A/N: Hey lovelies. I have been at a family reunion so I'm sorry that this chapter is a little late. Thank you for your continued support by following/ favoriting/ reviewing/ reading!
Companion song: "Rivers and Roads" by The head and the heart
Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.
Enjoy! And please review before you leave!
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Chapter 12: Fear
When she came to, there was a ringing in her ears and a horrible throbbing in her temple. She could hear male voices and the fall of heavy footsteps thumping into the earth. Beth stayed absolutely motionless, not wanting to alert them to the fact that she was awake.
Her weapons were tossed on the ground near Jerry's feet, several yards away from her. Pressure on her wrists told her that they had bound her hands together. Though, to her advantage, at least they were tied in front of her.
My hands are still useable at least. It'll be more difficult, but doable, she thought optimistically.
She opened her eyes an infinitesimal amount, peeking through her eyelashes. She was also relieved to discover that there were still only three men and they were still by the stream. At least they hadn't dragged her back to their camp yet. Michael had said there were fourteen men and not knowing where she was in the dark? That would've made her chances of escape almost unthinkable.
"Was wondering what the hell was taking you two dumbasses so long with the water," said the new man with his back to her. She couldn't see his face but she could tell he was bald and almost as tall as Michael.
"Guess we can forgive you since you found a nice piece of ass to share. I get first dibs on her though, since I'm the one that actually caught her," his voice dripped with greed and disgust filtered over her.
A plan, gotta come up with a plan…
Her thoughts were desperate but her mind felt clear. The easiest thing of course would be to slip away unseen but that would mean leaving her weapons behind, which she didn't want to do. The next best thing was to escape while they were preoccupied with something else but she would need a distraction, which she didn't have.
"Oh hell no! She's mine. I'm the one who distracted her!" Michael's voice was getting louder, it was sloppy of him to be so noisy in the woods.
The bald man looked as if he was about to protest but Michael interrupted.
"I'll tell you what, I'll give you the first look at those perfect tits but I get the first fuck," the brunette stated wickedly.
Michael marched over towards where Beth lay and reached down to unbutton her blouse. He flung open the front of her shirt, exposing her to all three men in the clearing. The cold air hitting her uncovered skin caused goose bumps to extend across her body. Her eyes were closed, still feigning sleep, which prevented her from having to see the looks on their disgusting faces. Just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, she felt his hands on her.
"See this?" he asked the men as he squeezed her breast so hard she almost cried out. Beth fought every instinct that told her to fight, thrash and hit his man. The blonde stayed deathly still, knowing that opening her eyes now, in this vulnerable position without weapons and an impossibly tall man hovering over her, would surrender the only advantage she had left: the element of surprise.
"It's mine." His voice was guttural, clearly aroused, but also menacing as he referred to her like an object to own. "You guys can have her when I'm done… once I've completely ruined her. But until then back the fuck off," the threat held weight, like a wolf snarling as it prepared to fight over a fresh kill.
The guilt and disgust she felt threated to overwhelm her. Beth felt slimy for letting this man touch her and doing nothing to stop it. When he went to put his hands on her a second time, she poised to fight.
Better to go down fighting for her life than lying here doing nothing.
But then, impossibly, a perfect distraction came bursting through the trees and sunk its teeth right into Michael's arm.
/
As the sky matured from blue to orange, Morgan was pacing around the cabin. Beth said she would be back before sunset. Well here it was: sunset. And she hadn't returned. He hated letting her go out hunting on her own, but he knew she wasn't a baby and he couldn't coddle her. Plus, they really did need the meat.
She was never late and he had a terrible nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach like a creature was burrowing into his intestines.
He tossed his pack on his back, he wanted to have it in case a herd cut him off from returning to the cabin or if Beth needed medical supplies when he found her, and gathered all his weapons. He wrote a note about where he went and set a meeting place and he left it with all of Beth's things in the cabin just in case she got back while he was out looking for her. He was already out the door before the sun had fully sunk below the horizon.
After travelling through the woods for a while, Lucky came jogging up to him with his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.
"Happy to see ya, bud," he said as he scratched Lucky's ear. The pup had grown so big that Morgan didn't even have to bend to reach him anymore.
"Now where did you leave our girl?" Lucky turned his head to one side, ears perked up as he stared at Morgan.
