𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐔𝐌 (𝐷𝑎𝑟𝑦𝑙 𝐷𝑖𝑥𝑜𝑛)

𝐸𝑙𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛

I heard them before I saw them. Their snarls carried throughout the empty shells around me, getting louder by the second. Two heads appeared from behind a rusted truck a few yards ahead of me, their ghastly moans still reaching my ears.

A rough hand suddenly clamped around my mouth. I felt myself being pulled back by strong arms and began frantically trying to break free, breathing rapidly through my nose. My body was pressed against the back of a grey van and I came face to face with my ambusher.

Shane?

With a hand still pressed over my mouth, he brought a finger up to his lips and signaled for me to be quiet, his dark eyes boring into mine. I nodded my head and he released his hand. I winced as Shane reached behind me and forcibly pulled my backpack off of my shoulders, pushing me towards the right side of the van.

"Get underneath," he hissed in my ear. 

I quickly did what he said, crawling under the van and lying face up, my back pressed against the small rocks of the asphalt. Shane quickly slid in next to me until we were shoulder to shoulder. My hands found their way to my knife and I pulled it out of its sheath. If a walker crawled underneath the van, I wanted to be prepared. It had been a while since I had killed one of them. I was small and fast, so I was generally able to avoid them by running around. They were so slow that they usually tripped over themselves.

I thought back to when I first learned how to kill them.

✯✯✯

"C'mon Charlie, all you gotta do is stab it in the head."

My brother stood a few feet away from me, watching the reanimated woman stagger my way, mouth open and hands outstretched.

"I'm trying," I snapped. From a distance, they didn't seem to have an effect on me. Up close is when my anxiety would kick in and I'd get nervous.

The woman growled and bared her teeth, lunging for me in one swift motion. I jumped back and something gave out underneath my heel, sending me tumbling down to the forest floor.

"Son of a bitch!" I raised my arms up as the decaying woman fell on top of me, her head landing on my upraised knife. A fountain of curses flowed out of my mouth as I pushed the rotting body off of me, pulling my knife out and wiping the dark red fluid on her dirtied sundress.

"Thanks for the fucking help," I picked up a pebble and sent it soaring towards my brother, who laughed as it missed his head.

"It's not funny Kai. I could've been bit," I shoved my knife back into its sheath and went storming off towards camp. I wanted to actually learn how to defend myself and all my brother could do was laugh as I almost got myself killed.

"Wait," my brother called after me, "C'mon, you have to admit, it was kind of funny!"

I ignored him and kept on walking. I couldn't understand why he was treating everything like some big joke. This wasn't one of his video games where he got to kill monsters with his buddies. This was real life. I reached the camp in a couple of minutes, heading straight for my tent. I was too upset to talk to anyone.

"Hey, Charlotte."

Maybe not everyone.

I looked up to see Sam limping in my direction. I'd forgotten how bad his knee had gotten.

"Hi," I smiled at him, "How's the knee?"

He looked down at himself, strands of grey hair falling out from under his straw hat. "Oh, you know, still cracking every time I take a step," he chuckled softly, "Age will do that to ya."

In his hands was the journal of my dreams; it contained every fern and flower Sam had studied in his time as a botanist. Before everything fell apart, I had been looking to pursue a career in herbal medicine. Finding Sam was like hitting a gold mine.

"I found the page about butterfly weed you were asking for. Would you like to read it with me?" Sam looked at me with a wrinkled smile that reached his eyes; it was one of the few things that still warmed my heart.

"Of course," I looped my arm around his and started guiding him towards some lawn chairs laid out by the campfire.

A strange sensation crawled up the right side of my body and my head turned to follow the direction it had come from. Standing in a cluster of trees was my brother, staring at me and Sam from a distance, still close enough that I could see a dark look spread across his face.

✯✯✯

The scuffling of footsteps brought me out of my daze and my head fell to the side, just in time to catch several pairs of worn and dusted shoes dragging across the pavement, accompanied by a heavy stench that reeked of death. 

Shane's heavy panting suddenly grew louder in my ear and I felt his body inch closer. My breath stopped in my chest and my muscles froze. His hand rested lightly on my stomach and I whipped my head around to look at him.

I recognized the look in his eyes; it was a concoction that men had served to me a few times in the past, a mixture of lust and hunger for something more than my attention or even my words. It was the look my mother had warned me about before I even had my first period, my first kiss, my first boyfriend. But Shane had something else added to the mix. There was an underlying hint of danger in the way his eyes carried over me, stealing images of my body as I lay there motionless.

His hand traveled down my belly button. I suddenly remembered how to breathe and sucked in dirt-ridden air, feeling it coat my throat immediately. My arm flew up in an attempt to push him away but his hands were quicker. They clutched at my wrist and snatched the knife out of my hand, tucking it into the belt of his pants.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I hissed and reached for my knife. Shane took a handful of the grey shirt that once belonged to Daryl and dragged me closer to him, untucking the loose fabric from underneath my jeans. I started to hyperventilate, the humid air suddenly feeling like thick syrup that wouldn't go down my throat. With one hand he gripped both of my wrists and slid the other one down my temple, brushing away a loose strand that had come undone from my ponytail.

"Shhhh," he cooed silently as the parade of walkers continued on around us. His free hand shoved itself in between my thighs, a satisfied sigh escaping his lips.

My knee swiftly jerked up, catching him in the shin. He spewed silent curses and gripped my wrists harder, so much that it felt like they would break off.

"I saved your ungrateful ass. I could've told Rick to leave ya on the side of the road, but I didn't. You owe me," Shane cupped a hand around my face and forced my gaze to meet his.

"I'll tell Rick," I jerked my head out of his grasp.

"Oh, yeah? And who the hell do ya think he'll believe? His best friend, or some girl he barely knows? Huh?"

Our dispute had only been through whispers at that point, both of us knowing full well that anything louder than that would attract a horde of walkers to our van. I couldn't call for help and I couldn't fight back.

I was trapped.

***

(𝑷𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒏 5/15/20)