Here is a little coming-of-age one-shot for you all. The title comes from a medieval artistic motif that branched out from the dance of death. There is a hauntingly beautiful Schubert quartet for strings that shares the name, and I was listening to it as I wrote. In any case, this just sort of fell out of my head fully formed this evening. Enjoy!

Death and the Maiden:

"Doodlebug doodlebug, fly away home…"

She couldn't think. There was no time left for that. And she couldn't run any more—there were simply too many.

They were everywhere. They'd see her if she ran. If it wasn't so very dark out in the nighttime forest, they'd already have taken her. The fact that she was standing absolutely, perfectly still was the only reason nothing had noticed her, yet.

All she could do is whisper to herself, silently—under her breath. She said the words over and over again—mouthed out the rhyme like a prayer.

"Doodlebug doodlebug, fly away home…"

A massive crowd of them were moving through the tall trees and the cold, winter fog—she could hear them groaning—creeping closer. But the fog was so thick in the darkness that she wouldn't be able see them until they were right up on top of her.

Her breath floated in front of her face—white and misty in the raw air as she cleaved against the oak tree.

Beth wanted to sink into the bark. Bury herself deep inside the living wood. She wanted to be the tree.

Nothing tried to hurt the oaks. This tall, old tree would grow for years and years after every single living person was dead.

It would happen eventually.

In the winter cold, all alone, it seemed obvious to her. It was just a matter of time. There would be nothing but walkers.

Walkers and tall, silent trees.

Shawn's room was next to Beth's. Their two bedrooms shared a wall—always had—and the two of them had lived side by side ever since her Dad married Annette. Married Mom.

And Beth had been asleep in her room when Shawn died in the night. When he gave in to the terrible fever.

But Mom never left his side—had sent Beth to bed just a few hours beforehand. If she hadn't, Beth would have been in that room with them both when it happened.

Somehow, after he rose up, he'd known she was just a wall away—he knew she was close, almost as if he remembered. No one in the family understood what was going on, and at the time, that seemed like good proof he wasn't really dead, after all. It got them hoping.

It was easier to think of him that way—as if he was sick—than it would have been to face what had really happened.

But Shawn—whatever Shawn there was left—he wanted to kill her. And somehow he knew that she was just behind those sheets of plaster. And he woke her up, beating against the wall, trying to break it down and get to her.

And as for Mom… Shawn had already bitten her, by then.

The dead were coming closer.

The night cold worked into her fingers. It chilled them, and they were getting numb. Her whole mind was getting numb along with them—like the frost had worked into her brain, as well.

If only she could disappear into the oak tree at her back—like Daphne from the book of myths her daddy read to her some nights. Daphne was a wood nymph, and Apollo chased her through the woods. She bolted—tried to escape, but it was only a matter of time before he would catch her.

And then Gaia—the river goddess—saw Daphne's plight. She pitied her, and turned her into a tree. And Daphne was safe, then.

Apollo chased Daphne because he was in love with her. And she was a virgin, so she ran.

Beth wasn't running from anything like that. If she got caught, she wasn't going to have a golden god for a lover.

Another sound. The closest one yet. White panic started twisting in her gut. So she whispered her magic words.

"Doodlebug, Doodlebug, fly away home…"

She pushed against the tree as tight as she could. She could feel the peeling bark digging into her back. And in that moment, the figures she'd heard coming began to materialize out of the darkness.

They floated out of the nothingness, one by one. A massive crowd. They walked along in a procession. The closest were about eight feet away—walking parallel to where she stood. It was as if she were watching some sort of demented parade... or the dance of death.

The fog played across the legs—wound its way around the bodies. She could see some of the ones closest to her pretty clearly. A grey, filthy woman, whose hair stirred against the cold wind. A little boy with a backpack on. A large, muscular man with no face. It had been chewed away.

She felt tears stinging at the corners of her eyes.

"Doodlebug, Doodlebug…"

She swallowed hard, staring at the hands in the crowd before her. Sixty hands—give or take—attached to some sixty arms. They glowed white in the darkness, swaying back and forth as the dead slowly passed her by.

"… fly away home."

And she was more than halfway home, now. Most of the big group had moved off into the woods beyond her. There would be strays, scattered between the trees… but with the crowd out of sight, she might be able to make a run for it. Might be able to go find the rest of the group.

And then they would look after her again. Tell her what to do. She'd be safe.

