The Fear (The Walking Dead / Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 66 - Rust and Bone

So... I changed to third person. Sorry? I started this book back when I only ever used to write in first and then once I tried third things got so much better. I tried to keep things as they were (Teen Wolf will remain in first) but I just decided I couldn't for this and hopefully it will read better.

This is a darker chapter and Kat is kind of no longer "present" in the group all that much so I thought it would be a good introductory chapter to third person writing. If it's not received well then I'll go back to first if I need to. 

The vines would twist up and around as the paint would flake and the metal beneath rust. The roots would dig deeper until they coiled around the bones that would be all that remained within time, twisting tighter and tighter until one day they would snap.

That was all Kat could think of as they dug the grave, all she could think of as Beth's body was placed inside it. It was all she could think of as the dirt was piled back up and the old sky blue F-100 moved into place as a grave stone. She couldn't take Beth home, she couldn't take her and lay her beside their father, so instead she would burry her with a little bit of the farm, a little bit of their dad, a little bit of her. Betty had run out of fuel and despite walking for miles they could not find any. Beth's body had been taken far enough out of the city so that all that could be seen was trees and green and all that could be heard was birds and the breeze. She had loved nature.

But none of this had been Kat's idea, it had just been done and she went along with it, listening to the words Gabriel said over her body, but not processing their meaning or remembering much past three of four heartbeats .

All she saw was rotting flesh, snapping bones, flaking paint and rusting tin. The only things that would ever remain of the car she cherished and the sister she loved. It played out like a time lapse in her mind. Beth's body deflating, the colour draining as her clothes were stained in dirt and eaten away at insects until nothing but nearly white bone remained and the snake like roots coiling around, squeezing and squeezing and then... snap.

Daryl placed a book in her hands. A little notebook he had found in the back of Beth's pocket. She had picked it up after the prison fell, she had kept writing. But Kat dared not to open it as she turned her attentions back, now to the car.

The light blue faded and faded as cracks appeared, running deeper and deeper as the paint curled backwards, peeling off and eventually falling to the ground. The tin turned brown and then bright red, spreading and spreading like a disease, well beyond repair. The glass would shatter in storms or from looters. The rubber on the tyres would give out and deflate just like Beth's body would.

The next time she thought of it the slideshow got faster. The third time faster still until eventually she was seeing the same quick flashes over and over again. Rotted flesh and rusted tin... or was it rusted flesh and rotted tin... she didn't know anymore. It was both, back and forth until the very idea of person and object became one. There was no one else left around her. Things moved, but nothing lived, not even her. As Maggie cried Kat stared.

She stared and stared at the fire as it crackled. The third fire since they buried her maybe. They'd taken the other cars and kept moving, finding another with a tow bar to pull the horse float... she thought. Checking on the horse had become such a far far away thought she never even noticed Daryl giving it food and water with Luke trying to help.

They were moving to find Noah's family as Beth had said she would help him with it. Rick took a car and a few people with Noah to drive ahead while the others stayed by a camp fire. Not that Kat really knew what they were doing or who was around her. Daryl had stayed behind to watch over the group while Michonne, Tyreese and Glenn had gone with Rick and Noah.