•seventy-nine•
Beatrix
For Tyreese's funeral, Father Gabriel said a few words as well as a prayer. We all bowed our heads, though I doubt anybody other than him actually believed anybody was listening. In the few hours following, we also came to the realization that all of our food burned up on the bus, and all of our water was poured onto the engine in attempt to put the fire out.
Two days later, and everyone's skin tone has grayed a little. That's what happens when you go two days without food or water, especially in the heat like this. We've all been taking turns, constantly heading off the road to search for water or food. None of us have had any luck, though. We're also unfortunate enough to have accumulated a small horde of walkers behind us. They're walking at about the same pace as us, though, and since we're so weak, we haven't bothered wasting energy on trying to take them out.
"I'm gonna head out," Daryl suddenly says, walking off the road and into the woods.
"Please be careful," I call after him. I hate seeing him go like that, but I know he can hold his own.
"I'll go with you," Carol says, following after him.
"Nah, I'm good," he brushes her off, but she goes anyway.
"What are you gonna do? Stop me?" Carol says before they both disappear into the woods.
I find it weird, how close they are and how much she wants to be around him, but with the amount of energy in my body right now, I couldn't care less.
Occasionally, somebody will try to make small talk. This time it's Father Gabriel trying to talk to Maggie about hair shirts, whatever the hell that is, but she seems very disinterested.
My mood diminishes even more, looking around at everybody. Each person's clothes are clung to their body, drenched in sweat, and their hair sticks to their faces. We each trudge on, despite the ever lasting blisters that I just know everyone has developed on their feet.
About a half hour of walking later, we come up on a bridge that Rick deems as the perfect place to take out the walkers.
"Let me go take them," I offer, knowing I could walk back and slowly take them out one by one.
"It's too risky. You're too weak," Rick shakes his head at me, dismissing the thought. "We can't risk it. I won't risk it."
"Rick, I'm telling you, it'll take much less effort than if you and everyone else tries to take them out," I try to reason with him, but it's to no avail, and I have no energy to argue, so I drop the subject.
The plan is to stand in an open ended V formation and to push them off the bridge, one by one, instead of trying to put them down. It sounds good in theory, but I'm not sure about how well it will actually work out.
Once the walkers get close enough to us, we use our bodies to stumble and trick them into falling off of the edge. Between all of us, we manage to get about half of them down under the bridge before Sasha decides to take it upon herself to put one down with her knife.
"Plan just got dicked," Abraham curses, clearly pissed off as he pulls out his knife, using it to put down the closest walker to him.
I walk into the middle of the horde, putting a few down before the waves of dizziness wash over me again. I have to stop and rest my hands on my knees to catch my breath while the rest finishes taking them out.
"I told you to stop," Michonne scolds Sasha once they're all down.
"Hey, you all right?" Daryl places his hand on my back, and I stand up.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I hadn't realized him and Carol had gotten back so soon. "About as fine as the rest of us."
"Beatrix, I need you to tell me how much longer we have," Rick says, once he's confident that Daryl and I are the only ones to hear him. "Realistically without food and water."
"Well, we can survive without food, probably for another couple of weeks before our muscles atrophy and die," I frown at the idea. "Without water, though? It's already been two days. In this kind of heat, we have two more max before multi organ failure. Maybe less than that for Judith."
Rick doesn't respond. He just turns and walks. That's all we know how to do anymore: walk. We keep on, this time with nobody following behind us. We walk for a few more miles before Daryl heads off the trail again, this time truly alone. I want to go with him, but I'm honestly not sure if my body can handle it.
I seem to be doing worse than anyone else. From what I can tell, everyone is tired and hungry and thirsty, but I'm the only one really having this magnitude of dizziness, nausea, and abdominal pain. It's obvious that I've had less to eat than them, and at this point of my starvation journey, my body fat percentage is probably less than three percent, which is about ten percent less than a healthy adult female.
Once we stumble upon some shady trees on the side of the road, we decide to stop and rest. I lean my back up against a tree and close my eyes, only opening them when I hear rustling in the bushes. My hand grips tight over my knife, ready to attack, but it's only Daryl. He slightly shakes his head, telling us he didn't find anything. I doubt any of us are surprised, though. At this point we don't expect it.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I say, once I see Abraham eyeing a bottle of brandy in his hands. "Alcohol is a diuretic. It pulls liquid from your kidneys faster and uses up your body's stores of water faster."
