*** Just a one-shot about one of the strange things our favorite redneck may have come across while scavenging houses for supplies... I've had this little plot bunny kicking around my head for a few days and I wanted to get it out, so I could concetrate on my main story without this floating around in my brain! Please be gentle, this is my first one shot :) Rated T for mild cussing. ***
I don't own TWD or Daryl, but I did come up with this little plot, making it mine
After parking the bike, Daryl made his way down the street. It was a quiet neighborhood, lacking the regular background noise of walkers that he'd grown so accustomed to. His eyes darted around, taking in everything, and he idly adjusted the crossbow over his shoulder.
He walked past a bus stop, pausing to stare at the sight of decaying and rotted bodies slumped on the bench and across the curb. It was impossible to tell what they'd looked like in their living lives, but they were all apparently packed for travel; suitcases, back packs, and purses, lay strewn about the truly dead bodies. It was clear that their bus was very late.
Daryl shook his head and kept going, instinctively looking up and down the street before crossing, as if checking for oncoming cars. Old habits die hard. It was unlikely that this street would ever see traffic again. The first house he approached was like any of the others on the street. A minivan was neatly parked in the driveway, covered in grime, and the yard was overgrown and full of weeds. He moved quickly to the door and paused again, his eyes drawn to the stack of newspapers sitting next to the door.
Were they delivered before the Turn? Did this homeowner regularly leave stacks of newspapers there? An image of an undead newspaper delivery boy moved through his mind and he shook his head again. Reaching for the door, he rapped his knuckles on the light wooden finish and waited. He couldn't hear anything inside, and since all the drapes were tightly closed, he couldn't peek in. Daryl briefly considered moving on to the next house, preferring a clearer picture of what might await him inside.
However, his hand moved to the doorknob, almost of it's own volition, and he was pushing the door open, before he could stop himself. The hallway was hot, the air dusty and stifling. There was a faint stink in the air, but he didn't immediately associate it with walkers; it could be rotted food, garbage, or human waste for all he knew. He peered into the kitchen, and saw that not only were the drapes pulled, but someone had pushed a large bookshelf up against the window.
Daryl stood up straighter, taking that as a sign that there may have been people holing up in this place. He turned from the window, moving to the cupboards, disappointed when he found no food within them. As he made to leave the kitchen, he looked at the door of the fridge. It was covered with magnetic letters, which spelled out "They're in the basement". Daryl blinked, again thinking he should probably leave, since the cryptic message could easily be interpreted as "The basement's full of walkers".
He didn't leave though, instead he checked the small powder room, sifting through the cupboards beneath the sink, not coming up with anything more valuable than expired sunscreen. He tucked it into his bag, regardless, figuring someone back at camp could probably decipher whether or not it was ok to use anymore. The hallway to the living room was a wreck. The walls had clearly all held framed pictures at one point, most of which lay on the ground, looking as if they'd been knocked off their hooks. There were scratch marks in the paint, and when he held his hands up to them, he realized that someone had been clawing their hands along the wall.
There were some dried dark spots on the light carpet and he wondered if it was from living people, or walkers. He chewed his lip and continued on into the living room. Most of the furniture was out of place, stacked up against the windows instead. He could see faded spots on the carpet and used his imagination to visualize how this room would've looked before it was so badly disturbed. There was nothing worth taking in here, but he was drawn to a huge portrait on the far wall.
As he approached the large, garishly framed picture, he squinted, trying to make out the people in it. Someone had scratched out the faces of everyone in the picture, except for one smiling face, which looked strange next to all the clawed out images around it. There were numbers scrawled above each ruined head and he guessed that whoever had done this was morbidly tracking the order in which their family had fallen.
Daryl left quickly, pausing at a door in the hall. The scratch marks and dried dark spots on the carpet all led to this door and there was a scrawled message above the doorknob, done in red crayon: "They're in the basement". Daryl backed away, not wanting to meet the 'they' of the message, or alert them to his presence. He made for the stairs back near the front door and made his way up slowly, eyes wide in the dark passage. The second floor revealed a series of closed doors.
He knocked on the one closest to the top of the stairs and heard nothing. He threw the door open and swiveled the crossbow back and forth, preparing to shoot at anything inside. There was nothing waiting for him, though. He realized it was a bedroom, probably a teenage girl's room. It was like a dusty time capsule. If he had to guess, he'd say no one had been in here since the Turn. It felt like a tomb. On the closed closet door someone had scrawled the same message he'd seen downstairs, "They're in the basement". He closed the bedroom door as he backed into the hallway, not willing to rifle through the contents of such a space.
