Full Time Job

That night, I couldn’t sleep as Daryl had left me and Vinny alone so he could perform his watch duty. I tossed and turned for the better part of an hour before I climbed out of bed and crept quietly into the kitchen. Vinny was sleeping soundly. I pulled on my fleece jacket and crept outside to gather more firewood for the wood burning stove. I was rounding the building then I heard Daryl’s angry voice above me.

“Gianna, what are you doin’ out here?” he snarled, standing on the roof of the cabin, pointing his flashlight down to me.

“How’d you get up there?” I asked, ignoring his question.

“There’s a ladder back there,” he muttered, jerking his head in the direction towards the back of the house. I walked around the side of the house and carefully scaled the ladder that leaned against the wooden siding. When I neared the top, Daryl was waiting, extending his hand down to help me. When I reached the top step, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me away from the edge. I followed him as we walked lightly to the flat area that he had been sitting.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I answered, and sat carefully next to him. The night air was bitingly cold and I could feel my nose and cheeks grow slightly numb. I snuggled into his side and he wrapped an arm around me. He pulled my soft, small hands and into his larger gloved hands, and the heat felt nice on my cold fingers.

“So you decide to come out here, alone, and in the cold? You’re going to get sick…” he said, annoyed.

“I just wanted to be with you…” I said softly and the annoyed look on his face softened. He released my hand and reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black velvet pouch that was pulled closed with a small drawstring. He took a deep breath and placed it in my hands. I looked at him quizzically.

“Open it…” he ordered, staring at the bag that I held gingerly in my hands. I carefully untied the small black cording and loosened the opening of the small bag. I up-ended the bag into my palm and a glittery metal chain fell out and a cold smooth pendant landed in the center of my palm. My stomach lurched as I turned the pendant over with my thumb and it revealed a beautiful vintage pear cut diamond. It had to have been at least a carat. Before the outbreak, I worked part time at a jeweler’s shop when I wasn’t in class. The setting was simple, just the pear cut solitaire on a dainty silver chain. I held the chain and pendant up in front of me and it sparkled beautifully in the moonlight.

“Oh my God, Daryl,” I said, staring at the necklace in front of me. “Where did you get that? It’s so gorgeous,” I cooed.

“It was my grandma’s… I found it in my granddad’s workbench in the shed… I want you to have it…” I smiled widely at him, and scooted in front of him, and handed him the necklace. I pulled my hair to one side, indicating that I wanted him to put it on me. He took off his gloves and gently clicked the necklace closed around my neck. I looked down at it, still smiling widely. I leaned back against him and turned my head and kissed his neck.

“Thank you so much… It’s stunning…” I said, rolling the diamond in between my fingers. I felt him wrap his arms around me and kiss my temple. His beard stubble tickled my face.

“I love you,” he said quietly behind me. “I’ve never been in love before, really… but I’m pretty sure that’s what I feel for you. I don’t really know how to love someone…” He said, a hint of sadness touched his voice. I sat up slightly and faced him.

“You don’t have to know how to do it, you just do it…. and you’re doing well,” I said, and he pulled my shoulders back to lean against him like I was. We were silent for a few minutes.

“I love you, too…” I said, and he kissed my temple again. We sat quietly and I felt warm in Daryl’s arms, despite the cold night air that was still around us. I dozed off for a few minutes. I woke up to Daryl gently shaking my shoulder.

“C’mon, babe, let’s go check on Vinny and get you in bed. Rick should be taking over in a couple more hours,” he whispered. I yawned and turned my entire body on my side and snuggled into his shoulder, snuggling into him. I heard him lightly chuckle.

“Hey, Princess! Wake up!” he said and tickled my side. I groaned, whined, and made my way sleepily to my feet behind him. He walked behind me down the ladder, protectively steadying my waist as I climbed down and jumped to the cold ground. We walked to the door and quietly crept inside and into our bedroom. Vinny was still sleeping soundly. Daryl helped me shed my fleece jacket and I stepped out of my tennis shoes and into bed. He pulled the blanket on top of me and kissed my forehead.
“I’ll be back soon,” he whispered and quietly crept back out the door. I quickly fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke to feeling Daryl’s arms wrapped tightly around me, his body warmly spooning my own. I gently kicked off the blanket and tried to remove his arm that was like dead weight on top of me because he seemed to be fast asleep. I felt his muscles tighten his grip around me and I smiled to myself.

