Future Ghosts • TWD

159. The Tunnel.

Along with dead bodies, there was a lot of money scattered around. Most people were using it to write little messages for each other. Daryl found a bag with a picture of two little kids; an older brother and a little sister. Along with it was a note. Daryl tossed the bag away before Rosie could get a chance to look at it. 

And just as he did, the pipes began to groan again and Dog bolted off in the direction of the sound. Both Rosie and Daryl shouted at him to stop, but he didn't. He ran off through a train connecting the two tunnels. 

"Why didn't your secret girlfriend train him better?" Rosie complained as she climbed up into the drain. 

"Quit it with that, will ya? It doesn't matter no more," Daryl huffed, climbing in after her. 

"You got to meet my girlfriend."

"It was years ago, Ro. Get over it," Daryl argued.

Even if it was years ago, and even if Rosie mainly joked about it, it did bother her that she never got to meet the woman Daryl was seeing all those years ago. It also bothered Rosie to know that Daryl wouldn't have told her if she hadn't caught him disappearing. Rosie had come back early after a trip to the Kingdom only to find that Daryl was gone. And he stayed gone until the next day, when he returned shocked that Rosie was there. 

Rosie had questioned him about where he was for ages before he finally told her the truth. And, of course, the first thing Rosie had asked was, Can I meet her? And the answer was no. Daryl supposedly didn't trust Leah enough for Rosie to meet her. But part of Rosie wondered if that was the truth. Part of her worried that Daryl was embarrassed of her or something. But that wouldn't make sense. He chose to be there for Rosie. She didn't make him. It was his choice. He couldn't be embarrassed over that, could he?

"Whatever," Rosie grumbled.

The new small space they were climbing through was better than crawling beneath the train, but it still sucked. It was wet and dirty, and it smelled really bad. Rosie couldn't help but wonder if she was crawling through piss and shit. It certainly smelled like it. It was truly just disgusting. 

But they kept on crawling, anyway. 

That is, until they heard the snarling and growling that only came from one thing they knew; a walker. 

"God damnit," Daryl growled, looking back at the walker that was crawling behind him. 

"There are some up ahead, too. I can hear 'em," Rosie said.

"You go ahead. I'll take care a' this asshole," Daryl told her. Rosie nodded and picked up the pace, hurrying to try and kill those walkers before they could find Dog, while Daryl took out the walker that was following them. 

At the end of the drain they were crawling through, there was a grate keeping the walkers from climbing in. Lucky for Rosie, the walkers were too stupid to know that they could have very well just pulled the grate open. So when she got to them, she pulled out her knife and stuck it into the skull of the walker closest to the grate. When she was done with that one, she pushed open the grate and climbed out of the drain. There were two walkers left, and Rosie had no problem in taking them down. Just as she killed the last one, Daryl climbed out of the drain, too. 

"See Dog yet?" he asked, pulling his crossbow out after him. 

"No. He's barkin', though," Rosie said, wiping the blood from her knife on the shirt of one of the walkers. 

Then, from the dark empty space down the tunnel, a person- an alive person- limped their way into Rosie and Daryl's view. And coincidentally, that living person was Roy. He was covered in blood and could hardly stand up on his own. The forgiving part of Rosie wanted to help him, but the much larger part of her thought, he stole our stuff and ran. He's no better than Gage.