The Walking Deth - Part II

Only Way Onward - Chapter IV

Extermination

*Warning* Contains references to Cannibalism, and dangley bits ;)

It must have been the cold that woke me up. It was colder than I had remembered it being before, colder than I had felt for a long time. It felt as if my skin was bare against stagnant winter air. It was difficult to open my eyes at first. The light in the room was not bright, but my head was pounding like the beat to a heavy metal song, and the pulsating of the beats was building up in my head and pushing out behind my eyeballs. I pulled my hands down to my face so I cold swipe the back of my hand over my eyes and I found that both hands came together even though I didn't will them too. I felt like I didn't have control of my body, kind of like I was floating. My legs were so numb I had to look down to check if they were still there. My bare feet were suspended a few feet off the ground, with rope wrapped around my ankles like a coiled snake, and a hook and chain holding me to the ground. Floating in mid-air; another fucked up dream.

I ran my eyes over my body taking in the rope around my ankles then higher to the exposed hair on my bare shins, then to my scabbed knees, my pale, unbaked thighs and then…I was butt naked! I don't know what it was with me having dreams about being naked lately, but it seemed to be happening again. I reached down instinctively to cover my dangler, and realised it was dangling the wrong way. It looked like a sad old man with a droopy long nose looking up at me. And my hands, they weren't right either, they were held together by the thin plastic strip of a zip tie.

Zip ties…

The sudden shock of realising it wasn't a dream, made me jolt backwards, and I felt myself starting to sway to and fro. I wasn't hovering over the ground, I was suspended from the ceiling. The rope wrapped around my ankles, was draped over what appeared to be one of those butchers hooks that were used to hang animal carcasses. I recognised them as the same type my dad had in his hunting shack, where he would hang his game upside down, slit their throats and let the blood flow out, before he carved up the meat into portions.

I looked up above my head, which was actually down, and found a steel grated walkway about three feet below me. Tilting my head back up a little I could see the walkway stopped ahead of me and dropped down to a concrete floor. In the middle of that floor was a stainless steel table, and on top of that table were portions of pale meat, with dark red flesh and white bone exposed. There were parts that looked just like a beef shank, but it wasn't beef I was looking at. Cows didn't have elongated pink, fleshy feet with five rounded toes. Cows didn't have long arms ending in hands with five slender digits. Cows didn't have cocks, well not human fucking cocks.

I couldn't see the face of the man that was laid out in sections on the table, surrounded by various butchery utensils – hack saw, a cleaver, a boning knife – but I immediately thought of Abraham who had been walking ahead of me before I had blacked out. I turned my head to the right and felt a wave of relief wash over me as I saw the ginger hair and trucker moustache over a slack mouth with a dull snore escaping it. He was dangling there naked much like myself, but with his arms bent behind his back.

"Abraham." I called out in an effort to wake him. He didn't move.

"Yer not s'posed ta be awake." An unexpected voice drawled from my left, causing me to jolt and swing myself on the chain.

I turned my head towards the voice and found myself staring at a naked female body, bound at the wrists with cable ties and tied at the ankles with rope. The woman had dark hair that was sweeping over a metal bucket placed on the grating below, with a soft swishing sound. She was sleeping too, breathing softly with her chest rising and falling. The voice I heard was not her. It had come from a long stick of a man with wild, tightly curled, black hair, growing in tufts all over his scalp and face. He was dressed in a long, black vinyl butchers apron and he was holding a sharp, half foot long sticking knife in his hand.

"We be wastin' a lot a energy chargin' them stunners so that ye stay asleep." He continued to drawl, without even looking at me.

He took to a knee in front of the woman and clasped his hands in front of him as if in prayer.

"Bless ye lord, for the gifts we are about to receive." He spoke clearly, as if in rote.

He pressed the blade to her throat and dragged it across in a smooth and quick motion, freeing a line of red that soon fanned out spraying all over the man's apron. He took the bucket under her head and tried to catch some of the spray and then placed it back under her head, when the force of the spray subsided and started flowing out rhythmically as it was pumped out by her heart.

My own heart beat got faster as the pumps of her blood got slower.

"Ya gotta watch fer the blood ta stop pumpin' so ye can destroy the brain afore the meat starts turnin'." He informed me.

I watched in horror as he supported the woman's head with one hand, drew the knife back in the other and slammed it into the side of her head with a wet pop.

"She ain't meat, shes people!" I croaked through my tight throat.

He stared at me blankly like a simpleton.

"Don' like it when me meat talks." He drawled.

