A/N: This chapter takes place 2 years before Chapter 1. All the other chapters will move on from this point in time (S5 MSF) forward; chapter 1 was a "flash forward" but I already have the Daryl/Beth reunion planned from Beth's POV! ;)
There are some changes in POV in this chapter; it should be pretty clear but let me know if it's confusing so I can fix it in future chapters!
Thank you so much to: Lollie Lovegood, Emberka-2012, rogue76, Heidi191976, The Cat's Meow92 and the guests who reviewed (to answer one of the guest's questions: it is canon UNTIL S5 E15 "Try" from that point it becomes an AU from the show). And to all the wonderful followers of this story, you make my heart happy (:
Companion songs: "I Fought in a War"- Belle & Sebastian and "The Cascades"- Fleet Foxes
Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.
Reviews, Follows and Favorites make my week. Thanks for reading!/
Chapter 2: Allies
Two years earlier
Pain.
Instantaneous, searing, white hot, pain.
It was the only thing that existed.
There was nothing. There was no brilliant, shinning light. There was no long, dark tunnel. There were no pictures flashing through her mind's eye. There was no feeling of peace or even a sense of time passing. Only agony. Wasn't death supposed to be peaceful?
The pressure on her head felt like she was 1,000 feet underwater.
It was a misery so fierce that it overpowered all other senses. She couldn't even tell if she had any limbs, couldn't even attempt to open her eyes. Fire raged through her chest feeling like her organs were going to shrivel into ash, trying and failing to completely fill her lungs.
Unconsciousness claimed her and she slipped into a void.
/
The sound of growling was the first thing that she ever heard.
What is that noise? was her first thought.
She couldn't seem to open her eyes. She did not know why, but instinct said she needed to open them. Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open for the first time. It was bright. Pure sunshine surrounded her, warming her cold extremities. Her limbs were stiff and did not seem to cooperate with her brain. She decided to wait patiently in order to let her body adjust to coming out of the void.
When her cloudy blue eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that she was in a… car. It was a large cab, beige colored fabric covered the ceiling and there were tons of… buttons.
She didn't know how she knew these words but they seemed to emerge out of her fuzzy brain after some coaxing.
After a long time, her icy fingers came to life. She raised her left hand into her field of vision. It was pale and she could see her blue veins through her translucent skin. Her short nails seemed to be a faded purple shade. There was also dried blood under her nails. The other hand soon flittered into motion as well, but this one was wrapped in thick white plaster. Her hands moved around the cab. They were searching for something without her conscious thought. Finally, her right hand landed on the hilt of a knife and she let out a breath of relief that she didn't know she'd been holding.
Why do I have a knife? was her next thought.
Then her hands explored her own person. Her uninjured hand found a small, freshly stitched wound on her neck; there was some sticky substance that had seeped out of it and she winced slightly as she touched it. On her face she felt more stitches on her left cheek and above her right eye, neither set hurt but they did itch. As her fingers grazed over a bandage on the back of her skull, her head throbbed painfully and black spots popped up in front of her eyes. There was no fear, only confusion and annoyance.
This must be why I am moving so slowly, she reasoned.
The growling outside had increased in volume now. She didn't know why, but suddenly she felt as if she was in a hurry, instinct telling her she needed to get out of this car. Her body moved excruciatingly slow, her head began to swim and her eyes watered in pain as she sat up in the seat. There was a large bloodstain on the seat where her head had been. As the universe stopped spinning, she could focus more clearly on her surroundings. Out of the front window she saw a long expanse of road lined with trees. She found a full canteen on the floor and she picked it up. It was silver and fit in a tan leather sheath with a large D burnt into the side. The leather had a loop that would attach to her belt; she noticed that the knife's black sheath had a similar burn mark on the back and loop. Warm water streamed down her throat and a sigh of contentment escaped her lips.
She looked around the cab, but it was devoid of anything else useful.
All she had in this world was her warm bottle of water, a hunting knife and the clothes on her back.
Somehow though, this knowledge didn't frighten her.
/
Down the road, unbeknownst to her, two men approached her tomb.
"That's it," said a low voice as the red fire engine came into view.
The pair had been walking down highway 85 for only half a day. When Rick's group left with Noah, he asked if anyone wanted to come with them. Dr. Steven Edwards immediately blanched at the thought of trying to leave Grady Memorial. He had seen so many rotters in his time, patients he lost while at Grady and the ones that endlessly circled the hospital hunting for flesh. He was scared to leave the shelter of the hospital. He had been safely in its confines since the very start of the outbreak. Why would he leave now with a group of strangers?
Not a single person accepted Rick's offer.
He was surprised.
