Chapter 54 – A Sad End
Carol sat next to Daryl at the table in the golf club's conference room. His hand was resting on her thigh, and it made her smile. She loved this man so much. Maggie was rocking Rose beside Carol, glancing occasionally at Glenn with a secret smile on her lips. Carol couldn't help but notice and wondered what was going on with those two.
Hershel helped Carl into the room. The boy was still weak, but his color, while still his typical pallor, was better than the day before when they'd first found him. He hobbled with Hershel's assistance and took a seat across from Daryl. Hershel took the seat beside Carl.
They had let Astrid sit this meeting out. It didn't seem fair to include the girl when she was so new to the group and when the language issue was such a struggle for her. Astrid had really taken to Hershel though and Carol could see he'd been treating her like his own daughter.
Last in to the room were Andrea and T-Dog. They slipped in quietly and Daryl looked at them questioningly.
"She's asleep," Andrea said as her and T-Dog took their seats.
Daryl nodded.
"How did the night go?," Hershel asked. Carol kept her head down, her focus on her hands in her lap. A part of her was bothered that she was being so callous, but a bigger part of her couldn't make herself care about Lori.
"It was rough. She screamed some, cried a lot… she still seems pretty much out of it," Andrea said.
Daryl cleared his throat. "Ya'll know why yer all 'ere. Somethin' has to be done bout Lori… but I think we need to decide as a group on this one."
"What do you think we should do?," Glenn asked, looking earnestly at Daryl.
Daryl sighed and Carol could feel his conflict. She knew Daryl was as angry at Lori as she was, but she knew he lacked her conviction in the rage they both felt. They had already talked this morning. Daryl felt responsible for Lori. He felt he had made a promise to Rick to protect her, and while he couldn't quite connect that with the anger he now felt, he still felt bound by his promise. Carol felt his hesitation and spoke out.
"Daryl thinks we should help her. He thinks she's sick, and that regardless of what she did…," Carol paused, taking a breath to steady her heart before continuing. "Regardless of what she did… she's still one of us."
"Is that what you think?," Maggie said, directing her question to Carol.
Carol smiled slightly, looking at Maggie. "No," she said simply.
"So what are our options?," T-Dog said, "help her or kill her?"
"What other choice is there?," Andrea said. "We can't exactly get rid of her without killing her… she knows where we are, she could compromise the whole place if we dump her somewhere alive and the wrong person gets a hold of her."
"You… want… to… kill my mom?," Carl said, his voice measured and his gaze shifting from Daryl to Carol.
"That's wha' we hafta decide," Daryl said, locking eyes with the young boy.
"She's dangerous, Carl. We don't know what she could do… at least right now, the way she is right now," Carol said. She refused to cower from the boy's gaze. A part of her; the old, meek Carol, wanted to cower, but she had an opinion and it was hers to voice.
"What do you think, son?," Hershel said to Carl.
Carl's eyes were watery. "She's my mom," he said. He took a deep, ragged breath. "I love my mom… I know she… did… this," he said, motioning at himself, to his wounds. "But she's still my mom. I think we need to help her."
Daryl opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the squeal of cold tires against hot pavement outside. They leapt from their seats and hurried to the windows, to the front door.
"It's Lori!," T-Dog yelled. "She's taking the car!"
Carol and Daryl reached the front door, flinging it open in time to see Lori pealing up the driveway, crashing through the still closed and locked gate, revving the car up the road, and turning onto the highway.
"Fuck!," Daryl snapped. He spun, his eyes fast and hard on Andrea. "Ya said she was fuckin' asleep!," he hissed.
"She was!," Andrea protested.
"Like hell," Daryl muttered.
"What do we do?," Hershel said.
"We go after 'er… like Blondie said… bitch knows too much for us to jus' let 'er leave." Daryl sighed. "T-Dog… Blondie… let's go."
"I'm coming," said Carol. Daryl glanced at her, his eyes saying no. Carol looked at Maggie wordlessly asking if she could watch Rose. Maggie nodded. "See," Carol said to Daryl, "I'm coming."
Daryl grunted, but didn't protest as she went for her crossbow and stuck her gun in the back of her pants.
Daryl didn't want Carol to go, but he wasn't about to argue with her about it. Instead he grabbed his gear and got into a vehicle with her, T-Dog, and Andrea.
It was maybe 15 miles up the highway when they saw the tire tracks where Lori had veered off the road, and a few moments later they found the abandoned car. She had left it in the woods, the door wide open, the keys still inside… they could hear the echo of the car beep, beeping in protest to being left that way.
Daryl found her track pretty quickly and they moved fast, further through the woods in search of where Lori had gone. Finally they stepped out of the woods into what looked like a small town, an old school building lay ahead of them, maybe a town store beyond that.
"Look!," Andrea hissed, pointing.
They all looked over to where Andrea was indicating and they could see Lori, moving forward, dragging her feet awkwardly as she stepped into their line of sight, moving slowly but pointedly toward… a group of at least twenty walkers. Fuckin' bitch.
The walkers hadn't seen Lori yet. They were fixated on something, a meal probably, some of them were crouched on the ground and others were standing listlessly with their backs turned.
