Eleven
Merle moved out. He was 16. He escaped, he was done dealing with their father, the one who beat them and made sure they suffered. If all three of them were in a burning building, he would shove Daryl and Merle aside and save himself. Daryl overheard him on the phone, with one of the girls he was on a bender with, he called Daryl his bulletproof vest. If someone came into their house with a gun their damn father would surrender Daryl for his own life. He hated them. They hated him. Which made him hate them even more. He killed their mother. She was the sweet kind, the kind that couldn't kill a bug because she didn't want to hurt such an innocent little being. He so easily killed her. Then just buried her in the backyard. Merle taught Daryl that a good hiding spot from their father was right outside his bedroom window on top of her grave. So he could sit there and be close to her again. Every time it happened Merle would realize how little Daryl actually was. He would go right under the window sill and then you couldn't see him. He would vanish. He was just so small. He usually fell asleep out there too. Merle would have to go out and get him. Bring him in and put him to bed. He sat there with him all night because, honestly, he feared for his baby brother's life. Daryl was only three when their mom got killed. All of their neighborhood hated their father. So they really didn't care about anything involved with him. So when their mom dissapeared, no one reported her missing. No cops in the backyard. Their neighbors would talk about literally what they would say and all agree on was...
"I'm only calling the cops if that cute little boy goes missing"
They didn't appreciate Merle either. He had friends once. Kid friends. He was a bad influence. No one would let Merle see their kids and he was a loner and then started drinking. Then doing drugs. But he left when Daryl was only five. Ran off to live with some guys that he usually hung out with, in one of their parents' basements. Merle was Daryl's only hope of survival. And his best friend. His only best friend. Every time he mentioned Merle he would get beat. And since he needed Merle so badly, he asked for him a lot. He got lots of bruises. He didn't know better not to tell the kids at school. But he didn't. Not because his father would go to jail, he didn't know that anyway, no, because he knew when he got home his father would beat him and wouldn't stop until he was dead. He could smell it when someone tattled. And he could sniff out who did it too. Merle was gone. And couldn't save him. He left a lot of his stuff behind, moving into a partially furnished house. He left his bedding. One night he ran into Merle's room hoping to find him there. He wasn't so he ended up crying himself to sleep on Merle's bed. After that he couldn't sleep without Merle's blanket. It smelled like smoke. It smelled like Merle. It calmed Daryl down. He didn't talk about him as much. Merle kept him safe. He was the one that put locks on his door. Since Daryl was soo small , the locks were under the doorknob. Knowing what Merle did for him, the blanket made him feel safe.
He was running from his father again. It was morning. It was raining. He was outside on top of where his mother sleeps. He started crying. He was in pain, from being beat every day. He hadn't eaten in days either. Barely any water. He hadn't been at school because of his bruises. He was dying. The only explanation. And he knew it too. He threw up blood every night. He couldn't sleep because of it. And when his father heard him, he beat him again. He heard his father's car speed off. He knew he was gone but he couldn't move. He tried to catch his breath. It wasn't working. He had blood all over his face. He knew that his father stabbed his hand and he was bleeding really badly. He made the mistake of wiping his face. He heard a car door slam and he got scared. He closed his eyes and waited for his father to kill him. He knew he got closer to him. He felt a hand on his face. Then he got picked up. He was confused, he didnt want to know what was to come. He was put in the back of a car. He was driven somwhere. Daryl started drifting off when he got picked up again. Then he heard running water. A rag was being wiped on his face. He was confused. He opened his eyes. And there was Merle.
"I knew I shoulda never left ya"
But now it wasn't safe anymore. Merle was gone and they weren't at home anymore. Daryl was sitting in a cell in the lower levl of the prison. He had beer. He was thining about how him and Merle used to throw m&ms at their father when he was asleep. They would get a point if it landed somwhere funny. Merle threw them on the floor to let Daryl win. The expired m&ms were on his floor ever since the day Merle took him. Daryl was throwing bottle caps at the wall. Carl came in and found him.
"Daryl what are you doing?"
"Throwing m&ms at him"
"What? Who?"
