Disclaimer: (since I didn't disclaim the last few) I don't own 'em!
Notes: You Made it! Huge thanks to everyone for reading/reviewing/fave/following! This monster is now 510 pages on my laptop so It's time to end it! It's become so crazy long I'm starting to question my own sanity! lol
Chapter Seventy-Four
(Fin's POV)
I land on the top of another vehicle's roof, slamming into it.
I try to roll with the impact but the sharp bolt of pain slicing up my calf tells me I wasn't completely successful. I ignore it to jump to the next roof top, then another; picking up speed to make the distance between the vehicles until there aren't anymore.
I hit the ground before any of them have turned to see their new meal ticket. I can't fight my way through them, the time that would take will end Carl's life
If it isn't over already….
I run dodging between them when I can; when I can't I plow straight through them. Hoping to knock them down before they can get a handhold.
I tuck my legs up jumping straight at the chest of one right in my path, use my hands and feet against his chest and shoulders as he goes down to spin to the side leaping over another one I didn't even see coming, my knee smashing into its face with a blunt throbbing pain that tells me I'm going to have a spectacular bruise later; but I succeed in taking it to the ground without it grabbing me. I'm already scrambling off its chest before it has a chance to wrap it's greedy hands around my leg. I kick out with my heel smashing it's nose and eye socket in as I slide in the dirt making sure it's second twist to grab me remains unsuccessful.
I keep running. Drop to the ground and roll into the legs of two more sending them forward onto their faces while I slip up and running again, screaming for Tobin...
No.
Not Tobin…it's Carl…
Carl is out here…Tobin is dead.
Carl can't be…I can't lose him again.
I slam my machete into the first bastard trying to tear into him, kick out at the next, smashing and slicing until I reach him screaming until my throat closes up and my chest seizes and oh god….I might already be too late…
Blood.
Oh God, so much blood.
How can one little boy have so much to lose?
I fumble at his neck feeling for a pulse hands sliding against slick skin, his fingers grip my wrist. I realize he's looking at me…
"You're alive," my voice breaks, croaks around the knot in my throat.
He jerks his head no, eyes wide.
He's fumbling for something on the ground with his other hand, finds it finally and starts to raise it before I realize what it is. I slap it away with my hand it spins out of his blood soaked fingers to land in the dirt again. His revolver.
"No, please no" His voice breaks on a sob voice high and thready; pinched with pain and terror.
"…I don't want to be one of them…"
He won't be…I won't let him.
"Get up Carl!" There's no way I can carry him alone; he's outweighed me since the start of summer…
"Kill me, please…"
He's shaking his head even as I'm jerking him up listening to him grit his teeth, scream in pain next to my ear when my arm wraps around his waist digging into more torn flesh.
He stops so suddenly I'm certain he passed out…
But he didn't
He's just seen them.
He stands frozen eyes locked on them, breathing faster with each second that ticks past, waiting for them to lunge at us… watching them stare right back pressed in a tight semi-circle around the vehicle's side he went down trapped overwhelmed when he tried to open the door to escape; found it locked.
I turn my attention back to them too.
They don't dare move towards me even with him bleeding and raw as he is, weak, an easy meal leaning against me heavily. His one good arm over my shoulders, spine hunched and bent so far forward his head is right next to mine when he should be almost a foot taller.
"How…"
Then it clicks for him, he turns his head to me eyes wide.
I guess this is the part where traditionally I'm supposed to say something along the lines of 'come with me if you want to live'.
I'm too busy getting a closer look at the hole in the side of his neck, where I can see his artery pulsing and his arm hanging limp at his side… next to the torn gaping hole in his shirt; soaked with dark red.
"Yeah, It's me."
I wait for him to react, jerk away from me screaming…
"Cool." But it's ruined by the painful hiss that escapes him a moment later.
"Come on," I help him shuffle towards one of the vehicles. The dead back away as we move till they're encircling us in a loose ring, I don't look toward the overpass.
I can't.
If I lose my focus now Carl will be torn right out of my hands.
I wrench open the door with one hand, hold it open with my foot shift Carl to sit on the back seat, pull my long sleeve tee over my head and quickly wrap it over his neck tying the sleeves in a knot to keep it there. "Put pressure on that, best you can."
"I'm gonna die…."
"No you're not!"
"I got bit…"
"So did I …am I dead?"
He stares at me, eyes moving to the white skin over my shoulder and arm; just a shade paler then the rest of me. I nod furiously when his eyes turn back to my face a glimmer of hope in those pale blue eyes so like his fathers.
"Just give me a chance. Please Carl." Before he bleeds out, before it's too late…
He looks past me to the Dead still standing back, watching us; not coming any closer.
He nods, scoots back on the seat leaning heavily against the back eyes slipping shut while I slam the door shut the second his feet are clear. I race to the other side of the vehicle, pull open the driver side door and freeze when I hear him.
"Seraphim!"
Shit. Daryl.
My hands shake.
I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry.
They know what I am now.
Even if I save Carl's life…he'll be like me, stuck somewhere between the living and the dead, never truly belonging with either.
We can never go back…
I wrench open the door dive inside checking behind the visor, the seat; find the damn keys right in the ignition…maybe…just maybe it will actually….
The engine sputters and somehow lurches to life louder than Frankenstein's monster.
I pull forward and they shift, shuffle aside letting us pass until we're blocked in by too many vehicles…
God Damnit, there's no way I can walk with Carl like he is; I glance in the rearview see him slumped against the seat eyes closed my shirt dark with blood.
