I like easy prey.
But I don't mind the chase, either.
Given that the quickest could never escape me and the strongest could never fight me off.
I was told when I was younger to not play with my food so, trust me, I truly don't try to. I make it quick. Don't even give them much time to be afraid. I suppose it's the gentlest way I can go about it.
He made the mistake of coming over the mountain, hobbling along in his truck after an array of small, steel spikes along the snow covered Devil's Pass Road leave his two front tires flat.
He keels to a stop in front of the house. He jumps out, rubbing his hands in the cold, his large shoulders flexing under the leather of his heavy coat. He curses to himself over the predicament.
He comes onto the porch, I think he's looking for a a tire pump or something. They always come in trying to find one of those.
He sees me. I even give him a chance to pull his gun, aim, fire. The bullet buries itself into the thick knot of flesh and bone that composes my shoulder.
He doesn't live much longer after that.
They never do.
I am a little curious about humans, it's been so long since I've been one.
They always have stupid stuff in their pockets. Their backpacks. Their hands. The things they carry that they think have meaning. But all belongings become pointless once you're dead.
This guy has a bat with him. Wrapped in barbed wire. I suppose it's his weapon of choice. He's got a lighter in his front pocket, a pocket knife in the other. Keys on his belt loop.
I think about the truck parked in the front drive and I wonder what he has inside it. I wonder what made him go over the mountain, not around it. Especially in winter, during a snowstorm.
His lifeless eyes stare blankly, his jaw hanging ajar with in an unheard scream still hanging from his lips. The major blow to his head will be sure that my silly little questions will go unanswered.
Maybe he was just really dumb. Or he just simply hadn't heard the folklore of these woods. About how no one who goes in ever comes out. How this house stands alone, the only one of its kind. Just like me.
He tasted fine, though. You can tell a lot about how someone tastes. He was a pretty healthy guy. He must've been fed well. Despite the apocalyptic world around us and all. Good for him, I guess.
And I know it's messed up. Like, really messed up. But I like it when they die just a little bit scared. They taste better that way. Maybe it's the kick of adrenaline, the salt of sweat. I don't know. Like I said. I know. It's messed up. But at least I'm honest.
I know what you're thinking, but I can explain... Actually, I can't. I don't know why I am the way I am. Why I'm not like the other undead creatures that roam this earth. I haven't rotted or decayed. I'm still as fresh as the moment my heart stopped, although years have passed. I wish I could tell you. I wish I knew.
Sometimes I wish that when I died, I actually died. And stayed dead. Everyone else gets that luxury. That certainty. No round two. Over and done with. Dead as dead can be. But not me.
When I died and when I came back, I never really left. I stayed here. In my body. Soul and mind trapped. Capable of thought, of controlling my own movements. Left to be the keeper, the protector, of this cursed land on which I was buried and reanimated within.
The man's keys dangle from the blackened tips of my fingers. They glitter in the setting sun, chiming against one another as I approach the vehicle they belong to.
But upon viewing the truck, I make a startling realization. The man had not been traveling alone.
I bolt towards the rear door, flinging it open, prepared to launch myself inside. But then I see the occupant.
And I find that this victim is not mine.
The man: A kidnapper.
The boy, bound by rope at the ankles and wrists, blindfolded in the back seat: The kidnapped.
"Negan?" He asks. I can only stare at him, the door handle gripped in my hand. "Are we leaving?"
He's talking to me. Oh, my God. He can't see me. He doesn't know who he's speaking to.
"Please. You said you would take me back to my dad. Please. I just want to go home." His voice is attempting to be strong, but he sounds so tired, so drained. "...Negan-?"
"-He's gone."
The voice surprises me almost as much as it surprises him. It's the voice of a young girl, something I have not heard in years, and it left my mouth. The boy jolts back at this. "Who the hell are you?"
I wait for him to lift the blindfold, once he sees me, I know I'll have to attack. It almost feels like an unfair advantage, since he's still tied up. But looking at him closer, I see it's not a blindfold but a bloodied cotton bandage crossed over his eyes. Or, perhaps, his lack thereof. I see thick scarring along his right temple below the bandage, and the left... Dried blood runs along the edge of his nose, down the freckled surface of his rosy-from-the-cold cheek. I feel that curiosity again.
I don't say anything more. I'm almost afraid to speak again. Like breaking an oath.
"Negan?" The boy calls out again, getting antsy. "Negan?"
"He's gone." I repeat, unfortunately, I can't stop speaking. It's almost exhilarating. My voice, while rusty from underuse, does not fail me.
"You should go. He'll come back."
"He won't."
The boy swallows. "He's getting stuff to fix the tires."
I stare at him. He looks young. Maybe my age. Or the age I was, at least. His shoulders are pulled in on himself, face down casted, his dark curls of hair fall forward.
"He was supposed to take me back to my dad."
It's then that it hits me that I'm actually talking to someone. A human. With needs and fears and family. I have not spoken to anyone at all since my own father.
"Where did he go?"
Do I tell him? The whole situation is so peculiar, I don't know what to think of it. "I think something ate him." It's not a lie.
"Shit!" The boy says in response to this. "Sorry, but shit. Seriously? Where am I? Who are you?"
"Take your blindfold off." I test.
"It's not a blindfold." He confirms my thoughts.
There's something wrong with his eyes.
And then he starts shuffling around, trying to undo his bindings. I watch him for a while, thinking maybe he'll forget I'm here as I'm fond of simply observing. But eventually he turns his face to where I'm standing.
"Are you still there?" I don't answer but he's not stupid. "Can you help me out of these?"
I think about it a moment, remaining still, weighing the options of leaving him here or letting him loose to find his own way back. I don't think of myself as an entirely ethical being but there must be some residue of morals left somewhere within my conscious to leave this boy unharmed for the time being.
I reach towards him, almost without meaning to, and find purchase on the rough surface of the rope. Whilst unraveling him from his binds, my fingers brush his skin only once or twice, but his flesh is warm against mine.
Unsteadily, he makes his move off the high bench seat of the truck, feeling his way down.
"Where am I?" He keeps one hand on the truck, his boots crunching into the snow.
"Devil's Pass."
His face remains blank, showing no sign of recognition. "Well, that's not totally creepy." He says.
"In the Roanoke mountains."
He lightens a bit. "Oh, like the town?"
"Yeah, you had to have driven through it to get here."
"I think Negan said something about that. Something about a short cut, too." Ah, so the guy was dumb. "Do you know how to get to Alexandria?"
I don't say anything. I don't know what Alexandria is.
"My family is there."
I'm not sure what to say.
But then he turns his face skyward. "It's snowing." And he's right. Small icy crystals just starting to fall in a dizzying spiral around us. They hit his shoulders and melt into the flannel of his shirt. I notice then that he's shivering. I had forgotten what it felt like to be cold. His breath comes out from between his lips in puffs of white air.
So, I do something I've never done.
I take him inside.
He's the first living person to cross the threshold since the night I died.
Author's Note:
Basically, Devil's Pass was the equivalent of the Blair Witch woods, leaving her to become a conscious and morally obligated walker that Carl can't see because he was completely blinded by Negan while being held at the Savior Compoud (AU where Negan never returned him for Alexandria). That's it, that's the story. She and Carl end up going on the road trip from Hell.
