Sorry for the brutality, folks. I know it's harsh, but this is where it's been heading all along. You just didn't know it yet.
Final chapter. Deep breath.
The gaping wounds in Rick's chest had leaked blood and fluid as he had lurched toward Carol. His face, so familiar yet wrong with its hazy eyes and snapping teeth, haunted her every time she closed her stinging eyes. The row of bodies with their skulls blown apart surrounded her, pooling blood soaking into her boots.
Rain poured down on them, fat, heavy drops erratic from traveling through the forest canopy. She slapped at Daryl's chest to get him to stop and let her go. He slowed and eased her arm from over his shoulder. Coughing hard and gagging up ash, she gathered her feet under her and waved at him to tell him she was all right.
All right? She wouldn't ever be all right again.
"Did you see?" she croaked. "Did you see them?"
He nodded, then shook his head. "I saw somethin', but I ain't sure... Fuck. Fuck!"
A barking sob ripped out of her when she tried to tell him that everyone they knew and loved was dead. He pulled her roughly to his chest and crushed her in his arms, burying his face in her neck. She clawed at his back and cried, needing him closer – needing to know he was still there and hadn't been ripped away from her like the whole rest of her world. They clung trembling together in the ashy rain.
When they pulled apart, neither could bear to be separated completely. She latched onto his hand, determined never to let him go.
"We have to go back," she whispered. "I have to know who... There has to be someone left."
"I know. The rain will help clear the smoke." His voice was rough.
Hand in hand they weaved through the trees, heading back toward the smoldering ruin of the prison. Heavy as it was, the rain wasn't enough to quench the fires, but it had cleared much of the thick smoke. They carefully made their way through the field, cutting down walkers one by one as they approached. But by the time they made it to the courtyard, the walkers they killed sometimes had familiar faces. Old Mrs. McCoy from Woodbury. Mark from Decatur. Elliot from Marietta.
Beth.
Carl.
When they reached the line of bodies, hot tears were streaming freely down Carol's face, mixing with the cool rain. She couldn't tell if it was more than just rain on Daryl's face.
She turned away from the bodies only to see the soft thing she had fallen on before. Sinking to her knees next to the haphazard pile, she reached out to caress the small hands and empty faces of the prison's children. Luke, Elias, Lizzie, Mika...Judith. Oh, God. All of them. It was too much to accept. In a second pile across the courtyard were most of the elderly folks from Woodbury.
All dead and left to rot.
"Who's left?" Daryl's question shook her out of her stupor. "Who ain't here?"
Her head reeled as she tried not to think about who was here. "Uhh, I don't know. Um. Glenn. I haven't seen Glenn. Or Sasha."
"Seen Michonne?" Daryl asked.
She shook her head. Maybe someone managed to make it out after all, but she was afraid to hope. If those hopes were crushed, she wouldn't be able to cope. The only way she could get through this was by staying numb.
Together they pushed as far into the ruins as they safely could, looking for survivors or anything salvageable, but there was nothing but walkers, bodies, and ashy mud. Anything valuable had been taken or destroyed. Every living thing murdered. Even the bus that was supposed to have taken people to safety at their meetup point had been hit by a shell from the tank, leaving only tangled metal wreckage.
After their search, they retreated from the heat of the receding fires back to the woods, making their way to the road in silence. She still held his hand in a crushing grip. They climbed into the car and sat, unable to speak. They shivered, but whether it was from their wet clothes or something else, she didn't know.
After a long time, Carol spoke. "What do we do?"
Daryl shook his head helplessly. "Gotta check the meetup point. See if anyone made it."
"OK," she nodded, gripping the steering wheel. "OK, meetup point."
How do you go on after something like this? She didn't think it should be possible, but she was doing it anyway. She tried not to think about anything but their goal. They needed to reach the meeting place – a gas station and mini-mart a few miles away from the prison. It was close enough to be reached on foot if needed, but far enough away not to be in immediate danger if something happened at the prison.
Something like a tank obliterating the place, and monsters murdering nearly everyone she had left in the world.
Carol shook her head and refocused on the motorcycle in front of her. If any of their family remained, they would be at the gas station.
By the time they reached the meetup point, it was late afternoon. They tucked the car and bike behind the station and quickly checked the building for walkers, but it was clear. Unfortunately, it was also clear of the living. No one waited for them, and no one had disturbed the stash of emergency supplies hidden under a pile of pallets in the stock room. The numbness that Carol was relying on to keep her sane began to waver with fear that no one had survived.
Neither of them could eat, so they brought in some blankets to cushion the floor, and they sat together, leaning against the back wall to wait. She curled in to Daryl's side with her head on his shoulder, hand clutching his shirt under his leather vest. His arms were an anchor, holding her close to him. His cheek pressed against the top of her head, and she could feel each breath tickling her short hair.
Night fell and still no one came.
Carol jerked awake with a gasp, heart pounding and breathing ragged. Nightmare. She remembered nothing of it but a sickening terror and a leftover feeling of suffocation. Looking around, she oriented herself. It was still night. Faint moonlight streamed in unevenly through grimy windows. They were in the gas station. Everyone they knew was dead.
They'd fallen asleep on the floor – Daryl still leaned against the wall, she with her head resting on his thigh. Now he blinked sleepily down at her, his hand still on her shoulder. She sat up and scrubbed her hair with her fingers.
