Part Two

..

Two

Hundred Ways

.x.

"There's a man out there," Meghan's soft voice filled the room, causing her mother and Esther to glance in her direction. Lilly was patching up a few garments occasionally pricking herself with the needle as she stitched up the holes whilst Esther cleaned her boots at the dining table. Esther was quick to her feet and closed the gap between herself and the young girl, her brow furrowed as her eyes scanned the streets below.

"Where is he?" Esther asked the young girl who simply pointed in response. The soldier followed the girl's finger and narrowed her stare, watching for any movement in the distance. She lifted the binoculars from the table and stared out at the street below; it was relatively quiet, peaceful even. She blinked a few times, still seeing nothing. "Are you sure you saw someone out there?"

"Meghan, you've got to be telling us the truth," Lilly told her daughter. "We can't risk any lying."

"I'm not lying, mom," Meghan refuted, her voice defiant despite its immaturity. "He was wearing a sheriff's hat. He was running through the st—"

"I see him," Esther said, straining her eyes. The man was darting towards a tank with a sea of dead surrounding him. They reached for him, snapping their jaws in his direction, fascinated by his scent. He is as good as dead, a small voice popped into her mind and she faltered. She was never like this; she always wanted to try her best. She was a protector, a fighter, putting herself in danger in order to save others. Daryl had been quick to notice that in the short time they knew each other and it had stuck with her. And yet, here she was: predicting his death before her very own eyes without trying anything to save him.

She felt the fear rattling against her bones, threatening to break her down. She tried to reason with herself. Was it her job to save every person they came across? Was it her responsibility to protect everyone? She knew the answer deep down; it was an internal daily battle. It had been instilled in her for as long as she could remember that her duty as a soldier was to protect.

"What do we do?" Lilly's question hung in the air.

Esther thought for a moment, the panic within her rising as she knew she had to think logically about her next move. There were two possibilities: it could be a man in real, serious danger who requires help; it was a trick, a ploy to draw any good-natured people out of their homes in order to cause serious harm to them. She closed her eyes at the latter, knowing what that meant in its entirety.

"Is there a way out of this window?"

Lilly nodded. "Yeah, there's a fire escape outside my window."

"Okay," Esther nodded, quickly dressing. The clothes that Lilly and Tara had both offered her had been a grateful change whilst her uniform remained neatly folded in a drawer where the now unused television set was. She pulled on her boots. "I'm going to need you both to be my look-outs. I need to make sure my surroundings are safe for me to go check on this guy. You got that?"

Mother and daughter nodded at Esther. She tightened her belt and opened the drawer above where her clothes were. Lilly had reassured her that storing her weapons would be okay as Meghan understood the true dangers of guns.

Esther faltered as she saw her weapons laid out for her. She quickly swallowed the fear and placed them upon her body. In a way, deep down, Esther felt alive as soon as she adorned her uniform and shouldered her weapons.

"He's still in there," Meghan told her as Esther approached the window for one last look.

"Keep windows and doors locked, unless it's Daryl and Tara returning which—" Esther glanced at her watch. "—is unlikely for another couple hours. Try and keep your eyes on the street around me; I'll do my best to not rely on you but if anyone, walker or living person, comes out of any alleyway and I don't see them, call out. I'd rather you notify everyone around the area of my existence than watching as they approach me and not saying a word. I can defend myself, okay?"

"What about…" Lilly was aware of her daughter listening and mouthed, "… snipers."

"It's unlikely," Esther glanced outside once more, seeing nothing untoward on top of the buildings. "But I won't rule it out. I'm just hoping it's this one guy and that's it."

Esther moved into Lilly's bedroom and lifted open the window, shuffling herself out so that her feet rested on the metal fire escape.

Lilly reached out for Esther's hand that rested on the windowsill. "Be safe, Esther."

Esther offered her a knowing nod. "Remember—"

"—lock the windows when you leave," Meghan confirmed with a nervous toothy grin.

Esther smirked and nodded. She lifted herself off the windowsill and observed the area. With a deep breath to settle any last nerves, she moved from the window and descended the fire escape. She made short work of heading down from the fifteen floor, and before she knew it, she was on the ground. She kept her weapon poised, aiming it down the alleyway behind her before advancing towards the army tank. The dead were surrounding it, with all of them hammering against the exterior metal frame. She stared at it for a moment, her position protected, before she looked around her; nothing but empty streets surrounded her, with the walkers having cordoned off the tank, their only food source to have seemingly walked straight into them.

