A/N: Hey lovelies! Thanks for the support everyone! To the new followers/favoriters, Welcome! To the loyal long-timers, THANK YOU! Special shout-out to:
Companion song: "Six barrel shotgun" by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
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.
Please review, if I get 25+ reviews on this chapter I will post again on Friday!
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Chapter 21: Rescue
Twenty minutes later, he was staring at a knotted bed sheet in his hands.
There were fires in going at either end of the hallways downstairs. Beth had thick handmade sparklers in her backpack that she'd lit and thrown into the two windows that she knew had been broken out on the fifth floor. It had been unbelievable to see the arm on her as she'd chucked the flaming sticks into windows from the ground. He wondered vaguely if she'd played softball in the old world, but he'd never know because she couldn't even remember.
Now, they were standing in a room on the sixth floor and they were contemplating the best way to shimmy down in order to retrieve Spencer.
They didn't even know if he was still alive, but they were going in after him anyway.
"Think we could try the elevator shaft?" Daryl asked.
"Not close enough, it'll open up into walker territory down there," she dismissed.
"Windows?" He didn't much like the idea of her dangling by a sheet out of a sixth story window… but he didn't know what other options there were.
"No. Windows in hospitals don't open far enough to get through and I don't have anything sturdy enough to break it. Morgan and I had to shoot the other ones out," she responded. Her eyes were closed, clearly concentrating on finding a solution.
"You're gonna have to lower me through the vent," she finally said.
"What vent?" Daryl asked.
"The air ducts. Only problem is that they won't support my weight. You'll have to lower me down so I don't fall through."
"And how are ya gonna get back up? Spencer sure as hell isn't going to fit through one of those," he stared at the tiny vent that she was looking at now. The opening looked like it was smaller than a microwave.
"We don't have to get back up. There is an emergency exit stairwell in the orthopedic surgery clinic that leads directly out to the parking lot. It's only one hallway over from where Spencer is trapped. I'll go down there, get him and we'll fight our way back to the staircase. Meanwhile you take Lucky and meet us with the van outside."
"And what if there's too many to fight your way through?"
"Then you just take Lucky back to Morgan for me," she patted him once on the head and the dog actually whimpered as if he understood what she was saying.
"There's gotta be a better way," the hunter protested.
"Maybe there is, but we ain't got time to figure that out now. I don't know how long those flares will last," she was already tying the sheet around her waist.
He was defeated. She was right, they didn't have time to debate this, they had to move. But he hated the idea of not being the one to be in danger, not fighting against the walkers. However, as Beth squeezed into the vent—shoulders just fitting with less than an inch of space on either side—he knew that there was no other possible way. So he gave in to her.
"See you outside in ten minutes," Daryl said gripping the sheet. There was nothing else to say. There would be no goodbye because he would see her, alive, again.
She let herself hang and he felt the fabric tug, cutting into his palms. He braced himself and hand-over-hand he lowered her down.
As she descended into the vent, the light from the small flashlight that sat on the floor next to him flashed on her face. It was soft and girlish still, youthful somehow even after all the horror she'd seen. Above all she looked determined. In that moment, he realized that this Beth was the same one he knew years ago. She was slightly different, more scars and had a harder exterior. But she was the same exact woman who was unwilling to leave their family behind after the prison fell. She was the same one that would tramp into the hordes of walkers and death to save people she didn't even know were alive.
He fell in love with her all over again while she succumbed to the darkness; her stubbornness, her selflessness and her optimism.
/
The only indication that she was out of the vent was the sudden change of air. It was pitch black and there was an unmistakable stagnant quality to it that said she was in a room that had been undisturbed for years. This feeling was comforting because it made her feel certain that there were no walkers nearby.
"I'm good," she whispered up the vent in the hopes that Daryl would make his way out to their meeting point and get the van ready.
She heard Lucky whimper in response.
Beth pulled the knife out of her sheath and swiveled in a slow circle. Her eyes were fairly adjusted to the dark after only a moment. She needed to be in the dark; a flashlight would impede her movement and weapons, plus the light would only draw walkers towards her. She'd landed in a patient room and it was empty of almost everything except a dusty bed. Silently, she made her way over to the door. Through the slim window in the door and saw several walkers shuffling around the hall. There were numerous at each end, near the windows where they'd thrown the flares and Beth was happy she'd saved those. Morgan and her found a book ages ago on how to make them and it looked like that particular page of the book paid off. However, there were still several snarling monsters in front of one door directly across the hall from her.
That must be where Spencer is hiding.
Gotta move quick if we're gonna get out before they all converge on us again, this was her last thought before she swung the door open and her mind went blank.
It was clear, this unclouded space in her head was focused on only the task at hand, the walkers between her and the person she was trying to save.
She had left Kyle to die alone, getting torn to pieces by walkers. Beth was unwilling to leave Spencer alone, to starve or to get over taken by the walkers piling against the door. No one else would die on her watch.
