AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I posted a chapter yesterday. If you missed it, please do go back and read it!

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

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With a ladder and his other new possessions, Daryl was able to make at least a small dent in his to-do list around the house. The large painting went to the attic. Daryl covered it over with some dusty old sheets he'd found to protect the painting. He didn't want to destroy it, but he couldn't spend his days looking at the haunting eyes of the woman. If he did, he might never get any sleep without conjuring up some image of her out of thin air.

As silly as he felt, he explained that to her while he tucked the picture away—like a picture could take something personally. He also walked around the finished attic checking every nook and cranny like he might find her there—just sitting up on some old, dusty trunk that had been sitting there for over a century.

Thea attic was empty. The house was empty. Daryl was alone in the dusty, enormous house except for the spiders.

And there were a shit ton of spiders.

As Daryl tore down century old cobwebs, ripping through the sticky, thick fibers and smashing the descendants of the original builders that dared to dart out into his line of sight, he thought that, if the house was built with even half the integrity of some of those cobwebs, it would stand long after his sorry ass was dead and gone.

With the heaviest webs down, Daryl started going around the house with a bucket, and he began washing walls and windows without bothering to do too much distinguishing between the two. Everything was filthy, and everything needed to be cleaned.

Daryl liked the windows being cleaned before anything else because that started to let the light into the house. He opened the window and let in the breeze and the fresh air. The downside to the sunlight was that it made the dust and other such things more visible, but Daryl reminded himself that he'd get to it—he'd get everything clean.

From the secondhand shop where Hershel's wife worked, Daryl had brought a coffee pot, a secondhand vacuum cleaner, some plates, pans, and silverware, and a few other odds and ends that Jo Greene had insisted he have—including a potted plant that she'd assured him would require only minimal care. He'd taken the potted plant as a welcome present because he hadn't known how to refuse the old woman.

He'd also picked up a few more groceries at the store, including beer and coffee for his fancy new-to-him coffee maker.

Daryl started coffee in his new coffee pot, made a quick sandwich with the fixings he had, and washed the sandwich down with two beers before he plugged in his vacuum and started the work of sucking away some of the dust and dirt from the hardwood floors and the heavy rugs. He finished only one room—a room that could still use some mopping and a lot more dusting—before he was just about worn out. He gave himself a break with a cup of coffee, a honeybun, and a cigarette, and he settled down in one of the more comfortable chairs with his phone.

Jo Greene had given Daryl the information that he'd asked for about Lenora Hoffstedder. At least, she'd given him everything she knew about the woman. She was a complete nut, from what both Greenes had said. She lived in a singlewide out on the highway, and she picked up vacation traffic, especially during the summer. She sold any kind of hokey thing that she could, and apparently made at least a decent enough living off of it to keep doing it.

Aside from that, she was very interested in old things—relics and antiques—and she loved old books, especially about the spooky kinds of things that she might sell to her customers. She frequented Jo's shop to see what treasures people brought in, but Jo said she rarely bought too much.

Jo had given Daryl the woman's name and she'd shown him a card that she'd pinned up on the corkboard by the door where people could advertise for things and leave messages about lost pets.

Daryl had snapped a picture of Madame Lenora's business card, unsure of what he'd planned to do with it.

Now, as he sat buzzing slightly on two beers and sipping on the coffee he'd made—coffee that tasted as dusty as his house seemed, making him think the dust had coated the inside of his mouth and throat—Daryl contemplated calling the woman.

He had no service, though, it seemed.

No wonder the realtor had pushed for him to contact the company that would gladly set Daryl up with a phone line, cable, and internet—the real works. He wasn't getting any signal at all.

He really was alone in the house—cut off from everything.

When Daryl opened his eyes, he was surprised to find that he'd drifted off to sleep. He didn't usually nod off in the middle of the day, and he very seldom fell asleep without at least meaning to a little, but he had just then. Of course, he figured it made sense. He hadn't slept well the night before, and he'd been busy today. Also, the dust in the house was messing with his allergies and his head—which was one of the reasons that he was almost desperate to clean as much as he could and conquer at least some of the mess that time had left all over the old house.

As he woke fully, his head feeling fuzzy and hazy from the damage the dust was doing to his sinuses, Daryl's ears picked up on a sound.

At first, he prickled—he was alone in the house, but the sound made it clear that he wasn't. His instinct was to prepare to fight whoever or whatever had gotten in.

Then, he realized that he heard crying. It seemed that whatever had broken in to threaten him was now weeping about it.

Finally, he realized it was a woman crying. Daryl hit his feet quickly enough that his head swam from the sudden change in position. He steadied himself for a moment. On the table next to his chair, the cigarette butt in the ashtray and coffee cup sat just as he'd left them next to the honeybun wrapper. Around him, the cleaner-than-most room looked normal. There were dust particles dancing in the sunbeams that came in through the window—late afternoon sunbeams. If Daryl had slept, he hadn't slept for long. If he was sleeping now, his imagination was being doggedly faithful to reality.

The weeping didn't stop, so Daryl followed it. He followed it upstairs. He followed it down the hallway. He followed it to the bedroom where he was sleeping—the old master bedroom that was, at this moment, one of the other cleanest rooms in the house, though it could still use a good dusting and some quality time with the old Electrolux that had just come into Daryl's possession.