Why didn't the wards leave? he wondered.
The cost of living in the hospital was high for the wards, and their prospect of ever 'repaying their debts' was impossible; therefore they were essentially prisoners. Dr. Edwards figured this must mean it is much worse outside these walls. The wards would know, they had all been plucked up from their lives out there in order to be dragged here "for the greater good" as Dawn would have said. If this was the place they would choose to stay, it must be really terrible out there.
The large, grungy group had turned and left the hospital then. The doctor had watched from the 6th story window as they were reunited with 10 others in the parking lot. They all had tears in their eyes after seeing Beth's still, lifeless body. One woman actually crumpled to the floor in despair.
Dr. Edwards realized that this group truly loved each other; they became a family in the face of the apocalypse.
They are strong… I should have gone with them.
Regret and desperation filled him at this recognition.
The thought occurred to him at the exact moment that a hoard of rotters came around the corner towards them. He watched as the group began taking down rotters while moving as a unit to pile into the fire truck. He noticed with a pang of admiration that they took Beth's body with them instead of leaving her as a distraction to become rotter food. Dr. Edwards lost sight of the truck as it pulled out of town towards the freeway.
That was it. That was my only chance and I lost it, he thought with surrender.
As he left his office to rejoin his own people, he noticed the palpable shift in the atmosphere within the hospital. He walked down the hallway but he didn't hear a single noise. The silence was piercing.
When he arrived on the 5th floor again, he heard voices in the cafeteria and he slowed his footsteps down so they would not echo down the linoleum halls. Dr. Edwards stopped just outside of the open door. He could hear clipped, whispered voices from his place in the hallway.
"We should just kill them all. I don't know why Dawn kept these weak, useless people around for so long," said the first gruff voice.
"I agree, I think we could make it better on our own. Less mouths to feed that way," said another voice. He recognized the voice as belonging to Officer Bello.
"I don't know… I say we save a few. We need someone to clean and cook. Plus that Rachel is such a fun… distraction…" said a third officer.
A chill ran down the doctor's spine at this, he knew that the officers raped women regularly. The thought of sparing someone's life with the sole purpose of making them into a sex slave was despicable. Dr. Edwards needed to do something. He needed to save his patients and himself from this awful place, but he didn't know how. He felt trapped as he tried to think of options, escape plans.
His mind came up empty.
He chanced a glance around the door. Officer Shepard had all of the wards lined up along the far wall of the cafeteria. The officers stood in a small huddle discussing their wards' fates. The light blue walls and the sunshine pouring in seemed out of place in this execution chamber. He watched, as they seemed to come to a vote.
"Okay, that decides it. We will just kill them all and start fresh; we won't keep Rachel because she knows too much about the hospital layout, she would be a liability. We will continue to search for two new people on the outside to clean, cook and satisfy our needs," Officer Shepherd said with finality.
That's when the gunshots started exploding in his eardrums.
They were open firing on the wards.
Without a second thought for his patients that had already entered the world of the dead, Dr. Edwards turned away from the open doorway and ran, trusting the sound of gunfire to cover his footsteps.
He burst into his office and grabbed his large black backpack. He was on autopilot, his hands flying across the room without really seeing them. The doctor shoved every medical tool and medicine bottle that he touched into his pack. He had never been happier that he had begun hoarding food one year ago; taking a can here and there over the past year meant no one ever noticed or the officers blamed it on various wards. He stood on his desk and pushed up one of the ceiling panels. He grabbed the canned food and the six bottles of water and added them to his bag. Lastly, he grabbed the small knife. It wasn't much, certainly not enough to protect him from rotters for long, but it was all he had right now. He had gotten it five months ago off of a patient. The officers had missed this knife in a man's large cowboy boots and when the doctor discovered it, he decided to keep it.
That was it. It was time to go.
He went back into the hall and he could still hear the officers talking in the cafeteria—fighting already about who should drag the dead bodies to the elevator shaft. Dr. Edwards quietly rushed towards the other end of the hall with his white coat flying behind him like a cape. But he was no superhero. He had been unable to save any of his patients.
You're a sorry excuse for a doctor, he berated himself.
The only unlocked stairwell was just around the next corner. It led down to where the patrol cars were parked but he knew that all the car keys were locked in Dawn's office. He would just have to make it on foot out of the city until he found another car. He was a smart man, he figured he could hotwire a car if he had a few minutes. He skidded around the corner and stopped dead in his tracks.
Officer Kyle McGinley stood directly in front of the stairwell.
The officer had a large red bag and a Remmington 870 slung on his back. Keys dangled from one hand and he held tightly to an ice axe in the other.
