Chapter 43

Kate dug the toe of her boot into the dried up dirt of a creek and sighed. The ground was littered with the remains of small creatures that had been unfortunate enough to find themselves on the wrong side of the river when it dried up. She wondered how long it would be until she gave up, until they all gave up, laid down and died of thirst, their bones scattered and forgotten. She could still taste the dog on her tongue - fatty and metallic. She almost gagged at the thought and wondered how she was able to swallow the gritty, tough meat at all without throwing it up. She'd eaten a lot of things she never thought she'd try since the end of the world - opossum, squirrel, raccoon - even the owl Daryl had managed to kill the winter they were on the road, before the prison was found - but she never thought it would come to eating dog - and they would still die of thirst if they didn't find water soon.

Daryl emerged from the bushes, swatting at the flies and mosquitoes that constantly plagued them, a scowl stretched across his face.

"We should head back." He said.

"We need water." She said simply, turning away from him to look back down at the bones. The truth was, she didn't want to go back yet. It was too difficult for her to watch Maggie and Beth mourn Hershel. They were opposite sides of the same coin: Maggie silently suffering, her eyes empty and her body going through the motions of survival and Beth who cried more often than not, her face perpetually puffy and red. She wished she knew how to comfort them, but she was hurting too and there was nothing left to give them. Nothing to say that hadn't been said.

"Water ain't gonna be our problem." Daryl warned, eyeing the sky.

She followed his gaze lazily and saw dark clouds forming off in the distance and shrugged.

"Seems far." She said flatly, turning her eyes from the sky and back to the dried up earth.

"What do you know 'bout storms anyway?" He snarled. She frowned at him.

"Better to be safe." He said, gentler this time, before he turned and headed in the direction of the road.

Kate sighed and turned to follow, purposefully crunching the little bones beneath her boots to dust. Safe seemed like an ironic choice of words.

DARYL

Daryl and Kate caught up with the group not far from where they'd left them, thirsty and tired on the side of the road. Fat drops of rain had just started to fall and a joyous titter rose up from the group as they let the water wet their parched throats. They frantically searched their packs for whatever containers they could try to catch water with. Carl was looking to the sky, his tongue sticking far out of his mouth to catch the raindrops, slurping them up with a big smile on his face.

The rustle of the brush as they left the woods for the road alerted Rick and he turned aggressively at the sound before, at the sight of them, his arms dropped in relief. He walked a few paces towards them and stopped Daryl just short of rejoining the group, shoving a piece of bright white paper, soggy from the rain, into Daryl's hands. Kate brushed past them, pulling her water bottle from her pack as she did.

"Found this in the road along with a bunch of water." Rick said, his voice low and serious.

"Water?" Daryl asked, looking at the paper curiously.

"FROM A FRIEND" was scrawled in black ink.

He let it fall from his fingers and in one practiced motion had the crossbow off his back and into his hands, his eyes scanning the trees.

Rick turned wordlessly and led him back to where the group was happily soothing their sunburned skin in the rain. Kate was on her knees between Carl and Beth, setting out their water bottles. Several feet away the gifted water sat in the middle of the road, arranged in a neat circle. There were a couple jugs and a dozen bottles, filled to the brim. Their labels were still bright and affixed to plastic that wasn't cloudy or dented and Daryl was sure if he examined one close enough he'd see that the caps were still sealed.

"What the fuck?" He mumbled under his breath, the uneasy feeling of being watched making the hair on his neck stand on end. Daryl headed towards Kate, putting his body between her and the treeline as he eyed it for movement. He saw nothing.

"Wouldn't let anyone drink it." Rick explained. "Might've had a hard time stopping them if the cloud didn't open up. Lucky break."

"I ain't so sure about that." Daryl grunted. Rick's mention of the storm reminding him why they returned to the group empty handed. Daryl eyed the sky again - it was darker and turning a sickly shade of green. He'd seen skies like that before, felt the air go still around him. Nothing good ever followed and out in the open was a bad place to be if the clouds started to twist.

Thunder rolled off in the distance, long and loud. Judith wailed an answer.

"Rick, this ain't gonna be no Spring shower." He warned, pointing to the menacing wall of clouds forming in the distance. "We gotta move."

Rick looked to the sky, he had been too distracted with the water to notice it himself, but now, he understood Daryl's warning.

"Where?"

"There's a place, 'bout a mile or so off the road." Daryl shouted over the din of the storm. "Buildings ain't shit, but there's a cellar door. I didn't check it out, but it might work."

Rick nodded.

"Let's keep moving." He ordered.

