowgirl boots for her. Beth really got lucky, getting all of these things growing up. I'm lucky to have them now.

Just as I'm done sorting through each and every item of clothing and dressing up Nicki all pretty, I start to hear my dad's voice outside, saying, "Damnit, isn't anybody takin' this seriously? We got us a damn trail!"

That's when I decide to go outside, too. I leave the box in Beth's room, so I can come get it later. But I bring Nicki with me. I'm gonna show her to Dad, even though I know he doesn't care about no dumb dolls. I just gotta show someone or my excitement might just make me pop.

By the time I get outside, everyone's gathered around Shane. I stand behind Carl, still in the doorway. Shane's got the bag of guns in his hand. "Look, it was one thing sittin' around here, pickin' daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe. But now we know it ain't," Shane shouts to everyone.

I step all the way out of the house, clutching Nicki tightly. Shane's been making me nervous lately. I go to stand between Carl and Beth. They both look at me, but neither of them says anything or gives any explanation. I don't think they know what's going on, either.

"How 'bout you, man? You gonna protect yours?" Shane asks Glenn, holding a shotgun out in front of him. Glenn looks at Maggie, and then he takes the gun. Shane turns to Maggie, too. "Can you shoot?"

"Can you stop? You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight," Maggie warns him. I really don't want to leave here. Hershel, Beth, and Maggie are all so, so nice to me and I love being here. I love seeing the horses and the cows, and I love this big, beautiful farmhouse.

Carl seems to agree with me. He starts marching down the porch steps. "We have to stay, Shane," he says, just as his momma comes outside.

"What is this?" Lori asks.

"We ain't goin' anywhere, ok? Now, look, Hershel- he's just gotta understand. Ok? He's- well, he's gonna have to. Now, we need to find Sophia. Am I right?" Shane says, kneeling down in front of Carl.

As far as I've seen, Shane's lost all hope of finding Sophia, so I don't know why the heck he's talking like this now. My dad's the only one who seems focused on finding her. Shane- he hasn't seemed to care at all since we got to this farm.

Shane starts trying to get Carl to take a gun, but he won't take it. Lori doesn't let him. She smacks the gun out of Shane's hand and puts herself between Carl and Shane. She starts saying things to him, and she's talking quietly, so I can't hear it, but I can hear how tense her voice is.

I start walking down the steps to hear what's going on, but just as I do, T-Dog's voice rises above everyone else's. "Oh, shit," he says.

And we all turn to see what he's staring at. That's when we see Hershel, Jimmy, and Rick guiding walkers with sticks. What the heck are they doing?! I look at my dad for answers, but he looks just as confused as I do.

First, Shane bolts off, and then we're all running behind him. My dad's running slow. His leg is hurting him bad- I can tell by the look on his face. But he doesn't care. He keeps going, anyway, and I keep running after him.

When we get to those walkers, right outside the barn, Shane's shouting and Rick's shouting and Hershel's shouting and it's stressful. I grab my dad's arm and he glances back at me, noticing me for the first time since I've gotten outside. He tugs me behind him and I grab onto the back of his shirt, clinging to him. He holds a shotgun up, at the ready, aiming it right at the walkers' heads.

"These things, right here! They're the things that killed Amy! They killed Otis! They're gonna kill all of us!" Shane is shouting.

"Shane, shut up!" Rick yells back. All this yelling is only riling up all the walkers, inside and outside of the barn.

"Hey, Hershel, lemme ask you somethin'. Could a living, breathing person- could they walk away from this?" Shane asks. Then he pulls his gun outta his waistband and pulls the trigger three times. All three bullets go into a walker's chest, and I grip the back of my dad's shirt even tighter, squeezing my eyes shut as if it will make everything quieter.

"Stop it!"

"That's three rounds in the chest!" Shane shouts.

Next thing I know, I'm being grabbed from behind and pulled away from my dad. My eyes shoot open and I see Lori, pulling me towards her. She holds me and Carl close to her chest, and I hold Nicki close to mine. I don't mind Lori pulling me to her right now because being over here with her and Carl feels safer than being over there with Shane and my dad.

"Could someone who's alive- could they just take that?! Why is it still comin'?!" Shane asks. He pulls the trigger two more times, and those two bullets go into the walker's chest. "That's its heart, its lungs! Why's it still coming?!" The walker is a woman with a pretty, white dress on. I wonder if Hershel knew her before she turned. Three more shots to the walker.

"Shane, enough!"

"Yeah, you're right, man. That is enough," Shane says. And then he marches forward and puts a bullet in the woman's- the walker's brain.

Everything is quiet, just for a moment, as the walker drops dead to the ground. Hershel drops to his knees. Shane keeps marching on forward.

