Spoilers: The Second Death includes references to events, characters, and themes that occur in Supernatural through episode 07x23 "Survival of the Fittest" and in Walking Dead through episode 06x09 "No Way Out."
Chapter Summary: Carol faces the ugliness of her past. Dean tries to find Cas and back him up.
The Second Death
Chapter Seven: Gaze
Carol watched as Dean darted into the woods as if his life depended on it. Then Daryl swooped down and cursed as he grabbed a gun, before racing after him.
Damn idiots, both of them.
Knowing she had to follow, she wrenched the weapon from the dead man at her feet, but in so doing, she caught sight of the stranger's dull, vacant eyes.
And she froze.
Another one, she thought. What number is he? How many is that now? How many more will there be?
Yesterday it felt as if one conversation had dispelled the worst of it, but all that had actually done was lock it away for a little while longer.
"Think about who."
Daryl's voice rang in her head. She needed to remember who she'd saved. Everybody who'd gotten caught up at Terminus - Michonne, Carl, Rick, Daryl, Sasha, Glenn, Maggie, Bob - and before that, Judith, Tyreese, Mika, Lizzie...
But she hadn't really rescued them, had she? Mika and Lizzie didn't make it to Terminus. Bob and Tyreese didn't make it to Alexandria. She gave them a few more days or a few more weeks, but she'd lost them all the same. Who was she, anyway?
A woman who couldn't even save her own daughter.
A sob dragged her from her thoughts. She turned to the two survivors standing over their fallen traveling companion. The woman pushed a knife into his temple as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Carol gave them a quick once-over and decided that they must have a camp nearby. Neither had so much as a stitch out of place, and they carried almost nothing - there was only one pack for all three of them. Either they had planned a trip for one day, or they were morons.
She couldn't rule out the latter, not yet, and focusing on them made things easier. She'd lost enough, and she wasn't going to let a moment of self-recrimination interfere with protecting her people. She needed to know more about these people they'd just stuck their necks out for... and about the people they'd saved them from.
"I'm Carol," she said.
"Randy," the man replied.
"Barbara," the woman said automatically. "This is - was - Bobby, my brother."
"I'm sorry," Carol said in her most sympathetic voice. She waited for a moment before pointing to the other bodies. "You know who did this?"
"Negans," Randy replied. "That's what we call them. They collect people - communities - and exploit them."
"So you've met them before?" Carol asked.
"Not us," Barbara replied. "My brother had. He and a few others got away from them by putting a walker herd between them. They thought the herd wiped them out."
"Friend of mine had a run in with them," Carol said, carefully selecting her words. "But that was miles and miles from here."
"Yeah," Randy replied. "They're everywhere."
"What?" Barbara asked her companion. "What do you mean, everywhere?"
Her nagging doubts waned in the shadow of the argument unfolding before her. She honed in on their body language - the thousand ways they communicated without speaking - and absorbed every syllable.
She knew this was just one more stopgap, buying her a little more time before that dam finally broke, but she took it all the same.
Dean galloped haphazardly through the forest, knowing full well that he was running into a gunfight with a machete and three bullets to his name with no idea as to who, what, where, or how many.
It didn't really matter, did it? He'd been here - wherever the hell here was - for three days, and the only thing he learned about this place was that it had far too many douchebags and asshats.
He couldn't afford to lose the only family he knew he had left. If he lost Cas, who'd help him figure out what the hell happened? Who'd help him find Sammy and Kev? Who'd watch his back?
Something solid collided with his shoulder and sent him crashing sideways into a tree. He recovered immediately, training his gun on the assailant, his finger on the trigger and ready.
"You trying to die?" Daryl growled.
"What the hell?" Dean replied loudly. "Cas is out there in the crossfire - "
As if on cue, a gargling noise heralded the arrival of a trio of undead, one of which appeared from nowhere at Dean's elbow. He easily sidestepped its grasp, but when he shifted his weight to switch to his machete, his foot slipped against a root. And suddenly the ground was coming up to meet him as more zombies came out of the woodwork.
In one swift movement, Daryl jabbed a knife into the closest one's skull, kicking its rot body right into the two behind it, buying himself some time to take out two others that'd come up behind him.
Dean didn't waste any time getting to his feet, slashing haphazardly as he rose, maneuvering so he was back to back with Daryl.
Shit, shit, shit.
They were coming from all sides now, moaning and snarling as they limped closer, leaving them without no way out.
Dean swung the machete in an arch, taking out two undead bastards at once, biting back a scream inspired by a jarring pain in his elbow. He must've fallen on it, but he didn't have time to think too hard about an injury. He could take the pain.
He swung the blade back, hitting another across the face, taking its nose and one ear clean off, but it kept coming. He stabbed straight through its eye, putting it down, but when he pulled his weapon back, the body came with it. So he pulled a Daryl and kicked it off his machete, throwing it into several others.
Walker bowling. Strike!
That's when Dean noticed just how many there were, swarming in from behind every tree. He reminded himself that these were just things. They weren't smart. They didn't learn. As long as he had his blade in front of him, he'd be fine.
So he slashed and hacked mercilessly, dropping bodies left and right. He'd taken out a hell of a lot more of them before, but he'd done that because, well, because he could. He'd been buying Cas time, but his back hadn't been against a wall like this.
Come to think of it, he hadn't put them all down, had he? When they'd driven off, more were still coming.
His arm radiated pain, and now his head throbbed, too, with all the groaning closing in on him, occasionally punctuated by Daryl swearing. The thing that really got him, though, was the stench; it crawled up his nose, making his eyes water as he gagged, practically choking on it.
They'd only been at this for a few minutes, and he was already getting tired. How the hell did he land himself in this mess?
