Disclaimer: These characters are not mine nor do I profit from this.
Also, I don't have a beta. All mistakes are mine mine mine. :)
Lord, Rick started his prayer as the tree line filled with walkers, I ask for your forgiveness and the protection of my family…
"Daryl," Lori yelled knowing they needed all gun hands on deck.
"Oh god there's too many of them," Carol almost looked to be welcoming death. The stability of the farm house had kept her grounded after finding her little girl, Sophia, in the barn with all the other captured walkers they hadn't known about when they decided to stay at the farm in the first place. Now they were vagrants, nomads in a world of death.
"We've fought worse," Daryl came striding up and loaded his cross-bow.
Please let them not come to harm on this day, if it is your will, Lord.
Rick checked his gun; one in the chamber and a full clip, two clips in reserve, and a knife he'd miraculously recovered from Shane's body. Carol held an ax in a wide grip, Lori held her pistol and strapped a shotgun to her back, Glen carried a hatchet and a rather large dagger that had been in the Hershel family for a few generations. Glen pushed Maggie behind him – she could only muster an amused smile at the protective gesture as she was carrying a double barrel shotgun. If anybody was doing the protecting it was her. Rick, Daryl, and Herschel were armed to the teeth and Carl brought up the rear, pinned between the protective arc of the family and the cabin behind them.
Forgive me, Father, for the sins I am about to commit.
The walkers inched closer, stumbling and convulsing nearer with each twitch and faltering step. It wasn't until they caught the full scent of living flesh that their synapses fired together and they became a little more coordinated. Then they were a formidable enemy. Looking over them, it was hard to imagine that this mindless herd of undead was any sort of threat – but every person in the arc knew better. A business woman and a man in mechanic's overalls reached a thin wire fence that skirted the perimeter first. They would all get caught on it, but they'd continue trying to walk until they eventually fell over it. While these walkers were the ultimate enemy, it was so easy in these moments when they were slowly approaching, to see how they'd been in life before the infection. The business woman, though her perfectly tailored suit had been ripped and blood stained and though the heels had broken off her obviously shoes – had come from money. The day she was infected, she'd probably been at the office merging offers or closing deals, waiting to go home to her pristine house and wait for her huband to come home from golfing. She's never make it home. Neither would her husband probably. The mechanic was the first to make it over the fence and as he caught the smell of them on the wind, his eyes dilated and his muscles tensed for the impending attack. Adrenaline replaced what malnutrition had robbed from his body and he sprinted as his very life depended on it. Blood, blood would make the throbbing in his head disappear. Needed blood.
An arrow stopped the pain first.
The walkers rushed the fence in a frenzy once the wind shifted and drew the living scent over the entire opening. Gun blasts erupted and sprays of blood rained on the falling bodies. Rick counted the rounds of ammo he knew everyone to have – there were more walkers than there were bullets.
Please deliver me from this evil.
They hadn't seen her like this in weeks. Mal watched as River remained in her catatonic state. It wasn't coma, it wasn't death, but it wasn't right. Even Jayne had taken to walking by to see how their Reaver-killer was doing.
Not great.
"Doc," Mal clamped a hand on Simon's shoulder. In the weeks since Miranda, the Doc sure had been getting his fair share of exercise, he was bulking up quite nicely, Mal noticed, "she'll be alright. We never know what she sees, but she usually tells us in time to save our pi gus." He tried to give a reassuring smile, but it was despairing to see River like this.
"Let's hope," Simon sighed as he stared at his precious mei mei – little sister. Her hands clutched the sheet, but they didn't let the sheet drape over her. Her arms were stiff and elbows bent at 90 degree angles so the sheet lifted from her body. She'd been like that for two days now. He neck twisted and her jaw was clamped in an awkward scowl.
Lord, if you're up there, somewhere, Mal almost waved his hand in a dismissive wave, now, you know I ain't a prayin' man – or a good man, but this little girl is precious to me and mine and I'd take it as a real kindness if you'd help her or somethin'
"Mal," Zoe pierced over the comm. "to the bridge. Now!"
Mal's heart fluttered with adrenaline as his feet pounded up the metal stairs. When Zoe sounded frantic, you panicked. He climbed from the infirmary to the hall, up onto the bridge. Hands instinctively raising to her small yet tell-tale bump of a belly, she used her other hand to indicate the radar.
"There's no core-containment, they're bearing down on us too fast for us to outrun for long."
"Reavers? Do they bug anybody else, or do they just have our number?"
Lord, he didn't have any words for the Big Man right now.
"Can we make Beaumonde?"
"No, but there's a little moon, just here," she pointed to a different monitor, "Terra-forming took but the atmosphere is a little bit too thin. If we land on the dark side we'll freeze to death before the Reavers get us. We'll have to land as far west on the sunlight as we can so we have as much daylight as possible, and we'll have to be off before we reach the dark side."
"Let me guess, it gets worse."
"The moon spins so fast that we'll go from light to dark in two hours."
Lord, deliver me a miracle. A Big Damn Miracle, or this is it for us.
"Tell Jayne and the others to prep."
Serenity banked like beauty and shifted into the thin atmosphere with the ease and grace that only someone who loved flying could perfect. Mal guided the transport ship to just a couple miles above the surface of the moon and picked his landing spot. Tufts of steam still rose from the rocks and dirt where the chill of the dark side was evaporating in the morning sun. Two hours. They needed to land and get this done.
"Mal," Zoe warned, "they're gaining. Fast."
They stood a chance if they were on the ground. He lowered Serenity behind a rock formation that provided a bit of cover, not as much as he'd like, but it'd have to do.
Jayne was armed. More heavily than normal and even though he looked like the mercenary from hell, Mal would have liked to seen him with more grenades. They didn't have River right now, the least the could have is grenades. The Reaver ship landed 40 meters away and blood painted doors peeled back to reveal Death itself.
Lord, that Miracle could come at any time now…