A/N: Thanks for all the follows/favorites. Special thanks to: DarylDixon'sLover (NOPE, she is not the cure) and Emberka-2012 and the guests for the reviews (the most recent guest review SERIOUSLY made my day. Whoever you are, I adore you!). Sorry if the last chapter was too long for some of you. I don't have a set length for chapters, I just write until that "section" feels complete in my head.
Companion song: "Leave my body"- Florence and the Machine
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 are all greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!
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Chapter 3: The Fatherless and The Widow
Her eyes flew open and she recognized the danger immediately. She had left her door open when she fell asleep and a rotter had already gotten into her room. The stench of decaying flesh filled the air and she fought back a gag as the reanimated corpse stumbled towards her bed. There was a spark in its eyes; not a spark of life but it was clear that the rotter sensed his prey was within his grasp.
She was still lying trapped under the purple sheets of the queen bed, defenseless, as her small knife lay on the small side table next to the bed. Beth couldn't reach for it because moving towards the knife meant moving closer towards the biting monster.
It lunged, teeth chomping, towards her face.
Her brain was clear. There was no terror or uncertainly clouding her judgment.
Beth knew it was kill or be killed, and she knew what to do.
In the span of a second she rolled onto her left side, grabbing the pillow to shield her head. The rotter bit down directly on the back of the pillow, where her face had been only seconds ago. Beth rolled back to the right, kicking the thick blanket over the greedy hands as best she could as she simultaneously rolled the pillow on top of his hungry face. She held the pillow down over his face tight enough that it would have suffocated a normal, living human. She reached over the writhing body and grabbed her knife off of the table. Without hesitation Beth shoved the knife through the pillow and with a sickening crunch the knife plunged into its skull. The putrid body went still below her. She swiftly pulled her knife back out with a strange suction noise and black sludge oozed out onto the purple pillowcase.
The doctor is screaming. We have to get out of here and find Kyle, were her only thoughts as she flew out of the room.
Beth threw her pack over her shoulder, and grabbed the large hunting knife by the door. She took out another rotter on the staircase by repeatedly slamming its head against the wooden banister. As she got downstairs, she knew it was too late.
The screams had already subsided.
She noticed the machete stuck into a skull of a dead rotter in the hallway.
Six rotters surrounded the doctor's body, tearing apart his flesh on the kitchen floor. He was recognizable only by the white coat that was shredded and bloodied around a pile of bones and gore.
What a horrible way to die, she faltered, overcome with sadness, for only a millisecond as she skipped the squeaky third step. The rotters were too distracted, thrown into a frenzy by their meal, to see or hear her passing by the kitchen. She shook off these glum thoughts for Dr. Edwards—she would mourn later—as she silently darted towards the back window. The rotters must have come in the front door so she didn't want to head towards the front of the house, and they had boarded up all the windows except the back one. As she crossed the living room, she snatched up the doctor's black bag that she had packed for him earlier and his Glock that sat loaded on the coffee table.
He didn't need it anymore.
She checked the back yard and it was empty of rotters so she scurried out of the window. Beth began quietly jogging away from the house with the machete in her hand, her smaller hunting knife sheathed now on her hip and she shoved the gun into the back waistband of her jeans. She wasn't sure where the pharmacy was so she decided it would be best to meet back on the highway as the officer had suggested when they'd first arrived in town. She stopped in the intersection next to their house and quickly arranged some rocks into the shape of an arrow, pointing the direction she was going. Kyle would come back to the house, find the rotters and hopefully realize she put the rocks there to lead him to her. She said a silent prayer for the doctor, and a brief thank you to her good luck—what would have happened if she had taken her boots off before falling asleep or if she hadn't packed up all their bags earlier that day?
The light was already fading when she reached the northern edge of town, close to the highway. She set the packs down and leaned against the tree but was unsure of how long she should wait out here in the open for Kyle.
About an hour later, she heard rustling in the leaves. She quickly pushed off the tree and strained her ears, trying to determine if it was a live or undead human.
"Doc? Beth?" said a voice in a loud whisper.
