CHAPTER SEVEN
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ATLANTA was a memory. And now, she was beginning to think, so was any part of the life she knew before. It was a difficult thought to process, but she pushed it away the best she could.

     It had been days since the CDC and she shuddered at any lingering thought of Jenner or his deceased wife. She knew she had to leave that behind. There was no cure, not any time soon.

     The roaring of Daryl's motorcycle jolted her awake, eyes snapping open to see the very first traces of the morning. The old RV rattled down the road and the soft clicks of the gun that Shane cleaned across from her were the first things to alert her into consciousness.

     "Oh jeez," Dale let out from the driver's seat, the RV slowing down quickly.

     "What's going on?" Arden mumbled hoarsely as Shane and Andrea both turned their eyes to the front of the vehicle.

     "Oh no," Glenn added, Arden finally getting a glimpse of what they were referencing to when she leaned out of her seat.

     A gigantic semi truck was rolled onto its side, blocking the entirety of the road ahead of them. Arden stood to her feet, slightly wobbling on them from the lack of walking she had done. Daryl rounded back on his motorcycle and nodded his head forward when Dale asked if he saw a way through.

     The RV inched forward slowly as Glenn looked down at the map in his hands. "Maybe we should just go back," he suggested nervously. "There's an interstate bypass—"

     "We can't spare the fuel," Dale dismissed quickly. They had no other options. Though Arden wasn't sure they would make it to Fort Benning if they couldn't even get back to Atlanta.

     They eased their way around the semi with the path that Daryl led, Rick, Lori, Carol, and their children close behind.

     As they drove further down the highway, the more haunting the scene became. Hundreds of abandoned cars were stopped in their tracks, hundreds of lives ended and left behind on that stretch of asphalt.

     Arden slumped back in her chair, listening while Glenn made a horrified sound at the sight. Watching the world end from the safety of a locked building was far different than seeing it up close.

     "Can we get through here?" Glenn asked, extremely timely, as it turned out. A loud metal creak and a sputtering from the engine of the RV was a less than comforting answer to his question. A large plume of smoke erupted from the front.

     Everyone piled out of their cars to examine the situation, Arden stretching as she walked down the steps.

     "I said it, didn't I say it? A thousand times, dead in the water," Dale commented bitterly, approaching the still smoking front end of the vehicle.

     "Problem, Dale?" Shane asked, slightly sarcastically. Arden rolled her eyes.

     "Oh, just the small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no hope —"

     He paused, looking to the cars as he watched Daryl rifle through the nearest one for supplies. "Okay, that was stupid."

     "Can't find a radiator hose out here," Shane pointed out.

     Daryl continued to grab things from the car, countering, "There's a bunch of stuff we can find."

     "Siphon more fuel from these cars for a start," T-Dog agreed, stepping next to the car that Daryl searched.

     "Maybe some water?" Carol added hopefully, arms around her daughter protectively.

     "Food," Glenn offered, the stretch of cars suddenly looking less daunting and more promising.

     "This is a graveyard," Lori pointed out, almost to deter them from looking through the place.

     "The world's a graveyard," Arden told her, diverting her eyes to the ground. A morbid comment, yes. But a true one? Also yes.

     Silence fell upon the group and Lori maintained, "I don't know how I feel about this."

     T-Dog, however, continued to grab one of the gas cans in order to carrying out his siphoning plans. "Come on, y'all. Gather what you can," he said.

     Arden stepped forward, heat radiating from the ground and the blazing Georgia sun staring her in the eyes.

     She moved among the cars, walking out a little further than the last person so they weren't all searching the same area. The world was eerily quiet now with so few people in it. The only thing to be heard within miles was the bugs.

     Arden found herself looking through an empty car, discovering two water bottles. She kept one tucked under her arm and the other in her hand, moving on when the rest of the car yielded nothing.

     A few more cars down, she had found a backpack, a few granola bars, a few spare pieces of clothing, and some other odds and ends. Zipping up the bag, she figured that it was a good enough haul to bring back.

     But just as she turned around, there was no one in sight. Not Lori and Carol, just behind her, not Dale on top of the RV. But then she saw them. A herd of walkers stumbled their way down the highway, mindless groans echoing. They were headed right toward her.

      Her eyes went wide and she dropped to the ground, rolling under the nearest car. The ground was hard against her chest and she tried to even her breathing the best she could.

     Soon enough, feet taking labored steps surrounded her on all sides, sometimes bumping into the side of the car. The backpack weighed upon her as she stared at the road below her. At least the others seemed to have hidden themselves effectively.

     Just as she began to wonder how long she would have to stay there, the footsteps became less and so did the sounds of the dead. She waited a few more minutes and finally inched out from under the car, standing up to see the herd headed in the other direction, far enough away for her to head back.

     "Hey! Doctor!" someone whispered urgently, Arden whipping around to find Daryl clutching a violently bloody T-Dog.

     Arden shook her head and Daryl, but she was grabbing T-Dog's other arm anyway. "You can help him right?"

     As they reached the others, she was at a loss for words. Yes, she knew about the human body and it's immune system. She was extremely educated on viruses, how they formed, and their effects.

     But getting trained to save lives? She was beginning to think Daryl misunderstood her career.

