~Author's Note: Here is the first chapter of "I Will Follow…" of 2020…the first of the year and the first in a very long time, but I am so excited! This chapter is probably going to read a little fractured, but that is really what I was hoping for in writing it to set the tone and mood. And just some notes about going forward for both this fic and "Wasn't Born and Angel"…I think that I am going to start writing shorter chapters in hopes of updating both of my stories more often instead of getting really overwhelmed with long chapters which tend to make me very nervous in the editing process. So that means there will probably be more cliffhangery chapters rather than each chapter being wrapped up in a nice little bow…more like chapters in the middle of both my fics. Also, this is a note to any of my readers who have been leaving guest comments on either of my fics and asking questions about the stories. I appreciate those comments and reviews, but I can't actually reply to guest reviews via messaging, so please don't think I am ignoring you by not answering. I try to respond to all feedback that I get, but it is impossible if comments are left as a guest. Anyway, I hope that everyone is having an amazing New Year so far. Thank you for coming back, reading, and commenting! It means the world to me. I am looking forward to more chapters to come this year!~
"…to the hospital…now!" Daryl jerked away so violently that Beth was inadvertently pulled closer to him, unwilling to relinquish her grasp.
But in the end he wasn't ready to let go either…a kiss that was more a collision, desperate fingers biting deep into the back of her neck, then an unceremonious shove setting her upon her path…to the hospital without him.
"Daryl…"
"Do as I say!"
Gunshots rang out in the night…now…again…the first having drawn them from their slumber, brought Glenn to them, brought word reminding them safety was never guaranteed…
"Survivors…they climbed the fence, some got caught in the razor wire. Walkers took down the chain-link. Someone opened the inner gates." Glenn's telling of the dire tale truncated by rasping breaths, winded from a run.
"Get in the house. Lock the doors. Stay there and don't open them for anyone but me!" Daryl's first orders were punctuated by protective instinct and his unspoken prayer that she was going to listen.
"But…I can…" Beth insisting that she could fight, she would stand by Daryl's side. She was strong.
But no one was having it.
"Get back in…" Daryl tried again, but he too seemingly had very little to say in the matter, Glenn interrupting.
"No. Go to the hospital." Glenn finally caught his breath, pausing only at the distant shouts before finishing his stance as the voice of reason. "They're gonna need your help with the wounded, Beth. Bob is already on his way up there. And you don't want her trapped alone in your trailer if the herd gets further in." That to Daryl, appealing to his ever present need to keep her safe.
Although she didn't agree…didn't like it, Beth was astounded at the amount of reasoning Glenn could cram into a few short breaths.
But Daryl froze at the most critical detail, highlighting the thing she'd missed…the truth that rooted primal fearin her heart.
"'Further in…'. They're inside the gates?" Daryl was brave…the bravest man she knew, always able to hold it together under the worst circumstances. But there was fear in the unusually high tenor of his voice that replaced the gruff grit that so often spoke his confidence in surviving, his ability to defeat whatever he faced in his here and now.
"Yes…no…I don't know…but we're not overrun, not yet…" Glenn's own priorities left him anxiously anticipating Daryl's decision, turning towards the unmistakable sounds of conflict, nervously palming his pistol.
"I ain't gonna leave you…" Desperation momentarily took Daryl…the Daryl who was hers and hers alone, drawing her close. "I ain't gonna leave her." As if Glenn hadn't heard him.
The night was positively alive now with other residents, a few heading towards the danger, others confused and frightened, ambling around like inviting victims.
"Bring her then…we have to go…they need us."
Glenn left them then and there, sprinting off, Beth knowing no matter what Daryl wanted, he was gonna leave her. He couldn't hide from a fight. And in his mind, she knew he would be thinking it was the only way he could protect her…
"Get up to the hospital, now!"
Throbbing lips, battered by the collision of a kiss pleaded for something he couldn't give her.
"Daryl…" Fearful and hesitating.
"Do as I say!"
No was her first inclination…defiance…he didn't get to tell her what to do…until harsh syllables faded, the blow softened when Daryl stepped in close again, his hand gently cupping her cheek…contradictory in every way.
Leaning into his palm, closing her eyes, making her own decision…Beth knew if she went with him, he would focus to save her, not look out for himself. In this, she had to be selfless, not selfish or prideful in the fact that she knew she was strong enough to fight.
Gunshots ended that gentle interlude…did he say it to her, or to himself…those last raspy, almost whispered words…? "We've all got jobs to do…"
This was where their paths diverged, Daryl taking off in the night, crossbow bumping against his back, disappearing in the dark. This time he wasn't wearing his wings, and this time, she couldn't follow.
Screams…the cries of agony heart-wrenching…the silence of those who succumbed to the pain eerie and frightening…all enough to drive anyone to distraction. Beth never aspired to follow in Daddy's footsteps, her heart too gentle to ever imagine inflicting pain even if it meant saving someone. But in this life it was a necessity, all the things he taught her were invaluable, and what she wanted was of no account.
