A/N: Hey guys! Surprised to see me so soon? Yeah, I am too. The drawback is that this chapter is rather... short. So was last chapter, but worry not! I've already got the next chapter started, so it shouldn't be too far away.
There are people buzzing around Charlie like flies drawn in by the scent of death. That might be true, seeing as two deaths had occurred under an hour ago, one of them caused by Charlie's own hand. Someone moved Mark's body, but she can still see the smudges of blood soaked into the caliche. People have been talking at her, but at this point they would get more responses from a rock. They realize this and leave her be. All attempts to move her fail. Her eyes are wide and glassy, her mind so overfilled with thoughts that not even one has a chance at being coherent. It's like a piece of paper thoroughly soaked in ink. There are words and there are meanings, but they're lost in the big picture. So crammed with meaning, that it might as well be blank.
"Charlotte."
Charlie's entire body gives a jerk, her head whipping around for the source of the sound. It's her father. He's standing in the door of the RV. He steps down, his thick work boots crunching down on the rocks and making clouds of caliche dust flare up like little whirlwinds. He takes another step, smudging Mark's blood puddles.
Charlie gives a shriek, kicking away from him, her fingers clawing into the earth, "NO!" She's screaming so loudly that everyone drops what they're doing and crowds around her.
"Charlie?" "CHARLIE!" "What are you doing?" "Charlie?!" "Why is she screaming?" "Shut up!" "Charlie." "CHARLIE!"
Can't they see him? Can't they see the man slowly approaching her?
"Charlotte, what have you done?" he asks with slow purpose.
"Go away!" Charlie sobs, flinging a handful of dust and rocks at the man. It passes right through him, leaving not a speck on his greasy white shirt. "Leave me alone! Please, please, please… just leave me alone!" She's weeping openly now, the tears remoistening tracks of previously dried blood. Her father steps inside the ring of people gathered around her, causing her to jolt to her feet and stumble away. She nearly bowls over some of the people surrounding her, but she doesn't care.
"You're dead, Charlotte. You will pay for the sins you have committed."
Charlie desperately lurches away from him, launching into a wild sprint through camp. It's almost deserted. Everyone's either in their tent, or up at the RV. She meets no resistance as she flies past the edge of camp and into the surrounding forest. She cuts through the path she ran earlier the day before. She passes the edge of the track and keeps going, her fear fueling her in the same way coal fuels a fire.
Charlie's steps are loud and clumsy, but she can still hear his voice cut through the racket she's making. "That's four now, isn't it?" He asks, calmly strolling along behind her. "I was the first. That little girl, Kendra, wasn't it? She was the second. Then Seth was third and Mark fourth." His laugh lashes out like a physical blow, causing a hysterical wail to leave Charlie's throat.
"NO! I didn't! I didn't kill you! I didn't! Wasn't me, wasn't me, wasn't me…" Charlie sobs, tripping over a tree branch and landing hard on her arms. Defeated, she curls into a ball and waits for hell to unleash upon her.
"It was you. The only one to blame is you. I died, Charlotte, and you could've stopped it. You may not have tied the noose, but you gave me the rope," her father finally reaches her and begins to circle her in much the same way a predator stalks around its prey.
Charlie crawls away from him, doing her best not to hear the words that leave his mouth. But it's impossible, he might as well be screaming into her ear. She has nothing to say to try to refute him any longer, because every word that leaves his mouth is true.
"Foolish little Charlie, you've always relied on others more than they relied on you. If you died instead of Seth, how torn up do you think he'd be? Sure, he'd cry a little, lose a couple winks of sleep… but do you really think he'd imagine his dead father chasing him down and giving him life lessons?" His laugh strikes her again, and she feels tears running down her cheeks. "You're going to have to find another crutch, my dear. Because Mark's soul is angry, and you won't find anyone who wants a killer."
Charlie heaves herself to her feet and stumbles into a clumsy run, ducking and weaving through the tree branches. Her heart thumps in her chest, giving her the impression that it wants to escape. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth like Velcro. Her lips are chapped and cracked. There's a trickle of blood coming from somewhere on the side of her head. Not knowing is what's best for now. She ignores the blood. She runs faster.
"Run all you want, little Charlie. It's the only thing you're good for," his voice is whispering in her ear, but he's nowhere to be seen any more. "But know that no matter how fast you run, I will never leave you."
Charlie, after running as far as she could, collapsed. She's at least three miles away from camp. Her last thought before falling into unconsciousness was the hope that no one would find her. She didn't want to be found, she didn't want to face the accusing stares of the judgmental people. She didn't want to be an outcast. Because that's what she would be if she went back. Who would want to associate with them woman who killed a man?
Accident or not, Mark is now dead because of Charlie. That's the kind of thing that is not easily forgotten. It sticks to the inside of one's memory with the blind determination of a baited bull, like bubblegum, once ingrained, there's very little chance of getting it out. In the collective memory of the group, Charlie is now a killer.
Charlie's aware of this, she understands. She can't go back. Because she killed Mark.
There's something nudging her. The motion starts gentle, but quickly progresses past the point of pain. In a detached way, Charlie finds herself wishing it's a walker. Maybe then she could escape this hellacious new world where Seth's dead. Oh, and cannibals are present as well.
This line of thought, this fleeting foolish hope, prevents Charlie from reacting to the, now painful, jabs. Maybe it'll figure out that trying to bite through denim isn't the best plan of action. Then again, it is dead. Maybe she's expecting too much.
Charlie's eyes slide open, the glare of the sun filtering through the trees momentarily blinding her. Huh, it was the afternoon when she left camp, but the sun's in the wrong position for it to be afternoon. "What time is it?" she wonders aloud, almost casually.