He stood up, turned around and stepped off the metal grating and to the concrete floor below and scooped up another metal bucket, like the one beside me that was half filled with blood. He stepped back up and placed the bucket under my head.

"I ain't meat." I growled.

The man was inspecting his sticking knife, wiping the blood along his apron.

"I ain't fuckin' meat!" I snarled louder.

The man bent to a knee before me and clasped his hands together, with the knife sticking out from his palm as he prayed.

"Bless ye lord for the…"

Before he could finish his prayer I had reached down and grasped the rim of the bucket in my fingertips, and using the momentum of my body swinging from the hook, I slammed the bucket upwards into the mans jaw, with a ringing clang, and watched in satisfaction as his knife went flying out of his grip and he fell back on the grated floor with a thump.

I reached down my tied hands and gripped on to his apron and using all the strength I had in my fingers I clutched in to the slimy fabric and started dragging him towards me.

"Danny, get in 'ere." He screamed, arching his head backwards and looking out past the steel table in the centre of the room.

"Oh, shit." I heard another voice call, and saw a man bound down the step and grab for something small and black on a nearby shelving unit. He marched over to me militantly and reached the black object towards me revealing a thin line of blue electric current, jerking between two wire prongs.

He was about a foot away from me, standing over the butcher laying on the ground when he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

His eyes were wide in shock and his mouth dropped open to reveal something small and black emerging from between his teeth and tongue. It looked like a small conical metallic shape, kind of like the tip of a crossbow bolt.

The man fell to his knees, landing on top of the butcher and then toppled off him to the side.

Behind him standing at the far end of the room, up a high concrete step, I saw worn riding boots, thick woolen socks, the hilt of a small knife, jeans ripped at the knees, a yellow tee covered by a cream coloured sweater, thin pale hands holding my Stryker and a blonde haired, blue eyed angel with her head slightly bent to the side, and eye peering down the sight of the bow.

No fucking way.

While I stared at Beth in a state of dumbfounded disbelief, the man below me rolled away grabbed for his sticking knife, and kicked his legs off the grate and to the floor below. He stalked over to Beth, growling something unrecognisable, with his knife held high.

Beth put the bow to the ground put her foot in the stirrup and struggled to pull the string to the latch. I mentally kicked my own ass, wishing I had let her try it a few times, instead of doing it for her. The man was only a knife lunge away and she was still struggling and straining.

"Beth!" I called out to her in fear.

I heard a familiar click and saw she had latched it in to place, but the guy was right on her now. She tossed my Stryker towards the butcher's head and darted away from him as he stumbled and tried to regain his balance. Beth was fumbling at her side, where I saw my Busse. She ripped the knife out but knocked it against a shelving rack behind her as she drew it up and it clanged to the ground. The butcher kicked out his foot and flicked the knife away out of her reach. I began swinging myself wildly hoping I could work my way off the hook, as I watched her dart around the hacked up body in the centre of the room.

Anxiety gripped my stomach as the man slashed towards her, but she dodged neatly out of the way grabbed for the cleaver on the table and swung it down into the top of the guys skull. The hit knocked him to the floor and blood was spurting from the wound but it wasn't deep enough. He was still moaning and growling and reaching out to grab at her. She drew the cleaver up above her head with two hands and slammed it down harder into his skull. This time I heard the crunch of bone splitting and watched in relief as the butcher's body collapsed to the floor.

She was gasping and breathing heavily, with wild eyes darting around the room, taking in the butcher with the cleaver embedded in his skull, the portions of human on the table, the man laying on the grating with a bolt sticking out the back of his head, and me hanging there naked with all my bits showing.

She steadied herself on the table and edged her trembling hands along it stepping towards me.

"Beth." I called to try to shake her from her shock.

She raised haunted eyes to me, and I saw her shoulders drop in a staggered sigh of relief. She mounted the step on the grating, and then fell to her knees before me and pulled me in for a hug, with her face in my chest and my face in hers.

"That was too close." She whimpered, into my bare skin.

"I'm so fuckin' glad to see you, girl." I said, trying to hold back a sob.

She nodded her head, sniffled and stifled a sob of her own, then wiped her tears away with the sleeve of her sweater. She had a big smile of relief on her face and I figured my face probably looked the same.

"Get me down." I said, nodding my head backwards to where the chain from the hoist was attached to the wall.

She glanced over to it, and made to stand but then dropped back down again. She took my head in her hands and stared down at me.

"Say it." She ordered firmly.

"Say what?" I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Say you need people." She insisted.

"Quit playin' girl and get me down." I growled, annoyed at her choice in time to play games.

"I will when you say it." She persisted.

