Dear Readers,
Was watching TV last night and got a prompt. Thought I'd monkey with it a bit and see what comes up. Let me know what you think!
Thanks goes out to the ever impressive Jerikataryn for the very cool cover photo.
Beth's POV on this one.
Leave me a review in the box on your way out so I know if to continue this or not!
We had spilled their blood.
Daryl had finally found me, after what seemed like a lifetime, but I'm sure was only a couple of weeks. I remember hanging from the cross on the pulpit of the church, wrapped in nothing but a sheet covering my hips. I felt like Christ being crucified, as the fanaticals worshipped me for hours on end. Apparently I was some sort of holy symbol for them. I don't know how they thought I was a holy symbol. I just a broken and dirty girl hanging from a cross, I wasn't a messiah, nor a goddess.
They never heard him coming. The day he found me, it was Gabriel and his 'wife' Ruth in the church. The rest of the followers had gone out on a run. Ruth had me down from the cross, tending my wounds and trying to make me eat. Gabriel was setting up for the next service. This was a daily occurrence, the lack of sleep combined with everything else was slowly killing me.
I remember hearing Daryl's strained and angry voice, then the shot ringing through the church. My heart pounded against my ribs, not knowing if it was Daryl shot or Gabriel. It wasn't until my eyes focused did I see Daryl striding up the aisle between the pews with a pissed off look on his face.
I was glad to see him, someone I could trust. I knew I was safe.
He had every intention of letting Ruth go. I didn't. I still think it shocked him when I pulled his pistol from the waistband of his jeans and killed her. Daryl had no idea what they had done to me, and I wasn't ready to make those horrors known.
We'd been running for days, Daryl would hot wire cars as we found them. I don't know when the last time he slept was. I know he was letting me sleep, which I was thankful for. But I knew he couldn't go on forever, as much as he thinks he can.
The last sign I recall seeing said we were in North Carolina. We were heading north, I could understand why. There was nothing keeping us in Georgia, with the prison gone and our family thrown to the wind. We were walking up near the mountains when I tripped over a metal door handle sticking up from the ground. I walked with Daryl through the back yard of a fancy rural housing edition, looking for houses to raid for supplies.
I landed unceremoniously on my face, skinning up my hands as I tried to catch myself. The sting of dirt in my hands made me wince.
Daryl gingerly took my elbow, helping me up. "You alright?" I nodded as he inspected the handle sticking up out of the ground.
Daryl started kicking the ground around the handle, finding a hinge on the top edge of the door. I watched as his arms flexed, the door gave way with a creak that told us it hadn't moved in a long time. I didn't know what it was, but the door gave way to a hole in the ground.
"Stay here. I'm going to check it out." Daryl dropped down into the hole, I can't say I didn't hold my breath waiting for him to say something. Minutes passed like hours, I heard him grunt as he hoisted himself to the edge of the hole, a grin on his face.
"Why are you grinning like that? What did you find down there?" I'd never seen him grin like that, something was up and my curiosity got the better of me.
"Come on down, you'll see." Daryl held up his hand; his warm fingers wrapped around mine as he helped me into the hole and closed the camouflaged door over the top of us, dropping us into total darkness. I gasped as my heart started to beat quicker, fear gripping my insides.
Daryl clicked on the flashlight in his hand, pointing it at a ladder going down into another hole with a hatch gaping open. "It's safe, go on down. I'll hold the light for you."
I sucked a tight breath, my hands stilling on the ladder. I knew he could tell I was apprehensive, especially after what I had been through that he knew nothing about. I'm sure he could figure it out if he thought about it.
"I got you Beth, ain't going to let nothing happen to you." Daryl reassured me, that little push got me going down the ladder. I breathed a sigh of relief when I landed on concrete and nothing attacked me.
"Catch." I looked up to see the flashlight falling through the darkness, I caught it in my hands, shining it up so Daryl could come down safely. I realized why it took him so long to get down the hole, he had done it completely by feel and instinct. I heard Daryl grunt as the hatch closed with an ominous metallic clang. It sounded so final, I couldn't help my nerves fraying.
Standing on the ledge of the concrete, I saw two doors in front of me, spaced about twenty feet apart. God only knew what was behind those doors, but I trusted Daryl to not get me killed. I watched as he cranked open the door on my right and led me inside.
My eyes hurt at the bright lights, but once they adjusted I knew what I was looking at. It was set up to be a green house. Rows of shallow pans lined the middle of the room, bags of fertilizer and soil lining the walls. Bags of seeds sat on the floor on one side of the room next to pots. There was a workbench with various hand tools on the opposite side of the wall.
"Someone was planning on hiding out in here. We could plant the seeds and grow food." My mind started running a mile a minute thinking of the possibilities.