Without any words among them, Daryl, Carol and the others burst forward, moving quickly but as quietly as possible toward Lori. They crouched in the dirt on the side of the schoolhouse, trying to stay low and out of sight.
"Lori! No!," Andrea hissed again, her voice only getting as loud as she dared, not wanting to get the attention of the walkers.
Lori stopped moving, looked over at them. Her eyes connected with Carol's for a moment. Daryl felt Carol go stiff next to him and he grasped her hand.
It looked like Lori might waver, her eyes on Carol's, and then she shifted them to Daryl before pulling a gun from her pants and brandishing it wildly, her arms flailing, pulling the trigger repeatedly with the gun aimed at the sky as Lori screamed, "come and get me, you stupid fucks! I'm right here! Fucking eat me!"
Within seconds the walkers were swarming her, all twenty of them as they grabbed at her. Daryl saw one of Lori's arms shred off as three walkers grabbed for it at the same time, pulling in different directions, ripping into Lori with their teeth. As loud as Lori had been a second ago, she was just as quiet now as they tore into her, her body sinking to the ground as she was consumed by them, as the walkers continued to pull bits and pieces from her flesh. Her face was the last thing Daryl saw before she was completely surrounded and hidden from sight by the desperate walkers. Her eyes were bright but hollow, and she seemed to be smiling.
The group was dumbstruck. Carol's hand was tight entwined with Daryl's and he felt her arm shake as her shoulders heaved.
A sound alerted him to something behind them, and they spun. Walkers! They were everywhere, alerted by Lori's gunfire to the possibility of a meal. They were in all different directions, too many to count. Daryl pulled Carol with him as he ran.
Branches whipped Carol in the face as she ran with Daryl. Her hand was slippery with sweat, but she fought to keep her grip on him. She stumbled slightly but he kept her going forward, his momentum to get away propelling her along. Where are Andrea and T-Dog? She had lost sight of them as they'd entered the woods.
She could hear the snapping of twigs, the movement of brush behind them as the walkers pursued.
Carol tripped suddenly, her body slamming into the ground, her face shoved into the dirt. She felt hands grabbing at her legs, and then Daryl was there pulling her up. "Come on!," he growled in her ear.
Walkers had overshot them; they were ahead of them, behind them, to the side of them. They're everywhere!
Panic ripped through Carol's body. They dropped hands to raise their weapons. Their aim was somehow steady. Carol took down four, Daryl took down five. It wasn't enough.
"We've got to split up! Divide them!," Carol yelled over the chaos.
Daryl met her eyes. His eyes seemed calm as he nodded, pointed with his crossbow in one direction and said, "That way… ya go. I'm goin' this way."
Carol shot a walker that was close up behind him, and nodded. Her eyes were not calm; she felt full of fear and adrenaline. "I love you," she said.
He smiled. His love for her was in his eyes now; he didn't even have to say it. She could feel it. "Fuckin go, woman. Get safe," was his gruff response as they both turned to run for it.
Carol's legs protested as she ran through the woods, turning her torso to look behind as she ran and shooting blind at the walkers that pursued. She missed on some, but she could count the shots she made by the bodies she heard hit the ground. She slammed a knife into a walker that got too close, and then another one. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime of panic and fear, she put down the last one. She stood there a moment, amidst the trees, panting, unable to believe the bodies that surrounded her.
Worry churned her stomach. She felt sick. She put her hands on her knees and bent over, standing alone in the woods like that, waiting for the urge to vomit to pass. Time had barely moved as she choked down a sob finally and doubled around and back, running in the direction she thought Daryl had gone.
She could see the sun shining through the trees up ahead. She raced forward, skidding out of the trees into a small clearing, spinning to the right at a sound that drew her attention. She was standing in a clearing only 10 feet wide before the ground dropped off radically into a cliff, the bluff descending sharply down toward the water below.
From where she stood, the sound that had gotten her attention, she could see Daryl maybe 50 feet away from her, backed up to the cliff's edge, cornered and overcome by walkers. She screamed as the walkers swarmed him, and he took a step too far backwards. Losing his balance, Daryl toppled, his head turning toward her, their eyes meeting briefly before he disappeared over the edge.
Carol's breath caught in her throat as she dropped to the ground, looking desperately over the edge of the cliff. It was maybe 20 feet high, and she watched as Daryl fell, too far away from where she was lying to see him clearly as it looked like his body bounced off the rocks and plunged into the water below.
Suddenly, Andrea was in her ear, pulling her up, yelling at Carol to move, that the walkers that had overcome Daryl were coming for them… and Carol was dragged away from the edge of the bluff, pulled along by Andrea like deadweight as they numbly moved toward T-Dog and away from the advancing walkers.
A/N – I put my author's note at the end because of how this chapter finishes. I want to remind everyone that this is NOT the end of this story. There will be more to come. I have a plan, and despite the coming chapters (which may be difficult – be prepared for angst and darkness), I'd like to remind you that Carol and Daryl together is MY END GAME. Please keep that in mind. :) Thank you!