"Enough riskin' our lives for a lil' girl who's gone!" Shane screams.

And I knew it. I knew he didn't think we were still gonna find Sophia. But he's wrong. We're gonna find her. I know it. We're gonna find her and I'm gonna show her my new doll.

"Enough livin' next to a barn full of things that are tryna kill us! Enough!" Shane yells. He pauses, right in front of the barn door, looking at all of our fear-struck faces. He stares at Rick. "Rick, it ain't like it was before! Now, if y'all wanna live, if you wanna survive, you gotta fight for it! I'm talkin' 'bout fight! Right here, right now!"

And then Shane's running at the barn doors. He picks up an axe and he starts slamming it against the locks, trying to break open the door. Rick is screaming at Hershel, but Hershel can't hear him. With Nicki tucked under my arm, I press my fingers against my ears.

Even though I'm scared, I keep my eyes open. I watch as Shane pulls open the barn door. Lori puts herself in front of me and Carl, and we peek around her. I'm scared. My heart is beating fast.

A walker- a man, wearing overalls- stumbles out of the barn. Shane shoots it dead. Then, a girl, maybe Beth's age. Shane shoots her dead, too. And then more and more come, and it's not just Shane shooting no more. It's T-Dog, and Andrea, and Glenn, and it's Dad, and I can't tell who is killing which walkers. They're all just dropping dead to the ground, blood pouring from the holes in their heads.

Carl tries running for his dad, but Lori grabs him and stops him. She hugs both of us to her chest, trying to keep our heads turned away so we don't see the blood and the death and the gore, but it's everywhere. It's everywhere all the time, and we always see. We know it ain't like how it used to be. We know. Lori just wishes we didn't have to.

Shot after shot, walker after walker, until the barn is empty. The barn is empty and there's a pile of dead people out in front of it. People Hershel knew. People Beth knew. Maggie, Jimmy, Patrica. People they all knew.

If I saw my classmates, my neighbors, or anyone I knew in a state like that, it'd kill me. It's killing Beth. It's killing Hershel. They've got their hands up to their mouths. They've got tears pouring from their eyes. And they're watching the people they so kindly shared their land and their supplies with kill the people that they loved.

They must hate us. But they don't understand. In a way, I know that Shane is right. I know those walkers are dangerous. I know they shouldn't have been in that barn. But I also can't help but worry about what Hershel's family feels. What anyone feels. It hurts them, and I know that. There was a better way Shane could have done this, but he's done it in the way that Hershel is going to kick us out for.

We haven't given them any reason to let us stay. We've taken their food, their water, their medical supplies, and my dad took one of their horses. And now we're doing this. We're killing people they believe can be saved.

Now there's no saving them. There's no saving them because they're dead on the ground with holes in their heads. But there was no saving them before, either. They were dead already.

It's all quiet. I can hear heavy breathing from each and every person around me. I can hear crying. I can hear cicadas buzzing. I can hear my heart beating fast and erratic. Lori squeezes me and Carl tighter, and I squeeze Nicki tighter.

Then, there's another quiet snarl from inside the barn. I see everyone's grips on their guns tighten back up again, their postures straightening. And we all wait. We all wait for that last walker to make its way out of the barn.

But when it finally does, I wish it didn't.

Because out walks a little girl. A little girl with dirty tennis shoes and red socks. With khaki capris and a blue t-shirt with a rainbow across the chest. The little girl has got strawberry blonde hair, which is stained with blood from the bite on her shoulder.

My heart drops down into my stomach. Lori's grip loosens and I slip out of her arms as she drops to her knees. Carl holds his mom tight. I hold my doll tight.

"Sophia! Sophia!" Carol sobs. She goes running past me, and past Rick. But when she tries running past my dad, he grabs her and he stops her. He holds her back and they both drop to the ground like Lori and Carl. "Sophia! Sophia! My baby!"

Sophia- no, no. The walker stumbles through the dead bodies on the ground. I'm crying now. I can't breathe. She gr- it growls, snarling at us.

No one has the courage to put her down. To put it down. Not even Shane, who thought she was long gone. I don't think I can look anymore, so I turn myself around. My chin drops to my chest and I squeeze my crying eyes shut. I hold Nicki tight to my chest, just like Sophia used to hold her doll.

"Don't watch. Don't watch," I hear Lori whisper to Carl.

I want my mom. I want my dad, too, but Carol needs him more than I do right now. So I stand on my own and I press my fingers into my ears all over again. I know another gunshot is coming and I don't want to hear it, but I will. I'll hear it. And I'll see Sophia's dead body drop to the ground, even if I'm not looking at her.

"My baby. My baby."

Bang.