Take Me as I Am
Chapter 3
[Hell on Earth]

Beth's head felt like dead weight on her shoulders. She couldn't remember what happened last night, or where she's at. All she could think about was looking into Daryl's depthless blue eyes and his shaggy beard. A monotone humming in the background and the jerking of her resting place alerted her that she was no longer on the ground. She was in some sort of vehicle—bound by her hands.

Her eyes shot open—oh shit. Panic began to set in.

She remembered last night as clear as day now that her mind wasn't muddled by whatever the hell that man covered over her nose and mouth.

She remembered running down the trail and towards the road, just as Daryl instructed her. There was only one walker that followed her out of the funeral home, but she didn't bother to look behind her a second time. A car, it was too dark to notice the color, pulled up beside her… and a man in black with a Roman collar stepped out, a beaded cross tossing roughly around his neck.

"Get in! Before they catch up, hurry!" said the middle aged man.

Beth thought she could trust a man of faith. She bobbed her head in a nod and shouted, "My friend, he's right behind me! I can't leave him behind!" She hobbled to his car, trying to keep her sack from slipping over her shoulders.

"Alright, he has to be quick!" she heard him say frantically before he duck into his car to what she thought was he grabbing a few weapons.

She turned around, her back facing him to search the path she was just on to look for Daryl. It turned out that she couldn't trust anyone, even a man in the garbs of a priest. A cloth with some sort of scent covered her mouth and nose, and the next thing she knew; she was fighting a losing battle against the man. The few seconds of struggle felt like hours, but she fought like a wildcat—scratching his face with her nails. But just like that, her eyes rolled to the back of her head and lost consciousness.

And here she was now, bound and thankfully not gagged but she had some sort of tape covering her mouth. She peered over her shoulder—it seems like she was on the floor of the vehicle, behind the passenger's side. Her body ached all over, her ankle throbbed sorely, making her wish Daryl was here massaging the pain away. Despite the pain, she craned her neck forward, titled her head a bit to the right to catch a glimpse of her captor.

He was indeed, the priest who 'helped' her last night. From the floor of the vehicle, she noticed a railroad crossing side fly by the backseat windows amongst the blur of green. Beth Greene was not a dunce by any means, and if Daryl had taught her anything right—it was tracking direction. The way that the car was jerking, she knew it had to be on the tracks. From the position of the sun, she judged it to be around noon, midday.

Her breath hitched in her throat—midday. If her captor had been driving since kidnapping her, they could be hundreds of miles away by now. Even if she managed to escape, would she even be able to find him… better yet… was Daryl even looking for her? Bile bubbled from her stomach to her throat at the thought of being abandoned by him. Dare she even try to hope he's coming after her?

She had to hold back a scoff, why would he? She had nothing to offer him; in fact, she was more of a nuisance than of help to him.

"Damn it!" she heard her captor screech before the car jerked to side, running over some large bump and sliding down what sounded like a gravel or rock hill. Beth could only assume that they slide off the train tracks, at her level she was still unable to see below the treetops.

"God damnit! Stokes, watch the damn road why don't you?" a voice shrieked within the car.

That's new. Beth strained to see who the female in the passenger seat was, but she failed to see anything but a mass of dirty, long curly blond hair.

"I've been driving all night, lady. Cut me some damn slack!" she heard him say. Father Stokes, if she should even give him the holy honorifics, proceeded to open his driver's side door to inspect the damage. The other passenger proceeded to get out of the vehicle, presumably to irritate him more.

"If you don't want to drive, I can. Lord knows I'm the better driver here. Don't know why they even handed you the keys in the first place," the lady sneered, her disapproval apparent in her voice. "And besides, you didn't drive all night. You had to pull into that damn abandoned barn to take a fucking nap!" Adding fuel to her fire, Father Stokes argued back, vehemently.

Ah ha, so they hadn't been driving through the night. There was a good chance that she was close enough to track Daryl if she managed to escape. Beth wished she could cover her ears from their use of their Holy Father's name in vain as their argument escalated. But this was a new world, shrinking away from such minor unpleasantries was no longer acceptable.

At least, not if she wanted to survive.

She immediately began working loose her rope bonds. Her mouth tasted sour when she noticed the old, dried blood stains in the ivory colored woven rope. She wasn't their first victim.

She certainly will not let herself become one of them either. It felt like hours but she almost had the bond loosened to where she could slip a hand out until the driver's and passenger's doors opened and her two captors slipped into their seats. This time, the female was driving.

Beth took a long look at the older woman. She had to be in her late thirties to forties judging by the start of wrinkles on her face. She could be mistaken though; living in a zombie covered world doesn't exactly preserve age or beauty. She jumped in surprise when her female captor started the car sharply, and peeled the car back onto the tracks.

