Day 1
Beth looked up from her dinner of expired snack foods. The soft expression on Daryl's face made her stomach do flip flops. It was unexpected, but not entirely unwelcome. She looked down, breaking the intense gaze between them, trying to think of something to say. Then the cans he had strung up on the porch started clanging and jingling. Daryl leaped up, grabbing the jar of pigs feet. He was sure that little shaggy dog was going to be back, and Beth knew he really wanted to catch it. What they were going to do with a dog once they had one was anyone's guess. They could barely feed themselves.
Beth jumped up, stepping too hard on her sore ankle. She smelled the walkers even before she heard Daryl screaming. He was drawing them away from her. Her first instinct was to try and help him, but she couldn't even walk without limping, and she had left her gun in the front hall. It might as well be a million miles away. So she ran. It wasn't her proudest moment, but she waited by the tall pine tree near the road where he told her to go. The growls and the screams that were coming from the house made her heart beat hard in her chest. She switched her knife to the other hand momentarily, wiping her sweaty palm on the leg of her jeans. Getting a firm grip on the handle of her knife, she tightened the straps of her pack and backed up towards the road so she would be able to see any walkers that were coming before they got too close to her.
It had been a long time since she prayed, since before her daddy died. But she prayed now. Please please please let him be alright. Dear god don't let anything happen to him. Beth was watching the back door of the funeral home, fixated on it. She didn't see the car coming at her until it was too late. The brakes screeched as the front of the car dipped down and the car came to an abrupt stop, tossing the passengers forward against their seat belts and then back against the seats. The back door flung open and a man jumped out. It was hard to tell in only the dim light of the moon, but it looked to Beth like he was wearing some kind of police uniform. The light reflected of the shiny buttons down the front of it.
The man grabbed her by the arm, dragging her towards the car. She scratched his hand with the side of her knife, cringing as it cut into the tender flesh on her arm. The man swore and let go of his grip on her. Then he caught her by the backpack, yanking her backwards and almost pulling her off her feet. She struggled, trying to pull away from him and hang on to her bag. She heard the sound of another car door opening and slamming shut. That's when she made the quick decision that losing her bag was better than letting the man and whoever was with him drag her into the waiting car.
She tried to slip her arm through the strap of the pack, but the force with which the man was pulling on it made the straps dig into her shoulders. She swiped with her knife, slicing through one strap. Then she spun, pulling her arm out loose from the other one and sending the man falling backwards onto the pavement. She hesistated a moment, not wanting to run back to the zombie filled house, but not wanting to run further away from Daryl. The other man that she had heard getting out of the car made her decision for her. He came around the pine tree, cutting between her and the path back to the funeral home. She turned towards the woods and ran. With every hard step, fire flicks of pain shot up from her ankle. But she could hear the man thundering through the woods behind her. So she kept going, she ran until the pain in her sides matched the pain in her ankle, hard branches scraped at her arms as she held them up to try and protect her face as she raced blindly through the undergrowth.
She kept trying to run, but she soon slowed down to a awkward hobble limp. Then she realized she didn't hear the man behind her anymore. She hid behind a tree just in case. But then she heard the distinct sound of car doors slamming and then the squeal of rubbber on the road. Beth leaned against the tree, trying to catch her breath. She picked up her foot and rotated her ankle around expirementally. The pain was blinding. Little white stars danced in front of her eyes and she leaned back against the tree to keep from fainting. There was no way she was walking back the the funeral home tonight. Or anywhere else.
She was trying to figure out what to do when she heard the unmmistakable shuffle and groan of a walker close by. When she reached for her knife, she came up empty handed. She must have dropped it while she was running through the woods. Beth cursed under her breath, saying a few choice words that she had never uttered aloud before in her life. How could she be so stupid? She pressed her back against the tree, wishing she could melt into it and hide inside. Then she looked up and saw a long low hanging branch.
Beth had never been good enough to go competitive, but she had taken gymnastics all through elementary and middle school. Since she had the perfect tiny form for the sport, her instructors had all been encouraging, but in the end she just didn't have the drive to practice and perfect herself like the girls on the travelling team. But that didn't mean she hadn't picked up a few things over the years. Trying not to put weight on her sore foot, Beth inched out from the trunk of the tree and leaped up to grab the branch, praying that it was sturdy enough to hold her weight. Then she started to swing. The hard bark of the tree cut into her palms but she kept swinging. It took going back and forth three times before she got the momentum to swing around and up, leaning forward and resting her hips against the branch. From there she was able to hike one leg over and straddle the branch. She inched backwards until she was against the trunk of the tree again. Only now she was off the ground and out of walker biting range.
It took some adjusting and shifting, but Beth eventually found a spot to sit in the tree that made her feel secure enough to lean back against the trunk and close her eyes. She was tired and hurt and scared. But she reminded herself that Daryl was sure to be able to find her tracks. In the morning he would come and save her. And then eveything was going to be okay again.
Beth didn't know how late she slept, but when she finally woke up, her entire body hurt. Her ankle was throbbing and pulsing inside her boot. Her arm was covered in dried blood from where she had cut herself with her knife. And her body was stiff and sore from sleeping sitting up in the crook of a hard tree. When she looked down, she saw that the smell of her blood had attracted several more unwanted guests. Three walkers were pressed against the trunk of the tree, moaning and reaching up for her. Beth sighed. Her mouth was dry as sandpaper, she was hurt, and she needed to pee. And where the hell was Daryl?
She was not only worried about herself, but she was also getting increasingly worried about Daryl. From the amount of light, the sun had been up for some time. If he had picked up her trail, he would have found her by now. Or he should at least be close. Since the walkers were already all over her, Beth decided that there was no benefit to being quiet.
"Daryl!," she called out, "I'm over here! Daryl!" She heard the twang of a bow and an arrow chunked through the skull of the first walker and chunked into the tree below her. Beth's face lit up in a smile. That was the sweetest noise she had ever heard in her life. The next two walkers fell quickly the same way the first one had. Beth moved about, trying to climb down from the tree as quickly as she could without hurting her ankle worse. She started talking to Daryl, even though she didn't see him yet.
"You took long enough to come and find me I was starting to get wor..." she said, stopping abruptly. There was a man standing in the woods with a crossbow, but the man was not Daryl. The man had long shaggy dark hair that hung around his head in greasy strings. There was a smattering of dark facial hair across his chin that grew up onto his cheeks in patches. He was wearing a black shirt with a black jacket over it. The way he was looking at Beth made her skin crawl. She wasn't sure what to say, so she just stood there looking at him. And he stood there looking at her. His gaze started down at her boots and worked its way up her body, devouring her like she was a piece of meat and he was starving. Beth turned to run and saw that he had other men with him. And they had her surrounded. The greasy man stepped closer to her. He didn't introduce himself or ask her name. He only said one word to her.
"Claimed."