56. To the Roots

'you and I grew together.
our roots run deep.
entangled souls of this earth,
we were destined to meet.'
-kiesha shepard

⤐

  In the early stretches of the morning, Zeppelin and Daryl stood off to the side of one of the stables, drawing themselves further into the shadows as they waited for their signal.

  They had arrived at Hilltop a few hours after dawn, just enough time for Jesus to make the trip to Alexandria and back. If Zepp's plan worked, Rick would be with him when he did. When the guards spotted figures in the distance, Maggie hushed them off to the side and gestured to be quiet.

  Maggie... She was vastly different from the woman Zepp had seen just days ago when she was hardly more than an empty shell staring off into the distance of a dim room. Now, though the ghost still flashed in her expression, paling her skin and tightening her mouth, she was more assertive, more aware.

  Enid was with her now, too, following her around the camp with a wary expression. It was clear Maggie had quickly gained the trust and respect of the people of Hilltop more than Gregory would ever have. Zepp could see it in how they all looked to her, really listened when she spoke.

    A true leader.

  She tore her focus from her friend and tightened her grip on Daryl's hand as they waited and waited, every second ticking by, causing her heart to race faster and faster. She could hear the groan of the large gate opening and the sound of Maggie shouting their names. The two hiding away in the shadows drew a quick breath and stole a glance at each other before they twisted around the corner into the golden sunshine.

  It worked. Their people, their family, embraced each other in the open space between the giant slabs of wood that made up the fence surrounding Hilltop.

  Not only did Rick come for them, but also Rosita, Carl, Michonne, and Tara. They all hugged and cried with Maggie and Sasha first, before Rick's gaze landed on Zepp and Daryl, where they awkwardly hung back from the rest of the crowd.

  Rick dropped the hand that was gripping Maggie's shoulder, shaking his head almost feverishly. Then he was jogging over to them, and Zepp met him halfway. Thick arms wrapped around her, on the verge of suffocating as he squeezed her tight.

  He pulled back and pressed his forehead against hers. "I'm so glad you're okay," he murmured, his voice hoarse and broken, as if he had been crying.

  She nodded in response and wiped the tear trailing down her cheek, no longer able to contain the smile she felt creeping along her lips. Rick turned from her then to reach Daryl just inches behind her. They both had red-rimmed, tear-stained eyes, and Daryl dipped his head, still holding on to a tiny shred of that inner strength he carried so well, but she could see it. He was crying.

  Rick pulled him in for an embrace, and Daryl returned it wholeheartedly.

  Suddenly, it felt like a weight had lifted from her shoulders, and Zepp smiled and hugged each person, flicking the brim of Carl's hat and bumping her fist into Tara's. When she got to Rosita, she was met with a cold stare.

  "Hey, Rosie," Zepp hummed, taking a hesitant step forward.

  Rosita shook her head and wrapped her own arms around herself, looking off into some unknown distance. "Why didn't you tell me you were going?" Her tone was sharp, and her words clipped, and she seemed to fight to keep her eyes from drifting back to Zeppelin.

  "I... I didn't want anyone else to get involved." Zepp's heart sank further even as the words left her lips.

  "Rick wouldn't tell us anything.. not one bit," Rosita snapped, though she chewed her lip and finally looked back into Zepp's pleading gaze. "I was worried sick. Then, when Jesus told me, you went after the Saviors... I just... I could've helped, you know." Her glare narrowed to slits, but a flash of hurt was glimmering there.

  "I know, and I'm sorry," Zepp said, taking another step toward her. "I was foolish, couldn't think straight. I couldn't think of anything really other than finding him. I'll include you in the sabotage next time," she offered, hoping to break the tension between them.

  Rosita rolled her eyes, but humor twitched the corners of her mouth, and she finally closed the distance between them, snaking her arms around Zepp's neck. "Bitch," she breathed and pulled away slowly. "Don't ever do that again."

