Fire attracts them. Maybe they can feel it. Or maybe they can see it, or smell the burning. Something about it draws them in like moths, they move more quickly to get to it, to let it lick up their graceless limbs and cook the rotting flesh. It makes them excited, almost as frenzied as when they feed.
During the eight months they were on the road, Beth was quiet. She just watched. I'm the weakest. Carl is younger than me. Lori's carrying a baby, and I'm still the weak one. Out of everyone in this group, I'm the one they could afford to lose.
Bitter thoughts ran through her head on a nightly basis. Like deep cuts, the words coursed through her. It was always worse when there wasn't quite enough food to go around. When there was one less blanket. Sometimes, she just felt like this group would be better off if they didn't have to look out for her. If they didn't have the burden of her.
Her sister wouldn't listen. She would just get mad, until Beth stopped saying anything out of turn. She could see it in Maggie's eyes. She was afraid Beth would go dark again and try to end it. She never came close. She never went that deep into despair again. She'd already decided she would try. There was everything left to lose, but she would see how long she could last.
Everyone around her stepped up.
They were so strong.
She tried her hardest, until, even as the least of them, she was strong. A survivor. Beth had ideas, sometimes. Smart ideas, even, but she didn't voice them. Rick was in charge and his ideas kept them alive. Her ideas were untested. She was strong, but she wasn't confident.
It wasn't until she was alone with Daryl that she felt alright to try out a couple of her ideas.
Set fire to something I don't care about, in the opposite direction of where I'm going, and distract the walkers. It had cleared their way when she and Daryl decided to take off in the middle of the night and leave their shelter.
Something she doesn't care about happens to be post office just around the corner from the high school. She takes flares from an abandoned police car and fuel from the tank and sets the building ablaze.
Within ten minutes the area around the FEMA shelter is deserted.
On quick feet, she scurries to the shelter. It's dark inside, but the little flashlight on Maggie's keychain is surprisingly bright. Combing through the life-saving objects on the shelves, she finds what Carl will need first, then just starts grabbing everything that looks useful. Survivors can never have enough medical supplies. You never know when someone will break an ankle, or get bit and have to have an emergency amputation, or get sick, or get shot—
She jostles a roll of gauze from the shelf and it tumbles to the floor. For a moment she's still, listening to the crackle of the fire in the distance. There's not another sound. She's alone. She's alright. But there's gun blast pounding through her head.
Why?
Beth's got the shakes again, but she doesn't have the time to let it run its course. She throws the gauze into the bag, along with the last three tubes of bacitracin and tells herself silently that it's time to go.
The fire is working. The area around the FEMA shelter is still devoid of walkers. Maggie's car is fifty yards away. She hauls Shawn's gym-bag over her arm and runs. Forty yards, thirty yards.
At twenty, it all unravels. She hears the rumble of an engine over the cracking, laughing fire. A truck engine.
Stumbling, she dives towards the nearest cluster of cars, hiding on instinct. Walkers she can deal with, but the living? No one's supposed to be here but Rick and his people. They didn't run into anyone else, not for a while, though there was another group camped nearby. She scoots back as far a she can between two burnt-out cars, clutching the gym-bag close. To her horror, the engine sounds like it's approaching, the truck is slowing down. The engine shuts off. Dammit. They're here. They came here, with purpose.
But that isn't her daddy's truck. It's got the heavy, dark sound of a new engine. She's well hidden enough, underneath the blackened carriage of the burned car between her and the road, she catches a glimpse of a new Chevy and a pair of big black cowboy boots stepping down from the passenger side. On the other side of the car, an even bigger pair of combat boots. They're walking right towards the FEMA shelter and then she realizes what happened.
They were keeping an eye on this place. They wanted the goods too, but there were too many walkers. They must have noticed the fire, and then they noticed that the parking lot was empty, so they rushed over.
There was another group of people, close enough that they could check out a location for possible supplies only five miles from the farm. The thought chills her, because even if they didn't run into them last time, she's changed things.
I have an advantage, knowing what's going to happen next, but when I change something—it can change everything. Advantage gone.
Two large men with unkempt hair and carelessly held shotguns make their way towards the shelter. Beth scoots back even further, hears a snarl and notices broken fingernails attached to a rooting hand under the car. It's all melted and half welded into the underside of the car at her back, but there's a walker, still wriggling behind her. The fire didn't quite cook its brains. It's not loud enough to attract attention, but she starts to feel uneasy as it twitches towards her and the bag.
