graceland. carl grimes

I

i.

bambi in the fallout
"salt the venison and put it in the cellar"

♱

him

We smell the dead before we hear them.

Wet rot and copper. Sludge thick in the air. Sweat in the stitches of my collar. The damp of the tunnel walls breathing close and mossy. We lie in wait, ducked behind a rust freckled farm truck that died here in the culvert.

Daryl signals low—two fingers toward the trees beyond the gaping metal mouth—a warning that something worse than walkers is trailing us through the pines.

The herd funnels in.

I raise my pistol, thumb the hammer back. The grip is slick. My eye patch itches.

Focus, Carl. F O C U S.

This has been my first outside 'assignment' in years. I'm only here because Michonne said I could hold my own—now it's time to prove it. Prove I'm not some helpless, damaged freak.

And so far? This missions been an absolute fucking failure.

I need to get my shit in order.

The mercy switch clicks off.

The first walker slithers around an old tire, face melted into its jaw. I put a bullet through its eye. The recoil kisses the joint of my wrist. Familiar burn. Familiar lover. Familiar cadence.

Aim. Fire. Aim. Fire. Aim fire.

But then one is lunging and I squeeze empty air. Magazine bone-dry. Loose cartridges rattle useless in my pocket while something snarls close enough for me to have to handle it without the distance of a bullet.

Steel meets bone. The butt of my gun cracking a temple. The body slaps wet earth. A skull splits beneath the weight of my heel.

I realize then, that one moved too fast.

It clicks in my ribs before my mind gets there.

That one ducked. That one dodged.

My breath catches somewhere in the back of my throat.

They're wearing them. The dead. They're wearing the dead.

"Daryl—"

"I know. Some of 'em are those masked motherfuckers."

The ones that killed Jesus.

I spin.

Fuck.

Daryl's yelling something. I can't hear. The world's gone white.

A walker charges.

Not a walker.

Too fast. Too careful. Too alive.

I grab the nearest thing—a pitchfork, leaning against the truck—ram forward on instinct. One-eyed and feral. I miss by half an inch, distance I used to judge with the socket that isn't there, and the metal prong punches into soft shoulder instead. Pinning the thing to the rusted corrugated metal behind it.

The creature shrieks.

Not a growl. Not the snarl.

A human cry.

Two eyes stare at me through raw edges of rot.

Doe eyes. Bambi brown.

Alive and wet and framed in lashes too long, too dark. Flushed pink flesh peaking out from behind the graying sockets of the corpse's face she's wearing to cover her own.