Beth was sitting in a field of wildflowers, wearing a sundress with a neckline that dipped low. The sun reflected off her golden tresses, which fell down to just above the swell of her breasts. She was laughing, her blue grey eyes full of life. The lilac and Queen Anne's lace that surrounded her smelled sweet. It was an intoxicating combination for Daryl.
She noticed him, after what felt like a millennia, and beckoned him closer. He found himself walking toward her, noticing her toned legs and dainty feet crossed in front of her. He sat down beside her and had to smile; her laugh was absolutely infectious.
"Daryl," she said, her southern drawl sweeter than honey. She reached behind her back, and he heard the zipper descend. He tried to protest, but she silenced him with a finger against his mouth. Beth stood up and let the thin straps of her dress slip off her shoulders, pulling the dress down her slim body. She was left naked as the day she was born.
Beth wasn't as endowed as other women he'd slept with, but Daryl had never before seen a more perfect pair of breasts in his entire life. Perky, with dusty rose colored nipples which were pebbled and hard.
Daryl's eyes moved down her body in appreciation. Her skin was smooth and vibrant, the curvature of her hips alluring as anything he'd ever seen. He felt himself blush as he raked his vision over her most private of places, smooth and sensitive. Untouched.
"Follow me," her voice ghosted over him, and she turned around gracefully, slowly, and began walking through the flowers. He stood up and obeyed, eyes never leaving the goddess in front of him. Beth turned around again to face him.
It came out of nowhere, but all at once it was there behind her, sinking its teeth into the fleshy sinew between the throat and shoulder. She was still giggling as Daryl watched in horror as the Governor, now a walker, stained her skin with her blood.
Daryl awoke with a start, a cold sweat having overcome his body. He was shaking, temporarily confused at his surroundings. Where was he?
Oh. The house. Everything that had transpired yesterday had come swarming back to him. He wiped his face on the back of his hand as he calmed down. It was just a dream. It wasn't real. None of it was real. But then he remembered her diary entry, and felt his cheeks flush again.
He was being stupid. Again.
That was when Daryl noticed his morning wood, straining against his pants.
"Shit," he swore, not understanding how such a nightmare could still make him hard. He didn't have the time nor the patience to deal with it, so he resigned himself to the fact that we was probably going to have blue balls.
Daryl got up and exited the guest bedroom. He quietly opened the master bedroom door to check and make sure Beth was indeed still safe. She was on her stomach, hair in her face again.
He treaded lightly downstairs and down into the basement. There was a switch at the base of the stairs; he flipped it on and got to work on the deer. It would provide them enough meat for several weeks. Daryl had always liked venison, but he wasn't sure Beth would feel the same. Food was food though, and it was nourishing enough. He could only handle beans for so long.
After skinning the buck with a clean butcher's knife he found in the kitchen, Daryl began breaking it down. Separating the meat from the fat, slicing strips from the legs and neck for jerky. The whole process took him a couple of hours, until the buck had been reduced to almost nothing but bone, and he had the meat preserving in salt, and the strips hanging up to dry into jerky.
Daryl was just about to head upstairs again to clean up when he heard a scream from the ground floor.
Beth had awoken, warm and comfortable. She wasn't sure what time it was, but it couldn't be much later than sunrise, as the western facing room was still dark. She groaned and stretched, taking full advantage of the massive bed. She didn't remember falling asleep anywhere but the kitchen, so she deduced Daryl had carried her up into the bedroom, and had let her stay in the master suite.
She sat up and swung her legs out of bed, massaging them gently. Her jeans had irritated the backs of her knees slightly, but the uncomfortable feeling soon vanished. Beth went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror; her hair was a tangled mess, so she did some light searching and found a brush.
After brushing her hair into submission, it shone silkily. Beth smiled. It felt so nice to be clean, and put together, and not have to sleep on the ground in a cave.
Beth decided to go downstairs and try to make something remotely breakfast-y to eat. She was about to descend the stairs when she saw the muddy footprints on the white carpet. She grew uneasy, and wished she hadn't left her knife downstairs. Slowly, she crept down the stairs. That's when Beth saw the blood on the floor, painting a scene of a struggle in her mind.
So she did what any sensible girl would do. She screamed.
She heard someone stomp up the stairs quickly, and to her shock, it was Daryl. He was covered in blood.
"What in the hell d'you think yer hollerin' about, Beth?!" he exclaimed. "Y'scared me to death!"
"But… but the bootprints… and the blood!" she managed to get out, confused and relieved at the same time.
"Damn, girl, a little bit o'blood don't mean I'm dead! I killed a buck last night; it musta bled on the floor when I brought it in." She jumped off the bottom step and barreled into him, wrapping her arms around his torso. "The hell?"
"I was so worried, Daryl, I thought a walker got you, or somethin' else." Beth didn't even care that he was covered in blood, she was just so relieved that he was alive and well. "I still wouldn't last a day without you."
Daryl snorted in agreement before untangling her from his waist. "I'm gonna go clean up, an' then we gotta get a move on."
Forty minutes later, they were on the street, empty backpacks slung over each of their shoulders.
"We need to clear an' go through at least four of these before dark, an' get a move on with makin' the front of the house look like shit," Daryl reminded Beth for the tenth time.
