MILTON

Leaving Maggie to keep an eye on him was probably one of the stupidest things Merle could have done in his long, sad history of stupid acts. Emotionally distraught though she was, she had been preoccupied by the sound of a gunshot going off on the other side of the building and Milton saw his chance when her attention was drawn. He hopped out of the truck and ran for the far east side of the mill where there was a small side door.

If she had managed to off herself before she reanimated, she would still be inside though even as the thought occurred to him he knew he had not prepared for this moment in the least. He owed it to her to bury her properly and take care of the messy matter if she had turned, but in his mind he had concocted an alternate optimistic reality where he would find her lying peacefully inside where he had left her. Her eyes would be closed softly in death, and he would not have to worry about her suffering.

But being optimistic was almost a death sentence in itself now. He had been positive that Merle could get them to the mill in time to save her and how had that turned out?

He did the best he could. You were the one who slowed him up by nearly freezing to death and stumbling around. If you hadn't come, he could have gotten to her in time.

There it was, his inner conscience berating him for his stupidity. The voice had started to fall silent the longer he stayed at the prison, the closer he felt to being an accepted member but with Andrea's death, it came back in full to remind him of how his life and everything it stood for was a failure that needed to be snuffed out.

Phillip had snatched that sense of belonging away from his twice. He fooled Milton into believing that Woodbury was his home and that the people cared about him. He had even convinced Milton to lie for himself when Andrea begged him to come with her the first time. And what had Milton told her? Like it or not, I belong here. What utter bullshit. Woodbury was just a place that tolerated him because Phillip said to but Milton knew that the townsfolk were never comfortable with him, never accepting of his awkwardness. Then at the prison, it took Andrea to convince her friends that he was someone they could trust but now with her gone, he could see them silently blaming him for Glenn's death.

A rush of resentment over took him as he considered the injustice of it all. What sort of place accepted someone like Merle Dixon but not a socially awkward person like Milton? Who in their right mind would open their door to a racist, sexist neo-Nazi, hot-headed time bomb instead of someone who would quietly sit the corner?

Milton kicked a table out of the way, not caring that he was making noise as he stalked inside. Behind it Glenn's body was still where it had fallen, untouched by biters and still leaking blood all over the place. He left it be; Maggie and the others would be in to claim it shortly because that's who they came for, not Andrea.

But she wasn't there. The spot where they had left her had some blood on the floor but only about the same amount Milton had seen when he found her there before. His brain fired into overdrive: it wouldn't make sense for someone else to come back and take her away if any of Phillip's men survived and there was no mess to suggest that a biter had gotten her. That left only one option and he cursed himself for not doing something about it when he had the chance.

He heard a gunshot outside and glancing out the window, saw Merle, Daryl, and Rick gathered around a man's body. He walked back out the way he had come in so that they wouldn't see him and his gait was deliberate, determined with what he knew he had to do. It had to be him and no one else.

"Milton, hey, where do you think you're going?" Rick jogged to catch up with him but Milton pressed on, ignoring him. "You need to stay in sight within the perimeter of the mill, hear me? Hey, are you listening to me, I said stop!"

He grabbed Milton's arm and Milton pulled his pistol on him at a speed that would have made Merle proud. "Don't—touch—me," he growled. Backing up, Rick put out his hands to show that he meant no harm but Milton couldn't read his expression: anger, awe, confusion?

"Your man's still inside the mill, you should get him. I'll be back when I've found her."

When I find her, if I find her, and if I don't—well it's not like you're suffering a great loss if I don't come back.

His leg was on fire, his head pounding from these thoughts of hatred that had not burned so brightly since he stabbed Phillip. He had to find some sort of closure for himself or these foreign emotions would eat him alive. He needed this.

Walking a straight line was almost impossible even without the uneven forest floor threatening to trip him up at every step. His bad leg could only take so much weight at a time but somehow the adrenaline of his impending duty fueled him enough to bite through it. More than once he had to stop and clutch a branch for support and a few times he even sank down to his knees, scrabbling at the bed of leaves beneath him to try and stand again and at one point his left hand came away bloody. When the ground sloped downward he knew he was in for a world of pain and tucking his arms in close to his body, he rolled down with as much control as he could manage. Each time it was more and more difficult standing up again and in the back of his mind he knew that he would soon reach a point where he would not be able to rise.

