Chapter 4
Although she would never admit it, Daryl had been right in predicting that she'd downplay her injury for the sake of not slowing them down. They were practically jogging the entire way back in a futile attempt to reach camp before Merle could cause too much trouble, but Marianne wasn't holding her breath. In fact, she was having a hard time finding it. The ache in her head had spread to the rest of her tired body. She felt dizzy and whatever effect the aspirin had on her had surely worn off. Sweat trickled down her forehead and she wiped it away before it reached her eyes. A cold glass of water sounded real nice.
"We're almost there," Rick said.
"Maybe by the time Merle got back he'd lost too much blood to do any damage," Glenn said hopefully.
"Wouldn't count on it." Marianne stumbled.
"You alright?" T-Dog asked.
"I'm fine."
"Looks like you're about to keel over." Daryl eyed the nasty bruise on her face.
"I said I'm fine," she snapped, instantly regretting the tone of her voice.
Before anyone had a chance to speak again, they heard screaming and gunshots. Their worst nightmare had come to life
That last desperate sprint to camp nearly killed her and bursting on to a scene of horror didn't help but she quickly got her bearings and started shooting, hoping to save more than one life tonight but by the looks of it, they'd be lucky to save anyone.
When the shooting stopped and the last walker had fallen everyone was in shock, most of them still in a fighting stance looking warily around the devastated camp. Glenn was close to hyperventilating and the children whimpered. Carl clung to his dad. She watched Amy die.
She had lied. She wasn't fine.
Marianne fell to her knees, nausea overtaking her making her lean forward on her hands. A cold wave rippled through her body and she let her head hang down, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to make her body obey her command to stay in control. Her head pounded more than ever, each throb punctuated by Andrea's cries. She heard Daryl calling her name but couldn't bring herself to look up.
"I should've killed the son of a bitch that did this."
"What happened to her?"
"Is she bit?"
"No, she's not bit," he spat out. "Took a hit in the head from a metal bat."
A man kept asking her questions she didn't answer and she finally heard Daryl yell "Back off!"
A woman was kneeling in front of her telling her everything was going to be okay. She hated when people said that. This person had no clue if she was going to be alright.
Eventually, her brother scooped her up and carried her to her tent. Marianne hadn't passed out but she was too damned tired to move and her eyelids were too heavy to open. They might as well have been cemented shut. She was having a hard time caring about anything but sleep and not dying.
The night was a rough one. When she had cracked her eyes open it was still dark and Daryl was determined to keep her awake, not letting her doze off for more than an hour at a time and he kept forcing her to drink water. She felt bad for him. Marianne knew he was feeling guilty for not protecting her, a responsibility she had absolved him of years ago.
When morning arrived she was in only a little better off shape than the camp was. Daryl ordered her to sit down if she wasn't going to stay in her tent. She watched as her brother went around the fallen, putting a pickaxe in their heads so they stayed that way. Beside the RV, Andrea still held vigil over Amy's body.
Her head continued to hurt but she was itching to help, to do something besides sit around being useless. She didn't like being useless.
Glenn and T-Dog hauled bodies into two separate piles which she stared at and quickly realized the theme for each, one for the walker strangers and one for their own dead. Soon they set fire to the pile of dead walkers. Even though she had managed not to pass out last night, the smell of rotting burnt flesh might do her in soon.
Lori made her way towards her. She wasn't the first to stop and talk to her. Marianne and Jacqui had talked more that morning than they ever had before. T-Dog, Glenn, Rick, Miranda, Carol, Dale and even Shane exchanged more than a few words with Marianne. It was unnerving and Daryl kept staring down everyone that came near her. Apparently being injured made her more approachable.
"How're you feeling?"
"About as good as I look," Marianne answered for the seventh or eighth time. She'd lost count.
"I wanted to ask if you wanted something to eat. I didn't see you have breakfast."
"I'm not hungry." Lori gave her a look. "No, really. I'm not."
"I'll bring you a little something over, maybe for later." Lori had a this-case-is-closed mom voice so Marianne knew there was no arguing with the woman.
"If that's what makes you happy."
Lori walked away and Glenn caught Marianne's attention.
"We don't burn them!" He yelled at Daryl and Morales, a dead camper at their feet, whose name she hadn't bothered to remember. "We bury them. Understand? Our people go in that row over there."
