Chapter Text
Carl wakes to the car rocking heavily to the side. For a moment he is brought back to the herds swarming the roads, Dale’s RV, his mom, Shane. He’s disoriented, his mind spinning fanciful stories that they all were still here. Sophia, Herschel, his family from the prison.
Everything that he had before the world turned upside down. Everything that he gained afterwards, lost to one man’s anger.
As quickly as it begins, the memories fade away and he remembers where he is. Out in the Georgian countryside, sleeping in an abandoned car after walking for miles. Suddenly, he realises just how dark it is outside; the fire has gone out.
He hears hushed but agitated voices outside and when he turns to look he finds a pudgy face pressed tight to the window of the car.
The man has a look in his eyes so eerie that Carl feels his skin ripple in distaste. He watches him, a terrifying grin stretching his face, breath steaming up the glass in short puffs.
The smouldering embers of fear begin to flicker within him again. He has long become accustomed to the familiar pang in his stomach when he comes across the dead. It has taken him longer to get used to his newfound apprehension of the living.
A glance out of the windshield has him scrambling for his small Beretta on the dashboard. His dad has a pistol at his temple — Michonne too — and somewhere between the time he went to sleep and the mere seconds ago when he woke up, Daryl has made an appearance. The jolting of the car was prompted by him being thrown against it and Carl watches in horror as two men kick and punch the redneck, him curling up in on himself and trying to avoid the blows.
Including the man at his window there are five of them in total. A tall figure with a dirty grey beard is talking animatedly to his dad, keeping a tight grip on the gun aimed beside his dad’s ear. Carl feels his heart begin to pound. His fingers are just about to close around his own gun when the car door flings open and there are wrenching, grasping hands pulling him by the waist and material of his flannel out into the cold night air.
He gasps in surprise, flailing, arms and legs entangling around themselves. The hefty man just chuckles lowly in his ear, thick arm tight around his chest, holding him against him. There is a quiet swoosh, muted by the layers of clothing, then cool, glinting metal on his throat.
The man with the beard — Joe, he heard one of the men call him — stops in his tirade, a crooked grin sliding onto his face.
“See, now, tha’s right,” Joe says, thick southern drawl making his words almost indecipherable. “This ain’t some damn lie. We ain’t foolin’ ya, Rick.”
Carl watches the stirring anger in his dad’s eyes dim as they widen in terror at the sight of his son held captive. Sweat beads on the back of his neck and he’s too scared to swallow in case the bob of his throat causes the knife to nick him. And then it’s over. All this surviving, all the pain that he has endured, for nothing.
Maybe his mom was wrong. Maybe he won’t beat this crazy world. Maybe this is it for him.
“Please,” Dad breathes, voice shaky like it had been that night. When Carl and Maggie had returned from the basement, without Lori and a bloody baby in their arms. “Please, he’s just a kid.”
“Look,” the words are lazy, lax, like he doesn’t have their life in his hands. Joe huffs out a wheezing laugh. “We can settle this. We’re reason’ble men.”
Daryl is no longer letting out cries of pain when the men beat him. Blows rain down on his limp body. Hot tears sit on Carl’s waterline, about to spill.
“First we’re gonna beat Daryl to death. Then we’re gonna have the boy, then the girl, then we’re gonna shoot you and then we’ll be square.”
Michonne, expressive as ever, has her emotions plastered all over her face. Raw, tangible panic and fury twist her features. Her hands tremble with the restraint of the urge to reach for her katana and kill them all. She knows in her heart that she could never make it before the men would fire bullets into each of their brains.
Rick shouts out, pure horror in his eyes. Joe tightens his grip, wraps an arm around his neck in a chokehold.
“Go at it, Dan, but be quick. He’ll start to scream, an’ then the dead ‘uns will start showin’ up.”
The fat man holding him smirks. He must be Dan, Carl realises.
A slimy, slick feeling pervades his ear, shocking him enough to startle in the grasp. It’s gradual clarity that tells him that Dan has his tongue on his face, licking him like a dog.
Disgust enters his system with the sinking of his gut and alarm bells sounding in his mind.
Quickly, faster than Carl could have expected, he is pushed to the ground, face scraping against the gravel. He squafers, fights, tries to loosen Dan’s grip. It’s all futile.
There is an inhumane strength that all of them have uncovered, deep within, as a result of the apocalypse. Desperation. Yet Carl is no match for the man on top of him. Not in this malnourished state. Not in this body, with thin, stick-like wrists and ribs poking through his shirt.