The last few started passing her by. Only a handful were left, now. Their shapes looked half-formed in the heavy fog. They were a dim blur of motion, disappearing into the night.

Her lungs burned for air, but she didn't want to breathe too hard. She needed to be still. Quiet. Her throat was so tight she nearly choked trying to get out the faint, breathless whisper:

"Doodlebug… doodlebug… fly away home."

Your house is on fire and your children all gone.

The dead slowly trailed past her and away—disappearing into the fog. There were no sounds in the night but the shuffling of the walker's feet—their hollow groans fading into the distance.

And in her mind, she heard the rest of the rhyme echoing back to her.

All gone but one—and that's little Anne,

For she has crept under the frying pan

She knew that Jimmy wanted to have sex with her. Of course he did. He was seventeen years old.

Beth really had no idea if she wanted to do it or not. And Jimmy was a sweet boy. He never touched her where or when she didn't want him to. So for them, things moved slow.

It would have been hard for things to move faster, anyway—for such a wide open, rural place, there were always people watching them. Her dad saw to that. And Mom. Mom was a little more subtle about it, but she always seemed to find ways to keep them from being alone.

The time she let Jimmy get closest was in the middle of the woods beyond the farm—a dense, old woods that was a lot like this one. It was late afternoon on one of the first days that hinted of spring. There was a mild breeze in the air.

He'd laid his jacket down on the grass of the clearing. She was on it, and he was on her.

His lips were on her neck. He was breathing hard. And she had her hands in his hair, somehow. They'd just floated up there on their own.

She didn't really understand what she was feeling.

But that wasn't unusual for Beth. Everything seemed to happen without her really understanding it or choosing it for herself—Mama dying, all those years ago. Annette and Shawn coming into their lives. Maggie moving away to college, getting involved with the boys there—getting older and more experienced and pulling away from Beth. Getting so Beth didn't understand her all the time. Becoming a grownup.

Things just sort of happened, really… You didn't wake up one day and say "I'm gonna grow an inch taller this month. It's time for that spurt," or "I'm gonna do my best to need a bra by Christmas." You didn't decide how tall you'd get, or when your first period came. It all just sort of happened despite yourself.

And the tension under her skin burned hot against the touch of Jimmy's lips. He pressed a trail of kisses along her collar bone, and she sighed, then. Was keenly aware of the warm weight of his body on top of her.

And she figured that she could just trust Jimmy, if she wanted—just like she'd trusted everyone else her whole life. Let him take control. She didn't really have to do anything. And the branches swayed above her, with the little green buds on them. They were pale and golden and waiting to flower out into early spring leaves.

And Jimmy pulled away. His cheeks were ruddy and his lips were swollen and hot. She reached up and ran a fingertip against them. His breath fell over her hands—warm and shaking. He was staring at her—staring at her inquisitively. Waiting for some cue she didn't know how to give.

She sat up. And he pushed away from her, then. The cool wind flowed through the space between them.

"Let's get back in time for dinner," she said.

The remaining dead were just in front of her. She watched them pass by.

She was all alone, like little Anne in the nursery rhyme.

Beth had no idea where everyone else was. It all happened so fast she never figured out what was going on, really. When the dead attacked, she was on one side of the herd and the rest of the group was on the other—just like that.

And someone on the other side of the wall of walkers—one of the men—he was screaming her name—shouting at her.

"BETH! Run! RUN, BETH—BETH!"

It might have been Rick. Or Daryl. Or T-Dog. The voice strained to be heard over gunfire and the screams of the others. So she wasn't sure which of them it had been.

But she did what it told her to do. She ran.

And the rest of the group—everyone she'd left behind… she had no idea what happened to them. Maybe they were dead and being eaten. Or dead and risen up to start chasing her.

Or maybe they'd escaped, and they were off safe someplace else, far away.

Daddy… Maggie.

Thinking of them sent a shiver through her, and she let out a pained sob without realizing what she'd done.

The sound broke the silence. She plastered her hand over mouth, too late.

Her head darted towards the receding crowd. She waited with a cold dread to see if any of them heard her.

The mass kept moving into the night fog—all but the last in line. That last walker turned towards her. He stood still a moment, looking around. Searching the trees for whatever had cried.

He was a young man—tall and lean. His white, wiry muscles stood out on his arms like they'd been carved there. He'd been very handsome, once upon a time. His clouded eyes had once been a crystalline blue, and his hair was a thick mass of yellow curls.