"Where's Beth?" the man asked again.
At the name, Lucky perked up and started to head back into the woods where he came from. The dog paused momentarily, looking back at Morgan as if checking to see that the man was following him, before continuing to trot through the trees. Morgan smiled to himself. Once again pleased that Beth had convinced him to keep Lucky all those months ago. Trusting the mutt's sense of smell over his own tracking skills, he allowed the dog to guide him and realized that he was taking him towards the stream at the bottom of the valley. The stress started to melt from his body, she must've just been filling up their bottles and lost track of time.
But then, he heard a distinct, three note whistle—his and Beth's normal signal for danger. They had taught it to Lucky too and Morgan saw the hackles along his back stand up before he bolted in the direction of Beth's whistle.
By the time he caught up to Lucky, he saw that the dog was in the middle of biting a stranger's arm. He glanced around the clearing quickly and saw three men, all of whom were clearly stunned by the dog and oblivious to the black man hiding in the shadow of the trees. The mop of scattered blonde hair showed that Beth was in a heap on the ground a few yards to the left of them. His stomach dropped and he desperately hoped she wasn't dead.
When he noticed her tied hands and unbuttoned shirt, he flew into a rage. That was his daughter! With his baton gripped firmly in his hand he flew out from the forest and skillfully took the other two men on. They had guns holstered on their hips but Morgan noticed that they didn't reach for them. Instead they grabbed their knives and tried to fight him back. The third was too preoccupied with the dog for now.
Battling two men that were at least 10 years younger than him began to take its toll. Morgan had gotten more than a few good shots in though, the man with red hair had blood spouting from a broken nose and Morgan guessed the other bald one had a broken arm because he had heard a snap after a particularly nasty fall. But Morgan's energy was draining fast and he begun taking more hits than he was giving. The third man had thrown Lucky off of him and was bleeding heavily out of the arm Lucky had bitten. It was time to end this before he had all three of them on him, so he pulled the loaded revolver out of his belt. Before the men had a chance to react he shot the redhead, who was stopped short in the middle of his lunge towards Morgan with the knife. He swiveled on the spot and shot the man with bald man in the chest. The element of surprise was lost though because now the man with shaggy brown hair was able to rugby tackle him to the ground. The man's hands punched him one… two… three times before closing around his throat. The gun had flown from Morgan's hands when the man tackled him and the stranger's knees were pressing his arms into the ground making it impossible to take a swing at the man strangling the life out of him. The height, weight and age difference between the two men left Morgan at a huge disadvantage. He was going die and leave the innocent blonde he considered a daughter with this savage. He fought, with everything he had but despite Morgan's attempts to buck the stranger off of him, black spots started popping up in his vision. He knew it was all over.
Blood sputtered from the chest of the man on top of him and the grip on his neck released.
Morgan pushed the brunette off of him and saw the knife protruding from his back. Looking up, he saw Beth with her hands still tied in front of her. Her blonde hair was disheveled and there was a fresh cut and bruise on her head but she looked okay.
"Morgan! Are you okay?" she helped him up and looked briefly over his wounds as he nodded.
"I'm fine. Are you all right?" he said as he gasped for breath like a fish.
"I'm good," she smiled at him.
"Sorry it took me so long. I tried to get a gun but all of them were empty, I guess that's why they didn't just shoot ya right when they saw ya," she began buttoning up her top with a look of guilt feathering her features. Morgan's heart broke at this.
Does she feel guilty for their disgusting actions?
Lucky's attention turned to a space in the forest—listening to and sniffing something that the humans couldn't sense yet.
"Must be walkers attracted by the gunshots," Beth hissed.
Walkers crashed through the trees at them. Morgan was drained from his fights with the three men and his brush with death, but luckily Beth took on the bulk of the crowd of walkers. When he had taken down the three surrounding him, he turned to help Beth and he could hardly believe what he saw. Lucky was running in small circles distracting two that were attempting to chase him down. But the petite blonde had a pile of dead bodies lying in a ring around her. She had taken out at least six including ones that had begun feeding on the fallen bodies of her attackers. He watched as she kicked out the knees of the last one and stabbed it in the back of the head as it toppled over. Then they each took down one of the monsters trailing after Lucky.
