Tragic Coincidence | Daryl Dixon

Chapter Twenty.

It didn't take very long for me to recover from my stab wound from Shane. Hershel did a great job stitching me up, and I was good as new within the week. I learned quickly it was Daryl who eventually killed Shane, and I couldn't say i was missing him...I once killed a human that threatened the well being of the people in the group, so I know exactly how that feels. These days it was survival of the fittest, and good people were rare....you couldn't let people like Shane destroy what you were trying to accomplish in this life.

Everything was perfect at the hotel, and we had a good thing going here. Walkers were rare, only a couple random ones would wander around in the woods and we could easily dispose of them. We had plenty of food, and boiled the water from the river nearby. Rick finally pulled himself from the hole of life he had found himself after the death of his wife. He finally returned as our beloved leader, and took charge just like we needed him to. His daughter finally had a name, Judith....after Carl's third grade teacher....It was a bit of a random name if you ask me, but it wasn't my child to name...Personally I liked little ass kicker better, the name Daryl had been calling her.

Spring was in full force, so the weather was quite warm these days. We often spent most of the day outside as not too get too hot in the stuffy hotel. Today was a rainy day, and I could feel some of the rain hitting my arms as I sat on one of the balcony's on the upper floors. I was up here doing my best to keep watch, but it was raining pretty hard making it extremely hard to see anything on the street below. I sighed and grabbed my binoculars to scan the surroundings the best i could. I saw something down the street, but I couldn't quite make it out. It looked like a human, but it didn't look like anyone in our group...

I ran down the the first floor to get a better view at the being at the end of the street, but the pounding rain made it impossible to see anything out of the doors. We kept the front doors locked and barricaded with furniture and only used the one back door, So I quickly made my way to the back of the hotel through the kitchen. I passed by Beth who was making Judith a bottle, "Whats wrong Emma?" She asked watching me race to the back door. "Everything's fine, I just see something down the street" I told her before pulling my hunting knife out for protection. 

I slowly pushed open the metal door, and it squeaked like it always did. The only thing I saw at first was the pounding rain in the dirt, but when I stepped farther out of the door my eyes went wide when I saw the amount of walkers standing only feet away. There were dozens of them, and I don't have any clue where they came from. One was standing only inches from my face, but im guessing the rain was masking the scent of me. A rugged gasp left my lips when its eyes finally found me, a loud growl emitted form its throat. It lunged for me, but I kicked it in the chest sending it back into the mob of the undead, and quickly closed and locked the door behind me. I could hear the pounding getting louder as more and more walkers were slamming their undead hands on the metal door. 

Beth looked over with wide eyes, as she stopped shaking the formula inside of the small pink baby bottle. "We have a problem" I said before grabbing her arm and dragging her towards the rest of the group. The rain let up slightly, but it was still pouring and I could now see even more walkers stumbling around on the street....way more walkers than we had ammo...way more walkers than we could handle, especially now that Hershel was missing a leg and we had a newborn baby.

Several walkers were pounding on the glass doors that led inside of the hotel making cracks easily appear in the weakened glass. "Warn your dad, pack your shit were leaving" I said frantically pushing Beth towards her fathers room. She nodded and followed my orders while I ran down the hall to find Rick. Rick's door was locked when I got down to his room causing me to slam my hands on it loudly. "Rick!" I shouted loudly hoping he was inside. Within seconds we had ripped the door open, with messy hair and a missing shirt, he must have been taking a nap. "What it is?" He asked worriedly when he saw my face. "Walkers"  was all I had to say to get his attention. 

"How many?" He asked, running back into his room and quickly buttoning up his plaid shirt. "Too many to handle, it's like Atlanta out there" I said peeking through his curtains to see the dozens of walkers still pounding on the front doors. "Those walkers are going to break through soon, our best chance are the windows" i told him as we made our way out into the hallway. " Find everyone upstairs and bring them here, we need to get to the cars" Rick demanded once we walked past the front doors that were bloodied up with hungry walkers. 

I nodded to Rick who ran to Hershel's room before taking off up the stairway. I found T-Dog and Carol walking in the hallway, and quickly warned them of our issue. Both of them packing their belongings and heading towards Rick as I instructed. Our cars were parked on the side street of the hotel, between the abandoned building of a clothing store. It made it an easy getaway for times like this when we were overrun, as long as the alley wasn't full of walkers we could escape easily. I then found Carl who was cleaning his gun in an open room on the second floor. 

"Glenn! Maggie!" I shouted banging on their bedroom door on the third floor. I continuously pounded getting no response. I ran my fingers through my hair worried about two members of my group I couldn't find. I knew Daryl had been with Judith and Hershel prior to me going on watch, so I knew he was ok...But Maggie and Glenn were different. "Emma! Were down here!" I heard Maggie's southern drawl yell from somewhere down the open staircase. "Shit! Run!" I heard her say again. "Maggie!" I yelled and sprinted down the staircase. 

I was at the top of the second floor landing when I saw Daryl taking down a walker at the bottom of the stairs. "Emma, Run!" He yelled when his eyes caught mine. I hesitated until I saw about ten walkers start heading in my direction quickly up the stairs. Daryl yelled at me again before running down the hallway towards Rick and the others. I sprinted as fast as I could down the hallway on the second floor. I could hear the groans of the walkers getting closer and closer. The fingers of one grazed the back of my shirt making me run even faster. I reached the last door in the hallway before throwing myself inside and closing and locking the door. 

I slid over the desk that was by the bathroom in front of the door and quickly jumped away as the walkers started pounding on it. I sat down on the bed for a second to catch my breath before looking at any way out of this. I had my weapons on my like I always did which was lucky, but I needed to escape somehow. I opened the door to the balcony to see the rain still steadily coming down, but the red lights of a car heading away from the hotel. I was glad that some of them made it out of here, and even more so when I saw a second pair of lights head out into the distance. We only had four vehicles including Daryl's bike, which he wouldn't be able to ride right now in the rain anyway... I just hoped he wasn't stubborn trying to come back in here to try and get me. 

I could still see the walker filled street with rain pouring down onto them. I finally saw that third pair of lights drive off into the distance, and only hoped that Daryl was in one of those cars...that everyone made it out ok. I looked down to only see bushes under the balcony to catch my fall if I jumped. I decided to make a makeshift rope out of the bed sheets. It was pretty easy, I just tied the ends of it to the bars on the balcony, and they stayed pretty well. I took a deep breath, and made sure all my weapons were still in place before grabbing onto the sheets and lowering myself down as slowly as I could.

My hands were soaked from the rain making my grip loosen, I tried my best to hold on but ended up falling backwards into a bush. I was glad it wasn't that far, so I didn't get hurt, and I was especially glad the walkers hadn't noticed me yet as that would be even worse.

I peeked around the bush and noticed a lot of them had wandered into the beaten down doors of the hotel, but there was still a pretty sizable amount of them wandering around...way too many for me to handle on my own. There weren't any immediate threats around me so I quietly headed to the direction of the alley where our cars were, and sure enough Daryl's bike was still parked behind a dumpster like it was before. I was hoping Rick forced Daryl to go with them, instead of letting him wander back into this slaughter house. 

There wasn't much i could do at the moment, at least until the walkers finally moved on. I decided to hide out in the clothing store, hoping the rain would have died down by the morning allowing me to take Daryl's bike for transportation. I laid down some sweaters on the ground before settling in for the night, it wasn't a pleasant sleep as the thunder and groans of the undead kept waking me up through the night....