It had only been a most a minute or two before Beth noticed they were heading into a tunnel as the darkness engulfed the daylight. Panic began to set in anew. What were they thinking? Going into a dark tunnel when walkers were still lurking about? One could hardly tell the difference between night and day within the tunnel. In fact, it seemed even darker within this tunnel than it would be in a night sky with no moon or stars.

Her breath quickened, her pounding pulse deafened her ears as the instinct to defend and run began to settle in. She made fast work of her bonds, roughly yanking her hands from the loosen bonds, not caring that the top layers of her skin had been sheared off by the action. She groped around the floor in the darkness, hoping to find a weapon of sorts. The search almost felt fruitless until her fingers graced the cold metal of a familiar knife. In the darkness, she could make out the pattern of the stag handles of her hunting knife. She quickly did a limb check, rotating her ankles and hands as if to warm them up for a fight.

Just about when she steadied herself to attack, in the headlights beyond the windshield, a horde of walkers awoken to the stimulus of potential food. She swore she could see some of them smile at the thought of food just driving towards them. Before she had a chance to react, her female captor shrieked, jerking the steering wheel to turn right. The metal of the car groaned and squealed as it collided with solid concrete.

The next few seconds were a blur to Beth. She fell backwards, her back slammed against the backseat, her knife flying out of her hands. She heard Father Stokes whimper frightfully and her lady captor screaming for him to help her as a few walkers shattered the driver's side window.

Beth remained stunned in the backseat as she witnessed the horrific scene around her. The blond hair lady clumsily slammed her hand against the car's horn in attempts to escape the grasps of the walkers. In a desperate attempt, she unlocked the driver's side door and shoved it open, running into awaiting walkers with their mouths salivating at the sight of food. The lady screamed a bloodcurdling scream as one of the walkers lunged at her, grabbing her by her hair and sinking its contaminated teeth into the flesh of her shoulders. Just like ants, the walkers began swarming over the shrieking woman, tearing her flesh by the mouthful.

Their groans almost sounded satisfied as she watched them chew on bloodied flesh, the light of the undamaged headlight of the car provided at least that much clarity. She didn't want to die, not here… not now. Immediately, she sprang into action, driven by the rush of pure adrenaline. She thanked the Lord that the door without the walkers, the side facing the concrete wall was undamaged, and she was able slip out of the vehicle.

The walkers were too preoccupied with the body on the ground, to notice the silent click when she opened her door. She knew she didn't have too much time left. If she ran towards the direction where she came from, at least she'll have some light. And scanning from where she crouched now, she saw the dim light at the end of the tunnel. It was far, but she can make it. She won't fail—she refused to allow herself to. She owed it that much to her daddy. She rummaged through the car quickly to locate her dropped knife. It didn't take long to find it settled on the backseat of the car.

Just when she was about to make a mad dash towards the light, the passenger's side door behind her opened, and it clattered loudly against the concrete wall. Walkers looked up at the sound, their heads turning towards them. Father Stokes, oblivious to the walkers starting to creep towards the car, he sank onto his knees. "Take me with you, save me, please!"

Beth squinted in the dimness of the tunnel and noticed that his leg was at an odd angle. Her lips trembled—it was broken. How could she save him when she has an injured ankle herself? Beth backed away slowly, scared and confused. Her heart ached for him, despite what he had done to her. But he was alive… he was human.

"Please, please don't leave me… For the love of God, please don't leave me… " he sobbed, crawling to her on his knees and hands.

Her instincts screamed for her legs to run. But she couldn't leave him here knowing that walkers will be his fate. He was a man of faith… she couldn't turn her back on him. Shaking with adrenaline, she reached down and yanked him onto his feet with as much energy as she could muster and hauled his left arm over her shoulder, gripping her knife in the hand not supporting Father Stokes. "Be quick about it!" she hissed as she took a step forward, and he followed.

Most of the walkers, a minimum count of ten were done consuming the body of the blond hair lady. They heard the grunting of Father Stokes as he tried to hop forward, following Beth's every move. It didn't matter that they had a head start. The fact that they both have injured limbs didn't help either one of them one bit.

"Hurry, hurry up!" She shouted her voice cracked, scared and frantic.

With every step they took, the walkers took two.

As the two hurried their pace, the walkers followed, even faster.

It didn't take long until the walkers were only an arm's length behind them. The thought of being devoured by walkers didn't bode well for the both of them, eliciting a surge of energy for them to hobble faster towards the lighted end of the tunnel. It gave her hope, for the briefest of seconds that they were going to make it.

Until he tripped, taking her with him.