"I don't need people." I sighed

She glared at me.

"I just need you." I added.

Her big blue eyes widened and a grin grew on her face. She moved her lips down towards mine to give me a spiderman inspired kiss, which wasn't appropriate for the time, but I was still willing to share it with her.

Then we were interrupted by a strained, dry voice to my right.

"Hate to interrupt your moment there, but do you think you could get me the fuck down from here?"

I never got the chance to give Beth that kiss, or even to tell her I was sorry about leaving her, or to ask her what happened to her. As soon as she had let Abraham and I down, and helped untie us, she was racing up the step and behind a wall saying something about Judith and the others.

Abraham and I stretched our legs, and slapped them a few times trying to get feeling back and then found our clothes up on a shelf. I collected my Stryker, and Busse that Beth had left behind. Abraham grabbed the cleaver and we left as hastily as possible, both of us trying to avoid looking at the bluish body of the woman hanging by her ankles, or the pieces of the man spread out on the table.

I stepped out the way Beth had come in, down through a corridor and then through a door that led into the freaky room we had ran though earlier, with all the candles and the names written in a circle. I made my way out the door that was marked 'A' and back towards the train car where I had last seen Rick and the others.

The door to car was wide open, so Beth must have already been through this way and let them go. I heard the jangling and clinking of shifting metal and saw some figures climbing over the fence across the way. I recognised the first one to jump down into the dying grass below, as Rick. He was holding a gun in his hand and when he spotted me watching him, he gave me a silent hand signal pointing to his eyes and then up to the roof. I nodded, understanding that he wanted me to scope out the roof.

I looked around for a way up and saw some wooden pallets lying against the wall under a louvered window. I used the pellets to reach the window and then climbed up the louvers digging my boots into the gaps and vaulting myself onto the nearby drain pipe. I dragged myself upwards pushing my boots into the joins of the brick work and then pulled myself onto the sheet metal of the roof, cringing as it creaked under my weight.

Once on top I lay still for a moment gauging if there was anyone around who would have heard me. Then I pulled myself up and silently crept over to the next roof that was a few feet above my head and grabbed on to it. With my feet dangling below, I had to stiffle a grunt when my chest landed against the sheeting, as I noticed a shadow moving a few yards away. As quietly as possible I lifted my feet up and rolled onto the top of the roof, being careful not to let my bow clang on to the metal.

Once on my feet I crept slowly over to the man who was obliviously looking down to the ground below. I flipped my crossbow onto my back and took out my Busse and crept up behind him, mimicking his slow paces. When I was sure he was completely distracted I pounced on him, holding my hand over his mouth and opening his throat so he couldn't scream. Once he was down I forced my blade into his skull so he wouldn't be able to sneak up on me later.

I went back to my kneeling position and scoped the surrounding rooftops that were lit up by the silver moonlight. It was like an open woodland of sheet metal grass, barren trees tied together with telegraph wire, and bushes of raised skylights and ventilation stacks. This was my new hunting ground, and the Termites were my prey.

There were two figures on the rooftop directly across from my position, another figure on the next building over, and then one that was across the open space of about ten yards. I took care of the two on the building next to me first. Hiding behind one of the stacks and taking one down when he approached, easing him to the roof so the fall of his body didn't alert the other. Then I crept up behind the woman, and took her down too, without feeling the least bit of guilt about killing the fairer sex.

There was a small gap inbetween the building I was on and the next, but I didn't want to risk jumping and alerting anyone so I eased my way down and then swung my legs out until they caught on the edge of the roof, and then propelled myself on to the metal. I crept up behind this guy in the same way as the others and took him down with my Busse again.

I wasn't sure what Rick and the others were doing. I had expected to hear some kind of commotion by now, but all I could hear was the dulled down sounds of laughing and chatter coming from somewhere below. I went to the edge of the building and looked down to see if I could spot the others. There was no one down there, just the courtyard we had seen previously with the tables where creepy Mary had been cooking at the grill.

There was still one more figure prowling around in the darkness on the building across the courtyard. From my low position, laying on my front . I removed my Stryker from my shoulder and aimed it at the figure in the dark. I could just make out the shape of his or her head, but not the face. That was okay, I just needed to get them anywhere in the skull area. I was about to pull the trigger when he took a step forward pointed at me and started yelling.

I hadn't realised I was laying out in the moonlight.

"Shit." I mumbled to myself and then pulled the trigger sending the bolt straight into his forehead, and silencing him for good. I watched as his limp body tumbled off the roof and fell to the floor with a crunch and a splattering of blood, making artwork that would rival Picasso all over the concrete below.

