He led her into the room across the hall, where she heard the distinct sounds of a heart monitor and a ventilator. A table full of large batteries sat against the wall, powering the equipment that was keeping the figure on the bed alive.
Dr. Edwards walked toward the patient, a young boy with brown curly hair. There were black circles under his eyes and his face had a sunken appearance.
"About four days ago Shepard and Licari found him curled up in the back of an old pharmacy. They said it must have been a while since he'd eaten because there were several pill bottles on the floor around him that were mostly empty. He probably thought they were vitamins. Shepard heard a faint heartbeat so she decided to bring him back here, but he still hasn't regained consciousness."
Beth saw the bruises and lacerations on the boy's face and arms, and wondered if his family was out there somewhere, worrying about him and hoping for his safety. He reminded her of Luke. It broke her heart to think of how terrified he must have been, being on his own.
The doctor reached over, shutting off the ventilator with a loud click.
Beth looked from the machine and then back to the doctor. "Why are you givin' up on him after only a few days? He's still alive!" She sat on the bed and held the boy's warm hand as the heart monitor start to beep erratically.
Dr. Edwards went on to explain. "Unfortunately, that's not how things work around here. Dawn makes the call when she feels we've invested too much in a patient." He moved behind her to retrieve something off a cart, just as the heart rate switched over to flat line.
Beth held his small hand against her cheek as a knife was plunged into his temple, wondering what kind of hospital this was if life didn't seem to hold any value with them.
"Come on. If you're going to be helping out here then you need to learn what comes next." The doctor began wheeling the gurney and corpse out that was now covered in a sheet.
Beth took the lead, holding on to the front end as they wheeled it down the corridor. Dawn was speaking with another officer in the hall and Edwards slowed to a stop to tell her something. All three stepped into her office to continue the conversation.
Beth continued on walking, pausing when she saw someone at the far end of the corridor mopping the floor. It was a young man, dressed in scrubs, as well. He noticed her watching and finished up, moving out of sight with his bucket.
She continued to stare ahead, not really seeing anything while her thoughts moved to Daryl, sitting next to him at the table, that last night in the kitchen at the funeral home. She'd been trying to tease an answer out of him about why he changed his mind about people being good. Beth remembered the way he suddenly turned all shy and quiet, though she didn't really understand why at first.
Back at the prison, and if she was being honest with herself, a handful of times since they'd been separated from the group, she'd bit back feelings for him. Just a silly crush, Beth thought, and she'd mentally chastised herself for being so stupid when it was pretty obvious to her that he never saw her that way.
But that night, the way he'd looked right into her, Beth swore she'd felt her heart stop for a second, finally realizing what he was trying to say.
Then the walkers came, and he was yelling at her to go out the window and wait for him by the road.
Her last memory of Daryl was seeing him run down the stairs to the basement, leading most of the walkers away from her.
God, if he didn't make it out, she'd never forgive herself for agreeing to leave that house without him. Tears started pooling in her eyes at the thought. She shook her head and clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sob that came out, and then watched as the door she'd been staring at, further up the corridor, suddenly slammed shut with a bang.
Beth jumped back against the nearest wall, startled. Edwards rolled the gurney up beside her a few moments later, looking at her carefully and noticing the tears in her eyes. "Are you alright? You look a little shook up."
She nodded weakly and pushed herself away from the wall. "Just not feelin' quite myself, yet. This is all pretty overwhelmin'."
The doctor nodded in understanding and looked around. "What was that noise out here?"
Then he noticed that one of the heavy metal doors about 30 feet away, always kept propped open, was now shut. As they got closer, he saw the black circular mark the triangle of wood underneath it had made on the floor, like it was still providing resistance, but the force pushing on the door had been stronger.
He adjusted his glasses, trying to make sense of it. "Huh. That's weird."
Dawn came up behind them, glancing at Beth. "Come on, body's getting cold," and passed her with a set of keys in hand.
They wheeled the stretcher down a different corridor, Dawn unlocking a set of doors and letting Edwards pass through with the body. "Beth, you stay here with me. He can do this on his own."
