Sheep in Wolf's Clothing
Apocalypse Barbie and Tara leapt to their feet the moment they spotted us, the entire group sitting a few feet away waiting on bated breath.
"How'd it go?" Tara asked, eyes wide.
I didn't respond, handing Apocalypse Barbie her gun. She immediately ejected the magazine, hastily counting the remaining bullets. Her mouth dropped open and her head snapped up.
"There's only one left."
I sat down, digging a bottle of water out of my pack. She continued to wait for explanation I had no intention of giving. Her annoyance at my dismissal was palpable, and I felt myself relax. It was almost nice to see a glimpse of the feisty, hot pants wearing woman I first met at Terminus. Ever since we lost Ariel and Sasha she'd been more reserved. The way her face was flooding with color now told me she was pissed which was more like the woman I'd come to know. It was either that or her skintight pants were cutting off the blood flow to her brain.
"Guess there were more than six?" She phrased it like a question, but it was an accusation.
I twisted the cap back on the bottle, raising my eyebrows slightly. "Ungrateful doesn't look good on you."
She pointed a gloved finger like she was wielding a weapon, ready to verbally duke it out, but Daryl intervened.
"We took care of 'em." Both women put their hands on their hips, their glare now directed at my redneck. He swallowed hard under their scrutiny, but didn't give an inch. "There were 11."
No one spoke for a solid minute. The reality of our situation hitting a little too close to home. As if we coordinated it beforehand the four of us turned to Two-Face who pushed off the tree, shaking his head back-and-forth.
"I didn't know." His eyes pleaded with each of us to believe him, and I almost laughed at the absurdity of the unspoken request. "I swear, I didn't know."
"Be a lot cooler if you did," I replied casually, trying to rachet down the escalating tension. I was all for killing Two-Face, but only after we got everyone safely to Hilltop.
"So, what's the play? Obviously they're on to us."
Tara was right. Negan knew our only option for refuge was Hilltop and our best chance of making it there safely lay in the woods. It didn't take a genius to deduce our odds spiraled into the gutter the longer we were out here.
Daryl pulled the map out, biting his thumbnail. "If they're smart, they'll cover all these passes b'tween here and Hilltop."
That didn't leave us a lot of options.
"We have to keep moving." Apocalypse Barbie had reverted into her reserved shell like a spooked apocalyptic turtle. I didn't like it. It was more fun when she was irrationally angry at the world. "We'll just have to risk it."
"Maybe you don't have to."
I had my weapon aimed at Two-Face before he had a chance to take a second step. He froze, hands raised, lips pressed together in a hard line. He could take his sad, dejected puppy dog look and row, row, row his boat the fuck away from me.
My husband laid a gentle hand on my arm, and I drug my teeth across my bottom lip, reluctantly lowering my weapon. Two-Face waited another 10-seconds before coming closer on shaking legs. He bent down, eying the map thoughtfully.
"Negan won't send his people down into this stretch of swamp, not if he doesn't have to."
Tara bristled at his intel, her tone sharp. "Yeah? How do you know that?"
"Negan wanted to map the best routes with cover from the Sanctuary to the Hilltop. He decided the swamp was too dangerous. Didn't think it was worth the risk."
He was right.
A bitter taste flooded my mouth, and I took another sip of water. Had I just agreed with Negan? Eww, gross. I needed a shower.
Daryl rubbed his fingers together, eyes flitting back-and-forth across the forest floor. Oh crap, I knew that look.
"You aren't seriously going to listen to him?" Tara scoffed, surging to her feet. I seconded that opinion. It may be the safest way to Hilltop, but I'd take Saviors any day of the week over a swamp. "It's too dangerous for The Saviors, so you're gonna send us? Are you kidding me?"
By the look on his face, no, no he was not.
"They have us boxed in," Apocalypse Barbie countered.
"Tara has a point. Why should we trust him?"
"He could turn on us like he turned on his own people."
I stood, wiping my hands on my jeans. "It's super helpful when people offer criticism, but no alternative solution Terrance." I turned my head to the second man. "You got a better plan?"
"No," he replied, ducking his head in embarrassment at my admonishment.
The first guy pointed at himself. "My name's Tobin, actually."
"Toby, Terrance, whatever, we can't sit here all day debating this. Bottom line up front, we're surrounded, and the only possible way out is the swamp." Two-Face offered me a curt nod that made me curl my lip in disgust. "I didn't do this for you so save that bullshit for someone who doesn't know you like I do."
