Chapter 10:

Try, or die

"Shit," I hissed to myself, because that was all I could think to say.

I stared in mild surprise as the walkers came closer and closer to me, and I counted up my odds. Only walkers didn't stop emerging from behind the building. I didn't have enough time to stick around and find out how many there were, so I ran.

I couldn't make it to the door in time, and it would be too risky to draw attention to it. "Oh shit!" I hissed in realisation of how unsafe that door was. I knew I had the right to feel uneasy in this shit hole of a prison.

I sprinted past the door and looked at my surroundings when I reached the tank. Three seconds; that's how long I gave myself. I saw what was in the way of the door and I couldn't see how many walkers there were—that's what I had to find out. I looked past the tank at a path to places unknown to me, and the field. The empty field where I could run and think. So I ran.

And I didn't stop running. I sprinted as fast as my legs could take me past the gates, down the dirt path towards the middle of the field, away from the hole in the outer fence. Then I looked at what I had to overcome.

"Shit," I hissed once again between breaths, then groaned because this situation was beyond irksome. I could take down ten on my own just fine, but it's tiring. I can take down twenty, but that's really dangerous without backup. Hell, I could even do thirty when I was quiet and unnoticed.

But this was more than I could count.

A group of eighty or so walkers were limping towards me at their fastest pace and were getting closer to me. I tried to catch my breath as I raised my bow and arrow in wait and I had about thirty seconds before they were face to face with me.

Maybe more. Walkers were pretty damn slow these days and I had to wait from across a field. Without another second of thought or hesitation, I got to it, knowing how limited I was with 'ammo'. But the adrenalin had me alert and ready, so I didn't miss.

I took down the first twenty without missing a single head, and then I was out of arrows. Now they were ten seconds away from me; maybe ten meters. I pulled out my first two knives and paused for a single second for them to get closer. And I took down two. Then another for with my other knives. Then I started running towards them before I could talk myself out of it, but when I was in slashing distance of them, I began that self loathing thing. And to think: I thought I was the skipped generation of that Grimes gene.

I gripped at my machete with both hands, raised it above my head and sliced it down a walker's head. Then I pulled it over my shoulder and took down another. And as I stood there, slicing away at walker heads, I began thinking about how Dad would react when I walked back into that prison. He would be so angry... I grinned.

But then I tripped on a motionless walker on the ground and next thing I knew, a walker was on top of me. "Oh, shit," I hissed and for one moment of doubt I didn't know if I would ever get to see that look on dad's face. If I would ever see it again.

Daryl slammed the door closed behind him and stalked down the few steps to the table. He threw his crossbow angrily on top of it and then kept walking, even though he knew Beth's eyes were on him. Daryl kept walking, not exactly knowing where he was going until he reached the end of the cell blocks. He growled quietly, trying to internally overcome his anger and gripped at the rails of the staircase in front of him.

"Daryl!" Beth's sweet voice hissed from behind him. He didn't look up. Just kept trying to calm himself down; trying not to become how he used to be. Like his brother.

"Daryl, what happened?" Beth asked and he felt her little hand on his arm. He yanked it away before he realised what he had done and turned around.

Beth was used to this. This was Daryl's way of coping—it wasn't perfect, but she understood it. After all, she loved him. Her father always told her how she would know when she was in love: it was when you love that person at their darkest.

"Sorry," Daryl muttered, his chin lowered as he stared into her naive blue eyes.

"It's okay," Beth said with a shrug.

Then Daryl walked right up to her and gently held her wrists in his big hands. "No it ain't," he mumbled gruffly. Beth looked up at him and smiled and stood on the tips of her toes to kiss him. His thin lips pressed against her soft, full ones for a long moment before pulling away. Then Beth's serene smile curled into a hopeful grin and she made a small giggle.

Daryl smiled down at her, but even his most genuine smile seemed sad. That sadness would never go away.

Beth's pulled her arms out of his grasp and slid her hand into his. She started pulling him along back towards the communal area. "Come on..." She said, "I know you can't be without your crossbow."

Daryl just nodded.