Both men paused, taking in the sight of the other.
It was a tense moment as they were trying to determine if this would become a fight.
In an instant they both realized that the other was trying to escape.
That made them allies.
Officer McGinley waved the doctor forward with a swift, silent hand gesture. Dr. Edwards rushed into the stairwell with him. The officer used the keys to lock the door behind them.
"That should at least slow them down if they try to come after us," he said quickly as they began descending the stairs.
"Didn't happen to get the keys to a car, did you?" asked the doctor. He had to watch his feet carefully so as to not trip running down the concrete blocks.
"Nope, Shepherd had them. We'll have to hoof it," the officer said smoothly as they reached the last floor.
As McGinley swung the outside door open, there were two rotters inside the gate that started heading their direction. The officer easily took them out with two graceful swings of his axe to their heads and the doctor instantly knew that he never would have made it without this new ally.
McGinley opened the lock on the parking lot gate with his keys and the unlikely pair continued at a steady jog as they headed towards the highway.
The officer had given Dr. Edwards a machete out of his red duffel bag but he was horrible at defending against the rotters. He was having trouble keeping pace with the younger, fitter cop and his glasses kept slipping down his nose from the sweat pouring off his head. But eventually they slowed to a walk and Dr. Edwards caught his breath. Officer McGinley was much more experienced at handling the monsters, he had lived outside at the beginning of the outbreak and then regularly went on supply runs, so the doctor stood back as McGinley beheaded and stabbed every walker they came across on their way out of the city.
As the sun started to go down and the city faded into the distance, the walkers became fewer and fewer. Before night fell they found refuge in a small gas station right off of the edge of the highway. McGinley knew the place because he passed it regularly on his supply runs.
After they checked the building for rotters and locked the doors, they settled down on the floor for the night.
"I can take first watch," said the doctor.
He knew he would not be able to sleep; the accusatory faces of all the patients he failed would certainly haunt his dreams. However, he could not bring himself to feel too badly about the day. He couldn't have walked into that cafeteria without certainly getting a bullet in his skull too.
"Thanks. Killing those damn rotters all day really does make me feel half-dead," Officer McGinley joked lightly as he rubbed his hand over his scruff. Dr. Edwards was quite skilled at reading people and he could tell that the man was using humor to mask his guilt.
They fell into a heavy silence for a while. But the doctor could tell that the officer wasn't sleeping.
"How did you get out?" the doctor asked softly.
The young man sighed deeply from his place on the ground but he wasn't startled which confirmed that he hadn't been asleep. He sat up slowly and looked over at the doctor with sad brown eyes.
"I've been out on a few runs with Shepherd before and I heard her complain about having to take in the wards, caring for these people she felt were beneath her. 'Undeserving' and 'worthless' she called them. I hated that hospital every moment. I watched Gorman and Tanaka rape so many people out on runs," McGinley's voice trailed off. His normally light eyes darkened. They seemed to look out to distant time like an old man who was remembering fighting in a past war.
"It made me want to shoot them each time we were alone… but I just couldn't bring myself to commit murder…" Kyle let out a sad, disgusted scoff. The doctor couldn't tell if he was disgusted with himself for not being strong enough to stop it or the others for their actions… probably both.
"As soon as the Shepherd called everyone into the cafeteria I knew it wasn't going to be good. So I volunteered to go find you," he paused here, with a small, ashamed shrug. "Once I was out of her sight I grabbed all that I could and ran for it. Which is when I found you… So I guess I kept my promise in the end," he ended with a joking note.
The doctor didn't hold this against him.
"Well you saved me ten times over today, so how about we call it even Officer McGinley," the doctor said flatly.
"Deal! But call me Kyle, I am sick of all the 'Officer' crap, I never deserved that title anyway" Kyle said with an undertone of self-loathing before lying back down to go to sleep.
In the morning, they divided the supplies in their packs: both had a small amount of food and water, Kyle had several weapons and Dr. Edwards had medical supplies. They made sure that each man had enough supplies in case they were separated. Leaving the gas station they continued along highway 85, not entirely sure what their destination was or what they were looking for. But a few hours later they saw the fire truck.
"That's it," said the doctor pointing to the bright red fire engine. "Beth's group must have run out of gas and had to leave it here."
"No, look. There are rotters. They wouldn't be growlin' like that unless there was people inside. Maybe they're sleeping in there," said Kyle as he picked up speed with his ice axe gripped tightly in hand.
/
The growling suddenly stopped outside, as there were two loud thuds against the car door. Next thing she knew, a face popped up looking into the driver's side window.
"Beth?" expired a man in a blue button up shirt with glasses.