"Time for you ta git yer ass up. The fuck're ya doin' out here? An' why're you covered in blood?" Daryl's sneering face cuts into the line of sunshine, allowing Charlie to see that he has his crossbow trained on her. She sees it, she perceives it as a threat against her life, but she can't bring herself to care. Sleep had not brought even a fleeting moment of respite from the new world without Seth. Her dreams were filled with him. She heard him, his voice, screaming at her, berating her, pleading with her. She saw him, his smiling face with the quarter sized hole where his right eye used to be.
"Well?" Daryl grumbles, expecting an answer from Charlie. "Ah asked you a question."
"So you did…" Charlie breathes, dragging herself into a sitting position. The movement causes the dried blood to tug at her skin uncomfortably. She swallows thickly, trying to force the words to leave her mouth. How hard could it be? "It's… It's not mine," she says at last, failing to reach an adequate explanation.
"Well, ain't that a fuckin' relief. Wanna tell me whose it is?" Daryl asks, a sarcastic snarl underlining his words.
Charlie's heart tightens, preparing against the onslaught of memories. She licks her lips, wincing when her saliva remoistens the cracked surfaces. "It's Seth's," she says finally, the name nearly burning a hole in her tongue.
Charlie's confession causes Daryl to lower his crossbow and avert his eyes. "He turn?" he asks.
Charlie's breath hitches in her throat. Deep breaths, Charlie, she schools herself, trying to pull herself out of the rising wave of grief. "He, ah, he didn't get a chance…" she swallows, rubbing her palms on her dirty, bloody jeans. "Someone… Someone came into the RV before the fever took him and… He was still alive and they…" she can't finish the sentence on account of her itching eyes and tingling nose, the symptoms of oncoming tears. Daryl shifts his weight, bringing his thumb up to his mouth to chew on his nail. Other than that, he waits patiently for Charlie to gather her wits and continue telling him what happened.
"Mark came into the RV and shot Seth in the head," she says the stream of words quickly, like ripping off a bandage in one motion instead of dragging out the pain. "He was still… still alive."
Daryl shifts his position again, "An' what happened ta Mark?"
With a shiver of horror, Charlie remembers the final jerk Mark's body gave as she landed upon him. She feels hysteria creeping at the edge of her conscience in the same way predators stalk the edges of the glow of a camp-fire. She pulls her legs to her chest and wraps her arms firmly around them, rapidly blinking to try and clear her vision of tears. "He's dead now," she says simply, not owning up to her sin.
"What," Daryl snorts, as if he found something humorous about the situation, "did Deputy Douchebag shoot him?" The acrid taste of bile floods Charlie's mouth and she clamps her mouth shut, slowly shaking her head.
Daryl watches her, his eyes narrowed in acute suspicion, "Who killed 'im?" he asks, watching as her face turns a couple shades paler. Charlie doesn't outwardly answer, her lips still clamped shut. She slowly shakes her head, refusing to answer the question. That action in itself is enough to tell Daryl exactly who killed Mark.
"Shit, Charles… ya didn't…" Daryl mutters, looking at her with a new perspective.
Charlie gives a shuttering breath, tucking her face into the crook of her knees. "I can't go back," she whispers. The reality of her situation has not yet sunk in. It will soon.
"What happened to yer ear?" Daryl asks abruptly, startling Charlie out of her downward spiral. Cautiously, Charlie raises her hand to her ear, the one crusted with dried blood. She runs her fingers lightly over the shell of her ear until she runs into a ragged dip about half the size of a penny in her cartilage. It's warm to the touch and painful. She belatedly jerks her hand away at the onset of pain, wincing as her ear starts to throb.
"I was… I was really close to Seth when Mark shot him. I think the bullet grazed me," she says slowly, realizing how close she came to death.
Daryl nods in acknowledgement of her statement, shifting his grip on the crossbow. There's silence between them. Daryl doesn't ask any more questions, and Charlie doesn't offer any more explanations.
Wordlessly, Daryl turns his back on Charlie, leaving in the direction he came from. She unflinchingly watches him leave, dragging herself to lean against a tree trunk. She doesn't care that he's leaving; it's exactly what she expected. Her muscles ache from her uncomfortable night spent on the ground. Closing her eyes, she wishes briefly that she could just go to sleep and escape it all.
"Wonder if they got the sense to bury the bodies yet," Daryl says, his voice coming from a couple feet away. He hadn't left yet.
Charlie's eyes pop open, shocked that she had managed to forget such an important thing. Had they buried Seth the way he deserved to be buried? She struggles to get to her feet using the tree as an anchor, her numb legs threatening to dump her on the ground at any moment. She couldn't leave something like that to chance, she had to see with her own eyes. She would dig his grave on her own. Perhaps she could leave after that. Wobbling like a new-born deer, she stumbles in the direction of the camp. She had tried to get so far away she wouldn't know what direction the camp was in, taking many unnecessary twists and turns. Yet, she couldn't fool her brain. It unfailingly kept tabs for her, even as she begged it not to.
If Daryl has any objections to her leaving, he doesn't voice them. Instead, he picks up his string of squirrels and stalks deeper into the forest, his silent footsteps supporting his merit as a hunter. Charlie still has problems making her footsteps quiet, and in the stillness, they sound like Death.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! But I'd really appreciate some reviews! I write this story because I love it, and I love sharing it with all of you guys! The only thing I ask for in return is a review. I want y'all to tell me how you like it so far and what you think of the chapter. It would really make my day, and I always reply personally to reviews, even if it might take a couple days for me to get to it. Thanks! I hope you continue to stick with me!