The men are talking. She's not close enough to hear, and to hide well, she can't really risk look at them straight on either, but she watches low, keeps an eye on their boots until they disappear inside the shelter. They aren't in there long. They come out, brisk and loud.
One of them gives a hoot as he runs to the truck then the sound of a gunshot rings through the street, echoing off the ruins of her old high school. He shouts "HEY LAME BRAINS!" in the direction of the post office. His companion laughs. They're both safely back at their truck. No trouble for them as they fire the engine up again and burn rubber with a squeal. They tear off down the road and Beth waits as long as she absolutely has to, to be sure they won't see her.
It's too late. She scrambles out from behind the car, to the sight of a half dozen burning walkers ambling in the direction that the truck went, behind them, the rest of the herd lags. But now, they can smell her, hear her. They're already turning towards her.
Her escape paths have been eliminated. She can either go inside the shelter again, and hope it holds… or she can try the school. It's big. It's solid. It's got more possibilities. She knows it well.
Inside the school, she shuts the outer fence, but knows that it won't last. Which classrooms had windows that opened? Which bathrooms? She thinks the girl's room on the second floor, but she doesn't like the idea of that drop. The science lab has got to have windows that open, it's probably mandatory for a room where they might be mixing potentially hazardous chemicals.
Beth can hear the growling and snarling and the cackling of the flames on their undead skin, even though she's a hallway away, at least. She listens to her breathing, feels her muscles keen and remembers, exasperated that she's not as used to this. At least, her body isn't.
This is her sixteen year old legs, strong from horseback riding, strong from walking and running when she felt like it. Not yet used to running for her life.
They'll learn.
Even though there's a glass window set in the door of the lab, she doesn't look through it, but shoves her way into the science lab a little too enthusiastically and almost plows right into a walker. "Holy sh—!" surprised, she swings the axe into its head immediately. Its weight falls against her, pushing her back into the door. She smacks her head, on the window of the door drops the bag and the last thing she remembers before everything goes black again is the tinkling of breaking glass as it falls onto her shoulders.
Her head throbs as she wakes up, something jostles her back. It's the door, moving ever so slightly with the weight of a half-dozen walkers shoved up against it. Their long limbs dangle above her head, groping for her face, just inches below their reach. On top of her, the walker she put down is leaking dark, congealed blood onto her chest, the axe is still clutched in her hand beside her.
Unsure how long she was out, Beth tentatively touches the back of her head, slumping low to keep away from the walkers pushing against the door. They seem to be growing more eager, now that she's moving. She's bleeding, but only a little. Still, smelling like living blood is going to make escaping difficult.
Awkwardly, she pushes the axe and the bag off to the side and slithers out from underneath the dangling, boney arms of the dead. She drags the body of the dead walker away too, and starts to act quickly. With enough pressure, they might actually be able to break through that door. She picks the axe up again and freezes.
It's Ms. Needham.
Maybe, if she took the time, Beth would realize she recognized a lot of the walkers. For some reason, the fact that Ms. Needham died so soon into the end of the world surprises her. She lived alone, with a lot of guns. She was always kind of steely and prickly. Beth wonders what she was doing in the science lab of the high school. Maybe she wandered here after she died.
Brutally, Beth brings the axe down into her gut, shutting her eyes tight against the initial spatter as she pulls it back again.
Stupid. That was so stupid.
She should have checked the door. She knows what happens when you don't check the door. Not to mention, what happens when you go on a run alone. She didn't want to do it. But she couldn't ask anyone to come with her. They wouldn't have understood what she was doing, or why. She couldn't explain it to them. Besides that, they're all so new to this. She would have to keep them safe, and she isn't sure she could live with herself if she failed.
Also though… she isn't sure if she can trust them. They aren't reliable survivors yet. They're just people. Still feeding walkers and hoping there's a cure.
With a handful of walker guts, Beth starts to paint herself. The walkers at the door are building up, she can hear a roar of them, behind the initial twisted and gaunt faces pressed into the broken shards of glass still protruding from the window. Trails of smoke linger in the air from the ones that were on fire, but it's been stifled.
Beth never quite got used to the smell of walker guts. Probably no one ever does. But it doesn't turn her stomach anymore, not even when she's covered in it. Outside the window, there's a steady trickle of walkers about twenty yards ahead. If she smells enough like them, they should leave her alone and she'll be able to get to Maggie's car.
