The walking dead - New Beginnings

Chapter 14 - Blank Canvas

"C'mon," I mumbled at Victor and threw on my Adventure Time hoodie and leather, fingerless gloves. I felt somebody touch the back of my bandaged head and I winced and spun around. Vic stood there with his fingers still outstretched and he awkwardly took them back.

"Are you sure you're alright to go?" he asked uncomfortably, I lead him out of the house to the cars where Daryl, Merle and Carl were already waiting.

"Yes, okay, let's go." I snapped. I knew I was being completely unfair but to be honest, I couldn't care less. The Dixons gave me an odd look as I slid into the back seat of the car, but Carl was so wrapped up in his grief he didn't seem to have noticed my bitchiness at my boyfriend.

Victor sat next to me and took my hand in his, not taking his eyes off me. I quickly nudged over in my seat so I was closer to Carl. "Stop staring at me," I mouthed to Vic so the others wouldn't hear and he looked at me with sad eyes.

Daryl must've seen though because the whole trip, he kept throwing concerned glances back at me.

The moment we got out the front to the hospital I leapt from the car, took out my switchblade and unleashed my fury on the three walkers that were stumbling out front of the building. The others slowly emptied out of the car and stared at me. I was covered from head to toe in blood and muck and I was clearly seething but nobody said anything, and Victor didn't try and go near me again.

Luckily the glass doors out front had already been smashed so we didn't have to draw attention to ourselves by breaking in. I slid through the gap in the door coolly and headed down into a corridor without saying anything to anyone.

I was beginning to get the impression that they understood I wanted to be alone.

I carelessly kicked open each door I came across and gave a lazy eye-sweep of each, occasionally checking an orange bottle of pills or a rotting corpse on a bed. Just as I entered another room to scout out a metal tray full of medication, a voice startled me, "she'll be okay y'know."

I jumped and my head whipped around just to find Victor, looking at me uncertainly.

"How do you know?" I growled and re-holstered my Glock which I hadn't remembered pulling from my thigh strap. I shuffled through the bottles and boxes chucking the useless ones to the ground and pocketing the stuff like painkillers.

"I don't," he pondered on this for a while, "but she's been lucky enough so far."

"Luck has nothing to do with it." I answered coldly. "This world is only survival, nothing else; endurance and survival. People and animals have been doing it for millions of years, but it's never been this hard before."

"Do ya wanna talk about it?" he asked, approaching me and I turned to look at him before taking a few steps back.

"Aren't we already," I replied simply. I breezed past him with my Glock back out and headed down the hallway again. Soon it took me to a new area -the maternity ward. I felt like I was going to vomit but we needed to search the whole hospital or we might not find what Robin needed -which, come to think of it, I had no idea what was anyway, since Daryl and Merle had the list.

I entered the first room where I found the extremely bloated body of a woman who had obviously been heavily pregnant or in the process of labour when shit hit the fan. I wiped the quickly-coming tears away and continued further into the room, trying to ignore the rotting smell but failing.

As I rounded the doorway I found an even worse sight.

Somehow, after all this time one had survived. Not just one; a baby... the baby. This infant was on top of another two adult bodies that were almost fleshless. I threw up on the ground and the tears I'd been holding back came forward.

The baby walker slowly turned and saw me and gave a weak, high-pitched growl before rolling off the bodies it had been ever-so-slowly licking away. It seemed it had learned to move and eat in the long time since its creation and it freely came towards me.

I couldn't kill a baby. I couldn't. I'd been there for Demitri's birth, for God's sake, I'd helped. I couldn't kill an infant; something that had been so pure, so innocent and such a blank canvas when it'd been born.

I clambered up onto the desk and luckily Victor came in at that moment.

"Rora, what the hell are you-" he began, but then noticed the tiny bundle of flesh and exposed bone that was quickly making its way toward the furniture I was on. My hand was fastened over my mouth, cutting off my oxygen, I couldn't breathe; I didn't want to.

Without speaking or even looking that shocked, Vic came within reach of me, took my switchblade from my tool belt and -turning away- he plunged the blade into the back of the baby's head, ending its life... or undeath. I let the sobs come out then and I leapt off the table into his arms. He hugged me tightly.

"I couldn't do it!" I sobbed hysterically. "I'm sorry," I whispered, because he was the one who had to kill it.

I pulled away slightly from him and with my arms still around his torso; I turned and looked at the infant's body. Slowly, and carefully, I picked it up under the armpits and placed it next to the destroyed body of its mother before fleeing the room and sliding down the wall in the corridor.

Victor soon joined me and sat next to me, like before, refusing to let me out of his sight. This time I didn't push him away, I leant my head on his shoulder and held his hand tightly, the closest we'd been since before I knew about Robin's small survival chance.

I was just closing my eyes and letting my defences down-

"Uh... uh hello?" a man's voice called and I jumped to my feet, eyes wide, switchblade slashing the air in front of me. "Whoa! Easy there." The man was at the end of the hall, hands out in surrender and he slowly placed his gun on the ground.

I noticed a small girl hiding behind his legs.

"Who are you?" Victor growled in a defensive tone and stepped out in front of me protectively.

"I-I'm Lee, and this is Clementine... and we need your help."