He reached out to pull her against him again. "In the morning, we'll go out lookin'. See if there's any sign someone made it out. Rain'll have washed away most everything, but I can look."
She leaned on his shoulder and gripped his fingers hard.
In the morning, they searched, walking the woods and the roads between the gas station and the prison. They circled the prison from just inside the edge of the forest looking for tracks from anyone who might have escaped and gone a different direction. All they found were muddy ruts from the tank's treads and the vehicles that went with it.
For two days they looked and they waited, but no one came. There was no sign of Glenn, Sasha, Michonne or anyone else. They left a note with the hidden stash of supplies in the stock room just in case someone came while they were out searching, but each time they returned, it remained undisturbed.
The numbness had taken over Carol's waking hours completely. She followed Daryl on his hunts, keeping her eyes open for signs of their friends. She killed walkers that ventured too close. She put food in her mouth and swallowed it down, though it all felt and tasted like chalk.
She knew now that everyone was dead.
She couldn't help but think that it was her fault. If she hadn't killed Karen and David, she wouldn't have been sent away and Daryl wouldn't have left the prison to find her. If Daryl had been there...well, she didn't know. But she was sure he would have gotten someone out. Even one person would have been one more person not dead because of her. She should have been there, too. She should have died with her family. It puzzled her that though she knew it was her fault, she didn't feel guilty. She didn't feel anything – at least not while she was awake.
Her dreams, however, were anything but numb. At night, when she did manage to drop off to sleep, she would wake in terror, sweating and shaking, with Daryl beside her trying to soothe her. She never remembered the dreams.
On the third morning, she sat keeping watch over Daryl as he caught a rare bit of sleep for himself. She stared at the filthy windows as they grew slowly brighter with the rising sun. A small sound caught her ear – something was bumping the front door. She gently settled Daryl's hand on the floor next to him before rising to her feet and creeping down the aisle farthest from the windows.
She could see a human shape silhouetted through the grit on the window of the door. Whether it was living or dead, she couldn't tell, but it seemed to be alone.
Gripping her knife at the ready, she reached slowly forward to flip the lock. The door swung inward from the weight pushing on the other side. The body fell heavily in a heap just inside the doorway, a mass of dirt, blood, and dreadlocks. A sword clattered to the floor beside her.
Michonne.
The sound brought Daryl fully awake at the back of the shop.
"Carol? What is it?"
Carol shook herself out of her shock and rushed to the other woman's side, pulling her ungracefully the rest of the way in, then closing and locking the door.
"It's Michonne! Bring water and the first aid bag!" She pushed the hair from the injured woman's face. "Michonne? Are you with me?"
She groaned and blinked her eyes blearily, but didn't answer.
Daryl arrived at Michonne's other side and began pulling things from the bag. Carol's hands moved swiftly over the woman's body, trying to find the source of all the blood. She was so covered with filth and gore it was difficult to tell what was there. When she found it, she sat back in despair. Among all the other deep cuts and scrapes was a hole in her belly from a bullet or maybe shrapnel. There was no exit wound and she burned with a fever so hot Carol couldn't believe she was still alive. There was nothing she could do.
"Michonne?" Daryl's eyes were pinched and stormy as he reached out to clean away some of the grime from her face with a cloth. Carol's heart squeezed as she watched him, knowing the two of them had been kindred spirits and good friends.
The dark eyes opened and focused on him. They were glassy with fever, and salty tear tracks were dried on her cheeks. He took one of her hands in his.
"Governor. Came." She coughed weakly and her face crumpled in pain. "Prison's gone."
"We know. Did anyone else make it out with you?"
She shook her head. "Glenn. Sasha. Forced north. We tried to circle back, look for others, but walkers...walkers took Sasha down. Then Glenn. He died protecting me – didn't know how bad I was hurt. Tried to...couldn't stop him." She stopped, gasping for air.
Carol gently lifted the woman's head and helped her take a drink of water. She took two swallows, then coughed again. Her head dropped back weakly.
Michonne fixed her eyes on Daryl again. "Don' lemme turn."
Jaw clenched, he nodded.
Her free hand came up to grip Carol's arm and her eyes shifted to the other woman's face. "Take care 'f 'im." she slurred.
Her eyes closed and her breath came in small, sharp gasps. Then they stopped coming at all.
That evening, they stood together on the road at the edge of the woods, looking out over the prison ruins. The weight of his arm on her shoulders was her tether to the living world, and she hugged his waist fiercely. So many walkers now roamed the area it wasn't safe to approach. The bodies of their friends and family still lay on the grass of the field and the broken asphalt of the courtyard. It hurt knowing they wouldn't be able to lay them to rest – that they would rot where they fell or be eaten by those things. But there was nothing they could do. They had buried Michonne in the woods behind the gas station. They had added to the note stashed in the emergency supplies, giving directions to the house with the basement, just in case. Neither of them expected anyone else to find it, but they left it. Just in case.
The sun slipped below the horizon and darkness fell. When they could no longer see the ruined towers and shattered walls, they turned away from the prison for the last time, and together they drove away down the crumbling, empty highway.
A/N: Thanks for sticking with this. I know it's been a bit of a roller coaster and there's no happy ending this time. I genuinely appreciate every read and every review, even when you hate me. You guys are the best.
Caryl on.