As she drops down from the window and starts to calmly mingle into the crowd of walkers, Beth realizes she made a mistake. The same mistake that she condemned Otis and Shane for.
She thought she could handle this all on her own. What if, when that walker surprised her, she hadn't fallen against the door hard enough to shut it? What if she'd fallen the other way, knocked herself out and the walkers had come in and eaten her? Then, she'd be dead and when Shane and Otis came to find the respirator, it would be gone and Carl would be dead too.
The thought made her feel sicker than the walker blood smeared right under her nose.
She's a survivor, but only until she screws up. Same as everyone else.
The water pressure is amazing. She missed that. Even at Grady, there was something off about it. Being back in her own shower, in her own home, Beth can't help but smile. Just. Not too wide because the singing trickle of steady water is cleaning the gore from her face. The last of it. Her dad made her hose off the stinking thick of it in the yard. Probably a good idea.
They should be good to the plumbing. If everything goes according to plan they would be here awhile.
Beth cringes as she tastes something foul in her mouth from the runoff. She fills her mouth and spits, shaking it off. Forming a rough plan. Because what else can she do? She doesn't understand it, but she's been displaced. She's a time traveler. Maybe it will end as quickly as it started, with a bullet to the head. Maybe she'll fall asleep tonight and wake up even sooner in her memories. She shouldn't waste this time. Just in case it does matter. Just in case she's not just crazy.
Dawn shot you. You felt it. Maybe you ain't dead, you're just nuts. Maybe that bullet ripped through your brain in just the right way to keep you breathing, but crazy.
Whatever is going on, she can't just watch it all happen.
So much went wrong the first time around. Maybe she can fix things. Make them better.
If it's real, it'll be worth it.
It will be worth the horrified looks. The fear in her father's eyes.
A lump catches in her throat. She hadn't been prepared for them to be so shocked by her reappearance with the respirator. It was too late to play it cool. Too late to just slip it into his old veterinarian bag and let him call it a miracle, because he didn't remember having anything for people, let alone the exact supplies to save Carl.
There was nothing to do but face them.
No one said much. They didn't know what to say, and there was a boy to save.
They've got to learn. But in her mind she remembers Shane breaking the barn door open and she feels cold. He was right. The walkers needed to be put down. Her family needed to recognize that they were dead and gone, not coming back. There was the right way to do it, though.
There had to be a better way.
She could… educate them. Softly. Gently. Help them understand that it is so much worse than they thought. That death stalks them. That it's coming, always, and hungry.
There has to be a way to do it without trying to explain that she knew the future.
Beth shuts off the water, feels behind her ears one last time to make sure she's really clean from all that blood. She towels off, wipes a bit of moisture from the mirror and only glances at her reflection long enough to feel strange about it. She looks so young. Her face is free from marks. Strange that there's a beaten-all-to-hell warrior underneath all that.
I'm still the same. I'm me. That face is mine. She looks away from the glass as she pulls on clean clothes hastily. Wanting to take a minute, but unable to allow herself even that much. Beth sighs, shuts off the light and leaves the bathroom. They all want to talk to her.
She needs to talk to them.
Hershel is in surgery with Patricia. Maggie has gone to look for Lori.
Shane, Rick and Otis wait in the living room, but before she can get to them, Jimmy appears on the stairs. "Beth, what the hell?" he whispers.
She always regretted that they ended on such awkward terms. With her silent and him hurt and confused about why she suddenly despised him. Not to mention his repeated demands that she talk to him, she needed somebody to talk to, clearly. Poor kid. His girlfriend tried to kill herself and he didn't know what to do about it.
Quickly, before he can say another word, she holds him around the middle and squeezes, just once. It's good to see him again You ain't dying this time either, if I have anything to say about it.
"Beth?" He sighs, clearly thinking that she's using affection to try and change the subject, but the boy doesn't fight her, just presses his arms against her for a moment, until she slithers away from him. "You went into town, alone? Are you nuts?"
Well, yeah! "I knew we needed medical supplies—or we would need them, sooner or later," she shrugs. "Seemed stupid we didn't go clear out that shelter earlier." She starts to walk away from him, wanting to leave it there.
"You can't go doing stuff like that."
She doesn't want to argue with him, but he's got to learn. He and everyone else. The only way you survive is by doing stuff like that. It's also a pretty quick way to get yourself killed. "I gotta talk to Rick."
"You don't know Rick." he shakes his head at her, clearly baffled.
Oh yeah. She doesn't. Just saw him for the first time on her way in. "His son almost died. I gotta talk to him."
