Save Our City
A/N: This was my first attempt at The Walking Dead fic. It takes place pre-warrior Carol.
Summary: Carol and Daryl get separated from the group during a hoard.
Song listened to: "Save Our City" by Ludo

No matter how much air she tried to gulp into her lungs, it always felt like there wasn't enough. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in, in, in.

The eager grunts and moans of the walkers behind her were loud enough to drown out her desperate gasps. The idea crossed her mind that if she could just get out of sight, maybe take a sharp left or right, their own momentum would carry them straight ahead and far away from her trail.

She could see it. Her opportunity was only about fifteen feet away. If she could just squeeze into the small crevasse between shipping containers, the stumbling dead would be their own worst enemy. Any stragglers who caught her trail could only funnel in a couple at a time, and she could take them out more easily.

Knife poised before her, she threw herself into the small path. Her body immediately met fleshy resistance and she screamed, thrusting her blade blindly into the face of her attacker. Before it could drive home, her arm was wrenched abruptly forward.

"Goddamnit woman, it's me! C'mon!" Daryl growled, gripping her wrist in his hot, gritty hand.

He moved almost too quickly for her shaking legs to keep up, but he never let go. He led her relentlessly through the maze of high-stacked metal boxes, taking disorienting twists and turns that Carol would never be able to recount.

The metal on either side of them radiated nauseating heat that had their bodies quickly turning slick with sweat. She could hear moans resonating loudly all around them. No matter how many turns they took, there were always more walkers ahead and behind them.

"Shit!" Daryl hissed, and stepped back from the corner he was about to turn. She collided roughly with his shoulder as he spun on his heel, but he only adjusted his grip on her and doubled back the way they came, toward their undead followers.

Carol glanced over her shoulder and screamed, "Daryl!" There were even more on the other side of them. They were blocked off on both sides. This was it. They were going to die.

Daryl didn't give up. Pistol in hand, he blasted gaping holes into the skulls of the two nearest walkers. They slumped sideways, stopping up the tunnel and slowing down the clumsy walkers trailing behind them just enough that he and Carol had time to squeeze into a thin path they'd ignored before. Carol shared one putrid breath with a gruesome, worm-eaten corpse before Daryl had its decayed brain matter splattering across her face.

All sounds were completely swallowed by the high-pitched ringing in her ears, a result of the resounding gunshot that continued to echo off the steel walls. But they were alive. With Daryl's unrelenting hold on her, she had faith.

They reached open air. Daryl whipped his head left and right, searching for their next destination, but where could they possibly go? There was a warehouse about a hundred yards ahead, but something that big would be impossible to secure.

"There!" Carol cried, pointing to a manhole in the asphalt. The cover was slightly ajar, as if someone else had used it as an escape before them. But whatever was down below couldn't be worse than what they were already running from.

Daryl gave her a quick nod of approval and released her wrist to lift the heavy hunk of metal aside.

"Git on already!" he shouted, "We ain't got all day!"

She nodded and scrambled into the hole, the trembles in her body increasing with every shot fired above her head.

She slipped on one of the lower rungs and landed on her ass in sewage. Daryl pulled the manhole shut and landed with a splash beside her. Carol pulled herself to a shaking stand and found herself using her companion as a crutch in the pitch blackness.

"Ya alright?" he asked, and she could feel his labored breathing beneath her hands.

Carol nodded and wheezed. No matter how hard she trained herself physically, she could never have been prepared for all of this. Daryl on the other hand, could have gotten himself out of there with stealth and speed so impressive that the walkers wouldn't have caught so much as a whiff of him if she hadn't been there to slow him down.

"Are ya okay? Are ya bit?" he insisted, and it took her a moment to realize he hadn't been able to see her nod.

"Yes," she breathed, "Yes, I'm alright. Thank you, Daryl."

For a second, she thought she was going to cry. But before she could, she burst into giggles. Laughs of adrenaline and relief bubbled from her gut with such staggering force that she almost fell over. Daryl could only sigh and hold her upright.

She took a took a deep breath and wiped her tears on the back of her hand. She was okay. She could get a hold of herself.

"I can't believe we're alive," she said, stepping away from Daryl to give the man some space.

"Yeah, well we ain't done yet," he replied, "Dumb as shit idea, crawlin' around in the dark. Who the hell knows what's down here."

Carol fumbled around in her hobo bag with trembling hands, running her fingers over the contours of the items that lay inside. A bottle of hand sanitizer, a few loose casings, two candy bars, a roll of gauze, and at last, a glow stick.

"Here," she said, cracking it to life. It immediately began to glow an eerie green, much brighter than anticipated. She found Daryl's eyes in the darkness, and grinned. "We're going to be okay."

End.