Violent Delights¹︎ | D.Dixon

2.12 ➸

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CHAPTER TWELVE
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LEONA COULD HARDLY HEAR THE ringing in her ears over the sound of gunshots and snarling walkers. Reloading the shotgun in her hands, she aimed, then fired. Before she could stop to see if she hit her target, she reloaded again, aimed, then fired another shot.

The process became routine: aim, shoot, reload, repeat.

The muscles in her arms strained from weight and the constant movement. She hadn't needed to hold onto a gun in a long time, having relied heavily on the shoulder strap on her own gun to carry the brunt of the weapons weight when she'd used it. Now, she was beginning to regret that decision.

She didn't have time to think of anything else but the walkers that were only getting closer and closer to her and Hershel, so she ignored the aches growing in her body and only continued to shoot.

A scream ripped through the night, high-pitched and filled with terror. Snapping her head away from the walkers and towards the source of the noise, she saw Carol backed up against the shed, her arms clinging to the wall for any support it could offer. Andrea was in front of her and shot a walker down before it could reach Carol, only to be tackled down by another.

Cursing under her breath, Leona turned to Hershel, calling for the older man.

"We need to go!" She screamed at him, but with the constant firing of his own rifle, he couldn't hear a damn word. "Hershel!"

She lowered her gun, stuffing the 20-some shells she had left into the pockets of her jacket, and moved towards him. They needed to leave while the others were still there. She'd seen them waiting for Carol and Andrea, but if they didn't go now, they'd both be left for dead.

But, as she stepped in his direction, a walker moved out in front of her. It grabbed hold of her arms, its fingernails imbedding themselves into her jacket as it wrestled her to the ground with a thud.

"Fuck!" She hissed as her back slammed against the ground, her gun slipping from her grip and landing elsewhere as rocks and sticks stabbing her unprotected skin where her jacket had ridden up along her back.

And then the walker gnashed its teeth at her, blood staining its lips and tongue. She gagged at its horrid breath as she reached out her hands, doing her best to push it away, but she could only push at its throat. Her arms twisted at an odd angle, trying to keep it away from biting her arms.

More shots rang out, and Leona knew that Hershel had no idea what was going on behind him. She would die like this, with a walker laying over her, its teeth ready to rip into her neck and feast on her flesh like some hellish thing. She would die on the ground, not able to fight against it.

Another growl sounded out behind the first, and she saw another walker lower itself, having gotten past Hershel. Its greedy hands reached out for her, angling for her leg. She screamed again as its grip tightened, threatening to tear open her skin despite the thick denim of her jeans. If that one got to her first, it wouldn't be a swift death like the one above her offered. While the first walker would tear into her jugular, letting her live for mere seconds before her life faded away, the one at her feet meant she could suffer for hours, her last moments filled with excruciating pain and the sounds of her own flesh being ripped apart.