The group crashed through the woods, knowing they were likely to draw any number of walkers on them, but not having enough time to move quietly. The wind had started to whip, bending the tree branches unnaturally in many directions at once. The rain turned to hail and it pelted them as they followed Daryl further off the main road, bruising their skin.

Kate was just behind him, struggling to keep up, slipping in the mud.

"Tornado?" She asked. Grabbing onto his arm when they first started to move away from the road and towards the farm.

"Might be." He said, not thinking how she had probably never in her life had to be awoken in the middle of the night to go down to the basement, or in his case, the bathtub because there ain't no basement in a trailer, and in her case because there ain't no tornadoes in sunny California.

"Hey." Daryl shouted over the pouring rain, grabbing her hand and jogging slowly in the direction of the farmhouse so she didn't just freeze up. "It's gonna be fine. That old farm had a cellar. Probably won't touch down here anyways. We'll go just in case, we don't need to be out in the storm anyway."

But now they were running for their lives and even Daryl was starting to feel afraid. Afraid that the cellar would be a bust and then they'd really have nowhere to go. Afraid that they wouldn't all survive, that he was leading them to death.

He heard a crack behind him and a screech from Maggie as he looked over his shoulder in time to see her dodge a falling branch. For the briefest second he thought about Hershel and how he'd never be able to run like this with his leg. Eugene was stumbling slowly, lagging further and further behind. Daryl wondered if this would be how they lost him - to the storm, to a walker that was just fast enough to catch him.

"Move your sorry ass!" He heard Abraham bellow. Daryl didn't have time to look back again, to see if Eugene responded to the order. He could see the dead moving towards them in the trees, growing in numbers, their gray figures moving gracelessly. The sounds of the storm working them into a frenzy. The slippery mud would slow the dead down some, but it wouldn't do the group much good if they didn't find shelter quickly. They would have nowhere to go with a newly formed herd on their backs, a storm closing in.

Just when Daryl started to doubt the old farm was where he'd remembered it, the trees cleared and the dilapidated structure came into view. The rotted wood was being torn from rusted nails and carried off into the sky and Daryl knew there would be little left by the time it was all over. He could see the storm shelter 100 yards off, tucked just behind the old house.

"Almost there." He shouted to Kate over the roar of the storm. He grabbed her elbow as her boot slipped in the mud and kept her from completely hitting the ground. A walker moved towards them, unsteady in the strong winds. Daryl swung his crossbow and knocked it away just as they reached the cellar.

The storm cellar doors were made of wood and set at a slight angle in a mound of earth just behind what was left of the old house. They were old and graying, slightly bowed from years of sitting out in the elements. The hinges were rusted and the latch holding it shut hung open. Daryl reached down and grabbed the handle and yanked it open, revealing a set of narrow cement steps that led to the darkness below.

The group rushed to the stairs, only one person at a time being able to fit. Daryl watched nervously as the herd moved closer. Abraham and Eugene were bringing up the rear and Daryl was sure that Eugene wouldn't have made it if it wasn't for Abraham slamming the muzzle of his gun between Eugene's shoulder blades every time he slowed. Just ahead of them, Tara was running. She was yelling, but the storm had grown too loud to hear. She was only a few yards away when her foot slipped and she went down hard, covered instantly with the slick chocolate colored mud. A one-armed walker, already squirming around in the slick, advanced on her quickly. Daryl, heavy cellar door in his hand, shouted a warning, but his voice was no match for the sound of the storm, and he watched helplessly as Tara wrestled the monster, the mud making it impossible to see if she had a chance. Abraham pushed Eugene, blubbering, towards the stairs and pulled his gun, shooting at the two walkers closest to them, allowing Tara time to wriggle away and reach them. She stumbled down the stairs and Daryl pulled the door shut behind him. The walkers fell heavily onto the doors less than a minute later and he knew the rotting boards wouldn't hold their weight for very long.

He hurried down the steps and turned his back to the group, bow pointed towards the door, ready for any breach.

Michonne flipped the switch on her flashlight, one of only two remaining with working batteries, and the small yellow beam dimly lit up the small dirt room the 15 of them were packing into.

Glenn's flashlight joined Michonne's and the room brightened more, revealing a space no larger than 10x10, made entirely of dirt and wooden beams wedged here and there for support, but nothing that could help them bar the stairs from the walkers.

"We've got nothing." Glenn shouted to Daryl.

The storm raged overhead, growing louder by the minute. Daryl and Rick stood at the bottom of the dirt steps and eyed the ancient doors at the top of the stairs,. They knew that above ground they would die one way or another.