  The reunion was bittersweet, and as they all looked over each other for a moment, savoring those first blissful moments, a heavy cloud of darkness hung over them.

  The gate groaned shut behind them, slicing through the silence. Wordlessly, Rick nodded, clasped a hand onto Daryl's shoulder, and turned to stroll up the path toward the main house.

  Zepp laced her hand through Rosita's and wrapped the other arm around Carl as the rest of them followed suit.

  Her eyes stayed on Daryl the whole way, until the shadows of Barrington House swallowed him.

⤐

  "Is this a joke?" Zepp demanded later that day, hands on her hips. She glared at Rick from across the abandoned clearing a mile out from Hilltop's walls. The early afternoon sun gleamed brightly on the thick oak trees that seemed to reach out for each other, patches of it falling here and there through the latticework of leaves above them. It sent an ache through her already pounding head.

Rick wiped a hand across his sweat-covered brow and shook his head. The dark circles under his eyes masked his high cheekbones, and the scruff on his neck and chin were wilder than the last time she'd seen him. "No, it's not a joke, Zeppelin."

For whatever reason, the use of her full name set a tic in her jawline; grinding her teeth to stop the onslaught of the words sharp as knives she felt bubbling in her throat.

"You're actually going to scavenge for them?" She took one step towards him, and he copied the movement. "We should be planning when and how to strike, not gathering food and weapons to hand over with our tails between our legs."

  She wished Daryl were here. His presence alone calmed the raging sea swirling in her chest, quieted the screaming overpowering her inner voice. But he was hiding back at Hilltop, and when Rick asked her to come with him this afternoon, she obeyed like a fool.

  "What do you want from me?" Rick's hands splayed out at his sides, the palms facing her. "What am I supposed to do?"

  "You're supposed to fight! Not bend over for him," she snapped. Those dagger-sharp words were poised to strike.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, and she felt like an incorrigible child questioning the world around her, apparently on Rick's last nerve.

  The chirping birds and the sound of a light breeze swaying through leaves and overgrown grass was a stark contrast to the churning, roaring tension between them. She knew when she came back, she would face his anger. His disappointment. What she didn't know was that she would return those same feelings.

  "We have a lead for a place close by, supposed to be loaded. I can't..." he broke off, looking up into the sky as if he could find the words hidden in the clouds. "We can't fight them. They have too many men, too many weapons... you've seen what they can do."

  Blood. Screams. A sly chuckle. A bat splatting on concrete.

  She clenched her fists at her sides.

"And I've seen what we can do. What I can do," she glowered, backing away from him to cast a circled gaze over the tree line.

"You don't even know if you killed him.." he whispered, one eyebrow crooked higher. "You could've just pissed him off more like I told you would happen." His words were like razors now, too, slicing over her skin with a rugged blade.

"Or I could've burned the flesh off his bones. I'm hoping for the latter." He scoffed, and she scowled back at him. "But if not, then we can handle this. You want us to trust you, just to keep this shitty 'bargain' and move on like nothing happened?"

"Of course, we can't move on," Rick barked and stepped closer, only inches away from her now. "I will never forget what Negan did. But I'm doing what is best for our people, for my children. You jeopardized that the moment you walked out those gates."

  He pointed an accusatory finger in her direction and stalked away, his chest heaving with jagged breaths.

  More raging words circled her thoughts like wolves on their prey, their jaws snapping and razor claws clicking. Her mouth and tongue began moving of their own free will.

  "You're weak," she breathed.

  Rick stood unnaturally still, the rabbit caught in the wild by her wolves. He looked at her with tear-glazed eyes, and the flicker of betrayal was quickly swallowed by icy, cool indifference. He simply nodded, unable to find the words to break through the wall they felt building between them.

  Up, up, up. She couldn't stop it.

  "The Rick before Alexandria would've never stood by and let a tyrant destroy everything we've worked for. You were scared the safety of the walls would make our people weak, look at what it's done to you."