Cast unwillingly into a storm of blood, suffering, and desperation…a chaotic haze as soon as she stepped through the sliding glass doors of the main entrance, Beth didn't know what to do…
"Sort them…you've gotta sort them…" A doctor…Dr. Darden barked orders in the distance. "If there's a chance, bring them to us, uninjured, send them to the cafeteria…if there's no hope even with amputation, find a place and lock them in…the lounge…"
"Those doors can't be secured." A camouflaged figure joined the harrowing conversation to which Beth was party but not part of.
"Then find a place that can be." Frantic, a doctor should have exuded calm in a time of crisis, but Dr. Darden didn't, almost as shaken as she was.
Another wave of refugees coming through the automatic doors of the hospital pushed Beth further down the hall, the soldier fighting to hold the tide back, to decide who would live and who would die.
Closer to the screams, Beth cringed away, but she had a job to do. It was a makeshift emergency room…even in a bona fide hospital such as this, there had been no need for a triage center when it was built, so they made do with what they had. Beth turned around the room, flashes of horror from a nightmare were all about her…one grueling scene to the next. It all left her backing away, ready to run…backing up until she bumped into a gurney, swinging around. A familiar face…one of the nurses who tended Beth when she first came in from the wilderness examined a bloody-armed man occupying the stretcher. The nurse…Beth needed to remember her name to ground herself. Julia…her name was Julia.
"Are you bit…you're not bit…" Julia asked and answered her own question in the space of a breath, realizing, Beth knew, that this case was serious from the amount of blood covering the wound but far from critical.
"Please…please…something for the pain…"
"I'm sorry…we can't. We have amputations; we can't spare the anesthetics." Not unkind, the nurse was just realistic and intent on her work.
And the truth of it was, anesthetics would be of little help for those facing the removal of a limb. Time was of the essence if there was a chance to stop the spread of the infection…but after…maybe after painkillers would provide relief or at least oblivion.
"Nurse! Over here now! He's bit. The leg has to come off. Strap him down." Dr. Oberle made a much more professional figure amidst the triage than Dr. Darden.
Julia paused only a second, spying Beth frozen near the scene.
"You…Beth…you can stitch." She'd dropped a suture kit on the surgical tray, and spoke as if it was a matter of fact, like she knew without a doubt. But if she tended Daryl during his convalescence, perhaps somehow she did know Beth had some medical talent that had been practiced on Daryl from his pre-existing wound. None of it really mattered to anyone except Beth and her mind trying to avoid the present. "You've gotta help him."
"I…I don't know…" Beth lost her wits and her tongue all at once. "I don't know where to start."
"If you can't, there's no one else. He'll lose the arm." It was the only encouragement Beth was left with.
We've all got jobs to do.
"I'm Beth." She spoke to calm herself as much as her patient. "I'm going to try to fix you."
He growled a pained acknowledgment while she tentatively examined the ribbons of skin cut 'round his arm, looking like a spiral sliced Easter ham. At least the lacerations weren't that deep; thank God for small favors. But it was like trying to piece together a flesh puzzle. The fact that there were far worse fates than stitches without anesthetic must've sunk in, and the man found his courage to accept the only help available to him while biting back any complaints and discomfort the best he could. Thankful for his restraint, Beth was less rattled and able to focus on her work.
"What happened?" Once she found her place to start, suturing became methodical…almost mindless. Stitch the skin, knot the suture, clip the excess. Stitch, knot, clip. Stitch, knot, clip. Stitch, knot, clip…simple enough to sew the strips of flesh…simple yet tedious.
She needed to know what happened…whether or not knowing would ease her fears, Beth couldn't say.
"The dead were all around us…" He managed to expel the words through gritted teeth, stifling grunts. "Wehit a chain-link fence…had no choice but to climb. Got wrapped up in the razor wire on the way over the top…" Grinding his jaw every time her needle pierced severed skin to draw it back together again.
Cruel as it may have been, Beth didn't care about how he mangled his arm; she was doing her job to fix him. Whatshe really cared about…the only thing she cared about was Daryl; she needed to know the odds he was facing in the dark without her.
"Were there many…many walkers?"
"So many…too many to fight even with our numbers." He cringed away from her needle at what must have been a particularly tender spot, Beth placing a hand over his to still him, pausing a moment.
So many…too many… That did nothing to quell the fear in her heart…her fear for Daryl.
But the world wouldn't take Daryl from her now, would it? They'd been through their tragedies and losses already.
"Are there many of you…your group?" His words led her to believe that their group must have been large, larger than she would expect to be traveling without a secure place to thrive, but then, expectations now weren't what anyone imagined, one way or the other.
"We were over a hundred before we had to abandon our settlement."
A hundred! That was astonishing. But why was she so surprised that large enclaves of people were surviving together like they had at the prison, or the Governor at Woodbury, or even this community in which she temporarily lived?
Beth needed him to keep talking, trying her best to block out everything around her to no avail.
Her stomach churned at the sounds surrounding them made all the more acute by the fact she wasn't seeing anything except the task in front of her.
A bone saw eating away at an infected leg maybe the most horrible noise she'd ever heard…more than nauseous…
"Why did you leave?" Trying to prompt further conversation while swallowing the bile inching up in her throat.
