𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝔽𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 | Daryl Dixon

68 | PAIN WILL BE USEFUL

Their eyes, whilst empty, still somehow held so much malice. So much hunger.

Staring down at them from the watch perch, the sea of walkers that flooded the road far beyond her line of sight gawked and growled in her direction, their limp arms flailing around as they reached upward, trying to get to her. Their stench lifted upward with the wind. Foul, rotting flesh and blood forever staining the air. Her nose would have scrunched in disgust had she not been so familiar with that smell. The smell of death.

The murmurs of the townsfolk below drowned out their groans. Standing around, their fear of the Wolf attack was put on hold as they listened to the horde trying to tear down the walls and the gate. Only half of what it could have been, but still enough to fill Alexandria's streets twice over. The rest of the same horde were still out there, being led away by just three people.

Daryl, Sasha, and Abraham were yet to get into contact, as was Glenn. Tori stood on that perch over the gate for a long time, just waiting for that familiar rumble of a motorbike to grow closer. She focused so much on hearing it, she kidded herself into thinking she really could – more than once, her heart had skipped a beat, feeling an illusion of the ground shaking with the engine. Only for her hope to be squashed to nothing by reality.

"You're going crazy, girl," she whispered to herself, closing her eyes to finally end her staring contest with the walking dead.

Descending the ladder, she kept her distance from the crowd that had formed. Each face, each stance told a different story. A different emotion. Some were afraid, some were crying, some were angry. Tori was indifferent. Too much had happened in the space of the day – too much for her to react to.

So, her mind had done what it always did when it didn't know what to focus on first. It ignored all of it. She wanted to feel scared. Her heart pounding against her ribs was proof of the anxiety zapping through her veins like electricity through wires. She even felt the tingling in her fingertips, the pins and needles pricking at her skin trying to make her shiver, trying to shock her out of her silence. But nothing worked. Her mind infected the rest of her body, numbing every sensation, every emotion.

As she stood with her headphones rested around her neck, her tape on pause as she played with the wire, Rick strolled up to the gathered crowd. His face was still bright red, sweat glistening on his skin after running from the herd, barely making it inside. He'd changed his shirt, washed the blood from his hands. Though his walked with strength, his eyes gave away his exhaustion, his urge to just lie down and sleep for a week.

"You can all hear it," he spoke, catching the attention of the townsfolk, silencing their murmurs. "Some of you saw it. They got back here, half of 'em. Still enough to surround us twenty-deep."

All eyes were on him as he addressed each person. His own gaze flicked from person to person, leaving no one left out. "Look, I know you're scared. You haven't seen anything like this. But we're safe, for now. The panel the truck hit seems intact. We reinforced it just in case. Either way, the wall's gonna hold together... Can you?"

She glanced over to the reinforcements. Heavy planks of wood and steel wedged between the dented wall panel and the ground, hammered together by thick nails, barely making a creak as the herd on the other side pressed themselves against it. There was a lot of comfort in knowing the damage was secure, yet that comfort was tarnished by a pressing, almost stifling fact. If the walkers couldn't get in, the people couldn't get out.

"The others, they're gonna be back," Rick continued, his hands gripping onto his brown leather belt. "Daryl, Abraham, Glenn, and Sasha – they have vehicles. They're gonna lead 'em away just like the others. They know what they're doing, and we know what we need to do. Keep the noise to a minimum, keep the lights off. Make this place as quiet as a graveyard, see if they move on."