     They reached the RV and everyone was gathered at the edge of the highway where it dropped off into a ditch of sorts. The ditch carried out into an expansive wooded area.

     Arden and Daryl carried T-Dog into the RV and she rounded on him. "First aid kits? Alcohol? Antibiotics? Anything?" she fired off, knowing she didn't find any of this herself. Daryl immediately exited the vehicle and T-Dog groaned, barely coherent. His shirt was evidence enough of the blood he'd lost.

     Daryl returned shortly with a first aid kid and a pill bottle. "Sorry. All I could find," he explained, handing them to her. She nodded and accepted them gratefully.

     "Thank you," she told him sincerely.

     "You're stayin' here with him?" he questioned. Arden nodded. Now she supposed she was. Since she was now the 'doctor'. "I'm goin' out with Rick to find Sophia."

     "What, where's Sophia?" Arden replied quickly, furrowing her brows in confusion.

     "Got lost in the woods after Rick drew some walkers away from her," he answered simply. Arden couldn't imagine what Carol was going through. T-Dog groaned again and she nodded at Daryl to go ahead and leave.

     "Be safe," she told him, Daryl nodding before he exited the RV.

     Arden turned to T-Dog and finally got a closer look at the wound. It was deep, and had definitely not been tended to for long. That was all she could really tell.

     "Hey, T-Dog? Can you hear me?" she questioned, lightly feeling his face for any feverish symptoms. There were none, so that seemed good in regards that he wasn't close to death. Fever often accompanied the virus just before the patient died.

     T-Dog nodded absently while Arden opened the first aid kit. Gauze, disinfectant, bandages, and a sewing needle were all present. She breathed out in relief. At least she would be able to do a semi decent job.

     Looking at the bottle, it seemed as though they were painkillers — simple and effective, though she knew something stronger would be better.

     First, she grabbed the disinfectant and cleaned the wound, much to T-Dog's discomfort. It was even worse when she began the stitches. Arden had never operated on anyone, or done stitches much less.

     Her hands shook as she threaded it through his skin, her thoughts telling her that it was good, at least, that the bleeding had stopped. She finally threaded the last part through and the wound looked considerably better. Though T-Dog's moans of pain did not reassure her.

     "I'm going to be honest with you here, T-Dog. I'm not a doctor. I researched diseases, but..." she trailed off, while swabbing disinfectant over the wound again for good measure. The talking seemed to be distracting him at least. "I'm going to try my best here."

     T-Dog laughed with a labored breath and Arden smiled slightly. She put a bandage over the wound and wrapped gauze around that, hoping the severity of the wound wouldn't catch up to him. Or they'd meet a doctor before it did.

     She reached over for the pills and read the label, deciding that one would be okay to start with and maybe letting him have more of a dosage later if the pain persisted. Truly, she was grasping at straws.

     Checking again for fever, she pulled her hand back relieved. After he had taken the medication, it didn't take long for him to fall asleep. Arden leaned back and let out a sigh. She stood up with the backpack that she had carried in and stepped outside of the RV, the dying sunlight greeting her.

     The entire day had passed quickly, more rapid than she had even noticed. She threw the bag down by the pile of supplies that was gathering near the front of the vehicle where the others had moved cars around.

     Now that they had the fuel they could try the overpass that Glenn had mentioned. But until they found Sophia they had to sit and prepare.

     Arden walked to her left and leaned against one of the cars, genuinely hoping that nobody else thought she was a doctor. The blood on her hands was drying and she wiped it on her already dirty shirt stained with blood.

     "How's T-Dog?" someone from behind her asked, and she jumped, startled, to find Glenn. She opened her mouth to respond, and found herself slightly tearful.

     "I think he should be fine," she replied with a general shrug. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

     Glenn stepped closer, his features worried as he glanced back at the RV. "What's wrong?"

     "I'm only a virologist, for two weeks no less, I never practiced as a doctor. If I made a mistake, he's going to die," she managed, taking in a deep breath. Glenn looked at her for a moment, searching for words.

     "I'm sure you did a great job. Everyone else is just as inexperienced," he attempted to comfort, shifting awkwardly as he spoke.

     "They're back!"

     The two turned around as Rick and Daryl approached, Carol overcome with emotion at the sight of them without her daughter. Arden and Glenn walked up to the group with everyone else slowly.

     "Her trail went cold," Rick was explaining. "We'll pick it up again at first light."

     "You can't leave my daughter to spend the night alone in the woods," Carol sobbed, looking between the two helplessly.

     "Lookin' in the dark's no good, we'd just be trippin' over ourselves. More people get lost," Daryl told her, his crossbow slung over his shoulder.

     "But she's twelve! She can't be out there on her own, you didn't find anything?" Carol rambled desperately, Rick stepping forward in attempts to try and ease her worries.

     "I know this is hard," he sympathized, "but I'm asking you not to panic. We know she was out there."

     "And we tracked her for a while," Daryl added, trying to make it seem better.

     "It's an organized effort. Daryl knows the woods better than anybody, I've asked him to oversee this."

     Arden could sense Carol's panic and stepped away, walking back into the RV as the woman cried. It felt wrong for her to spectate and the entire situation made her sick.

     As she looked over at T-Dog, unconscious and bloody, she wondered if she really could handle living in this world.