He ignores me, though, and takes a large gulp out of the bottle anyway. Oh well. At this point it's not my problem anymore.
"At this point, I do not know if things could get any worse," Eugene says, and I want to slap him.
"Eugene, whenever somebody says that, it almost certainly means that things are going to get incredibly worse," I frown at him, along with most of the others.
Before he can respond, growls come from the bushes across the road. We all jump, reaching for our weapons when we see that it's just a pack of dogs. They don't look like very nice dogs, though, because they bark and growl at us, looking like they're about to lunge. One starts to jump when it squeals and falls to the ground, followed by the others. I look to see that Sasha had shot and killed them.
It's silent for a moment before Rick stands up and grabs a stick. My stomach churns at the thought and the sight of the dead dogs before I have to throw up again. The only difference in this time is that now, it's only dry heaving. I've already thrown up all of the food I had and the bile I had stored. There's nothing left, not really even any stomach acid. I'm just empty.
I watch as they build a small fire and Daryl starts to skin the dog, almost like it's a deer. Merle, Lucas, and Baxly help him, each of them taking a dog. I can't watch them any longer and I turn my back to them, staring at the bark on the nearest tree. I lose myself in my thoughts staring at the tree, wondering if there was anything I could have done different that would have led us away from this hell we've gotten stuck in now.
"Here," Daryl taps my shoulder, handing me a piece of meat.
"I can't, Daryl," I shake my head and turn away from him. "It's a dog."
"I don't care. You have to eat," his voice hardens as he grabs my chin to look at him. "You're gonna die if you don't."
"Then I'll die," I shrug. "I'm not eating a dog."
"Don't think. Just eat," he says, squeezing my cheeks to open my mouth and shoving the piece of meat inside.
At this point, it's already in my mouth. I give in and chew, doing my best to hold it down. Once the first piece is down, Daryl hands me two more larger pieces, and this time I take them. I close my eyes, pretending I'm at my favorite steakhouse, biting into a nice filet, even though this meat is hard as a rock and tougher to chew than a piece of plastic.
As soon as everyone's done eating, I finally turn around to see that there isn't anything left of the dogs, aside from their collars. I have to force myself not to throw up everything I just ate from the sight of the collar laying in a pool of blood.
Once the fire is stomped out, we continue on. We walk. This is by far the most silent the group has been since the bus broke down, and I personally spend my walking time crying. Between the guilt from the dogs, the dry throat I have, and the sharp pain still present in my abdomen, it's just about all I can take. Much more and I will break.
"I'm gonna head out again," Daryl gives my hand a small squeeze before ducking out into the trees again. The only thing I can manage to give him back is a quiet "mhm" just to let him know I heard him.
Daryl isn't gone for more than ten minutes before I bump into Maggie, who is standing still and staring ahead of us. I mumble a sorry before I look up to see what everyone is staring at. My eyes widen at the sight of four gallons of water and about a dozen water bottles.
Rick holds up a piece of paper to us that reads "from a friend". We all manage to get in a circle around the water, just staring at it, like we're waiting for it to grow legs and walk off from us. After a moment passes, Daryl emerges from the trees and Rick passes him the note. He crumbles it up and tosses it to the side as he looks at the water.
My mind un-focuses as they discuss whether or not we should drink the water. For me, it's not up to debate, and I decide that I should tell them that after Abraham knocks a bottle out of Eugene's hand, spilling the entire thing onto the ground.
"Listen, I don't give a fuck if it's a trap or not. I don't give a fuck if it's poisoned or not. So what if we drink it and die?" I chuckle, obviously just booking my one way ticket to crazy town. "If we don't drink it, we'll die within twenty-four hours anyway."
The words exit my lips and not even ten seconds later, I feel something on my nose. I look up to see a large cloud looming over us, rain starting to pour down. The longer I stand in adoration, the harder it starts to pour. After a moment of basking in the glory of it, I open my mouth to try and get some water into my system. It's like I can feel my tissue pinking up and my ATP synthase rotary start moving again.
Everyone holds their water bottles out to catch whatever water we can, drinking some along the way. Judith starts to cry over the rain, and Carl holds his hat over her head to at least try and keep her dry.
"We need to keep moving," Rick says once the thunder claps in the sky. Dark, dark clouds are headed our way.