  She hated herself in this moment for saying the things she had been thinking since Rick tried to stop her from leaving. She hated the way he looked at her now even more.

  "That was before a man had my family on their knees, their lives in the palms of his hands." He kept his tone level, but it had fallen deeper. "Before I almost had to cut my own son's arm off."

The memory sent a slash of despair through her chest.

  "So don't you dare stand there and call me weak. I am tired, Z.." he cried and raised his hands in defeat, one tear slowly trickling down his sun-kissed cheek. "And I'm doing the best I can."

It's not enough.

  Zepp slammed her mouth closed, refusing to let that one last bit of anger slip through. She forced herself to remember it was her friend standing before her.

Breathe. In. Out.

  It was Daryl's voice cracking through that wall of fire encircling her brain.

Breathe. In. Out.

  She sighed and paced closer to him.

  "Why did you bring me out here?"

  He watched her for a moment, as if he was assessing if she'd put a knife in his back the moment he turned around. She tried not to think about how much that look hurt her, that he could believe she was even capable of doing so.

  He avoided looking at her bruised eyes for too long, his gaze darting once she caught it lingering. He probably thought he was being polite in an attempt not to draw attention to it. But she wanted him to see, wanted him to know what she'd gone through to fight this.

  What he had chosen to believe meant nothing.

  He seemed to decide they were on neutral ground, for now, and pointed to the slim tree to his right. The soil there was mussed, freshly disturbed.

  "I've hidden some of the few spare weapons we have over here," he murmured as he glanced around the clearing, checking for wandering eyes and sneaky ears. "Same with Alexandria. Just enough that if something goes wrong, you and I can protect ourselves."

  She caught that wording—the despair in his eyes.

  "Why just you and I?" She narrowed her gaze.

  "You're the only other person who knows where it is." He wiped his palm over his mouth and squinted at his boots in the grass. As if he regretted it now.

  "Why just you and I?" She repeated herself. Why were the others left out of that sentence? More importantly, why Daryl? Rick looked away from her, unable to meet her gaze.

  "So that's how it's going to be?" She stepped back from him, crossing an invisible line that cut them off from each other. "You don't trust me anymore?"

  His silence was answer enough.

  She nodded once and sharply turned on her heels. Rick's sharp grasp of her wrist locked the breath in her throat as he whirled her around.

⤐

  In the hours between reuniting with everyone and Rick taking Zepp off to the woods, many tears were shed.

  Daryl felt awkward. So many eyes roamed his face and body, but he let himself cry freely. Rick, his brother, held him tight. Maggie, the one person who should hate him more than anyone, smiled and pulled him close, though he couldn't stand to look her in the eye. Not yet.

  But in all the other faces of his family flashing by, there was one who was missing.

"Where's Carol?" Daryl clapped a hand on Rick's shoulder as they huddled off to the side of the room. He kept one eye on Zepp, laughing and crying and smiling with them all.

Rick shifted uncomfortably, and Daryl felt his heart sink low into his stomach. "Don't.. don't tell me she's.."

"No," Rick interrupted quickly, slicing through the blackness clouding Daryl's vision. "No, she's not dead. She left." He nodded as if he could barely understand it himself but accepted it all the same.

"Why? Why would she leave?"

"What happened at the Outpost.. it was weighing on her. I think she just couldn't handle it anymore," Rick murmured, his gaze now on Zepp, too. She sat between Rosita and Carl, with her knees pulled to her chest on the velvet sofa. She smiled at something Carl said, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. Daryl's favorite shade of green, now foggy with memory.

"Morgan knows where she is. Took her to a cabin someplace between Alexandria and the Kingdom," Rick continued.

The Kingdom. Jesus told them a little about the newest settlement their people had grown aware of, some old high school surrounded by sheet metal and a wall of school buses. It was run by a man named Ezekiel, who sounded like a guy Daryl didn't care to know from how Rick described him, and was discovered by Morgan, assumedly when he took Carol to her secluded spot.

