ain't nobody's hands clean in what's left of this world. we're all the same.


The wind had been still, and the city had been quiet – until she had heard the woman crying out, and her child clinging to her leg and screaming. She had been on the second story of a high rise apartment across the street; she was close enough to see the woman's fear – how real it was.

And she had seen the look on the man's face as he pushed them out and into the street. She had watched as he flew back into his home, and just before he locked the door she had seen a need – the same need that had burned so fervently in Merle's eyes. A trembling of his heart; a darkness found in the name of survival; the scared and wild search for more time.

She wasn't bad at compartmentalizing – it was something she had learned at an early age –, but there was something in her that was broken. The doors had opened, and she was remembering every moment, every second, every breath in which she saw mankind stain their hands with red.

And her own.

That woman and child, screaming and pleading and crying, had been only a floor down. She had been beside the fire escape, staring at them from her open window. It would have been so easy to just lean out and yell to them to run up the ladder.

'Come here. I will protect you,' were the words she had never said. She hadn't even thought of them at the time. She had simply slouched back into her closet and waited for the screaming to stop. It had been so much easier to turn away; to sit and wait and not think about it.

Just for more time.

And why was she looking for more time? Why were any of them? The walkers had been the horror in those first few days, but then man had redirected himself. This apocalypse wasn't about the end of mankind – it was the end of humanity – it was the end of goodness and empathy and compassion as they flung it to the wind, all for the sake of more time.

Mankind would persevere; but humanity – it was dying.

She hits the ground hard, letting out a gasp as gravel slides along the rawness of her bloodied hands and arms. She struggles to her feet and stumbles on and down the road – the walkers are loping behind her, letting out rattling cries as she evades their ever reaching hands.

Like those hands – shaking and trembling as they pressed a gun to her head – more afraid of what they were doing than the world outside.

"Do it," she'd said. "Pull the trigger; it's the easiest thing you'll ever do."

Those people, desperate and hungry, were looking for more time. They all were. Survive or opt out or die and come back. And somewhere along the way, survival had become something twisted. Survival had become about surviving, and not living.

And everyone just wanted more time.

But really – was there anything worth living for? When the promised life was running and hiding and waking to a day full of fear? A short and brutal life, hounded by the dead and living alike.

Her legs come out from beneath her as she goes around a corner. For a moment afterward she stares up at the sky – sweet Georgia blue – and wonders if she should even try to get up again.

There is nothing left.

She is running out of time.

When she was twelve her father came into her room and sat with her. He'd been gone a long time; her mother always sat at the window and clutched his clothes to her chest and stared down the road with this sad look in her eye – too filled with sorrow to give up hope.

And he'd come home and he'd kissed his wife on the cheek, and then he'd sat down in his daughter's room and watched her sleep. When she had woken up the next morning he was still sitting there, awake and waiting.

"You came back," she'd whispered.

Her father was a man of few words. He'd always been quiet. Sometimes she thought she saw a sadness in his eyes, but he'd blink it away and look off into the sky. When she spoke to him that morning she hadn't expected a word in reply. She had expected only that deep and contemplative silence he assumed, but instead he had murmured, "I'll always try to make it back to you."

"I'll always try...-"

She's breathing hard, and her heart is pounding, but even over the cacophony of her own body she can hear the walkers desperate moans. They're drawing closer – and she hesitates. She hesitates in laying down and dying because her father is there in her mind, sitting in his chair beside her bed and murmuring the softest words: I'll always try.

It is a struggle. Her strength is eking away. She can feel the dullness pulling at the edge of her mind, and a weakness shaking in her arms and legs. Her side is warm; the kind of warm that reminds her of days spent lounging in a warm bed; the kind of warm that makes her want to close her eyes and rest her weary head. For a moment she almost does. Her eyes almost shut – but then she's reaching and digging her fingers into the wound, and she feels that warmth slip away with a sudden surge of agony.

It's enough to drive her to her feet.

She's off the ground and moving down the street with that same awkward gait as the walkers behind her. She clutches her side. Her vision fogging with every breath, and her sides aching with every step.

The familiar building that they had stayed in the night before comes into view. She knows the For Lease building is empty. She knows there aren't any walkers there. It's safe – but it's also a tomb. She's wounded and hurting and she knows she needs something. Water. Medicine. Food. She can't even imagine what would go down if Merle returned to make sure she was dead.