Blood wells in crimson droplets where his cheek has split in a cut. He cries out, yells, remembers the talk that Lori had with him when he was younger.
‘If someone ever touches you and you don’t want them to,’ she said, ‘you yell and scream as loud as you can! And make sure that you always tell me, okay?’
Well, she isn’t here to tell. His voice feels hoarse as he screeches, tears of anxious frustration rolling down his face.
“Stop your squirming,” Dan mutters angrily, dirty palm covering Carl’s mouth. His other hand slides up his shirt, caressing the skin of his stomach that is still soft with youth. “Damn, you’re skinny. Gotta take what we got, though.”
Carl stretches his fingers out as much as he can, desperately attempting to reach the discarded knife. It’s just an inch too far, buried in the leaves.
His breath comes in short gasps as Dan moves his hand further down, teasing him cruelly. He fingers the waistband of Carl’s too-large jeans for a while before reaching underneath him and unbuckling his belt.
The sound of clinking metal seems to snap his dad out of the horrified stupor he was in. Eyes flashing with fury, he throws his head back, startling Joe into firing the gun. It misses by a hair’s breadth.
Joe sends a right hook flying into his dad’s face, cracking his head to the side. Combined with the ringing in his ear from the gunshot, Rick is distracted enough for Joe to grab his arms and pin them tightly behind him. Joe’s other arm snakes around his neck and strengthens the chokehold. Michonne watches helplessly. The man behind her binds her hands with a piece of string. A new precaution.
Amidst the chaos, Dan has pulled Carl’s jeans down to his knees and is working on his own.
Primal fear stings every nerve in Carl’s body as the whispering winter breeze tickles the exposed backs of his legs. Foreboding fills his bones alongside a child-like confusion that he hates the familiarity of. Something is wrong. This is wrong.
The revulsion on his dad and Michonne’s faces makes him shudder. He has no idea what’s happening. What does this man want from him?
Dan’s belt buckle clicks. On reflection, Carl thinks that the sound will haunt him forever.
That hulking weight crushes him again as Dan removes the last layer between them. Tears glisten on Carl’s cheeks in the moonlight.
His dad is crying. Michonne is weeping. The men are leering. Daryl is still.
Carl is shuddering, shaking and hiding deep inside his own mind.
It has been at least half an hour since then, though the seconds have stretched by infinitesimally slowly. Carl is hoarse from screaming, his body raw and aching.
Every movement elicits a sharp yelp of pain as he is rolled this way and that like a ragdoll. Like a toy.
Dan has had his fun three times. If Carl had his gun, he would shoot himself instead of the man grinding against him.
The darkness has receded into pale twilight, the sky purpling like the bruises forming on Carl’s wrists and ankles. Slowly, one of the men who gave Daryl the thrashing steps towards them. He crouches, getting a tight grip on Carl’s hair and pulling his tear-stained face up to look him in the eyes.
“Man, is he cute. Almos’ like a gell with those big blue eyes an’ that long hair.” He whispers, eyes roaming the child in front of him. The other men watch the exchange, captivated. Distracted.
Dan moves backwards, behind the car, satisfied. He leans heavily on the boot, fiddling with his trousers.
Daryl slinks up behind him and before he can blink there’s a rock slamming into his temple. He falls, unconscious, and Daryl catches him noiselessly, laying him down in the dirt.
Round the front of the car, unaware that one of their members is down, the other man is tracing the cut on Carl’s face, tutting at how it will scar. Carl whimpers when the man begins to unbutton his trousers. A branch breaks, far off in the forest. The group goes silent for a moment but, assuming it’s nothing, continues.
The man’s trousers are at his knees and he pushes himself up from a crouch to stand tall. Carl’s energy drains and he flops onto the gravel. Looming above him, the man snarls.
Carl barely manages to raise his head, and when he does, no one is looking at him. His dad’s eyes are fixed on something round the side of the car. Michonne is fighting to conceal a smirk.
Before he can even begin to question these things, a gunshot rings out. The man with his trousers down sways, like some sort of grotesque waltz, blood pouring from the bullet wound that punctures his forehead. He falls heavily on the ground.
Adrenaline flushes through Carl’s body. Now is his chance. His lower body aches with a pain that spiders up his spine and blood leaks from places he would rather not think about. Even so, he has to escape.
Pushing himself up on unsteady, twig-like arms, Carl gets shakily to his feet. He pulls up his boxers and trousers in a swift motion and sprints to the car, throwing open the door.
His heart jackrabbits in his chest, a painful throb, like a fist squeezing and releasing the organ. His Beretta is familiar in his hand. Comforting, almost.