I observed from my high position as people began running out of the building below me.

They were yelling and pointing and then I started hearing the gun shots firing in rapid succession, coming from below. They echoed into the empty night like hard and fast rain falling on tin. I knew Rick was down there, they had weapons and lots of them, by the sounds of it. People were pouring out like ants from a nest now, dispersing themselves throughout the arrangement of buildings, screaming, shrieking and shouting over the gunshots.

Some of them emerged with weapons and started firing back at Rick and the gang, so I took up my bow and shot out the last four bolts in my quiver, rolling on to my back to reload between shots. Then I got up and looked for a way down. I jumped from building to building, like an olympic hurdlist and slipped down onto a drain pipe. I was above a small access-way between buildings when I saw a man lingering in the darkness. I could see he had his eye on Carl who was standing out in the open with his back to the both of us, firing into the shrieking crowd.

With knife in hand I jumped down on the man before he could get a shot off, forcing the knife down into his skull. I watched him slump to the ground, with a surprised groan escaping his mouth. Carl whipped around at the sound with his gun aimed at me. He gave me a grateful tip of his hat when he recognised me and then raced off to find more Termites.

I caught up with Carl, Rosita and Tara who were lingering by the grill watching for unexpected movement. I raced around and collected my bolts from the corpses on the ground and placed them back in my quiver and slotted one into my bow.

I spent the next few minutes racing through the labyrinth of buildings, going up stairs and ducking my head into empty rooms, trying to find any signs of Termites and exterminate them if I did. I came across Michonne and Glenn who were doing the same. They gave me a focused glare and a nod of acknowledgment before we parted ways again.

I followed the path of buildings back around to the courtyard with the griller, where I had seen most of the people race out of, and walked into the open doors. I paced through a corridor beside a staircase and to large double doors that were opened in to some kind of mess hall. It was piled up with corpses and Abraham, and Maggie were walking through them, destroying the brains of the already dead to make sure they didn't return.

Rick was standing in the centre of the room with Eugene, Rosita and Tara by one side. On the other side was Carl then an older man who would have been in his fifties or sixties, then a scruffy, familiar looking, white dog, and beside it was Beth.

They had a group of people on their knees in front of them, with their hands clasped behind their heads. When I got closer I recognised only two of the faces. One of them was the leader, Gareth, and the other was the creepy grilling woman, Mary, who had tried to serve us-what I now assumed to be human- when we first came to Terminus.

Bob was seated over on a bench , bleeding from the shoulder, with Sasha there tending to his wounds, but it didn't look too serious.

Rosita, Tara and Eugene all had guns drawn on the Termites. Carl was crying and looking at his dads arms, and in Ricks arms was a pudgy pink bundle wrapped in a fraying blanket.

"Lil' ass kicker?" I mumbled.

Rick turned to me and I could see his face was red and wet from crying.

I glanced to the ghostly, defeated faces of the Termites in the centre of the room.

"What're we waitin' for?" I asked, raising my crossbow, ready to finish them off.

"Rick held out a hand in front of the bow."

"We're not gonna kill them." He advised me.

"Motherfuck. Why the hell not?" I snarled back at him.

"They're victims of the need to survive." He explained to me.

"They're victims of my right foot." I declared, jumping forward and driving my boot into Gareth's pretty face. Rick and the older man standing by him stepped forward to stop me.

"This man, took care of Judith, and he took care of Beth. His only request is that we spare their lives." Rick informed me, pointing at the older man. I glared angrily at this stranger Rick was willing to spare the lives of shit for.

Beth placed a hand on the arm of the man and looked to me with pleading eyes. "This is David. He saved me from…from Anton."

Fucking Anton.

I could feel rage building at the mention of his name. David had rescued her, which meant she had been in some kind of trouble. What had that fucker done to her? The look Maggie was giving the pair of us made me think she had already explained it once. I wanted to drag Beth in for a hug, and tell her how sorry I was for leaving her with him, and to comfort her and let her comfort me. But I just glared at David cold faced. It was my own messed up way of showing appreciation.

"What are we gonna do then, huh? Let 'em roam free in the wild? let 'em hunt for their choice of meat?" I growled to Rick.

"I'm sparing their lives, but they'll have no mercy." Rick declared, glaring down at Gareth's bloody, swelling face.

We led the group of Termites back through the path of the 'A's and to the box car that had served as our prison for nearly a week. I grinned triumphantly as I watched the distraught faces of the surviving Termites march in to the darkness. I stepped forward once they were all in and gripped onto the handle of the door and started sliding it across.

