A voice, a male voice. The child froze only a few steps away from the old barn doors, scared, her little heart was racing inside her chest. She had been running for what felt like forever. She parted her lips, but didn’t speak.
Less than three hours earlier, she had been blissfully walking down a wooded road alongside her family and a dozen other people, heading from her home, the Alexandria safe zone on a weekend trip to one of the other settlements known as the Hilltop colony. This was her first trip anywhere outside of high walls and she’d been so excited after her adopted mother Michonne had finally allowed her to join her on her journey this time. The nine year old had briefly strayed from the group to go catch some butterflies in the woods with a jar when she’d heard a sudden commotion. Peering back out onto the road from behind a tree, she’d watched wide eyed in horror at the sight of her group fighting with masked attackers, her mother desperately stabbing one with her katana as he marched on her.
Judith had her own blade, she’d quickly pulled it out, ready to join in, to protect her mother, even if the brave little girl stood no real chance in such a brawl. But before she could react, her mother had turned her way, shouting at her, telling her to run and not to look back, just run as far as she could away from the danger.
The child didn’t want to leave, she wanted to help, she’d been ready to ignore her mothers words until a masked face appeared in front of her from around the other side of the tree. Judith had screamed and ducked down before the person could grab her and turned and ran in the opposite direction as quickly as she could.
An hour later, the sun had set, the child had finally stopped running, but she was now completely lost. Quietly crying as she walked so she wouldn’t draw in any walkers, unable to find her way back to the road, she’d kept moving with no sign of anything in sight. No people, no settlements. She’d almost given up hope when she’d spotted the old barn through a clearing in the trees.
Finally. A place she could rest, wait until morning and then try to find her way back to the road again. She’d felt a surge of hope, right up until the doors creaked open and heard the voice. She was fearful, was he one of the attackers? She readied herself to turn and run when she heard the familiar, eerie growls and moans of an approaching walker horde. Without a second thought, she hurried and squeezed inside through the partially open doors. “Lock the doors, biters are comin’ mister!” The child exclaimed, sitting down huddled up in a far corner, her warm breath like white smoke in the cold air. There was an awkward silence as she observed the stranger, though it was difficult to make out his features in the dark. “I’m Judith- Judith Grimes.”
Wordlessly, Dwayne closed the door and locked it up. Normally he would only secure the barn when he’d go to sleep during the day, so that no light could breech his dark security, but he knew if those things—biters, as the child called them—saw her come inside, they’d follow her. For walking dead bastards whose arms and legs were days from rotting off, their sense of hearing and eyesight were impeccable. Didn’t make much sense to him.
He searched the barn for anything he could use to further barricade the doors, but whatever fixtures and machinery that once occupied the barn had long been removed.
A sharp gust of wind abruptly howled outside and it carried the sounds of the dead. Then hands beat on the door while nails scratched along the wooden surface.
Dwayne cussed under his breath as he made his way over to the crouched child, where he then knelt down in front of her. Those brainless freaks were quick to zero in on their meal. As much as he hungered for human blood, he absolutely would not take any from a child. Even in a reality so screwed up as theirs, he refused to hurt innocent kids.
Without waiting for Judith to consent, he scooped her up in one arm and flew up to the rafters. He then twisted in mid-air and sailed over the loft, where loose hay covered the flooring. Just as he set the little girl on her feet, the biters broke through the locked doors. As Dwayne’s long dark hair fell over his hardened features, he watched in mixed amusement and disgust how those stupid deadheads just stumbled about in search of their meals-on-wheels that seemingly up and vanished into thin air.
“You call them ‘biters?’” he whispered to Judith, hoping she wasn’t shaken by the abilities he dared to reveal to her. If the world had been normal like it once was capable of being, he would never had shown any of his abilities or a regular human. Yet in the world they were all forced to survive in, all bets were off.
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