Rating: PG-16 +
Word Count: 2,800
Inspiration: "Out of the Woods" - Taylor Swift (vaguely)
Warning: References to Abuse and Sexual Assault.
Spoilers: S1 is tossed around and I wove my own Carol childhood.
Disclaimer: I own neither TWD or "Out of the Woods". It has been a few years for me and this is unbeta'd so please pardon the mess.
But the monsters turned out to be just trees
Growing up with small-town superstition, Carol was taught ritual and rumors about the forests that grew around her town. Magnolia, willow, dogwood, oaks and elms each with Spanish moss draped down as a veil between civilization and barbarism. Where orderly asphalt roads lined with painted structures gave way to damp moss and soft ground.
The townsfolk gossiped in hushed tones about what lay beyond the tree line, wild ideas more suited for a fairy-tale than the 20th century. The brave few children who tempted fate in the wild returned with stories of trees that whispered and creatures dashed soundlessly with glowing eyes and fierce hungers. Others just gazed into its depths, awe mixed with fear at the terrors that lay inside.
The War of Northern Aggression had left its' mark, not just on the people but in the land itself. Their dead lived in the woods along with countless generations of Cherokee spirits, both bitter and savage. They lived within the trees, hunted with the wolves and raged with the storms. Wild and untamed so gorged with darkness, the forest was a giant creature zealously waiting for its' next meal.
The forest was unholy and wicked. Desolate, full of sharp teeth, eerie whispers, and crazed monsters.
No place for the good Christians of Georgia to venture into.
Never being a curious child, or at least that she could remember, Carol if you touch one more thing so help me, she never gave much thought to what lurked beyond the edge of town. Sure, she had heard the stories and listened to the tales but staying out her mother's rage and arms range were of more immediate concerns. Their yard was clear-cut with trimmed grass and flowering bushes, surround by a fence designed to keep those within it as much as keep others out. Her parents were townsfolk through-and-through, even to this day Carol wasn't sure if her father even knew how to put a tent together.
Her mother, desperate to raise a good southern Christian, molded her world to revolve around the home. God and kin, her needs were to be irrelevant and silent. Safe within the four walls of the edifice and docile to those within it. A girl is to be seen not heard Carol so shut your mouth. Any thought of independence was constricted and every instinct was tamed until she was an obedient marionette.
While others peered into the woods to feel the shiver down their spine and skin prick to wonder if such horrors were possible, Carol only had to glimpse her own front door to know of the existence of monsters. First with her mother and then Ed, the walls of the house spotless and cozy covered with quiet wallpaper and homely decor, served in stark contrast to violence and chaos that was housed within. Doors and walls might keep the outside dangers at bay, but in a world with locks once inside there was nowhere to hide. But still she thought nothing of the titans of dogwood and oaks, after all better the devil one knows.
Carol was born from a monster and married one. But still, trained and bred for the house, she equated the structure to her life.
When the Walkers rose, it didn't give her something to fear but only added to the list of things to cower from.
As Ed drove her and Sophia into the woods, she could do nothing but quiver in the shadows of the trees. Behemoths tall enough to block out the sun endless reminding her of Ed's dominion over her life and that of her daughter. Only then was she reminded of the town folks stories, but unlike her childhood the spirits and creatures haunted the woods were real. Half-formed and grotesque with cloudy dead eyes and never-ending hunger, Carol curled up in her tent with nothing but a piece of fabric between her and the wild praying for nothing more than her wooden house of horrors.
As others joined their group; Andrea and Amy, Dale and Jim, Shane with Lori and Carl, the Dixon brothers, the material of her walls changed from wood and bricks to skin and bone. Their presence giving the illusion of safety around her, she may have been weak and naïve but not stupid, but for the first time their presence, while tall and sturdy like the structures before these allowed for the unfamiliar sunlight to pierce through. The breeze touched her skin with an unfamiliar softness, and on good days kept the rotting smell of Walkers away from the camp.
Houses and buildings began to take on the appearance of traps, never knowing what was behind the closed door. Once empty, they could be staged to take on the appearance of a home, but Carol knew better than anyone what secrets the walls of a home could hide and deceive. Any moment, they could be surrounded and the walls of wood around them could turn into a tomb. The air became stale with despair and dark, soon Carol began to long for the outside. The trees would never splinter and fracture under the weight of a herd.
