Don't Get Dead | TWD | Volume 1

[24] Aftermath

For a long time, I did nothing—I didn't break down or cry, I didn't move. My eyes remained fixated on the ground until I was brave enough to look up.

Carol, still crying, only moved from the dirt when Daryl started lifting her to her feet. His arms wrapped under her own, holding tightly around her chest as he used the weight of his body to steady her. His efforts seemed futile when Carol refused to stand for herself, too busy looking at her daughter's corpse on the ground.

"Don' look," Daryl turned her away from Sophia. "Don' look."

Instead of listening, she spun around and slapped his arms away, tripping over her feet as she tried to escape his grasp. Daryl stopped, took a step back, and he just stared at her. He watched as Carol ran back towards the farmhouse, but no one followed her.

I could barely believe Sophia was in the barn, even after it had been opened. But there she was, her walker body lying on the ground in front of us. There was a pain in my chest as I thought about everything the group went through. All the grief Carol experienced after every search party came back empty-handed. All of that for Sophia to fall to the ground dead in front of us.

And I had never felt guiltier.

A dum-dum-dum at the back of my head wouldn't stop as I turned to the Greene family. They were the ones that would decide what would happen to my group from here on out. Hershel made no effort to move from the ground, still on one knee with his hands clasped over his mouth, staring at the pile of bodies in front of him. Maggie was standing behind him, her hand draped over his shoulder. Neither of them was crying, but from their hunched figures and fallen faces, I could tell they were devastated.

Beth was the worst of them.

Clinging to Jimmy, her sobs were broken by intermittent gasps as she stared out at the labyrinth of corpses. Her eyes switched between Shawn, who was lying closer to the doors, and a woman closer to where the front line had been shooting—Annette, her mother. I recognised the burnt orange hair from pictures in the farmhouse.

Beth tried to step away from Jimmy, twisting her body to get out of his hold. When she got herself free, she ran around everyone to get to the woman. Rick reached out to stop her and gently shushed her before she came too close to the walkers, "Wait, wait."

Beth flinched at his touch and ran forward, stopping at her mother's body on the ground. She leaned over to pull a walker off Annette before kneeling down at her head. She cried as she reached out to her mother, turning the woman over by her shoulders to see her face.

Then she woke up.

Beth let out a shrill scream as Annette gripped her hair, her grey fingers clenching around one of the bunches. Annette pulled down, dragging Beth's face down closer and closer and closer as she snarled and snapped to bite her own daughter.

I dropped the gun I had been holding and ran over to her, throwing myself in the way and sliding between them on my knees, hoping the woman would try and reach for me instead of Beth. Holding my arm across Beth's shoulders, I wanted to push her back when the hand that was tangled in her hair grabbed my arm instead.

Well, say what you want about my stupidity, but my plan had worked.

Rick was standing directly behind me as he grabbed Beth, managing to tug her away from her mother, and Shane was right next to him, yelling out, "Pull her away!"

Ignoring the screams around me, I placed my foot on the woman's shoulder, pushing down against it to try and pull my own arm back before she managed to bite me. It got really close before Glenn grabbed Annette by the arms, which ripped her hands away from mine. Glenn knelt over the walker and tried holding her still, yelling at the others to do something.