That's my name, she realized with a start.
That was the first time she ever heard her name.
This man looked at her in disbelief. It was as if she was both his greatest fear and yet a valuable treasure. The second man in a police uniform had his mouth hanging open when he caught sight of her through the window but a few seconds later he seemed to catch himself and closed his jaw with a small snap.
She felt wary of these newcomers. A flutter in her stomach seemed to warn her to tread lightly around them.
Were these the people that left me here, who hurt me? she wondered as she thought of the throbbing wound on her head.
"We saw the rotters and knew that someone must still be alive inside. They normally eat and run, only hang around if there's fresh meat." said the policeman, it was clear that he was just talking to try to break the tense silence that seemed to fill the air around them. He looked shocked to see her but he had an easy smile that reflected warmth into his eyes.
Beth couldn't formulate a response to this comment.
What is a rotter? How do they know me? she thought vaguely.
They obviously knew her but she couldn't remember them. They both seemed to realize that something was wrong since she still hadn't said anything.
A few awkward moments passed and Beth's right hand gripped the hilt of her knife so tightly that her knuckles turned white. The cop glanced over at the doctor and seemed to realize that the doctor was in shock.
"Are you okay?" asked the officer softly to the girl who looked like an angel of death.
She didn't know what to say, she wasn't sure what the answer was. But just as she was about to say this she realized something…
She couldn't form words.
Her thoughts seemed to be moving, she instinctively knew what was required of her to speak… but it was as if the connection between her brain and her tongue had been severed.
So she merely shrugged.
Finally, the doctor came to life. He introduced himself, explained his credentials and he motioned to take a look at her wounds. She nodded reluctantly and he climbed into the cab as he began inspecting her various sets of stitches, asking her a series of yes or no questions, shining a light in her eyes and more. He seemed to be itching for a pen to write notes down on, but there was nothing like that in the car. The officer also introduced himself as he lifted into one of the front seats and quietly pulled the door shut.
Eventually Dr. Edwards seemed satisfied with his examination and began to speak directly to her.
"You were shot in the head," he decided to just dive right in, no point in sugarcoating it.
"It was a through and through, which is good but it is still a miracle that you survived. It seems as if someone stitched up the wounds, which is good. I cannot tell if there is any bullet fragments lodged in your brain without an MRI, but the fact that you're moving is a positive sign," he continued mechanically.
"Luckily the bullet stayed only in the left hemisphere. The brain is an incredible machine; usually if one hemisphere remains healthy it can help compensate or the injured side will learn from the healthy side in order to find a way to reform connections and therefore regain function in time. I cannot say exactly what parts of your brain have been affected; clearly your temporal lobe has been impaired which is causing memory loss and speech impairment, based on the angle of the wound I would guess that the amygdala has been damaged as well. Even if I had all the equipment in the world, I wouldn't be able to predict how you will heal. Maybe the memories will be gone forever, maybe you'll never be able to speak again, maybe a bullet fragment will shift and cause new symptoms or maybe you will heal perfectly and everything will return to normal. Only time will tell," he finished simply.
Beth should have probably felt afraid. She should have been terrified of not being able to speak or remember anything.
She looked over at the other man who seemed to be glaring at the doctor, although she didn't fully understand why. Was it his bluntness or was it something else? Kyle had a face that wore every thought, as if his eyes were a declaration of his soul. This instantly made her trust him.
"For now, I can take out the stitches on your face, close up the wound on your head and keep everything clean to prevent infection. We will find a way to get that cast off soon."
He seemed to catch himself.
"That is…if you would like to come with us," he said with a small gesture towards Kyle in the front seat.
Despite her dislike of the doctor, she sized him up—taking in his shaking breaths, his shifty, scared eyes and his thin limbs. She assessed her own strength, muscles she sensed beneath her gray sweater and jeans.
He is weak, soft and relies only on his intelligence. I could take him, she thought.
Next she looked at Kyle. He was much stronger, she could see how taught the fabric of his long sleeve uniform was over his arms and the premature lines in his face that told her that he had experienced more misery than his youth would suggest. But his face was easy to read and she felt certain she could trust him.
Being in a group is safer than being alone, she knew this to be true even if she didn't fully understand why.
And with that, she nodded her head and these strangers became her allies.
/
Beth was not going to make it far, Dr. Edwards had predicted as much and she noticed that he kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. Her head throbbed, her feet dragged and she knew she must have appeared ghostly pale—she had lost too much blood.
"We need to find a place to hold up for a few days," said the doctor.
Kyle's eyes flicked quickly, almost imperceptibility, to Beth before nodding in agreement.