"I know, Daryl. Let's start with that one." She pointed toward a house whose front lawn was overgrown with weeds, and a couple of dead walkers strewn on the porch. They hopped up onto the porch (the set of stairs had been broken through) and he jiggled the handle. It clicked open, and almost immediately, a walker around Beth's height was snapping its jaws at his arm. Daryl silenced it quickly with his knife, and tossed it onto the porch with the rest of the walkers. It had a rope around its neck.
The pair slowly entered the home; its windows were boarded up, so it was much darker than the house they'd found. Daryl motioned for Beth to turn on the flashlight. When she did, it shone on an otherwise seemingly empty house.
"Clear it top to bottom first, then loot." Daryl said in a definitive, commanding tone. Beth rolled her eyes but nodded, flashlight in one hand, hunting knife in the other.
They padded as quietly as they could up the stairs.
"I don't want to split up this time." she whispered to him. She could tell he saw the fear in her eyes, but he said nothing, just motioned his head in his direction. He probably thought she was completely pathetic and inept.
"Stupid," she whispered to herself, low enough that he didn't hear.
The first room they cleared was a man's room, leading Beth to believe the walker they killed before had once lived in this room. It was mostly clean; the door had been completely shut so nothing had gotten in or out, and thankfully it was clear of dead things.
The next room was a woman's room, probably elderly judging by the amount of floral bedding, wallpaper, and embroidered pillows laying around. Beth assumed he had been living with his mother, perhaps taking care of her? Where was she now? That was when they heard scratching coming from the closet door.
Daryl motioned silently for Beth to stand at the side of the door and open it, leaving him room to kill the old broad.
Beth slowly turned the handle and heard it click. She swung the door open, and that's when it attacked.
Well, it didn't really attack so much as bolt from the room, leaving a foul odor of cat urine behind it. Beth breathed a sigh of relief, while Daryl sneezed.
"Let's get outta here quick," he said. "I'm allergic to cats." It seemed completely ridiculous to Beth that Daryl Dixon, asskicker redneck, could be allergic to anything. She tilted her head back and laughed. Loudly.
Daryl didn't have time to turn red with embarrassment, because they heard the groans of Grandma Walker (A.N. Lol, get it? Because old people use walkers? Double meaning? Yeah, ok. I'll see myself out). She was at the base of the stairs, trying feebly to crawl up, to no avail. The old lady probably had a hard time getting around when she was alive, much less reanimated and decaying.
"We'll deal with her later," Daryl said, his tone less of a whisper. Beth too was being less quiet, positive there was nothing else, living or dead, in the house.
Even still, they cautiously checked the remaining rooms of the home, dealing with Grandma Walker on their way downstairs.
The rest of the house indeed was empty, but there wasn't much in the way of food. Beth envisioned a scenario in her head about this particular group of walkers. The man could no longer care for the old woman, because their food supply had all but run out, and the old woman had told him to kill her, let her pass on. Maybe with oxygen shot into the bloodstream. Maybe the man didn't know that caused strokes, and in his anguish hanged himself, or tried to. The weight of the man wasn't supported by the ceiling fan, and he went crashing down, only to see his mother reanimate and begin eating him.
Beth relayed this to Daryl, who looked at her like she was a lunatic.
"Sweetheart, it don't matter how it happened." he informed her gruffly, dumping a package of batteries into his pack. "Ain't gotta imagine fanciful deaths for 'em, just kill 'em and move on."
Beth sulked after that.
They managed to clear two more houses without much issue. It wasn't until the last house that they finally found what they were looking for: an SUV. It was a sleek looking Subaru, manual drive, with 30 miles to the gallon. As luck would have it, the keys were dangling around the neck of the second walker they killed in the house.
"We should see how much fuel it has." Beth said, her mood cheering up some at the prospect of having a vehicle that appeared to be in tip top shape.
"D'you know how to drive a stick?" Daryl asked after they found it had about a half a tank left in it. She nodded.
"Daddy taught Maggie and me on the truck when we were ready to get our learner's permits. It's been a while since I've driven, but it's like riding a bike. It'll come back."
"Good, because I'm gonna need to open the garage door to get this out, and open ours to get it in again."
They loaded the backseat up with their various finds and Beth got into the driver's seat. She was reaching for the seatbelt when she noticed Daryl giving her a look.
"Rule number four, always wear your seat belt," Beth explained.
"The hell does tha' mean?" Daryl asked.
"You've never seen Zombieland? It had Woody Harrelson in it, and Emma Stone?" He continued to give her a blank look. "It was a zombie apocalypse movie. Funny as hell."
"Whatever, let's just get this done so we can destroy the front of the house." Beth rolled her eyes, but backed the SUV out of the garage and then let Daryl in the passenger side.
"Y'know, you're a real buzzkill," she said as they drove the short distance back to their temporary place of residence.
"Blow me," Daryl replied in an annoyed tone. Beth felt her face go red.
This is one of the longer chapters I've ever written for anything I've done. I have a few more chapters done as well, including the first smutty chapter. You'll have to hit my review quota of 50 before I'll post that chapter, though. I know, life is tough.
Hope you're all still enjoying the dynamic I have going on here; I feel more at ease writing in Beth's POV, probably because I too am an 18 year old girl that is in love with Daryl Dixon. Heh.
Thanks to all who have reviewed, favorited, and followed my fic. It means a lot!