Tiptoe Through the Tulips

My eyes were open, blurred grey was all I could see. The blood coating me felt like acid, melting through my skin and muscle. I was locked in myself. Locked in my mind, there was the feel of motion, bumping, arms tight around me, wet growing on my shoulder.

But I couldn’t move.

Catatonic shock. No. I couldn’t, not now.

I could hear shouting, it was blurred, I felt myself being shoved sideways, my back hitting against a body, air flooding into the car.
Flooding into me and bringing me back to life.
My ears ringing loudly, sending pulses through my skull.

I gasped, my eyes focusing, we were in one of the cars, Beth layed curled behind me, her sobs shaking my body, her hands claws around my arm. I strained my neck as I turned, desperately searching for some recognition of where we were.

The road looked unfamiliar, more pedestrian than where we had been before, a few houses scattered around. How long had we been driving?
Beth’s sobs grew louder and I felt my stomach turn. My hands instantly shaking as I again glanced desperately around to see who was here. Who had made it with us.

Beth, Tyler who was pale, blood slowly oozing down his face. Andrea was squashed between the two, blood splattering her face in a similar way I imagine to mine, her eyes wide, staring out past me.
I followed her empty stare, feeling relief shoot through me when I saw that the door opening had been Maggie, she was screaming hysterically.

I don’t know how I didn’t hear her.

Glenn was out, trying to comfort her and past that Daryl stood, eyes narrowed as they did when he stared out.
“Is this it?” my voice was hoarse, it seemed as if it would never fully recover. I turned and Tyler nodded weakly, Beth’s sobbing and Maggie’s shouting becoming clear. “Hershel?...” he looked down at his lap, Beth’s tears stopping suddenly only to erupt again.

I tried to concentrate, to push past the shouting, the bile rising up my throat, the grief.
We had seen Carol die, Clint, Tyreese, Lori.

I spun, tumbling out of the car and onto my knees as he glazed eyes burnt behind my eyelids, the hole still pulsing dark blood. The baby slowly losing its life in her. My vomit splashed on the cracked pavement, my eyes opening as I felt myself dragged up, landing on my hands.

Blood had soaked into them, caught under my nails, drying across my knuckles, the creases of my palms black. I felt the scream building in my lungs, only stopped by the hand that pulled me up, the one that covered my mouth. “We’re already attracting attention from Maggie, you need to keep quiet,” I struggled against him, the tears drifting over his fingers.

His voice grew softer, “Ariella, we cannot have everyone’ loosin’ their shit. Please, calm down.”

I nodded, forcing myself to let out a deep shaky breath and pulling his hand away. Maggie was still shrieking, her grief much more violent than Beths’.

Glenn desperately tried to hold her, to stop her flailing limbs but he was unsuccessful and within a couple of minutes she was collapsed in a pool of tears.
“She’s attractin’ enough damn Walkers,” Daryl muttered, and I followed his gaze, “We need to move on.”

“Where though, where the hell is left?” he didn’t answer, instead his teeth chewed against the inside of his cheek and I grew irritated by him, his calmness when he had no fucking answers.

“Where do we go Daryl? And...” I swallowed hard, “Is this everyone? Do we know if anyone else got away?”
“One of those freaks hacked Hershel’s leg off in front of his youngest daughter,” he drawled, voice hard, “We ent stopping to think until we’re far enough away.”

“But what if it’s like with Andrea, what if we left people there, Rick, Carl, T-dog?! What if they’re hurt or stuck somewhere and we can’t...”

“You are my priority. And now everyone’ we got here is too. After a couple of days maybe we’ll head back that way but at this rate I think we’re gunna get blocked. We are not going back to that hellhole and we are not going after that fucked up Governor guy. We’re outnumbered.”

He sighed, “And if she keeps on going we are gunna have another damn horde after us.” By now Maggie was screaming again, whilst behind me the car was silent, as I turned I saw Beth curled up in Andrea’s arms.

“We need to go,” Andrea said, blonde hair tainted with blood, “We’re attracting too many, this is too big a town, we need a village or something. We got a map and as long as we avoid the prison, and that lunatic cannibal town I am happy. Get Maggie.” She ended with her teeth gritted and I saw Daryl nod.

Looked like we were going to have two in command.

He walked over to Glenn, and I ran to Maggie, pulling her to the car as the two men stood, Daryl’s crossbow in his arms and Glenn holding a sharpened pipe we had made at the prison.

“Come on sweetie,” I urged, pulling her up and staggering under her weight. “We can’t stay here.”

