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Breakfast was served that morning and Beth kept her eyes on Daryl most of the time. She was confused by their conversation the night before. The Daryl she was talking to on the porch was more like the Daryl at the funeral home. But it had taken him years, lives lost and blood shed for him to get to that point originally. He was more sharp edges and scowls before, but this Daryl was compassionate. Her stomach tightened and her heart fluttered around in her chest just thinking about the night before.The way he felt when she hugged his strong shoulders.
Rick pulled Shane aside as the group finished up breakfast and Beth glued her eyes to them. The conversation got heated almost immediately and Rick stood firm, demanding his weapons. As their voices got louder, the rest of the group followed Beth’s suit by watching silently. Shane stormed out of the house defenseless, and the door slammed shut behind him.
Rick returned to the group and announced they needed to have a meeting. Everyone made their way to the living room; individual conversations about what was going on sprang up quietly.
Beth took a seat next to Maggie, who was sitting next to Glenn. Daryl was immediately across from her and their eyes locked briefly before she looked away. Taking a deep breath, she turned her attention to Rick.“We need to talk about Shane. He’s a threat to our group. We can’t control or predict him.”
“I told ya, I didn’t want him on my farm, Rick,” Hershel said, a bit of annoyance laced his usually calm tone.
“What do you propose we do?” Dale was more eager than he’d been about killing Randall, but Beth had always thought Dale saw through the gruff, hotheaded man.
“I don’t know, that’s why I came to everyone. What do y’all want to do?” Rick asked, before adding, “I took away his weapons.”
“I still don’t trust ‘im,” Daryl grumbled. Beth snapped her head toward the man, studying him. He wasn’t sitting; instead his body leaned against the wall, always at the ready.
“Me either,” Maggie agreed, pulling Beth’s eyes away from Daryl, and Glenn nodded beside her.
“Do we just take him out and leave him? Really Rick?” Andrea chimed in, clearly getting flustered with the conversation. Beth had noticed Andrea and Shane getting closer. He was taking her out to train her some days. She knew from experience the kind of relationship that grew from those kinds of sessions, how much you end up trusting that person.
“He knows where the farm is, no I don’t think abandoning him is an option,” Rick replied calmly.
“So what? Are you suggesting we kill him?” Andrea threw her hands around in exasperation. Looking around at the group, hoping someone would step up and agree with her. But no one would. Shane put everyone on edge, even Lori, who apparently had relations with him while she thought Rick was dead. It was funny to the blonde, as she sat there looking at these people, that gossip still made its way around at the end of the world.
“From where I sit, there’s only one way to move forward,” Daryl said, pushing himself off the wall as he spoke to everyone. “Just another mouth to feed.” A few heads nodded in agreement.
“So the answer is to kill him?” Andrea argued straight to Daryl, throwing all her anger toward the one man.
“If you go through with it, how would you do it?” Patricia asked meekly. “Would he suffer?”
“We could hang him. Snap his neck,” Glenn offered.
“I thought about that, but I think shooting might be more humane,” Rick said.
Everyone looked around at each other for a moment, as if a silent decision had passed between them all.
“What do we do with the body? Bury it?” T-Dog finally broke the silence.
“Wait, wait hold on. Hold on,” Andrea barged into the conversation again, walking toward the center of the group. Turning around to look at everyone. “You’re talking about this like it’s already been decided.”
“We been talkin’ ‘bout this for days,” Daryl argued. “Just goin’ ‘round in circles. You jus’ wanna go ‘round in circles again?”
“This is someone’s life. And it is worth more than a five minute conversation,” Andrea spoke firmly. “Is this what it has come to? We kill someone because we don’t know what else to do with him? How are we any better than him?”
The group fell silent again, and Beth turned to Rick to gauge his reaction to the whole conversation.
“We all know what needs to be done,” Rick said.
“Stop it, just stop it,” Carol chimed in for the first time. “I’m sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn’t ask for this. You can’t ask us to decide something like this. Please decide . . . Either of you, both of you, but leave me out,” she said to Rick and Andrea.
That’s when the door flew open and all the women jumped, as the men reached for their weapons. Shane walked in, looking around like a rabid animal. “Rick,” he bellowed, “We need to talk.”
Everyone looked at each other, obviously thinking the same thing. How long had he been standing there?
Rick went to leave, and Lori grabbed at him in vain. “Rick please, don’t.”
“I’ll talk to him. See what he has to say,” Rick said officially. “Everyone else stay inside. Stay safe.”
Beth twisted around in her seat to peer out the window as the men walked further into the field, toward the woods. This is it. She stood up, headed for the kitchen. That’s when she saw Carl putting a gun into his belt and sneaking out the back door. It was weird knowing what would probably happen before it did, though she had to admit things were different, things had changed, but everything seemed to happen the way it was supposed to. Meaning they’d lose Jimmy tonight and Patricia, and Dale more than likely. Her heart felt heavy, but Patricia wouldn’t have made it much longer in this world anyway and Jimmy, well, she just didn’t feel the same way about him as she did in the beginning of their relationship. And now, now there was Daryl. She chuckled, picturing Daryl getting jealous of a little thing like Jimmy. She shook her head to rid herself of the thoughts when there was about to be a war.
Maggie came up behind her, “What are you doing?”
Beth grabbed a steak knife and pushed it between her belt and her jeans. “I don’t know what’s about to happen, but if Rick needs to defend himself, he’s gonna have to shoot him, and that could attract those walkers and I don’t want to be a sitting duck.”
Maggie rushed to her sister and pulled her into her arms. “Oh, Bethy.”
“What? I want to live Maggie, we all do. We need to be prepared.”
Two gunshots were heard in the distance, and both girls jumped a bit.
