***Ok, ok, ok. I'm holding my hands up! I can't believe it has been so long since I posted anything on here! Life just gets in the way doesn't it? Anyway, I've been bitten with the creative bug again, so I will be re-posting my original chapters one at a time then updating and completing the fic's one at a time! (I promise) Happy reading!x**
He sped along the country roads on his motorbike. The wind whipping away at his face as the thoughts of everyone he lost today crept into his mind. T-Dog, Lori, Carol, it was almost unbearable, thank God for the little one now so he had a reason to get up and do something. He couldn't bear the thought of being back at the prison, dealing with Rick coming to terms with his grief, seeing Carl, looking at that little boy who had just lost his mother. Daryl was never any good at dealing with feelings or emotions, his or anyone else's. He had been brought up to believe that showing emotion was wrong, hell, talking about feelings was a sign of weakness! He knew it was wrong but it was a hard lesson to unlearn.
He had been riding for nearly an hour, keeping to the back roads and country lanes. Maggie and Herschel had told him about a hospital in the next town. Hospitals were the worst places to go to. They fell first in the outbreak, before anyone knew what this thing was, all the people with fever and ones who had been bit were brought to hospitals where they ultimately died, turned and infected others. Hospitals quickly lost control, but Daryl had no other choice, they had been collecting things all throughout Lori's pregnancy for the baby, clothes, diapers, medicines from clinics and houses they had came across during the winter. But they didn't have any formula. Daryl didn't know if it was short-sightedness on the groups behalf or if Lori just didn't want to tempt fate. It was a mistake, Daryl could see that now. They should have been prepared for every outcome, "Didn't matter now" he thought as he pulled up. He wheeled his bike over to the side of the country road. The hospital lay on the other side of the woods, about a quarter of a mile, he'd trek through the forest for the last part of the journey, the bike was too noisy to ride up to such a potentially dangerous place.
He covered the last part of the journey relatively uneventfully, only coming across one walker which he had quickly dispatched with an arrow to the head. He crept up a hillside and lay down once he reached the top. The hospital lay in front of him, large, intimidating building, once a place of help and recuperation, now a desolate reminder of the hell on earth they were living. Broken windows, black charred walls where there had clearly been a fire, overturned cars in the car park and of course, walkers, aimlessly staggering about the hospital grounds.
He pulled out Dale's binoculars and took his time studying the hospital grounds. There was a large fence around the hospital much the same as the one at the prison, the gates had been chained and forced open. He noticed there were also holes in places of the chain link fence were other scavengers had probably forced their way through. He sat on the hill for about 15 minutes meticulously planning his entry. The little one was relying on him, he wasn't about to run in and get stranded or bit what good would that do anyone, especially baby Grimes.
He had made it down to the fence without being spotted, using some bushes and scrubs as cover. The dangerous part was slipping through the fence; he decided to go through a hole that was already there, rather than taking longer than needed to cut a new one in the fence. He picked the gap at the far diagonal end from the hospital entrance as there was a car on its side in the car park, obscuring the walker's views. He took it as a bad sign that there were more walkers milling about inside the hospital grounds than outside of it. He quickly pushed himself through the gap and dashed over behind the upturned vehicle. He had about another 150 yards to get across before going through an opened side door. He had been watching the doorway from his previous vantage point and it didn't seem like there were any walkers in the hall, none that walked past the door anyway. He carefully chose his moment and sprinted towards the door, a least 3 of them had spotted him, he took one out that was in his way but he just outran the others, he lunged through the door, scanning the hallway while simultaneously closing the door and securing it with a small chain and padlock he had brought with him. He held his breath as he scanned the dark hallway, the lights flickered overhead and the door behind him was beginning to bang with the walkers outside trying to get in, he decided to move on quickly as any noise that the walkers outside were making would surely attract more from inside.
The hospital had a maternity ward; Herschel had told Daryl that his children had been born there. One advantage of a hospital is that its whole layout was painted on the walls, signs hung above his head telling him where to go, he just had to follow a green stripe painted on the wall to reach his destination, he had wished all the places he scavenged were as helpful this, it would have made the winter months moving from place to place a whole lost easier. Daryl was surprised to find the ground floor empty of walkers, they must have been forced outside when the food source in the hospital dried up, but the maternity ward was on the third floor and who knows how many of them were trapped on the levels, not knowing how to navigate stairs or open doors. He found the stairwell he had to climb to get to the maternity ward. He went inside, and stopped to listen for any of the unmistakable noise of the dead. He heard some groaning from somewhere above him, it sounded faint and possibly only made by one or two of them at the most. He slowly climbed the stairs with his crossbow raised in front of him to deal with any danger. The source of the noise was to be found at the foot of the second floor stairwell, a walker was clawing towards him with its hands, its legs obviously broken by probably falling or being pushed down the stairs. An arrow straight through the eye quickly took care of it.
He got to the double doors of the maternity ward stairwell and looked through the small partition window. He scanned as far as he could see left and right but his view was limited, he slowly opened the door and cautiously stepped through, he was met with the sight of about half a dozen walkers suddenly turning around to him as their instinct for food kicked in. He quickly turned on his heels and ran to the end of the hallway, taking out another two with his knife in the process, as he turned left at the end of the hall he opened the very first door he came to as there were another couple of walkers in the distance. He quickly closed the door behind him and held his breath. "Get down!" a voice whispered with authority from across the room, he raised his crossbow and looked to where the voice came from, a woman was crouched down on the floor, aiming a revolver at his head and holding her left side which was covered in blood.
Daryl eyed her cautiously "You bit?"