But still, she was tamed and housebroken with a wooden structure constructed from birth inside her. Something that she thought was the only thing supporting her. Slowly though, the nails came loose and drywall became brittle.
Driving that pickaxe into Ed's skull had smashed open the doors, splinters of wood much similar of the pieces of skull and brain matter she hammered into the ground.
Watching helplessly as Sophia was chased into the woods shattered the windows and forced cracks through the walls.
Seeing her empty carcass shamble out of the barn sent a wrecking ball through the walls and splintered the foundation.
But still the ruined structure still stood.
While she stood outside and gazed upon it, while it didn't hold the same appeal it once had after embracing freedom, she knew its' importance and necessity. And when the group settled into the prison, the metal pilings and cement walls held security that she no long felt with wood and bone. Lumber spilt and bone cracked.
Now hidden behind the protection of the prison, she gazed through the chain links into the woods and thought of how naïve she once was with thoughts of specters and ghosts haunting between the trees. While she knew the dangers, the forest was wild and feral, she herself was no longer quite at tamed and subdued. In this world, there was a necessity for sharp teeth and sharper instincts. People like Daryl Dixon who alternated between being a man in animal skin or animal covered in human skin were honed for this, and she admired him while racing to catch up.
Day in and day out, relegated back to her doll crafted by her mother, she cooked, cleaned and domesticated the prison. Now when she gazed through the fence it wasn't fear that she felt but a form of peace. As the prison became more feral and dangerous inside she remembered the first lesson unwittingly taught by her mother, the worst monsters were wrapped in human skin.
But they were kin and since her and the good Lord were no longer on speaking terms they were the most important thing, her needs were secondary. And much in the same way she learned the forest didn't just take but gave, this family she had offered a bond and emotion never known before.
She traded freedom for housework, trees trunks for iron bars, fresh air for oven smoke.
When the sickness came she didn't hesitate to risk her health to nurse the sick, try and heal the flesh and bone.
And then, when the helplessness come over, in anguish, she exchanged her virtue and clean hands for a metal knife and the smell of gasoline in hopes of saving her people. And she thought that finally, this family, would survive and remain united.
She should have remembered, people are unpredictable.
Her zealot mother baptizing her in boiling water and bruises, fervid words of sin and obedience all in the name of the Lord.
Her drunk husband violating her body with anything in hand and assaulting her mind at whim under God's commandment.
As she listened to the words pouring from Rick's lips, standing barren and exposed in the street, she felt the rusty pipes give way in the walls and beams crash down. All her life, the structure had weathered and remained to house her kin, but one by one they were forcibly removed until she was left alone in an uninhabitable house.
Days went by, as empty and barren the house inside her.
Some small part of her wanted to see if anyone would come, help her maintain the support but as the days past it only crumbled further.
Daryl, her wooden beams open windows, splintered and shattered.
Rick, her foundation and bedrock, crumbled and decayed.
Bringing her to this moment. The car had long out of gas and running on fumes can only take you so far and now, giving only last touch to the steering wheel, she exited the car. Closing the door behind her, she leaned back to rest her spine on the metal frame able to feel the heat radiating even through her two tops. The sun was high and she was exposed, standing in the middle of the highway, lost in her mind how to keep the dilapidated house around her spirit intact.
Taking a deep breath, she held it in and tilted her gaze upward letting the sun warm her face, further alienating her from the scene around her. Empty cars littered the highway, doors wide open and keys in the ignition, further testament to the rushed chaos during the first stages of the end of the world.
She walked through the hallways, seeing figments of those who she had kept inside.
Lori, heavily pregnant, yet still one of the prettiest women she has known was standing in the kitchen over the sink.
Andrea sat on the floor with Amy, cleaning her gun while Amy played with the mermaid pendant around her neck.
Dale resting on the front porch, gazing out toward the horizon with T-Dog chatting happily.
Shane winked as he passed her to get into the kitchen and she could hear Sophia humming upstairs in her bedroom.
She clenched her eyes, trying to hold on to those memories. Nails dug into her upper arms she had crossed over her chest as the ghosts overlapped, her mama in the kitchen standing by the stove with a pot, steam rising and blurring the look of anger and determination she had seen all too many times. Upstairs could hear Ed scream at her to get breakfast ready, threats of violence infused in every word. Daryl screaming at her, before being dragged by Merle out of the door followed by the sound of two motorcycles. Lori's blood seeping into the floorboards. All this being overlapped by the last conversation she had with Rick.