Rick stood over one of the other tables with a map laid out across it. He didn't even look up from it when Daryl and Beth walked by. But he did speak. "Everything alright?" He asked Daryl. Clearly concerned about his comrade and his daughter. Rick looked up at Daryl and he looked back, then after a pause Daryl nodded. "Will be," he mumbled honestly and Daryl wondered if he would have to talk to Judith about it—if he would have to apologise, or if they would just leave it as is. Something Judith and Daryl had in common was their desire to simply move on from things.

"Alright," Rick said uneasily then turned back down to the map. But then Rick looked up from the map at everyone else that was awake. Tara was technically awake but looked as dead as a walker next to Carl who sat while sharpening his weapons in a mood. Michonne was doing sit ups on the floor, out of the way and he could hear Abraham snoring from inside one of the cells.

Rick looked down at his watch. "Daryl, you know what Judith is doing?" He asked, wanting to make a plan immediately to ease the tension between her and Carl.

Daryl gestured to the door. "Just calmin' down, I bet. "

Rick laughed quietly to himself with a look that read 'typical'. "Good," he said.

And then they heard her scream.

I screamed—or yelled. Yelling sounds more ballsy. Then I did all that I could and kept slashing my machete all over the place while wriggling my body free from the the walker on top of me and I ran. But now I was tired, weak, out of knives and arrows and there were still about sixty walkers chasing me. So I kept running towards the outer fence, and then I started to feel trapped—what a shitty feeling.

Even though it totally wasn't the time, I started thinking about Daryl and I, and the last time we went hunting together. We got one white fluffy rabbit out of it, and now I felt like that rabbit.

The walkers were only footsteps away from me and I forced myself to keep running even though I was dying inside. When I hit the edge of the fence I started to run around the edge of the fence, incidentally going around the walkers. If I had an unbelievable amount of energy and speed like The Flash, then I could just keep doing this running thing, but my breath was shaking and my heartbeat starting thumping in my ears.

Then I saw my saviour; a car. It was old and rusted and waiting for me in the middle of the field. I stopped for a moment, almost collapsing from exhaustion and my own feet. Then I ran for it and I knew I wouldn't make it, so I turned around and took down the walkers closest to me.

I cut off the heads of two, but then the others started gaining on me. "One more," I told myself. That was a mistake. Because when I slashed at another head, my machete got caught in it, and I couldn't pull it out. At least not at this angle. So I forced myself to let it go just when I walker's hand grabbed at my shoulder and scratched through the leather.

"Oh, fuck off!" I yanked my arm away and ran to the car with at least a meter's distance between me and the other walkers, but with one right on me.

I jumped up into the open truck's boot, then onto the top of the car. Safety.

I then realised that I chose the wrong car and that I should have climbed up the one next to it because it didn't have an open boot for walkers to climb up so easily. Oh well.

Now I had a few seconds to catch my breath before they started climbing and I could see how many there really were. Yep, I was close. Close to thirty were surrounding the truck I was standing on with yet another thirty approaching more slowly far back near the tank. And I took a moment to smile with relief. The walkers had gone right past the door so at least I could live with the comfort that my family was safe.

And then I reached behind my back, which was ninjato-less. "Shit!" Who the hell took away my swords? I had a flash of anger towards Tara when I realised she probably slid them off of me when I was sleeping.

Damn her kindness.

I ignored my pounding heart and the panic I was feeling and reached for the only weapon I had left: a mere hunter's knife.

I yanked it from my boot and crouched my legs a little in the way Daryl taught me. I raised my arms in the way Abraham taught me when he said that one simple punch could save my life. And I gripped at the knife in my hand because, well, that was just common sense.

Then I prepared myself for the walkers as they climbed up the boot towards me. And even I wasn't arrogant enough to think I could take them all on.

Daryl heard that scream and all the blood drained from his face. For a moment he felt numb, just like the time Beth was taken, and the time he discovered his dead brother. Or like the time he saw Hershel' executed in front of him. The time he saw Judith's empty carrier and thought she was gone forever. But he refused to ask himself the same question again; maybe I could have done something.

Daryl lunged for his crossbow and ran towards the door with Rick right in front of him. The sad part was that he could imagine what Rick was going through. Carl ran with the rest of them to the door holding whatever knife he was sharpening at the time.

"I thought you said she was just cooling off!" Rick growled as he made his way to the door, holding his machete.