It was only then that Morgan realized that her hands were still tied.
Her wrists were bloodied—probably from having to contort her hands in order to grip her knife. The pile of walkers was twice as impressive now. Morgan moved towards her and carefully cut the bindings. Beth winced but quickly moved on, gathering all their belongings and any useful items from their three attackers. As much as Morgan hated it, he knew it had to be done, S he stuck his knife in all three of their heads, ending the possibility that they would come back as walkers and further torment Beth.
Then the little family of three took off back towards the cabin.
"In the water! It'll slow us down now but those guys were with a bigger group and it'll be harder to track us this way," she explained as they sprinted with their feet splashing through the stream.
After running back to the cabin to grab Beth's things and then walking for the rest of the night, mostly along paved roads to avoid leaving tracks, they finally stopped in a neighborhood after the sun came up.
"If they manage to catch up with us, we'll see 'em coming in the light." Morgan said.
They each cleaned up their fresh wounds. Morgan's face, neck, legs and arms were all heavily bruised and he guessed that he had a few broken ribs. Beth had a nasty welt on her right temple, but no concussion, at least not that Morgan could tell. The worst of her physical injuries were actually her wrists where the rope had carved deep, bloody grooves all the way around them. There would definitely be scars there to join the older one on her left arm. He had never asked her about it but he could guess from the placement and the straightness of the line that it had been self-inflicted. Morgan knew that the worst part of this whole ordeal would be the mental devastation and of course she would have visible scars to always remind her of the horrors.
He wanted to ask her what happened out there, but he also didn't want to push her to talk. Plus, he wasn't sure if he could handle the answer.
The man stared at her, with soft, brown eyes, seeing her stare down at the old, white scar on her wrist with concern and he wondered how in the world he would help her heal from this.
/
Once they were cleaned up she ordered him to rest. He had taken on three men and had quite a beating to prove it. Plus, she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep yet.
Finally, when night began to fall, Morgan woke up and went on watch. Insisting that she needed to sleep at least for a few hours since she had been awake for over 36.
That night she was haunted by the eyes of the two men she had killed since she had woken up in that firetruck. Neither of the men frightened her, in real life or in her dreams, but she wore their deaths like the scars that permanently tarnished her skin. The old man with a white beard from her previous dreams was there, looking at her with sad but understanding eyes. There were other sets of eyes—green, gray, brown—that flew by too quickly to fully register. The only thing that stuck with her in the morning was a set of intense, deep-set blue eyes. There was a storm brewing inside those blue orbs, dark but with the promise of bringing life and safety. She loved the rain and somehow the eyes reminded her of it. They seemed to stare straight into her soul and the powerful gaze caused her breath to quicken even in her sleep. She couldn't see the face attached to the eyes but they still inexplicably comforted her.
The next day, she explained everything that happened before Morgan saved her from the men. Morgan seemed thoughtful, and concern crossed his features when she told him that she hadn't been afraid of the men and that was why she had decided to lower her weapon in the first place.
"Next time Beth, don't lower your weapon. Whatever they say, whatever they do, don't lower it… at least until we can decide together." She looked hurt at this request.
"You don't think I can do it on my own?" she squawked.
"No, that ain't it. I just think that two sets of eyes are better than one. Please, just promise me," he begged but the little blonde was still skeptical. She just didn't understand. "You're all I've got. And whether you like it or not young lady, I love ya as much as if you were my own daughter...I just… I can't lose you too Beth," his voice broke at the end, thinking of Duane and then thinking of how scared he was when he saw Beth tied up in the dirt.
"I love you too, old man" she joked lightly as she wrapped him in a hug "and I promise, next time I won't let my guard down."
This promise that she just made to her dad, unlike the pact she had tried to make with her brother Kyle, was one that she knew she would keep. She had let Kyle down when she allowed him to be taken by the walkers but she would learn from her mistake and she wouldn't let Morgan down.
/
More months passed and they never stayed anywhere longer than a month.
Houses, museums, warehouses, libraries, offices, clothing stores, bars, schools. They had stayed in every type of building imaginable. They had also slept in the woods more nights than she could count, one person awake while the other slept restlessly, surrounded by makeshift booby traps while Lucky slept with one eye open and both ears up like little satellites. Morgan had even suggested they try staying in a prison when they passed one in Pennsylvania. Beth's heart had clenched painfully when he brought it up.
