Hey, guys, I'm back with another chapter and goodness is it a long one. I'm actually surprised I have it done by now, it's been a very hectic week. As always, a million thanks for your reviews and support, I truly, truly appreciate it. Today's chapter title is "Moar Ghosts 'n' Stuff" by deadmau5, and it's a terrific mix of fun and sinister, which is exactly what I needed for this chapter. Anyway, I'm excited and nervous to hear what you think. Hope you enjoy!
10. Moar Ghosts 'n' Stuff
Alpha
When the ground crumbled under the truck, sending it into the quarry, she burned with grim satisfaction. Their time had come earlier than expected. The walkers flooded through the open exit, the man named Rick shouted orders to his frightened people, and Alpha gave the signal to Beta.
He nodded and rushed off to rally the Wolves, not bothering to hide his resentment. The stab wound on his side needed some serious attention, and the only way he was getting meds for it was by invading Alexandria.
Alpha watched until Rick and his people disappeared, then snatched up the first walker she saw.
She'd been practicing for so long, she didn't need to sacrifice efficiency for quickness, or vice versa. When she was done, there were no holes except where the eyes had been, and a long slit in the back for her to slip into.
The Alexandrians hadn't inspired the idea to skin walkers, though she was excited to experiment with it today. No, originally, that idea had been for Negan. To use against him. And after today, she would. She would take Alexandria, take their food and their homes and their weapons. She would bleed Eugene like a pig in front of Mason, force her to watch as the light left his eyes. She would have her revenge on the woman she'd loved in a life before all this.
And then she would have her revenge on Negan.
Mason
Beth was behind her but it didn't matter. Mason was terrified. No amount of reassurance could temper the fear in her heart; it practically convulsed with it. Rain cascaded like quicksilver. Thunder rumbled with the promise of violence.
The blood waited ahead, thrumming unearthly, neon red in time with her pulse. She took a heavy step toward it, though every inch of her pulled in the other direction. She didn't want to see. She couldn't.
"You have to see," Beth said.
She trusted Beth. Beth would never lie to her.
But there was something in that puddle.
And it meant to kill her.
She took another step and the puddle rippled wildly, pulling at the edges in strange ways. Like someone standing up under a sheet.
She stopped as the sheet took form, tapering into limbs, crimping into joints. A head materialized on shoulders of deepest red. A mouth opened, whispering in a voice like glass scraping glass.
"Here is your longest night. The darkest winter Solstice."
The face was coalescing. Sharp cheekbones. Dainty nose. Eyes as violent green as antifreeze, glinting reflectively.
"I'm going to dissect you."
The breath caught in her throat, choking on her horror, because that face, that face was...
"I will take everything you love."
Gina
She lurched awake, a scream razoring up her throat. She was soaked and shuddering; she thought for one wild moment that she was wet from the rain, that somehow, in some freaky sci-fi turn of events, she had really been back in that forest. It took a second to realize that the rain was sweat, that she sat glistening in a halo of it, and that she was on the floor of her new home, a year and a half away from that night.
"Mason."
Eugene grabbed her shoulders, steadying her as she shook. She reached out to grip his arms like life preservers and struggled to catch her breath.
"It was a nightmare," he murmured, still half-asleep. "You're okay. It was a nightmare."
"It was Gina," she replied, desperate and tremulous. "It was her, she was whispering to me. Beth was trying to show me..."
She broke off, swallowing brokenly. Her mind was still a whirl of darkness and rain. She couldn't get a handle on it.
"I need air."
"Okay. Come on."
He lifted her to her feet and led her down the hall to Noah's room. It was the only unoccupied room with access to the roof, and no one had claimed it since he'd died. His belongings, meager though they were, still sat on the dresser next to the bed. A splinter of grief lodged in her throat.
Eugene let her sit in silence while she regathered her wits. A faint clip of silver, the last wisp of the moon's cycle, hung low in the western horizon. There was not enough of it to lend its light, and the night felt claustrophobic. Mason took comfort in Eugene's steady, thoughtful expression, how he watched the moon with his arms hugging his knees to his chest. It made him look like a kid.
"I've been having these dreams for a while now," she finally said. He looked at her but said nothing, waiting for her to continue.