The group had been shuffling along the highway for only a few hours; the sun was still burning bright, not yet dipping into the tree line. Beth and Dr. Edwards were almost completely useless. It made her want to cry out of frustration. She didn't have any memories of her likes or dislikes but she had already learned that she didn't like being helpless or feeling weak. Her limbs were still not fully cooperative, it felt like her body had too little energy to spare on anything but walking. So even though Beth had two weapons now—Kyle's large knife was gripped in her hand without the cast—she was forced to only observe and learn from her surroundings.
So far they had only seen one or two rotters at a time.
What happens when there is a big group… like a herd? she thought with frown.
The answer came to her almost immediately in a gruff, voice that wasn't her own: Run.
Something about this rough, male voice in her head made her heart clench painfully, but couldn't recall whose voice it was.
Neither of her companions had spoken much throughout the day, it appeared to Beth that they were merely acquaintances. Dr. Edwards seemed to be surrounded in a haze of guilt and fear, even the rotters couldn't spark real life or a reaction into him. Kyle told a few anecdotes and some jokes occasionally but the comments weren't towards his companions. He seemed to be talking just to fill his own ears with something other than silence and their own footsteps. She was abundantly curious to know what had happened to them, how they had known her name, how they came to find her and where exactly they were headed. But since she still didn't have a voice to ask, she had to let her questions drop.
After only a short time, they came across a town that stretched out from the side of the highway.
"This is going to be our best bet, the sun will be going down soon and I want us to be locked up tight before it does," said Kyle. He had taken on the leadership role when it was clear that he was the most competent of the posse.
They walked off the asphalt towards the buildings. Kyle was still talking softly to himself about various useful buildings they passed: hardware store, grocery store, pharmacy, car repair shop. The town felt cramped after being on the open road all day, buildings were closing her in making her search for an escape route. She knew it would be harder to see rotters approaching too.
Finally, they entered a neighborhood. The yards were all in complete disarray, with weeds growing as tall as her. Paint was chipped off of the houses, some windows were smashed, and a few front doors stood wide open. On the sidewalk in front of one house, Beth noticed two little handprints pressed into the cement. Underneath the dirt and abuse that came from the end of the world, it is easy to see that the houses used to be loved and cared for. Now the emptiness reminds Beth of the rotters. She knew that in a past life all these things held beauty but in the hollowness that remains she couldn't see anything beautiful.
She signaled up ahead to a light green house that was two stories with an attic window too. It was on the corner with meant it had a clearer view of the surroundings. Kyle beamed at her and gave her a thumbs-up, although, she didn't quite understand what this gesture meant. The doctor just continued numbly following them.
Kyle climbed up the porch and made to open the front door. But Beth grabbed his arm to stop him. She went to the window and peered inside, seeing that the house looked deserted.
She banged loudly on the window and waited, listening for movement inside the house. Beth had no idea how she knew to do this before entering the house; the instinct was just engraved in her.
Nothing happened. After waiting about a minute, she nodded to Kyle and he led the group inside just as the red hue of the sky began to turn black signaling the sun's descent. They checked all the rooms and then Kyle began locking up the house, moving furniture in front of windows. Dr. Edwards directed Beth towards the couch where he proceeded to run his tests again, asking her questions and inspecting her bandages with a flashlight. She expected him to be detached in his exam, as he had been all day, but he actually started to warm up, which Beth took as a good sign.
"You're already showing an increased GCS and improved reflex responses. This really is astonishing!" he said excitedly as he scratched his beard.
Kyle was rooting around in the kitchen now, clearly trying to see if the previous occupants had left behind any food.
"Why don't you go pick a bedroom and get some rest? Make sure you bring a water bottle with you to stay hydrated. Kyle and I will work out a watch schedule, since you are still recuperating I want you to get as much rest as possible."
She nodded with a grateful smile and trudged up the stairs of this foreign house.
/
When a door clicked closed upstairs, the doctor let out an audible sigh of relief. Kyle had finished searching the kitchen after finding several cans of food, and now he was opening drawers and closets tossing anything useful into the center of the living room floor.
The doctor was still silent. He had been almost completely silent the past two days they had travelled together. Kyle hadn't known the doctor well in the hospital, he had intentionally stayed far away everyone else, but he was sharp enough to know that something was bothering the doc. Kyle, still in his dark blue officer uniform, opened a can of food for each of them and sat down in a fluffy, but dusty, brown suede chair facing the doctor.
"We need to talk about Beth," said the doctor in a hushed voice, glancing up at the floorboards as if unsure if she could hear through the ceiling.
"What about her?" replied Kyle.
"We need to lie. When she asks us questions about how we know her, what happened to her, everything, we must lie."