Beth grabbed the packs and walked towards the noise. Kyle saw her and relief flashed over his face, his shoulders relaxed slightly. But his eyes continued to dart around behind her, looking for the doctor. When he saw that she had two packs, his face fell a little.
"He didn't make it, did he?"
Beth just shook her head. She could probably talk but she still wasn't used to it. A sense of guilt overcame her. If she hadn't needed to rest for so long in that house, this wouldn't have happened. She also couldn't help but make the connection between her triumph, getting her speech back this morning, and the doctor's death this afternoon. It seemed like just when something good happened, everything went bad—one step forward and two steps back.
"Well, we can either hold up around here for the night or we can try to walk through the night… What do you want to do?" asked Kyle. It was clear that he was trying to distract himself from the doctor's death, trying to keep moving so he wouldn't have to dwell on it.
They decided to stay in a small liquor store. It had been cleared completely of everything useful long ago, particularly since it was so close to the highway. But the large coolers that lined the wall meant an added level of protection from the undead while they slept. When Beth was starting to drift off, she heard Kyle's quiet sobs and sniffles and she knew he was crying over their loss today.
/
It was yet another person that he didn't save.
First his wife and daughter, then all those people who were raped or left to die on the road, and now Dr. Edwards.
He was sick of being unable to defend people. He never should have gone on that run today, they had a ton of supplies and they should have just left that morning like Beth wanted. That was all he had left, this defenseless, adolescent girl who couldn't remember her own last name. But he wouldn't let her die. Beth was his only chance at redemption. If he could get her safely to her family, maybe he could come back from all the terrible things he had done.
The sky was beginning to lighten, a yellow haze settling on the ground outside as sunrise began. He decided it was time to move. They were now more than two weeks behind Noah's group and they would certainly be moving a lot slower than the large group since there were only two of them and they didn't have a car. Kyle silently hoped, not for the first time, that the doctor's guess had been correct, that the group was returning Noah to his family in Virginia and that the walls surrounding that town still held.
He shook the girl's shoulder, thinking about how long of a trip they had in front of them, she sat bolt upright and her hand reached immediately for the knife sheathed on her hip.
Maybe she isn't completely defenseless, he thought hopefully.
They quickly ate while digging through the doctor's pack, ditching the few items of clothing that they had found but would not fit either of the surviving members. However, he heard ripping noises and looked down to see Beth was ripping a red t-shirt into long, thin strips.
He arched an eyebrow at her, "What are you going to do with those?"
"I dunno, thought they might be useful as markers or to tie a wound when we run outta gauze," she said with a shrug.
Definitely not useless, he thought of his young companion with more certainty.
Kyle gave her a holster for the machete that strapped around her thigh. While it was becoming clear that she was intelligent, even without her memories, she was still clearly a teenager and he was determined to protect this fragile girl who was his last hope for some type of karmic retribution.
They set out before the sun had finished rising.
After several hours, Kyle had to break the silence. He hated silences, their awkwardness made him fidgety.
"I guess since you don't remember anything you don't miss anything from before, huh?"
"Um… no." she said with a slightly confused look.
He let out a small, slightly envious laugh. "Maybe that's a good thing. It means you can't be sad for things that have completely disappeared. I just ache sometimes; missing things can take a physical toll. Of course I miss my family, but even the simple things… like milkshakes. Damn, they were so good, all creamy and cold. And with fries! I would dip the fries in it to get the perfect combination of salty and sweet. Or pizza! When you bite into it and it is so hot that it burns the roof of your mouth. Mmmmmm."
Beth let out a small smile and a laugh at his enthusiasm, but he knew she couldn't really imagine what a milkshake was like. It was sad that this young girl would never know such luxuries.
However, in many ways, Kyle thought it might truly be a blessing. Sure, she couldn't remember the happy times, but she also did not have to be haunted by the faces of those she lost.
Kyle continued to ramble on about nothing of significance, such as old TV shows and favorite restaurants, until the sun began to set. Today had been slow moving. Kyle knew Northern Georgia well, his wife's parents lived here so he used to take Ashley to visit her grandparents at least once a week, and they were not making great time. Kyle didn't want to strain the girl, especially because without Dr. Edwards here to give her a check up he couldn't be sure if she was truly doing okay. Also, they were weighed down with their full packs plus the doctor's. He didn't want to ditch it yet because food was hard to find, but the added weight of all the cans was a problem.