"Just one dream, I guess. Recurring. It starts off back at the prison. With Beth. We're..."
She trailed off, suddenly unwilling to tell Eugene about kissing Beth, about the overwhelming desire to do more. She skipped over it.
"She tells me she needs to show me something, so I follow her up to roof. Except when we climb out of the air duct, we're in this forest. This forest I've been to before. The one where I lost...lost Gina."
Eugene's eyes darkened with understanding. She didn't have to explain any further than that. She'd told him the story.
"I'm scared. I don't want to keep going but Beth assures me that it's okay. That I need to see..." She paused for a shaky sigh. "For a while it would always end the same. We'd come to the blood, the puddle of it. She would tell me to look and every time I stepped forward I'd wake up. But tonight, and the night before, the blood became this- figure. The first night it was just a walker, but tonight..."
"It was Gina," Eugene finished. "That's what you said."
"Yeah," she rasped. "And it wasn't that it was...nightmarish, or...or gruesome or...I don't know. I've never had a dream like that. That felt so real."
Eugene stiffened as if he'd been slapped. His hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles paled.
He murmured something that sounded like, "The heart doesn't reason."
"What?"
"I had a dream like that," he said. "I was inclined to believe it wasn't real, but my heart...my heart doesn't reason."
When he looked at her then, she was struck by his eyes. She couldn't read them, there was such a flurry of emotion there, but she was terrified by the desperation, the need, they inspired within her.
"It was Beth," he said. "She was waiting for me, on the roof of the prison."
Mason took a soft breath. "Beth?"
"Yes. She...she said she wanted to meet me, to thank me for looking after you. She gave me tea."
A tiny laugh escaped her, edging on hysteria. "Of course she did. Of course."
She'd told him a lot of things, but she'd never mentioned the tea thing before.
She closed her eyes.
A coincidence.
Yes, of course. They were just dreams, dreams with coincidences. Just their own weirdo psyches fucking with them. Of course.
"She also told me about that song. The one we danced to."
Her eyes flashed open. "The song," she whispered.
From far away, she felt Eugene touch her face. "Mason?"
coincidence coincidence coincidence
"I'm here," she murmured.
His eyes flickered, still unreadable. "I apologize, sweetheart. It was my first instinct to tell you, but I didn't...I didn't want to upset you any more than you already were."
Right. Because she hadn't exactly been on stable ground at the time. She shook her head.
"You don't have anything to apologize for. They're just dreams." She said this more than firmly. She said it like she was gearing up for a fight. "Weird shit happens in dreams, that's all. I don't know why I'm freaking out. I'm sorry."
"That's entirely unnecessary. But are you sure-"
"Eugene. I'm okay. Promise."
With a little smile, she touched her pinky finger to his.
And hoped, just once, that he couldn't see her lying.
~m~
"The flowers really are lovely, Mason. Thank you." Bill smiled, positioning the vase just so in the middle of the kitchen table.
"Eugene and I found them this morning patrolling the wall. I thought maybe once the group gets back I could transplant a few. Janet could work on that garden she's been talking about."
"I think that would be perfect for her."
Bill sighed. For one moment, Mason saw the exhaustion he hid so well.
"She's...not been doing well lately. I think a little time spent in a garden would do her some good. She used to have quite a green thumb back before all this."
Mason nodded and quickly swallowed her pity, knowing Bill wouldn't appreciate it. "Well, I'll get right on that soon as all this is taken care of."
"Are you staying for tea?"
"No, I..."
She was waiting for me... She gave me tea.
"Rick put me in charge, I need to keep an eye on things."
"Of course, dear. And, really. Thank you."
It was a beautiful day, hard to believe that a legion of walkers lurked just up the road. Eugene and Tara were gathering supplies for Carl's first science lesson. Carol was babysitting Little Asskicker. Maggie had taken Deanna out to a place beyond the wall, where they planned to make room for crops.
It was strange, walking through the community by herself. Everything was quiet. Empty. The nape of her neck prickled as she wove through the houses. She had the distinct impression that someone was watching her, but she was alone.
Don't be a spaz, she told herself. You're just hyped up from your nightmare.
She knew it was true, but she couldn't shake the feeling regardless.