Daryl and Morales complied and dragged the dead man over to the other deceased campers.
"You reap what you sow!" Her brother shouted. Marianne winced.
"You know what? Shut up, man," Morales said.
"Y'all left my brother for dead. You had this coming." She watched Daryl storm off and even though she knew it didn't make any sense, a tiny part of her agreed with him.
Marianne was about to go after Daryl when Jacqui announced to the camp, "A walker bit Jim." Everyone looked at the man and began circling him. The losses of last night were still coming.
Jim started to put up a fight like an animal trapped in a corner, picking up a shovel to defend himself, but T-Dog came up from behind him and easily disarmed him. Daryl lifted Jim's shirt to reveal the bite on his stomach. The sight was a death sentence.
"I'm okay." The dead man walking repeated over and over.
While Jim was led to sit down at the end of the RV the group convened into a circle, Marianne included standing between Daryl and T-Dog, and they debated what to do with Jim. Daryl suggested they put a pickaxe in his head.
"I hate to say it. I never thought I would, but maybe Daryl's right," Dale said.
"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog." Anger was creeping into Rick's voice.
"I'm not suggesting—"
"He's sick. A sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line?"
"The line's pretty clear. Zero tolerance for walkers or them to be," Daryl declared.
"What if we can get him help? I heard the CDC was working on a cure," Rick said.
Shane disagreed and the two friends argued. Shane advocated going to the army base, Fort Benning. Marianne was dubious about this plan to go 100 miles out of their way for something that might not be there with resources they didn't have.
Daryl kept looking behind him at Jim.
"You go looking for aspirin. Do what you need to do."
"Daryl, don't." Marianne put a hand on his arm but he pulled away. Weapons and Daryl's temper never mixed well.
"Someone needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!"
In a flash, Rick had a gun pointed at her brother's head. Again. Marianne really needed to sit down or have a drink, or maybe both.
"We don't kill the living."
"That's funny coming from a man who just put a gun to my head."
Shane positioned himself between Daryl and Jim. "We may disagree on some things, not on this. You put it down. Go on."
Daryl slammed the pickaxe on the ground. Marianne grabbed it and followed him.
"You shouldn't be walkin' around."
"You shouldn't be swingin' pickaxes at peoples' heads."
"I don't need a lecture."
"I'm not. Just some sisterly advice." Daryl stopped walking and took the pickaxe from Marianne. "These people don't get it. Not yet. They're too soft for you and you're too rough for them. You've had to be. Hell, we both have. Let them do it their way as long as it don't get us both killed. They'll learn soon enough."
"You sure that wasn't a lecture 'cause I nearly fell asleep."
"Shut up, you big jerk. I'm tryin' to be helpful."
"Be a help and sit back down before I make ya."
They buried their dead and it was finally decided that the group was going to the CDC in the morning. The Dixons settled around their camp fire for the night. With so many people gone, the place felt like a ghost town. Thinking about last night, Marianne was grateful she and Daryl were alive. She had convinced herself that they'd be the ones that would survive for years to come but she also knew that if nothing was certain in the world before the dead started rising, than it was undoubtedly that way now. All they could do was try to stay alive.
"Are we goin' with them?" Daryl asked Marianne, interrupting her thoughts. "Your choice."
"We've got nothin' better to do. Why not go for the ride? It's not like it's safe here. Never was." She shrugged. She wouldn't say it out loud but she felt a little better being with other people.
"It ain't safe anywhere no more."
"You're supposed to be makin' me feel better."
"Oh really? I thought brothers were supposed'ta torment their sisters."
"We got enough torment from other people."
"Can't argue with that."
They both stared into the fire, remembering things best left in the past.
The next day came swiftly. The camp was packed up. It was a fight but Marianne got Daryl to back off and let her take down her own tent. Although it was morbid and a few people argued against it, the dead campers' belongings were redistributed among the group. They left behind what they didn't need or couldn't justify taking up space in their vehicles.
Shane was giving the group instructions when Morales and his family told them they were going to try for Birmingham and then they said their goodbyes. Personally, Marianne thought their quest was futile. It was beyond a miracle that Rick had found his family again and who was to say their people were still alive? The odds were against them. When driving out of camp, the family turned right and everybody else turned left.
