Beth quietly eased herself off the picnic table despite the adrenaline flooding her veins, and she and Daryl travelled in a low crouch over to the others. She kept an eye on the treeline for any signs of movement while he approached Rick.
Daryl shook the man's shoulder to wake him, holding a finger to his own lips to let Rick know he needed to listen. He spoke so softly that Beth almost couldn't hear it standing next to him.
"We got eyes on us, Rick. In the woods, "he held up two fingers, "two for sure, maybe more."
Any trace of the weariness lining Rick's face disappeared as he listened, his features hardening into the familiar controlled mask when danger presented itself. He rolled to his feet and spoke to Daryl and Beth in a whisper. "Wake everyone, but keep them calm and quiet."
He cocked the hammer on his Python. "We need to get in the vehicles as quickly as possible and get out of here."
The fire was down to embers now as the three of them woke the group one by one. Despite their silence there was an undercurrent of panic and nervous glances at the woods while everyone hurriedly grabbed their belongings and headed for the vehicles.
Michonne was the closest to the truck when she stopped and held an arm out to prevent Rick from passing her. She turned to him with wide eyes. "You smell that?"
The fumes hit them a split second before a ball of fire erupted underneath the truck. Flames and smoked billowed out, fed by the fuel still spilling from the bottom of the gas tank. The flash of light and heat made them all take a step back, the glow illuminating the shock on their faces.
"Everyone stay together!" Rick barked out the order and glanced over his shoulder. "And keep an eye behind us! Shoot at anything that moves."
Abraham and Rosita had just raised their weapons at the woods when a lit match was thrown through the darkness from the other side of the car. It landed beside it, igniting the gas spilt beneath the sedan's undercarriage, as well.
Both vehicles were ablaze now, flames licking up the sides. It was only luck that Daryl hadn't parked the car too close. There was just enough room for them to get through single file and out onto the road, but whether that was good fortune or a carefully designed ploy to take each of them down as they passed between the vehicles was yet to be seen.
Rick pressed the butt of his gun against his forehead, trying to decide on their best plan. He spoke in a low voice to the frightened people around him. "Alright. Keep your weapons up, we need to get out on the road."
Carl held a sleeping Judith in his arms, and Rick put a hand on his shoulder, looking him in the eye. "Stay close. I'll go first."
Rick walked between the burning vehicles, gun raised, and looked left and right before disappearing into the darkness on the other side. Carl darted through with Michonne directly behind him, her katana poised to strike at whatever threat might be waiting for them.
Daryl passed through next with his crossbow at the ready and Beth held her knife up, shielding her face from the intense heat coming off the truck as she hurried after him.
Seconds later they were all grouped together, their weapons aimed into the night around them.
Rick looked up the road. It was a long straight stretch, and he made a decision. "Alright, people. Now we run. If they're in the woods, they won't be able to travel as fast. We need to put as much distance between them and us as we can."
The group started jogging in the direction they would have driven in the morning, and Beth hoped they weren't being driven into a new trap. There was no way of knowing how many people they were dealing with, just that they were clearly hostile.
It was an unsettling feeling, running at night along a road in the middle of nowhere; expecting a gunshot or an ambush at any minute. Beth could feel her rage toward these people, whoever they were, simmering below the surface. They'd had to leave all of that baby food and the diapers behind, not to mention their water. She wanted to kill them for putting her family through this, but there was nothing she could do about it at the moment so she channeled the energy into running.
They hadn't gotten very far when Judith started to cry. It almost drowned out the sounds their boots made hitting the pavement, but they all heard Abraham's short whistle and slowed their pace to turn and see him bringing up the rear.
He was jogging backward, looking at the road behind them where the fire could still be seen in the distance.
Silhouetted against the flames was a man. He was walking toward them at a leisurely pace, an automatic weapon held in one hand. Abraham raised his own rifle to take the shot but Rick put his hand on the barrel and lowered it. "You're not gonna hit him from here, and we don't know who we're dealin' with yet. Could be people in the woods with guns trained on us as we speak. We can't start a gunfight where we're out in the open like this."
Abraham's eyes darted to the trees on either side of the road and he nodded. Rick holstered his Colt and took Judith from Carl, trying to soothe her. "We run as long as we can, and then figure out a plan come daylight."
It was one of the longest nights of their lives. They ran and ran for hours, stopping to walk only when Eugene got too out of breath and said he couldn't keep going. Beth felt worse for Noah. He was favoring his bad leg even more than usual, and wincing every time his foot hit the ground, but he didn't complain once.
