[ season 2 ]
✰ in which every corner of the world becomes the world's most loneliest corner, but the girl tucked away on her family's farm would bet all the money in her pockets that hers is the loneliest.
and the guy who meets her up there, bringi...
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CHAPTER SIX ➶ INDIANA WALSH
GUNSHOTS ARE still ringing in my ears. smoke and dust float about in the wind, right past our faces.
rick and hershel returned from where they went at the time daryl and i looked over the map this morning. walkers in tow, loops around their necks, hershel and the sheriff emerged from the woods on a path straight for the barn.
my father and uncle were here to see it, and that was shane's last straw. now we stand before the barn, weathered bodies sprawled on the ground, and i'm useless to the sound of my friend's crying; to the sound of carol sobbing.
daryl's arms are around her, her body sunken to the ground since the last walker came out of the barn, the last gunshot fired from the revolver the sheriff handles, right into sophia.
she looked just like what daryl described her as to me. it never occurred to me until i saw sophia like this, that i never even saw her alive, and now i never will. because sophia, who has been gone a long time, is dead.
she hasn't been wandering these woods scared, hasn't been hiding in a space daryl or i could've found her, she wasn't crying for her mom in the night during the summer storms. she's been here, in the barn, and she died a long time ago.
carol shoves daryl's hold off of her despite him trying to help her stand to her feet. she runs off wiping tears from her cheeks, and as she passes me, daryl's gaze shifts to me. he looks over my face for a moment, then focuses back on my eyes.
he stood by me as my uncle ripped the locks off the barn door, even went as far as telling me to stand behind him, and i did. my body listened before my brain could even catch up to daryl's words, catch up to what was happening around us.
beth's cries become louder, hard enough they're shaking her body and she rips herself out of jimmy's arms, walking right up to the piles of bodies near the barn. she swats a hand out at rick who warns her, trying to stop her from getting too close, but nothing will stop her from seeing her mother's face one last time.
annette greene was one in the barn, just as maggie told me this morning. but as me and daryl and glenn tried to tell maggie last night, as my uncle has been yelling all morning, these walkers aren't people anymore.
annette is no longer annette, so beth's mother snarls in her face, reaching up with gray hands and latching onto beth's hair. she screams and not one second is wasted before everyone is helping pull her away from the walker's deadly grip.
a scythe is put through her head, andrea on the other side of the curved blade, and after the squelch of rotted flesh, it's quiet again. nothing but the sound of the youngest greene crying as she holds her father like he's her only lifeline left.