All at once, dozens of answers flooded his head, each one a scathing reprimand in his father's voice. He knew exactly how he'd gotten here: by fucking up, like he always did. If he'd taken two seconds to think, he wouldn't be surrounded by zombies with some hick he barely knew.
Dean focused on the rotting bodies coming at him, hoping to block out the endless insults churning in his head, knowing it wasn't going to happen.
Then, suddenly, everything went quiet.
No, not everything... the undead attack party was still groaning and hissing, Daryl kept on grunting and cursing under his breath, and Dean couldn't stop his inner self-loathing. Yet, he was certain a silence had fallen.
The gunfire.
Dean had raced toward it and kept it in partial focus as he fought - a reminder that he couldn't die now, not when his family needed him. No matter which way he slashed and stabbed, he'd check it against that gunfire so he'd know the way to Cas.
But now it was gone. Stopped. Silent.
"Fuck!" Dean shouted as he hacked through yet another walker, the exclamation oddly relieving. Each time he swung his machete, he punctuated it with another, "Fuck!"
Then the murmur of an engine started, growing closer by the second, accompanied by the occasional pop of a riffle.
Less than a minute later, a motorcycle roared into view. Carol held two guns aloft, taking out the undead with precision, always waiting for her shot before pulling the trigger. Dean recognized the driver as the woman from the previous clearing - he hadn't bothered asking her name.
The riders circled the area, putting down approaching zombies, leaving a sizeable portion for Dean and Daryl. It only took a few more minutes to clear the immediate area, providing them with a much-needed reprieve.
The bike stopped as close as it could, given the trees and the mounds of dead bodies piled everywhere, and Carol hopped off.
"Two weeks," the driver said. "Good luck."
Before Dean could ask what the hell she meant, the stranger kicked off and sped the way she came.
"Where's Castiel?" Carol asked.
"This way," Daryl grunted.
Dean wanted to point out that he was going the wrong way - the gunfire had been in a different direction - but Daryl was already winding through the trees like he was following a homing beacon, and Carol was on his heels.
Did this guy even know what he was doing?
Before that train of thought could come full circle, he heard the telltale groan of walkers on the approach. His injured arm throbbed. If he got stuck facing another crew of them alone, he'd be screwed.
No, he'd be eaten.
"Damn it!"
He followed them, hoping they knew where the hell they were going.
It sounded like walkers were coming from everywhere, but Daryl could tell they were a way's off yet. Maybe they'd get distracted by the motorcycle for a spell and give him, Carol, and Dean enough time to find Cas and double back to the cars.
He caught sight of another clearing up ahead - pretty large, possibly one that led out to the road - so he slowed, closing in by moving silently between points of cover, because this time, he was getting a damn good look before putting his ass on the line. He cast a glance back to check on Carol, who managed to keep Dean from running straight in. Daryl held up his hand, signaling them to hang back for now, and she nodded her head, yes.
Something had happened here, but hell if he knew what. He kept low as he ducked into the edge of the clearing, stepping over dismembered limbs and ducking entrails that were dangling from tree limbs. Seemed like some jackass used a bomb to take out a few walkers.
One of the bodies was a fresh kill, so Daryl jabbed his blade into the top of its head just as Carol and Dean joined him, not waiting for his damn signal. It pissed him off, but he couldn't really blame them, not with how this place looked.
"Cas!" Dean shouted. "Cas!"
How the hell had this guy survived so long? Sure as hell not from being smart.
Before Daryl had a chance to speak, a putrid smell caught his attention, ten times more powerful than a few walkers up wind. He instinctively followed the scent and spotted walkers on the far end of the clearing. Some were bloated, like they'd been in water, but the rest looked like recent kills, going by their clothing.
"Cas? Cas!"
"Cas ain't here," Daryl pointed out.
What the hell were they doing? Even with their new guns, they didn't have the ammo to deal with this new wave, let alone doubling back to the cars.
Why were they even looking for Cas out here? He'd been in a sniper's perch - no way he got way out here. Hell, they should've gone straight back to camp in case his cover fire attracted unfriendlies, not running around in the woods dodging walkers.
"We gotta move," Daryl said.
"Not without Cas," Dean replied.
"We'll cover more ground with the cars," Carol pointed out. "Maybe he - "
She stopped mid-sentence, so Daryl followed her line of sight to where walkers were piling into the clearing.
He'd seen plenty of messed up shit: hundreds of walkers melted into pavement, still biting and groaning; his undead brother eating some poor smuck; his best friend ripping open another man's throat with his teeth. Yet all that paled in comparison to what he was seeing now.
Someone was there, casually moving between walkers without garnering their interest. Whenever the person passed one, it fell, and from this distance, it seemed like the walkers were going down in waves.
The wind picked up, and his trench coat billowed. That's when Daryl saw that the man was flicking something - rocks from the look of it - at the walkers, landing the headshot every time, barely looking at the target.
It took him a full minute to recognize the person as Castiel. He was covered in guts and blood from head to foot. He had this look on his face - all determination and fury - and he radiated energy, like some kind of avenging angel or some shit.
Fuck that. There was no such thing as angels. Just broken assholes unwilling to become as ugly as the world.
Cas joined them without a word, leaving a small army of bodies in his wake.
"Dude, what the hell?" Dean asked.
"They irked me," Cas replied.
"Talk later," Carol said. "There's too many walkers to stay out in the open like this. Let's get back to the camp and regroup."
"No," Cas said. "I've found something. You all need to see it."
Author's Notes: Sorry for the delay in this chapter. I've written ahead, but now must slowly type them in (cubital tunnel is slowing me down). I promise the next chapter will be up very soon... possibly before the end of the week.