"Some months ago, there was a sickness." It was almost as if telling his story lulled the stranger into a painless trance. "We'd lived quietly since the beginning…never had many incidents with the dead. But the flu…I think it was flu…burned through us. It killed nearly a third of us..."
It sounded much the same as what they experienced at the prison.
Stitch, knot, clip. Stitch, knot, clip. Stitch…
"And then…we didn't have any infected on the inside, but when our people died, they came back…"
Stitch, knot, clip…
"No matter how you die, you turn." Beth paused again, giving him time to process, remembering how shocked and shaken she'd been…they'd all been when Rick told them the truth of it on the road after the farm fell. And it wasn't surprising that not everyone out there knew.
He shook his head…maybe in disbelief or perhaps trying to comprehend the cruelty of the world they were surviving, but he continued his traumatic tale.
"There must have been a mass of the dead nearby because when we were attacked from within, everyone panicked. There was so much gunfire, and then they were tearing down our fences from the outside. We had no choice but to run."
Beth knew what no choice was like. She'd been there too many times.
He'd gone quiet, reflecting, but Beth needed to drown out the screams.
"How did you find your way here?" It wasn't like they were at a top secret military facility, and they brought people in, but still.
"We've been on the road since then…never found a place to shelter long term, but knew there was safety in numbers, so we didn't split up. Three days ago, they found us. Two soldiers told us about this place…led us here…or at least in this direction. We ran into another mass of the dead. The soldiers died, but most of us escaped in the beginning. We followed the road the best we could, but the dead followed too, taking us out a little at a time. We were just able to stay one step ahead until tonight."
The rest of the story told itself, and she didn't need to hear the worst of it, cutting him off before he had to tell…
"How many of you made it here?"
"Fifty give or take a few."
Beth's morbid curiosity got the better of her, wondering how many of those people were now dead, how many were uninjured, and how many were bit, locked away, just waiting to turn.
But by the time the words stopped flowing, Beth realized she'd finished suturing his wounds and wrapped his arm in clean white gauze, tying it off to keep the Frankensteined flesh beneath protected.
The screaming had stopped to…a bite victim mercifully passed out from the agony.
And the sawing of bone abated shortly after…
Until it was on to the next.
What was the difference between chaos and anarchy? Chaos could be managed. Chaos could be was unbridled mayhem. No leadership in times of terror was a death sentence.
The urgency of their situation fell at his feet…a woman screaming bloody murder, all a crimson flag of gore, wounds of her own or walker guts Daryl couldn't tell. She'd been runnin' for her life before Daryl even knew she existed, keen eyes still adjusting to the havoc and confusion, only aware of her when she tripped up and slammed into the ground before his boots. The walkers were pouring through whatever shoddy human lines of defense were thrown into place, a fresh one with more speed than any walking dead thing had a right to possess particularly focused on the fallen breather in front of him. Might've been fast on its feet for a walker but so intent on its prey, it ran itself right into Daryl's blade simply held in a defensive position, braining itself, collapsing on top the girl. Throwing the corpse off her, dragging her up to catch her own footing, there wasn't time for nothin' assuring or gentle, but it was only then Daryl saw the child…the little girl. Perhaps the woman hadn't fallen, but instead threw herself on her daughter to shield her from what she was sure was certain death.
Daryl never used to think about things like that during a fight…never really contemplated much of anything except what was right in front of him…what he had to do to keep breathing until he couldn't.
And Daryl found himself hesitating, making out the telltale bite seeping blood from her side…pausing. If he let her go, she would find her way to the hospital…to Beth. Should put a knife through her head…
"Daryl!" Rick's shoutcut through the night, breaking Daryl from feral inclination just as a man, bloody as the woman though not as obviously infected, ran up, scooping the child into his arms, Daryl struggling with his indecision.
We don't kill the living.
Rick's words from what was nothing less than a different lifetime yet still had to hold true if they were to retain who they were.
Letting the woman's arm go, shoving her away from the encroaching kill zone…
"Go on…get outta here!" He was still human, and so was she, if only for a little while longer.
He had to find Rick…Glenn…and all of the others he trusted enough to fight beside…to have his back.
Another body slammed into Daryl, but this one didn't go down, instead almost barreled him over. Spinning form the impact to keep his footing, his reflexes were still quick enough to drive his blade through the skull of the growling, salivating beast clawing at him…lumbering towards anything still breathing.
It was worse than no light. Daryl could see in darkness, a skill developed and honed from years of hunting in the night, but the residual glow thrown back from the floodlights pouring out from atop the wall on what must've been the greater threat outside the buckling chain-link distorted reality. Hazy figures darting away from danger turned to dull flashes cutting through time slowed by the confused chaos of death on two feet.
"Close the gates…close the fucking gates!" Daryl was in no place to issue orders even if they weren't lost to the cacophony. But wasn't someone else there to state the obvious, someone they would listen to?
