Claimed Pt 3

    Conclusion

Daryl spied the funeral home from the safety of the tree line. All was quiet, but that didn’t mean much. Walkers were usually quiet when there was no fresh food around. Since the street was clear, he motioned for Joe to move, coming along behind him. They hurried across the street, and Daryl approached the door, which was now firmly shut. He banged loudly and then stopped to listen.

Silence.

“Go around back. I’ll check the sides,” he said. Joe nodded in agreement and moved off.

Daryl peered into the slats of the boarded windows, trying to see if anything moved inside. He saw and heard nothing on either side of the house.

“Clear,” Joe said, his voice sounding loud in the quiet of the late evening. “The kitchen door is open. I already checked the basement, nothing.”

Daryl came into the kitchen. Everything was neat and clean. The trap had been reset.

“They replaced the pig feet with sausages,” Daryl noted. “Beth would have liked those better.”

“We should stay the night,” said Joe.

They were losing the light, and now it looked like rain was moving in. Daryl’s heart said keep running, keep going until he found her, but his head said stop, rest, and start fresh in the morning.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “We’ll rest up here. We’ll need to take watch in shifts. I’ll take the first one.”

They had a proper meal that Joe cooked on a propane powered stove, and then followed it up with stale pop tarts for dessert. Daryl took a seat on the couch in the main room and waited for the clock to wind around to two a.m., when Joe would take over.

Where the hell are you, Beth? Are you all right? Are you even alive?

He paced the funeral home. He and Beth had spent only one night there but she seemed to haunt every inch of the place. He kept seeing her sweet, trusting face, and that beautiful smile she so often shared with him. 

Daryl didn’t often pray. The truth was, he’d always been a bit sketchy on the idea of a God, and the outbreak had pretty much broken him of believing in an Almighty. Still, he was desperate to find Beth, and he’d take any help he could get. He figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.

Let me find her. Let me locate her alive and whole. That’s all I’m asking for.

He took a seat back on the couch and thought about where they’d go in the morning. He’d spotted some railroad tracks up the road. Maybe they would lead to a house or something that Beth may be holed up in with whoever took her.

***

The rain had apparently decided to stay.

Beth was surprised that Father Thorn had left the door of her room unlocked. She found him sitting in his own room, at the edge of  his bed, with his head cradled in his hands. He was shirtless and wore only a pair of boxer shorts.

“I’ll start breakfast,” she said.

He didn’t respond.

Beth cooked fried eggs and toast, and then heated water for tea. Father Thorn sat down and stared at her with so much hatred she could feel his gaze like a physical touch. He didn’t make a move to eat his food. Instead he took his gaze from her to glare at the table.

He’s pouting, she realized. She was dealing with an overgrown child with a propensity for violence.

“I don’t think I’m going to marry you. You’re not my type,” he said. There was a slight trace of that petulant tone. He spoke like a child who was still sore from not getting the toy he'd wanted at the store.

He was doing something with his hand under the table, and Beth didn’t think it had anything to do with jerking off. There was a thumping sound. He had something in  his hand and it was making her nervous. Beth decided to take her plate to the sink, and she grabbed the kettle for good measure, since it was half full with scalding hot water.

The most dangerous thing about Father Thorn was his unpredictability. Beth didn’t know him that well, but she knew she didn’t want him calm and focused as he was now. She needed him erratic and reckless, as he’d been the day before. She had to get him there, and she figured she knew one sure fire way to do it.

She nodded, as though she wasn’t surprised to hear this news from him. “I’m not weak enough for you. I get it.”

“What?”

“I’m too strong for you,” she said, loudly and slowly, as though addressing a particularly stupid child. “You’re emotionally stunted and you don’t even know it. You want someone you can scare and intimidate easily. I’m not that person. You’re not getting what you need from me, so you don’t want me.”

“Don’t fucking psychoanalyze me, you stupid bitch,” he said, in a deadly calm voice. “You think you’re slick. What, you’ve put down a couple of those things out there so you think you’re the queen of the fucking jungle?”

She just stared at him. She deliberately ran her eyes up and down him, and allowed a look of disgust to curve her lips.

“What?” he said.