"There's a barn," Daryl yells, his voice almost being drowned out by the thunder.
"Where?" Rick questions, and Daryl nods his head in the direction.
After making sure we have all of our things packed and water bottles full, we head into the woods behind Daryl. The barn is only a few minutes away, thankfully, because even though I'm hydrated and fed, I still feel weak and like I'm about to fall over at any second.
"Uh, Beatrix, do you need a pad?" Tara asks quietly, breaking my attention as Rick and a few others clear the barn.
"No, I don't get periods anymore, why?" I look at her in confusion while she mirrors my expression.
"Well, it's just that you've got blood all over your pants," she whispers, seemingly embarrassed for having pointed it out.
"What?" I furrow my brows and reach my hand between my legs go feel. It just feels like I'm wet from the rain, but when I pull my hand to look at it, I audibly gasp. "Oh, no."
"Wha— oh my god," Baxly looks at me with wide eyes before slamming his elbow into Lucas' side to get his attention.
"I think something's wrong," I mutter as my legs give out. Baxly catches me and holds me up, pulling me into the barn.
"Are you pregnant?" Maggie asks, rushing over to me at the same time Daryl does.
"No, there's no way," I shake my head. "Beth put in an IUD for me. I checked it myself with the ultrasound. It's in correctly."
"I think you need to take a test," she whispers, reaching into her bag.
"Why do you have that?" I question as she pulls out a wrapped pregnancy test.
"I thought that maybe Glenn and I—" she starts to explain but she shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. You need to take it now."
"What the hell is going on?" Daryl questions, looking from me to my hand to Baxly to Maggie and back to me.
"We don't know yet," Maggie answers truthfully as she and Baxly help me into one of the stalls with a door. At least I have a little bit of privacy.
"Oh, fuck!" I scream, not able to hold this one in as another searing pain hits my abdomen. I've just been assuming they're hunger pains, but what if they're not?
Baxly leaves and Daryl and Beth come in to the stall, all of them helping hold me up so that I can pee on the fucking stick. Once I'm away from the piss, I curl up on my side and cry, without pants and all because they're just covered in blood. Beth holds my head in her lap as Maggie stands over the test. Daryl paces in the corner, repeatedly rubbing his hands over his face and punching the wall.
"Stop it, Daryl!" Beth finally snaps, scolding him. "You're stressing her out. Can't you see she doesn't need that right now?"
"And what do you expect me to do, huh?" Daryl throws his hands up in the air. "Just sit here and do nothing while I wait?"
"Maybe hold her fucking hand, you dense ass!" Beth screams, and I almost want to laugh. I've never heard her curse like that before.
Daryl moves to sit beside of me and hold my hand while we wait. I squeeze his hand tightly as the sharp pains in my abdomen become more painful and more frequent.
"God damn, woman, you're about to break my hand," Daryl comments, and if I wasn't in excruciating pain, I would tell him a head full for being an ass. Luckily, I have Beth there to do it for me right now.
"Then you fucking let her!" Beth snaps at him as Maggie turns to look at us with sadness in her eyes. Even more sadness than usual.
"It's positive, isn't it?" I ask, even though I already know the answer to the question.
Maggie slowly nods her head, a tear falling down her cheek as I let out a sob. I don't know what to do other than cry.
"Is anyone gonna tell me what the fuck this means?" Daryl's voice is panicked, but his body language says that he already knows. He just needs somebody to say it for him.
"I'm having a miscarriage, Daryl," I manage to say before breaking out in a sob again, unable to catch my breath.
Daryl doesn't say anything. He only storms off, out of the stall and out of the barn right into the storm. I want to get up and run after him, but I can't do that. Instead, Maggie goes to send Merle after him. I want to thank her for it, but I just can't fight now.
When trauma hits, Daryl's first instinct and response is to run. Mine is to cry, and I am damn good at it too. Beth and Maggie both hold onto me tight, crying with me. I can't even think about how I'm feeling right now. All I know is that I wish I couldn't feel at all.
"Somebody fucking sedate me!" I scream as a mixture of tears, snot, and spit run down my face. The pain of everything is unbearable at this point, and the only person I really want is gone. "I need somebody to sedate me now!"
"Is everything all right in here?" Rick cracks the door open enough to talk to us.
"No, Rick. It's not," Beth snaps at him, too.