He was a golden god.

When he turned—thank Jesus he was the only one who turned—he stared deep into her body with a raw hunger that made her cry out. That look pulled the scream out of her as if he'd already bitten into her flesh.

He lunged forward, tried to grab her shoulders. She jumped out of the way of his blood-caked hands. And he stared at her with his milky, blue eyes.

She was face to face with her Apollo.

"Oh, no…" she murmured, shaking her head. Backing up into the black space beyond the tree. A tear ran down her cheek.

"No…"

Apollo stepped forward. Started after her. She gasped as he lurched forward.

And the freezing air burned against her throat as she turned and ran for her life.

She'd told Shawn what had happened in the woods with Jimmy. They were sitting on the front porch a few days after it happened.

He was the right person to tell. She knew it before she came up to him. And like she expected, he listened to her with that easy quiet he'd always had. Didn't look horrified or pissed off or frightened. Didn't argue with her or give her orders like Maggie would have done. He just listened.

When she finished telling him all about it, he just looked at her, silently. And something about that look… it just made the central truth of the matter fall out of her mouth before she'd realized what it was.

"I don't know what to do."

She pressed her forehead against her hand. Felt her eyes stinging. She wasn't really sure exactly why, but she wanted to bury her face in Sean's shoulder and break down in tears.

But before she could reach for him, he leaned back—away from her. It caught her by surprise.

"I can't tell you what to do, Sis."

She looked up at him. He had a slight smile on his face. She protested.

"But—"

"This is grownup stuff. Grownups have to decide for themselves."

"I mean… if you're gonna be old enough to make it with your boyfriend, you're gonna have to be old enough to decide on your own."

She stared at him, frightened by what he was saying. And he looked at her gently, then. The sun was just starting to lower in the sky. It illuminated the fields behind him with a fine, golden glow.

"Don't get me wrong, Beth. Just let me know, and I'll make sure you've got everything to be safe, ok? You can always talk to me. About anything."

He got up to go inside. Stopped in the door, and turned to her.

"And I won't tell Dad. I won't tell anybody. I promise."

Then he went in the kitchen, and asked Mom what they were having for dinner.

Three weeks later, he was beating on her bedroom wall, trying to tear it down so he could kill her.

Apollo was fast on his feet—faster than she expected. She ran track at school—had been hoping to make varsity next year. So she didn't think he'd be able to keep up with her on his dead legs.

But those legs… they were strong. He'd been dead only a little while, probably, and must've been a runner, just like her. And it was almost like he remembered how to run—how to use the proper form so he could get the most out of each stride.

The trees flew by, and the branches strained out to grab her. One of them struck her cheek as she whipped past, and she could feel the hot blood trickling across her face.

She could hear her breath in the air. It echoed in her ears. And there was nothing and no one else there. There was no one with her but her golden god.

He wasn't slowing down, and she'd run at least five miles, by now. The moon hung overhead, cut into fragments by the black branches of the trees.

She was alone with her Apollo, and no one was going to save her.

She didn't know what to do.

The night wind picked up, and it was almost like it was speaking to her.

This is grownup stuff. Grownups have to decide for themselves.

She could see an old stone wall in the distance, buried by underbrush and dead leaves. It stood out in the darkness. That wall meant this whole area used to be farmland, once. Farmland that got abandoned, grew over, and became a forest.

Her daddy's farm would look like that in a few decades or so.

The sky was just starting to get that bluish tinge to it—a rich, deep blue like Apollo's eyes. The dawn would come in an hour or so. She'd started hiding behind trees to steal moments to catch her breath. Every time, it took Apollo a good while to find her. He'd wander through the trees, slow and methodical and relentless. Trying to figure out which one hid the prize.

She pressed against another tree, now, nestled against it like it had arms to hold her close. She was breathing deep, silent breaths, trying to rest up as best she could for the next go.

This time—as she scanned the deep woods for any sign of another person or somewhere to hide—she saw something.

An old, collapsed foundation. It must have been a farmhouse in the centuries before she was born.

Maybe she could hide in there. Wait him out.

As she thought about it, she heard him getting close. The leaves rustled around his sneakers. Any moment, he'd turn around the trunk and see her leaning there against it.

Olly-olly-oxen-free.

It was time to go.

She bolted.