“You’re a disappointment. I imagine your parents were also disappointed in you before this happened. You've probably let everyone in your life down. I’ll bet you never had a girlfriend that you didn’t have to kidnap and threaten with a knife, you fucking loser.”

That did it. That got the reaction she was looking for. 

“Shut up! Shut up!” he stood and shouted, and pointed a knife in her direction. “You don’t know me! You don’t know anything about me!”

“And if I don't shut up? What will you do then? Will you try to put your pathetic little baby dick in me? I’ll bet you’ve never had sex with a willing woman. You’ve had to rape and mutilate every one you’ve ever met because there’s not a woman in this world who’d have a piece of shit like you!”

He screamed like the madman he was. “I hate you! I fucking hate you!”

He came over the table in a clumsy assault. Beth pulled the top off the kettle and hurled the hot water directly in his face. He screamed in agony and rolled off the table. He hit the floor hard, and Beth brought the kettle down on his head with everything she had.

Be vicious, she thought. Be brutal or you won’t make it out of here alive.

The time had finally come for her to take a human life. This wasn’t a walker. This was a man, and she would have to end his life or he would kill her. She knew that, but that knowledge didn’t make what she had to do any easier. 

Kill him. Kill him or you’ll never see Maggie, Glenn, Daryl, Rick, Carl, Judith, or any other loved one ever again.

He lashed out at her with his foot, nearly knocking Beth over. She tried to grab for the knife but he was blindly swinging it in her direction. With no other choice in front of her, and no other knives at her disposal, Beth turned and shoved her way out of the kitchen and ran with all she had for the barn. She slipped in the muddy earth and fell hard on her ass. She looked back and, to her horror, saw Father Thorn rush out at her. 

Beth scrambled to her feet and pulled the barn door open.

“I’m gonna kill you, you fucking whore!”

The first weapon she came to was a scythe. She hoisted it off the wall but it was just too heavy for her to swing effectively in a fight. She still made an effort and took a hard swing at him. Though his eyes were blistered from the hot water, and blood poured into them, he could still make her out enough to dodge the blow and he received nothing more than a cut to his torso. Unfortunately, the cut was only a flesh wound and wasn't anywhere near fatal. 

Thorn was running on pure hate, Beth could see that. Madness and hate were what fueled him to lunge at her again. She took off, searching the wall for something she could handle. She grabbed a claw hammer and then watched as he brought his knife down. It cut deeply into her arm but she ignored the pain and the fear that tried to root her to the spot as she saw her own blood pour from the wound. 

With a mighty heave Beth swung the hammer and caught Father Thorn on his arm. He cried out in pain just as Reggie hissed and growled behind them. Beth swung again, this time aiming for his kneecap. She caught his left leg and he stumbled clumsily toward her, still trying to stab her. She dove to the side and then shoved him hard, aiming him right at Reggie. She pushed him forward, mercilessly, until his face was at Reggie’s mouth.

Reggie did what her kind did -- she bit in, sinking her teeth in deep, and pulled. Father Thorn screamed, and Beth staggered back, hitting her hip painfully on the parked car. 

She got her revenge, Beth thought, watching Reggie snap and snarl at Thorn with a kind of vigor she’d lacked the day before. Good for you.

Father Thorn turned to face Beth. He was a mess. He was blistered, bloody, and now he had a fatal neck wound. He put his fingers to the bite, trying to staunch the flow of blood that spurted through his fingers as he sank to the barn floor.

“You’ve killed me.”

“What’s your name,” she asked, also sliding down to sit on the barn floor. He was fading fast. She could see it, and the idea of never knowing his real name bothered her. She wanted to know the name of the first man she'd killed.

“Perry…Anson...Thorn. I just wanted you to love me.”

Beth shook her head, sad for him, sad for the whole damn situation. “No, you didn’t. You wanted me to live in fear of you.”

“I won’t get to go to heaven, will I?”

He was blinking hard, trying to focus on her as his life blood drained out of him.

“I don’t know, but I hope you do. After all you’ve done, God help me…I hope you do.”

He slid down, the knife slipping from his grip. Still cautious, in case it was a trap, she approached him. She raised the hammer high and brought it down, over and over, until she knew she’d done enough damage to end Father Thorn once and for all. Heaven help her if his corpse wound up killing another living soul because she’d left him to come back.