  Daryl shook his head, forcing the need to find her down into a locked box he could open later. There was a question, a plead, weighing on his mind since the moment Rick stepped through those gates. He tilted his head towards the door leading to the garden, and his brother followed without question.

  He could feel Zepp's gaze burning a hole into his head as he left, but he found the willpower not to look at her. If he did, he wouldn't be able to leave that room even if there was a gun to his head.

  He could hear children laughing and screaming when they stepped through the threshold. It rang in his ears, and he blocked it out, focusing on where Rick stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the faded brick building.

  "I, uh," he trailed off, clearing his throat as he peered out into the back lawn, squinting against the sun, blazing down on the grass. "Look, before this whole thing gets worse... I need to ask you for a favor."

Rick's brows wrinkled in confusion, but he said nothing, his expression an open invitation.

"When I was in that truck, before.." A lump formed in his throat, and he forced it down, now looking at anything other than Rick's face. "I was thinking of Zepp, of you, and just... just hoping that you and her were safe. It was all I could think about. I didn't care about myself, or what was about to happen... just that you two were okay."

Rick uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, lightly touching the pads of his index and middle finger to his forehead as he thought. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect her from that. I really am. And you from... what happened."

Daryl shook his head, partly to shake away the sickening cold of the cell creeping over his skin, and finally let his gaze meet Rick's. "No, that's not what I mean... it's not your fault, man. I just... I need you to promise me something. That if something goes down, promise me you'll take her and run."

Rick sucked in a breath and clasped a hand on his shoulder. "Whatever happens, we're getting through it together. All of us."

Daryl shrugged away from his grasp, pacing back and forth along the porch. "No, man, don't do that. She comes first, way before me. I need you to understand that."

"Why are you telling me this?" Rick's voice was barely above a whisper as he looked over his shoulder towards the door separating them from their family.

"Because you're the only one I trust to protect her. You'd take care of her as your own, and you'd let her take care of you, too... you and the kids would give her a purpose, a reason to keep going. If she loses me... I don't think she could go on without that to hold on to. Please, brother."

He hated that word. Please. He hated asking for help, for someone else to protect what's his. But he knew himself, and he knew he would put his life on the line a hundred times over if it kept Zeppelin safe. He didn't want to ask, but he would put aside his pride, if only for her.

Rick was still silent, contemplating. Like if what Daryl was asking of him was too damn hard. Daryl clenched his jaw and quickened his pacing.

"Look, whatever she did with the Saviors... it's gonna come back to us. And I know you're pissed 'bout that, but it's too late. It's already done," Daryl snapped.

Finally, Rick deigned to open his mouth. "What did she do?"

Images of a dim concrete hallway littered with rubble and foggy smoke flashed through Daryl's eyes, the smell of his mildew-infested cell, the cold, bitter dark. How she looked when they ran into each other, her face like a canvas for the blood painted there. He rolled his neck and pushed through that wall of memory.

"I don't know what happened to her before we found each other.. but it wasn't good. All I know is she blew the damn place up before we escaped."

"And Negan knows it was you two?" The accusatory tone struck his nerves.

"She said she talked to him over a walkie she snagged off one of the Saviors. He knows she was there."

Daryl blew out a deep breath, hoping to expel the rage he felt building in his chest. It didn't work.

Rick shook his head and frowned, again running those fingers above his brows in thought before he stuck those hands in his pockets. "They came.. the Saviors. About five days ago. They came early, took half of everything. And our people looked at me like.. like they couldn't trust me anymore." His voice faltered, catching in his throat. "And Michonne.. she's never looked at me like that. I don't know if I'm someone worth trusting anymore."

Daryl closed the distance between them, and Rick tilted his chin as if he couldn't bear to falter under Daryl's gaze. "I trust you. For now, you're doing what needs to be done to protect them." Judith, Carl, and all of their family. Whatever happens, Daryl knew in his bones that he would always protect them.