Eugene
"Before we delve into the minutiae of periodic tables and molecular composition, I thought we'd start off this lesson with why all that stuff is cool."
Carl snickered. "Cool?"
"Yes. What is it you kids say nowadays? It's off the chain."
"Oh my god, Eugene..."
"Now. As well as being incredibly bitchin'-"
"You're just trying to embarrass me, aren't you?"
"I am indeed, sir. It fuels me, as it does any self-respecting teacher. Now. As well as being incredibly bitchin', this presentation actually has a practical application. There is a severe lack in this new world of pyrotechnics."
Carl raised an eyebrow, suddenly excited. "Pyrotechnics?"
"Oh, right, now you're interested."
"Well...yeah! Are we gonna blow something up?"
Eugene ruffled his hair. "Not today, I'm afraid. But we will be setting things on fire."
"That's cool, too."
"I have a feeling you are going to make an exceptionally terrifying arsonist."
Mason
She heard the shattering first, two quick claps of it from the southern wall.
The screaming came next.
She was off like a shot, gun drawn and ready. She was just in time to see the body of Richards, who was on watch duty, tumble over the wall in a cloud of flames. A second later, a ragged figure climbed over the side. Mason raised her gun and shot him, right through the eye.
A few yards away, another figure crawled over the wall, and another in the other direction. Ice clamped its teeth around her heart. They were coming in from all over, skittering over the panels like ants.
"Fuck!" she hissed, took aim and shot another invader through the chest. But there were too many. Twenty, twenty-five, thirty... Quickly she backed up, breathless with terror.
She was in charge of this place. It was up to her to defend it.
Screams rent the air, popping up in all directions. People were appearing on their porches, alerted by the noise. She couldn't leave them alone, but she couldn't be everywhere at once.
"Follow me!" she shouted. "Come on!"
They hesitated, likely put off by the bandages on her hands, the bruises she'd left on Carter's face.
Fuck... You're an idiot, Mason.
Before she could call to them again, a figure leaped out at her from behind a tree and slammed her into the ground. Mason raised her gun but the woman kicked it from her hand.
The woman was thin and grimy but the strength in her diminutive form was alarming. Her teeth were chipped and yellow. Her forehead was inscribed with a jagged W. Briefly Mason flashed on the night she and Eugene had gotten high at the library, when they'd seen that walker with the same W cut into its head.
Who the fuck... Did these people follow us from Georgia?
Her attacker wrapped a hand around Mason's throat, snaggy nails digging furrows into her skin. Gritting her teeth, Mason grabbed at the woman's fingers and bent them the wrong way. The woman howled as one of them snapped. Mason twisted to the side, kicking her heel back into the woman's side. In a second she was on her feet, drawing her fire iron from its perch on her back.
The woman hissed up at her like a feral cat. "Are you gonna kill me, Mason?"
Mason jolted. But she didn't ask how the woman knew her name. It was a trap, to lull her into lowering her guard. She swung the fire iron, and it connected with the woman's skull with a sick, clanging thump.
She retrieved her gun and turned back to the others, who watched her with wide eyes.
"You all need to come with me," she said.
They didn't hesitate then.
Eugene
"Alright, now mix that into the ice melt. Carefully. Don't get the mixture on your hands."
"What is this exactly?" Carl asked, frowning as he stirred the contents of the cup.
"I have every faith in you that you can guess its chemical structure."
"Well, I know the salt, that's obviously sodium. And you were telling me...you told me the stuff in the cold compress was...shit."
"No, not that."
"No, shut up, it was...something nitrate?"
"Yes."
"So...is it sodium nitrate?"
"That is correct, my young arsonist friend. All we need now is some good old H2O and then-"
He cut off abruptly at the sound of a scream, followed by two gunshots. Fear cut a jagged line through his gut. He drew his gun.
"Carl, I'll get you to Judith."
Carl nodded, his own gun at the ready. "Okay. You can stay there with her."
"No. Keep your sister safe. I need to find Mason."
Carl eyed him for a moment, like he wasn't sure whether to believe him or not. But whatever he saw in Eugene's face must have satisfied him, because he nodded with a grim smile.
"You got it, teach."
