My Fallen Angel (Daryl Dixon Love Story)

Chapter Twenty Three: Useless

The next morning I'm tiredly checking on the herbs when I hear gunshots coming from inside the prison. I run to catch up with Rick.

"Where is Carl? " I ask him.

"With Maggie in the tower." He answers I sigh in relief.

"Walkers in D!" Glenn tells us as we catch up with him.

"What about C?" Rick asks.

"Clear," Sasha says meeting us. "We locked the gates to the tombs, Hershel is on guard."

"It ain't a breach." Daryl calls running to Rick and me.

"We follow the Plan!" I tell them all.

We get to the cell and start to help clear the walker. Soon I realize these walkers are faces I've seen before.

"Esme get the non-bit people in their cells!" Rick orders to me. I start to help get the kids and others in the cells checking the cells for Walkers. After it was all quiet I start to check the survivors for bites with Hershel. After getting the people out we check the dead for wounds to see where this all started. In the last cell, a lone walker is found locked in. Rick puts him down.

"No bites, no wounds, I think he just died." Rick says.

"Horribly, too. Pleurisy aspiration." Dr. S says.

"Choked to death on his own blood," Hershel explains. "Caused those trails down his face."

"I've seen them before," Rick says. "On a walker outside the fence."

"I saw them on Patrick too." Daryl says.

"They are from the internal lung pressure building up." Dr. S explains. "Like if you shake a soda can and pop the top, only imagine your eyes, ears, nose, and throat as the top."

"Ouch." I whisper.

"It's a sickness from the walkers?" Bob asks.

"No, these things happen before they were around." Dr. S answers. "Could be pneumococcal, could be an aggressive flu strain."

"Someone locked him in just in time." Hershel says.

"No, man. Charlie used to sleepwalk. He would lock himself in." Daryl explained. "Hell he was just eating barbecue yesterday, how could somebody die in a day just from a cold."

"I had a sick pig it died quick," Rick said. "Saw a sick boar in the woods."

"From what I understand pigs and birds were carriers for the flu." I say looking to Hershel for clarification.

"Yes, that's how these things spread in the past." He smiles at me. I was learning. "We need to do something about those hogs."

"Maybe we got lucky. Maybe these two cases are it." Dr. S says.

"Haven't seen anybody be lucky in a long time," Bob argues. "Bugs like to run through close quarters. It doesn't get any closer than this."

"All of us in here, we've all been exposed," Hershel says, then turns to me. "You are the most at risk with your diabetes, Esme, you start to feel sick you come to us quickly, understood."

"Yeah..." I say stepping out of the cell scared now. I did not want to put the others at risk of me turning. I go and shower cleaning myself off of the blood and everything as quickly as I could.

After showering I go to the Council room where I knew the group would be.

"We have to separate everyone who has been exposed." Carol was saying.