Arrows fired out of her bow as fast as she could manage, walkers crumpled in heaps on the floor. Not a single shot went astray, all of them were kill shots. She ran out of arrows but continued forward without pulling any out of the heads. Beth yanked the door handle to the clinic where Spencer was hiding. It moved slightly but the door didn't actually open. Glancing in the window she saw that Spencer had barricaded it.
"Spencer!" she shouted into the gap in the door.
She turned back around to face the hallway. Yelling his name had definitely attracted the walkers to her location, as expected. However, there was no way around this. How else would she get Spencer back out there?
Beth stood with her back pressed against the doors as walkers came at her. Continuously she stabbed her knife in their heads. She could already feel her arms growing sore and she had lost a concept of time. The only method of counting the minutes was through the bodies piling up on the linoleum. She'd almost given up on Spencer, thinking he'd passed out or killed himself or shot out a window and climbed down. She began pushing her way back into the hallway preparing to exit out the elevator as discussed with Daryl.
We'll have to find a way to get directly into that clinic if we're going to find him, the blonde thought as she retreated into the mass of walkers.
Squelching noises could be heard under the rumble of growling as she pulled arrows out of skulls as she ran towards the elevator. There were at least 8 back in her quiver when there was an ear shattering crash at one end of the hallway. She could see that a window had smashed and there was a can of smoke spiraling in circles making a high-pitched hiss.
An itching sensation crept over her skin like insects. She knew she should be afraid. It was in the opposite direction of where Daryl should be waiting, so it must have been another human who threw this canister. Also, she had no idea what was in the can—could it be poisonous?
Beth wouldn't stay long enough to find out the answers to these questions. At least the noise was distracting numerous walkers away from her and out of her path to the elevator.
As she turned to run to the elevator doors, she saw a glorious sight.
Spencer.
His head was visible just inside the window. She motioned frantically for him to come out. He was confused and there was a look of fear in his eyes, she recognized it as the look prey got in their eyes the moment before an arrow struck them. But he seemed to trust her and after a few seconds where she imagined he was moving the barricades, the door flung open.
"Get to the elevator!" she half spoke, half whispered as she killed two more walkers in her way.
Once at the elevator, the blonde grabbed the machete from his hand and shoved it into the tiny gap in the middle. He stood like a deer in headlights, and Beth couldn't blame him since she'd taken his weapon. But it only took a second to pry the doors open, without power they couldn't be held shut. The elevator shaft was bigger than she expected, there would be no way to reach the cord in the middle and slide down. Beth immediately changed the plan.
There was a light at the bottom and Beth knew Daryl must have been waiting at the bottom.
"Daryl!"
His head popped into view.
"What the hell are ya doin' up there? Hurry your ass up," he shouted back.
"Can't get down this. Get the hell outta there quick, meet us at the front entrance," she glanced over her shoulder. Spencer was fighting off the walkers that had been attracted by her yelling.
"Why do I need ta get out quick, Beth?" she could hear the concern and skepticism in his voice from six floors down.
"Gonna send the walkers down instead," she replied before turning back to face the ones coming at her in the hallway.
She heard Daryl's curse echo through the elevator shaft, and then there were pounding footsteps. She knew he was running. The walkers, no longer distracted by the sparklers or gas, were coming their way now because of her yelling down to Daryl.
"Go on either side of the opening, lure them over here and push them in. Kill them if you have to but save as much energy as you can. There's a lot of them," she instructed Spencer as she shoved the first one through the open door behind her.
Minutes ticked by. It was just a blur of snarling and snapping teeth, she couldn't even hear the thud of the walkers falling down the elevator shaft anymore. There was no end in sight though. Monsters were still pouring out of one of the side hallways.
"They're still coming," Spencer had noticed too and she saw the terror flash in his eyes. "We've gotta get out of here, I'm already fading."
Beth knew she had to get him out of there; he was getting sloppy from exhaustion and fear. She already had to yank walkers off of him three times because he wasn't watching his left side.
"Alright. Let's run." She grabbed his arm and pulled him along the corridor away from where the walkers were coming. Beth knew the hospital layout well. They could get out this direction but it would take a lot longer and she wasn't sure what else they would run into.
Beth felt the familiar feeling of being watched, like she had laser beams boring holes into her neck. Someone was leading all of these walkers into the hospital. There was no way all of them would have made it up to the fifth floor alone. She hoped without much faith that they would get out of the hospital without running into whoever was orchestrating this attack.
It took them 10 minutes to get through the maze of the hospital corridors, even in an all out sprint. But Beth remembered the layout well enough to avoid the path where walkers were coming from. When she saw Lucky and Daryl in the car, already running, right outside the front door she almost sighed with relief.
As soon as Spencer and Beth hopped in, before they even shut the car door, Daryl peeled out.