While he fell directly onto the ground in front of him, Beth was shoved into the side of the tunnel, slamming her shoulder against the concrete walls. It happened so suddenly, the walkers were suddenly upon them, clawing at them with ice cold hands, snapping their jaws of death at their faces. Father Stokes began screaming as the walkers began to sink their rotting teeth into his flesh. The sound of flesh and skin and clothes ripping roared thunderously in her ears.

No, she didn't want to die. She can't. She never did get to say goodbye to Daryl, her only connection to her missing and deceased family.

The walkers swarmed in around Father Stokes's screaming form, attracted by his scent of blood and shrieks of pain, "Help me! Help me!"

Beth wrestled with the flimsy, thin walker on top of her. One of her hands gripped at the walker's neck while the other searched for her fallen knife on the gravel floor. The sheer friction caused the gravel to pierce her skin, drawing blood into the air. As more and more walkers emerged from beyond the shadows, Beth prayed with all her soul.

God, just light me a path… I can't die now, I can't!

Momentary relief washed over her when her hand came across the handle of her knife, just as she had earlier. The great Lord up in the sky was definitely watching over her. Quickly, she clutched her knife tightly in her hand and plunged the knife into the walker's head. The decaying corpse went limp in her arms, and she kicked it to the side.

Not wasting a precious second, she scrambled onto her feet and started to make a mad dash towards the end of the tunnel. She only took but two steps before she heard Father Stokes's eerie voice. "Help… me…" he gasped as his innards where being slew about the walkers.

Beth turned briefly, teary eyed she shook her head. There was nothing she could do for him… she couldn't save him. 'I'm sorry,' she mouthed, her voice failed her.

"God have… places… for people … who … turn against… his … people," he rasped, before the life in his eyes gave away and his body stilled. She turned away, shaken by the death of her captor and started to run towards the end again.

She knew the walkers were on her tail, some of them already had had enough of the fallen priest's body. With their appetites insatiable, they wanted more. They wanted her.

Her eyes blurred as tears began falling down her stained cheeks. She turned her back against a man of faith; she turned her back against a human. Her sobs racked through her body, unable to control her emotions, slowing her down. She despised the state of their world now. It was quite literally Hell on earth. Stricken with grief and incoordination, she slipped on one of the board planks of the railroad tracks.

This was it.

She knew the walkers were only a few steps away from her, with an injured ankle, she hardly gotten very far. Her energy spent, she laid there, numb. She didn't dare turn around to face her death in their eyes. A part of her just wished they would eat her brains first like how some old seventies horror movies were. At least then, she wouldn't have to endure the pain of being torn limb by limb.

She could feel the walkers' just inches away; she could imagine them starting to drop on their knees to devour her flesh. She could almost feel their teeth sinking into her skin.

But the pain of their jaws never came.

Instead, gunshots echoed in the tunnel, flying past her head. Something heavy dropped on top of her, a walker. She screamed, quickly scrambling away from the heavy corpse.

Beth looked up to find people, humans rushing past her to dispose of the few zombies closest to her. But the horde was too great, more and more began to gush out of the darkness of the tunnel. She sat there, numb and uncertain of what to do next. Even if she did, her energy was nonexistent.

"Beth! Beth!"

She didn't know if she was imaging him or not, but she saw Daryl crouching in front of her, with a worried but relieved look on his face. His lips were moving but she couldn't make out what he was saying.

"Damnit Beth, come to your fucking senses!" Daryl grasped her shoulders and shook her, hard.

Her head lolled about, but her eyes were still dazed but focused on him. "Daryl? Am I dreaming?"

"Why the fuck would I be in your dreams, girl? Get on my back, now!" He quickly spun on his heels and bared his back to her. "Damn it Beth, get on! I ain't leaving you here to be chewed on by these dead bastards!" He reached behind him quickly and slapped her across her face.

Beth's head snapped to her side, her gaze no longer distant. Her eyes saw Daryl's broad shoulders and back and jumped on, wrapping her legs around his lean waist. She heard some commands from a male in the background, but she couldn't make out what he said.

The gunfire ceased and grunting of the undead began to dwindle before it vanished completely. The tunnel grew brighter and brighter as she was being jostled on Daryl's back as he ran for safety. The sudden glare of sunlight onto her skin burned her, and blinded her vision. She clenched her eyes shut and buried her face as deep into his hair as she could.

All her emotions, her doubts, her concerns vanished for the time being. All she could focus on was the warmth and scent of earth and sweat emanating from her savior. After all, he searched for her. She knew without a doubt, he was here to save her.

He was her hero; her knight in shining armor, through and through.

/

JR- He saves her! Yay! But the danger's not over yet folks, there's always a price to pay for helping someone out.

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