Chapter 4

Beth sat upright on the couch in the living room of the abandoned house she dubbed her safe zone, her arms folded across her chest and her legs folded beneath her. She had woken up early, early enough to watch the sunrise through the large bay windows in front of her. She guessed the sun had been up for about two hours before she dragged herself from the couch, her bones cracking from stiffness, she might as well investigate the area and see what the neighborhood could tell her about her family. She collected her bags and her crossbow once more and left the sanctuary of a broken home.

Trekking through the streets and examining every single body she came across did little to ease the deep fissure growing inside, even though she had yet to see anything indicating her people had been there. And perhaps that hurt a bit lower inside her than she was willing to admit or could even currently be able to feel, but with each corpse she found that she didn't recognize, she told herself there was still hope. Even if it did feel like a fleeting kind of hope. Maybe the compound was just as destroyed when they had come here too. They had to have come here; Noah would have come here, even if alone, at the very least. But Beth found nothing, nothing that screamed any of them had been there. That was until she came to an intersection on the other side of the poorly guarded development. There were a few walkers there that had been sliced up and decapitated smoothly. Sliced the same way Michone would have done with her katana. The clean cut through each decaying body was so controlled and precise that Beth felt it in her soul; Michone had been here. She was right, her family had been here!

But where are they now?

They clearly hadn't even felt this place was worth trying to fix up and rebuild on. So where would they have gone? Wouldn't she have passed them on her way here if they had just decided to head back? Could her luck really be that bad as to have passed them entirely? The two fresh cuts on her arm itched and burned, she tried to keep from scratching at them, but continuously caught herself scratching through the cloth bandages. She scolded herself weakly as she shoved her hand into her pocket and tried to figure out what to do next. She tried to think like Rick. Like Michone, Daryl, Carol and everyone else that always seemed so concerned with the whole group's well-being, the decision makers. Where would they go? Cities and previously high populated areas have a tendency to be overrun with walkers these days, but her group has been known to utilize the mass amounts of disregarded supplies that could be found there.

Would they try for D.C.?

No, that was a little too big of a stretch to have already come so far for nothing. They would likely stay away from there, maybe a smaller local city? She looked over her map again, trying to decide what direction to go in next. She moved her finger along route 95, seeing Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg and Stafford. Then she saw Alexandria, something fluttered through her when her finger landed on it. It seemed like an ideal spot on paper, close enough to D.C. for runs if need be, right near the water, plenty of land. Beth chewed on her lip and mulled over the idea that they had gone in that direction.

But what if they went back towards home?

Home ain't got nothin' for us no more...

She sighed. He was right. Home held nothing but pain and absolute heart break for their entire strewn together family at this point. So she folded up her map, and began her long journey on foot from Richmond, heading towards Alexandria; feeling just as lost as she had the first time she recalled emerging from her coma.

Beth sucked on the hard candies she had found in the big store, trying to entertain herself by finding shapes in shadows. It was far too bright to stare up at the big blue sky and try to find shapes in the clouds, she would hurt her eyes and have a hard time seeing her surroundings should anything pop up. She had been walking for hours, attempting to tune Dawn out. The sun closer to setting than she was comfortable with, but she just couldn't bring herself to stop and set up camp yet. She didn't know what kept her going, she felt so emotionally numb. She just wanted to lie down and stare at the stars and forget about everything. But something kept pushing her; kept telling her to keep going, keep movin', it ain't safe.

She felt fine while she slept in Gorman's car, aside from her usual night terrors. She felt perfectly safe in the big scary super store, too. But all night last night and all day today, Beth Greene could not shake the feeling that she was being followed, being watched. She ignored it for most of the day, but as she walked she found the feeling staring her down, face to face. More so now that she was fully examining her own subconscious and her darkening surroundings. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, her mouth went dry, and her ears felt cold. She twitched her eyes in every direction, turned and walked backwards for a bit, trying to scope out where she had come from. But nothing moved. Nothing stood out of place. There was just the long empty stretch of road that lay before her and behind her.

Telling herself she is losing it, Beth decided to keep walking a little longer. Maybe even find something to eat that had rich red blood flowing through its veins. She tried to ignore how much that thought made her feel like a walker aimlessly wandering in search of food; but really she was no better off than one. Here she is, wandering around, separated from all her loved ones who think/know she's dead, hoping to find something to eat and merely making grunting noises by way of communication. Her stomach released a loud hollow growl and she mentally added those noises to the list as well.

