Cherokee Roses {Daryl Dixon's Daughter}

t h i r t y t h r e e

The next morning, no one wakes me up early. The thing that does wake me up is the sound of gun shots and screaming. I panic my first thought being that the governor is back and is now attacking us. Instead, I hear yelling about walkers being in cellblock D. 

Quickly, I grab my crossbow and run to the cell block behind a group of adults including my father. The cellblock is in a panic as Rick yells at people to get out of the area. A walker makes its way to a small curly haired boy and my dad picks him up while I shoot the walker.

We urge everyone not close to the door inside of cells making sure that they're out of the crossfire. 

"Are we clear down here?" Rick yells frantically. 

"Yeah!" Sasha responds to him.

"Up here!" Someone yells from the next level of the prison and I follow my dad up the stairs. 

A dead woman lays on the ground in the middle of the catwalk. How the hell did walkers get inside? I take the left side while my dad takes right. When I walk past a cell a walker lunges as I open the curtain of a cell. 

"Get down!" Dad says and I quickly duck out of its reach while dad shoots a bolt through its head.

He walks back over to me and grabs my hand pulling me up and into his chest with one arm quickly. Rick comes up behind us and opens the curtain to the cell that the walker just fell into. 

"It's Patrick." Dad states. "That's all of em."

I gag at the sight of the dead boy who looked perfectly healthy yesterday. 

"What the hell happened here?" I wonder out loud. We go through each cell making sure that those who are dead stay dead.  There's sobbing coming from cells and I watch as a woman covers a dead walker with a sheet. 

"No bites, no wounds," Rick says bewildered looking at a walker with blood covering his face. He had locked himself inside of his cell the night before. "I think he just died."

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

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

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

"I saw them on Patrick, too." Dad tells him.

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

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

"No these things happened before they were around. Could be pneumococcal most likely an aggressive flu strain."

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

"Nah man, Charlie used to sleepwalk." Dad tells us. "Locked himself in. 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 says almost ashamed. "Saw a sick boar in the woods."

"Pigs and birds. That's how these things spread in the past." Hershel says. "We need to do something about those hogs."

"Maybe we got lucky." Dr. S says hopeful. Although one look at his eyes and I can tell even he doesn't believe it. "Maybe these two cases are it."

"Since when have we ever been lucky." I say sadly. 

"All of us in here, we've all been exposed." Hershel says. "Especially if you have a weaker immune system."

I meet my dads eyes. Every single flu season I got so sick to the point I was out of schools for 3 to 5 days. During the winter when we were on the road, I felt like one of the walkers. Every hour I was puking or dry heaving whatever contents were in my stomach and someone was with me at all times to make sure I didn't pass out.  He closes his eyes and looks to the floor. We both know the truth and the truth is that I'm probably infected already.