"Killing walkers is her way of coolin' off," Daryl growled back.

"Just go!" Carl shouted, but he was the first to get to the door and yanked it open. Carl ran outside as fast as he could, but when he saw what was right ahead, he skidded to a necessary halt. Rick and Daryl did the same.

Walkers. An entire horde of them were heading towards an abandoned car in the middle of the field with a certain girl on top of it with that horde surrounding her.

"Oh, god," Rick muttered to himself in a moment of panic before sprinting towards her. Carl looked at his beloved sister; his best friend as her tiny figure slashed away at walkers in the distance. One at a time. And then he ran.

Daryl saw what they saw, but that just made him better. Daryl raised his weapon and ran after Rick, shooting the closest walkers as he did. The line to Lil Asskicker started near the tank giving them a hell of a time to get there.

"JUDITH!" Carl cried, but she didn't see them or hear them. Rick shouted the same thing, but that just attracted the walkers to them.

But Rick kept running with Carl right behind him. He ran past every walker there was, not killing a single one because all he could see was his daughter about to die.

Rick could't get any closer to Judith—none of them could. He felt himself being pushed further and further away. His daughter needed his help, and he couldn't do anything but kill, and watch Judith an entire field away as she did the same.

Tears clouded his vision along with spatters of blood, but the only thing that really got in Rick's way were the images flashing through his mind of what happened last time.

He slashed at walkers' heads again and again, and looked back up at Judith on the car, but she wasn't there. He saw a blur of long black hair and a leather jacket as she fell down and disappeared under the crowd of walkers, and the one name that came from Rick's lips was Lori's.

I lost track of how many walkers I had taken down right after I wasted all my arrows. Now I had absolutely no idea.

Another walker came at me and I punched it with my gloved fist for more time, then I stabbed it in the head. I pushed it's weight forward towards the boot which temporarily took down two other walkers. Then I repeated the process with the one next to it. I don't know how long I did this for, but based on the weakness in my arms, I guessed awhile. This process at least started a pile up in the boot and I began to create a sort of wall of walkers, keeping them from me a little. I granted myself a second to rest and to smirk proudly at my wall of protection, until a walker pulled at my ankle, and I fell, making a yelp as my head smacked against the hot metal roof of the car. The walker started to pull me off it, but I managed to kick it away, and cut off the hand of whatever one was yanking at my hair, which really hurt.

I pulled myself up to my knees and gripped tighter at my knife, which was the only thing still keeping me alive at this point. I stabbed at the heads that surrounded me as they pathetically reached for my ankles. The other one only reached because it was disturbingly tall. I moved closer to the edge and kept on stabbing, feeling pretty good about myself, until my knife got stuck in a walker's head.

"No... no, no, no, no, no—come on!" That was about as logical as I got with my words as I kept trying to yank the knife out, while essentially holding up the weight of a body. I kept tugging at it, but it stayed put because of that stupid serrated edging, which had a tendency to get caught in things. I didn't worry about it until now, as I saw it fall to the floor firmly stuck in the head of a walker.

I stood up shakily, trying to calm myself down and think. That's what I told myself to do: think.

Ooh.

Just then, a plan about what we should do popped into my head and I smiled, but the sound of growling walkers ruined that little moment for me. And now I was out of weapons. Kicking them wouldn't work because I wasn't on the right level, and punching them wouldn't do anything. I kept my head down and looked around me.

I had killed off a decent amount, but the crowd that continued to surround me was about three bodies thick; there were maybe twenty surrounding me altogether and there were more coming. I knew if I waited any longer, I would be completely surrounded with absolutely no chance of escape, so I did what any sane person would do: I jumped.

I did an army roll to the floor that Abraham taught me over the surrounding wall of walkers and ran behind the truck to avoid the larger part of the horde. I looked across and saw my machete firmly planted in a walker's head, and only a small number of walkers in my way. I could make it. I mean it was either try or die, so... Ooh, that rhymed.

I bolted for it, dodging the walkers in my way and making it to my beloved machete and yanking it out. Aha! It was free and now I was safe. Well, I wasn't but at least I had convinced myself that I was.

Author's Notes: Okay, so yes, this was a really long chapter that was more action than anything else, but it was necessary. You need to see how awesome Judith is, as well as stupid.