Disclaimer: I don't think I disclaimed the last chapter, but it should come as no surprise that nothing has changed and I do not own the original AMC characters… disappointing I know! :/
Chapter Forty
(Daryl's POV)
"Did you find tracks?" Her breathless voice nearly brings him up short, he should tell her to go back; the sound of her feet giving away her presence behind him long before she speaks. He decides against it though and simply presses on into the darkness. He can hardly send her away, might actually need her if Lizzie can be reasoned with at all...which he is seriously doubting.
"No, Still looking." Her rapid breathing behind him is doing nothing to calm the knots twisting tighter and tighter in his guts with each passing minute. How does a 12 year old girl take an 8 year old into the woods and leave no trace? Fuck.
He's missing something; maybe she was closer to where Seraphim started tracking, he should circle back; try to pick up her trail fresh from there...
Carol's flashlight bounces rapidly through the trees blinding him.
"Cut that shit OUT!" His heart is racing already, he doesn't need to be fucking blinded while he's trying to find something to tell him where Lizzie took Patrick. Fuck he'd settle for finding Fin out here right now.
A girl screams somewhere out in the darkness to his left.
They both break into a run through the trees, flashlights illuminations bouncing off the ground, narrow yellow beams that make the surrounding tree branches and roots that much harder to identify in the inky darkness that swallows up the light. He should ditch the damn light; but it's too late now...he doesn't have time to wait for his eyes to adjust with someone screaming like that; and Carol can't navigate in the darkness like he can.
Something hard collides with his shoulder nearly taking him down, knocking the wind out of his chest.
Carol almost goes to her knees behind him; snagged on some unseen hazard in the dark.
It will be a wonder if half of them don't get killed crashing around out here in the pitch black.
There's a gunshot somewhere in front of them. It echoes, ricochets off everything in the dark…seems to bounce around inside his skull reverberating with every pounding bone jarring fall of his boots on the frozen ground.
Another scream splits the night; slices through him… this one high pitched, horrifyingly small and sharp; it pierces his brain like a needle sending far too much adrenaline pumping through his system making his thoughts blur, trip over one another in an endless spiral of cold hard fear: wondering if it's her screaming...
Another gunshot cracks the darkness hits him like a physical blow to his chest…
Half his brain is screaming at him to turn and run the other way. Screeching and twisting in blind panic reminding him that she doesn't carry a gun and he doesn't want to see what he's about to find if he keeps going this way…
Bile rises in his throat, chokes his next breathe while the need to escape hounds him, beats at him with a mindless rage.
"Walkers!" Carol's sharp cry catches him off guard sends his eyes flying to the dark spaces between the trees around them as they run searching for movement he hasn't yet seen…how many were drawn by the gunshots…the screams? They could be ambushed out here and all die completely overwhelmed in the dark...
They burst into an open space from between two trees, tumbling down a small incline he didn't see before taking the next step in the dark. He's staggering and tripping trying to keep his feet under him; his chest slamming into a large body the scent of death fills his nose even before the snarls reach his ears. His hand is already locked around the hilt of his knife; pulling it up to slam it home even in the dark, aiming toward the vicinity of the snarling sound with the lack of light.
The hard impact of his knife blade imbedding itself into rotten bone is enough to jar the bones of his arm with a sharp flash of pain. The snarls stop, he jerks his hand back, wrenching his knife free with a twist, standing back up. Alert and scanning the darkness for more.
Carol's flashlight is still spinning through the trees, his own dropped and forgotten next to the caved in skull of the dead Walker he ran into moments before.
His heart leaps into his throat, closes off his air when Carol's flashlight glints off far too much red in the darkness…blonde hair…Her flashlight falls to the ground, the light winks out bulb blowing with the impact.
Her screaming sob next to him fills the darkness, he's blinded by the sudden lack of artificial light; stands frozen blinking wildly trying to clear his vision of the stupid bright overlapping circles dancing across his retinas.
"Mommy…" The breathy choke sends him cringing backward.
He hears her move rather than sees it; his hands reaching out blindly to stop her fall; she jerks her elbow, slams it into him throwing him off with a harsh tortured cry. More sobs tearing from her throat. He can barely make out her outline in the darkness, moonlight framing her back, her hair as she practically crawls across the ground choking on broken sobs toward the small body crumpled on the wet blood soaked ground.