Daryl downed another corpse, grabbing for his bow and taking out a third that had him in its sights. Even though the living and the dead all occupying the same space encompassed in the deceptive light made it impossibly close quarters, his aim was true enough to chance. Retrieving his bolt with boot to skull, crushing it beneath his heal just…because…
"The fence can't be saved…" Just to himself amidst the madness, remembering the fence buckling under the force of walkers during the outbreak at the prison…no hope of even bracing it up. But they didn't have to then or now…they had a second perimeter at the prison, and here there was a formidable timber wall.
"They've got people out there…soldiers and survivors…" Rick…finally, it was Rick finding him, covered in what seemed to be the requisite blood and gore.
Some bleeding heart, if he was alive come morning, would regret opening the timber gates even if it was to stop the slaughter of the living caught in no man's landbetween. Now even the second line of defense…the entirety of their security was breached.
Walkers, people, people who would soon be walkers…where were they even supposed to start? They only thing that was certain was that they had to do something quick or the tide of death was gonna drown 'em all.
Gunfire in close quarters…people just popping off rounds like it was the fucking 4th of July…scared people did stupid things. Somebody breathing was like to get shot.
It wasn't a barrage of bullets that last rang in his ears…just a shot in a frozen moment punctuated by the force of the blow that took him to his knees…
"Beth…Beth!"
Physically exhausted…fingers numb from stitching dozens of serious and superficial wounds though not so serious in the scope of things, binding, bandaging, and wrapping…so many people…where were they all coming from…? Emotionally taxed by the trauma and incomprehensible suffering, Bob's call for her was urgent, that much there was no question about. But it sounded like he was a million miles away, calling out to her from a distant shore. That urgency sent Beth's stomach lurching up into her throat. Trying not to ponder on the unthinkable gore she was about face, she quickened to Bob's side after he called to her a third time and she was able to force herself to move into action.
The blood soaked stretcher doubled as a nightmare of a makeshift operating table, it's current patient not the first of the horrid night, nor likely to be the last, thrashing though not violently…eyes closed…very little fight left. Beth wavered when she saw the wound, his leg laid open to the bone, some flesh stripped away…another victim of the razor wire she could only assume. Not knowing if she had the fortitude to assist in an amputation…gasping and taking an involuntary step back to steady herself…
"I can't…I can't…" She had no idea how she'd made it this long.
"I need…" Bob took temporary measures packing the wound to try to stem the flow of blood, thinking on his feet and attempting to buy time to process. "He's got bleeders…"
Bleeders…that meant lacerated blood vessels…with all the blood, possibly an artery. A lacerated artery…wasn't that a death sentence?
"I need clamps…sutures…if I can get ligatures in them…"
There was so much blood…
"We need to stop the bleeding." Beth knew that much, and the packed gauze wasn't going to do it. "A tourniquet…"
Nothing from Bob who seemed to have lost his way, just staring at the body on the stretcher, shell-shocked.
We've all got jobs to do…
"Maybe…maybe I can find the nicks…pinch them together…" If no one else was doing anything, Beth had to try, ripping the sodden gauze away, inserting her little hands into the cavernous wound. Fingers warmed by blood…having no idea what a vessel, vein, or artery felt like, only imaging it might feel like a slippery worm. "Bob…Bob, what am I looking for?" So intent on saving this life.
"Beth…"
Hopeful, numb as her fingers were, the blood seemed to slow… "I think…I think I found it…"
"Beth, he's gone…" In the end, it was just the end. "Dammit." Bob swore under his breath, shaking his head to himself.
He choked. He wasn't to blame, but Beth knew he was gonna be blaming himself for this one, even if it was inevitable.
Pulling her hands back, Beth couldn't really focus on the bright arterial blood staining her or the dark red already dried and crusted into the lines and creases of her fingers, fixating instead on the stark contrast it posed against her pale skin. Looking down on the patient, there was no question he was gone, Beth numb, Bob left exasperated and angry, but his emotional lapse was cut short by the needs of the living.
"Stookey!"
Just like that, Bob moved to the next urgent case, pausing only to silently direct her to make sure that the departed soul stayed departed.
Hesitating…how many walkers had she put down? She couldn't count anymore…didn't even want to try. But never someone so newly deceased…caught between life and undead. Everyone knew what happened…what had to happen when you died, but Beth couldn't help shy away from the reality of it. There were people here in a makeshift trauma center, people who wanted very much to live, but many were probably going to die…having to see that end before they went. What kind of healers wielded hunting knives as well as scalpels? She never intended to let him turn, knowing the chaos and sheer panic it could cause…hesitating just a second too long, his rheumy eyes slowly blinking open…but nobody saw. Not that at least…her almost failure. Quick, maybe verging on frantic, Beth drove her blade with far more force than necessary even though more strength was needed on a fresh body than a decayed skull…force as if she was fighting out there.
Now it felt like every eye was on her…did she make a noise to draw their attention? It felt like a thousand eyes…a hundred thousand eyes…some judging, some astonished, others terrified…but how many actually saw or was it all just in her head? Everything both acutely vivid and going blurry all at once…a miasma of all her senses and emotions hurtling together…
Suddenly burning hot and overwhelmed, brushing the sweat-drenched strands of hair out of her face, seeing hands…her own hands again…actually seeing them, blood congealing into sticky paths like the veins beneath her skin, darkening from crimson to the color of death.