She mumbled something weakly, the only words I could pick up were Hershel and gone. I winced, feeling my throat clog again as I pushed her down next to Beth, the sisters instantly finding each other, this time silently.

“Daryl.” I hissed, noticing another couple of Walkers leaving a house on my side of the car. “Now.” He nodded, Glenn and himself running over, Daryl in the driving seat and Glenn squashed with me on the passenger. “Well I don’t know where the hell I’m going.” he complained, swerving the car to hit a walker as the houses began to blur, the town gone from out view in a matter of minutes.

“Head North.” Glenn said , leaning back and taking the map from an barely conscious Tyler, taking him a couple of minutes to work out where we were. “That’s the only way we haven’t gone yet, if we head out into the country more, but still closeish to a village or town.”

“If we head West first we could head around Coalville. When we got stuck before and we ended up on the outskirts it was quiet, they probably evacuated fairly early since it was a large town so there might be a lot of stuff left around.”

“But if not we risk a lot of Walkers,” Glen argued, the map lying over our laps, “If there’s a chance we could get through that town we visited before.”

“No way.” Daryl snapped instantly, his eyes narrowing.

“But if we go straight through, there’s a couple more small towns but its mainly country after that, and we do go East so we could eventually reach the coast.”

“But what if we reach the coast and there’s nothin’. No help. Then we’re fucked if we get cornered.” Glenn frowned, a similar expression plastered across my own features.

“I think Coalville is our best chance, if we stay on the outskirts, only a couple of houses. No dickin’ around and we need gas soon.” Daryl concluded, Andrea agreeing from behind.

“Okay, Coalville then.” Glenn sighed, eyes turning every couple of minutes to check on his now sleeping girlfriend, tears stained down her face.

“She’ll be okay Glenn.” I whispered, “They’ll be okay.” He met my eyes, the lie evident in them, the hope.

___

Coalville was surprisingly quiet, Andrea stayed by the car, the two Greene’s still asleep from exhaustion and Tyler not in a much better state.

“I don’t think he’s gunna make it.” Daryl had said to me, “He’s lost a lot of blood from his head. We may need to leave him somewhere.”

“He is alive Daryl.” I had snapped, feeling my heat rise, “We do not kill the living.”

He scoffed, “Yeah and how is that working out for us Barbie, we got fucking cannibals attacking us and....” his face instantly turned red and I felt the similar disgust flood through me. “We got mad men running towns, if he dies he turns into one. I am not letting that happen anywhere near any of yous’.”

I couldn’t stop the small smile that spread across my face as we went through the kitchen cabinets, cramming any tinned food into the various handbags I had taken from upstairs.

“Remember when you didn’t like anyone? Remember when it was all about Mr Dixon and fuck the others?” He nodded, landing a light kiss on my grimy forehead.

“And then you fucked it up.” I shook my head,

“Not just me. You’re a good guy, you were always going to help the group whether you admitted it to yourself or not.” He rolled his eyes, pulling the bag off the counter and placing it by the front door, Glenn’s footsteps from upstairs echoing.

“Nearly done Korean?” he called, ignoring as Glenn called down for him to fuck off.

“I think sticking to Glenn is the best.”

“He’s spent the last near damn year telling me he’s Korean” I rolled my eyes.

“We need to go in a couple more houses to check for guns and weapons. I’m guessing the quieter the better.” He nodded, and we waited until Glenn came down the stairs, bag full of spare clothing and wash stuff.

“Have fun going through all the panties?” I teased, laughing lightly as he glared at me, shaking his reddening face.

“Fuck off Ariella.” The humour dropped as we went back to the car, Tyler lay on the ground outside, Andrea sitting out of the door, small pistol in hand.

“He’s dead. He’s gunna turn.” I felt my stomach drop at the thought of more deaths, again whilst in the house we had all pushed it to the back of our minds, tried to ignore the burning that hit us whenever we thought of our friends. But death was becoming more than common it was horrible how easy it to to move past it; the bonds we were building may essentially be pointless. I looked up at Daryl, crossbow in arms, pointing at the now twitching Tyler.

I had a thunk as the arrow hits its target, my eyes glued firmly on a half bodied walker forcing its’ way up the road. Glenn followed my gaze, “We don’t have long.” He murmured, rubbing a comforting hand on my arm.

These bonds would never be pointless.

“Better do this as our last one.” Daryl said, wiping the bloodied arrow on his torn jeans, “Andrea don’t shoot unless you really have to. We’ll be quick.” She nodded, eyes still stuck on the corpse that lay close to her.

“Just be quick.”