When they opened the door, Eugene's heart shriveled. He didn't know he'd been expecting walkers until he saw that it was people and his stomach dropped into his feet. The community had descended into chaos. Smoke billowed from several small fires. A slew of strangers ran rampant through the streets, drenched in blood.
For one second, fear nearly overwhelmed him.
And then he heard Mason's voice above the tumult a second before she appeared, rallying a group of Alexandrians around her as they hurried for the infirmary.
Eugene straightened his spine.
He was fucking terrified.
It didn't matter.
"C'mon, Carl," he murmured and they stepped into the fray.
Mason
The infirmary was a flurry of activity. Aaron and Rosita were there, rushing around under Denise's command. Their hands were covered in blood. An Alexandrian lay on the operating table, clearly the source of it.
Mason led the others inside, into the living room where they were out of the way.
"What do we do?" one of them wailed.
"You all need to stay here," she said. "You're safer together. Help Denise if she needs it. Keep your weapons ready just in case."
"What about you?"
"I have to-"
The blare of a car horn cut her off, loud and close by.
"What is that?"
"I don't know," she growled. "Stay here."
She swept back into the infirmary, where Rosita was sticking the Alexandrian with an IV. Denise leaned over the woman's torso, so slick with blood Mason couldn't tell where the wound was.
"How many people are out there?" Aaron asked.
"A lot. At least thirty," Mason said.
"Shit. We need to be out there," Rosita said.
Before Mason could reply, the door swung open. She whirled around, iron raised, but froze when she realized it was just Eugene. He was splattered with blood but it didn't appear to be his. She leapt into his arms, weak with relief.
He held her close for a moment, breathing her name into her hair. Then he let go.
"Carl is guarding Judith," he said. "Enid is with them."
"Good. You have your gun?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Rosita, Aaron and I are gonna head back out there. You stay here. The Alexandrians are in-"
"Whoa, whoa, slow your roll there, sister," Eugene said. "I'm comin' with you."
"Eugene, no. It's safer for you if you-"
"Excuse me, but this is non-negotiable. I have received training from both you and Abraham. This is warfare and you need every soldier you can get."
"No, Eugene," Mason growled. "This is different from walkers and you're not ready. I'm sorry. Stay here and protect the others."
Without waiting for a response, she flew through the door with Rosita and Aaron.
"We need to get to that horn and shut it off," Rosita said. "It's gonna bring every walker down on our heads."
"Not everyone was accounted for in the infirmary," Mason said. "We need to check the houses, see if anyone needs help."
"We don't have the time or the people to do that."
"We can't just leave-"
Mason stopped in her tracks. Her throat closed up. Smoke rose in a dark, sinister plume from Bill and Janet's house.
She started running before she could stop herself, ignoring the protests from Rosita and Aaron. An invader crossed her path, grinning vilely. She shot him without breaking stride.
The screen door was hanging open. The mesh was torn, fluttering solemnly like a broken wing. She crept inside, smothering the urge to call for Bill and Janet.
She didn't see anyone at first, but the house was trashed. The hallway to the kitchen was speckled with broken glass. The tea kettle was screaming. The table was flipped on its side, the flowers she'd picked scattered and crushed.
Then she saw Bill and a shard of agony pierced her.
She fell to her knees where he lay, bleeding from a stab wound in his throat. His wide, glistening eyes reeled to meet hers.
"No," she sobbed. "No."
His mouth moved, but whatever he was trying to say was drowned in a surge of blood. His face was alarmingly pale. Mason clamped her hands tighter over the wound, like she could somehow force the blood back into his body through sheer force of will.
He's dyin'.
The voice was not her own but she couldn't focus on that, she had to help him somehow, she had to get him to the infirmary.
He'll bleed out before you get him halfway there. You couldn't carry him anyway, and definitely not with those people out there.
She closed her eyes. It wasn't her voice. It was
Beth
Hershel
Noah
Bob
Tyreese
Merle
T-Dog
Lori
Bill's hands clutched her shoulders, surprisingly strong. She opened her eyes.
He opened his mouth again, splashing her with blood. He didn't make a sound, but he reached with one hand to point to the back door, which was hanging ajar. Lazy wisps of soot trailed inside.
He convulsed a moment later, eyes pinching closed as one last gush of red erupted from his mouth. His eyes never opened again.