Beth watched through the small window in the door as Edwards continued on toward the elevator.
When he pulled up to the elevator shaft, she suddenly understood what their method of disposal was. Disgusted, she looked over at Dawn. "This isn't right. That boy deserves a proper burial."
The officer just kept watching through the window. "It doesn't matter what anyone deserves here. This is the safest way to do it so that's how it's done. My officers put their lives on the line going out on supply runs and bringing people here to be saved. I won't ask them to take more risks just to bury the bodies of people who weren't strong enough to make it. The elevator is the fastest way down to the basement. At least the rotters come in and clean some of the mess up."
Dawn turned to face her. "You may not like some of our methods here, but it's critical that we keep this place going, Beth. This may be the most important thing you ever do in your life, helping us rebuild society again, but you have to be willing to make sacrifices like everyone else here. "
Beth drew her attention away from the window, where she had been watching Edwards pull the sheet off and tuck it below, to look at the other woman. "What do you mean...sacrifices?"
Dawn hesitated and turned her gaze back to watching the doctor. "You'll learn as you go. We just need people who understand that the value of what we're doing is more important than any one individual."
Confused, Beth hooked her fingers on the bottom ledge of the small window and saw the doctor tip up the gurney. As the child slid out of sight, Beth closed her eyes and flinched at the sound the body made hitting the side of the shaft on the way down.
She needed to get out of here. There was something so very wrong about this place, and her gut told her it was only going to get worse.
Edwards rolled the stretcher through the doors next to her while Dawn locked the door behind him. He nodded at the stained sheets on the stretcher. "I'm going to clean this up, Beth. Why don't you head back to the wing where your room is? There's a pregnant woman two doors down from you who needs help with a bath.
"Meet me back in my office here when you're done." He pointed to a room they were passing by, and he and Dawn both went their separate ways, leaving her standing alone in the hallway.
She started walking slowly in the right direction, so distracted by her thoughts that she didn't hear the person who came up behind her.
"Well, if it isn't our little damsel in distress."
Beth whirled around to find a male officer with dark greasy hair smirking at her. He looked her up and down slowly as she stepped away from him.
"Now, now. Don't be shy." He moved closer, leaning in to put one hand on the wall to block her path, his face almost next to hers. He tilted his head, inhaling deeply through his nose, and Beth felt repulsed at the realization he was smelling her.
The clipboard he had tucked against his chest in his other arm was so close now she could feel the cold metal pressing against her shoulder. "We've already met, but maybe you don't remember. You were a bit preoccupied at the time." The officer chuckled like he'd just said something funny.
"I'm Gorman. Good thing we came upon you when we did, or you'd be dead by now. Which would be an awful shame with you bein' so pretty."
She cringed as he took a lock of her hair and rolled it between his fingers.
Beth pushed hard on his shoulder and stepped around him quickly, standing a few feet away, eyes wide with a mix of fear and anger. "Stay away from me."
"You got a little fight in ya'? That's good, I like that." Gorman chuckled to himself and tapped his pen on the back of the clipboard. "I think maybe when my shift is over I'll pay you a nice visit in your room so we can get more acquainted. Then you can thank me properly for savin' you."
Beth's skin was crawling at his suggestion but she glared right back at him, backing away a few more steps and then walking at a near jog in the other direction.
Gorman watched her disappear around the corner and snorted to himself, chewing the inside of his cheek in amusement until he looked down, feeling something wet on his fingers.
His pen had burst open, the black ink covering his hand and running down his arm like dark blood.
Beth was out of breath and still reeling from her encounter with Gorman. How could Dawn allow her officers to behave like that?
She started walking up the familiar corridor when a door next to her opened. Another male officer, this one taller but with similarly greased back hair, came out of the room. He finished buttoning his shirt as he moved past Beth, sneering at her before striding up the hall.
She looked in the room and saw another woman in scrubs. She had long brown hair and looked like she might be pregnant. Before Beth could ask her if she needed help with anything the woman glanced at her with a defeated expression and closed the door.