The horizon finally started getting brighter, and with it, the temperature steadily went up. By the time the sun had risen above the treeline they were all dripping with sweat and breathing hard. The heat was taking its toll on them already.
Rick held up a hand, signalling them to come to a stop. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and nodded ahead at a small farm. "We check there for water. If we're lucky, there might be a vehicle in the barn."
They covered the distance slowly, until Tara spotted the old cast iron hand water pump mounted in the yard and pointed at it. "Look!"
The prospect of a cool drink spurred them on, and by the time they reached the driveway there seemed to be a race going on between a couple of them to see who could get there first. Eugene surprised everyone by sprinting ahead, and started furiously pumping the arm for his first mouthful of water, prompting Tara to yell at him not to break it.
A few minutes later everyone was thoroughly soaked and refreshed. Beth sat down on the grass, wringing out her ponytail after having doused her head, and looked around.
The house was a little one and a half story, and was dwarfed by an enormous barn at one end of the yard. She pushed herself up, even though her feet felt like lead, and walked over to the barn door where Rick and Daryl were banging their fists on the old wood, listening for walkers inside. Not hearing anything, they both grabbed a handle and pulled the doors open.
There was a lot of ancient looking farm equipment inside, but closest to the doors was parked a fairly new school bus with Davidson County School District written on the side.
Rick hung his head with relief, pinching the bridge of his nose and blowing out a long breath at their possible change in fortune.
Daryl was already walking around the bus, giving it a once over. "Both front tires are pretty low, but it's probably just from sittin' so long. There's gotta be an air compressor here somewhere."
Abraham and Rosita offered to look, so the others kept watch while Daryl and Beth went to check the house for keys.
Beth pulled open the screen door, and while Daryl pounded on the door frame she noticed a small window nearby that was open. The screen was torn apart and pushed out as though something had escaped from the house.
The snarling of a walker came from inside, and Daryl looked through the small window in the door. He sighed and shook his head, glancing back at Beth, and she knew whatever it was, it was bad.
He pushed in the door, knocking the walker backward, and Beth got her first look.
It was a little girl with long hair, maybe 9 years old, in a filthy blue dress. Her cheeks were sunken in, and she was so weak when she fell to the floor that she just lay there with her thin arms flailing, cloudy eyes staring up at them while her mouth gaped open in a hiss.
Daryl stood a few feet away from the child, half lifting his knife to put the walker out of its misery but hesitating.
Beth knew he was probably thinking of Sophia, and felt tears in her own eyes as she grabbed an afghan off the back of a nearby rocking chair and laid it over the girl, covering her head. She leaned down with her own knife and ended it so he wouldn't have to.
Daryl sheathed his knife and nodded at Beth as she passed him to take a look around.
Sunlight streamed in the windows of the small kitchen. The cabinet doors all hung open and food packaging littered the floor and counters. Every last bit of food was gone. Even the bag of flour was empty with a spoon left in it, and Beth glanced back at the body of the little girl, trying not to dwell on how hungry she must have been before she died.
There was a key rack on the far wall, and Daryl stepped over the trash to get to it.
While he rifled through them, Beth walked up to the fridge where magnets held several photos in place. The one that stood out was of a young girl with long auburn ringlets. She was holding a calico kitten in her arms and grinning up at the camera. Beth picked it off the door and read the neat handwriting on the back. 'Krissy 6 years old, with Buddy.'
Beth closed her eyes, willing herself to hold it together, and put it back on the fridge.
She was grateful when Daryl came forward with a key ring in his hand. "Got it."
They stepped out onto the back porch, Daryl about to call out that he found the key, when they saw that something was horribly wrong. Everyone in their group was standing together in the driveway with their hands in the air, and there were three men holding them all at gunpoint, one with the butt of his rifle placed directly against Maggie's temple.
The oldest of the three strangers pulled a cigar out of his mouth and looked up at them. It looked like all of the group's weapons had been tossed into a pile at his feet. He smiled as though he was greeting two long lost friends, revealing he was missing all but one of his front teeth. The man motioned at their family with his automatic. "Hello there. Why don't you two join us? We're just gettin' acquainted and it'd be a shame if you missed out on our little get together."
Beth had a hard time dragging her eyes away from her sister's face that was frozen in absolute terror, but she followed Daryl's stiff descent down the steps and looked at the other two men.