He didn't respond to me directly. Instead, saving his words for the group. "I didn't just turn on 'em. I killed 'em. Daryl saw it. Rosita saw it. You saw it." He gestured to Tara, and the atmosphere crackled with animosity. "But one of them got away. So, if they find me, Negan puts my head on a pike." That didn't sound so bad to me. "I'm not working for them, and I'm not going back to them. I chose my side. This is it. I'm here to help you beat Negan. After that," he sighed heavily, "Well, I know how it ends."
I rolled my eyes, dramatic much.
Daryl glanced at me and I nodded in return. He tapped the map against his thigh, the pressure of leadership heavy on his wide shoulders. "A'right, we try the swamps."
The walk to the swamp was made in relative silence, everyone on guard for a possible attack that never came. I scanned the tree line, my hands slick with sweat from the heat and anticipation.
"If this works it don't change shit," Daryl growled at Two-Face who was staring in my general direction. My husband grabbed him by the shoulders, spinning him around. "Don't look at her."
"Everything I did...it was for Sheri." Don't kill Two-Face. Don't kill Two-Face. "It doesn't make it right or somethin' that should be forgiven, but, it's the truth. The only one I got left."
"Touching," I muttered under my breath, trying my best to ignore his existence.
"She's the one who let Alex out. Then she ran."
Daryl regarded him coolly. "She's out here?"
"Somewhere. I hope," Two-Face answered, looking around like his ex-wife might appear out of thin air.
I help up my hand to stop the procession, my husband halting at my side. The acidic smell of the swamp polluted the air, making it hard to breathe without gagging. The eerie water was black and still, leaves, branches, trees, and all manner of "debris" floating on the contaminated surface. It was like a scene straight out of a horror movie only worse cause this was real. Fuck the swamp. I'd rather go head-to-head with The Saviors than do this. At least you could see them coming. There was no telling what the hell was in that water. It reminded me of the swamps on Degobah from Star Wars, steaming bayous filled with murky uncertainty.
A walker emerged from the depths, gargling as water spilled out of her open mouth, frozen in an eternal scream. Her skin was non-existent, replaced by a grayish, black kind of sludge that was clinging to her nearly decomposed skeletal remains with nothing but hopes and dreams. A worm wiggled its way out of her eye socket, stretching down the length of her face before falling and hitting the water with a plop.
Nope. An entire metric fuckton of nope.
Somehow Daryl was able to put an arrow in her eye and lock a hand on my wrist before I could haul ass away from this nightmare.
"Gotta hold yur shit together Red."
I gaped at him. "This is me holding my shit together."
His eyes traveled from the top of my head to the bottom of my boots and back again. "Needs work."
"Fuck off."
"We have to be careful, but we can do this." I wanted to get behind Apocalypse Barbie's ra-ra speech, but the scent of the death swamp made my stomach recoil violently. I was pretty sure I couldn't do this, careful or not.
"We're gonna push through. Clear a path for the others." My husband looked at me expectantly, and I shuttered involuntarily. "Red, yur with me."
"I can't swim."
"Didn't you jump off a cliff?"
I glared at Tara who looked amused at my freak out. "Your point?"
"Count me in," one of the group members offered, drawing a knife while a few others followed suit.
"If I can have the crossbow..."
"Ya can't," Daryl snapped, pointing at the turncoat with his knife, "Yur gonna stay right there."
Mic drop!
"You coming?" Apocalypse Barbie asked Tara.
"I'm gonna hang back. Watch out for the group."
My mouth fell open in outrage. "Why does she get to hang back? I wanna hang back."
My husband ignored my protest, pulling me behind him and into the swamp. "Come on. Let's get this done."
The water was surprisingly warm which made it feel even ickier though I had no idea why. The smell alone was overpowering, and I opted to breath out of my mouth in an effort to keep the peaches I'd eaten for breakfast down. It didn't help.
The further we progressed the deeper the water got until it was almost waist high, and I shuttered. Something brushed against my leg, and I yelped, swallowing a scream of panic. My hands clawed at Daryl as I attempted to climb him like a koala bear scaling a tree. For his part he merely sighed and stopped, trying to wait me out.
"What the hell was that?" I squeaked, wrapping my arms around his neck.
"Probably just a snake."
