𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 | CARL GRIMES [TWD]

8 | between ghosts

Everyone both convenes and scatters, some kind of wide-splayed congregation. Sylvie drifts towards Maggie, more habit than anything. Looking for an anchor, though there's nothing sturdy enough in her for that anymore. She stands beside Maggie and Maggie the corners of Maggie's lips lift slowly, wanly. It's supposed to be a smile.

The air is thinning as they crawl north, all the humidity crumbling and dissipating in the wind, which blows south in mild intervals. It feels fresh, as close to Maine's alpine breath as she could get this far south. Sylvie swallows it like it could be food. Maggie lets it sink its nails into her skin. Goosebumps prick on her dirty arms, but she seems unbothered, like her arms are not apart of her. Like she is not even here, present, feeling this. Sylvie too closes her eyes. Squeezes them. Somewhere, she is standing on the precipice of a cliff, looking down on Maine evergreens and slews of rock.

When she opens her eyes, there is a deer ten feet from her.

At the edge of the forest, it grazes the grass, one hoof on tarmac, the other squelched into soil. Torn between two worlds. Maggie looks at it, eyes red but still wet.

When Sylvie's grandmother had died, her father had seen her in everything. A fast-blooming chilli plant in the back corner of their garden. The sun at dawn, when it had bled a vengeful red. A sparrow who alighted in their front yard, hopped inquisitively towards him, and then proceeded to peck her mother's primroses until she flapped a towel at him to scatter. A hundred and one common problems and phenomena attributed to one restless spirit.

She knows that Maggie isn't seeing the deer, not really. Like it, she is torn between two worlds.

———

She had been lenient with herself on the way to the hospital. She had allowed herself to be curious. The singing girl, who nursed babies and protected her sister's honour. Strangely enough, she had even found herself wondering whether she would like her. And then that led to wondering whether Maggie would like her, after finding this singing girl. Was Sylvie just a void for Beth, a substitute to tide her over until she was reunited with the real thing? But this was a very selfish line of thinking, one which she suspended before it could get any deeper, and settled for counting the metal slats herringboned across the fire truck's floor. She counted to one-hundred and ten by the time they pulled up in front of the Hospital.

It looked as dead as any other building in this world, grime or damp or moss dragged down the off-white brick, the east side quarter-crumbled. Torn-open tents littered the courtyard: grimy tarp, cavitied canvas, all swarmed with bottleflies. There had been people out here once. Now there are just corpses, and whatever monsters lurked inside, the kind of monsters to snatch a teenage girl.

Sylvie pushed open the fire truck door in time with Abraham. When she pulled her hand back, Maggie grasped it tight.

———

They nestle their cars into a wreck, and they're beat up enough to blend in. She wonders if she could stay in the Ford, pass as a corpse; whether anyone passing by would even notice that she's not dead, only pretending. And then she wonders: would it really be an act? But then they're splitting off and she's left with a broken-down Maggie and a slew of other people she doesn't really care for.

Daryl is in charge. He leans against a pine trunk, crosses his foot over his ankle, then his arms over his chest. His vest clings to his broad shoulders, fabric taut against the swell of his muscles. The angel wings etched into the leather are so shredded they could pass as real feathers. He reminds her of a wild animal, but not the type he's been hunting for them over the past few weeks. Something bigger. Wilder. When he catches her staring at her, he holds her gaze and then looks away when she refuses to, not shyness, but like he's used to being a spectacle. That makes her look away. She knows how much attention can ache.