Words in frosted windows chapter 2
Rick ran up the stairs in a panic. He'd seen bullets rip through the watch tower earlier. Carol and Daryl had been up here at the time. The ex-cops heart dropped down into his stomach when he saw the blood on the floor. He walked in to see something that shattered his heart to a million pieces.
Carol and Daryl lay gazing at each other but they weren't breathing and there was no movement. Footsteps echoed up behind him. Rick didn't turn around fast enough to stop his son from seeing the people he had seen as his surrogate mum and uncle.
"No!" Carl said and turned and ran back down the stairs colliding with Maggie in a hug as he sobbed into her shirt. Rick felt something wet against his check and wiped the fallen tear away. He pulled out his knife and stepped forward.
Neither Daryl nor Carol would want to be a walker. He turned Carol's head so her face was nestled up against Daryl's neck and his head lulled forward onto carol's. The base of their skulls where now bared and with two swift blows he made sure his friends would not reanimate.
Glenn and Maggie having put two and two together had come up with sheets to cover the bodies.
~0~
Daryl awoke to the feeling of something soft stroking his face. Carol's face came into view as his eyes flickered open. His head throbbed something awful but apart from that he seemed to be completely unscathed.
"Hey" Carol said with a grim smile on her face.
"Hey" Daryl replied and sat up. They were down in the tombs in front of the family tree Maggie and Beth had painted some months ago. Three new strokes of wet paint had been added to the wall. A line in between Carol's image and his and two red little d's next to their names.
They were dead.
Daryl reached out to touch it only for paint to come away in his hand. It had been recently done.
"Come on!" Daryl yelled and grabbed carols hand running for the exit out into the sunlight. To his horror, all of their family where gathered around the small part of the courtyard which had been turned into a place where they buried their dead. Rick was lowering his dead body down into the hole that had been dug. Soon Tyresse placed carols down after him into the same hole.
Daryl stepped forward and placed a hand on Ricks shoulder as he cried for his dead friend. Rick looked over his shoulder as if he could feel Daryl's hand. He looked back to the grave as Maggie and Glenn began to fill it in.
"I can't watch this." Carol said. "They don't even know we're here." Sadness laced her voice and he could tell he wanted to reach out and comfort their family. Now Daryl knew why people always said ghosts wailed. They wanted to help their family and friends but they couldn't.
"They'd want us to hear their goodbyes." Daryl said and laced his fingers with hers.
Glenn stepped forward and started to speak.
"Daryl and Carol always put others first. They were always the last ones to give up. Carol was soft, caring, gentle and kind. She loved each and every one of us but there was a special place for a certain hunter. Daryl seemed to be her polar opposite. Gruff, harsh, and quite frankly scary as shit." There was a general round of grim laughter roll through the gathering. After everyone had fallen silent again Glenn continued.
"Daryl may have acted like it he didn't care but we all know that he did. It's almost like they fed off each other. Carol was the only one who could calm Daryl down and Daryl was always the one to make sure Carol had everything she needed. You know how we all used to say they were sleeping together? Someone even said once that Daryl and Carol were like Siamese twins. They could always know what the other was thinking and seemed to be so in tune with each other. Where ever they are. I hope that there're happy and they watch down on us as we continue on with our lives. "
"Amen." Everyone chorused. After that everyone dispersed off to random areas. Carl was the only one to remain. He crouched at the foot of the grave and he burst out sobbing.
"Why Carol? You were like my mum! You couldn't hang around for just a little bit longer?" He shouted. Carol flinched and turned into the hunter's chest crying. Daryl wrapped his arms around his friend bitting back his own tears.
"If Carol was my mum Daryl, You were my second dad. Both of you are jerks! Why did you have to die? I love you both. Please come back…" and with that Carl ran up toward the prison.
Daryl's legs gave way and they both fell to the grass holding each other as they cried. Eventually they had cried all the tears they were capable of crying. Carol and Daryl lay there numb to all but each other.
Carol shivered as a particularly nasty wind-chill blew over them. He picked himself up of the grass pulling him with her. They stumbled had in hand through the prison as they made their way to the tombs. It was an unspoken agreement that they weren't going to their cell. Too many memories were there to deal with at the moment. On the way they passed people sobbing and crying. Carol had no idea that this many people would be effected by their passing.
A few cells had been cleaned out in death row and been made a little more "homey" than the previous versions before the turn. They stumbled into the room and collapsed on the bed. Carol dragged the sheets over them and within minutes not even an earthquake could wake them. Exhausted to the bone, they slept.