Slowly she got to her feet, not bothering to wipe away the blood. Reaffirming her grip on her fire iron, she slipped through the back door and into the backyard.
She stood there for a long time, staring at the body and the smoke coiling from it, swallowing over and over again but unable to feel her throat.
I think a little time spent in a garden would do her some good.
It was Bill's voice that time. Her newest ghost.
She took a mechanic step toward Janet, noting distantly that the horn had stopped. She stopped when she realized that what she'd thought before was a whole body- burnt, but intact- was actually several pieces. Bile burned at the back of her throat. The rage followed, razing her insides to ash.
Mason.
It was Beth. It was Bill. It was both of them.
Behind you.
The weight fell on her a moment later, but she rolled with it, flipping onto her back with her attacker beneath her. He let out a loud grunt as her elbow jabbed sharply into his chest. She kept rolling before he could recover, scrambling to her feet and ramming the poker through his throat. Blood spurted onto her leg. She barely noticed.
Three others stood before her, all men, all large and well-muscled. One of them was about her size, and the most haunting in appearance. He wore a black hoodie, which hung from him like a reaper's cloak. His face was painted completely with blood. All of them held axes, all of them dripping gore.
She knew she should've been afraid. But all she could think of was Bill, how he'd taken a feral housekeeper under his wing, made her tea, given her advice to cope with her fucked up brain, and never once looked at her like she was crazy. And Janet, her unshakable sweetness, how happy she'd been when Mason had brought the flowers, how scared she must have been before her heart stopped.
Her blood surged with vengeance.
They all moved forward at once, but Mason was quick. She ducked and dodged, whirling her fire iron like a sword. Metal screeched against metal. An axe came down and her iron rose to meet it; the impact reverberated up her arm. She held it there for a moment before dancing to the side, allowing her iron to slide in one cunning maneuver through her attacker's chest.
She slid free, pitching to the side in time to avoid an axe to the head. It cut through her victim's arm instead and he lurched to the ground with an agonized howl.
"Bitch," her second attacker hissed, lunging with a careless swipe of his axe. She parried deftly, fleet with fire, but it was not enough to keep her safe from the third man.
His axe sliced down the length of her arm. The pain took her by surprise, forcing her to drop the fire poker.
Clutching her wound, she backed up, eyes flickering from one man to the other. Bloodface was grinning- no. He was bearing his teeth like a rabid animal. The W on his head was a burn, she released. A brand.
She reached for her gun, rather awkwardly as she kept one hand on the gash. She wasn't sure why. It was too big to hope to stem without stitches.
Clinking sounded behind her. She turned to see a new invader close in behind her, face hidden by a grimy du-rag except for their eyes and the W painted on their forehead. Wrapped around their hands was a length of metal chain, on the other end of which was Morgan.
Mason narrowed her eyes, looking from them to the other two, her body angled like a cornered animal. There was nowhere to run, and even if she fired her gun, even if she managed to take down the axe men, the newcomer would surely finish her off.
Worth it, she thought to herself, and it was enough to convince her to raise the gun.
But when the gunfire came, it was not from her.
The axe men crumpled in unison, sporting matching head wounds. Mason turned, blinking in shock, as the newcomer lowered their gun and pulled the du-rag down around their neck.
"Carol?" she breathed.
"We need to bind your arm," Carol replied, releasing Morgan. Both of them hovered over her, Morgan ripping a length of cloth from his shirt to wrap her wound with. Mason just stared, shaking her head every once in a while.
When they were nearly done, Carol sighed. "What's that look for?"
Mason shook her head once more. "You are such a badass."
All Carol said in reply was, "That hoodie would fit you."
She was right, Mason realized. Grimness washed away whatever distaste she might've felt at the thought of wearing the murderer's clothes. They all had jobs. This was hers.
"Your arm's gonna need stitches," Morgan said as she stripped Bloodface of his hoodie. "You should go to the infirmary."
"When these fuckers are dead," she replied. "Then I'll go."
His eyes darkened. "You don't have to kill 'em."
For a second she thought he was making a joke in poor taste, but one look at the loathing on Carol's face and she knew he wasn't.