Daryl stopped short when he saw her, there, kneeling at the foot of the bed and crying into her hands.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry…I don't know how I let it get this way. I'll clean it up. I won't let it get this way again. I'll take care of it. I promise. I'm sorry."

She was begging. It was the kind of sincere begging that felt like it cut through Daryl's chest like a hot knife through butter. She was desperate. He would have hated to hear any woman being so desperate—but this woman…she was pretty, and delicate, and there was just something about her that Daryl couldn't explain, not even to himself.

"Stop crying," Daryl said, stepping into the room and moving toward her.

If this was a dream, it was a very real dream. The room was just as Daryl had left it, down to his wallet left open on the bed where he'd thrown it behind him as he'd left the room earlier. The bulk of the wallet in his pocket annoyed him, and there was no need to carry it around in the house. In a dream, he doubted he'd remember such a detail as that.

The woman looked very real, too. And, when Daryl spoke, she seemed shocked. Surprised. She'd suddenly stopped crying. She looked at him much like she had the night before.

She looked afraid of Daryl—like she wanted to run. As though she could read his mind, her eyes darted toward the bedroom door.

Her blue eyes. Her beautiful blue eyes. They were more beautiful, even, than they had been in the painting that he'd only just recently tucked into the attic for safe keeping.

"Carol," he said, testing out the name that he'd heard from Hershel Greene.

Those blue eyes widened a little more with fright. She stood from where she'd been kneeling. She was so pretty—striking.

"Are you—Carol?" Daryl asked.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"Daryl," Daryl said. "Are you Carol?"

Her eyes darted back toward the door. She looked ready to light out of the room, and Daryl didn't know if he should try to stop her or not. If she was a ghost, then everything he knew about ghosts would make it stand to reason that she would just pass through him like he wasn't there—or like she wasn't there. She would walk through him like she could walk through walls.

She looked solid, though, and Daryl got the feeling, in the pit of his stomach, that she would be solid if he were to reach his hand out and touch her.

Everything Daryl knew about ghosts, though, also told him that he should be able to see through her. He should be able to see what was on the other side of her—like she was there, but not really. Like she was something he was seeing out the corner of his eye.

Daryl couldn't see anything on the other side of her anymore than he could see something on the other side of the heavy wardrobe in the room.

Everything he knew about ghosts also told him that she shouldn't be standing in direct sunlight.

"I don't know if you know it's daylight," Daryl offered. The woman furrowed her brow at him.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"I told you, Daryl," Daryl said. "Are you Carol?"

"Why are you in my house?" She asked. "You can't be in my house! You shouldn't be in my house!"

Daryl wondered if ghosts had powers. Would she zap him or attack him? How did ghosts attack?

"It's the middle of the damn afternoon," Daryl said. "And you bein' here means that either this is a dream—'cause there ain't no way you can be here in the sunlight, bein' a ghost and all, or…or it means that it ain't no dream and you ain't no ghost, bein' that you can't be here in the sunlight. So, which is it? A dream or you ain't no ghost?"

"You can't be here!" She said, louder and a little more desperately.

"I live here," Daryl barked back at her. "It's my house!"

"It's my house!" She yelled back at him. She looked behind her, over her shoulder, toward the bedroom door. She lowered her voice. "Please—please…you can't be here. If he finds you here...if he sees you here? He'll…he'll kill me. Please…you can't be here! He can't see you here. He'll kill me!"

Daryl's heart drummed hard in his chest like her warning was a warning of his own death. He didn't know how to tell this woman that she was a ghost—she was dead. She couldn't be killed because she'd already been killed.

And, suddenly, he was desperate for her not to be killed, as though such a thing was in his power.

She flinched like she might run for the door and Daryl reached a hand out to touch her. He reached a hand out to grab her. He didn't know if his hand might pass right through her or, if it didn't, what he might expect a ghost to feel like, but he reached a hand out for her out of instinct—to stop her. She moved away so that his fingers never touched her.

"Wait!" He called out. "Wait! He won't come! He weren't here last night. He won't come now. It's daylight. He won't come around me. I'll stop him. I won't let him hurt you."

Daryl could no more promise anything he said than he could promise someone that he'd make it rain or that he'd make the sun stop burning. Still, he'd felt some desperate, instinctual need to make the promise.

The woman stared at him, with that sad look on her face and in her beautiful eyes, for one long moment, and then she darted out the bedroom door and disappeared down the hallway.

For just a moment, Daryl stood in the bedroom and took inventory of everything. Nothing in the room had changed. He felt no different than he ever did or ever had. There was no strange scent or feeling. The room wasn't cold—at least not any colder than it ever had been. With the windows open, a hint of the coolness marking the coming autumn had made the house feel pleasantly cool.

Daryl stepped out into the hallway, already knowing that she'd be gone. He walked down it, in the direction she'd gone, and he called out to her, testing "Carol" on his tongue and wondering if he'd seen any of what he'd thought he'd seen at all.

He returned to the room where he'd left his things on the table by the chair. He lit a cigarette and tasted the coffee in his cup—still warm.

Grabbing the house keys off the table, and not bothering to close any windows or anything of the like because he really doubted that a soul would dare to venture near the house, Daryl stepped out the front door and, pulling it closed behind him, he started down the driveway toward the road. He figured a walk around the block and some fresh air would do him good.

He had a phone call to make.