Beth was no stranger to blood, but…
The nausea caught her by surprise, like a punch to the gut.
She was far from the delicate, breakable child she'd been when the world first turned itself upside-down…but now overtaken…not by the screams or the horrid sights…but the smell…the heady smell of blood…and meat…raw human flesh turning her stomach over on itself. It was dizzying…
Beth needed air, desperately…needed to runaway…
But her knees buckled beneath her…grasping at…knocking over the surgical tray, the dings and pings and metallic crash of everything hitting the floor drawing even more attention…
The intensifying stench seizing all of her…everything else fuzzy, fading to black…
Until a stern hand grabbed her arm, snapping her back from the brink.
"I just…I need some air…" Beth begged off, jerking away from the claw-like grasp that held her hostage…a face she didn't recognize.
Sucking in long deep breaths, trying to steady herself and quell the nausea, embarrassed that she was so weak…couldn't do her job. But she was of no use to anyone with her stomach roiling about to heave up dinner. Throwing back a partition curtain that blocked her way, Beth escaped.
A fiery ache throbbing through torn flesh and meat…a hand thrown up to staunch the flow of blood at his shoulder…
"Daryl!" Rick and Glenn's simultaneous shouts were muffled, the world muted around Daryl except for the buzzing hum in his ears…grunting…fingers digging into the ground desperately trying to steady himself.
Steady…once he was steady enough that he wasn't gonna fall face first in the dirt…probing with the other hand at the back of his shoulder, stifling a pained noise trying to force its way outta his throat…needing to see how bad it really was. Found a bloody exit wound.
Luck and not luck; nothin' bored into bone or joint to do anymore damage if he moved, but he was left bleeding like a sieve. At least he could fight on.
Dammit…he'd dropped his bow in front of him on impact. That's how you got yourself killed. But reaching for it with his dominant arm…his wounded shoulder would never let him fire it.
Somebody, maybe two somebodies…dragged his sorry ass off the ground as he muttered a curse under his breath.
"It's just a through 'n through…" Daryl assured himself and his concerned comrades before anybody went and got their panties in a twist.
Nothin' left to do but throw his crossbow over his shoulder…wincing, that was a band idea…and try to manage through the cluster-fuck at hand.
Dim…mercifully quiet…the hallway should've provided much needed relief. But journeying down the empty corridor, further and further from the torturous reality of attempting to save lives presented a different trial. With each step, the noise of human suffering faded, and with that stillness came a heightened sense. She couldn't escape the iron tinge of the blood she carried with her…clothes stained with it, hands coated red, frantically wiping…scrubbing them against the thighs of her jeans, trying to rid herself of the gore. Suddenly taken by an unbidden sob, emotions all a mess…she wasn't emotionally broken, but the tears threatened anyway. Nauseous…feeling so faint…she just needed to find somewhere away, somewhere to sit…wandering aimlessly like she was caught in a fever dream. The low cries of anguish returned, or were they following her…or had Beth somehow gotten turned around and found herself right back where she started…the place she was so desperate to escape?
No…that wasn't the case at all…Beth pausing, still and afraid.
A camouflaged body lay drowning in a puddle of blood at the entrance of a recessed doorway…
The cries for help muffled because they were behind closed doors, Beth inching closer to the corner to peek around and see…
Then there was more…not just cries for help…but walker noises…growling, snarling, snapping…
"Daddy…Daddy…Daddy…" A small child droning over and over again…
The metallic clink and clank of fumbling keys rattling against a metal door that went silent just as Beth had the courage to step into the mouth of the alcove herself.
Just briefly…ever so briefly…Beth's eyes were drawn up, hazily reading the words on the sign above the door…Medical Storage…
A man with a knife dripping blood turning a key in the lock…
A little girl grasping desperately at his belt loop…
"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daaaaaddy…"
A bloody fist smashed against the small rectangular window from inside, attempting to break the glass to no avail.
Finally comprehending…the storeroom…doors that locked… "if there's no hope even with amputation, find a place and lock them in"…the bitten were quarantined in there. They were bit…infected…now some were turning while others were still alive. And this man…why was he trying to open the door…why had he killed the living to free the dead and dying? Things that should've been obvious weren't obvious to , there were living people in there…bitten, but still alive, and while her heart ached for them, those doors couldn't be opened. Freeing her knife from its sheath at her waist and gripping it uneasily in her bloody palm, Beth wasn't sure what she planned to do, but she had to do something.
"No! Stop! You can't!" What little good that would do she didn't know, but it got his attention, stopped him for a split second, and bought precious time.
Twisting his head sharply to face her… "My wife…" was all he managed before the final turn of the keys and the door pushed forward with a flood of human and walker alike. Then Beth understood…knew the obvious…it wasn't a rescue, it was a suicide. But the child…
Not fear…Beth didn't release the piercing scream out of fear but because she needed to be heard…didn't want anyone caught unawares. And if she could only save one life in this instant besides her own, it would be enough, lunging for the little girl, grabbing her up in protective arms…
It should've been you…
Hope didn't come with dawn, nor relief nor happiness, just pale light that began to turn black pools red…the truth…the bloody, truth soaked ground…and time to take measure of what…who they'd lost.
