She'd tried to signal some sort of warning to the motorcycles rider, but to no avail. Her waving arms weren't enough to attract their attention in time, not from her hunkered down position in the roadside ditch. She cursed under her breath as the rider passed her just in time for the dilapidated gas station to explode. Her head lifted to the sight of the rider being thrown from their bike as the initial lick of flames died down, but she could feel the heat of the explosion on her brow. She stood up with a broad smile on her face, even through the mild concern for the thrown rider.
She picked her way along the road, keeping a careful eye on the smouldering station to the side of her. In her hand she grasped a long bladed knife that looked to have been pilfered from a butchers shop some weeks ago. She passed the bike, the engine was still running but it looked like one of the tires had torn when the explosion had gone off, or when the rider had fallen, she couldn't tell. Her eyes glanced to the station once again, to see if any of the shamblers had survived her little stunt. Her attention was brought back to the road when she was the rider of the bike moving. She cursed again, deep down she'd hoped they'd died in the crash. For a multitude of different reasons she couldn't quite explain.
He groaned as he stumbled to his feet, blood was pouring down his arm originating from a nasty series of cuts around his shoulder, clearly where he had impacted on the floor. The man looked dazed and he lurched to the side when he tried to put any weight on his leg. His crash was clearly worse than he had been first suspecting.
Kiz was about to speak, but she was cut off by the sound of low moaning coming from the gas station. The smell of burning rotten flesh his the back of her throat, but she'd experienced the scent enough times in her life now it didn't phase her.
"We got too go," Kiz stated as she put the mans arm over her shoulder. She'd left people behind to be eaten before, just to save her own skin, but this guy being injured, that was her fault. She wasn't sure she could shoulder the guilt of him being killed just so she could get away.
She saw him glance back to the bike, "Its wasted," she told him plainly, but she still felt him struggle towards it regardless, her grip on his arm tightened to stop him.
"Over there, look," Kiz indicated towards a field, in the middle of which there was a building, a wooden barn, probably owned by the same people who had ran the gas station. "We can come back for the bike," she told him, making a hollow promise.
Her words seemed to have done the trick with him though and he stopped struggling towards the downed machine. The engine grumbling over was working as a distraction for the shamblers too, making their get away an easy one, despite the pain gnawing it's way up his leg.
The field was bigger than first anticipated and with the weight of the man leaning across her shoulder it took them some time to make it to the barns perimeter, where he was unceremoniously dumped on the floor. She passed him her knife and added, "I'll be right back," and she was gone before he had a chance to speak up for himself.
Daryl ran his hand over his wounded shoulder and looked at the blood on his fingers, they weren't deep cuts, thankfully and they'd heal up fine eventually, but they stung when he touched them. He was more concerned that he couldn't put much weight on his leg. His fuzzy head was coming back to itself and he chastised himself for having been so out of sorts as they'd crossed the field, no he was under the care of a complete stranger who seemed to be holding all the cards. He swapped hands his knife was in and attempted to get back on his feet but a wave of pain stopped him so crumbled again to the floor. He looked around the immediate surroundings, but the barn gave nothing away. His hand once again tightened on the handle of the long bladed knife and he struggled to get up, gritting his teeth against the pain. With considerable effort he hobbled to the side of the wooden building and used an outstretched arm to take the weight off his leg, refusing to be completely helpless and reliant on someone else. He made his way round to the front of the barn slowly, expecting to hear the unwelcome moaning of walkers, but just as he got around the corner the woman came around the other way.
"It's clear," she said, she noted that he was walking himself and went back into the barn. "It's a good one too, looks like someone was using it as storage," she added shouting through the open doors.
Daryl took another couple of steps towards the open doors, behind him he heard a second explosion from the as station, the noise made him jump and when he looked over his shoulder he saw a dark plume of smoke coming from the direction they'd come from.
The woman poked her head around the barn doors to look at the rising smoke. There was an odd expression on her face when she looked at him that he couldn't quite place and when she dipped back into the barn he hopped after her.
On the floor she had opened up her holdall and taken a few things out. Clearly looking for something.
"I don't have any bandages," she stated with a measure of sympathy in her voice, "but I've got some Tylenol somewhere, for what it's worth."
There was something on the floor that had caught his eye however, "Where'd you get that?" He asked, motioning to a collection of three crossbow arrows, the feathers were coloured vibrant green and white.
"I picked them up a while back, kept them in case I lost that." She made a quick motion to the knife he was holding. They'd been lodged in the skull of a walker and in a tree trunk. They'd taken her some persuasion to grab, but she'd had the time to swipe them. "Why?"
There was a renewed feeling of impulsive anger which was drawn on his features, he'd recognise those arrows anywhere! But there was something a lot more pressing on his mind now that the mild concussion had worn off.
"Why'd the gas station blow?" There was an accusatory note in his voice.
Kiz stepped closer to the man and passed him the bottle of pain killers. "I'm no medic, they might help." She told him, dodging the question about the explosion. Badly.
"Thanks," he mumbled about the medication, but the look he gave her as he took the lid off showed she hadn't evaded the question.
"I was in the middle of raiding it, got sloppy and found myself getting over-run, fixed something up for it to go boom." She answered rather evasively, but giving him the detail she had been dreading. "Didn't realise you were coming," she added about his unfortunate timing. She could see the ire in his face. "I'm sorry," she apologised quickly.
She was rewarded with a grunt as he threw some of the pain killers down his throat. If she could blow him half to heaven, then he felt no guilt in taking some of her collected supplies. He could rage at her when he could move properly, until then he figured he could do with an ally.
"You alone out here?" He asked, wanting to find out more about the woman.
"Yes," she added, the probing feeling a bit uncomfortable. "I was holed up in Fort Myers for a while, but shit there tore itself apart," she explained, pulling a spare shirt out of her bag. "I've been surviving since."
"How many walkers have you killed?"
Kiz looked up from her bag, "What sort of dumb-ass question is that?" She returned, with a bit of venom in her voice, but she answered all the same. "Enough to keep me alive this long! What about you?" She hissed back, throwing the shirt at him. "It's mostly clean, you can use it to stop your leg from bleeding."
Daryl lowered himself to the floor, although he was completely at her mercy, he had to ask. "How many people?" He rolled up the bottom of his jeans so he could see the extent of the mangled mess his leg had become in the crash.
"Before or after the Dead came back?" Was the haunting reply the woman gave him. Which gave him much to more to consider then just the days events.