They were half the age of the one talking, maybe his sons, because they were all a carbon copy of one another. Dirty shoulder length hair and the same build, over 6 feet tall. They also shared the oldest one's vicious sneer for a smile. The two younger men looked ecstatic, like they'd just won the lottery, as Beth and Daryl joined their family.
"That's her! That's the one!" The man on the left cackled over to the one holding the gun on Maggie at the far end of their group. "I told ya she was pretty." He grinned at Beth. "Saw ya stripped down to almost nothin' at the lake. Hooo, I had me a good old time while I watched ya!" He made a pumping motion next to his crotch.
Daryl's face clouded with rage, but Beth barely noticed. She watched the man making the obscene gesture at her and a slow measured smile spread across her face as she imagined all the pain she could inflict on him from where she stood. For a brief second she didn't care if her family found out about her.
"Alright, boys, settle down. There's plenty here to go around." Their father hawked up some phlegm and spat it on the ground next to him.
Beth clenched her hands into fists, aware of the heat radiating from them and feeling reckless with the animosity she felt toward these strangers. She relished how the one's smile faltered at her pleased expression, but got distracted when the older man began to speak again.
"I'll repeat this 'cause you were a little late to our first introductions." He pointed a finger at the one on his left aiming at Maggie's head. "Anyone tries to pull any hero shit and her brains'll be fertilizin' the lawn. My boys don't fuck about when I tell them to do somethin'. Think you can handle the job, Dwight?"
Dwight spit out a stream of dark juice and held his finger steady on the trigger, pausing to run his eyes down Maggie's body. "Yeah. I got this."
"Knew I could count on ya, boy." The father nodded arrogantly, holding his rifle almost casually on the group with one arm as he picked something out of his gums with the other hand and flicked it off his finger. "So, this is where the party begins, and I think it's only polite to have everyone on the same page as far as the rules are concerned. My boy, Jeb, here," he jerked his head at his other son, "is the oldest. Means he gets first dibs, 'cause I'm a good father like that, and he'll pick the lucky lady he wants to start with. Me and Dwight will choose after him. Heck, if we both like the looks of ya, you might even get chosen two or three times. Might say we're doin' our part to repopulate the earth. We've always been socially conscious folks in our own right. After we're done, we might just let your men live, too. Might. Our decision on that will be swayed by how accommodatin' you lovely ladies are."
He scanned over their stony faces, and put the cigar back between his lips. "Any questions?"
Beth stepped forward impulsively and made eye contact with the one called Jeb, looking directly at him as she moved beyond the relative safety of their group and out into the open with her hands up.
"You ready?" Her own voice sounded foreign to her, but she let the words roll off her tongue casually, cocking her head up at him in a playful manner. Her family probably thought she'd lost her mind, but there was no way in hell she was letting any of these pigs get to the other women in their group first. Beth knew she could take this guy down. She'd just have to figure out what to do with the other two after she disposed of the first one.
Jeb regarded her warily with a laugh. "How come you're so eager, honey?"
Beth shrugged and dropped her knife to the ground when she saw him eyeing it. "It's been a while, if you know what I mean." She wouldn't let herself look back at Daryl. He was probably ready to jump out of his own skin at the thought of her being anywhere near this guy, but she couldn't see any other way.
"Alright." Jeb started unbuckling his belt with a huge grin.
Beth forced a laugh and walked past him, looking over her shoulder as she headed for the other side of the barn. "This lady would like a little privacy," she spun around and walked backward with a smile, pretending she was unbuckling her own belt, and then turned and strode across the yard with as much confidence as she could muster. Follow me, asshole.
So, I debated whether to have the threat of rape come up again in this story when Beth already dealt with it at Grady, and there have been rumblings in the fandom over the same trope rearing its ugly head even in the tv show. But, I think, if you imagine what living in a world without order would be like, it would no doubt be a horrible fact of life, for women especially. Look at how prevalent sex crimes are now even here in North America, with police just a phone call away, and all the daily horrors that people across the world have to deal with in countries ravaged by war or civil unrest.
On a lighter note, I like sticking in hints of little back stories here and there. Like Krissy, the little girl in the farmhouse. I just imagine her parents being killed somewhere during the turn, and her hanging on for as long as she could in the house, scared to death, with her cat...until one day dying of starvation and Buddy had to escape through a window because she came after him. Ok, so come to think about it, maybe that wasn't really "on a lighter note".
Once again, if you be so kind as to leave a comment it would be great!