To the left of her, she could see, with a squint, the carcass of a horse that was being completely devoured by the dead who didn't seem to be that bothered by the man in the tank.

"Psst—" a voice sounded in the distance. She lifted her rifle higher and searched for the voice, not knowing if it was to capture her attention or someone else's of her presence.

A man's head hopped out from behind a large industrial bin in an alley. A bright red cap on his head. A sniper's dream, she thought to herself. It took her a moment to understand he was trying to get her attention, and with a quick overview of the area, she moved towards him, without capturing the attention of the dead.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked, her voice stern and authoritative.

He gave her attire a once over. "You're a little late to the party."

Esther raised her brows at him, and he shuffled nervously under her gaze.

"You're here for the same guy, right?" he continued. "The cowboy with a sheriff's hat."

"Yeah, I am…" Esther told him after a beat. "He still in there?"

"Affirmative," the man said, and cast another glance towards the tank. He motioned towards the radio in his hand. "I'm trying to draw him out with this. I saw him on a horse strolling into town and I thought, shit, he really is a cowboy. And then all hell broke loose… and let's just say Shergar the horse didn't come out of it well, but cowboy here went into this thing before I could get his attention. I don't know the channel for this thing."

"May I?" Esther asked to which the man nodded. "What's your name?"

"Glenn."

"Alright… you know how to shoot?" she asked, her gaze narrowing as his own eyes widened.

He lifted his baseball bat nervously. "I can swing real good, if that makes a difference?"

Esther let a smirk etch across her mouth. She lifted the radio to her mouth, and clicked the button. "Hey asshole in the tank. This is the US army, well one of them… the tank you are currently in has been compromised by a shit load of dead people. And now I'm having to save your ass from either suffocating as the air will no doubt be running out in there and by the dead who want to eat your ass. So, if you can hear me and I'm not talking to myself, can you give me a signal?"

The tank lid lifted and closed.

"Alright, cool," Esther continued talking on the radio. "I'm gonna give you five more minutes in there whilst I take care of some of these undead civilians and then I'm going to need you to run towards the alleyway next to the old bank. Got that?"

The tank lid lifted and closed once more. Esther handed the radio back to Glenn.

She handed him her rifle. "You know how to shoot, right?" she asked again to which he shook his head. "Just aim at the head of the dead and press the trigger. Just… don't shoot me."

"You're really trusting me with this thing?"

"I don't want to but you're all I have."

Glenn widened his eyes and swallowed the lump in his throat. He nodded. "Good luck… if the dead don't kill you then I might…"

"That's… not reassuring at all," she whispered mostly to herself. She pulled her knife from her boot and without a second thought, crept out from the alleyway and started to take down the unsuspecting dead who hadn't heard her approach them. She slashed and stabbed at their heads, watching and feeling as they dropped to the ground, as she advanced further. The feeling of her blade penetrated their skulls and brains was a feeling she hadn't missed at all, and even though she knew it needed to be done, the break from not having to do that had been an unexpected welcome one. It was filthy and messy, and she felt the blank gunk that was once their brains seeping down her arms from the blade. The unrelenting heat had caused the skin to begin to come away from their bodies and the blade seemed to be pulling the skin away with it every time she pulled it out of their heads.

She heard heaving behind her but didn't cast a glance in his direction. She worked her way through the dead, aware of their attention turning towards her. Soon there were more advancing towards her than she was comfortable with, and then it felt as though all time seemed to slow.

She allowed instinct to take over, the sensation in her limbs urging her on as her body worked around the dead who were all hell bent on ripping her apart. Her mind blurred, her vision became sharper, and her body was controlled. She worked up a routine: thrusting the knife into their heads and then pushing them to the ground. Over and over again until she was satisfied with her work. The scene in front of her was a surreal one. The walkers around her were dead; their bodies lying on the ground, some lying on others.

Esther allowed a moment to take a deep breath and it was then that she noticed the burn in her limbs. The calm before the storm, the silence before the crack of lightning.

"Esther!" Lilly's voice screamed through the silence of the street and Esther turned around just in time to see stray walkers behind her, forgetting the grand prize of a horse as their meal.

One grabbed at her but she wasn't quick enough to pull the knife around, and so with the handle of the knife, she hit it in the head repeatedly. The handle wasn't doing much damage, not the way she had hoped it would; it was simply, with her strength, mushing the skin on its skull more and causing bits of skin to come away and drip onto her. She lost her footing, force of the walkers pushing her further back, and she stumbled, crashing to the ground.

