Panacea - {Daryl Dixon Fanfiction}

Day 70 - As Real as Your Chupacabra

        It was peaceful at first. The sound of rushing water, the coolness of the Earth, the sun peeking through the trees at him. Maybe he had died and gone to Heaven.

He snorted at the thought, and closed his eyes. There was no Heaven for him. Just a fiery pit of rotting corpses known as Hell. But he'd already been there for the past few months.

He saw her as soon as he reopened his eyes. Her hair was golden like the sun, eyes like an angel's, and he knew then that he was not in Hell, because she wouldn't be in such a place. She kneeled down next to him in the mud, her white dress creasing as she sat down on her knees.

"What happened to us?" She asked in a voice like honey. She ran her hands through his hair, and Daryl wanted to reach out and touch her, but he couldn't make his arms move. 

What had happened to them? 

"I lost you, baby." He muttered through dry lips. He could remember the night, like it had been last night. 

The reports had been non-stop. People coming into the hospital with weird bites, waking up with what the doctors thought to be rabies. 

But it was worse.  

Daryl was on his way to Gabrielle's house to pick her up. Things were beginning to get a little freaky around town. People were rushing to the stores to stock up on food and supplies, and while Daryl knew he should be doing the same, all he wanted was Gabrielle next to him. 

As he drove on, something rather macabre happened. A woman came running at his truck from one of the rural roads that lead back into the woods. She held her hands up, trying to stop him, and she was hysteric.

"Please! Help me, please!" She shrieked. 

Daryl slightly rolled down his window. "What's the problem?"

"My neighbor, Pat, she's been ill. And now she's...she's..." The woman broke into sobs and held up her arm. "She bit me! See! She's gone mad!" 

Daryl was taken back. "Ma'am, I think you need to call the ambulance, or the police." 

"No, the police lines are all busy. The hospitals are all full, and riddled with crazy people. It's just...Pat isn't herself." Tears were streaming down her face by now.

"Please, sir, will you come look. My husband is away in Atlanta."

Daryl wanted to hit the gas and get to Gabrielle as fast as he could, but he knew she would want him to help this woman. He sighed, "Alright."

She opened the cab door. "Oh, thank you so much. It's the first house on the right." She instructed as Daryl turned onto the dirt road.

"She doesn't have that rabies-thing does she?" Daryl questioned.

"No! She's just been really ill, and I hadn't heard from her in a day or two so I called to check in...she didn't answer." The woman shook her head and wiped her eyes. "And then I went to check on her this morning and she wasn't herself. I woke her up and then she bit me! And then she chased me around her house, so I ran...and ran..." The woman let out a deep sigh. "I just...I just feel sick about this whole thing."

Daryl turned into the driveway, and stopped. The little, two-story white house looked peaceful enough, but if only he knew what horrors it was harboring inside.

He got out, and so did the woman, though she was sweating now. He pulled his crossbow from the bed of the pick-up, and her eyes grew wide.