"A snake? I don't do snakes." Or swamps for that matter.
"At least it ain't a pufferfish."
I was never going to live that one down.
The amusement in his voice would have irritated me if I wasn't wrapped around him like a boa constrictor, desperately trying to extricate myself from the creepy water. Turned out there wasn't a lot of room for pride in a scenario such as this.
Growling to our left drew our attention, and we watched Apocalypse Barbie struggle to take out a walker who surprised her, rising out of the water like an undead nightmare. She grunted, shoving the walker down before plunging her knife deep in his head.
"Jesus, they're freakin' Loch Ness Walkers," I mumbled, finding it hard to swallow my mouth was so dry.
"Ya gonna get down?"
"I don't want to."
He sighed, motioning for Toby to hold up a second. "If ya get down I'll give ya a can of ABCs and 123s."
Scary swamp water with Loch Ness Walkers or ABCs and 123s?
"Two cans."
He chuckled, "Deal."
Reluctantly I released my hold on him, my body slithering against his as I slowly, carefully, reentered the dreadful water. I didn't let go of him until my feet were firmly planted on the soft swamp bottom, and I was absolutely positive a pufferfish wasn't going to get me.
"Ain't gonna lie Red, I'm kinda turned on right now."
I looked up to see him smirking down at me. Men.
We pushed through a tangle of weeds, and I exhaled harshly when I saw the bank on the other side. My relief was short-lived though as a gang of walkers broke the surface, their heads popping up like macabre game of Whac-A-Mole.
The swamp had not been kind to the dead. It was hard to see any trace of humanity left behind in the ghoulish bones adorned with the tattered remains of clothes. Their growls of hunger were muffled by the water filling their lungs, most unable to move very far. Some could only wave a hand, others only their head, the dead stuck in the muddy swamp that was acting like quicksand.
"Whatcha think Red?"
I grimaced, "I think pufferfish aren't so bad."
"Shallow spot straight ahead."
"I'll take the right side," I offered reluctantly.
"Ya sure ya don't want the left?" Asshole. There were two more on the left than the right.
"No, I'm good."
"A'right, let's do this." Did he have to sound so excited?
We both lunged forward in unison, stabbing the closest walkers. My knife cut through into the waterlogged bones with ease and clamped my lips together. A knife was not supposed to penetrate a human skull so easily.
A walker reached for me, his or her eyes completely gone. A tiny swamp crab snapped its claws from its home in their right eye socket, and shook my head in disgust, stabbing it in the side of the head and shoving it away. The walker immediately stopped moving, sinking down in the water with the swamp crab claws opening and closing furiously like it was waving goodbye. I swear, I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.
Daryl and I moved forward as a pair, killing the walkers with practiced precision until there were none left and we were standing safely on the opposite bank. Looking left and right it appeared everyone else also made it safely out of the swamp of horrors which was a relief.
"Let's get the others," Daryl said, striding confidently back into the abyss. When he realized I wasn't following he sighed heavily, turning around. "Ya comin'?" No, probably not. "Want a piggyback ride?"
He said it like a joke, but the joke was on him.
"Hell yeah."
He watched me carefully for any sign I was kidding, his lips twitching in amusement when I remained firmly on the dry land, waiting for my ride to come to me. In two large steps he was in front of me, handing me his crossbow which I slung across my back. I hopped on his back, careful not to strangle him with my arms, legs crisscrossing his waist. Once I was settled he ventured back into the black water, long legs carrying us quickly across.
It was obvious when we returned something was wrong, and I instantly searched for Two-Face. When I couldn't find him my gaze landed on Tara who looked guilty and embarrassed. She was quick to explain how she'd enlisted his help to take down a few walkers. In reality she'd lured him away so she could finally exact her revenge.
"I told you to wait!" Daryl screamed in her face.
I saw the group take a healthy step away from the irate redneck. Apocalypse Barbie's eyes cut to me, her meaning clear, was I going to do anything? My answer was a firm head shake which meant hell-to-the-fucking-no. I wouldn't even if I could, and honestly, there wasn't a damn thing I could do to soothe the pissed bowman. If Tara didn't want him all up in her Kool-Aid she shouldn't do dumb shit. Trying to get him to calm down now would be like shooting someone and asking them not to bleed.
"For all we know, he could be tellin' 'em everything! Negan could be on his way here right now!"
"He isn't. He won't. He led them away. They were coming right for us, and he saved us," she countered.
