What Changed Your Mind? [Wattys 2017]

Chapter 12: Home

Daryl:

I felt like such a wuss, standin' there cryin' like a kid. Beth 'n I stood wrapped around each other, sobbin' for a long time and just lettin' go. I was the first to stop, but I stayed with my arms around Beth until she calmed down a bit. I ran my hand through her hair, doin' my best to help her somehow understand that we'd make everythin' work out.

"Let's get back to work, we gotta make this place stronger."

"How long do you think this'll last? This place. Nothing ever really seems to last nowadays."

"I don't know, but for now this is our home."

Beth smiled, still with red eyes and puffy cheeks from cyrin'. I wan't so sure I didn't look the same though. Beth nodded and looked down, wiping at her eyes. "Okay. What's next?"

"The posts. Wanna go make some?"

When she nodded I motioned for her to follow me around back to the pile of lumber for some wood. After pullin' and haulin' about a quarter of the pile, I came back to the pile for another load as Beth carried a small pile toward the front. I started to pull more planks from the pile, I started hearin' a familiar growlin' sound. I dropped the planks I already had, pullin' another board from the middle so I could see inside. I could hear footsteps behind me and looked back, signalin' Beth to stay back as I looked into the pile. There were at least three female walkers in the pile, their limbs broken and twisted around boards and crushed underneath the pile. They weren't a threat at the moment but I knew they would be soon enough, so I grabbed my huntin' knife and stuck my arm though the gap in the boards, sinkin' my knife into the first walker's skull. The pile was hollow, just a pyramid made of planks. The top had caved in, trappin' these walkers under the lumber. That guy that was at the hotel before us hadn't just killed people and put 'em in the room on the top floor. They were here too.

I couldn't get to the others so I kicked at the pile until it caved the rest of the way, lettin' me reach the other walkers. I stabbed them the same way as the first as Beth ran up behind me to help me throw 'em off the side of the mountain. Beth looked from the cliff to me. "What the hell was wrong with that psycho? First the walkers in the room, Andy, Noah. Now this?" She gestured to the side of the mountain. I just shook my head.

"He was sick." That was all I said. It was all I could say. That man had tried to kill me, had killed Andy and Noah, and had a ton of walkers stashed around the property. In my opinion, that was sick. I jerked my head toward the front of the hotel, picked up the pile of boards I had dropped and walked off, Beth on my heels.

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[1 Month Later. . . ]

Maggie:

We gave it time, and Beth was definitely pregnant. A month after I found Beth throwing up in her room, I could tell that we could be sure now. There was a small and soft, yet defined outward curve to her stomach. She had already talked to Daryl about it and told Leigh. Glenn had noticed, like me, even though I was the first person Beth told when she was sure. In all honesty, I was excited but worried for my baby sister at the same time. Still, I think we all knew from the beginning that she was but we didn't want to start worrying until we knew a hundred percent. And now we did. Our home at the hotel was turning out well. Glenn and I had finished digging the rest of the holes for the fence, Beth and Daryl were working on hammering in the posts, and Leigh was following them, nailing boards across the posts to finish the fence. It had taken a month for the posts to me made because we needed so many of them but they were finally done and the fence could be put up. We were pretty well set up with food, too. Daryl went hunting about every other day, and I took the others out to forage for anything we could find, while Daryl was gone. We still found a hidden walker here and there every so often, mostly in the woods around the hotel as we went slightly farther to look for food. They had been hung and left to die and turn. Whenever we found one of the hangers, Glenn would lift me up on his shoulders and I would stab them in the head, ending them. It was sad to see so many people dead at the hands of a psychopath whom they thought would help protect them from the world we had been living in for so long. The dangers of the apocalypse turned people wild, making them do things they may never have done before the world crumbled to almost nothing.

Beth:

I looked down at my stomach poking out slightly. I was probably about four months along and starting to show, but I still couldn't believe it was actually going to happen. I had mixed feelings about it, like everyone else. I had always wanted children, but not in the middle of this. But we had a home now and even though I knew it might not last, I held on to the shred of hope that it would, for the baby's sake.

I bent down and picked up another fence post, holding it in place while Daryl hammered it into the hole in the ground. I bent back down to pack the dirt around the base of the post as Leigh followed with another plank for the horizontal bar. We only had a few more to go and finished them quickly and easily. I looked at the fence then up to Daryl, who smiled and nodded, also admiring our work. By the time we finished completely, I could barely see Daryl's face anymore because it had gotten really dark, really fast.

"Daryl? Why's it so dark? It can't be that late."

Daryl looked up at the sky and I followed his gaze up to the heavy black clouds hanging over the mountain.

"Crap. It's gonna storm pretty bad. We gotta get inside. Now."

We were behind the hotel and sadly, there wasn't a back door and it started pouring as Daryl put his hand on the small of my back, pushing me forward gently as we took off running for the front. Leigh was really fast, already to the front several seconds before we got there. By the time we flung ourselves through the front door, we were soaked and I was freezing. I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering. "I really hate the rain!" Maggie came up to me with a blanket and wrapped it around me and ushering me towards the closet where we kept most of the supplies we had accumulated in our thirteen months at the hotel, including extra food and clothing. She pulled out a bright blue tank top, a dark grey cardigan, and a light pair of jeans, which thankfully, were a little bit big on me so I could wear them a little while yet, but they wouldn't necessarily fall off my butt.

I pulled off my clothes after Maggie closed the door, and I looked back down at my belly. I could see how much it stuck out already more easily without my clothes, and I ran my hand lightly over it. "Wow, Maggie this is really gonna happen isn't it?"

"Yeah, Bethy, it is."

Maggie smiled and I pulled on the tank top and jeans, and slid the sweatshirt over my shoulders, Maggie replacing the blanket around me. By the time we left the closet, Daryl had taken off his shirt and vest, standing bare-chested in the middle of the room.