The words finally make it through the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears; sift their way through the blind fear choking him making him want to vomit as they turn from wordless sobs to the broken repeated litany of her daughter's name.
He stands frozen to his spot, he can't offer her comfort, not for this…not when he still doesn't know if the rest of them are alive…
A snarl to his right draws his attention; he's turning on instinct…heart stops again in his chest… Another large form hunched in the darkness; movements frenzied and wild as it feasts on something in the dark ignoring the rest of them completely…too consumed by its current meal. His bow is up with a wordless cry of outrage and disgust, arrow sending it down into the darkness away from the small form with a hard thump against the frozen ground he barely registers.
Carol's voice still sliding around in the back of his head; slicing and cutting like broken glass…tearing at him like her broken sobs did outside that barn with the hot sun beating down on his neck; the smell of gunpowder, and death filling his nose. He tried to comfort her then and she pulled away from him; running. She's pulled away from him now too; the difference being it doesn't sting this time because he can't comfort her; has nothing to offer her; no empathy, no flowers to ease her through: not for this death.
It would be hollow and empty to do so: a lie.
There's no comfort in lies.
The sound is too close and yet seems so far away in the darkness…raw pain assaulting his senses as she keens and wails over the tiny form bleeding out in her arms.
His feet carry him toward the other body…too small to be hers, he realizes a step or two away…takes in the face with a silent curse.
Patrick.
God Damnit.
He kneels briefly, the sickly sweet scent of blood and undertone of bile picked up by the breeze has him pressing the back of his hand over his mouth. In the dark he can't tell what killed him—though with the torn cavity of his abdomen, shredded ripped organs and horrifyingly wet glistening bits in the moonlight…It might be impossible to tell even in the light. He raises his knife ending any chance that he'll rise again.
He leans away for a moment, breathing slow trying not to vomit…
In the quiet space between Carol's cries he hears her voice.
"Daryl…"
Oh God, please…
If he was going to ever ask for anything it would be this.
His heart leaps, stomach clenching at the same instant like he's been kicked in the gut.
He doesn't remember moving, doesn't know how he got turned around; picked out her dark outline against the trees. But the closer his feet bring him the faster his heart pounds, the harder it is to take in a solid breath that doesn't sound like a broken gasp…
She's kneeling or sitting on the ground.
Bent forward, the moonlight glinting off the crown of her copper hair in the darkness.
"Are you alright?" He barely gets it out; hardly recognize the rushed sounds as actual words, but somehow she does...
"Help me!" Her soft sob claws at him, rakes his insides with pain.
Terror chokes him all over again, squeezes his throat, narrows his vision; his hands reach for her in the dark, insides twisted with fear.
"Are you hurt?" His fingers wrap around her shoulders in the dark, she hisses, jerks away sharply—denying injury at the same time.
"no, I'm fine…"
He's ready to scream in rage at her contradiction….especially when his fingertips have turned slick and black with blood in the moonlight.
His vision is improving too he can make out her blood smeared face. Her lips moving as she says something too quiet for him to hear, her eyes locked not on his face…cast downward…
Then she's shaking her head; turning back to him, begging him to do something…
Her words blur together. His skull feels stuffed with cotton as his hands try to slide over her form again; find the source of the blood coating his palms…giving him heart palpitations.
"Are You Okay?!" She cries out in pain and he immediately tempers his grip against her arms; doesn't let her go though: he needs answers. He needs her too look at him for God's sake, but her gaze keeps sliding away from his. He needs to see her-so he can make sure she's alright...comfort himself that the gunshots were for the Walkers; that they hit Lizzie only and not her…that that terrible scream wasn't hers...
He just needs her too look at him for one second so he can figure out how to breathe again…He didn't mean to shake her so hard…
A soft sound by his knees snags at his attention; pulls his eyes from her face to take in…
Shit. No…
She's supposed to be at the house….
His next words die in his throat.
The soft cries finally reaching his ears. How could he miss Mika lying so still by her knees? He curses himself for being so focused on only her.
Her fingers lock around his arm, now she's shaking him violently saying something…her eyes wide when they meet his in the darkness…
Clearly she's not okay.
"Daryl, the house, now."
He's never, ever heard her sound so desperate—panicked.
:: Walking Dead ::