"She's right. He did. I saw it." Apocalypse Barbie had balls getting in the middle of this. No common sense to speak of, but huge, freakin' balls.
"I don't give a damn what he did!" he yelled, invading Tara's personal space once again, "He can stick with 'em. He can come back. Hell, he can run. When I find that sumbitch I'm gonna..."
He trailed off, unable to finish. His chest was heaving, body coiled tight. In the stark quietness of the woods Nugget's whimpers were loud, and he instantly deflated. The shock of seeing the tiny girl scared by his outburst sucked the fight right out of him. His shoulders sagged in shame and he turned abruptly, walking away.
"C'mon," he ordered, not sparing anyone a second glance.
He led the group across the swamp, refusing to make eye contact with anyone, including me. I held my tongue. Now, in the middle of the forest on the run from The Saviors, was hardly the time to get into this, but we would get into this.
If anyone understood his anger it was me. Two-Face may not have ordered my torture, but he facilitated it. He was a cog in the wheel of a sadistic machine, and now he was free, on the loose with his life and our secrets.
The tall wooden gates of Hilltop were a welcomed sight. The lookouts shouted from their perch, and the gate opened. The community rushed forward to greet us, and I exhaled harshly when I saw Carol and Merle among them.
Daryl's best friend bounded forward, engulfing us both in a hug that quickly turned to tears. My husband held her, offering words of sympathy that did little to extinguish the pain at the loss of The Kingdom.
"Yur late."
I turned, smiling at Merle who grinned back at me. "Ran into the un-neighborly type." He chuckled. "Any trouble?"
"We lost the preacher."
"Is he..."
"Nah, least I don't think so. He wasn't gonna make it without meds so we scavenged a house we came across. Got ambushed by Saviors and had to run. He fell behind. Me and the doc tried to get to him, but..."
I put my hand on his arm. "You did what you could."
He glanced over his shoulder at his girlfriend who was bouncing Nugget in her arms. "If those pussies didn't slower than a one-legged dog on tranquilizers none of this would've happened."
"Do you do that unconsciously or is it because you're a dick?" I questioned, referring to the redneck he knew I didn't understand.
"Bit of both actually." He pointed to a long line in front of a shack that was serving as a cafeteria. "There's food up yonder. Ain't much, but it's somethin'."
"I'll be there in a little bit." He nodded, walking away while I waited for Daryl to finish up with Carol. "She OK?"
"Yeah." He bit his thumbnail, eyes downcast.
"You want to talk about it?"
"No." I put my hands on my hips, waiting him out. He may not want to talk about it, but he needed to. He sighed heavily, but knew there was no waiting me out. "I want it over. I want it done."
Stepping closer I brushed the hair out of his eyes. "It'll never be over."
We may win the war, but it wouldn't end. The graves a few hundred yards away were proof of that. If that wasn't enough there was Beth, the young widow dolling out food to prisoners, the same people who'd murdered her husband. Tragedy was all around us, and it had nothing to do with the apocalypse.
Still, in the midst of all the pain and death there was also happiness and dare I say it, hope. I'd found the love of my life. Rick and Deadpool found a second chance. Nugget was thriving, growing like a weed, surviving despite the overwhelming odds against her. Carl and Enid were...something, but the point was they had a chance, a chance at love, a chance at a future.
"We're not going to beat him with hate." I cupped his face in my hands, kissing him softly. "We're going to beat him with love."
"That's 'bout the cheesiest thing I ever heard in my life," he said with a small smile.
He kissed me again, pulling me close. In that moment I was positive this was where I was supposed to be, more importantly, who I was supposed to be. I didn't start my life with love and family, but I'd ended up with it. It took the end of the world for me to find place.
Maybe it was fate.
Maybe it was pure luck.
Maybe it just was.
His arms felt solid around me, grounding me, making me feel safe, loved, and indestructible. That was the beauty of true love. I realized in that stolen moment with my husband it didn't matter what Negan did or anyone else for that matter.
In the insanity of this world we'd still found each other.
In the wake of madmen trying to destroy what we'd built we'd persevered.
We were meant to be, and nothing, no one, could tear us apart.
We were in this together.
This side or the other.
We're rapidly moving towards the conclusion of the war with The Saviors. I'll be honest, it's a difficult arc to navigate, but I hope you're liking how it's going so far.
Until next time...