"And when the time is right, when we have the upper hand, we'll do what needs to be done then. I just need to know that if it comes down to it, you'll choose her. Not me. I couldn't live with it any other way. I won't."

  They stared at each other briefly, and Rick's expression was unreadable before he finally nodded. "Okay. You have my word."

  Relief washed over Daryl like a flood wave, and he dipped his head in thanks.

  "Look, there's a lead I planned on hitting while I was in the area, but first, I hid some weapons close by in the woods. I'll take her to them so she's ready if something happens," Rick murmured, glancing back into the window behind them.

  Daryl's heart clenched tight, and the thought of her out beyond the gates without him was almost too much to handle. But he and Zepp had agreed he would only move in the safety of night or early dawn, when the sun wasn't quite bright enough to reveal the things hidden in the shadows. At least for the next few days until they could get some intel on the Saviors. He hated it, though she insisted, and he finally gave in.

He trusted Rick to have her back, and he'd believe in that trust now.

"I'll be here," he murmured, wiping his hand down his mouth and chin, looking out at the small grassy knolls and piles of dirt, graves marked with twig crosses dotting the ground. He could see a small, silver pocket watch laid on one of them. "We might stay here, we might go back to the house. Whatever she wants to do."

Rick raised one eyebrow in question. "The house?"

Daryl's cheeks flushed, and though he couldn't understand why, for whatever reason, he was almost unwilling to reveal too much about their hideaway—they wanted to keep it just for themselves.

Trust. Trust.

"We found a safe place in a neighborhood not too far from here, pretty much between here and Alexandria. It's gated, got a generator. It's quiet."

"Hmm," Rick hummed in thought, following Daryl's gaze to the makeshift cemetery. "Good. That's good." He sighed and twisted towards the enormous house, looking back at Daryl over his shoulder. He hesitated with his hand on the door and, in a snap, took two steps to Daryl and wrapped his arms around his shoulders again, squeezing with as much force as he could without suffocating.

  Daryl returned the embrace, redirecting the sting in his eyes to the pressure in his arms.

  "I'm glad you're home," Rick whispered before he pulled away, not looking back again as he stomped through the threshold, lifting his chin high to return to the role of fearless leader.

  When Daryl followed, he leaned against the wooden beams in the entrance to one of the oversized lounge rooms where his family was scattered around in pairs. Some with grave faces, some with hopeful. His gaze was immediately drawn to the corner where Zepp looked out the window, her arms crossed as if she was holding herself up.

  If she heard him, saw him in her peripheral, or simply felt him through whatever magnetic field connected them, she looked at him the moment he stepped foot in the room. Her eyes lit up like matches to brambles, and a half smile curved her mouth. He quickly weaved through the people in the room, his gaze solely fixed on her, and leaned against the window, one arm snaking its way around her shoulder.

  They didn't say anything, just soaked in each other's presence, eyes and ears on whatever the others were saying. But something in him calmed in her touch, the brush of her thumb against the back of his hand. Like a little drop of his soul said, 'She's here! Yay! We can see her and touch her! yay!'

Too quickly, Rick made his way over to them. "Z, can you come with me? I need to show you something." His face was wary, and Daryl tried to hide the tension in his shoulders. He knew she'd been dreading the conversation they were bound to have, why she defied him, but he also knew they had to have it, or else it would eat away at her.

Zepp didn't respond; she just nodded and moved to follow him. She gave Daryl one last glance, forcing a smile that didn't light her face the way they used to, before she was out the door. He turned to face the window, watching their figures get smaller and smaller, until they were through the gate.

Then they were gone. And Daryl felt so empty.

⤐

"Will you stop walking away from me?" Rick hissed.

Zepp shrugged out of the iron grip on her wrist and stepped back. "Will you stop telling me what to do?"

"You're gonna answer a question with a question?"

"You're answering a question to a question with a question?" She smirked tauntingly.