"What the fuck took ya so long?" Daryl shouted without taking his eyes off the road. He was swerving around the walkers and abandoned cars that blocked their way out of the city.
"Ran into more than we bargained for. They just kept coming. There was hundreds of them," Spencer explained. "I don't know how all of them found us!"
Daryl glanced back at Beth and Spencer. She knew that they must be covered in blood and guts, her shirt was ripped and noticed that Spencer's backpack was missing.
"Someone led them up there. Must've had the hospital staked out, waiting for people to come in looking for meds…" Daryl's answer reflected her own thoughts.
"Why would someone do that? Sending walkers after us?" Spencer mused.
She pictured the people who she met before, the men who wanted to kill or own her like a slave. None of them had any reasons. Some people just liked to kill. Some people just wanted to destroy things simply because they could.
"Some men just wanna watch the world burn," Daryl responded gravely. Then the two men looked at each other and shook their heads lightly like old friends. Beth was clearly missing some joke but she didn't bother to ask for an explanation because Daryl was right. Some people were just evil; there was no reason behind it.
A few minutes later they were getting onto the highway, headed on the wrong side of the street since the road out of the city was blocked by abandoned cars, when Daryl suddenly swerved off the road.
"What the hell?" Beth shouted as she fell into Spencer's lap on the floor. They had been next to each other on the back seat from where they had jumped in at the hospital. Lucky in the front seat slammed into the dashboard. Spencer and Beth were a tangle of limbs on the floor for a moment while the car came to a stop in the grass on the side of the road. He stared up at her. Beth saw his pupils dilate and she felt his breathing quicken from where their bodies were pressed against each other. She tried to push herself up but there was nothing but Spencer on the floor of the car so she just ended up with her hands on his chest. She felt a blush creep up her neck and felt her own pulse quicken. She had never been this close to someone, except when she'd been fighting.
Finally, Spencer put his hands on her hips and pushed her up into the seat again.
"Sorry there was—" Daryl had turned around to apologize but his voice died. Beth looked over at him, tearing her eyes away from Spencer, and saw an unfathomable reaction on Daryl's face.
He looked hurt.
Daryl had clearly seen Beth and Spencer on the floor and she watched as he observed her flushed expression and Spencer's now slightly dazed grin.
His eyes flicked to Beth's and after a moment of watching the painful look in his eyes, it was replaced by a fierce scowl. Beth would have described it as jealousy but that couldn't be right.
Why would he be jealous? She puzzled but she decided that it didn't make any sense.
"Strip of nails in the road. Someone doesn't want us getting out of the city," Daryl grunted.
Focus, this is life and death. No time to get distracted by guys, she scolded herself.
Daryl opened the driver's door and got out. His eyes scanned the edge of the trees, crossbow poised. Spencer looked terrified.
"What happened to the others? Do you think they're okay?" he whispered to Beth in the car.
She didn't respond, instead she opened the door, clicked her tongue at Lucky and he jumped out of the car after her. Beth and Lucky surveyed the opposite side of the road, with Lucky's ears perked. After a few seconds, Lucky's hackles went up, fur bunching and he slunk down into a hunting crouch as he let out a quiet growl, so low that no one other than her could hear it. The blonde turned and ran silently across the road back to Daryl. She grabbed the back of his shirt and shoved him towards the car.
"We gotta go," she hissed.
He immediately snapped into action. They worked seamlessly together, reacting instantaneously to one another's voices, not questioning their judgement and they all piled into the van where Spencer was still sitting.
Daryl pulled away carefully, not wanting to get stuck in the dirt on the side of the road. Once he got on the road, he put the pedal to the floor.
"What's going on?" Spencer asked from the backseat.
Neither Beth nor Daryl answered from the front, Beth was watching the tree line intently and Daryl was focused on the road ensuring that there were no other hazards in their way.
It was pitch black outside now, the sun having set while they were in the midst of escaping the hospital. They sped on for another 10 minutes. Beth had no idea how fast they were driving since the speedometer in the car was broken but then they came across a familiar car. It was the van that the other's had left in. It had completely flipped, the roof of the car now smashed against the road. Beth's mind went into overdrive as their own car came to another screeching halt. She flew out of the passenger seat and bent into the upturned car. Beth could feel Daryl hovering behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see his back towards her while he watched the street and forest, protecting her. This, the protectiveness and the partnership, came natural to him she noted again in the back of her head. She wondered about why this came so easily for them, it took her and Morgan months to work together so harmoniously.
Her musing was fleeting however, because as she looked around the upside down car and she realized that there were more important things to worry about at the moment.
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A/N: Ahhh! Daryl finally accepting that this is really Beth! I know y'all have been waiting for that. Let's see where it takes our favorite couple ;) First, we've gotta get through this issue with the car accident… What's in the car? Who will make it back to Alexandria?
Thanks for reading! Please message/favorite/review/follow, it makes my heart happy. If I get at least 25 reviews this week on this chapter I will post again on Friday.