I could hear them the moment we stepped in through the creaking double doors of the front entrance, the guttural gurgling, the shuffling of uneven feet. If you closed your eyes and ignored the very potent stench of both death and the distant tang of formaldehyde, you could almost pretend that nothing had changed; that the halls were still full of eager students and tired professors.
That was, however, what Merle would call a “pipe dream”.
My grip on Mason’s shirt sleeve tightened when I spotted the stairwell, waving Phee toward it as I pulled the kid along. It would be rather obvious to anyone that Mason did not, in fact, want to be anywhere near me, yet no one commented on it. Not even Daryl. He just gave me a cocked brow, questioning look as we slunk into the stairwell.
There weren’t many walkers in here. We had to step over a dead body or two that had obviously taken some kind of unfortunate dive from the top of the steps, but other than that, the journey up to the second story was… uneventful.
I gave Claire and Phee a “good-luck” salute as we split off at the second floor landing, waiting for them to clear the next set of stairs above before letting myself listen in to the building. This hallway was louder than the others. I could hear the growling of the undead as they aimlessly strode down the linoleum floored hallways.
When we reached the door, I slowly poked my head out to check how clear the coast was before pulling Mason out into a haphazard sneak across the hallway toward the first classroom.
As soon as the door was closed behind me, I heard Mason’s footsteps almost frantically scuffle across to the other side of the room. Turning in place, I shot the boy a cocked brow look of incredulousness.
“Really?”
He didn’t respond.
When I began to approach him, he stepped to the side, putting the long desk table between the two of us and going so far as to pull out one of the chairs, gripping the backing with a white knuckle grip as he pulled it in front of him as a further barricade.
Not going to lie; that one hurt. He looked utterly terrified to be alone with me. Gone was the bravado he’d shown earlier with his near ceaseless glaring.
Feeling somewhat guilty, I took half a step back and raised my hands in a surrendering gesture, palms facing me.
Mason flinched at the movement, the base of the chair making a loud scuffing sound against the linoleum floor as he pulled it slightly closer to him.
“Hey…” I breathed. “I’m not going to hurt you, kid.”
His lip curled up a little over his uneven front teeth. “But you could, couldn’t you?”
“It’s not a matter of ability,” I argued softly. “Daryl could shoot you if he chose to; Tyreese could crush you if the notion took him. But they wouldn’t. Just because I can doesn’t mean I will.”
Mason watched me cautiously. He looked so young, cowering behind that chair, peering up at me with those cartoony, wide eyes. My heart gave a painful squeeze in my chest as I looked back at him, at the pallor of his face, the slight shake to his full lower lip. His innocence encased him almost like a second skin; simultaneously acting as both a shield and a hindrance. It protected him from the knowledge of worser things in life; yet it also gave him the inability to handle such things when forced to confront them.
YOU ARE READING
The Monsters Among Us ➳ Daryl Dixon
Fanfiction𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘺𝘭 𝘋𝘪𝘹𝘰𝘯/𝘖𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘍𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳 Not human. She was not human. They all knew it. Could almost feel it, but couldn't make sense of it. That was why they were afraid. Not because of what she used to be Before. But...