"Rick said once that his family had a prison. Said it was safe. Walls that used to keep people in ended up keeping the walkers out," he seemed to think about this and then shook his head, "guess it wasn't such a good idea in the end though. When I finally went to the prison he told me about it was overrun and had holes blasted in it by a tank."
Actual tears rolled down Beth's cheeks at Morgan's words, though she couldn't explain why.
Morgan looked over and saw her crying so he softly patted her on her back as she stared through the gates at the brick walls of the prison.
"That's alright, it was just an idea. 'Sides, I doubt we could clear it with just the two of us. Unless you think we could get Lucky to hold a knife," he said trying to lighten the mood before turning away from the fences.
Their biggest score ever, came when they stayed in a large hospital in Maryland. It was a huge city but Morgan had said they should try it out.
"Big cities were the worst place to be at the beginning of the turn. Too many people all living on top of each other meant the virus spread quickly and then the streets were just filled with the dead," he shuttered, clearly reliving a memory from a time that Beth couldn't recall.
"But now it's been so long since there was live people in the cities that most of the walkers have moved out, following the noise from storms or herds or animals, and now they're wandering 'round the country side. It's probably safer in cities now than out in the open. Funny how things change," his eyes were far away and Beth knew he was not just referring to the migration patterns of walkers.
They had to fight through the hospital, which housed numerous walkers. But they were all very old and decayed. Many of them couldn't even get up from where they had fallen so they looked more like "rotters" than "walkers." Beth was willing to bet they had been trapped in the hospital since the very beginning, which meant they had gone over 4 years without any food.
It gave Beth hope.
If the walkers stopped getting food, eventually they would all decay into dust and the world would once again belong to the living. Although, she guessed that most of these walkers were probably ill or disabled before the turn.
Once the hospital was completely clear of walkers, the pair found more medication and supplies than anywhere else before. But their most valuable find was books. She shoved several basic medical texts in her bag, but more importantly, in the neurosurgical ward of the hospital Beth found a large black textbook with a picture of a brain on the front. Intrigued, she took that one too. When she read it, it answered questions about her brain injury than she hadn't even thought to ask. The path of the bullet and things Dr. Edwards had said years ago came tumbling into the forefront of her mind again. The amygdala. The temporal lobe. She remembered the doctor mentioning them and now looking at the book while fingering the scars that showed the path of the bullet, it was clear that the doctor had been right. They controlled declarative memory, emotions, language, and decision-making. She poured over the textbook, day after day, not understanding half of what she was reading and regularly passing the book off to Morgan for his insight.
Together they used the book to make a few guesses about her brain injury: her episodic memory that was affected, it may or may not ever return, other effects could manifest themselves at anytime, and she could no longer process fear.
After knowing her for over a year, Morgan was relieved at having an explanation for her constant show of bravery and tendency for reckless decisions—the numerous times she had jumped into hoards of walkers to save his life, her insistence that she could go hunting alone. But he was afraid for her now more than ever.
Soon it came time to leave the hospital, which was fine because even though the hospital had been useful, it gave her the creeps. There was a gnawing in the pit of her stomach that made her eager to leave the stark white hallways. But Beth kept the books with her, carrying them in her pack even though they weighed her down substantially. They needed to get out of city in order to find animals to hunt. Similar to the walkers, the cities couldn't adequately accommodate living people anymore. Both the living and dead were drawn out of the cities by their shared need for food.
The pair found a functioning car in the hospital's parking garage. Beth knew that if the battery was working, it meant that another survivor had abandoned the car not too long ago. She said a silent thank you and a prayer for the person who had left the car behind, before opening the back door for Lucky and then hoping into the passenger seat herself. Beth and Morgan both laughed eagerly for a long time at the sight of Lucky chopping at the wind with his head out the window as the little Honda flew down the highway.
From then on Morgan focused on teaching her fear. How to be afraid, when to be afraid and what the normal reactions were when you were afraid of something.
It was harder than learning how to read.
The logical side of Beth knew that he was right. She remembered how she let her guard down in the forest and she wondered how fear would have changed that. Would she have frozen in panic or would she have shot them immediately instead of dropping her defenses and getting attacked?