Steve's Pharmacy sits quietly nearby. It's a small building, hardly more than one or two rooms. Her previous run-in with the suburb pharmacy is still fresh in her mind, but it had been nearly three times the size of the small-town shop sitting invitingly in front of her. It would have more than the For Lease building – it couldn't possibly have less.

The wide front windows give her a moment of pause. In Atlanta, even the shatter proof glass had eventually succumbed to the walkers. She doubts the small town was ever equipped for the possibility of violence. The windows would break in minutes. She runs along the side and towards the back. The door is unlocked, and she's pouring in and sliding the lock into place just as the first walker runs into the metal door. The first bang is then followed by the scratching and clawing and groaning of others.

The door doesn't strain. It doesn't stress. It groans from the pounding of their fists, but it does not yield. For a long moment she sways where she stands, trying desperately not to give in and die in the doorway. Slowly she turns and shuffles down the small maintenance hall, nearly tripping over a mop bucket. Her hands are dripping red on the ground. She' hardly knows what's happening – one moment she's barely existing, and the next she's in a small office with the door locked shut behind her.

It looks untouched.

She gives in. She sinks to her knees, a soft and breathy moan the only concession she allows. She grinds her teeth in anger as she remembers how he had left her behind – not dead, but on the brink. The walkers had been close enough that she had only just turned around and slipped the lock in when they were there, throwing themselves against the door.

He had just left her there – for them –, because he had wanted more time.

"So close," she whispers, and sits in silence for a long while.

Eventually her heart quiets, and she finds herself leaning back against the door as a slow warmth creeps over her eyes. It feels heavy – she doesn't fight it. She knows she's not safe, but she's as safe as she's going to be for a long time.

As she falls away, she remembers a tune. A sweet tune whistled into the evening sunset. It eases her into the dark, and she remembers a man with a kindness to his face, who had handed her the keys to his car and walked away. He hadn't had any time left. He had been on his last hour.

He had been the last goodness in the world.

The last kindness she had seen.


She had died once. It had been cold and quick and left her with a heart that hardly beat. Her heart hadn't stopped – but it had felt that way. It had felt like it just sat there in her chest and shriveled up to nothing.

They had taken her hands and pressed them into a folded flag, and they had told her that her sacrifice was honorable and she should be proud. Her mother had cried for her, but her father hadn't. He had simply looked her in the eye, and he had placed his hand over hers, and then his fingers had trembled and he had left.

He tried, Cal. Remember that he always tried.


She's dreaming of roadside explosions and fire and a man in a uniform who had tried so hard, but had never made it home. She's dreaming of a world long gone, and a father who worked so much he never saw his daughter. She's dreaming of a time when a man whistled a song to the wind, and took his last walk into the dying world.

And she dreams of mankind crumbling to ruin, but not dying because there would always be people looking for more time. There would always be survivors amongst the refuse, piling high on the corpses of their comrades.

She starts awake when she hears a gunshot off in the distance. For a long and delirious moment she thinks that she's back in Atlanta listening to Merle fire a few rounds off a rooftop. Like a thunderclap, it cracks through silence and leaves a breathless anticipation.

The window overhead is dark – the moon is a brief lantern in the sky.

One breath. Two.

She blinks – there is a fuzziness in her brain and her eyes are flashing with lights. There is a man standing in the dark with only one arm, and he's laughing at her as he pushes her head into the ground.

'cuffed me to a roof – left me to rot. Bunch of walkers snappin' at my ass... I did what I had to.

I did what I had to.

The window is gold. Sunlight casting itself in through the small pane of glass. Cal blinks and stares into the dimly lit office space. The white walls are untouched. The table is covered in a slick film of dust. The door is still locked and silent at her back.

Her fingers brush through the layer of grime on the floor. She winces when she rips her raw hand from the ground, the dried blood peeling away to bleed anew.

It takes an age – or so it feels like- to gather the strength to climb to her feet. She sways unsteadily on her feet. Her knife is in her hand; her fingers still curled around the hilt. A deep breath is all she takes to steady herself, and then she's tapping the tip against the door. Tap-tap-tap.

Her eyes are shut, and her breath still. After a long moment of nothing she knows it's as safe as it'll be. The gunshot is still in her mind, though she can somewhat remember how far off it had sounded amongst the rabble of her thoughts and delusions. The walkers may have been drawn away towards it, but what of the people that fired the shot to begin with?

She unlocks the door and pushes into the hall. The back door is silent – it doesn't jump or groan under the barrage of undead. She turns away and moves towards the main room. The store is unperturbed. There isn't a walker that she can see. The sign in the front window leaves her with a chill –Take what you need, and God Bless -, and she's eying the bell that had cleverly been taken down from the door by someone at some point.

The place isn't completely looted, but it is nearly picked clean. The shelves are clear; most items littering the ground. Somehow, amongst the rubble, she finds a roll of duct tape and gauze, and something to clean her raw skin. She winces when she turns the bottle over and sees the label – hydrogen peroxide. It'll hurt, and she knows it. Even without the peroxide it wasn't going to be a fun time.

She eases herself down onto the floor, trying not to groan as her side begins to throb or her scabs at her knees threaten to split. It takes a long moment afterward for her to regain her composure, and to swallow the pain.

The long shirt from Betty and Graham's is ruined. It's stained with blood – both her own and Merle's. She shrugs both it and the shirt she'd been wearing underneath off. The metal of the shelf is cool on her skin, and she feels a shiver along her spine.

She needs antibiotics.

The peroxide bottle is heavy in her hands, and she grits her teeth when the cap comes off and the smell hits her. She can remember those times as a kid: scraped knees and ruined elbows, she'd sit there and watch as her mother dabbed cotton balls at her cuts and bruises. It hurt. It always hurt. She usually cried.

But now there wasn't time for that. A person couldn't make a sound unless they were looking to die. And no matter what she may have thought, lying there in the middle of the road while the walkers drew closer, she was a survivor. Survivors didn't lay down and die. They did what they needed to do all for a moment.

For more time.

She grits her teeth, and looks down at her side. It slides down alongside four of her ribs, but it isn't deep. The dirt of travel mixes with the stickiness of blood. She sits there staring at it – she tries not to think about what comes next.

She simply does it.

Her hands are dirty. There aren't a lot of options. She reaches out and pushes her fingertips against her skin, and then pulls. The wound opens – a gasping mouth of red -, and she pours the peroxide over her side.

She tries not to scream.

I did what I had to.


She binds herself in duct tape and gauze. Her hands, the rawness of her arms, and her side. She even pulls on the long shirt and wraps the duct tape slowly around the open rips and tears. In the end her forearms are almost entirely covered. She briefly wonders if walkers could bite through the tape.

She eventually returns to the office. The door locks behind her and she settles in at the desk. A bottle of antibiotics spill out across the table and she picks up a few before slipping them into her mouth. She even manages to force down a few of the snacks she found left on the shelves.

And then she passes out.

When she wakes she stands and moves through the store, shoving what she might need into a plastic bag that she found. It crinkles and snaps and makes her wonder how soon it'll give her away to the walkers, but it doesn't matter because she has to leave. Convenience stores, pharmacies, and - god forbid – grocery stores were arenas of death. She knew it was only a matter of time before someone with a heart beat came walking through the door. If someone had taken down that bell; they had had every intention of coming back.

She's having a hard time moving. A bout of dizziness washes over her, and she clutches desperately at the shelves and waits for it to pass. She knows she has a concussion, and that no matter how she prepares herself she's going to struggle in the world until it passes.

She's thinking briefly about gathering what she can and heading over to the For Lease building when she hears it – the low rumble of a car. It isn't much, hardly a whisper over the quiet day, but it's there and it makes her pause and look on down the main street. She sees it pulling up and over the horizon; a white truck. Death.

She feels the sudden and familiar rush of adrenaline as she backs away from the windows. The truck is close enough that she knows she wouldn't be able to get out the front door without them seeing her. She glances over her shoulder towards the back door, silent and still.

The front door squeaks open just as she ducks into the back hall.

"I just don't see how -"

"We leave some. If people take it – we know they're 'round."

She can hear them – three sets of footsteps. They're in the store now, moving through the shelves and shoving stuff into backpacks. One man in a ratty denim vest comes into view. Her heart nearly explodes in her chest when he stops a shelf away from her hiding spot. He hardly paying attention as he shoves handfuls of loose items into an equally haggard backpack. "Again, I just don't see how-"

One of the other men hisses, "it ain't really your place to think now is it?"

Denim-vest huffs, but his scathing companion ignores him – his attention is elsewhere.

"Hey, hey, hey. What're ya looking at, Kid?"

Denim-vest lets out a curse and follows after his distracted companion, mumbling quietly under his breath about being unappreciated.

The distraction is all the prompting she needs to move to the door and unlock it, pushing it open with bated breath. The soft hiss of the hinges makes her pause, her heart hammering in her ears as she listens for any indication the three others heard her.

"What is it?"

"Is that-?"

"It's still wet."

Silence.

She feels a sudden chill in her gut; a deep cold that flourishes in the pit of her stomach. She knows what they've found, and she berates herself for her own stupidity. She hadn't cleaned up the spilled peroxide, the bloodied gauze, the scraps of duct tape.

She can't see them, but the silence that follows is enough. They don't make a sound, they don't say a word. She knows they're looking for her.

She doesn't wait to see if they'll find her. She turns and edges through the door, closing it softly behind her. The alley is empty, there are no walkers in sight. She's hardly taken a step when the door creaks open behind her. She whirls around, eyes wide as she meets the eye of an equally surprised man.

No, she corrects herself, a kid. Hardly more than twenty. He's staring at her from the back door of the Pharmacy, eyes wide and reeling.

A long moment passes.

And then he's yelling out to the others, and she's running as fast as she can.

"I got her!"

She can hear the rest of them shooting out of the pharmacy; yelling and hollering like a bunch of idiots. The town is echoing with their cries. The boy is chasing her on foot. He's yelling and whooping and she feels a deep panic when the roar of their truck joins his victory cry. She slips on the pavement as she rounds the corner of the alley and lunges down the street – the boy takes a tumble behind her, cursing as he awkwardly regains his footing.

She doesn't know where to go, she doesn't know where is safe. There are no options – run or die.

She runs.

She runs for the edge of town, legs pumping and side aching and knees screaming. Her plastic bag is swinging wildly in one hand, and her knife is ready at her thigh.

The truck squeals around the corner of the block, roaring behind them as the driver pushes on the gas. The boy shrieks and cries out, his joy in the chase sending a sliver of fear down her spine.

These people weren't looking for more time.

The houses fall away, the land flattens. She's running down an open stretch of road, and she knows it's stupid. It's the stupidest thing she's ever done.

The treeline is coming into view. She can hear the truck getting closer. The boy whistles sharply in her ear as he gains ground. They're not firing any shots.

They're just chasing her down.

She knows it's a long shot. She's hobbled by injury. Her vision is twisting and turning with every step, and she can feel the wound in her side aching with a fire. She thinks her lungs might explode; maybe her heart too. She hopes for that sort of mercy – if they're going to catch her, let her die quickly.

The boy's fingers are curling into the collar of her shirt. She doesn't hesitate. She doesn't beg. The knife is still in the sheath, but the plastic bag is just as useful. It catches him in the head, and he lets go and falls back with a cry. She nearly stumbles over, but she can't – she doesn't let herself.

She runs away from the boy. The truck passes him. She doesn't look over her shoulder. She doesn't dare. She doesn't look back when she finally rushes past the treeline and into the coolness of the woods. She doesn't look back when she can hear the truck squealing to a stop, or as they get out of the car and yell down from the road.

"Better keep on running, girl!"

She moves through the bushes, and the forest welcomes her.


She doesn't stop. Her vision is blurry; nausea and dizziness are her constant companions. Sometimes she stumbles when the world tilts, or she swallows hard when her throat bubbles. They're more noticeable now that the adrenaline of her pursuit has long worn away. She feels weak, but she can't stop.

Despite everything, she still knows silence is key – and she also knows even an amateur tracker would be able to spot her haphazard tracks through the woods. She glances over her shoulder more often than not, feeling the sharp prickling fear of pursuit. Walkers were one thing, but people are another. The men at the pharmacy hadn't been looking for more time; there was something more sinister about their pursuit and their shouted threat as she disappeared into the trees.

Even though the world tilts and spins at random intervals, she still manages to keep in a relatively straight line. She eventually wades into a shin high creek, uncaring of the water spilling into her boots. She thinks only of the water consuming her footprints, eating away any trace of her. She is made invisible by nature.

She moves with the current; even shin high, the flow makes a difference. She doesn't tire out as fast, and she makes good time despite the moments she almost spills into the water. The flat and level ground on either side of the creek rolls up, rearing into a high and rocky gorge. A few hundred meters later she's standing there, staring down at the most unlikely thing she would have ever thought to see in the woods.

A doll.

It's not real, she tells herself.

She tries to blink it away. It's dirty and worn and wet, and surely must be something she's imagining as no child should be out here. She stoops down, unsure if she should grab it.

A day ago she would have told herself to leave and never think of the doll again, but after Merle she can't think 'd thinks about things she doesn't want to think about; the kind of things she had hoped she'd forget. Things a person couldn't take with them into the new world, not unless they wanted to suffer.

And the doll was the sort of thing that could put a fire in a person – the kind of fire that would extinguish will, and consume happiness, and eat the very existence of hope. Not a fire burning brightly in the night, but one that raged into the dying of the day and swallowed a world.

She fails at compartmentalizing.

She grabs the doll and stares down at it. It drips into the stream. There is a stain on the hem of the dress, and it isn't hard to tell that it's blood. She grits her teeth and staggers to her feet. She doesn't know why she does it, but she doesn't discard the doll. As she moves further down the stream she tucks it away in the bag, and she hopes that the little girl - whoever she is, wherever she is - is safe and sound.

She doesn't know how long she walks, but eventually the gorge falls away to a small incline. She clambers out onto the far bank and takes a moment to empty her boots and ring out her socks.

She wanders on, occasionally shutting her eyes and leaning against a tree when the dizziness makes the world spin and dance around her. Every so often she stumbles to her knees, her silence punctuated by the barest breath of defeat – and then a soft groan as she rises to her feet once more.

Sometimes she sees things. Flashes of a world long gone. Of a folded flag being pressed into her hands, and a white gravestone standing alongside hundreds more. Sometimes she sees things like the bustling streets of Atlanta – pumping with life. Sometimes she sees her mother and her father – and at the edge, a faceless little girl holding the soggy doll.

On occasion she is confused, a shadow dancing at the edge of her vision makes her turn around – and then fall. Sometimes she ignores it. Sometimes she rubs at her eyes and pinches her skin to force herself into wakefulness.

A tree offers her support. She leans against it and takes a deep breath. The forest is quiet. The occasional bird trills softly; the wind breathes amongst the leaves. As she pushes aside the tilting sensation, she listens for the sound of walkers or men.

Cal's knife hand twitches, and she feels the world shift uncomfortably the longer she stands still. She lifts a shaky hand to wipe away the sweat speckling her forehead. She takes a step forward and falls to her knees, her vision dancing.

For a long moment she sits there and stares up at the canopy overhead. There is gold light spilling through the leaves, and the small drops of warmth on her skin are peculiar against the coolness of the wood. The trees frowns down at her. The familiar lethargy of the concussion returns. She feels like laying down and never getting up – it would be simple and easy.

I'll always try...

The bag in her hand grows heavier, and she imagines the doll turning to stone. How heavy would it have to be before she could no longer carry it?

It takes something in her – something that she hadn't known she had until the whole world went to shit - to get up and struggle to her feet.

She has no idea where she's going. She only knows that she needs to get away from the town – away from those men. For a moment she fancies finding a house somewhere - like she had planned back when she decided to leave Merle - and settle in for as long as she can.

The bag crinkles in her hand. Her feet scuff along the ground. She's pressing herself against a tree and trying to push aside a wave of dizziness when she hears it – the barest breath of air behind her. She doesn't move at first; she doesn't even breathe. Her own heart is shocked to stillness. It's not a walker; there isn't a raspy moan or sudden clicking of teeth; there isn't a swirl of rot or a taste of sweet grit at the back of her throat.

Cal knows quiet. She knows silence. She knows when someone is good at it, and she knows when they're not. If it was a person behind her, she knows it's endgame. It if it's an animal; it isn't.

The bag slithers to the ground. Her knife is in her hand. She whirls around and touches the edge of the knife to a throat.

The tip of a crossbow bolt touches her forehead.