He groaned in exasperation and pinched the bridge of his nose again. "Zeppelin, just stop. You've trusted me all this time, helped me keep things together."

  The look on his face was helpless, despairing. It hurt her terribly. "What changed?"

"You changed," she murmured, blinking back the tears at her waterline. "What happened... Abraham, Glenn.."

Splat. Whoosh.

She gritted her teeth and pushed through it.

"You didn't see Daryl.. when he was taken." That stilled Rick's breath, and he looked down at his boots. "You didn't see what they did to him, I did. You didn't see Maggie at her worst, I did."

Negan turned them into broken shells, like he had hollowed into their chests and ripped out their souls himself. For that, and the lives of her friends, he will pay.

"And what did they do to you?" Rick's breathy response was like getting hit in the chest with a bag of bricks. She flinched and shook her head.

"I fought my way in and out. I can handle myself."

Murderer. Liar, that tiny voice whispered.

"This is how it's got to be for now, to keep ourselves and our family safe. You can hate me for it all you want, but I won't change my mind," Rick countered.

"I'm coming with you," she conceded after a long moment of silence. "If you're gonna do something stupid, at least let me watch your back."

He nodded in approval and turned without another word, stalking in the general direction of the vehicles with a white-knuckled grip on the bag thrown over his shoulder. She followed close behind.

⤐

Rick and Zeppelin took a box van similar to the one they lost in the fight with Jesus, and she almost smiled at the memory of Daryl sprinting through that field. She felt so optimistic that day, so.. happy. She ached to feel that way again.

When she told Daryl she was leaving with Rick to go on a supply run, it almost broke her heart in half. The look on his face snapped the final thread. She forced her legs to keep moving.

It only took about an hour before Rick slowed the van to a halt, twisted the keys in the ignition, and gave her a subtle nod. They hopped out onto the dirt road, the budding trees lining either side filling the air with a sweet, leafy perfume. A rusted metal gate separated them and the path they were headed down, and Rick paused to read the fading sign.

'KEEP GOING.
ONLY THING HERE
4 U IS TROUBLE'

She saw the tension in his jaw when he turned his gaze to hers. "We have today and today only to find somethin'. They could be back tomorrow. Could be back now..."

Zepp didn't respond; instead, she nodded and hopped over the gate in two fluid motions, barely looking behind her to see if Rick followed. They ambled side by side down the path, only the sound of birds chirping and critters scrambling through the brush thrumming in the air.

"So they've been to Alexandria?" She finally broke the silence but was unable to meet his eyes, choosing instead to pay very close attention to the tree line to her right.

"Yeah," Rick murmured. "A few days ago. From what Daryl told me, it sounds like it was the day before you two escaped."

"So there's still a chance." She could feel him tense beside her, could hear the sharp intake of his breath. "There's a chance he's dead."

"I'm not arguing with you again," he snapped and walked ahead just a few steps. She rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut.

She simply didn't have the energy.

The path wound through the woods for a few miles that went by quickly and quietly, before it finally opened up to another wider path marked with a handmade sign almost as big as a billboard staked into the mossy earth.

'My name is Leslie William Stanton, and I am armed with a Ruger 10/22 (crack shot: can hit targets 70 yds+) ARS 157, (I shit you not!), AK-47, grenades (try me) and several handguns and rifles of antiquity (collector/enthusiast). You are not smart to have not listened to the first sign. You have been warned. I will not hesitate to protect my home, my food, my supplies, my ammo... The only way that you have possibly read this far without being shot is if I am dead. Have at it, assholes.'

"This guy..." Rick murmured thoughtfully. "He's armed. Has food, supplies, ammo." He looked into her eyes for the first time since they walked that path.

"The only way that you have possibly read this far without being shot is if I am dead," she mused. Then, the last thing she expected to happen, Rick smiled.

That cocky smirk she'd seen countless times over warped his mouth as he ducked low, slinking around the sign towards the pond rippling in the distance. She almost returned the expression. When they broke through the trees, that smirk faltered.