"Fear is an important tool." He would repeat this phrase over and over whenever she was frustrated with their lessons. "It tells you when something's wrong, it tells you when to stay and fight or when to turn and run. Since the emotion isn't there we have gotta program your brain to figure it out without the physiological cues."
The fear lessons continued as they moved from place to place, their paths altering in order to avoid huge, roaming herds or groups of people they came across. Beth felt like a boat without sails or an oar, just being pushed in various directions by the currents without any control over her own destiny.
Wandering aimlessly was the worst part, she wished they had a goal or a destination, but after DC was a bust they just drifted throughout the states trying to find a safe place to settle down. Beth didn't mind the walking, didn't mind killing walkers or sleeping in four-hour shifts. She didn't remember a world with electricity, daily warm showers or cell phones, which only meant she didn't ever miss those luxuries. The more she read of books and magazines, the more she learned about the old world and the more she wished she could remember. Was easier without the memories, without the pain or the longing for modern conveniences? Probably. But was it better? Her heart ached and she couldn't even remember why, she grieved for losses without even being able to attach a face to the person she mourned.
/
Everyday was too similar: the search for water and food, the hunger pangs on the days they didn't hunt, the walkers they either killed or evaded, the eternal conflict of hope and trepidation when finding other people.
They came across several groups, most of them they watched secretly and ended up deciding they were dangerous before moving on. Occasionally there were close escapes from other bad groups. Some people they talked to or even helped, but after being with just Morgan for so long, they had their own rhythm and a deep trust in one another. Without fear leading her out of dangerous situations, it was impossible for Beth to decide who was trustworthy so she depended on Lucky and Morgan's instincts. Lucky didn't like anyone, living or undead, and Morgan was a very skeptical man so they never stayed with anyone for more than a few hours, swapping stories or occasionally trading goods.
She was unfulfilled by a lifetime of scavenging scraps from the dead and drifting aimlessly between abandoned buildings.
She had finally put her foot down and made Morgan set up a more permanent spot. They had been staying in an airport in Virgnia for about two months. Beth liked the airport, the hugeness of it and the high ceilings surrounded by windows. It allowed her the best of both worlds—the protection from walkers that the inside provided and the open, unconfined space that the outside provided. Morgan reluctantly agreed. It was exposed without fences but it had big windows and a large open space surrounding it which provided an excellent visual field, they set up numerous traps for both walkers and people, they had a contingency plan, a meeting place and two different escape routes out of the airport. But even though they were finally had some semblance of a "home" everyday was still about surviving… not living.
She was on watch, still as a statue because she her body was so accustomed to being motionless from two years of being on constant alert. Lucky was lying in the sun next to her, exhausted from chasing around a tennis ball she had been throwing for him this morning. Morgan was in the dark storeroom that they slept in during the day because he had gone on a run yesterday to a pet store nearby. No one had raided any pet stores so there was always plenty of dog food and toys for Lucky. It made her heart swell to see how excited the dog got every time they brought him a new toy. "Like a kid on Christmas," Morgan had said. Though this meant little to Beth since she had no memories of what Christmas was, only the stories Morgan told her, pictures she saw on walls of abandoned houses and what she read in the books.
There has to be more to this life, she thought to herself as she stared out the large airport windows.
That was when she saw the man step out of the edge of the forest surrounding her temporary home. She didn't move, knowing that she was exposed in the look out seat and any movement she made would likely attract his eye to the window. He had long, shaggy brown hair that hung in his eyes and a crossbow held poised to shoot. What caught Beth's attention was his gait. From her position in the window she watched him walk with agility, only his lower body moved and his upper body held steady so as to not jostle the aim of the crossbow.
Definitely the walk of a hunter.
When she saw him slip around the side of the building, she knew he was looking for a way inside—probably hoping to loot the airport of useful items packed in the abandoned luggage. No one else emerged from the woods and she hadn't seen him make any signals towards anyone so she guessed that he was alone but she couldn't be sure. She woke up Morgan from his nap and told him to quickly get all their belongings together in case the hunter turned out to be dangerous and then she moved silently through the airport in order to meet their mysterious visitor.
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A/N: Thanks for reading and please review!
Our mysterious hunter and the fearless blonde meet next chapter, we will see it from Beth's POV this time! (:
