Ms Q - Well, here you have it, Milton chapter! I hope it satisfies! I agree, Merle could have really slapped Rick's efforts back in his face, but I think at this point Merle just wants to be left alone. Even on the show towards the end he didn't try to make as much trouble as he could.
rebecca taylor - And it loves you. ^_^
Surplus Imagination - Yeah, you know Merle, if he doesn't have much to do he likes to make trouble. Pot stirrer, I believe.
skittletitz - Hey, everyone listened to the Beastie Boys...don't deny it. They fought for your right to party, so show them some respect. ^_^
HGRHfan35 - I have to agree. That is a good choice of songs for the man. Clever!
ImOrca - Merle needs loving I agree...but maybe he should try someone other than a nun...just because Grace no longer believes in her vows doesn't ring true for the others...maybe...
Tigerlily xoxo - Thanks for the review!
Lilone1776 - I figured out why they have the people from Woodbury with them now. Red Shirts. All of them. See? Now no main character has to die, but many, many Red Shirts for the walker fodder. (Spy is using the old noodle on this one)
Supfan - Milton had great potential. A rare male character who isn't all kick ass and awesome with a weapon...plus I liked that he kept records...the world of TWD needs record keepers and possible educators.
lizzyjae - Can't stand Carol? *gasp* Just kidding, I won't judge. ^_^
Axelrocks - I'm trying to get Merle some love...but he makes it impossible.
GG - Hmm...the other nuns...now there's an idea. ^_^ Also, I have high hopes for this Milton making it...because it's my fanfiction and I love him dammit!
Anyways, sorry for another Caryl-less chapter, but there's this thing called a plot that needs attending to and dammit I'm trying to finish this monster of a story!
Daryl's POV in the next chapter though, I swear.
Chapter Sixty-Three: Masquer
**Milton**
Above him the constellation Cassiopeia sparkled, beside her Ursa Minor and Perseus dazzled just as elegantly. It was a beautiful sight to behold, flares of light in the night sky, scattered like someone tossed a handful of glitter up and it stuck, sprayed across the sky. It was amazing to think that magnitude six and less objects could be so distracting to a casual observer, could be at the centre of so many myths and legends. Intergalactic balls of hydrogen and helium searing the inky black void of the eternal sky above.
How beautiful the science of the night sky could be.
How interesting that Milton stood for about three hours staring up at it on the back wall when he could have effectively been making his getaway.
Maybe it was his fear that kept him on the wall where it was safe.
Sure it was easy to talk a big game, to prepare for a valiant run for help, but when it came to the moment where he literally stood on the precipice, his cowardice came crashing back.
There was no shame in admitting he was scared of the infected masses that haunted the world beyond the walls, though he did think less of himself for his hesitation.
Hands in his pockets, gun holstered uncomfortably at his side, he studied the constellations.
Funny, he couldn't remember ever mapping them as extensively as he was. Sure he knew the constellations and where they were in the night sky, but he never took the time to just gaze at them.
How many people stared at them in the same way, facing a huge decision?
Men facing the decision to seek out treatment for Cancer, women facing the decision to have that abortion, people facing some of the most frightening and hard decisions they've ever faced, just gazing at the stars, feeling like an ant pushing a leaf around among a sea of grass.
He hadn't been lying when he said he knew Philip when he was at his best. The man was brave, sure, he had a charm to him that people responded to, a social grace Milton envied at times.
But this thing he had become. A creature willing to let his most precious and vulnerable starve, this thing wasn't at all like the warm, flesh and blood human he had once been.
At least Philip had people who looked up to him, who depended on him. Philip would be missed if anything were to ever happen to him, hell even Milton would miss him, but Milton? Who was he? He had no family, no followers, no one who even remotely paid much attention to him.
He'd only be missed because Philip needed someone to turn his silence and dismissive nature into kind words of reassurance.
Milton could easily admit his life wasn't worth much. He was a brain, that was it.
Maybe this was all one big set up. Maybe when he finally worked up the courage to descend from the wall, Martinez would be waiting just in the darkness of the bushes to nab him, to take him to the Governor.
Hell, maybe it was even Philip himself waiting in the darkness to pounce.
Or maybe it was just Milton's weak nature trying to find an excuse for why he was star gazing when he should be on the move.