I won't have you there.
It was the sound of a low growl combined with sluggish shuffling that brought her back to her senses. Muscles tightened as her hand moved the knife on her hip as she pivoted on the balls of her feet to the direction of the noise. It was a single walker, usually this many years later, most of formed herds especially in this wide open of a space. It wasn't the quantity that gave her the biggest jolt.
It was a woman, tuffs of chin length hair still desperately clinging to what little scalp was left, she could see that it once was a brown with more than a bit of grey mixed in. Rags hung over her gaunt frame suggested a simple modest dress, pastel with floral pattern, her one working foot still wearing a simple sandal. Taking precious seconds, she normally wouldn't have wasted, Carol looked her over absentmindedly running her fingers over the grip of knife.
A normal women most likely a mother, someone who lived a simple life. Kids, husband, a mortgage and perhaps dog.
Now she was a shell, more like a sick scarecrow that crawled off her post.
Drawing her blade, she started over to finish her when the sun glinted off two objects that had managed to remain. A simple gold band around her left ring finger and a small matching cross resting around her neck. It was the cross that froze her. So similar to the one she had worn, gently touching it and offering up her words to God.
Her breath caught in her throat, vibrating with the whimper they both wrestled to escape at once and she reeled backwards banging painfully against the car door she had been resting on mere moments before. Unwittingly, she could see herself like this, as this woman. She had been this woman.
Gasping for breath as the Walker came closer, Carol couldn't take her eyes of the woman's necklace.
She could have been this empty shell, so easily. A strong house, with sturdy walls and locked doors and still it hadn't kept that woman safe.
It hadn't kept me safe.
In a fit of panic, she tried to shuffle backwards, away from what had once been a woman and from the realization this shell forced on her, but only managed to jam the door handle further into her back. Blue eyes, now sharp and yet frantic darted around looking for an exit only to come to the sinking reality the only way out was through shell of time past. With a grab to her knife, and with instinct honed over months, she quickly thrusted the blade her temple with enough force to feel the skull fracture against her knuckles. Swiftly removing it, she watched as the Walker dropped mere inches from her, arm still outstretched and coming to rest on the top of her boot the wedding ring mocking her as it caught the light.
Still high on adrenal, she quickly jumped over the body and toward the back of her car. Throwing up the backdoor, she grabbed necessary items only, backpack of supplies, duffle full of guns and outerwear. Slinging them over her shoulder, she was about to slam it shut when the gas can caught her eye.
Grabbing it, she cursed to herself for not remembering it earlier, she had been driving on fumes when there was a supply of gas still just sitting the back. Moving toward the gas intake, she was about to pop it open when she stopped, remembering who it was who put it there. Rick. To give her a fighting chance to live in a world where being alone wasn't an option.
Without even processing what she was doing, the smell of gas hit her hard as she turned the can upside down and dumped it on the female walker. Gazing down at the fuel soaked corpse, she ran her palms down the sides of her pants to remove the last of the oily residue and felt a small object in her pocket. Reaching down, she pulled out a small metal Zippos. A gift to Daryl, an attempted to regain the comfortable banter that had been fading away.
Barely breath, she used her thumb to flick it the light and tossed it down on the pyre.
Gazing down, it wasn't a walker that burning in the road but a house. Reeking of fuel, anger and anguish, it was nothing but a husk to house her ghosts and the only thing she feared more than losing the structure was for it to become haunted. Eerie whispers and cold bursts were burned away as the flames licked the wood, as they grew stronger and hungrier. It roared and screamed, or maybe that was her, she couldn't be sure.
Carol wasn't sure how long she stood there in the blazing sun watching this unknown woman crumble to ash still holding her knife against her thigh, white knuckles the only sign of the blaze raging inside. But as the wind picked up the ashes and blew them down the road, her eye-line lifted to catch sight of a distant tree line and judging by the sun's position, 'member to watch the sun, it'll tellya a lot 'bout the where ya are, she could make it to the forest by sunset.
Taking a deep breath, she re-holstered her knife and hefted her cargo higher on top her shoulder before starting away from the road. She would take the spirits in the trees over man-made monsters any day.
The corner of her lips twitched upward almost too fast for her to feel it, but the readiness remained.
Carol half-hoped there would be wolves.
She lost him
But she found herself
& somehow that was Everything
You said I could survive. You were right.