Chapter 4: 4th Life
It had to be the coldest winter in Georgia history. They'd traveled north far enough that they were being hit with some bad snow and biting winds, and it was all they could do to find food and keep warm. Daryl had been going out on a lot of hunting trips, and Carol often tagged along to get a little shooting practice in.
She was getting good with a gun. She was steady and sure, though she didn't always hit her target. But, each day, she showed great improvement and promise, and she would feel flutter in her stomach when Daryl would give her a half-smile and blush and tell her how good she was getting.
But today was different. Today, they'd left the group behind at the storage units to go kill something for breakfast. It had started out as any normal morning with Daryl pointing out the various animal tracks in the snow. But it wasn't long before animal tracks became muddled with human tracks. More precisely, walker tracks. And then blood. That was when they came across a pack of walkers devouring a deer like hungry wolves.
Their eyes met, and Daryl held his finger to his lips before nodding toward a group of close-set trees. Carol followed his lead, walking slowly through the snow, trying to be as silent as possible. The way the walkers snarled and gnashed at the deer, she was certain their focus was completely on the meal, but it wasn't wise to make assumption when it came to walkers. It was never wise.
They pulled themselves between the trees, almost wedging themselves in to hide themselves. Carol felt Daryl's hands against her waist, and she sucked in a sharp breath, as he pressed into each other, eyes meeting for a fleeting moment before the flush of pink rushed over Daryl's cheeks. Even in a moment of panic, he was still blushing from touching her. It was sweet, and it almost made her want to cry. She'd seen rare glimpses of the man behind the hard, redneck exterior he'd presented. He wasn' the angry asshole he let people see at the beginning. He was a good man. He fought hard to take care of the ones around him, just like he was protecting her now, pulling her close to hide them—hide her—from the walkers.
And then her knife dropped. She realized in that horrible moment that it had come loose from her belt, and she felt her stomach drop and her heart race the second the blade hit the side of the tree, the tiny ting barely audible. But it was loud enough.
Shit.
A walker looked up from the deer carcass, snarling as it spotted Carol and Daryl huddled together between the trees. It rose, clamoring toward them, blood dripping and flesh falling from its teeth. Carol gasped and stumbled backward, and Daryl pulled himself out.
"Run," he demanded, reaching down to grab Carol's knife before sprinting after her through the snow. And that was when another herd came out of the trees just yards ahead of them, probably attracted by the blood from the deer.
"Daryl!" Carol called out, stopping him. He stumbled slightly, his feet skidding over the thick sheet of ice under the snow. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the woods, but in that moment, a walker came out from the right and grabbed onto Daryl's arm. He yelled out as the walkers squeezed his arm, and tugged at him, trying to get a chunk out of him. "No!" Carol reached for her knife, realizing Daryl still had it and was hacking at the walker, unable to get an angle on its head.
She looked around frantically, finding nothing she could use to fight it off, so she did the only thing she could. She rushed at the walker, knocking it off its feet. It let go of Daryl, and he scrambled back, panting as he tried to catch his breath, his eyes wide with fear as Carol toppled over with the heavy corpse.
Carol's eyes blew wide as the heavy body knocked the wind out of her. Her head slammed into the icy ground. Hard. As the world blurred and spun around her, somewhere in the back of her mind, the tinkling sound of shattered mirror falling on a tiled, blood-spattered floor echoed. Her hands pushed blindly, willing the body off of her, willing it to stop, willing the assault away as the decaying lips pulled back to reveal gnashing teeth and a pale, dry tongue.
"Carol!" Daryl yelled out, scrambling for his crossbow as her legs kicked out and she weakly fought back as her pulse pounded and her chest burned, aching for breath. She finally felt the air rush back in her lungs when she used her knees to push back. The walker slumped over her suddenly, its weight pressing her down, and she felt blood trickling down her neck. Nothing flashed before her eyes in that moment. Everything just slowed down, and she realized that this was it. This was how she was going to die. But she wasn't done fighting yet. She pushed, and the walker rolled off of her, rolling onto the hard snow in one clumsy move. Sticking out of the side of its head was an arrow with green feathers.
"God," he murmured, pulling her up to sit, his hands moving over her shoulder, pulling back the layers of her coat to examine the blood. He sighed heavily and bowed his head as Carol clutched his arm. "You're ok."
"I'm not bit?"
"It's his blood," he murmured, nodding toward the still body. "You're…oh fuck." He wiped at the blood with his bare hands, and she put her hand over his.
"Thank you."
"The hell were you thinkin' jumpin' on him like that?" Daryl asked, zipping Carol's coat back up and cleaning his hands off in the snow. Carol blinked at his words, her mouthing opening and closing for a moment before she found the words.
"I didn't think. I just…I didn't want you to die." Daryl sighed and slumped down in the snow next to her.
"Don't gotta be a hero. I'd a'been ok." Carol nodded her head and looked away, feeling her pulse beginning to slow. She felt a nudge on her shoulder. "Thanks." She smiled at him and shrugged a little.
"It was nothing you wouldn't have done."