We have to keep it, I can't hunt and I don't know anything about edible plants. Besides, who knows what we will find on the way to Virginia, maybe everywhere we go will have been cleared out. We'll just have to go slowly for now, but hopefully we will get there without starving…he worried internally.
They found a dirt road that led to a farm where they rested for the night. The house had already been completely emptied and he knew he had been right in keeping their supplies. There weren't even any blankets on the beds left, but it was late spring so it was plenty warm. He found a bible that had been tossed on the floor in the previous looter's haste to search for anything useful. Kyle smiled softly at this. It had a light blue cover just like his wife, Lisa's, old bible. He was not religious, but his wife had been and she dragged him to church every Sunday. Oh, what he wouldn't give to go back one more time, he would gladly spend 50 years worth of Sundays on those hard wooden pews if it meant being next to her again. He picked up the bible and turned it over, glancing down at the page that had been face down on the floor. A verse caught his eye.
Isaiah 1:17 "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow."
He grinned. He would do exactly this, do the right thing for Beth, and defend her because her own father was no longer here to do it. Although, he didn't need to plead the case for the widow…he was the widow.
/
"I need you to teach me how to fight," Beth said on the road the one afternoon.
She had been watching Kyle intently for the past few days as he killed the decaying monsters they passed on the road. Beth took mental notes: always get them through the head, never let them get their hands on you, be careful of their mashing teeth, move as quietly as possible… the list went on and on.
However, all of these rules she was learning were familiar. Like she already knew the rules and this was just review.
She guessed that this must be true since she killed the two rotters in the house the day that Dr. Edwards died and she had killed a few on the road since then. Beth didn't even know how she knew what to do, her body had moved on pure instinct, going through the motions without conscious input from her mind.
"You're damn right I do! I will teach you how to kill rotters and some self-defense too, never know who you're going to meet out here. Don't know much about survival skills—hunting, fishing, making fires, or whatever—so I can't really help with that. But you're going to need to bulk up if you plan on packing a real punch! Maybe you can bench press these overstuffed packs."
He talked with such lightness, always joking, even about serious issues. At times, Beth found it endearing but other times it was annoying. She needed to learn how to fight in order to survive in this world, it was kill or be killed, and there was nothing funny about it.
They spent the day walking, checking cars to see if they worked, and he taught Beth about killing rotters. When they found an REI just off the highway in late afternoon, they decided to check it out and see if it was possible to stay there for the night. Kyle said REI would have a lot of outdoor gear and sturdy shoes. They still used Beth's method of knocking loudly on the front door to lure rotters to the front in order to see how many there were inside. She didn't know how she had known from day-one in her new life that this technique would work to draw them out, it must be the same way she had known how to kill them when that corpse attacked her in the bed. Only five came to the storefront windows and the pair set down their bags next to the door.
"You ready?" Kyle asked with a smile as he gripped the door handle.
Beth nodded, her knuckles turning white from gripping her knife.
"Just remember what I taught you," he said as he flung the doors open.
The dead came hurling out towards them. Beth focused calmly on the one that came at her, just seconds before it reached her she jumped out of its path. It continued straight for another two steps, unable to realize she had moved so quickly, as she rotated and stabbed the knife right through the base of its skull, successfully severing the brainstem as it crumbled to the ground in a heap. The next one came up on her quickly, its jaw snapping within inches of her. Beth shoved her wrist into its open mouth; the hard cast on her wrist kept her safe as she reached up and stabbed it in the temple. She quickly turned to see that Kyle had taken one down and the two others were making their way towards him. With footsteps too light to be heard by the rotters, she dispatched the one closest to her with a swift jab through the temple without even breaking a stride. She managed to grab the last one by the shoulder, pulling so hard that it stopped shuffling forward and before it even could reach for its new target, she had plunged the knife through the right eye socket.