He seemed to think she'd vanished into thin air. He was wandering around up above her head. She was clutching the side of the foundation—surrounded by fieldstones and the broken underbrush. Leafless saplings and dead, winter briars. She stayed low, hid in the shadows. Eventually he'd forget about her and move on.

She could see his feet, up above, pacing around in the underbrush. Walking back and forth around the foundation. He knew she was around here somewhere, but had lost the thread. His ankles were caked with mud, and his legs were cut with deep, long gashes.

She watched him wander in circles around her hiding place as the morning light swelled around them. The sun illuminated the lichen on the stones, and the scar on her arm. The one where she'd tried to cut herself. Somehow, standing there with death pacing around above her head, trying to kill herself seemed like the stupidest thing she'd ever done in her entire life.

And she waited and waited. And then… she didn't know when, precisely, but sometime… he vanished.

She leaned her head against the fieldstones a moment, breathed in and out. Closed her eyes. Waited. Nothing.

She waited. Waited for as long as she could bear it. Recited The Adventures of Isabel in her head three times over. She'd memorized it for speech class last fall.

Nothing.

So she stood up in the foundation. Dared to peek over the edge and to see what was happening.

He reached in, grabbed her by the hair, and started pulling her upwards.

Apollo's arms were hard, unyielding, and white like marble. They tugged at her hair and it hurt so bad that she expected a whole chunk of it to rip away any minute.

He leaned over the foundation, pushing his face close. His mouth was stained with old, black blood.

She screamed.

He let go of her hair then, and reached down further. For her neck. For her shoulders. He wanted to pull her up towards him—drag her out over the foundation and onto the forest floor where he could take her.

His dirty, scummy hands pushed against her collarbone, and left trails of grime there.

"No…"

She whimpered out the word. She felt powerless. She wanted to cry. No one was going to help her.

"No… oh no… no, no, no…"

And everything slowed down, then. His hands grabbed at her stiffly from above. He strained for her, pawing at her skin awkwardly. Trying to reach her so he could eat her up.

She wasn't sure what made her do it, then, but something changed. One moment to the next, it was like something in her had died and something else had replaced it. It just happened. She found herself reaching out for his wrists where they tried to grab her, and she grabbed him right on back.

She tugged hard, and before she knew it, he lost his balance. Went flipping into the foundation, crushing a sapling beneath his weight as he fell on top of it, flat on his back.

She picked up a loose stone, then, and stepped forward. Calmly walked up towards where he lay.

When she spoke again, her entire tone had changed. Her voice was cool and calm in her own ears. It didn't sound like her own voice—or like her voice as she'd known it until this point.

"No."

She wasn't afraid anymore. She stood over him, looking down at his grey face, and sent the rock down on home. And she kept on doing it until he stopped moving for good.

It took her most of the day to walk back to where she started. She'd been a Girl Scout, and she knew how to read the cardinal directions from the sun. She didn't get lost.

The walkers had moved on in the night. The forest was empty. It was grey, wintery—cold. It smelled like it might snow. No birds sang.

She found the camp. It was mostly cleared out. There were bodies on the ground—but they were all walkers, shot through the head or their brains beaten in. One of them was impaled against a tree by an arrow stuck through its eye.

She didn't see anyone she recognized in their numbers. And that was good… but it only meant that if anyone died, they'd already risen up and walked away.

And the cars. All of them were gone but one. One had been crashed against a stand of oaks—the nose rumpled against them. And she could see the bodies wedged there—between the front of the sedan and the trees. Someone had used it to plow them down. Probably rammed into those trees repeatedly. The still bodies at the front of the car didn't move.

There was no one around. They'd left, or they'd been killed.

Beth was on her own.

She stepped up to the car. She didn't have her driver's license yet. Just a permit. She'd been in the middle of learning when this whole thing had happened. Jimmy had been teaching her how to parallel park when the first emergency broadcast alert went blaring out over the car radio.

Luckily, parallel parking wouldn't be much of a necessity now.

She opened the car door. There was nothing and no one inside. No bloodstains—nothing. But there were keys in the ignition.

So she turned them, and started the thing on up. Put on her seat-belt, carefully adjusted the mirror, and pulled out onto the road. Headed out in search of a town. It didn't matter what town, really. She could find supplies in a town, and get herself ready for whatever came next.

And when she got wherever she was going, she'd find herself a gun.