Countless walkers bobbed just above the surface, some struggling to stay afloat, others casually gliding on the water's surface. All of them were waiting for some warm pulse to pass by. When the corpses saw them, they all began to groan and snap, a symphony of death.

"Looks like he protected his supplies," Rick growled.

"Looks like they're still protected." She sighed deeply and clenched her fists, looking to Rick for the next step. His eyes were bleak, focused on the trailer floating in the middle of the dead-infested water.

"Today and only today, right?" She offered, lightly brushing the tips of her fingers against his elbow. He tensed but finally broke his stare to look down at her.

"Yeah. Let's go."

A too-small, too-thin metal boat rests on the sandy shore at the edge of the water. The dingy metal was bent, and when she leaned down to inspect it closer, she cursed under her breath and shook her head.

"Its side is full of bullet holes," she sighed, raising her voice over the groans of the dead. "It'll take on water too quick."

Rick nodded towards the pond and tucked his hatchet into the holster on his belt. "We can probably make it to the canoe." A larger canoe floated between the shore and the trailer, no doubt left there by someone who didn't make it any further. Shot, bit, whatever it may be.

"Yeah.." she whispered. "Probably. We need something to row with." She searched around for a set of oars to no avail.

"Wait." Rick stalked over to the sign and smashed the sole of his boot into the wood, kicking it hard enough to splinter a section into two long pieces. "Okay," he said quietly, tucking the wood under his arm and wiping the sweat off his brow. "We have to be quick."

She nodded in agreement and pushed at the side of the tiny boat, pointing it directly towards the canoe. Rick handed her a piece of the broken wood as she settled in the front.

"Ready?"

"Let's go."

Rick shoved off the shore and hopped into the boat, the thin metal already sinking further into the murky surface as it adjusted to his weight. They scrambled to shove their pieces of wood into the thick water, narrowly avoiding the rotting arms reaching for them.

One side of the boat was already starting to suffer, tilting as more and more water poured in through the holes.

"Rick.." Zepp breathed, panic settling like venom in her chest.

"I know," he groaned, rowing with a faster fierceness now. "We're almost there."

True, the canoe was tantalizingly close now, only a few more pushes away. Closer, closer.

"Z! On your left!"

Rick's shout came just as a bloated hand snaked around her wrist, and she shrieked as two walkers clung to the side of the boat, one of them snagging their rotted fingers in her hair. She lurched her body backward, hissing when she felt a chunk of curls rip with the movement, and smacked the pierced wood into the corpse's face over and over. Finally, it released its muddy grip on the boat, and another took its place just to meet its end thanks to her chunk of sign.

Behind her, Rick stabbed more and more of them, and even more swam closer as the boat made no more movement. Well, other than sinking, of course.

The entire bottom was flooded with the greenish liquid, splashing at her ankles and filling her boots. The walkers kept coming, too fast for them to focus on rowing without succumbing to their hands and jaws. When she crouched to pull the sharp end of the wood out of a bloody skull, the water was almost to her waist.

"Row! Row!" She screamed, frantically swinging the makeshift oar through the water when there was finally a break in the bodies. The canoe was so close now she could reach out and touch it if she just stretched a little closer...

Suddenly, a walker sat straight up, wrapping its bony arms around her own. She struggled to pull away from its grasp, but it only loosened once Rick managed to plunge his knife deep into its skull before he hopped in the canoe, one hand reaching for Zepp.

She let out a whoosh of relief and tucked back
a chunk of hair that fell from its place behind her ear. "Thanks, I-"

Her sentence was cut short when a cold, clammy arm snaked around her neck, and rotted fingers dug into the hair at the base of her skull, twisting and pulling like a crocodile hiding in its swamp.

The cold of the water hit her first, then the smell, then the darkness. So dark. As if even the sun knew there was no life thriving in this pond.

The last thing she heard was Rick screaming her name.