Beth felt the adrenaline that had pumped through her veins, the mental clarity that it brought, but she didn't feel any guilt or fear despite the fact that she had just killed four people. If they could really be considered people…
Kyle was openly gaping at her.
"Girl, you don't need to be taught anything! Looks like you've got it down already. Don't think I've ever seen such a natural. You must have been attending a school for ninjas before the turn." He still looked at her with awe as she went to pick up her bag and push into the store.
The next two days they decided to stay around the area to search the other stores in the shopping center. They had found a quality tent that didn't weigh much, some excellent sleeping bags, two hammocks, new boots, various ropes and carabineers in REI.
She had changed out of the flimsy old cowboy boots she had been wearing but she kept the black and white shoelaces that were tied around her ankles. For some reason, they felt important so she left them on before pulling on the new thick socks and black boots.
The rest of the day searching was uneventful. Their packs were already full so they didn't really need supplies, other than food and water. But Kyle did change the bandage on her head for the first time since the doctor died and he taught her some self-defense moves on the roof of the REI store—it had a good vantage point so they could see if anything was headed their way.
He was a good teacher. It was the most serious she had ever seen him and Kyle explained that he had actually been a self-defense instructor for some time before the end of the world. When they were taking a break from sparring, Kyle fell into a story, as usual.
"My little sister was attacked by three men on the street outside of her apartment when she was only 18. It was her first place on her own. I was so proud of her, in college and working full-time to pay her own rent. And then she got attacked. They ended up just taking her purse and leaving her, but she ended up with two broken ribs, needed 22 stitches and had lots of bruises. I didn't want anyone to be defenseless like she had been, so I learned and started teaching at a local studio. I had just signed the lease papers on my own self defense studio before the dead started walking around," he finished with a sad sigh.
Kyle glanced at her with a huge grin, "Guess I did finally get to teach someone though!"
Beth actually smiled at this. It felt good to help him fulfill his dream.
"Then I guess I should call you Instructor McGinley now," she said. The words were still sluggish falling out of her mouth but they did cause Kyle to let out a happy whoop.
/
The next morning was cool but the humidity in the air indicated that summer was approaching fast. They had spent the last two days searching everywhere they could for water because they only had three more full bottles, but came up empty.
"We need to find a way to capture some water. Luckily we're in the rainy season so chances are pretty good that it will pour on us sooner or later. When it does, we've got to be ready. But that means we will have to stay set up somewhere…" His voice was clearly conflicted. Beth could tell that he wanted to keep moving towards Virginia as fast as possible, but they wouldn't get far without water.
"We've cleared this town out of anything useful. Let's set up in the next place we come across, search it while we wait for rain," Beth said softly.
Kyle nodded, yet again impressed by the girl's street smarts and her bravery. She hadn't seem frightened of the rotters they'd killed in the last few days and she didn't seem nervous of the prospect of traveling further north.
I guess if the only thing you know is this rotter-infested planet, it all seems mundane… he reasoned as he pondered her lax attitude in the face of the unknown.
He knew that she was skilled with a gun before the accident. He had watched from his position on guard duty on the roof of Grady Memorial as she tried to escape with Noah. She had shot every single rotter square in the head, didn't waste a single bullet. Gorman had definitely been wrong when they picked her up. He said she was weak, but he had been wrong. She was strong then and after being shot in the head, she somehow seemed even stronger.
I've got to tell her about what happened in the hospital… and about her family. She deserves to know, he thought.
But he didn't know how to bring the subject up. So they just grabbed their bags and continued walking north.
Later that day, Beth paused at a huge blue sign and Kyle stopped next to her. There was a large peach on it but Beth couldn't read the words.
"What does it say?" she asked softly.
"Goodbye, keep Georgia on your mind," he said with a smile as he continued into South Carolina.
/
A/N: Yay, no cliffhanger this time :P Hope y'all liked it!
Side note: Officer McGinley was a real character from Grady but there was no first name listed for him, so I just gave him the first name of the actor that played him. I had so much fun creating his back-story, so let me know what do you think of Kyle so far?
In the next chapter, Beth learns the truth about what happened at the hospital.
Thanks for reading and please review (good or bad!)/favorite/follow, it feeds my soul!