"Are you...are you seeing this?" Mason motioned to Janet's body, not quite able to look at her. "Do you see what they did to her? That was an old lady who couldn't defend herself, who couldn't even make it up and down the stairs without her husband's help. And you're saying we don't have to kill them?"
Vengeance sparked in his eyes; she recognized it as surely as her own. But then he said, "No."
Mason shook her head, unable to find the words to express her disgust. She pulled on the hoodie and turned to Carol.
"I need to check the other houses, see if there's anyone left who needs help. You need to try for the armory. We can't allow these people to get to our guns."
Carol nodded. "I'll check it out. Stay safe, Mason."
"You, too."
Eugene
He ducked under the dark shelter of a pine tree, keeping his back to the house behind him. A few yards away, a brawny monster of a man was busy hacking a dead body into pieces. Their brutality was appalling. It froze Eugene in his tracks, siphoning his courage.
Still he lifted his gun and took aim.
The first shot caught the man's hand, blowing a few fingers off in the process. He screeched and dropped his axe, whipping his head around for the source of the gunfire, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog.
Eugene fired again, and this time the bullet traveled clean through the man's eye. He collapsed like a felled tree, splashing in the puddle of gore he'd created.
Taking a deep breath, Eugene ventured from his cover, moving quickly. There was screaming coming from all around him. He couldn't tell where to go next and he hadn't seen any sign of Mason since she'd run from the infirmary.
She's okay. She has to be. She's okay.
He kept this mantra up as he crossed from one yard to the next. Footprints trailed away from a thick puddle of blood. Silencing his fear, he followed them down a narrow alley between houses.
A shadow darted across his path, wielding a baseball bat. Eugene dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding having his head bashed in. He turned on his heel as the figure whirled back for him. It was so covered in blood it had been stripped of any identifying features. For one wild moment he thought of Mason's dream, the red wraith. Then he pulled the trigger.
Blood sprayed his face, momentarily blinding him. He staggered back, swiping at his face, and that was when he heard the voice.
Duck, Eugene.
He obeyed, of course, because he recognized that voice. He remembered it from a dream.
Something swung in an arc above him, so quick he would've missed it if he'd blinked. Breathless with fear, he turned around.
It was a walker, or at least it looked like one. But the way it moved was all wrong. It moved like a living person, and in its hand it held a fire poker. Panic choked him before he realized that it wasn't Mason's.
The walker-creature snarled at him, or grinned, he really couldn't tell. There was something strange about its eyes, too. It took him a second to put it together.
The skin around them was ragged in strange places. And the eyes itself were green. Vivid green, not the milky wasteland of the dead ones.
And it wasn't just around those eyes, those incredibly human eyes. Its fingers hung strangely, like they didn't quite fit over the bones, and one side of its rotten chest had pulled just a bit to the side, like a rumpled shirt.
It's a mask. The whole thing. It's a no joke motherfucking mask.
In the same moment that he realized this, the thing moved, raising the fire poker like a spear. Abraham's lesson came back like instinct. Eugene raised his arm, diverting the fire poker from his torso. The point dragged down the skin of his arm, tearing it open. He cried out in pain but kept enough of his wits about him to slam his weight into the iron, knocking it from the creature's grasp.
With a furious screech, it lunged. Instead of flinching away, he grabbed it as it descended, allowing him enough of an edge to roll to the side and fling it against the wall of one of the houses.
He lurched to his feet, spattering blood, and raised his gun. But when he pulled the trigger there was only a hollow click, and he had no extra ammo.
"Fuck."
The thing was already recovering, snatching up its fire iron with a low growl.
"So you are a fighter."
The voice was sharp and feminine and ran through him like a knife. When the thing looked up, it smiled a hideous smile.
"I promise you, that just makes this more fun."
Trembling, he drew his knife. The creature laughed.
"Cute."
He threw the knife, just like Mason taught him. It missed the thing's neck by inches, sinking instead into its shoulder. He took off while it was distracted, sprinting back the way he'd come. He wasn't far from the armory. If he could just make it there...
He skidded to a halt. The invaders were already there, a cluster of them hooting and howling like coyotes at a kill.
From behind him, he heard the distinct slap-patter of bare feet on pavement.
Run.