The gates had been shut. The looming threat within their haven cut off from its seemingly endless source.
The gates had been shut, but at what cost?
Daryl went to ground in defeat.
The chance came…it was there…a nameless, faceless soldier charged through the wave of walkers and drove one of the mighty halves of the timber gate closed, driving back with it a stumbling horde caught off balance by the desperate, brute force and sheer adrenaline in the act of valor. Maybe the soldier screamed for help to hold the ground, maybe he screamed 'cause the walkers overtook him, but he didn't waver. Daryl didn't know what the nameless, faceless soldier shouted in the end, but he knew what had to be done…the other timber panel had to close and kiss its mate so two halves of a mighty barricade might become whole…barred and secure.
Swiping drenched hair away from his brow, Daryl saw clearly what had to be done. Saw his path…his opening…maybe was the only one who saw or knew or could…
But…
It was just the merest second of hesitation…
Daryl never hesitated before…not when it came to a fight or doin' what needed to be done.
But this fight…just now…everything was different…
Not a coward…never a coward…but…pausing because…
Never hesitated before, but Daryl didn't wanna die…
Rosita knelt on the ground beside him…not a word spoken, silently cutting away the sleeve of her shirt…the least bloody, grimy portion of it.
"Here…let me…" As if approaching a wounded animal, Rosita's soft voice…didn't think the girl had such gentleness in her…centered him.
When she pulled back the blood sodden shoulder of his own shirt, appraising the seeping would before pressing the wadded cloth to it, Daryl fought any reaction but still winced away.
"Hold this here." Instructing gently, taking his hand in hers and pressing it over the wound, Daryl too weak in will to do it on his own.
"It's just a through 'n through," Daryl muttered…distant…feeling far away. Did he say that already?
"You'll need help, Daryl. Stitches in the least…maybe some blood. We all need to head up to the hospital." Rosita's insistence wasn't lost on him, knowing Beth was there…safe…probably worried sick, but safe.
But Rosita's words…we all need to head up to the hospital…
We all was one less now…
It should've been you…
It took a few blinks of blurry eyes for Beth to distinguish the darkness of oblivion from the darkness of the room. But the strong sterile scent, the pallid light breaking through the milky glass window high in the door, and the ache in her shoulders…the throb in the back of her head…all telltale signs of complete consciousness. Sitting up slowly despite the discomfort, she needed to assess the threats of her situation, swinging her legs over the side of the exam table. Not recalling how long ago she got there or even how she got there, Beth succumbed to the intense, immediate need to escape her solitary confinement. Her legs weren't half so wobbly as she expected when she tentatively tested them…not half so bad as they could've been, remembering the spell of nausea that drove her from the triage. That must've caused her to faint…that was the last thing, wasn't it? Someone must've found her passed out and stowed her here to get her out of the way. But now, as much as it made her cringe…she needed to go back.
There was just one major complication; whoever left her here had locked her in, Beth's discovery when the simple act of pushing the door handle down failed. Jiggling it…little good that did, Beth resorted to pounding on the door and calling out…
"Hey! Somebody…anybody…let me out!" Not afraid…she wasn't afraid…just hated the feeling of being trapped. Fear came suddenly though, pounding harder, remembering that Daryl…Maggie, Glenn, Rick…all the people she knew were fighting, or at least had been. What if they were hurt…needed her help now. "Hello! Anybody!"
Jiggling the door handle again, jumping back startled when something on the other side thumped against the metal barrier.
Back another step…grateful for the door that separated her from the nightmare world she realized was on the other side. Beth remembered. She didn't faint…wasn't that weak…
Just as the walkers started pouring out of the supply room doors, the man who opened them realized what death looked like and, overridden by the instinct to live, turned to find his child gone from his side. She was safe in Beth's arms, now screeching "Mommy" as they rounded the corner out of the doorway. Beth was just trying to save a life. The father…he caught her in the hallway, tearing the little girl from her and slamming Beth into the wall…
That little girl crying out for her mother…reaching out as she was carried away, the image haunting Beth…
…a mother the child must've seen among the dead, not understanding that her mother wanted to devour her, a mistake Beth too had made once upon a time…
Was anyone alive out there at all…there must be…
Suddenly afraid…perhaps she had every right to be…Beth's hand went instinctively for her knife, finding only an empty sheath. And looking down at herself, she was covered in more blood than she recalled. No wounds or severe pain accompanied the blood…none of it hers…saying a silent prayer of thanks. She had to live now.
Her intense need to escape wasn't abated by the possible horrors that waited in the hall…just needing another point of egress, hurrying to the sole window, throwing back the heavy beige curtains only to find a solid pane of glass. Hand pressed to the invisible barrier, Beth looked out on the birth of a new day, pink light slashing through a cloudy sky like merciless talons. But Beth was far from helpless. She would find something strong enough to shatter the window…
No need though…any such destruction prevented.
The sound of something heavy dragged away from the door…keys clinked outside. Unable at first to recognize who it was in the dark then equally blind, shielding her eyes when the stark fluorescent light flickered on.