"His son is dying," Jimmy corrects her in a whisper.
Raising an eyebrow at Jimmy, Beth foregoes any mention of her father's skills, "He'll be fine." She's done with him, she starts to walk away, then decides that now is as good a time as any, "We're not dating anymore, by the way."
"Beth—what?" He takes a couple of steps towards her on the stairs but she's already leaving and he lets her go.
In the living room, with nothing to do to occupy them, Shane is pacing, Otis is pale and Rick waits closest to the door, unable to take his eyes away for longer than a few minutes. All three of them look up again when Beth enters.
"How did you know we were going to need those things?" Otis gets right to it, as if he can somehow sense how closely his fate was tied to that little boy and that respirator, in another life.
Deciding to expand on the excuse she gave Jimmy, Beth takes a deep breath, practices lying with her eyes open and calm on each of their faces. "I woke up this morning from a dream; my whole family killed and ripped apart by those things. I want us to be safe. I want us to have the supplies that we need. It's a dangerous world. I went to the shelter and I grabbed a bunch of stuff. I had no idea we'd need it so fast."
That answer seems to satisfy them, Otis even manages to take the scrutiny off of her and onto himself with a whispered 'lord's tender mercy' that earns him a patronizing glance from Shane.
"But how did you get it? Otis and your dad say that place was surrounded by walkers," Shane steps right up to her, jaw a little tight, arms bulging as he crosses them and digs his fists into his biceps.
"Maybe it's better now?" Otis frowns, doubtful.
"I created a distraction and led them away from the school, but I got pinned down as I was leaving, so I had to take refuge. Found myself alone with one walker, so I killed it, and covered myself in its guts, so the rest of the herd wouldn't pay me mind."
"Does that work?" says Otis in surprise.
Rick finally looks away from the door, and shows that he's been listening the whole time with a nod, "We've done it before. It works, 'cept when they start to smell living flesh again. Don't want to sweat too much, or get caught in a rainstorm." He sounds like he knows from experience.
Beth allows herself a slow exhale that makes her tense shoulders round a little. They're buying it, that she's just that clever, that she doesn't already have a few years of experience in this world. Good. That's probably best. She should be asking questions. If she wants this to work then she needs to act like she doesn't already know everything. "How many people in your group?"
"Ten," Rick doesn't even hesitate, he's so trusting. "One's just a little girl, she's gone missing, but we're looking for her."
Beth tries not to look at Otis, but notices him go pale out of the corner of her eye anyway, his demeanor dropping slightly. He must have found Sophia last night or yesterday, maybe early this morning, and put her in the barn with the others.
He never got the chance to tell them last time. She waits a few minutes, for the silence to rest on them, trying to decide what to do.
"I think—" Otis starts to speak, but Beth interrupts him.
"Are you folks looking for a place?" her voice is bright and loud, Rick and Shane exchange a glance, and while they're communicating silently with each other, Beth quickly turns her gaze to Otis and shakes her head, mouthing the word, 'no'.
If anything Otis looks even more bleak, but there's a knit in his brow, he's confused. Maybe he's trying to figure out how she knew about the little girl walker he found. The one she's clearly telling him to shut up about for the moment. If he asks, I'll just tell him I saw him put her in there, out my window. Another lie.
"Y'all could stick 'round here a while, if you like."
"Now—Beth, this is a conversation that your father should be a part of," Otis gives her a look that says he knows exactly where she's going with this.
"Yeah. It's his call," she relents "But. The world's a different place now. More dangerous. We're going to need people," she cocks her head at Rick, "And they need us. Anyone can see that." Or they should.
"I—I don't expect…" Rick shakes his head, starts to rise to his feet, looking restless. "My boy."
"Yeah, I get it." Beth nods. He can only deal with that right now and he's falling apart at the prospect of losing Carl. They aren't ready. She can't push them too hard. Can't get Rick to act like the man who took charge of everything and kept them alive on the road for eight months and then built up a whole town out of the rubble of a prison. He's not that guy yet. She was dreaming when she thought she might be able to shake him into being their vigilant leader right away.
Nothing happened before. Nothing will happen now. We've got a few days of peace. Or however long she's allowed to stay here. However long this spell lasts.
The sound of horse hooves beating the ground pulls their collective attention to the window. Maggie is back, with Lori riding with her on the horse.
Beth doesn't even see Rick get up, he's out the door so quick to meet her.