Beth stood outside, unsure of what to do, when she realized this couldn't be the room Edwards had referred to. It wasn't close enough to hers.
She continued up the hall, peering in each door, and finally came upon where she thought she might be needed. This woman was young, not much older than her, with brown curly hair. She was heavily pregnant, sitting silently in a chair and looking out the window.
Knocking softly on the door, she cleared her throat so as not to startle the woman. "Hi. My name's Beth. The doctor sent me here to help you get cleaned up."
The ward turned her head toward the door, and Beth couldn't help but notice she had a similar demeanor as the other pregnant lady she'd just seen. The woman didn't acknowledge her presence any further, but just moved her gaze back to the window.
Feeling a bit awkward, Beth walked in and pulled a chair nearby and sat down. Her hands found their way to her knees and she picked at the seam on her scrubs.
"What's your name?" She waited patiently for a response as the woman kept watching a pair of birds flying from branch to branch on a tree just outside.
The seconds ticked by until the woman swallowed and answered her question with a small sigh. "Joan. My name is Joan."
Beth smiled with a sense of relief that she was finally talking and gestured at the woman's belly. "You must be excited to be a mom. It was lucky that they found you, especially where there's a doctor here."
Joan barked out a hoarse laugh and looked at Beth. "I'd hardly call it luck seeing as how I wasn't pregnant when they brought me here."
She shook her head at Beth's puzzled expression and exhaled. "You're new here, so let me be the one to break the bad news. This place? This is a living nightmare. I thought surviving out there was rough, but that was all a picnic compared to here."
Joan shifted back in her chair in obvious discomfort, her hand moving to her swollen belly with a momentary grimace, and went on. "I've been here around 11 months, maybe a year, who knows? Two of the cops found me on the road, knocked me out and brought me back here. Dawn had just taken over. You met the bitch, yet?"
Beth nodded, dread growing in her stomach as Joan continued with her story. "Well, apparently Dawn's idea of rebuilding society includes repopulating the earth, and the asshole male cops are only too happy to comply. But to do that, she needs women. Women like you and me."
She watched as the color drained from Beth's face. "Yeah, that was probably the same look I had when I found out what the deal was here. I escaped once in the very beginning, but they found me and dragged me back. Dawn wasn't very happy with me," Joan smiled bitterly at the memory," so she gave me to Gorman to teach me, and anyone else who thought about escaping, a lesson. GAVE me to that piece of shit, like I'm not even human. Even after they found out he got me pregnant I still wasn't rid of him."
Joan looked physically ill talking about him, so Beth reached over and squeezed her hand. The other woman flinched at the contact first, and Beth tried to pull her hand back but Joan grasped it more firmly. "No, it's okay. Thank you. That's the first friendly gesture I've had since coming here."
With her other hand she wiped the tears falling down her cheeks. "The woman up the hall, Wendy, she's pregnant too. There was another, Susan, who gave birth last month. She and the baby both died. I'm glad. She'd just have to go through it all over again once they thought she was ready. And no kid should grow up in a hell hole like this." Joan rested her head back against the chair. "I hope I die, too."
Beth leaned closer, still holding on to the other woman's hand. "You shouldn't say that."
Joan shifted her head to look Beth in the eye. "Why? What would I be staying alive for? I won't be in any shape to get out of here even if I do survive, and I'm not going through this again. I just don't have it in me. I'm due any day now, so hopefully this will all be over soon."
She dried her eyes with the corner of her robe and held on to Beth's hand even tighter. "You're not like the other ones I've seen brought here. You're a tough one, aren't you?"
Beth shrugged a shoulder. "I'm stronger than they think I am."
"Damn right." Joan closed her eyes and nodded. Her hand went to her stomach again with a groan. "You just promise me something."
"Anythin'."
Joan opened her eyes to stare into Beth's. "On your way out, you kill as many of those sons o'bitches as you possibly can."
So, Gorman is still a monumental dick. Who woulda thunk it? Please please please, leave a comment on what you thought of the chapter. I'd love to know!