"When were you bit?"
Shaken by the question…the harshness of the assertion…
"Bit…?" Beth's voice quavered, frantically shaking her head no.
A beastly roar broke Daryl from his hesitation…he wasn't the only one who saw or knew or could do what had to be done. And the bravest was no faceless, nameless soldier, it was one of them. Tyreese barreling through a wall of walkers, throwing them aside like they were rag dolls, the full force of his sacrifice driving the gate closed, barring death from entry…but not his own death. A giant among men both in size and heart, it was a sacrifice that emboldened each and every man and woman who knew him to push forward, to stand and fight and hold the lines so no others would parish this night…
The gates had been shut, but at what cost?
In his last moments, Tyreese had been surrounded by friends and family who fought selfishly to save a dying many content with his fate. When they'd reached him, his arms mangled and stripped of flesh by ravenous dead…Tyreese held the gate and held back the walkers that descended on him…steeled by the need to hold what had to be secured to save the people he loved. And then what did they do, the people Tyreese loved? They mutilated him just to try to keep him breathing. Tyreese fought like the muscle-bound bull of a man he was…too strong for Daryl, Rick. Glenn, and Abraham to hold steady enough for Michonne to cleave his arm clean off…two strikes of her katana left bare splintered bone behind. The other was a clean cut, Tyreese fallen to his knees with no more will to fight…resigned to the agony…or was he even feeling anymore?
Why? Why inflict such anguish on a dying man? And what man could survive their world without arms? Just to keep him breathing when there'd been so little hope.
It was a peaceful end at least…when they let the end come…Tyreese mercifully passed out…bled out...the gentle giant faded from the world of the living and the walking dead. Sasha's quiet grief stilled the rest of them, stepping back from their bloody work. Daryl thought perhaps she hadn't processed the magnitude of her loss yet…in shock…but it wasn't that. Sasha, always quiet in her emotions, turned slowly to him, wetted eyes wells of sorrow…and hate.
"You just stood there." The truth was unavoidable. Sasha saw his hesitation. He was closer to the gate. He was a better fighter than Tyreese. But he hesitated. "It should've been you."
Daryl's gut wrenched…Sasha's quiet condemnation…why couldn't she scream or sob or claw at him in grief, strike him? All those things Daryl could've swallowed, but to be called a coward…
Sasha knelt beside her brother's body as Daryl backed away himself, driven to his knees by wounds seen and unseen. Rick didn't come to him…it was Rick seeing to Tyreese, making sure that he would rest in peace, Maggie consoling a near catatonic Sasha, and the others left to aid the soldiers with casualties and any remaining walkers that breached their sanctuary. The rest outside could wait…posed no imminent threat in the wake of a night of terror, tragedy, and massacre. It was Rosita who'd come to him…tended him with unexpectedly kind touch…
"We need to get you to the hospital…get you looked at…" Rosita tried again to move him, nothing much more she could do for his wound out here.
On her feet, Rosita offered him a hand up, but nothing…he couldn't take it, and she didn't have the strength to drag him up. Squatting down to his level again, a comforting hand laid carefully on his uninjured shoulder.
"She didn't mean it…Sasha, she's just hurting."
Daryl knew that, but it was something else that destroyed a little piece of hope he'd been holding so close inside. Tyreese was dead, and maybe it should've been him. In a different time and place, it would've been him, but the thing consuming Daryl was Beth. If this could happen here, how could he keep Beth safe anywhere? How could they go home?
"Beth's at the hospital." Rosita knew exactly how to move him from his self-pity. This time when she offered her a hand, he didn't refuse, not ashamed that he needed help.
But none of his selfishness meant he was without compassion or code…
"Anyone who's injured, make your way up to the infirmary. The rest of you on cleanup crew." A voice who sought to command, that demanded to be listened to finally emerged as the chaos took its last breath, replaced by a different sentiment…human suffering…sobbing, anguish, pain. It wasn't Maddox stepping forward…where he was, offsite, dead…Daryl didn't know, wondering if Mad had been there, would they have fared better or would it have still been a bloodbath? Would there have even been a breach?
Little good wondering was gonna do him, shaking away thoughts of fancy to embrace stark reality. But it just so happened that these calls were being made in Daryl's vicinity, and Rick's, and Glenn's, Michonne's, Maggie's, Rosita's…those people who were least inclined to listen.
"You, you, and you…get these bodies dragged off to the burning pile over there, away from the CIC."
These bodies…
The shells of departed souls…one such was Tyreese…still had someone grieving over him…
"We don't burn our people." It was absolutely no surprise that it was Glenn who made that stand. Daryl'd been on the receiving end of that before, his own pain and blood loss painting the memories even more vivid…from back when he was still an outsider in a makeshift camp on a bluff overlooking a quarry lake.
We don't burn them! We bury them. Understand? Our people…
The Chinaman gets all emotional, says it's not the thing to do, we just follow him along? God, he was such an asshole back then, maybe he still was. But Daryl'd lost that argument and gained so much insight on humanity…and who he would become…
"We burn the bit. We don't bury the infected in our ground."
