To Make You Feel My Love
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from The Walking Dead; I have merely twisted them around for my own amusement.
Daryl Dixon was having a really shitty day, which had been preceded by a really shitty week. Come to think of it the whole of the past year had been right up there with the worst of it. First he had lost his job, then his whole life when God had decided to send another apocalypse to earth in the form of the Walking Dead. At first he'd had his brother Merle but then after Atlanta, well the world went to Hell in a hand basket. He liked think of his life as two separate entities – Before Atlanta and After Atlanta. BA meant carousing bars with Merle; hunting for sport and kicking back with a beer after a long day working in the City's maintenance department. AA meant no more Merle; hunting became a necessity for foraging food and he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a cold beer.
Trudging through the forest after yet another endless day with no sign of anything worth eating apart from a few squirrels and a rabbit – Daryl was just about to give up the hunt when he spied a flash of the hind leg of a deer through the trees just ahead. Daryl silently tracked the lame looking buck until he was able to line up a clear shot. As soon as he released the arrow he realised why the buck was lame in the first place – its back leg had severe bite marks and Daryl's killing arrow had allowed the two Walker's following the animal to catch up and swoop in. Daryl spat out a string of curses when he realised that the two stumbling Walkers now had him firmly in their sights as their next meal.
He weighed up his options as he approached them; they had obviously been caught in some kind of snare trap as both were missing body parts. One had a foot missing and the other was missing a right arm and half of the lower jaw. This just made them hungrier and angrier, the one with the missing foot seemed content to rip its way through the fallen deer but the other seemed hellbent on making a meal of Daryl and was snarling and lurching toward him. Daryl slid his crossbow around to his back and swung his machete forward. As he swung he lost his footing on the freshly spilled guts of the deer and only just managed to avoid slicing his own thigh open.
"Christ Almighty! That was just plain stupid Dixon! Imagine what ole Merle would be sayin' right now – would you like me to hold them still for you Darlena? Can't find your feet, poor Darlena!" He muttered to himself as he fought the snarling former man in front of him. "Get a grip! I know you're tired but there's only two of them and one of you. Just take them down!" He braced his feet and swung the machete around to bury it dead between the Walker's eyes. Daryl yanked the blade out with a squelch, spraying the front of his shirt with dark decaying ooze as he swung it around again to attack the second Walker; who had obviously decided that Daryl made a tastier meal than the dead buck split open on the ground. As Daryl made the killing blow, he felt his feet lose grip on the soft ground beneath his feet and he found himself face down in the middle of deer entrails and Walker ooze.
"Well that's just peachy, Dixon – really clever of you. Not only did you manage to lose the only real piece of meat you've seen all week but that was your last pair of pants too!" Daryl rose to his feet and looked down at the torn fabric of his knees. He carefully checked to make sure that he had no broken skin underneath the caked on decaying matter. With a sigh of disgust he threw down the ruined squirrel pieces that had also been covered in blood and guts, there was no way they could be served up now – the whole day had been shot to shit. Turning the air blue with curses he started to stalk back towards the prison grounds, he'd been out since dawn and it was now approaching late afternoon.
"Better go back and tell the ladies that dinner will have to come out of a can again, Dixon." He muttered to himself as he made his way back through the forest, dripping guts and grime and feeling his mood darken with every footstep.