"If it gives, we will just have to take them as they come." Rick said grimly. "At least the stairway is narrow, they can't all come down at once."

KATE

The stone steps that led down into their earthy refuge were slippery, but Kate steadied herself on the dirt walls as she felt her way down into the darkness. She heard the commotion behind them, the others reaching the steps, Daryl yelling Tara's name, and the slamming of the cellar door. It was Michonne who found her flashlight first and there was enough light in the room to count the tops of their heads - she could hear Carole counting to make sure they had all made it inside. When Glenn found his flashlight, the two beams provided enough light in the small dark space to make out everyone clearly. Kate watched Daryl emerge from the top of the stairs, dripping wet and breathing hard. He immediately turned to guard the door and Kate knew they weren't safe yet.

An agonizing scream tore through the small space and Kate instinctively pulled her knife. She didn't have time to consider what she might be fighting. Michonne and Glenn's lights found Beth, slumped in the corner on the dirt floor, her mouth contorted in pain, holding her wrist to her chest. A large, bronze colored snake coiled next to her.

She screamed again at the sight of it and the snake struck a second time before Michonne's blade sliced its head off.

"Copperhead." Michonne said, kicking the remains of the snake away with her boot. Her eyes wide and bright from the light she held, the musty air quickly making its way in and out of her lungs.

Kate frantically searched the ground for any other snakes, praying they hadn't run straight into a snake nest.

"Am I gonna to die?" Beth wailed, teeth set together in pain.

"You ain't." Daryl snarled over his shoulder. "You might wish ya had, it hurts like hell."

Kate knew Daryl had been bitten before, many times had seen the two little pink scars set high on the inside of this thigh. He told her the pain had been so bad that he'd thrown up and this coming from a man who ripped an arrow out of his own rib cage said something about how bad it must've hurt.

Now Beth was crying and breathing so hard and fast Kate was sure she'd hyperventilate.

Maggie moved towards her sister, a determined look replacing the dull stare she had carried since Hershel's death, and fell to her knees in the dirt next to her sister. She tried to steady her while she writhed and screamed .

"Help me lean her back and prop her head up on her backpack." Maggie shouted to Kate.

Kate moved quickly to Beth's other side, grabbing her good head and helping Maggie ease her to the floor to prop her up.

"Aren't you supposed to cut the wound and suck out the poison or something." Kate suggested, not realizing she was letting her city roots show.

"No." Maggie said firmly, trying to be heard over her sister's wailing. "Definitely not. That's an old wive's tale."

"Well what can we do?" Kate asked, looking at the low dirt ceiling above her as the loudest boom of thunder she had ever heard shook the cellar itself. The air was thick and suffocating, and the room was hot with the heat of all of their bodies. Kate tried to push the image of the ceiling crumbling down on them out of her head and concentrate on Beth, but she felt panic eddying deep in her chest.

"I don't know." Maggie admitted. "Our Uncle Owen got bit once, but Daddy had something he used on horses and plenty of whiskey. "

Behind her, Kate could hear the crack of splintering wood, and Daryl shouting for Rick and Rick shouting for Abraham. Their shadows rushed across the walls and she knew they were headed towards the mouth of the stairs and out of sight. She knew they were fighting against walkers trying to claw their way in.

Kate pressed herself against the dirt wall and gritted her teeth. Her breath raced in and out of her lungs and she was vaguely aware that she should try and slow it down. She held Beth's hand tightly and tried to ignore her friend's nails as they dug into her skin leaving little half moon indentations across the back of hand.

Over Beth's painful cries and the thunder above them, Kate became aware that Tara was crying too. Only a few feet away she sat leaning against the dirt wall, cradling her arm against her chest, gulping for air as sobs wracked her body. For a moment Kate was sure Tara had a snake bite too, that they'd run straight into a nest of them and her eyes darted about the ground again searching for where the next would strike from.

"Show me." She heard Rosita demand, standing over her friend, holding her hand out expectantly, waiting for proof of something.

She was trying to sound calm, trying to maintain the tough exterior she clung to, but Kate could hear the panic in her voice and as Tara jutted her arm up towards Rosita. An angry bite, bruised and bloody, stood out on Tara's skin and it wasn't the mark of a snake.

"Oh shit, Tara." Rosita exclaimed, dropping to her knees in front of Tara's slumped figure, cradling her arm in her hands and staring down at the mark of death. The strange way the flashlights lit up the room caused shadowy versions of the women to mimic their conversation in large proportion behind them.

"Just get it over with now." Tara cried. tears and snot on her face. "Just shoot me."