“Where ya goin’?” He he asked, his voice tired. I felt him nuzzling the back of my neck softly with the tip of his nose. I turned and climbed on top of him, straddling his body. He groaned and grasped my sides with his strong hands that traveled down to my hips. I felt him squeezing my hips, pushing me down onto his own harder, and he gently rocked my body back and forth. I moaned sweetly, teasing him, and he looked up at me through sleepy eyes.

“Good Morning Zia! Good Morning Daryl!” I heard Vinny call out to us, and he climbed up onto the bed with us. Daryl relaxed the grip on my hips and Vinny crawled over to us. He slung his leg over Daryl’s abdomen and sat on him also, directly in front of me.

“Why are you sitting up here?” He asked, and I giggled as Daryl’s eyes widened slightly.

“Because then he can’t move when I …TICKLE HIM!” I cried out and Vinny and I both laughed as we started to tickle all over Daryl’s body.

“Hey, ya’ll! I’m not ticklish!” he said, laughing lightly and trying to escape our attack. I lightly tickled the area behind his knee, and he jerked and started laughing hysterically. I was relentless, laughing back, cracking up that I had found his ticklish spot. I’d never heard him laugh like that before, and it made my heart light and happy. I liked the sound.

Carol came busting through the room, and when she saw the three of us tangled together, laughing and giggling, she couldn’t help but smile widely.

“What is going on in here?” she said, chuckling, standing in her robe in the doorway.

“They’re trying to murder me, Carol, HELP!” Daryl whined, and Vinny continued to tickle him, laughing wildly. Carol laughed, shook her head no, and shut the door behind her.

“Carol!” Daryl yelled playfully, and Vinny’s attack continued. Daryl was a good sport until Vinny was tickled out. We all three quickly dressed and joined our group for breakfast in the kitchen.

After breakfast, the group slowly trickled out of the cabin to complete their tasks for the day. Glenn, Maggie, and T-Dogg went on a supplies and fuel run; Hershel, Lori, Beth, and Carol continued their birthing training in the shed. Rick and Daryl had told everyone that they were going hunting, but I knew that they weren’t hunting game. I was in our bedroom, making our bed when I felt Daryl step up behind me and wrap his arms around my waist. He kissed my cheek.

“We’re leaving,” he said quietly. I turned around in his arms and frowned.

“Be safe, alright?” I muttered and he rolled his eyes. I kissed him hard on the lips mid eye roll. He was slightly bent down so I could reach him.

“Just come back to me!” I complained, twisting his grandmother’s pendant nervously in my fingertips. He playfully kissed the side of my face and neck before turning and exiting the cabin with Rick, slinging his crossbow across his back.

Carl, Vinny and I were left at the cabin, and Hershel had made some homemade paint for us from flour, water, and pigments from berries, plants, and charcoal. We were finger painting on planks of wood together in the kitchen, talking lightly and laughing together. Vinny was painting a giant dog, while Carl was painting an interesting underwater scene. I was painting a pretty flower mural. I got up to wash the paint from my fingers when the lights flickered off and the mechanical hum that we had grown used to slowed to a dead quiet. Carl and Vinny looked over at me, their faces illuminated from the light shining in from the window.

“Generator probably ran out of fuel again… Stay here,” I instructed and walked to the back door, stepping carefully in the grass, the ground cold under my feet. I didn’t take the time to pull my shoes on. I reached the generator and unscrewed the gas cap and peered inside. It still had plenty of gas in it. I stood up, slightly confused, when I felt a hard fist hit the side of my face.

I lost my balance, instinctually cradling my face, and stumbled loudly into the side of the cabin. I peered up to see the same withered, tan vested man that had been staring at me through the window. Terror invaded my stomach. He walked quickly toward me and I felt another hard fist hit me right in the temple, and my vision immediately blurred. I did manage to see Carl standing in the back doorway to the cabin, watching in horror.

“Carl! Take Vinny and RUN! Get help!” I wailed, and saw him quickly turn and run away. The man that I assumed to be Troy, hit me again in the face, and I felt the skin on my lip bust under the pressure. I yelped out in pain and Troy lunged towards me, tightly yanking me by the shoulders and pulling me away from the house. I struggled with everything I had.