Behind him, his dad is wrestling Joe’s gun out of his hands. It’s pointed up at the sky, intermittently firing throughout the struggle.
Dan is nowhere to be seen, and the second guy is growing cold on the gravel. The man with Michonne has dropped his gun and kicked it out of her reach. They battle furiously, him with a machete, her with her katanas. It is clear who has the upper hand.
Carl searches for something to do, some way to help. He catches a glimpse of himself in the cracked rear-view mirror of the car and has to hold back a retch.
There are finger-shaped bruises around his neck, brushing his jaw bone, a sick kind of painting in blood adorning his cheeks. His hair is mussed, sticking up in places where it had been pulled. The shirt he wears is practically shredded from the friction against the ground.
Looking away, Carl buttons up his flannel. He feels ill.
To his left, someone with shaggy brown hair and a face more pulp than man is furiously punching the last ‘claimer’ into the dirt. It takes Carl a while to realise that it’s Daryl. A sigh escapes him, tension replaced with relief. For a moment he had wondered if Daryl would even make it.
Michonne has now overpowered her captor. In one striking, clean movement, his head is off his shoulders. Blood splatters onto her cheek. She doesn’t wipe it off.
Rick, having taken Joe’s gun, tosses it into the greenery around them. They engage in a brawl, each caught in a headlock with the other.
Joe’s lips pull back in a sickening grin. “And what are you planning on doing with no weapon?” Although winded, he doesn’t seem to have lost any confidence in himself.
Rick doesn’t reply, as though contemplating his answer. Then, unexpectedly, he lunges, head darting forward like a shark snatching its prey. Carl watches in appalled disbelief as his father’s teeth lock around the thin flesh of Joe’s neck, sinking in and drawing blood. Joe screams; Rick pulls away, tearing out Joe’s throat as he does so. The salt-and-pepper haired man gurgles and chokes on his own blood before slowly sinking to his knees and keeling over. His eyes are wide and white and terrified.
The aftermath of this brutal attack has Rick panting for breath, crimson liquid wet in his beard. An eerie silence follows in its wake, Michonne and Carl locking eyes. He looks away in shame, unable to hold her gaze.
Breaking the noiseless atmosphere is a crack. Daryl finishes off the final ‘claimer’ with a sickeningly loud punch, fist smashing the man’s head into the rocks. His face is unrecognisable.
Each of them looks around in an almost dissociative state — they can neither of them believe what has just occurred. If it weren’t for the immobile bodies littering the ground and the gore coating each of them, it would be easy to pretend that nothing had happened. At least, for those who didn’t have to feel the phantoms of pudgy hands caressing their bodies and the hot slick of sweat sliding against them, cold air on a tiny body and —
Something is behind Carl. No, someone. He barely has any time to react before a thick arm tightens around his neck and pulls him close again. The familiar and nauseating scent of cigarettes and sweat fills his nostrils.
Dan. Carl can feel his breath on the back of his neck, shaky with fear as he surveys the bodies of his group. The large man tightens his grip on Carl’s shoulders in front of him. He needs some sort of leverage to get away from here.
“D-don’t move!” He says furiously. “You move and I’ll — I’ll snap his neck! I swear I’ll do it!”
There is a collective intake of breath from the three adults and Dan relishes the power he has over them. The kid is stiff against him, body taut like a stringed violin. The thought is almost enough to get him going again.
Slowly, he begins to walk backwards, trailing Carl along with him, too scared to turn around in case the father or the girl raise their guns and shoot him.
He makes it to the back of the car and heaves a sigh of relief. Carl still hasn’t moved. Dan smirks, patting his shoulder.
“You’re a good kid. An’ you gave me a good time. This’ almos’ making me want a round four —”
A gunshot rings out, startling him. It sounded close. Without warning, blinding agony lashes at his body like a whip and he folds in half, mouth agape and lost for oxygen. His hands search blindly for the source of the pain and come back wet. Red fluid douses his fingertips.
Fuck.
The kid has shot his dick off.
Distantly, he can hear himself and the pathetic choking sound he’s making, but he can’t bring himself to care. The sting and burn of his torture is all consuming, white noise filling his ears as he falls to the ground. His vision is turning black at the edges, like the rolling credits at the end of a movie. And this is the end for him.
His head flops backwards and he loses all strength in his bones, body going limp on the road.
His eyesight is failing him, the moonlight receding into little white specks amidst the darkness of his eyelids. The last thing he thinks he sees is the kid's smile.