When The World Ends

Hard Things

Beep Beep Beep. Goes right through my ear. Stupid digital watch I think. I get down from the RV and change into blue Jean's, a plain white t-shirt, my leather jacket, and boots. Then just for today, my knives. I walk out to the shed and wait on Daryl not knowing what I am about to get myself into.

After a few minutes, Daryl is walking over in the same attire as yesterday. Dark blue long selves shirt, leather jacket, black pants, and his shoes. He tosses me the keys to unlock the shed, and we go in. Randall is sitting there handcuffed to a pipe already awake.

"You again." He says when he notices me.

"Yeah, me again. Alright, we can do things the easy way or the hard way. You pick." I give him a choice, and he didn't pick easy. Soon Daryl and I were taking turns hitting or yelling at him when he didn't answer us.

"I told you," Randall says spitting out blood.

"You told me bullshit!" Daryl picks him back up.

"I barely knew those guys. I met them on the road." He pleads. "How many in your group?" Daryl tries again. Randall just sits there scoffing and gasping. I punch him again and he screams. I walk back a bit when Daryl pulls out his hunting knife.

"No no no no-no-no. Come on man." Randall says quickly. Daryl lunges towards him and sticks his knife a few millimeters away from Randall's knee wound.

"How many!" Daryl screams.

"Huh ah 30, 30 guys," Randall tells.

"Where?" I ask. He goes silent. Daryl rips the duck tape off his knee revealing a gross white and yellow mixture of puss and blood. Randall screams in pain again.

"I don't know, I swear." He gets out through clenched teeth. "We are never any place more than a night." He says seeing Daryl put his knife on his scab.

"Scouting?" Daryl questions cutting into it. "Do you plan on staying local?" I kneel down on Randall's right side.

"I don't know they left me behind." His voice cracks.

"You ever picked off a scab?" Daryl asks pulling his knife through Randall's knee a little bit more.

"Guys, I'm trying to cooperate." He tells.

"You start real slow at first," Daryl says giving directions. 'I like a man that goes real slow at first.' I think. Stop it! Focus!

"But sooner or later you just have to rip it off!" Daryl shouts in Randall's face.

"Okay, okay," Randall breaks. "They have weapons heavy stuff. Automatics. But I didn't do anything." I scoff. "

Your men shot at our men. And you were there so guess what, that makes you apart of it." I corrected.

"You are trying to tell us you are innocent?" Daryl questions.

"YES!" Randall shouts.

"These people took me in after she had sent me on my way. But not the ones you sent me too they were dead. But they were just guys, men, and women. Kids too." Daryl and I back away, we stand shoulder to shoulder. "I thought I had a better chance with them you know. Just like you said to me," he looks at me. "You said you were better on your own and now you're with a group. But we'd go out scavenging, just the men. One night we..." he pauses and Daryl stiffens.

"We found this little campsite. Man and his two daughters." My jaw drops, I can't help but be furious of what comes out of his mouth next.
"Teenagers you know, real young, real cute." Daryl looks at me with sad eyes. "The dad had to watch while these guys they...And the didn't even kill him afterward...they just. They just made him watch. His daughter's, they just left them there. No, but I-I didn't touch the girls. I swear." Daryl goes and kicks Randall in his dick. "Please, you got to believe me guys, I'm not like that."

"Joy let's go-" Daryl was about to leave when Randall hears my name.

"Wait, Jade as in Jacklyn?" I nod confused. Daryl stops. "Oh, I've heard about you. This man in the group Dave, after what they did to those girls he wouldn't shut up about you. He said he missed the way you...you felt to him. Described every detail about what he did to you." My flashbacks starting. Then the feeling of him and his hands on me where they weren't supposed to be.

"Said you were screaming during yours even though you had a rag in your mouth. He said he missed your curves, your flat stomach, just everything about you." The feeling I tried to get off my skin for so long coming back, grossness. His hands. I didn't realize I was painting by now.

"The way he had your wrists tied and you wouldn't stop fighting it. He told us how tight you were-" I stopped his words by punching him. Then I backed up and kicked him in his side. Then Daryl stepped in and I just fell back crying. The feeling of him all over encased me. The feeling of weakness and vulnerability back. His kisses down my neck to my chest and then stomach...