Dusk was quickly setting in and Beth could tell she was going to have to settle down somewhere soon. She contemplated briefly continuing in the hopes of finding a car to sleep in for the night, but she decided she didn't want to trust hope that much. It hadn't been doing so well for her lately. So Beth stepped off the main road and into the cover of the trees, using her knife to make small marks in the bark so she could find her way back to the highway in the morning. She found a small group of nestled trees and decided to stop there to make a small camp for the night. She strung up her barriers and set up a small fire to heat up a can of beans, which she was about to rummage through the food bag for when the tree limbs above her gave a great groan of protest and someone lithely jumped down from the tree above her and sat swiftly across from her. He held a gun steadily aimed at her face and all Beth could think was how badly she wanted to punch this stranger for making her feel crazy all day long.

"You've been following me."

He nodded once and slowly, his shoulder length greasy black hair shifting with the movement revealing a pale white scar on his forehead in the shape of a 'W'. She couldn't tell if it was self-inflicted or not, but based purely on his apparel and animalistic behavior, she was leaning towards mr. crazy pants being in some kind of gang and having to do that to himself was part of the initiation. Or he was running solo; either way she was already very weary of him. She tapped her own forehead in question. The man looked upwards, towards the bright crescent moon, and howled. Not loudly enough to draw the dead towards them, but loudly enough to make his point while answering her question. Wolf.

Holy Shit. She thought, schooling her expression and taking even more care to be aware of her surroundings, This guy is nuts... Okay, so he's a wolf. Wolves are pack animals, right? So where is the rest of his pack?

He had his head tilted as he watched her, his cold brown eyes never dipped lower than hers and that seemed to scare her more than if he had been virtually molesting her with his eyes. At least that way she would have had some semblance of an idea as to who and what she was dealing with. But this guy was silent and coy, and it sent shivers through her. It was his turn to indicate a question, so his finger pointed to his arm and his eyes dropped to her bandage.

Lie ta him.

Daryl's unexpected voice in her head nearly made her shout, but she kept her composure and even managed to put on a sad, crestfallen face. She brought her brightly burning eyes back up to his and slowly licked her lips then snapped her teeth at him, like a predator would. She watched as realization slowly dawned on him and couldn't help the bubble of giggles that threatened to erupt from her at the sight of his face. He looked torn somewhere between fear, confusion, and apprehension. He furrowed his brows at her, his voice surprisingly softer than she thought it would be, "How long ago?"

"Yesterday."

"Do you have a group?"

"No."

He nodded, looking back down to the dirt. He sniffed a few more times, his face scrunching up in an ugly scowl, before he gestured to her bow, "Tha's nice."

Beth didn't move, not a single muscle besides her face since he had dropped down in front of her. She felt her fingers itching to take aim at him, to put an end to this maddening game he was forcing her to play, but she didn't dare move.

"I want it. I want everything ya got, blondie."

"Think you can handle that?"

The words slid from her like silk before she even contemplated responding to him. But it seemed to give him pause and that was all she needed. Beth lunged forward, sending a fist full of dusty dirt and smoldering ashes into the Wolf's eyes. Her hand stung from the embers but she didn't care, snatching up her bow and taking a few steps back, Beth brought up her aim and prepared to shoot. He growled, falling backwards on his haunches, and then Beth kicked him in his face as hard as she possibly could. He fell flat on his back, the gun he held falling to the side. Beth moved so fast her own actions had not yet registered, her foot firmly in place at his neck, the bolt ready to be fired from her crossbow drawing a small pinprick of blood on his forehead, aimed at the bottom of the 'w'. Slowly he settled his eyes on her through the blood leaking over his face from a gash on the bridge of his nose and took all of her in, smirking. His grin turned into full blown laughs and she was so tempted to do it, just pull the trigger and put an end to his nonsense. He let out another howl, this one different; louder and with meaning.

It dawned on Beth too lately that he had called out to others, to his pack. The thought actually hadn't occurred to her at all until she heard the bushes moving behind her, and felt the body slam into her with every ounce of its force. She hit the ground hard, all the air rushing from her at once when the body landed firmly over top of her. She tried to move, to roll out from under whoever it was, to draw sweet air into her burning lungs, to scratch at the ground. Beth couldn't move. She began to fear she had just been paralyzed when the body in question moved. She rolled onto her back instantly, preparing to kick herself up onto her feet. But something hard and solid landed forcefully on her face, her head snapped back against the cold ground, and everything that was surrounding her faded into nothing.