Beauty and Her Beast (Daryl Dixon Fanfic)

1

I've been running. All day I've been running. God damn walkers around every corner. My dumbass ran straight into a ton of them on one street, but most of them were distracted by a horse they were devouring. I haven't seen living people in god knows how long. So when I saw a young Asian man waving a cop toward a fenced off alley, I ran for him as well. He didn't seem to care that I tagged along too, he just wanted to get to safety. We climbed up a ladder, narrowly missing the greedy hands of the walkers below.

We reached a small platform, trying to catch our breath. The Asian man shook his head. "Nice moves there, Clint Eastwood. You the new sheriff come riding in to clean up the town?"

The cop shook his head. "That wasn't my intention."

"Yeah, whatever. Yeehaw. You're still a dumbass."

The cop stuck out a hand for him to shake. "Rick, thanks."

"Glenn, you're welcome." He shook his hand, then turned to me. "And who are you? I don't remember inviting you."

I scoffed. "I'm Charlotte. It's not like I was gonna stay down there and make friends with them."

He nodded, shaking my outstretched hand. "That's fair." Glenn leaned forward, looking at the walkers below. "Oh no." One of the walkers, having been pushed by the others, was weakly attempting to pull itself up. We all turned to look up at the ladder we had to climb. "The bright side, it'll be the fall that kills us. I'm a glass half full kind of guy."

~*~

We walked across the roof, following Glenn to a hatch and waiting while he opened it. "Are you the one that barricaded the alley?" Rick asked.

"Somebody did, I guess when the city got overrun. Whoever did it was thinking not many geeks would get through."

"Back at the tank, why'd you stick your neck out for me?" Rick asked as Glenn opened the hatch, ready to climb down the ladder.

"Call it foolish, naive hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. Guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you." He shrugged.

We followed him down the ladder, ran through an office building, back outside and down a flight of stairs. Glenn pulled out a walkie. "I'm back. Got two guests plus four geeks in the alley."

We all froze at the bottom of the stairs, those four geeks now right in front of us. Two men burst through a door in full body gear, bashing in the brains of the two walkers. We ran through the door they came from, slamming it closed behind us.

A woman pushed Rick against a counter, putting a gun in his face. Without a second thought, I pulled one of my guns from its holster, pressing it to her temple. She ignored me. "You son of a bitch. We ought to kill you."

I pressed harder against her temple. "Drop the gun, bitch."

"Just chill out, both of you." One of the men said.

"Come on, ease up."

The woman scoffed. "Ease up, you're kidding me, right? We're dead because of this asshole."

I rolled my eyes, the gun unfazed her. I holstered my gun and knocked hers out of her weak grip. I pushed her back when she tried to get in my face, picking up her gun. I scoffed, holding it out. "The safety's on, honey. You should learn how to use it before you start making threats."

She snatched the gun back, holstering it. "We're dead, all of us, because of you."

Rick was confused. "I don't understand."

Morales, as I came to know, led us further into the building. "Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving! You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing. Not shooting up the street like it's the O.K. Corral."