"Shoot—" she called out to Glenn who fumbled with the rifle. "Glenn—shoot !"

And there was a moment, where she stared into the unseeing gaze of the dead on her, that she wondered if this was it. Everything she had been, everything she would be, would be gone. She struggled against the strength of the dead man above her, and she fought with every part of her just as more advanced towards her, kneeling beside her on the ground to rip her apart. And it was then that she accepted her death.

She let out a scream as she fought against them. If she was going to die, she was going to die fighting for her life.

The head of the dead man jolted back, an arrow with a red tip penetrated the walker's head. And it was only when her gaze focused did she release the breath—her last one, she believed it to be—she didn't know she was holding.

.x.

Daryl Dixon stared at the woman on the ground, the dead surrounding her and advancing towards her. There were dead civilians discarded on the ground, her handiwork having claimed their true demise. He cast his gaze around and watched as a Korean man fumbled with the rifle—one that he understood to be Esther's—as she called out to him to shoot the dead upon her. She was struggling against the force of the dead who had knocked her off her feet, causing her to stumble and tumble to the ground.

He had seen the look on her face and his heart dropped. He had seen it before and it was something he hadn't expected to see again; the acceptance of the situation, of a death that would happen if he didn't do anything. The man who had Esther's rifle was still fumbling with it. He lifted his crossbow and aimed at the undead man on top of the soldier.

He released the arrow from the crossbow, watching it slice through the air, and hit the man in the head and right between the eyes. The heavy weight of the man caused her arms to buckle underneath her, as his body settled on top of her. He heard Tara rush out from behind him and head towards Esther, her own knife raised and ready to strike. He moved forward, another arrow ready and prepared to take down another walker. Esther remained on the ground, winded and all breath having escaped her. The man in the alleyway neglected the rifle and raced towards them with the baseball bat, whacking a walker across the head and causing them to drop to the ground.

He continued to hit them over and over, and Daryl narrowed his gaze at him just as Tara took down the last walker. Daryl never muttered a word as he closed the gap between himself and Esther; taking a moment to look down at her. She was staring up at the sky, her eyes having glazed over, the body of the dead man still on her.

He grabbed hold of him and pulled him off her. He grabbed a handful of her uniform with both hands and pulled her to her feet. Her legs were like jelly, but her eyes were on him. He kept hold of her for a while longer until he was sure she wouldn't collapse to the ground.

"Is she… is she okay?" the man with the baseball bat asked. Daryl threw a glare in his direction and pointed a finger at him.

"She's fine!" he bit at him. "She would've been okay if she wasn't out here saving ya goddamn ass."

Daryl looked her in the eye, and gently moved his hand to her face where blood from the walkers was smeared on her face and neck.

"Not yours," he whispered to her, and she took a moment to confirm his words. "Ya okay."

It was more of a statement than a question, and she nodded slowly. It was just a moment she was having, a blip. Nothing more than that. Daryl knew that, and so did Esther.

"She wasn't saving my ass," the Korean man refuted. "We were saving a guy in that tank."

Daryl snapped his gaze at the unmissable tank. He turned back to Esther, ensuring she was stable enough to leave her side. She offered him a nod, which he returned before stepping away from her. He marched towards the tank, stepping over the dead, and banged his fist against the tank, hoping it would draw the attention of the man inside. It seemed to stir something inside as a door underneath opened and the man crawled out from it.

"Makin' ya grand entrance, huh?" Daryl hissed at the man as he began to pace, angrily. He couldn't seem to shake the anger he felt, and he wasn't sure if he was directing it at the wrong people. He had promised himself that he would look after Esther; and he felt as though he failed. Was he angry at himself? Was he angry at the strangers for forcing Esther to rescue them? He knew she wouldn't have let them fight the dead without help.

"I—I can't thank you enough," the man ignored Daryl's angry outburst. "You did all this to save me?"

"We both saw you running away from the dead and… it was mostly her," the Korean man told him pointing between him and Esther. The sheriff looked towards Esther, his brow furrowing at the state she was in. He had seen people in a catatonic state before and even though he knew it wasn't as serious as that, she was struggling.

Daryl was aware of the attention that Esther was receiving from both strangers. "She's none of ya concerns, alright? She's been… injured badly. She shouldn't be out here."