Kyle was dumbfounded.
"That poor girl was shot trying to save her friend, lost all her voice, family and memories. She had to wake up in this world of shit and the first thing you want to put in her mind is lies? Why?" Kyle hissed, his can of chili had been all but forgotten on a side table.
"If we tell her the truth she will be terrified of us. She will try to find to her family and she will get eaten alive out there, she can't even talk or properly care for herself. We have to help protect her," the doctor's words had started out fiercely but his voice cracked at the end.
Kyle stayed quiet, considering this. He didn't like it. It felt like taking advantage of this girl. He didn't know how old she was, but without her memories she was as fragile and naïve as a small child. This reminded him quickly of his own daughter, Ashley.
Ashley had been only six years old when the world ended, old enough to know that everything had gone wrong but not old enough to understand any of it. His wife, Lisa, had insisted they go to one of the refugee camps when the power grid had first gone down. Originally there had been military at the camps, protecting everyone from the monsters and keeping order among the frightened people. After a few days, the soldiers were mysteriously called away and the camp plummeted into chaos. Kyle had instructed Lisa to stay in their tent with Ashley and pack up their necessary items while he went to go find a gassed up car. When he returned however, both of them were dead. The fences had been overrun by a hoard of rotters and the only remnants of his family had been blood stained clothes and Ashley's favorite stuffed animal, a yellow elephant. He still saw red just thinking about it. He had been on his own for a long time after that, he was too sick with grief and rage to do anything but stab rotters in the head.
If someone had found Ashley, what would I want them to do? He reasoned.
He was spared from answering this question when the doctor spoke again.
"I failed all of my patients in Grady. They were mine to care for but instead they ended up in bloody heaps on the cafeteria floor while I ran to save my own tail. She is my last patient. Please… I can't fail again…" these came out as a strangled plea and Kyle's resolve crumbled.
Kyle nodded but then thought of something else. "What if she gets her memory back?"
"Then she won't need our protection anymore. She was the toughest person to ever walk the halls of Grady, she got Noah out, killed Gorman and attacked Dawn—if she returns to herself and wants to leave us then she might be capable of pursuing her group on her own."
"And if she doesn't get her memories back, then where are we headed?" Kyle asked.
/
When the heat from the sun beamed onto her face the next morning she groaned, still too tired to get up.
Sleep had evaded Beth all of last night. Nightmare after nightmare had pounded into her head. Each time one finally slipped away, another one would come barreling in to replace it, like waves crashing on a beach. She wasn't really sure if they could be considered nightmares because they didn't exactly scare her, but they did prevent her from getting the rest the doctor had ordered.
The only nightmare she could remember now was running. Just running. It was dark and her muscles burned from racing through the forest for so long. But she couldn't see what she was running from. However, that wasn't the important part, Beth didn't care who or what she was running away from. The disturbing part was that she knew someone in the dream was missing. No one was guiding her. Beth was alone in those woods. She was supposed to be following someone, but they had vanished.
Beth felt hauntingly empty without this unknown person in the dream, like imagining the sky without the sun or stars.
She could hear the two men's soft voices downstairs, muffled by the floorboards so she knew that she should get up to help them with the supply runs in town. As she walked down the stairs she looked at the pictures hanging along the walls. The pictures seemed foreign to her, not just because she didn't recognize the faces in them, but because the smiling faces, lavish dresses and birthday cakes no longer fit in this world. She couldn't remember a time when people celebrated like that, couldn't understand what circumstances would lead people to pull a tree into their house and put wrapped boxes underneath it. The proof of the pre-apocalypse world was right in front of her. It looked peaceful, simple. But since she only knew this new world, the people in the old pictures just looked foolish.
The third step from the bottom squeaked loudly as she stepped on it and the voices in the kitchen abruptly halted.
She nodded with a small smile as she entered the room where Kyle and Dr. Edwards seemed to have been in a heated discussion.
"Morning Sleeping Beauty, you sure do look like you were awoken from a slumber of death," Kyle chuckled at his own joke but Beth didn't understand his reference. Her only response was a furrowed brow.
Beth grabbed a can of peaches to eat and sat at a small round table in the corner of the room as the doctor flitted over to her—asking again about her condition, how she slept and more.
"You should have gotten more rest, stayed in bed instead of coming down here," reprimanded the doctor.
"I am going out to look for supplies. I'll check the stores we passed yesterday on the way in, especially that car shop. Keep the packs loaded and ready in the house in case we run into trouble and have to leave. If we get separated, meet back on the highway just north of town. Be sure to listen for gunfire, I will only use it if there is a problem," Kyle said as he started to swing his empty pack over his shoulder.