"Mhm, someone's a doomsday prepper. The other side's a shelter. Come on." Daryl shut the heavy door behind us. It all started making sense now, this could be somewhere we could stay long term. It all depended on what was down here and what we could scavenge as well.
We stepped into a mudroom that had a washer and dryer, an air filtration system and a gun safe that was open. Inside sat rifles and handguns with enough ammo to last a long time. Stepping through the mudroom, I was shocked to find a full kitchen/living room. The cabinets were stocked with food and well appointed. Daryl flopped down on the couch, running his fingers along the side. I heard a clicking sound and his feet came up, oh god, a reclining couch!
DVD's lined the shelves of the entertainment center around a big screen TV. I wandered down through the hallway; through a four bunk bedroom, a small bathroom with a tub/shower, sink and toilet. Passing through an open door, I found the master suite. A queen size bed greeted my tired eyes, two dressers of men's and women's clothes were against the wall. The door in the bedroom led to the master bath. It wasn't much, but there was a shower, a sink and a toilet. What looked like a closet was a storage pantry stocked full of food, household items and more weapons. Someone was prepared for the apocalypse, and I was suddenly grateful for those nut jobs Sean and I would make fun of on TV.
"I think that door leads up into the house, we can use it as our entrance in and out when going on runs. It would keep us hidden for a long time. You can heal up and rest." Daryl's soft voice startled me out of my thoughts.
"I guess that works. But how does it have power? It can't be batteries could it?" I didn't know anything about how these kind of shelters worked past the blips Sean and I caught on late night TV. My heart hurt a little bit thinking about my family members now being dead. Daryl was all I had left, we were all each other had.
"I'd imagine it's solar powered. Gathers power during the day and then stores it in the batteries for night. We're here for as long as we can be, can't think of any place safer than forty feet underground." Daryl opened the dresser drawers, seeing clean clothes. "Guess we can clean up and settle in for the night. Ain't nothing gonna find us for awhile."
Forty feet underground? Geothermal heating would keep the structure comfortable. As long as anyone else didn't stumble on the hidden entrance in the house or on the ground, no one would know we were here. Daryl made sure the hatches were locked down tight before he kicked off his boots on the sofa. I sat down next to him, unlacing the hiking boots he'd found on the road for me.
"You can take the bedroom, I'll crash out on the couch for tonight. Think I'm a bit too tall for those bunks in there." Daryl walked past me to grab a couple of pillows and a blanket off the bunks. He set them down between us before I stood up.
"You sure you don't want the bed? I'm sure I could fit in one of the bunks." I didn't want him being uncomfortable on the couch, and I didn't want him feeling obligated to give me the bed. Before we had been separated at the funeral home, he'd laid down in a coffin for the night. That had to be the creepiest thing I'd seen in a while, I'm sure the couch beat the coffin any day.
"Nah. You need to stretch out and rest. Get you a bath if you want. I'm sure there's enough water for it." Daryl was busy getting his pillows the way he wanted them, not even looking at me.
Daryl was right, a bath did sound nice, and I always felt dirty these days. I decided against the bath, but turned on the shower in the master bath. The water ran a bit dirty for a few minutes as it warmed up. God, I can't put into words how wonderful that hot water felt against my skin. Towel drying my hair, I followed the night lights out into the kitchen. My stomach growled hard, almost painfully.
"You feeling any better?" Daryl's soft voice broke the silence, I looked over to see the dim light making his eyes nearly glow.
I pulled the towel tighter around myself, as I sat down on the floor next to him. His eyes watched my every movement, as his hand stretched out to touch my face. I felt the rough calluses of his fingertips on my cheek for that brief second before he pulled back. I hadn't forgotten his revelation in the kitchen of the funeral home, or the night at the moonshine house. Those memories of him were what kept me hanging on when I hung on that cross. The hope that he would find me, the hope that he still loved me.
"Yeah it was nice to get a real shower for the first time in a long time. Maybe you should get one?" I tied my hair up into a haphazard bun, searching his eyes for something, anything, that he had feelings for me like I still had for him. Daryl Dixon kept his emotions locked away tight in his chest. That glimmer I was sure I had seen at the funeral home wasn't there now. I second guessed myself if it was ever there, if I was just imagining if I ever saw it.
"Glad you feel better, might just do that. Having a hard time sleeping in the quiet. Been awhile since I've known quiet like this." Daryl huffed as he pulled himself up from the couch, heading towards the master bedroom. I followed him, sitting down on the bed while he dug through the dresser looking for pajamas. Finding a t-shirt and shorts he trudged off for the bathroom. It wasn't until I heard the water come on that I was comfortable enough to let the towel slip down my body and put on the pajama pants and t-shirt from the woman's dresser.
Not all scars are skin deep, and some take more time to heal than we even realize.