Marianne had been drifting off to sleep when Daryl stopped the truck. "What's going on?"
"RV must've stalled," Daryl said.
"Dale wouldn't shut up about the radiator hose the other day. I bet that's what this is."
"Let's go find out."
The siblings left the truck and joined the others at the front of the RV.
"I told you we'd never get far on that hose," Dale said to Rick. "I needed the one from the cube van."
"Can you jerry-rig it?" Rick asked.
"That's all it's been so far. It's more duct tape than hose. And I'm out of duct tape."
Shane had binoculars out and spotted something up the road, hopefully a gas station. And hopefully that gas station had a radiator hose.
Jacqui came hurrying out of the RV. Jim was getting worse. Marianne didn't think he was long for this world. He wouldn't make it to the CDC. Rick entered the RV while Shane and T-Dog drove off in search for a hose.
Along with a few other people, she watched the tree line looking for walkers before they could sneak up on them. She was feeling better even though being hot and sweaty made her head hurt a little more than it had in the early morning. According to Daryl, the swelling was completely gone.
Rick waited for Shane and T-Dog to come back with the much needed radiator hose and some duct tape, just in case, before rounding everybody up for another talk about Jim. They had to decide if they'd leave him behind like he had asked and after a quick debate they decided to respect Jim's wish. Rick and Shane helped him out of the RV as carefully as they could and half carried the man to a tree a little ways up off the road.
As goodbyes were said, Marianne hung towards the back of the group. Daryl gave him a nod and Marianne mirrored him. There was nothing left to say. The group was silent as they got into their vehicles and drove away. Marianne didn't look back.
The sun was going down as they arrived at the CDC but there was still plenty of light left in the day to see them, the hundreds of dead bodies that littered the ground. Even if they hadn't have seen them, the overwhelming smell of decay would've alerted the group to their presence. The mood was still somber from leaving Jim behind and all of this death at their hoped for sanctuary wasn't exactly raising their spirits.
They cautiously weaved their way through the dead bodies, of soldiers and civilians alike, towards the CDC entrance. Marianne wasn't breathing through her nose but, the smell was so strong, it barely helped. Everyone was coughing. Marianne spotted a child sprawled on the ground, boy or girl she couldn't tell, and quickly looked away.
They reached the entrance but heavy duty metal shutters were covering the doors and windows. Shane banged on one of them.
"There's nobody here," T-Dog said.
"Then why are these shutters down?" Rick asked, dogged in his belief that they would find a safe haven there.
Marianne and Daryl spotted the walkers at the same time and alerted the group. Carl and Sophia started to cry, their mothers drawing them close. Daryl shot the nearest one with his crossbow.
"You led us to a graveyard!" Daryl yelled at Rick.
"He made a call," Shane said.
"It was the wrong damn call!"
People started to panic. Marianne kept an eye on the incoming walkers. Night was fast approaching and the dark was descending on them. She'd never seen the sun set so fast. Shane suggested Fort Benning again but the idea wasn't well received.
Glenn, T-Dog, Daryl and Marianne pointed their rifles at the walkers, but she felt helpless knowing that gunfire would draw even more of them in. They started to head back to the vehicles when Rick stopped them, saying the camera moved.
"You imagined it," Dale said.
"It moved." Rick walked closer to the camera.
"Rick, it is dead, man. It's an automated device. It's gears, okay? They're just winding down. Now come on," Shane said. Rick refused and the two started fighting. This was not the time or the place for this.
The walkers were slowly but surely getting closer. Rick started banging on the shutters and screaming at the camera. People were yelling at him, trying to get through to him to make him see sense. Marianne wouldn't let herself die today.
Lori ran up to Rick and tried to push him away from the building. It didn't work so Shane grabbed Rick, who was still yelling, and dragged him away.
"You're killing us!"
All of a sudden the shutters clanked open and everybody turned around, stunned. The walkers were momentarily forgotten. A bright, white light washed over them and blinded them to what was inside. It made Marianne uneasy. Isn't this what the entrance to heaven was supposed to look like? They were trying to walk away from the light, not towards it, but death was creeping up behind them and Marianne knew the only good option was to enter the building.
A/N: I know not a lot happened in this chapter but I hope you like the interaction between Marianne and Daryl. Any feedback on that would be great. Next chapter is the CDC and after that is the start of Season 2.