“Oooh, she’s feisty too. I like the feisty ones…” I heard him snarl out. His voice was so darkly sinister that it scared me even more. I continued to struggle until he backhanded me hard across the face, and I completely lost consciousness.

When I came to, I realized that I was slung over his shoulder as he walked through the woods. I tried to scream, but I felt a fabric gag tied around my face, muffling the sound. When I reached up to try to remove the gag, I found that my hands were bound with the same fabric. I tried to struggle away from him, but the more I struggled, the more exhausted I would become.

He was walking a long way. We finally reached a disorderly camp where he literally dropped me on the cold forest floor. My feet were growing numb from the cold. I looked around me and saw two small pop up tents set up. A haphazard fire pit sat between them, where a fire was crackling quietly. A blonde man with dirty clothing looked at me from the stump he sat on next to the fire. The forest floor in their camp was littered with trash and clothing.

“She’s a pretty one,” the blonde man said, whistling appreciatively.

“Hey, now! I took her, I get her first!” Troy said behind me, and he yanked me up and forced me to walk towards one of the small tents in their camp. I could feel the flesh under my feet cutting from the sticks and rocks on the freezing earth beneath me as warm tears streamed down my face. He unzipped the door flap to the tent and I felt his boot kick me squarely on the back, and I fell straight forward to the ground, landing hard on my bound wrists.

I then felt him roughly yanking off my pants and I started screaming and struggling violently. I felt the cold air hit my legs and skin and I started shaking uncontrollably. I felt and smelled his body as he climbed on top of me and my screams were muffled against the fabric gag as he wrenched my panties to one side and shoved himself roughly inside me. He grunted disgustingly in pleasure. I began to grow light headed, refusing to accept the tragic reality that I was being brutally raped.
He was pulling so tightly on my shirt that I felt it ripping down the middle. The pain he caused from tearing into me so coarsely was getting worse and worse as he continued, and I tried to imagine myself in any other situation until he had abruptly yanked himself from me, ejaculated into an old dirty towel and crudely tugged my pants back up, ripping the waistband slightly in the process.
I screamed into the fabric that was wrapped so tightly around my mouth as he pulled me out of the tent by my hair. I could taste blood that was from the fabric rubbing the corners of my mouth raw. After he had led me by my hair to the center of the camp, he kicked me hard in the side and I crumpled onto the frigid ground.

“Go ahead, and get yours. Someone took good care of that one…She smells good and I hope I didn’t loosen her up to much…” Troy laughed vulgarly and I was sobbing again.

“Nah, I’ll wait awhile, I don’t want your sloppy seconds,” the other man said. I remembered that Vinny told me that there were two men; one was named Troy, the other, Ben. That had to have Ben. I watched both men intently as I slowly made my way to my knees. I had to at least try to escape from them. I had silently made it to my feet, turned, and ran about six yards before I heard them both screaming behind me. I ran as fast as my legs and cold feet would take me. My feet were openly bleeding now from running barefoot in the forest. I tried to block out the pain that was almost overtaking my body. With what little breath I could spare, I was screaming Daryl’s name, which muffled around me in the forest.

Troy finally caught up with me and his fist crunched hard into my face. I could feel blood shoot out my nose as the sickening crunching of bones rang through my skull. I stumbled backwards, dazed, and he slung me back over his shoulder. I could feel the blood from my nose rolling in droplets up my face. One rolled into my eye, stinging and clouding my vision.

When we had reached the camp, Troy slammed me to my feet and shoved me against a large, thick tree trunk. He tied my hands above my head into the tree, and no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t loosen them. He then started repeatedly hitting me in the face. After the first few blows, my face was numb, I could feel my skin and eyes swelling. He stopped hitting me and leaned close by my face.

“If you ever try to run off again, we’ll run back off to your camp and kill one of the children… Right here, so you can watch…” Troy spat in my face, and I felt like I might pass out again. I hung by my wrists in terrible pain.

“Jesus, Troy, I don’t want her no more…Look what you did to her face...” Ben complained. Troy shrugged.

My entire face was throbbing terribly, as well as my feet and back from having my wrists bound above my head. What Troy had said let me to believe that maybe Carl and Vinny got to safety. Either that, or they were already dead and he was messing with me. If the boys had escaped, Daryl and Rick had to be out looking for me. That was one of the only things that kept me from wishing that these two men would kill me and get it all over with.