Beth stood to protest this.
No one should be going out there alone! she thought.
There was no way to express her concern since she still couldn't talk.
Dr. Stevens then pressed a pad of paper and a pen that he had gotten out of the top kitchen drawer into her hand.
What am I supposed to do with this? she looked at the doctor, willing him to understand.
"I figured you could use it to write until you're able to speak again," the doctor obliged her unspoken question.
Her mind came up blank.
Write?
The doctor looked perplexed now too. "You can't remember how to write?"
Beth shook her head.
He quickly snatched the pen and paper from her hand, scribbling on it before holding it up for her to look at.
"Can you read?" he asked quickly, the words falling out of his mouth, concern plastered on his face.
Beth stared hard at the paper, but the little blue symbols on the page were meaningless to her. So again, she shook her head. After a stunned but contemplative silence, the doctor began shooing her back up the stairs with the peaches still in her hand.
"Back to bed. You need your rest so you can heal," he said, making it clear that she had no say in the matter. Dr. Edwards, still in his wrinkled white coat, stood like a bodyguard at the door waiting for her to climb under the purple comforter. He quietly shut the door behind him as he exited her small room.
She carefully slid off of her bed and opened the door just a crack.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" Kyle asked in a whisper so low that Beth could barely hear him.
There was a long pause before the doctor replied gravely, "I don't know… we will just have to wait and hope for the best."
/
Thirteen days passed with the same routine.
Beth's reoccurring dreams at night and bed rest during the day, the doctor watching the house and performing regular tests on her, and Kyle going into town to see what he could gather. There was quite a large pile forming on the living room floor of items he had deemed useful enough to drag back to their little green house with white shutters: numerous canned goods, some red plastic gas cans, several changes of clothes for each of them, a few small tool kits, some medicines, and more.
While Beth was confined to her room, she began trying to read the few books she had found scattered around the house. She saw patterns in the texts, structure, and learned that there were 24 different little symbols combined in countless different ways along the pages but none of this jogged her memory. The doctor also came in and talked to her a lot—saying that hearing other voices may help her brain reform the connections that would allow her to talk again. Her voice was still absent but it had become less frustrating, as if she knew words were going to spill out of her mouth any second so she didn't need to force it.
On the thirteenth night in the house, her dreams changed.
She was no longer running through the woods alone. The person she was waiting for finally showed up. Even though she was still sprinting through the forest, she felt relaxed now that he was there.
It was clearly a man that she was following, though he never turned to face her. He was tall but muscular, she could see his arms bulging under the weight of the crossbow he carried. His brown hair was matted and greasy and it was just long enough to graze the top of his collar. At the speed they were running Beth could feel burning in her lungs and cramps in her sides, but he moved with agility that suggested he had effortlessly traveled the woods numerous times before. Racing through the forest in his black leather, he resembled a panther—watchful, menacing, swift, and powerful. However, she wasn't threatened, instead she felt relief because she knew he was there to protect her.
Beth watched the faded gold angel wings stitched into his leather vest as they ran. She followed those wings, knowing they meant safety, and everything except him faded away as she finally drifted into restful sleep for the first time in her new memory.
The following morning she came downstairs for breakfast as usual, she grabbed a can of sliced pineapple off the counter and slid into a seat next to Kyle at the table. He was leaning the chair back on two legs with an easy smile on his face as he told the doctor a story about his daughter.
"—insisted on wearing that damn pink tutu everywhere, saying she wanted to be a princess ballerina. She even wore it to bed sometimes if she used those puppy-dog eyes on me. I remember, one day, another girl in her class made fun of her for wearing it so much and my little Ash just looked her right in the eye and said 'This makes me special, you don't have one so you're ordinary.' I don't even know where the hell a six year old learned that word!" He finished with a loud guffaw.
Beth laughed out loud. "Atta girl!" she shouted happily.
Kyle's balanced chair almost tipped over. The doctor's jaw fell as he stared wide-eyed at her.
"Damn it's good to hear that voice, like seeing a kid take their first steps," Kyle said as he clapped Beth on the shoulder.
The doctor immediately snapped into interrogation mode, asking her questions about how she felt, making her say specific sentences and shinning his flashlight into her eyes. After he was satisfied with his exam, he relaxed back into his chair. The relief on his face made it clear that he had not been confident that she would ever recover.
Her throat was hoarse from disuse. Her thoughts were racing now but her mouth was still sluggish. She didn't care that her voice unsteady, she was excited that she was making progress and maybe now they would let her out of the house that she'd been locked in for two weeks.