He's gonna die unless I can get him out of here, get him safe…I have to get to the highway, it's the only way to get him there fast enough.
I kick the door open one of them doesn't back away fast enough so I kick it send it sprawling into the others.
I race to the vehicle in front of me, wrench open the door slide the car into neutral and move to the bumper, I need to slide it off the road… But I'm too small; I can't do it alone.
White hot anger, instant searing rage pours out of me. I scream at the top of my lungs, kick the tire in defeat. Everything is falling apart, I've lost it all; and I can't even save Carl because I'm not 6 foot 2 and a dude. Size, I'm too fucking small. I curse punch the glass, it doesn't even have the diplomacy to break, it just hurts my hand.
I drop my back to the car door bent double breathing in great heaves; bury my face in my hands fighting the burn of tears.
The car moves forward a few inches behind my back and I slip off it landing hard on my ass.
What the..?
I jerk up off the ground staring at the car that moved on it's on… No. Not on its own.
Holy Fuck.
They're moving it and…and Fuck.
They stumble towards the car, lean against the hood and roll it backwards off the road, running each other over in the process.
What the Hell did I just do?
What. The. Hell. Did. I. Just. Do?!
No.
No way. I stare down at my hands my eyes again to the car now firmly off the road, back axles stuck in the grassy ditch.
If it was me…can I do it again?
I raise my arm, point.
"Now this one." I say it out loud because I'm not sure how else to do it…and…
HOLY SHIT.
Oh Fuck No...
Hell of a time to learn I can do that.
These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along.
I bend double suddenly a peel of hysterical laughter rips from my throat halfway out it turns into a the loudest scream I've ever produced in my life, it rivals Ricks' earlier wails. It's loud enough that it finally drowns out the roaring rush of blood in my ears and the throbbing sear of the gaping hole beating and clawing at the underside of my ribs with each breath so powerful that my legs give way.
I slam my fists into the hot pavement while it pours out of me. Then I stop just as suddenly as I started. Like flicking off a light switch, nearly taking off the end of my own tongue as my teeth clench shut; and I close my mouth over the sound.
Keep it inside. It's too late. It won't save Carl.
I wrench myself off the pavement, jumping back into the car, they keep moving vehicles out of my way, until we're almost clear we pull onto open road.
I can't leave them though.
If they turn back attracted by noise or smell and follow Michonne and Rick and Daryl…they'll be over run, no chance to get away…not from a group this size.
There must be near a thousand of them gathered on the highway; all migrating somewhere when we stumbled into their path… and no matter where I might send them they'll run into more normal people… their blood would be on my hands.
I slam the car in park once more, Carl groans from the back seat before slumping over. I leap out and turn back to face the crowd.
I can see them all on the overpass.
Just outlines against the late afternoon sky high over the road we're on. They're all standing there watching me. Rick or Daryl maybe even Tyreese is yelling something; but I can't make out the words anymore, not with the distance and the snarling roar of the mob on the street.
It's lost for all time, whatever they have to say. I'll never hear it.
But, I don't need to hear him say it;
I've heard it all before…
"Monster!"
"Devil!"
"What are you? Are you dead?"
"Get away from me before you make me sick!"
"We should just kill her, what are you waiting for?!"
"Put a bullet in her brain and lets be done with it."
I'm grateful I'm not close enough to see their faces…watch the realization dawn on them that I'm taking Carl with me, if they haven't already figured that out. That a Monster has been living with them all along…
I won't let them kill him, like Lizzie tried to kill me, and Mark before her….and Robert and…
No.
Sweat drips down my back while something under my skull tingles and starts to burn; rivulets of sweat slide down my forehead and temple having nothing to do this time with the baking sun. It tries to run into my eyes 'til I swipe it away with the back of a shaking hand.
Slowly…ever so slowly they turn on each other one by one… then it spreads… rolling out through the group faster and faster like a flame finding tinder; or a tidal wave swallowing a shore… it sweeps through them all traveling even farther then I can see; deep into the crowd as they rip and tear and claw each other apart as if they were seeing the living next to them instead of their own kind…
I stagger to my knees retching and gaging head pounding in sheer agony that makes my vision blur. The sunlight stabs at my eyes to the point that I have to squeeze them shut, press my palms over them breathing slowly for a few minutes not positive I won't have to black out to escape the pain.
When I look up again it's still a dull ache behind my eyes, throbbing back under my hair to pound with each heartbeat at the base of my skull.
But it's worth it because they're all falling down…
Very few of them are left standing now; some of them chewing and ripping the flesh off their own arms and legs when there's no one close enough to grab hold of consume…
I retch again spitting onto the steaming black asphalt shaking and trembling.
Carl makes a sound in the car behind me, calling my name…
I look up at the outlines over the bridge again breathing hard through a different kind of the pain.
My family.
The man I love…
I climb to my feet and sliding back into the driver's seat. I turn to check Carl in the back seat and find him watching me again before his eyes slip shut. I turn back around shift the car into drive and don't look back.
That life is over; any chance for happiness gone with it.
I keep driving, pressing the pedal to the floorboard ignoring the stabbing ache in my chest, and the boulder in my throat making it hard to breath as I speeding around the curve, flying down the long empty road.
I keep my stupid tear blurred eyes locked on the yellow lines avoiding the rear view mirror at all cost.
There's no point now.
It's all over, they know...
I'll never see him again.
I can never look back at my life,
That part of me is already dead.
:: Walking Dead ::
The End.
(don't kill me; I'm writing the Sequel now!)