He obeyed the voice again, that sweet dream whisper, like the eye of a storm. He ran in the opposite direction, toward his own house. He didn't have ammo, but everything was still set up from his chemistry lesson with Carl.
The creature stuck right on his heels the whole way. There was no room to slow down. He burst through the front door hard enough that he racked his own nose against it. He careened into the kitchen, snatching the sodium nitrate and the bottle of water off the island. The creature swiped her fire iron across the counter top. It missed him by an inch.
He raced for the back door, and only once he was outside did he turn around, tossing the sodium nitrate into the creature's macabre face.
She lurched back with a gasp. He didn't give her the chance to recover. He opened the water bottle and doused her.
The flames erupted in a startling burst, smothering her face, eating a quick path down her shoulders and chest.
The creature shrieked, swinging blindly with its fire poker. This time it did hit him, catching him on the temple.
The world disappeared briefly, and when it returned he was slumped on the ground. He blinked through the pain in his head, clearing the blurriness from his eyes. Some distance away, the creature was still spinning, clawing at its burning skin.
As he watched, it shed its rotten hide, shimmying free in a haze of flames...
In the next blink, it was gone. He couldn't tell if he'd passed out again, but he could still hear gunshots and the occasional scream. He hadn't been out for long.
Stifling a groan, he climbed to his feet. Unsteady though he was, he had enough strength to wield the fire poker the creature had dropped. It wasn't a gun, but he would have to make it work.
He stumbled back into the chaos.
Mason
She looked just like them, her face washed in blood, hidden in the shadow of her hoodie. She'd taken Bloodface's axe as well, to make it more believable. It was actually a fantastic weapon, but she knew she couldn't stomach keeping it after all this was over.
Moving through the community was easier disguised. She ghosted from invader to invader, taking them down without ever needing to battle them, which was good because her arm was starting to feel a lot more like hot coals than muscle. She'd taken down at least fifteen of them, and the others were obviously sharing her success because the invaders were thinning. She was daring to hope that they might actually win this.
When she saw Eugene, everything in her ground to an icy halt. Her lungs shriveled to husks. Her heart paused, and then took off at rocket speed.
There he stood in the middle of the street, covered in blood and facing off with a man who could've been a bodybuilder in the previous world. The man brandished a machete, though Mason had no doubt he could crush Eugene with his fists if he really wanted to. Eugene himself had a fire poker, which he was using to block Bodybuilder's blows with surprising success.
But his movements dragged, and it was clear he didn't have long until Bodybuilder overwhelmed him.
"Embry!"
It took a second to realize that Bodybuilder was hailing her.
Fuck, she thought. If she'd stayed hidden she could've dispatched him without issue. She'd just been so distracted by the sight of Eugene, out here on the killing field...
Eugene backed away as she approached, eyes wide with the certainty of his death. She resisted the urge to reassure him, to tell him that she wasn't going to let anything happen to him, and instead turned her attention to Bodybuilder.
"This is the one, right?" he said. "The one Alpha's bitch wanted."
Mason nodded silently, glancing briefly at Eugene.
Their eyes met. His glinted with recognition. Hers glittered with retribution.
"Good. Help me get the chains on him."
Bodybuilder advanced on Eugene, unwrapping a length of chain from around his hulking shoulders. Eugene backed away, trembling and babbling something about sparing his life.
But his eyes remained clear. Cunning. And Mason appreciated all over again his expertise in lying.
"Shut up and kneel," Bodybuilder snarled.
Playing his part to perfection, Eugene sank to his knees, allowing Mason a chance to edge behind Bodybuilder's massive frame.
He grinned savagely. "What the fuck would anyone want with you? Pathetic sheep."
Then he swiped the machete across Eugene's cheek.
A red haze blinded her.
Dropping the axe, she drove her fire poker into Bodybuilder's back and out through his chest.
He gasped and whirled on her. His fist caught her on the jaw, hard enough that she pitched to the ground.
Eugene was up in a second, grabbing the fire poker and yanking it out. Blood spurted from the wound, a double-sided faucet. Bodybuilder roared in agony, thrashing like an enraged bull. He might've done more damage, but Eugene cracked the iron across his face and sent him to the pavement.
For a moment, both of them stayed where they were, staring at the growing puddle of blood while they struggled to catch their breath.