“CARL? WHERE’S CARL? HAS ANYONE SEEN CARL?” Lori was frantically searching from room to room.
Beth walked over to Lori and took ahold of her shoulders, “Lori, it’ll be okay. Carl’s a smart boy. I’m sure he went looking for Rick.”
“Why couldn’t he just listen for once?”
Beth shrugged, unable to console the worried mother. She gave her a hug before joining the rest of the group outside, everyone but Carol who stayed behind to help look for Carl.
As she wiggled her way to the front of the group, she could see the herd of walkers, who’d been attracted by the sound of the gunshots, just as before. Beth’s heart was beating fast, but Daryl had trained her. Things would be different this time.
“Patricia, kill the lights,” Hershel spoke calmly.
“I’ll get the guns,” Andrea said as she walked back into the house.
“Maybe they’re just passing, like the ones on the highway,” Glenn said hopefully.
“Not unless there’s a tunnel downstairs I don’t know ‘bout,” Daryl said. “A herd that size would rip the house down.”
“Carl’s gone!” Lori screeched, as if they’d all forgotten.“I’m not leaving without him,” Lori said.
“No, we’re not, we’re going to look again,” Carol replied as she rushed to Lori’s side and into the house. “We’re going to find him,” was the last thing Beth heard as they disappeared.
As Maggie started passing out guns, Daryl questioned them.
“We have guns. We have cars,” Hershel said firmly. “This is my farm. I’ll die here.”
“A’ight,” Daryl said, hopping the rail. “It’s as good’a night as any.” Daryl hopped on his motorcycle and revved the engine. Andrea and T-Dog took one of the trucks, and Maggie and Glenn took the SUV. Jimmy hopped into the RV, and they took off toward the barn as it started to catch fire.
Beth went inside with the others, and told them about the flames.
“Maybe Rick set it to draw them in,” Patricia said.
“Well, they’re headed for it,” Beth nodded.
“I can’t find him!” Lori came running down the stairs. “What do I do?”
“Maybe he set the fire,” Patricia offered, and Lori looked out toward the barn.
“Oh God.”
Carol and Lori went off looking in more places. Patricia hugged Beth. She took the time to appreciate the woman she’d grown to love, especially after her mother had gotten sick. “Thank you for all that you’ve done,” she told the woman.
“Oh, hush, it was my pleasure. You and your sister have grown into such strong, beautiful women,” Patricia started to tear up and she swiped at her eyes. “This isn’t goodbye. We’re going to be fine, Beth.”
Carol rushed in to relieve Beth from having to answer, knowing she wouldn’t be able to tell Patricia that everything would be fine. “We’ve got to go,” Carol said. “Now.”
Lori was already shooting walkers when they reached the porch.
“Herhsel! Hershel, come on, it’s time to go! Come on! Now!” Lori screamed over the sounds of guns firing from all around.
Hershel wouldn’t listen, and Beth started running with Patricia, hoping that leaving before they had originally could save the woman. With one hand in Patricia’s and the other on her knife, Beth took off. She swept her eyes over the field for Daryl, and that’s when it happened. One small moment of paying attention to anything other than Patricia cost the woman her life. She heard the crunching of bone and skin and Patricia’s screams. Three walkers were eating at her flesh, and it only took three jabs of her knife to bring them all down. Beth was crying now, “I’m so sorry.” It was harder than she’d expected. But this time she had the strength to put Patricia out of her misery and jammed the knife into her brain while the older woman screamed through the pain of the bites.
Lori and Carol hadn’t stopped and they made it to the truck Andrea vacated as T-Dog waited to rush them away from the farm, and more walkers came to devour what was left of Patricia. Beth was overwhelmed, but she killed the ones she had to and ran deeper into the field. She couldn’t see Daryl still, but she kept running toward the woods, slicing and dicing and screaming, a guttural sound that was more cathartic than out of fear.
She heard another scream mix with hers and looked around to see Dale bit in the neck, he went down and walkers attacked him, relieving her for a moment as they attacked him from all angles. Guts, blood and tendrils of muscle came spewing out of Dale as the walkers devoured him limb by limb.
Beth let out another scream as she dug her knife into the closest walker. Dark blood and brain matter came flying at her, dousing her already stained shirt. She could feel the blood soaking her hair to her face and the smell of rotting flesh was overwhelming.
Walkers kept coming; the fresh meat enticed them toward her. She killed one walker after the other, as they kept coming she started to kick them down too. She stomped down on the skulls of the ones who fell. Blood spattered everywhere and the crunch of skulls only egged her on instead of disgusting her.
The dead fell around her, but as they fell more replaced them. She thought of Hercules fighting Hydra, the nine-headed water-serpent who would grow two heads every time one was cut from her body. Focus! She told herself as she continued to slaughter the walkers, letting out more guttural screams.
Her voice was suddenly drowned out by the sound of an engine roaring to life. Daryl. She kept fighting, knowing he would come for her. She thought for a moment about how crazy that was.
The first time her father’s farm was overrun, she’d never spared a second thought for the redneck. But she’d seen the changes in him on the porch that night, and she trusted him with every fiber of her being, just as she had in the funeral home.
She kept running, kept killing until Daryl’s bike came into view.“C’mon,” he screamed, “I ain’t got all day.”
She jumped on the bike behind him as a herd of walkers crept closer; wrapping her arms around his waist she yelled, “Let’s go!” And off they went. Away from her childhood home, overrun with the walking dead.
Now that she was on the bike, she could feel herself hyperventilating. She tried to steady her breathing as her chest rubbed against Daryl’s vest. She rested her cheek against the angel wings stitched into the leather, trying to force her heart to stop running its own race. Matted blonde hair swirled all around her, and she tightened her arms around the man’s waist.