"This is an excellent sign. It's astonishing that your speech came back. Don't worry if it comes and goes in waves. Your brain is still healing, forming synaptic connections," he beamed.
It was a happy moment in the kitchen and Beth now felt like she could be a true part of the team.
"So… what's… next?" asked Beth, the words seemed to go from her brain to her mouth slower than molasses moving in the winter.
The two men glanced quickly at each other. A shadow seemed to pass over Kyle's face and there was a miniscule shake of his head. The doctor glared and proceeded to talk to Beth as if nothing had happened.
"I think we should rest here at least one more day, get all the supplies properly stored for transport and we still need to find a working car, so far all the batteries have been dead," the doctor said in an authoritative voice.
Beth waited. This hadn't answered her question of where they were actually going.
"We are going to head up to Richmond, Virginia. I had a…friend," he stumbled over this word, "who lived in a secure neighborhood there, with walls that held out the rotters."
He's lying, she realized.
She didn't know how she knew, but she did. This was a lie. It wasn't a friend they were meeting. Who were they taking her to? Why would they lie to her about it? Beth decided that it was best not to confront them about it right now. She had plenty of time to find out what the truth was and time to ditch them if she discovered they were trying to harm her.
After much back and forth, they decided that they would get moving the next day at dawn. Kyle had one more shop he wanted to check today; a small pharmacy with boarded up windows and locks on the door that was tucked away in a side street in the center of town. Kyle reckoned that not many people had wandered so deep into this town after the world fell, and with the added obstacles closing up the store he felt there was a good chance that there would still be useful stuff inside.
"I want to come," said Beth slowly but eagerly. She wanted to help pull her weight.
"Nah. I think you better rest, kiddo. Who knows how long we will be on the road tomorrow, better save up your strength while you can," replied Kyle with a small shrug.
Beth's temper flared at his use of the word "kiddo." She couldn't remember how old she was but she certainly didn't want to be treated like some incompetent fool. The doctor put a calming hand on her shoulder, seeing that she was getting worked up.
"You will have an ample amount of time to kill rotters once we're on the road. It's a long trip to Virginia. The more you rest now, the more time you'll be able to take on later," Dr. Edwards ordered with a small nod.
So Kyle left the house alone to get provisions, while Beth was on house arrest with her doctor. She snorted at the irony that it was not the cop that kept her under lock and key. The two of them neatly loaded everything they had gathered in the house over the last week into the large packs Kyle had left behind. He had found her a large brown hiking backpack in one of the houses on the block. After everything was packed and ready for tomorrow, Beth slunk back up to her room to get the rest that the doctor ordered.
She was doubtful that she would fall asleep since it was still daylight, but soon after plopping down on the bed, she drifted off in the warmth of her soft purple sheets.
But she awoke to a blood-curdling scream from downstairs and the unmistakable growls that she knew meant only one thing.
/
A/N: Uh-Oh! Another cliffhanger. Please don't hate me! I promise not all of the chapters will end on a cliffhanger. Hopefully you can forgive me because of how absurdly long this chapter was! (:
All reviews are appreciated, thanks for reading. I will update frequently—but more reviews/follows/favorites would definitely motivate me! To my followers: do you have a preference on what day of the week you want updates?
My nerdy notes about this chapter-
I did clinical research in the ER on traumatic brain injuries so everything is possible (unlikely, sure, but still possible). I wanted the science to be clear and correct but not over the top so let me know if it was too technical!
Anyone who knows about brain functions, there is a hint about Beth's big secret in here… let me know if you think you've figured it out!
FOR MY SUPER NERDS: I made some guesses based on the angle of the gunshot. I took liberties with Broca's area (She would have likely had Wernicke's aphasia based on bullet trajectory but I chose to give her Broca's aphasia simply because I thought Wernicke's aphasia would have be too difficult to convey through writing). Additionally, I know her healing time would have been longer but I didn't want to slow the story down too much (but look at Gabby Giffords to see some miraculously quick healing! Traveling across the country 4 only months after being shot in the head.)
TO THE DOUBTERS: do your research! Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA, says: "A person's chances of surviving such a trauma to the brain depend on the areas of the brain that are struck, the velocity of the bullet and whether the bullet exits the brain. If a bullet passes through both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, instead of being confined to one side, then the damage is likely to be much worse. The brain is somewhat redundant — it can sometimes tolerate losing one half. Like a twin-engine plane that has lost one engine, a person whose brain was pierced by a bullet on only one side has a better chance than someone who has suffered injury to both sides." For this reason, I live in DELUSION-CITY with all the other Bethylers. (:
-andddd nerdiness over.
Thanks for reading! Please review/favorite/follow, it makes my heart happy!