The feeling of arms around me makes me jump and pull away. I open my eyes and make out Daryl through my blurry vision. I stand up my legs feeling weak, and we walk out of the shed. We were in there for a while as the sky had clouded over and it had become gray and chilly. Almost immediately people gasp by the blood on our knuckles and the look of me. I don't make eye contact with anyone, nor Rick. Thunder goes off in the distance.

"Guys got a group of 30 men. They got heavy artillery, and they ain't looking to make friends. If they roll through here, our boys are dead and our women they're...they're gonna wish they were." Daryl tells them all the information we got.

"What's wrong with Jade?" Someone asks, and I still don't look up.

"The kid brought up her attack with the guy's name and very explicit details. I think it triggered something." Daryl says sadly almost pained that he had to listen to the detail while I had to feel and go through it.

"Maggie, can I have a shower, I uhh? I feel rather gross?" I say looking up finally. Rick also looks pained. Maggie walks to me and puts her arm on my shoulders I flinch but realize that she won't hurt me.

***

After a hot shower, I still don't feel clean, but I have to get out so I don't use all the water. I get dressed back into what I was wearing and walk out to Shane yelling at Carl.

"You do not go back in there. Do you hear me?" Shane starts to walk away.

"You won't tell my parents will you?" Carl asks. Soon they are talking in hushed voices, so I walk over in their direction.

"What happened?" I ask Shane while Carl looks down.

"Carl somehow got into the shed and was talking to Randall." My heart drops.

"Carl, what were you thinking? That man-" he cuts me off.

"I know I'm sorry. It won't happen again." He turns and walks off to Lori who is cutting up vegetables. When Carl gets over to her, they head to the barn. I walk to my jeep which was now by the RV. It had been having some problems lately, and Dale was trying to help me fix it. He was saying it was battery corrosion, so today we were going to check and clean all the connectors.

I took the baking soda and water mixture and a toothbrush and start scrubbing. While cleaning Dale was check if it was other places in my car. Glenn was keeping me company cracking jokes and talking about how Hershel gave him a pocket watch. After Dale was done checking up on my car he went off on his own errands.

After another 15 minutes of scrubbing the connectors and talking with Glenn I finished up and it was time to head to the house for the "hearing" for Randall. I pick up the bowl and toothbrush and head to the house. Lori was grabbing Carl and everyone else was being ushered into the house as well. I walk in dumping my bowl into the sink and then head back down the hall to the living room. The only spot left is next to a standing Daryl. I take it and we begin the hearing.

"So how do we do this, just take a vote?" Glenn asks.

"Does it have to be unanimous?" Andrea questions.

"No majority rules," Lori told her.

"Let's just see where everyone stands, then we and talk through the options." Rick clarifies.

"Well, where I see it there's only one way to move forward," Shane speaks his mind.

"Killing him, right?" Dale asks rhetorically. "Then why bother taking a vote when we know which way the winds blowing."

"Well, if you believe we should spare him I wanna know." Rick makes a hand gesture.

"Well, I can tell you it's a small group may be just Glenn and me," Dale says. I move my eyes to watch Glenn, and he looks at Dale and speaks.

"Look, I think you're pretty much right about everything all the time but I-I this." Dale cuts him off. I shake my head.

"They got you scared." Glenn continues.

"He's not one of us and. We've lost too many people already." Dale turns to Maggie and Hershel pointing at them.

"How about you? Do you agree with this?"

"Couldn't we continue to keep a prisoner?" Maggie asks not much sympathy coming through with her accent.

"Just another mouth to feed," Daryl says from beside me.

"It may be a lean winter." Hershel brings up.

"We could ration better with his assistance." Lori states.

"See he could be an asset," Dale said. "Give him a chance to prove himself." He continued.

"Or we could put him to work." Someone says.

"We aren't letting him walk around." Rick shut that idea down.

"We could put an escort on him," Maggie says bringing the idea back.
"
And who wants to volunteer to do that." Shane scoffs.

"I will!" Dale sternly told him.

"I don't think any of us should be walking around with this guy," Rick shouts.

"Look, say we let him join us, say he's nice. We let our guards down we let him out and he brings back his 30 men..." Shane goes off and everyone is quiet. I see Daryl turn and look at me out of the corner of my eye. I turn my attention back to Dale.

"So the answer is just to kill him for a crime he may never do! If we do this, we are saying there is no hope of laws, it's dead. That there is no civilization." Shane mutters an 'oh my god' and Hershel suggests driving Randall farther out. Lori goes on listing cons to the plan.

