Day 875 – Late Morning

Wyatt

"Daniel!" Lucia cried as she ran into the Outpost. She ran up to the injured man, who was slumped in a swivel chair, his face pale and drooping. He was breathing, but only slightly.

"Heeyyyy, Lucy!" Daniel chuckled, "How you been?"

Lucia was about to reply until Daniel coughed and sprayed her face with blood. "Sorry," he groaned, "I didn't mean it."

"I know you didn't, you dope." Lucia replied.

"You know... I, uh... if it's um... over, then I just wanna say that I love you, Luce." Daniel sighed. His head collapsed to the side, his breathing rapid as Lucia stroked his cheek.

Wyatt looked at Daniel, panicked. "What do we do?" He asked.

"Come on," Lucia said, dropping the tense attitude she'd been holding onto before and running through into the next room. She rooted through boxes as the others followed suit.

"What are we looking for?" Vince asked. "What's up?"

"His stitches have fallen out." Lucia said, wiping her fringe off of her face, "We don't have much time, we need to find something to hold his wound together before he bleeds out."

Wyatt saw Becca and Annie reaching into boxes, looking for anything that could help. He decided to do whatever he could and grabbed another box, looking for medical supplies.

Lucia had snapped back to her 'old' self, albeit a panicky and flustered version. At any rate, it was an improvement over the woman who had aimed a gun at them not long before.

Daniel was maybe twenty five metres away, but they couldn't see him through the door, and they couldn't tell what state he was in, though he hadn't been looking too well a minute ago.

"Anything?!" Lucia called, her voice wavering.

"Nothing." Vince grunted as he threw a box to the ground.

"There must be medical supplies somewhere." Becca said, rooting through her third box.

"We found some earlier," Lucia said, "I stitched his stomach with some makeshift stuff but we didn't have much."

"Wyatt," Vince said, "Go in there and see how he's doing. Try and keep him conscious."

"Will do." Wyatt said, and turned to push the double doors open.

He stepped back into the cubicle filled hall and briskly walked down the aisle, searching for anything they could use to help Daniel. Nothing caught his eye, except for some paper with names and locations written on it. He looked at it briefly, shrugged, and pocketed it.

Wyatt saw Daniel sitting in the swivel chair, blood pouring from the gash on his stomach. His head was slumped, hanging loosely by his shoulder.

"Daniel? Daniel... dude?" Wyatt asked. He stepped closer to the man and put his hand on his shoulder, giving it a worried shake. "You okay, man?"

Daniel's stomach wasn't rising and falling with breath. "Shit," Wyatt muttered, "Shit. What do I do?" He looked back at the door in panic, where the others were.

Something darted out the corner of his eye. Wyatt was pushed forward, landing on his chest, his pistol flying out of his grasp. Winded, he tried to crawl forwards but there was nothing to hold onto. He flipped onto his back and saw Daniel's body with both hands around his ankle. His eyes were pale and lifeless, his mouth hanging, slack-jawed like every other walker in the world.

As he exhaled rapidly, Wyatt lifted his free leg and shoved his foot into one of the walker's wrists in an attempt to shake it off. He struggled with it for a while, but the walker wouldn't relent as it still had the strength of a fresh body rather than being partially decayed.

The walker gurgled and groaned as it kept pulling. Wyatt put his palms on the carpet behind him and pushed, moving his entire body backwards and away from the walker. Its arms stretched but it dragged itself forwards on its knees as Wyatt gasped. How odd it should come to this; he'd only met this man a couple of days ago and now he was fighting his corpse.

Daniel's body crawled atop him as he grabbed its wrists, desperately trying to hold it off. It wasn't Daniel any more, just a body. Strangely enough, Wyatt's greatest concern was what Lucia would make of this.

He couldn't roll over, he couldn't push the body away from him, he couldn't get it off. Maybe he was fucked. "Guys?" He called weakly. "Anyone?!"

The mouth of Daniel's walker darted for his wrist, which he pulled back in fear. The walker was put off balance for a millisecond, but Wyatt managed to twist and throw the dead weight off of him. As it rolled across the floor, he pushed himself up into a crouch. It climbed to its feet as he staggered away, winded, and launched another attack, catching up to him with its arms outstretched. Wyatt turned in horror as he saw it advance.

And then something powered through the head of Daniel's undead body, killing the creature that his body had come. The bag of bones collapsed to the ground and let out a final hiss of trapped air.

Wyatt turned from staring at Daniel's body and saw Becca standing in the open double doors, a pistol shaking in her hands. "I... didn't want to. I had to." She said, trying to justify her actions.

"Don't worry." Wyatt said calmly. "You saved me."

Becca was barged out of the way as Lucia, Vince and Annie ran into the room. Lucia took one look at Daniel's body, with its pale skin and white eyes, and collapsed to her knees, her lip trembling and tears forming in her eyes. Daniel lay on his back, dead a second time.

Wyatt kneeled down and closed Daniel's eyes with one hand, shutting his mouth with the other, so he looked like a dead human, and not a dead walker. His face was intact as the bullet had passed through the left side of his head, above the ear.

Lucia collapsed onto her dead boyfriend's chest, moaning in grief. Wyatt slowly stood up and walked back to the others, his head hanging in shame. Becca was still holding her gun, her eyes wide, seeming to contemplate her actions.

Wyatt looked at Vince. "What do we do?"

Vince stared at Lucia, who was weeping, her head resting on Daniel's chest. "Lucia?" He asked, wincing in preparation for her to shout for him. Wyatt wouldn't blame her for doing so.

"What?" She moaned.

"What do you want us to do?" Vince asked. "Do you need us to stay?"

Lucia didn't reply.

Becca put her pistol back into her waistband and crossed her arms, hunched over and shivering. She walked over to Annie, patted the child's shoulder and guided her away, where she couldn't see the body of Daniel, coughing as she walked.

"We need to find Russell." Wyatt said.

Vince slowly turned his head to look at him. "Do you think she's safe here?" He asked.

"Safe? What do you mean?"

Vince lowered his voice to a whisper. "Safe, secure. Do you think we can leave her? She needs time, and time's not what we have. We give her the time she needs; we leave, we find Russell, deal with the bandits and come back when we do have time."

"I don't know, man, what if she's suicidal?" Wyatt questioned, glancing at Lucia.

"I don't think she's gonna kill herself, but I don't think we can take her. It's not that she'll slow us down, I just think this is in her best interest to let her have the time she needs."

"We need to talk to her." Wyatt decided, and walked over to crouch next to Lucia.

"We're gonna go." He said.

"Good." She grunted, not looking at him, her head still rested on Daniel's chest.

"We'll go find Russell and deal with the fucker who stabbed Daniel, okay?" He sounded uneasy, not knowing what he meant by 'dealing with Ivan'. "You just take the time you need, maybe get some rest. We'll come back for you."

"Don't even bother. Just leave me." Lucia groaned. "I want to be left alone. I need to think."

"We'll come back." Wyatt nodded and got back to his feet. Sighing, he nudged his head towards the exit, telling Vince they should leave. On the way he tapped Annie's shoulder and led her out.

The group of four walked out into the reception of the building. Wyatt turned and looked at Lucia, who was still weeping over Daniel, and then the double doors closed, obscuring her from sight.

Wyatt wasn't happy with the decision to leave her, but she was safe in the Outpost. The place was secure enough and she seemed to be in her right mind. If walkers got in, Wyatt was sure she'd know what to do.

It made him sad, though. Ever since they'd met, Lucia had been hell-bent on making it to the Outpost.

She'd made it there, but the cost hadn't been worth it.