"I gotta, go see to somethin'," mutters Otis. He still looks just as troubled as when Rick first mentioned Sophia was missing. He goes to the back door.
"Wait!" Beth catches Otis just as he steps outside. "Look, he's dealing with a lot right now," she whispers, glancing back, but Shane is out of earshot, watching Lori and Rick reunite through the front window. "That little girl you found… it's her, ain't it? It's gotta be." Beth shook her head, "We'll tell them, but let's make sure Carl is okay, alright?"
"If that boy doesn't pull through—" Otis' voice starts to shake and his eyes are moist.
Beth grabs his shoulder, with considerably more strength than it seems he expected. "He'll be fine. Trust daddy." That's all she can spare him right now, because another thought has just struck her, as she was watching Shane's eyes and clenched jaw pointed out the window.
Otis will live. She turns away from him and heads slowly back into the living room, thinking to herself that although she spared Otis a horrible fate by going out and getting the supplies they needed herself, an unavoidable consequence is that Shane and Otis don't have anything to do. They've got nothing to distract them during this tense moment. Shane loves Carl. Almost like his parents. Otis is filled with guilt. Now they just have to sit and wait, like his folks. How will that change things?
"Shane? It's Shane, right?" Beth thinks carefully about what to say next. The plan is still rough.
Lori and Rick are coming up to the house quick.
"Yeah," he's distracted, barely looking at her.
"You… killed a lot of those things?"
He gives her a look from the corner of his eye, mouth pulling up in half a grin, that dies a moment later.
Last time, Lori ran right up to the house to see her son. Beth remembers that moment. She tried to imagine what that would feel like. Going to your son and hoping he was still alive. This time, he's in surgery. She looked stricken, but she can't go in yet, so she and Rick stay outside, talking while he holds her.
"Yeah, girl. I've killed a lot of those things."
"You know how to use that?" she cocks her head at the gun that her father hasn't ordered him to stop carrying on their property yet. But he will. It's a bad idea, but Beth isn't sure how she can convince him of that yet. She'll probably need Maggie's help.
He raises an eyebrow at her. "Why? You got yourself some designs?"
"Well. Makes sense," she shrugs. "We could use someone to show us a thing or two."
He doesn't reply, but finally looks at her straight on, sizing her up again.
He's going to figure it out, sooner or later. She doesn't want to try and sell the 'I'm a natural' excuse. "I actually… I already, kinda know, how to use a gun. But, my daddy don't know that," she admits the last part quickly.
Both eyebrows bounce towards his hairline and he gives her the first real grin she's seen on his face this time around.
"I'd rather he didn't. But—If I got proper lessons, he'd maybe feel okay about it?" her confidence is waning, but maybe that's good. He seems to respond to that more than her taking the initiative, she realizes. He looked suspicious of her a moment ago when she was looking at him with her chin up, but now that she's shuffling her feet and blushing, he's nodding a little. Ready to agree.
"If we stick 'round here a few days, I could maybe do that for you."
"Carl will be okay." It can't hurt to repeat it. "He will. He'll have to rest for a few days though."
That worry in Shane's eyes comes back in full force as he shifts his attention to the closed door of her dad's makeshift surgery.
"'Scuse me," Beth heads outside.
Rick and Lori are in their own world, fighting or comforting each other, it's hard to tell from this distance, but their stance is tense, maybe a little of both. She heads back to Maggie's car where she left her final boon from this morning's run. She pops the trunk, and snatches the compact bow and quiver of arrows from the back-seat.
"What the hell is that?"
Beth starts, she didn't hear Maggie coming up on her. She holds up the bow so she can see properly.
Maggie looks at Beth in a way that Beth only ever saw in days long gone. A strange, loving mixture of fear and mistrust. She appreciates the bow with her hands, taking it from Beth, tentatively. "Where did it come from?" she asks darkly.
"This kid in my science class… he used to brag to me all the time about how good a hunter he was. Said he liked bowhuntin', best of all," in spite of everything, Beth smiles, remembering normal school, "He's dead now," she says softly, "and his whole family. Like so many." Gingerly, she touches the yellow feathers on the tips of the arrows. "I stopped by his house on the way home and grabbed it. I'd seen the pictures on Instagram. I knew he kept it above his bed."
"You wanna learn bow?" Maggie furrowed her brow, looking doubtfully at Beth as she handed the bow back.
"Yeah. Once I find a teacher."
I think this story needs Daryl Dixon, immediately.
Wait - M83