"She's right we should not put our people at risk." Glenn agrees. Then Patricia asks about how we would kill him and Shane lists off a few ways.

"Woah Woah Woah. Hold on, you're talking about this as if you've already made a decision." Dale reminds us that there hasn't been one yet.

"We've been talking about this all day goin' round in circles you want to go around in circles some more?" Daryl says taking his eye finally off of me pacing back and forth.

"THIS IS A TEENAGERS LIFE! Shouldn't it be worth more than a five-minute conversation? Is this what its come to? We kill someone because we can't decide what else to do? You saved him and now he's been tortured. He's gonna be executed. How are better than all those people were scared of?" Dale questions.

"We all know what needs to be done," Shane says. Dale sighs looking to me as a last try.

"I know you don't agree with this. You haven't said a word." He says to me.

"Look, I don't think to kill him is right but we can't keep him around either. He could get his group and come back. I don't want that to happen. We know what he did to those girls and what they will do to us. No one else should know how...how that feels. No one else should have to live with that. I'm still living with it, and I hate it. So don't ask me because I'm Switzerland here." I say trying to make my point crossed that I don't want to be the one to make a decision.

"Alright that's enough, anyone who wants the floor before we make a final decision has the chance," Rick says. Everyone stays silent just looking around at everyone else.

"You once said, "We don't kill the living." Dale refers to after the walker attack when Daryl was gonna kill Jim.

"That was before the living tried to kill us." Rick eyes Dale.

"But don't you see if we do this, the people that we knew, the world that we live in is dead. And this new world is ugly it's harsh. It's survival of the fittest. And that's a world I don't want to live in. And I don't believe that any of you do, you can't. Please let's just do what's right." Dale says on the verge of tears. Everyone is staying silent. "Isn't there anyone else who is going stand with me?" He pleads again. The silence goes on for a few seconds before Andrea speaks up.

"He's right. We should try to find another way." She tries to help.

"Anybody else?" Rick asks. Everyone else silent again. Rick turned back to Dale and makes a sad gesture.

"You all gonna watch too?" Dale says with glossy eyes and a sad tone. I turn, walking out not liking the talk of killing. Before being completely out I hear Dale say one thing I finally do agree with it.

"You're right, this group is broken." He walks out right past me and to the RV.

***

I had been a good hour since the hearing and I still hadn't moved from my spot on the railing on the house. It had gotten pretty dark out Shane, Daryl, Rick, and Randall were making their way to the barn now. They decided on shooting Randall but a shot never went off. After 5 minutes they all came back a locked Randall back up.

Rick went to the group and Daryl came to tell me that we were keeping Randall in custody. The only reason that was happening was that Carl walked in wanting to watch. We talked for a few more minutes before a deep scream was let out. Daryl ran down the steps, and I jumped off the railing falling into a run right behind him.

The others went running towards it as the Greene's came out of the house too. We ran through the fields towards the screams. We ran up to Dale and see him laying down on the ground with a walker on top of him. Daryl pushes himself a bit more and tackled the walker off of Dale and killing it.

"HEY, OVER HERE!!" I yell. I hear Daryl mutter a 'hang in there buddy' to Dale and I turn to them. When I do, I'm met with the sight of Dale's stomach being ripped open and his intestines hanging out and blood smeared all over.

"Oh God," I mutter, and the other surrounds us with flashlights.

"Hang on alright. Get Hershel. We need blood." Dales' moans overpowering everyone's worried voices.

"Get Hershel," I yell.

"Hold on alright. Hold on." Rick mutter.

"What happened?" Hershel finally arrives taking in the whole scene with that look on his face.

"Can we move him?" Rick asks.

"He won't make the trip," Hershel tells him. "We have to operate here. Glenn get back to the house"

"Rick..." is all Hershel says before Rick is screaming 'No' and everyone else is crying. I hold it together, though. All Dale wanted was for us to keep civilization together. For us to keep our heads on straight, to be level headed. And now that's gone, I think.

"He's suffering," Andrea says in between Dale's groans. I stand beside Rick on his right and Daryl on his left. Rick raises his Python and clicks it. It's like it turned to slow motion. After Rick had aimed it, he didn't shoot. My mouth parts a little bit as Daryl takes the gun from Rick. Rick turns to me and hugs me his face in my shoulder away from Dale. Then Daryl's word sounds out.

"Sorry brother." then the shot.