She stood up and gazed down at Reggie. The thing on the table that had once been a woman snapped hungrily at Beth. 

“I’m sorry for what happened to you. It won’t happen to another girl. You’re his first, but I’m his last.”

Beth raised her hammer, and then brought it down hard.

***

There were a lot of supplies in the church, and Beth hoped a group of good people came along some day, found it, and turned it into a home. After she cleaned and bandaged her arm, and dressed in her old clothes, she took the time to right the upturned crosses in the church sanctuary, and tore down the ugly posters. She also put the ripped up painting of the Last Supper in the barn to cover Reggie. After that, she took some supplies for the road, including a machete she found in Thorn's bedroom. 

With a back pack full of supplies, Beth set out on the road. She was going to search the area. She was going to look until she found someone from the prison. Hopefully she would find Daryl, or Maggie and Glenn. They were the people she wanted to see the most. She would, she realized, have to do it on foot, since Thorn’s car was on empty, and she didn’t want the burden of trying to scavenge for gasoline.

After walking for almost half an hour in a warm rain, Beth came to some railroad tracks. She saw a map had been set up, with writing.

Terminus. Those who arrive survive.

Her location was marked with a star.

Had the others from the prison seen this? Was it possible Maggie and the others were heading toward Terminus? She knew they’d go, hoping to find others there, if they’d seen this sign. Hope lifted the corners of Beth’s lips in a smile and, hefting her backpack, she started off down the tracks.

***

Daryl trudged through the rain. He scanned either side of the tracks, seeing nothing that looked even remotely like a home. Every step he took made his stomach feel as though a heavy rock had settled in, and it was getting bigger, heavier. 

This is fucking hopeless.

“What’s that?” Joe asked.

“What?”

The old man was pointing further up the tracks. Daryl spotted something yellow. It was very small, but it made his heart thunder in his chest. Was that a person? It was. It was a person, he was sure of it.

“Can’t be,” he whispered.

Joe was smiling now. “We’ll see soon enough.”

Daryl dropped his bag and his crossbow. “Watch this.”

Joe stopped and righted the bow before it could fall over. Daryl started up the tracks at a brisk walk, then broke out in a jog. 

My mind’s playing tricks on me. It can’t be her. It can’t be…

Soon he was running, because he knew it was her. He recognized her gait. He recognized her outline. 

“Beth! Beth!” he shouted, uncaring if he brought a whole herd of walkers down on him. He pushed himself on as the woman on the tracks stopped. He waved his arms and called her name. A second later, she was running too.

***

Beth was lost in thought, fantasizing of finding Maggie or Daryl alive and well, when she heard it. It was a shout. Looking up, she saw a spec on the horizon. A spec that was growing larger, waving its arms, and yelling her name.

For a moment she stopped in complete disbelief. It was him. Good Lord, it was Daryl Dixon. She tucked her machete into the backpack and then took off running, knowing they were making enough noise to raise the dead--literally--but she didn’t care. They’d found one another. 

“Daryl!”

It seemed to take forever. There were times when Beth thought the harder she ran the further from her he was. After what felt like miles she reached him. She threw off her backpack and ran right into his open arms. He picked her up and squeezed her so tight she could hardly breathe. They remained there, locked in that embrace, until they caught their breath, then he sat her down.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said.

“You didn’t give up?”

He shook his head. “Hell no. I’d never give up on you.”

He kissed her. It was a hard kiss, mouths smashing happily together, tongues entwining joyously, and Beth committed every single moment of it to memory. 

He looked at her bandaged arm and began firing off questions about where she'd been, and who had taken her. She promised they could talk about all of that later. Right now, she just wanted to move on.

“I love you, Daryl Dixon.”

Daryl entwined his fingers with hers and picked up her backpack. “I love you too, Beth Greene. Now come on. I’m heading to Terminus.”

“I saw the sign. We may find Maggie and the others there,” she said, gripping his hand tight and praying this wasn’t a sweet dream, that it was reality. 

Daryl nodded. “I hope so.”

Even if they didn’t find other prison survivors, Beth mused, she knew one thing was for certain. She had Daryl Dixon, and she was never going to leave his side again.

Part 2