The next room was a little girl's bedroom. Again, the feeling of a dusty tomb came to mind and again, the same message was scrawled on the wall above the little pink bed: "They're in the basement". He was definitely starting to get the creeps.
He had better luck in the large bathroom he found. Underneath the sink he found several bottles of various medicines, a big pack of soap, and some first aid supplies, which he slid into his bag. Daryl got to his feet and looked around the dark, tiled room, his flashlight splashing over the white walls. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and flinched hard at what he saw there.
"They're in the basement" was scrawled across the top of the big mirror, in what looked like red lipstick. Breathing hard, he left the room and closed the door firmly behind himself. There was one more door left in the dim space at the top of the stairs. He swiped his forearm across his forehead, brushing away the sweat there, before reaching for the doorknob and pushing. The door opened about a foot before smacking into something.
Daryl frowned at the door, his eyebrows drawing together in mild irritation. He popped his small flashlight into his mouth and pushed harder at the door. Someone had blocked it from the inside, with furniture. He didn't hear any of the telltale noises a walker would make at such an intrusion, so he knew there probably wasn't one in there. A part of his mind told him to leave it be, to leave this house, with it's troubling basement, and get back out on the road, but he couldn't. He suddenly had to know if the same message was adorning the walls of this final room.
Throwing his shoulder into it, whatever was on the other side of the door finally tipped and fell over, shaking the floor when it landed. He pushed the door open and looked around the room, his nose crinkling in disgust at what he found. This was no perfectly intact tomb, there was no dust settled in layers overtop of unused items. This room stank; it was the cause for the mildly unpleasant odor permeating the entire house. It had been a large master bedroom at one time, the furniture looked heavy and expensive, one entire wall was mirrored closets, and the huge window next to the bed was hanging open. The breeze that billowed through, waving and fluttering the tattered curtains, did nothing to help with the smell.
There were bags of garbage everywhere, wrappers and cans lay around the floor haphazardly, and as he moved further into the room, he realized the worst smell was coming from another closed door, past the dressers. He reached for the handle and then stopped himself, suddenly very sure it was another bathroom, and very sure that no matter what he found in the cupboards, it wouldn't be worth entering the foul space. Smells like a damn outhouse on a hot day, he thought with disgust.
Daryl turned from the door, looking at the huge bed. It had been stripped of it's blankets, the mattress laying large and bare. There were dirty, molding, dishes on every surface of the room. He moved to the window, next to the bed, leaning through the open glass panes, breathing the fresh air outdoors in deep gulps. The roof directly below the window ledge had yet more garbage on it. He leaned out further and saw a ladder, laying against the far side of the roof. He realized that whoever had held up in this room had used the ladder as their means of coming and going.
He turned back to the room, and didn't bother checking the drawers. Someone had lived in this room for a quite a while; anything of use would be long gone. He walked back towards the door, his eyes roaming all over the walls, somewhat disappointed that he didn't see the message anywhere. As Daryl passed the far side of the bed, he glanced down at the massive heap of blankets there. He froze in place when a pair of eyes blinked at him from the mountain of bedding.
He swung his crossbow up and aimed, but didn't fire; the clear white and blue of the eyes there indicated that their owner was very much alive. He didn't know what to say. A greeting? A threat? A warning? Concern? He decided on concern. "You ok?" He asked gruffly. The eyes blinked again and the person they belonged to proceeded to climb out of the mess of quilts. Daryl took a wary step back, and stared down at the filthy scrap of humanity in front of him. He couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, a kid or not.
They perhaps had blonde hair at one point, but it was a blackened, filthy lump matted and knotted around the base of their skull. Their skin was a mess of filth, grime, blood, and a lot of other things Daryl didn't want to focus on. He wasn't a frequent bather himself, as the required facilities weren't generally available, but he was nothing like this. In all the time since the Turn, he doubted this person had bathed even once.
They held a dirty, stained quilt wrapped around their shoulders like a cape, covering their body head to toe. Dirty bare feet stuck out the bottom, and one grimy hand held the front of the quilt-cape closed. "Hey, you ok?" He asked again, his voice a little more forceful. The person shook their head slowly. "You alone here?" A nod. "Since the beginning?" A nod, then a shrug. Once red lips parted to reveal dirty teeth, and a rasping voice, rough from disuse croaked out, "They're in the basement," and then they shrugged again.