Toeing the heavy pack at his feet, Milton inhaled deeply. Andrea was so strong. Strong enough to spring off the wall amid a hail storm of bullets, but Milton couldn't even sneak off in the night.
Maybe he deserved to suffer the fate of watching the children and elderly of Woodbury slowly starve and die, maybe his cowardice would be his own punishment in the end.
Spying a rogue infected stagger out of the woods gave Milton a little hope that there was no ambush waiting for him.
If someone had been at wait for him, the infected lady would not have made it out of the bushes.
Levelling his chin, he studied the one time woman as she ambled across the brighter patch of grass, heading for the wall where he was sure she smelled the living of Woodbury just beyond.
Keeping one eye on her, Milton dropped to one knee and rifled through his pack for the heavy chain he snatched off the back of one of the trucks. What was it Michonne had done with her infected pack pets? She lopped off both arms at the shoulder and the lower jaw, but the scent kept the infected away.
Travelling would be a lot easier for Milton if he had that kind of coverage.
Eyeing the woman as she bumped gracelessly along the wall looking for an in, Milton touched his knuckle to the side of his glasses. He just needed to get the woman down enough to render her harmless, then he could use the large combat knife he had stolen from Anderson's apartment earlier to hack away at her arms and jaw.
One harmless infected would be all he'd really need, though Michonne travelled with two, so maybe he'd find another at some point.
Yes, he decided as the infected woman bumped closer to his location, he could do this. He just had to use brain instead of brawn…a maybe a little firepower if things got bad, but that's why he needed the brain, to ensure things didn't get bad.
As the woman bumped right up under him, Milton swallowed hard, before heaving his pack off behind her, catching her attention away from the wall.
As the infected dropped to fumble at the pack looking for a snack, he inhaled deeply, adjusted his grip on the knife and jumped, landing hard on the woman's back, shoving her onto the ground.
Straddling her, Milton struggled to grip her flailing arms to prevent being scratched, but because she was face down, he had an easier time of keeping her under control.
Moving to rest one knee on her neck heavily, he wrapped the chain around her left arm, pining it against her thigh, strapping the arm down so that he could deal with her right arm first.
The slice that entered the rotting flesh of her shoulder sent a spray of blood across Milton that had the man gagging, but he tamped it down long enough to professionally slice at the tendons and muscle that connected the arm to the socket.
Holy hell, he was actually doing it!
Under him the woman bucked and flailed like a fish out of water, but with her left arm tangled in chain attached to her leg and a knee on her neck, she was basically harmless.
"Almost done," he whispered to her as though it would make a difference.
Thankful for the soft flesh, Milton was able to remove her right arm with a wet popping sound.
He dry heaved again at the arm he now held, but kept himself from vomiting by turning his head.
Tossing the arm, he decided to go for the lower jaw next before untangling her other limb. Gripping her by the hair, he lifted her face out of the dirt, sitting on her upper back and riding her like a bronco as she continued to buck and roll like the ocean.
Struggling to recall his basic anatomy class, he hesitated with the blade, moving it up and down on her face, before finding a spot he liked and cutting swiftly, splitting her mouth open wide.
Suddenly the woman shifted under him rolling and then bucking and he went flying off of her, landing at her side.
Her lower jaw was dangling half on and half off as she squirmed her way towards him and for a moment Milton froze, he had never been in the presence of such an uncontrolled thing and it terrified him.
At the last minute, as her mouth enclosed over his arm, her useless bottom jaw flapping, he scrambled away, narrowly avoiding having her teeth even brush his flesh.
Hopping back onto her easily, he grabbed her hair with a little more force, peeling some of her scalp away as he hacked and sliced off the rest of her lower jaw, her tongue going with it as she wouldn't keep it from lolling about at the blade.
Exhaling, he tossed the lower jaw away as well and moved on to the remaining arm, hacking and slicing it easily now that the woman was eighty percent helpless.
"You know you're doing me a world of good," he spoke to her. "Probably not what you want to hear right now as I cut your last arm off, but…I bet if you were still in your right frame of mind you'd probably be glad to be helping someone out. I mean people are cruel, but no one would ever wish to be a biting, snarling, walking pile of rotting flesh."
Feeling it safe to remove the chains as her arm was ready to just fall off, but trapped in her bindings, Milton began the process of removing them, securing them around her neck.