"Just shoot you? Rosita said, her facing screwing up in pain like it had just been slapped. "What the fuck Tara?" She dropped Tara's arm and moved away from her friend instinctively, repulsed at the request.

"I'm gonna turn Rosita!" She shouted, loud enough to be heard. The room, bustling with panic, ground to a halt, even Beth's cries became quiet whimpers as the horror of Tara's fate hit the group.

"Do you want to be trapped down here with me when that happens?!" She cried. She knew now that they all knew and she eyed them with a menacing fear.

"It doesn't have to be like that." Rosita insisted. "We have time."

"For what?" Tara spat, turning away from the sympathetic eyes and back to her friend. "For me to suffer? Please Rosita, please just do it."

Rosita shook her head, she was crying, burying her face in her hands.

Sasha started to cross the cellar towards Tara and Rosita. and Kate felt relieved to see someone was going to help Rosita calm Tara down.

The sudden crack of a gun, so different from the sound of the thunder, caused Kate to jump. Tara slumped over, the trickle of blood escaping the hole on her forehead, dribbled down her nose and dripped onto the front of her shirt.

"SASHA WHAT THE FUCK?!" Rosita screamed.

"Sasha what did you do?!" A man yelled, but Kate's ears were ringing too loud to know who's voice it was.

Someone started to cry and Gabriel shouted a prayer to a God who had clearly stopped listening a long time ago.

Beth was still wailing and Eugene threw up on his feet. Kate was vaguely aware of Abraham running down the stairs and putting his shiny, red face inches from Sasha's who stood stony over Tara.

The thunder crashed around them, the sound swallowing up any words that Abe and Sasha exchanged. Beth released Kate's hand and turned wailing into her sister who's eyes had once again turned dull as she stared towards Tara's body.

Kate tried to disappear into the dirt wall, she hugged her knees to her chest, and rocked slightly back and forth as the room started to move around them.

The roar of the wind mingled with the groans of the walkers, it mixed with Beth crying in pain and Abraham still shouting. The sounds became one, inescapable and maddening, until they all were drowned out by a deep, powerful roar that shook the ground. She opened her mouth to scream, but no one could hear it. The only proof she was making sound at all was the burning of her throat as she yelled . Her ears started to pop, over and over in quick succession and she clapped her hands over them in an attempt to stop it all. It sounded like a freight train was moving above them and the ground shook around them. The cellar was dark, the flashlights dropped and forgotten as they all tried to brace themselves as the storm moved over them, but Daryl found her in the blackness. He threw his body down next to her's on the dirt floor and she grasped out desperately to hold onto him, her fingers knotting tightly around the leather of his vest and pressed her face against him.

DARYL

The storm had passed and with it went the moaning of the walkers. They'd been swept up in its winds, as Daryl imagined they all would've been if they hadn't reached the musty cellar they slept in that night, in time. The night had been long and miserable, with Beth writhing in pain to the right of them and Tara's stiffening body to their left. Kate had only just fallen asleep an hour or so ago, with his shirt still balled tightly in her fists. She shook all night, like she had the chills and between the chatter of her teeth she'd whispered many times, "Daryl, I don't want to do this anymore. Daryl, please, I can't."

Daryl regretted leaving Georgia, he knew it long before now, but hearing her beg to get off the road, he'd never felt it more. Many times he had thought about the day they left Gabriel's church, how while the other's loaded into the church bus, hopeful that DC was the answer, he and Kate talked in the minivan about maybe letting everyone they knew in the world drive away. To stay in Georgia alone, together.

He thought of Josh and Allison often over these long weeks of rough road. How while he was holding his crying wife in the middle of a crowded bookstore they were holed up in, not even able to scratch out a sliver of privacy as they grieved their baby, Josh and Allison were alone together in their home.

How while he was getting the shit kicked out of him by Abraham, Josh was in his own home, not having to spend day after day with asshole pricks he hated.

He thought of them as they buried Hershel. How if they had a place to live, and weren't wandering out in the fucking open so much of the time, that maybe instead of burying another friend, they'd be putting seeds in the dirt to feed themselves.

How, while they were dying of thirst and eating dog, Josh and Allison had access to a constant water source and a a dog by their side to help protect them.

Daryl regretted leaving Georgia. He didn't want to leave Rick or Carol or Glenn or any of them, he knew Kate didn't either, but he could provide a better life for them than this. Somewhere off this road. There was nothing for them in DC. He thought of Josh and Allison again, and how they had a home, a life together. How they weren't just trying to make it to the next day. Knowing what he needed to do, he waited for the sun to come up.