This time it was Daryl snapping to emotion although Glenn was poised to make the decree born from those very first weeks in which they all decided what it meant to still be human, eventually finessed to We bury the ones we love and burn the rest. And Rick was readying himself to duke it out too…but Daryl got there first.
What in the fuck did this soldier boy know anyway? Nothin'…absolutely nothin'!
"We're all infected, dumbass! We die, we turn, bit or not." Daryl spat, having moved into G.I. Jackass's space.
"Protocol dictates…"
Daryl didn't give a flyin' fuck about protocol…funny how they were crying protocol after some fuckwit opened the gates.
Uncomfortably close now…"You touch our friend before we get a chance to bury him, you'll be the one put to torch."
A standoff, neither of 'em budging, Daryl not sure he could win a throwdown in his state…didn't have much fight if it wasn't for his own survival…but…
"This one we bury." Authority came from behind Daryl, maybe the only person whose say actually mattered in their military hive-mind, Abraham the final word in Maddox's absence. "Go get something to cover him."
Daryl was still close enough to feel the khaki-clad asshole's hot breath, heavier now, no doubt contemplating whether or not he was gonna comply.
"You heard Ford. Get somethin' to cover our friend." Daryl wasn't weak. He wasn't gonna be the one to surrender despite his wounds.
But they never made it as far as the small kindness of covering what was left of Tyreese.
"The hospital…they've had a turning." A report came to whoever was left to listen.
It took a second for Daryl's heart to hit his stomach…a turning…realizing in dread that wasn't one walker but an entire event.
Before she actually saw his face, Beth's eyes fixated on a beefy hand gripping a gore-crusted knife.
She had no knife…
"I half expected to find you turned."
Dr. Darden came one step forward sending Beth two steps back, tongue tied.
"When?" Moving in even closer, the doctor persisted in his irrational interrogation, Beth's hand gone to protectively shield her tender tummy. "Was it out there…before you even came into my ER tonight, putting every single one of us at risk?"
His eyes were fevered with fury, Beth nervously considering her options, knowing there was absolutely no love lost between Daryl and this man, and by extension, probably her as well. But why did he think she was bit? Covered in blood…yes, maybe there was some rationality in his concerns…but so was everyone else who worked in the hospital tonight. And why couldn't she just say she wasn't? That's all she had to do.
"I'm not bit!" Beth finally asserted, sensing her life depended on it.
"They found you in the hall passed out, caught under a dead turner, and not a single one of them paid you any mind. You should've been ripped apart, but when they pulled you free, you were untouched by them. They don't eat their own."
Her memories were coming back in fits and starts…but they were coming back…
…the child ripped from her arms…Beth thrown against the wall, seeing stars, but clinging desperately to the thread of consciousness…because she had to…she had to fight.
A walker was on her before she caught her breath, pinning her…snapping teeth, vicious and newly turned, acrid air escaping its mouth forced out by her hand thrust violently against its chest, trying to hold it at bay. A few more centimeters and it would be tearing her nose off…turning her cheek because she didn't know how much longer she could hold it.
Knife gripped so tight her fingers were shaking but uselessly caught between herself and the reanimated corpse. Trembling from the weight of the walker, trying to press it back to dislodge her arm, unintentionally catching her blade in its gut, ripping it open before her knife was free to find its mark, stabbing into the walker's temple again and again and again. Face spattered with blood and bits of brain gone cold…nothing left but a massacre, but a massacre heavy enough to drag her down to the floor, head bouncing on the frigid tile, her only weapon flung from her hand across the hallway amongst the small herd passing by.
Not fighting anything anymore…Beth's best chance at survival was being still…that much she knew…
The last thing she saw before the darkness embraced her…two walkers took down the man carrying his little girl…
And just down the hall…help was coming…too late…
That's how she survived…the walker blood and its body saved her, concealing her from the others. They'd known that for a long time, and it must even work with the newly turned.
"I'm covered in walker blood." Beth explained matter-of-factly, but the apocalyptic-unworldly doctor just narrowed his eyes at her skeptically. "Walker blood camouflages humans…you can walk among them."
Trying to stay calm so as not to exacerbate the already tense situation, Beth seeing the wheels turning in his head…but still there was the irrational fear evident in his grinding jaw and the aggressive point in his shoulders. Fear was dangerous. How did Dr. Darden not know about the camouflage? Did no one here know that?
"I saw…before that…you almost passed out in the ER. It's the fever…" It was as if a fever took hold of him…a feverish obsession clouding his judgment…convinced he was going to find Beth infected. Maybe it was blood lust…maybe taking down walkers for the first time sent him into frenzy…a need to destroy the undead, which she clearly wasn't.
"No. It was the blood…the smell in triage…I couldn't take it." Beth interjected quickly before he could fill his own addled mind with any further notions or false evidence that she was bit. "It made me sick…nauseous."
That in itself did nothing to dissuade him, a skeptical, furrowed brow the beginning of a reply that Beth didn't allow him to continue…furthering her explanation…the root of her condition…
"I'm pregnant…" It was the only truth she had, whether he believed it or not, whether it mattered or not.
