No Tomorrow

.

Just hang around until tomorrow and then I can book it at first light....

I picked up on the idle chatter from the fires but the soft hum was broken by a high pitched screaming that clawed at my ear drums until I was sure they would start bleeding; I bolted upright from the bed and tore out of the thin nylon tent just as the first gunshot rang out.

*

Daryl's POV:

Move, move, move!

I shot three walkers down as we ran into the camp and my eyes roved like cartoon balls searching the screaming faces looking for her, Shane made things painfully clear that I'd have to look out after her on my own before we left and I knew that no one would help her in this mess- Walkers were over-running the camp from every angle but I still couldn't see her anywhere.

Calm the hell down Dixon, you never cared for a bitch before the world went to shit and you're not about to start now.

Still though, even as I blasted my way through the dead bodies in an attempt to reach the tents I couldn't help but to remember just how soft her green eyes were when she talked to me this morning; something sparked in them when she talked about her old work and I got the sense that she knew how to carry herself if need be.

Hmm...

People were bunched together near the RV to try and staunch the hoarde but an animalistic screech had me looking to my left, a massive looking creature that had a body bigger then a horse was hurtling itself through the night air with loud snarls and tore into a few of the walkers who snapped back at it. The creature crushed two heads under its feet like they were small toys and snapped off an arm of another with a powerful twist of its jaws before flinging it into the air like a toy; it threw its head back and howled loudly before charging off into the middle of the hoarde and I used its distraction to bolt off to the tents.

Time and a place to deal with whatever the hell that thing was later....

I almost tripped over my own two feet when I saw what was left of my tent so I crouched low to the ground to inspect some of the things fluttering across the grass, sweat rolled down my back and I blinked some of it from my eyes before I scrooped a thin looking scrap of fabric into my fingers and stood again. It felt the same as Belle's coat had-

It looks like a damn bomb dropped down on this thing..

I let the scrap fall to the ground and poised my gun at the ready on the walk back to the others but I didn't see a single living dead thing on the way there, only bodies in piles; everyone was still close to the RV door but it was Carol who bothered to pipe up.

"Whatever was left followed that thing out of camp."

"Did anyone see if Belle made it out?"

They shook their heads in unison and I cursed under my breathe before turning my back to them and gazing at the trees where the creature had charged through, my brain vaguely going back to the conversation I had with Belle earlier this morning.

"What's that supposed to give you anyway?"

Her eyes flashed like green fire and then she launched into an animated story about wolves and that's where she lost me, I kept thinking about how large that creature had been and wondered where it could have come from to start with..

*

"Be careful, burn the bodies so infection can't spread."

Through the night no one had bothered to sleep until the sun came up and now most of the women were sleeping in the RV with the children while the rest of us were out in the hot sun moving bodies, Jim had gotten bit at some point last night and there was an arguement about wether to burn or bury the bodies from our group since the first rays of dawn broke. I walked through camp and side-eyed paw prints smushed into the ground until I reached the trees and followed the path of broken and mangled undead limbs; if my thoughts were right...Belle was alive and had to be tied to that massive creature somehow.

Maybe...maybe, if she's alive out here somehow...I can talk to her...talk to her about it or something...

Further on into the trees I came across a massive pile of bodies and in the middle of it all Belle was curled in on herself covered in rotting blood, her arms were folded over her face and he left leg was crossed over the right; she was totally in the nude but didn't seem to have a scratch on her. Her chest rose and fell with even patterns and she was even whimpering in her apparent sleep but she never seemed to open her eyes, I kept my gaze on a spot in her hair to avoid her most sensitive areas and just peeled the shirt from my body before bending down at the knees and slipping it on her when I was close enough, she made another noise in her sleep when I picked her up but remained knocked out until I tried making my way out of this mess; she turned her face into my neck and nuzzled at the skin of my throat before she whimpered again; my shirt wasn't big enough for her in the chest but thankfully it covered everything it needed to while I cconcentrated on being careful about how I held her.

".....don't leave me......I don't want to die....alone..."

She sighed and burrowed herself deeper and my fingers began to shake a little by the time I got back to camp and she was fully out of it again, I got questionable looks from the people who were hanging out by one of the burning fires but I ignored them.