A pale hand shot out and stilled the door. "What about food and water?" Gareth called out through the small gap in the door.

"You got plenty of food in there already." Rick replied to him. He stared back toward me in disbelief and I rolled the door shut on his gobsmacked face.

"Enjoy your Termite steaks." I called mockingly towards the door.

We turned around and made our way back up the ramp. Rick moved over to Beth's side and passed Judith to her waiting arms.

"Thank you for taking care of Judith." He said sincerely. Beth smiled back at him.

"How did you find her? Daryl said you two were alone." Rick continued.

Beth glanced back to me, and I thought maybe she was thinking I had told Rick what had happened. But I hadn't – yet.

"She was already here, a woman brought her here. I thought it must have been one of you." She replied.

Rick stopped in his tracks, and looked around to Maggie, Tara and Rosita, and shook his head.

"She didn't come with any of us."

"Well, who…?" Beth trailed off.

Rick was deep in thought. "You know, when we came in here, we heard people callin' from some freight containers. You think there could be more survivors in there?" He said looking at me.

"One way to find out." I replied.

We made our way back to the freight containers we had seen earlier when we were running through Terminus. Rick placed his hands on the latch ready to open it and turned his head back to me.

"Think they'll still be livin'?" He asked.

"I'll get 'em if they ain't." I said, readying my Stryker.

He unlatched the doors with a clanking and grinding. And flung them open and stood back with his weapon drawn.

We watched and waited for someone to come out.

The first people out were a man and woman, pale and dirty with a look of terror on their faces. They moved gingerly past our drawn weapons holding their arms in the air. They relaxed a little when the girls started giving them comforting words and pats on the back. Then more people came out. I counted thirteen in total. They all looked terrified and were trembling, standing with their backs to the nearby brick wall.

"We're not going to hurt you." Rick advised them. But they still looked terrified.

Then I heard a weak and familiar voice call out my name from within the darkness of the freight container. From out of the shadows stepped the slender, and short grey haired Carol followed closely by Tyreese's hulking frame. Carol flew straight into my arms, burying her head into my chest and sobbing. I pushed my bow to the side so I could return the embrace.

"You're alive!" She mumbled into my chest.

"You made it!" I said back.

Carol pulled away from me and looked to Rick.

"I'm sorry Rick, I had Judith, but they took her away. I don't know where she is." Carol told Rick while fat tears rolled down her cheeks.

"She's here." Said Beth stepping forward and presenting Judith to her.

"It was you?!" Rick exclaimed. "You brought her here?"

Carol looked to Tyreese and they both nodded.

Rick tugged Carol away from me and pulled her in for a firm hug, rocking her back and forth and chuckling to himself. Carol looked up at him and started chuckling too, and I could see that whatever rift there had been between them, had now been repaired.

We all came in and gave Carol and Tyreese a hug, or a kiss or a pat on the back. We were so grateful to have our group back together again, and nobody who was injured beyond repair. Rick went over to talk to the other survivors that had come from the container.

I had my eyes on Rick when I heard Beth say something that sounded so wrong in her sweet voice.

"Sonofabitch!"

I turned to see what she was talking about, and I saw her suddenly pounce on a male figure. She knocked him to the ground and started clawing at his face.

"Screw you!" She shrieked.

I looked down on the dark skinned hands covering the face protectively against her claws, and I knew immediately who it was.

"Mothafuck." I growled and then dragged him out from under Beth by his shirt. I held him up with his arms pinned behind his back while Beth threw punches and kicks into him. Her pretty face was red and covered in sweat and her pony tail swung around wildly. Anton kept slipping to the ground but I would drag him up so that she could keep laying into him.

Carol jumped in and made a grab for Beth's flying fists. "What are you doing?" She cried.

"He tried to…he did something terrible." Beth shrieked back.

"He's a good person. I talked with him ─in there─ he's really nice." Carol insisted.

"He's good at playing you false." Beth declared angrily.

"They're fucking crazy." Anton said after spitting out a mouth full of blood

"Shut the fuck up motherfucka." I said smacking him across the head before I started dragging him away from the others.

"Where are you taking him?" Carol asked.

"Puttin' 'im in with the others, they'll make good use of 'im."

Beth reached into her boot and pulled out a rusty steak knife, with the tip snapped off. She held it up in front of me. "Here, they might need this." She said pressing it into my palm.

She turned to Anton and gave him a sly grin which was surprisingly sexy. "This is for Claire." She murmured.

I grinned at the thought of the Termites sawing away at Anton's flesh for hours with that dulled, useless blade.

AN: Next chapter Daryl and Beth get a proper reunion.