You're going to do it. You're going to get up and keep walking and fucking find her if it kills you because you know you deserve this pain, you useless, pathetic, cowardly, backstabbing emotionally crippled piece of shit—

STOP!

Milton clapped his hands over his ears as if this battle of his two wills was a sound he could block out instead of voices in his head. He scrunched up his eyes until it hurt, digging his fingernails into his scalp.

Shut up, shut up! I'll find her and make things right by her and when I do that will be enough.

A dribble of blood ran down from Milton's nose and he opened his eyes to lick it off. And there she was.

She had her back turned and was limping but seeing as how she did not have a leg injury, Milton could only think of one reason as to why she would be walking like that. Her hands were coated in a layer of old, dried blood. Milton hesitated only a second before he called out to her, pleading, desperate.

"Andrea…"

She faced him. Her eyes were coated in milky white, her jaw slack and hanging open as a raspy, inhuman growl emitted from her throat. The knife wound in her stomach was still bleeding but it had no effect on her. When her roaming, lifeless eyes settled on him there was a moment, perhaps a fraction of a millisecond where Milton thought she might actually recognize him but a flashing memory of an old man groping to bite him as Milton tried to unstrap him from his bed crossed his mind.

There's nothing left of them but an empty shell. It's just a body, a body that will mindlessly kill you. Whatever soul used to be inside is long gone.

And she was gone. She took one step towards him.

"Andrea, don't."

Another step.

"Don't make me do this."

She was picking up speed and her growl sounded not only animalistic but hungry.

"Please…"

You have to do it, said the voice in his head, but not the criticizing one. It was the survivor, the now stronger of the two, the real one. You promised. It won't hurt her; she's gone. This is just that empty shell. She's not there, Milton.

"Milton!"

Whose voice was that?

She was gaining, closing the distance between them and still Milton had done nothing, not even drawn his pistol. His firing arm was slack at his side. He couldn't do it.

"Milton, run! Shoot 'er or run, damn it!"

She reached out her waxy hand, red with blood and dirt trapped beneath her fingernails to grab his shirt…and he shot her point blank in the face. Her fingertips just brushed the front of his jacket as she fell, crumpling into a pile at his feet. She didn't move again.

Milton could feel himself hyperventilating, feel his asthma coming back and he couldn't breathe. His fight or flight instincts took over and for some reason that made perfect sense in his scrambled, oxygenless brain, he knew he had to keep shooting her. Gasping for air, he now fumbled with the Ladysmith and made to put another cap in the body when a strong pair of arms seized him from behind and lifted him bodily off the ground. They had snaked under his arms and back towards his head to put him in some sort of headlock but his feet were free to kick out. Then he saw Daryl grappling with him to take the pistol away before grabbing his legs and holding them still.

He fought but silently, not at all like how he had when Merle had dragged him away from Phillip's corpse. He made no other sound than that of choking for a breath and the Dixon brothers set him down on the ground. Merle pressed his head into the leaves and Daryl sat on his legs until the fit passed. It felt like an hour when it could not have been more than five minutes. Milton's breathing leveled out but he still felt the strong urge to cough as if some sort of scratchy bit of dust had settled at the top of his lungs.

"Can we letchoo up now, boy?" asked Merle when Milton finally went still.

"Mmm-hmm," said Milton, a bit muffled because his mouth was still pressed to the ground.

The men released him and he sat up on his own, sniffing against the autumn air that threatened to leave frozen snot block off his nasal passages. He saw the body less than two feet away and crawled to it like a child still in the process of learning to use its legs. He put his fingers on her eyelids and closed them.

"Will you help me carry her?" he asked the Dixon brothers wheezily.

"'Course we will," said Merle.

Are any of you guys still out there? Have I ruined the story for you? Just wondering. Haven't heard from y'all in a while.