Daryl ran his tongue over his teeth, wondering if it hurt to be that dirty. He'd received his message though, only verbally this time, not scrawled on the walls. He wondered if it was time to go, if he'd pushed his luck staying this long. The pathetic creature in front of him continued to watch him with saucer-sized eyes and he sighed. He waved an impatient hand at it. "Come with me, can't stay here alone like this, ain't safe," he ordered.
It took a step forward and stopped, wincing. The voice croaked out again, worried this time, "They're in the basement." Daryl glared at the person. "Yeah, I figured," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's time to go now, can't stay up here anymore," he insisted. The figure nodded and took another step towards him, dropping the stinking quilt. A skinny, rumpled frame was beneath the cape, the layers of dirty, stained clothes engulfing it. He still couldn't tell if he was dealing with a guy or a girl. He swallowed and waved a hand. "Got things ya wanna bring?" He asked, and the figure knotted it's dirty fingers together in front of itself. "They're in the basement," it whispered sadly, and he nodded.
"Ain't gonna get yer shit then, gonna have to leave without it," he responded. The figure nodded and he moved to the door, walking around the tipped over dresser in front of it. He was careful to avoid giving the person his back and waited in the hallway as it followed him out. The figure paused outside the door, looking around, wide eyes blinking rapidly. "Been out here at all since the beginning?" He asked curiously. Big blue eyes swung up to his and the filthy blonde head swung back and forth in a silent 'no'.
Descending the stairs, Daryl kept his ears and eyes wide open. The house was silent except for their own soft footsteps and the rasp of the person's breathing. When they reached the bottom floor he glanced into the kitchen and then back at the skinny figure. "How'd ya survive all this time?" He asked, and the person shrugged. "Couldn't have been enough here," he muttered to himself. "Did ya climb out the window to get supplies? From yer neighbors?" He continued, and the filthy waif nodded. He moved to the front door, pulling it open.
He heard footsteps moving in the wrong direction and turned to see the strange creature at the door to the basement. "What're you doin'? We gotta go now," he said, his voice sharp and mildly irritated. The face on the creature looked serene, now. Blue eyes gazed placidly at him, as the person ran a hand lovingly against the basement door. A little sigh shifted the skinny shoulders up and down minutely, and they spoke in a breathy, dreamy voice, "They're in the basement."
"Don't open that door!" He hissed, as it's skinny hand, with brown and black nails, twisted the doorknob. The dirty face turned, smiling at him. He flinched when he recognized the smile; the last face in the giant portrait in the living room looked up at him, and he knew it was a woman, now.
"They're in the basement!" She cried, relief heavy in her voice. He took a step towards her, in alarm, but she threw the door open. Her breaths were loud now, gasping happily.
"Don't!" He called urgently, "It's time to go! You have to leave!" She smiled at him and nodded, agreeing with his words. She waved a hand into the blackness beyond the door, as if indicating the direction she had to take. He could hear noises now, hissing and growling at the bottom of the black stairs. She turned her face into the smothering darkness and whispered, in a longing and wistful tone, "They're in the basement."
Moving quicker than he thought she could, she darted into the blackness, one of her grimy hands shooting out behind her, to pull the door shut. He heard a lock slide heavily across the door and the fading sound of her footsteps as she padded down the stairs. The hallway was silent and hot as he stood there, gaping in horror at the door she'd just moved through. He heard shuffling and thumping downstairs, the groans and snarls of the dead growing to a fever pitch, and he hung his head in defeat.
There was a metal ruler sitting on the ground beneath the portrait and he picked it up, in a near trance, and scratched roughly at the picture, obliterating the last face there. A red marker sat next to where the ruler had been and he grabbed it next, scrawling her number above her face. He kept the marker firmly grasped in his hand and left the house, closing the front door tightly behind himself. He paused, putting a hand to the heavy door, resting his forehead against the relatively cool wood.
A few minutes later, he was walking down the street again, prepared to find another house to look through. The red marker was left sitting on the stack of newspapers at the base of the front door, a front door that now bore, in fresh red ink, the scrawled message: "They're in the basement".
*** If I gave even one person the creeps, then I've succeeded ***