Then they looked at each other, and Eugene wilted. When he spoke, he sounded on the verge of tears.
"Mason."
"Eugene," she rasped. "What the fuck are you doing out here?"
Gunshots tapped an ominous beat from the direction of the armory. Not handguns. Machine guns. Mason's stomach clenched. Eugene took a deep breath.
"They're not all dead," he said. "We need to finish this."
A confusion of emotions swelled in her chest. She was so incredibly proud of him, and so incredibly mad at him, and so incredibly scared for him, that she had no idea what to say.
Silently, Eugene helped her to her feet. She gasped when her fingers slid in the blood on his arm.
"You need to go to the infirmary."
He shook his head stubbornly. "Last I saw they'd made it to the armory. We have to finish this."
She knew he was right, and she knew she needed all the help she could get. But she couldn't strangle the fear she felt as they rushed toward the sound of the gunfire.
They met several invaders on the way to the armory. She and Eugene fought them side-by-side, and though they were both exhausted, Mason couldn't help wondering at how well they fought together. Abraham would have been absolutely delighted.
When they made it to the armory, however, they stopped dead. Five bodies lay strewn outside, coloring the sidewalk red. All of them sported W's on their foreheads and a myriad of gunshot wounds from an AK-47.
Carol appeared suddenly in the doorway with said AK. Mason sagged with relief but Eugene raised his fire poker, and she remembered then that he didn't know Carol was in disguise.
"It's okay," she told him. "It's Carol. She's camouflaged."
Carol pulled the rag from her face, her eyes glistening. "You're alright. You're both alright."
Dizzy with relief, the three of them wrapped their arms around each other and stood in a tight huddle. They were surrounded by carnage but in that moment they were okay.
~m~
In the end, Denise hadn't been able to save the girl from before. Her face was pinched with unhappiness, but when Mason and Eugene were brought in she moved with the same efficiency as before.
Unsurprisingly, they both required stitches on their arms. Rosita patched up Mason's while Denise worked on Eugene's. After a while, Mason was struck by a revelation.
"We're gonna match," she said. "We're gonna have the same scar, just on different arms."
Eugene blinked. "Like puzzle pieces."
The thought brought a smile to her face, even through the fog of numbness threatening to overwhelm her.
Eugene needed stitches for the cut on his cheek, and Denise forced them both to sit and drink a bit of Gatorade to recover from the blood loss, but once she gave them the green light they both headed out to help sweep the neighborhood.
They came across no living invaders. All the bodies they found they stabbed in the head.
When they arrived at Bill's house, Mason stopped just outside to steel herself. Eugene slipped his hand through hers and she leaned into him, grateful for his presence.
She closed her eyes when she drove the knife into Bill's skull. She didn't realize she was crying until Eugene wiped the tears from her cheeks.
"They both were such good people," she said. "They deserved so much better than this."
"I'll help you bury them," Eugene murmured.
Shouting from outside jolted them both to their feet. Without hesitating, they rushed out into the street.
The first thing Mason noticed was that Michonne and Heath were back. They were running toward the gate with Maggie and Deanna, their expressions taut with alarm.
But where were the others?
Mason's knees shook. She didn't know how much more she could handle.
Then she saw him, racing up the drive to the community.
"Oh, shit," Eugene croaked.
He and Mason lurched to an abrupt halt as Rick raced inside and Michonne slammed the gate after him.
But not before Mason caught one last glimpse of the army of walkers surging toward their home.
Alpha
She stumbled to a halt about a mile out from the community. Her burns throbbed. The pain made her want to pass out, but she knew it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The only reason she was alive now was because of that walker skin.
Mason's sheep lover had actually had some fight in him after all. She'd underestimated him. She'd underestimated all of them.
It should've been bad news. They'd lost. Nearly all the Wolves were dead. And she was pissed. But beneath that something else was growing.
Despite being outnumbered, Mason had been able to rally her people and slay their enemies. There was a potential in them that Alpha was only just beginning to appreciate.
The Wolves were gone. She'd been counting on them to help her dethrone Negan, to dismantle the entire crooked empire that had used her and spit her out like she was nothing. Yes, her people were gone.
But Mason and her people lived, against the odds.
Maybe she had a use for them after all.