I Can't Help You Puttin' Roots In My Dreamland

by mroxy

Ana is a lawyer and married mother of 2 from the Pacific Northwest who ends up stuck in rural Georgia alone, just as the outbreak begins, when her car breaks down in front of Daryl's trailer. (Follows the storyline of Seasons 1 and 2 of TWD, and then veers off sharply. This won't fully retell all the events of the show, so a familiarity with the plot and characters is essential!)

8. Attack

I sat in the tent and watched an ant scurry across the book laying in my lap. I had been staring at the same page for an hour, my thoughts circling around Daryl, Rick, Glenn, and T-Dog's rescue mission. Daryl had been so angry I hadn't been able to really talk to him before he left, but I caught his arm as he walked by me to the truck and told him to be safe. He didn't meet my eyes, but nodded and pulled his arm free.

Shane had the nerve to suggest I should be the one to break the news to Daryl since we were "so close", but Rick had quickly shot that down and taken the job on himself. Rick had a lot of the same qualities as Shane but seemed more thoughtful and less egotistical. I hoped that meant he was less inclined to abuse his power but at the very least it meant he wasn't afraid to put himself at risk in order to help someone else and I appreciated that.

I knew from personal experience that Daryl was the same way, though I doubted anyone else had figured it out yet. To the rest of the group, Daryl was the redneck who stayed away from everyone except his obnoxious brother, and occasionally me, and spent all day hunting. They were happy to benefit from his skills but hadn't gotten to know him at all. I would hesitate to say we were friends, but I knew enough to appreciate his better qualities.

The hours crawled by as we went about the now-familiar routines of laundry, cooking, and foraging, broken up by Shane finally losing it on Ed and Jim having a long-overdue mental breakdown that I assumed was related to the loss of his family. I couldn't keep my mind on anything other than what was happening in Atlanta, as the sun crawled closer to the horizon and the shadows grew longer, sending up prayers for everyone, even Merle, to a God I wasn't sure existed.

I joined the group for dinner and smiled at Dale across the fire as he talked about his watch. I was startled by the screams and growls along with the rest of the group and pulled out my knife (previously meant for things like harvesting mushrooms) as the walkers overtook the camp. I tried to find my way to Amy, who was screaming for Andrea, but Shane started firing the shotgun and I had to duck out of the way behind a car. I saw Carl with Lori, behind Shane, and Sophia and Carol clinging to them as well. The group began to move toward the RV, fending off walkers with Shane's gun, and Morales and Jim's bats.

I couldn't get to the group from my position behind the car without going through the crowd of rotting bodies closing in on the RV and before I could come up with a plan, something snagged my hair from behind and I was jerked off balance and fell. I rolled over, out of the grasp of the walker who'd come up behind me, and scrambled backward, eventually getting enough space to get back on my feet. My knife was out and I swung it towards the head but missed and it lunged for me, knocking me back to the ground. I grasped its shoulders, holding it out far enough that its snapping teeth couldn't reach my neck but it was stronger than I expected and I couldn't let go in order to use my knife again.

I heard more gunshots and realized the group must be back from Atlanta with all the guns. I knew they couldn't see me on the ground away from the RV, and screamed for help as loudly as I could, though there was no way they could hear me over the noise. A second later Daryl slid over the hood of the car and smashed the butt of a gun into the walker's head, knocking it off me before finishing it off with a bullet. He bent down and checked me over quickly, "Ya bit?" he yelled, running his hands over my arms. "No, no, I'm okay," I said shakily. He pulled back and reached out a hand to help me up, then jogged away, taking down several more walkers while I stumbled toward the rest of the group.

The children were sobbing, bodies were everywhere, and most of the adults were holding onto each other in shock and disbelief. Our safe haven was now a graveyard and the reality of the apocalypse had come crashing around us in the worst way possible. I looked at the RV, and Andrea bent over a lifeless Amy and felt my knees give out. Amy had been a bright and cheerful soul, loved by everyone, but she had been Andrea's reason for going on and I cried for her loss as much as for Amy herself.