Both men nodded and moved their gaze from her.

"I'm Rick Grimes," the man with the sheriff's hat introduced himself. "I was a sheriff for King County."

Daryl narrowed his gaze at Rick, then turned to the Korean man.

"I'm Glenn," the Korean man said, uncomfortable under Daryl's glare. "I was a pizza delivery guy before shit hit the fan."

"What are you doing in this town?" Tara was the one to speak next, and Daryl was grateful. He moved back towards Esther, noticing that she was more herself now than before. The paleness to her face had dissipated and a rosy tint to her cheeks had appeared.

"I came here to see if there was anyone still alive," Rick told them, taking his sheriff's hat off and running a hand through his short, sweaty hair. "I wasn't expecting this. I just… the streets were empty, and then I turned the corner and the dead were just everywhere."

"Where did ya see them?" Daryl asked, his voice lowering as he grew more aware of the fact that there were more walkers around them somewhere.

"A few streets away on the left," Rick told him, to which Daryl nodded with a furrowed brow.

Daryl turned to Tara and she lowered her gaze to the ground, knowing and accepting what he was going to say. "We have to get out of here. It ain't safe anymore."

Glenn swallowed the lump in his throat and pointed. "Uh… guys… there's someone there…"

Despite the sun hanging heavily in the sky and dispelling an uncomfortable amount of heat upon them, two figures stood in the middle of the road just a stone's throw away from the small group wearing hooded garments and dressed all in black. One was taller, an adult, and the other was a child.

Daryl raised his crossbow at them. His eyes flicked to Esther who closed the gap between her and her rifle that was still in the alleyway, and watched as she came into view, standing beside him, rifle poised and aimed at the two figures. A sense of pride washed over him as he understood it was no easy feat to shake the monster on your back, but she was fighting back as much as she could.

Something caught his eye and he squinted against the relentless sunshine. A glint from a large blade attached to the back of the taller one.

"We mean no harm…" a woman's voice called out to them. "We've been looking for you for some time."

.x.

Sophia Peletier had lost her mother in the commotion of leaving the department store in Atlanta. She had been ripped from her mother's grasp as the walkers closed in on them. In a city full of dead, she was alone. And for the first few days, she wandered the city on her own, her doll close to her chest. It wasn't long before screams erupted all around her as explosions marked the city, and she had found a hiding space. It wasn't an ideal place to be, but she was too scared to keep running, hoping her mother was safe. She was tired, hungry and frightened.

It wasn't long before she noticed that she wasn't alone. It was subtle at first; writing on the walls advising her to head to a certain place, but she wasn't sure, even at such a young age, whether she could trust it. A part of her wanted to believe it to be her mother but one thing she was sure of; it wasn't her mom's writing. And so, she kept on walking. Days turned into nights, and nights dragged on. Then food was being left for her, a snack bar and a bottle of water being left at different parts of the area. She was hungry and thirsty, and she ate and drank so quickly that she regretted it as soon as she was finished.

It was a week after being separated from her mother did she come face to face with the person who was leaving her supplies.

Michonne was her name. She was kind and protective; and Sophia felt safe.

The weeks had dragged by slowly, but time had rushed by in a flash. She missed her mom more than anyone would understand, she thought. But this woman who had come to her aid and made her safe in the city of dead had saved her, she was sure of it even at her young age. They had left the city, with Michonne deeming it unsafe to live around buildings broken by the explosions and had found shelter in a neighbouring town. They walked and walked, sometimes for days, and finding shelter in the evenings where they would eat in silence, both harbouring pain that was different but identical. They had both lost someone dear to them.

But as they walked through the town, aware of the amount of dead that filled the streets, Sophia had seen a face she recognised. And one that she was sure belonged to someone she knew. Michonne had wanted to know if she was one hundred percent sure as they were heavily outnumbered. Sophia was adamant, and that was enough for Michonne.

"We mean no harm…" Michonne called out to them. "We've been looking for you for some time."

The man with the crossbow who Sophia had whispered his name to her tightened his grasp on his weapon. Daryl could shoot us both dead right this second. Sophia, beside her, pulled her hood off.

The soldier lowered her rifle and let it hang down beside her. Sophia squinted against the sunlight and watched as Esther turned to Daryl who met her gaze in shock. He lowered his crossbow and Sophia found herself running towards them; the time they had spent together was short, but they were here.

She had found them.