Carefully he stood up, chain in hand and helped her to her feet. She still made a move to get at him, but he easily pushed her off.
"At least you can't harm anyone anymore," he said. "You'd probably be grateful to know that if you were still you."
Eyeing the woman he noticed she was rotting, but not to the degree of decay those before the winter had suffered. This one must be this spring's model.
"Hm," he eyed his pack and the woman. "Well, normally I'd be a gentleman, but…" he stooped and grabbed the pack, placing it on the woman's back, clicking the buckle strap at her chest to keep it on her more securely.
Taking in his surroundings, he sniffed the night air, before tugging on her chain for her to follow him. It didn't take much effort to get the woman to follow, she was still trying hard to get at him and very interested in bumping against him helplessly.
"Be good," he ordered as they moved into the woods, "or I'll knock your top teeth out too."
Milton couldn't help smiling to himself. He actually saw a bit of merit in tossing a little testosterone around, it sort of invigorated him into putting one foot in front of the other.
He could have been a little proud of the way he actually succeeded in not only getting away, but finding security for himself at the same time.
..-~-..
..-~-..
By the time dawn came around and chased away the stars, Milton had found the highway and was following it, keeping just out of sight in the woods that ran alongside it in case any of the scouting patrols Philip had wandering the area looking for the prison survivors rolled by.
His rotten lady friend had finally stopped trying to gnaw helplessly at him and was just staggering along behind him, milky eyes staring at nothing.
Milton was actually intrigued by her behaviour. Had she just given up? Did the infected have enough sense left to at least know when they've been made redundant?
Or was she acting like an animal and waiting until she thought it a good time to pounce, hoping to catch him unawares.
He wondered why no one ever thought to really study the habits of an infect being. He had tried on several occasions, but Philip wasn't interested in the habits of one who was already lost, but in curing them.
Like that was something that was even possible. The rate of decay at death was almost instantaneous. Even if a cure was around, it'd have to be administered immediately.
There had been no hope for Penny as Philip had sought, but the man refused to listen to reason.
Milton honestly couldn't believe he was actually there in the woods, on his own. It was hard to keep the incredulity out of his own thoughts as he never thought he'd actually do it.
A snapping twig sent him scurrying behind his infected lady friend, hand on the pistol at his hip.
Rushing out from the bushes a wood duck scolded him loudly, half flying, half waddling off.
The woman got excited, tugging after it, but Milton kept her under control, digging the heels of his shoes into the ground.
"No," he ordered like one would order a dog. "Dinner time is over for you."
From out of the leafy underbrush another infected thing came staggering, hobbling after the duck who was already well on her way to safety in the sky.
The thing stopped after a few yards and Milton hunkered behind his lady friend deeper. Standing like a drunk, eyeing them, the infected man began a slow trek towards their location.
Milton's hand gripped the pistol, but he didn't move, wanting to see how the other infected would react to him and his companion.
Moving to about a foot away, the other infected just stood there swaying slightly.
Unsure what to do, Milton cautiously peeked around his lady friend at the other infected.
It just stood there, close to the lady, but far enough away that it wasn't within grabbing distance of them.
Behind him something shuffled and Milton slowly, very slowly turned to find another infected just behind him, standing a foot away, swaying quietly.
Oh my God, he mouthed to himself. When he realized that his lady was attracting other infected to her like a beacon.
What kind of thing was this? He wondered, terrified that maybe his lady friend was going to stop being effective suddenly and he'd be done. Gone before he even had a chance to do anything.
After about twenty minutes of standing stark still among three infected beings, he decided it was time to man up and carefully, with his hand still on his pistol, he nudged his lady friend forward.
As she began moving, staggering ahead of him, he slogged behind her, head down, mimicking one of them the best he could.
The other two moved with them, trudging along quietly.
This must be how herds form, he theorized.
Biters were like any other creature, they sought out socialization of sorts, hence why they gathered around him and his pet, they thought he was also a biter and moved to be a part of the larger group.
Interesting.
Keeping close to his chained infected, he hoped to reach the prison before nightfall, if they kept wandering like this he was bound to collect more than just two unwanted followers and if he found anymore he'd be in bigger trouble than he seemed to be already.
Head down, he cautioned himself, think senseless, think animalistic and base.
The Cajun Dialect
Masquer – To put on a mask.