[b]Buck Bradley – On the road – Farren North[/b]

Buck heaved the walker’s lifeless body off of him.

Slowly he sat up and drew in a deep breath. For a few moments he remained silent, letting the reality of the situation sink in. [i]That was TOO close.[/i] He raised his head and looked at Farren, his eyes then dropping to the hammer in her hand. She had saved his life no doubt. He looked away again and took another deep breath. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

Buck had seen these two walkers before. They were a couple of the ones he had dodged as he was making his way towards the lights earlier, not long before he discovered Farren and Dean. He guessed he hadn’t been as quiet as he thought when he slipped by them. “Should have taken them out earlier,” he scolded himself. “Stupid, Buck. Stupid. Well at least now we know what was followin’ us.” 

He looked at the remains of his 2x4, still wedged in the walker’s mouth. “Guess I’m gonna need to find something else to bash ‘em with,” he muttered. Only then did he hear Dean’s cries. He quickly rolled to his feet. “Is the boy ok?” he asked frantically.

Once more his eyes found Farren. “How about you? It didn’t get close enough to bite you did it?” He looked at Dean. “Either of you?” He checked his own hands and arms. He had a few scrapes and scratches, nothing of great significance. And most importantly nothing close to a bite. He picked Farren’s bag back up off the ground. “I think we need to keep moving. You never know there might be more of them around here.” He put his hand on Farren’s shoulder. “You ok to carry on? If you want I can carry the boy too.” He noticed Dean was still very upset. Understandably so.

Buck noticed that the lights had gone off in the building they were heading to. He wasn’t discouraged, though. Something had happened there, and they were close enough now that he was going to investigate one way or another. Something gave him pause though. Maybe it was still being jacked up from the walker attack, but he could have sworn he heard gun shots coming from that direction.