Woo! Ok guys my fun story is being updated (yes, this is what I count as hilarious) xxx

Carol led him to the back of her small shop. The musky smell of the peeling gaudy paper was disguised palely with some form of herby incense that immediately settled into a headache. He missed the woods, the days traveling around nature that somehow eluded his anger to quiet compliance of being a member of a band of crooks. After all he was no better.

She smiled widely, pouring him a generous helping of clear liquid, the smell told him it was moonshine. His gut twisted, the thought of a yellow haired and pink cheeked Beth flooding into his head. The paper on the wall looked so grim and grimy, and squinting through the alcohol in the grimy glass he could almost pretend that he was back in here with her delightedly talking about how they had the same pattern at her farm when she grew up. Sad to see the ugly paper wasn't being cared for, the damp and mildew obviously fighting its already overbearing pattern.

He found his eyes trailing across the room, removing the furniture and belongings of the short grey haired woman in order to recreate their home. His gut twisted, as he trailed to the large mahogany door that led to the upstairs. It was locked, obviously unused with dust and even a cabinet in front of it. The outside entrance had looked even less used, the rickety steps nearly eaten away with age. The woman, carol, followed his gaze.

''I wouldn't think about going up there, dear. See something happened up there, something not very nice.''

''Walkers?'' his voice was detached, knowing there was nothing in the story to do with the old problems of walkers. How they had plagued them when they were new and undealable.

The woman shook he head, cheeks colouring with the morbid thoughts of gossiping with a new neighbour. That's why he hated people. They were sadistic and selfish, not one of them was worth their pitiful lives. No one but her.

There was a hunter and his wife, and he was beautiful. Entered this place a decade hence with this other group of people, bedraggled from a farm and headed from the Georgia direction. About a dozen or so of them, said they were harmless and soon made this place their home. But he, he wasn't like the others. No, he was far more elite could go out at dawn and be back by supper with a full hoard to feed most of the town. A proper artist he was, respected and crucial to most mission and sourcing for supplies. We trusted him- but he was thrown out for crime not even a year later.

''Daryl his name was, Daryl Dixon.'' She sighed looking across at the room with a sad interest on her face.

''what was his crime?'' oh, the irony. He of all people knew this sort, but her remembrance had jarred him with such agonising sadness he could barely choke out what he presumed to be a non-interested question.

''foolishness.'' After so many years trying to name his agonising torment, he was shocked to the bone to hear it finally labelled. Yes, it was his nativity. It was all his fault.

He had this wife, you see. Pretty little thing, one of those young girls with long blonde hair and eyes like glass. She had her whole life ahead of her when the outbreak happened and after that it was transferred to her love for him. You could see it, you know? Don't get that kind of love often, but every look she gave him was of devotion. Silly little thing she was. All smiles and patience but nothing to back it up, without him she couldn't protect herself from a fly. Had her chance though, for everything you could ever want. But she wouldn't take it- not right, to have only devotion. Poor thing.

There was this governor you see wanted her like mad. I except he wasn't right in the head after he lost his own wife and daughter, easy to get jealous isn't it? And I mean she was the perfect kind of woman, rare because most like her were the first to be turned. The kind that stay to long after you die because they want to mourn and cry for your waste life. He needed someone like that, with the painful bereavement and all. Even after it became obvious he husband wasn't coming back she was still full of gentle nativity, a greater sadness too. Every day was asking for news of him, wondering if the rumours are true. Go straight to his claws, didn't she? Asking the governor himself why her husband was gone, don't think he ever answered her- not directly at least. He gave her flowers and wooed her with simple lost things dresses and stolen jewellery. She didn't care, never cared for any of it. She just sulked, and slept then sulked some more. Poor thing, she should have said yes when it was a choice.

The doctor called on her all polite, Milton his name was, but we all know him by his close affiliation with the governor. He told her she was depressed and that social gatherings would do her a world of good, and who was she to refuse a doctor? If only she would've seen the rouse like the rest of us. She listened to the muttering stories of the guilt the governor bore, how upset he was for her and how he blamed himself for letting her be around a murderer for so long. My husband wasn't a murderer, she told him, but he wouldn't listen.

This was when I lastly met her for the only real time. Her pale face knocking on my door, I had a trade post for dresses back then still working under my husband. Needed a dress she said, had the little one on her hip like a shield against the world. Kid looked so much like her it was eerie, blonde hair and big blue eyes twice on you makes you give up the best you have. Got a beating for letting that blue floral dress go for so little, but god did she look like the real thing. If it weren't all shit I might believe she were sent from heaven itself. So small and young though, snapped right back to youthfulness it was impossible to think that she had arrived here seven months gone.

It was unfair really, from what I heard. No one told her the gathering was a masked ball, and how was she meant to know that? Couldn't figure out where she was going or who she should talk to, little thing spooked so easily. There she was asking for him, for the governor. Wanted to leave or perhaps to ask more questions. Nobody knows but everyone knows how the cava was thrust into her hand and the waste-not-want-not was so instilled into her she drank it. Obviously not used to alcohol, with her age and a child of her own to carry and feed to boot- let's say it went too quickly to her head.

The governor of course found her when he was well enough intoxicated, lead her away from the dance floor to a nice secluded corner. I have to hand it to her, she hit and struggled against him as soon as she saw what he was going to do. But really, what force was she against him? So he laughed, and they laughed as he- well he-

''No!'' Daryl stood up, clutching his head against the image of a tear filled Beth and that man. His throat burned form the outbreak, his feet pacing because he wanted to tear himself apart.

''would no one have mercy on her?'' there his voice was small again, tears threatening to spill over his cheeks to the floor. It was incomprehensible that he could possibly have come back after all this time to only find that she had succumbed, albeit unwillingly, to that man. Perhaps childishly he had hoped that nothing could have transpired past where he left and when he returned there'd be a wife and a baby with open arms.

''Where is she now?'' His voice still wavered, hating to ask anything more, particularly after only the small shake of a head at his last question.

''Poisoned herself, arsenic from round the corner.'' There was a pause between them. The world crashed around him once again, his feet stumbled and he barely caught himself on the arm of a chair. Gasping breaths coming out of his mouth, he wanted to heave and be sick. The very thought-

''And where's she? Where's Johanna?'' he was frantic, nearing on hysterical with a mad kind of silence. He found the panic turn him slowly to stone and each passing second made him more and more full of vengeance and collected assassination ideas.

''The governor has her.''

And that settled it for him, the governor was going to die and it was going to be painful and slow.

''So it is you Daryl Dixon.'' Carol stood up, inspecting his scruffy face and greying hair with a bemused smug expression. Part of him wanted to hit her for making his pain her entertainment, but she was in on the secret now, and besides he needed someone who knew the inner workings of this place to plot his next moves.

''No, not Dixon. That man is dead. It's Trott now, Herschel Trott. And he will have his revenge.''

Do tell me your thoughts! xxx