It was starting to get dark, and as the sun went down, the camp grew cold. The cold air felt nice on my swollen and bruised face. The two men eventually went to bed and the camp was dead silent. I was shivering violently and tried to wrestle free of my wrist restraints, but the more that I had tried, the more that my entire body ached. I cried and prayed the entire freezing night. It was the worst night of my entire life.

When dawn broke, I heard someone screaming my name in the distance. My head perked up, and I had to decide whether or not I was dreaming. The sound was getting closer and closer and my stomach turned in surprise when I recognized that it was Daryl’s voice hollering for me.
I started screaming into the fabric, struggling to free my wrists. They were raw and bleeding from trying to break free all night.

“GIA!” I heard him scream again, this time he had to be just outside of camp. Ben and Troy both emerged from their tents, silently communicating with each other. Troy ran towards me, cut my wrists free and slung me over his shoulder while Ben ran towards Daryl’s screams, brandishing a large hunting knife. Troy was running at full speed and the jostling and bouncing on his shoulder made every bruise ache terribly. I was still screaming as loud as I could.

Troy slowed his run and hid behind a large tree as we both listened to Ben as he approached Daryl in the woods. I strained my neck to see Daryl standing over Ben, his fist raised in the air, ready to strike. T-Dogg and Rick stood behind him, pointing their weapons towards Ben. We were too far away for them to hear my muffled cries for help.

“WHERE IS SHE?” Daryl yelled, anger seething from his voice. I heard his fist slam sickeningly into Ben’s face. Daryl was hitting him over and over again. Troy quickly started running again, and I had no idea where he was going.

After what seemed like forever, I realized that Troy had made it to a familiar clearing, and I realized that we were near Daryl’s grandad’s cabin. I struggled like hell to loosen myself from Troy’s grip, but he held tightly onto me. I heard him walk directly up to the house, and I was confused as to why he would come here. Seemed awfully dumb to me, but I was grateful of his stupid decision.

He crept into the back door and the cabin was silent. Nobody was inside. He tossed me down onto the wooden floor and a loud thump filled the room as I fell. He looked wildly round the room and dragged me by my wrists towards the kitchen and tied my wrists around the plumbing pipe near the cabinetry next to the sink. The warmth of the cabin was refreshing. He started pacing the room and abruptly left. I worked to untie my wrists free, but was unsuccessful.

Terror filled my body when I saw that he was carrying an orange gas canister. I stared at him with wide eyes as he splashed the fuel all around the room. My heart sank when I realized that he was planning on torching the place, with me inside. I started to prepare myself for the terrible pain that I could only imagine burning to death would feel like. I started sobbing again.

I looked at him in surprise when he sat comfortably at the table and turned the match book he had pulled from his pocket over and over in his hands. What was he doing? Hope started to build within me as he idly sat at the table. He had no idea that Daryl was the best tracker in our group, and he was still coming for me.

After what felt like hours, Troy’s head whipped to the back door when it suddenly swung open. He pulled out his knife from the sheath that he wore at his belt.

“GIA??” I heard Daryl’s voice and relief washed through me. I started struggling and screaming as hard as I could. I heard a stampede of footsteps run towards the kitchen as I watched Troy light the match he had been holding since he drenched the room in gasoline. He dropped the match when I saw Daryl bustle through the room, and the room caught ablaze as he tackled him to the ground.

“Where’s she at?” Daryl snarled and I screamed through the fabric gag that felt like it was choking me.

“Oh, she’s yours?” Troy said, menacingly, “Do you know how tight your little homecoming queen is…My god!” he taunted Daryl as the room burned around us. Daryl started hitting him over and over in the face. Rick crawled under the smoke, cut my hands free, and carried me bridal style out of the house. He yanked the fabric from my mouth as he ran out of the cabin.

“Get Daryl…” I managed to cry out before he sat me down gently on the grass in the back of the cabin. He ran inside again and I laid down flat on the cold grass, not believing what was happening. I heard a string of five or six gun shots, and looked towards the cabin. Smoke was billowing from the roof. A couple minutes later, I saw Daryl’s angry face hovering over me. I started sobbing, not believing that I had lived to see him again. He gently lifted me up into his lap and held me tightly.

“I’m so sorry,” he kept repeating softly in my ear. I saw Rick and T-Dogg collapse on the ground next to us, and the three of us sat in silence and watched the cabin burn to the ground.