"Him"
"Daryl, are you ok?"
He threw up "Only if I'm in the backyard"
"What?"
"With her"
"Who are you talking about?"
"There was a lot of blood when I left"
"Left what?"
"They think I don't remember it, but I was watching him when he killed her"
"Killed who?"
"Her"
"Daryl, you're drunk"
He nodded "Don't mean I'm lying"
"Um, I'm gonna go and go upstairs so, um, you just come up when you feel up to it"
He followed Carl upstairs then went into his own cell. He was done with the perch. He needed more privacy. Carl went over to Rick.
"Hey dad?"
"What?"
"I think there's something wrong with Daryl"
"What do you mean?"
"Well he was talking about m&ms for a while then seeing someone get killed...Do you think he saw someone from the group get murdered cuz I'm totally confused from what he's talking about."
Carol looked up, "Well maybe I can talk to him"
Rick glanced over at her and thought about it for a minute "Its probably best, he listens to you"
She started to walk over to his cell then Carl came up behind her "Fair warning, you won't get it"
She smiled at him and he went back over to Rick. Carol came in and saw Daryl passed out on the floor. Right next to a nice little puddle of vomit.
Carol said under her breath, "Thats gross"
She went back over to Rick "Maybe I'll try tomorrow, he passed out"
"Alright" He went over to the cell door and closed and locked it.
"What are you doing?"
"For all we know he's crazy" Carol wasn't exactly comfortable with locking up Daryl, but she understood Rick's point.
In the morning Carol woke up and she saw Carl sitting by Daryl's cell door. She walked over to him. "What are you doing?"
"He was throwing stuff, but now its just this"
"Just what?"
"Listen"
She put her ear to the door and listened, Rick might of been right, Daryl was rambling off numbers. A few minutes later Beth came along and started laughing.
"What?"
"I never thought Daryl would be able to keep a pattern"
The more Carol thought about it, the more she realized how the pattern went. She got a pad of paper and started writing down the numbers. Seventeen, twenty-eight, eighteen, twenty-nine, nineteen, thirty...and so on. She sat working on it for a while when Carl walked passed her.
"Hey Carl?"
"What?"
"What was Daryl saying when you found him?"
"I don't know really, just some stuff about m&ms and being in his backyard and someone being murdered"
Carol wrote it down, "Will it help?"
"I hope so" For a while the numbers got louder, when she finally understood them. She ran over by where Rick and the rest of the group was.
"Ok, so good news is he's not crazy"
"How?"
"The numbers aren't random"
"Then what are they?"
"That's the bad news, they're ages"
"Ages?"
"Exact ages of him and Merle...My point being, he's finally realizing that Merle may not come back"
"What about the stuff he said last night?"
"It might have had something to do with his childhood"
They all thought about it when Beth started smiling..."What now?"
"Daryl misses his brother"
Glenn was trying not to laugh, when suddenly they realized, the numbers stopped. They all stood there, shocked, and listened for them to start up again. There was nothing. All at once they started to rush over to his cell. They didn't hear anything.
Carol tapped on the door "Daryl?"
There was nothing, Rick pushed through the group with the key and he opened the door. Something clicked in Carol's head and she realized why the numbers got louder. The bars were cut off the window. He covered up the noise. He got out.
Daryl was leaving. Just like Merle did. Maybe he'd find him. Maybe he'd find whats left of him. He was running in the forest. Through the trees he could find his way anywhere. Any season, any day, any weather. After Merle came and got him from their childhood home he showed him all of Georgia he knew. They walked everywhere, everyday. They camped out at certain spots that they really liked. Merle taught him how to hunt until Daryl was better than him. He climbed up into a tree and spotted the street he needed. He ran over to it. He dared himslef to go there. He went into the yard, where she was, he couldn't be hidden under the window anymore. He was too big for that. This is where his life went to shit. He put his head in his lap and cried.
They were on the road after him. They saw him running into the forest. Soon enough to catch up to him. But he didn't see them. He lead them onto a road that seemed avoided. It might've even been him steering them away from it. It was a small neighborly street. They got out of the truck and Carol immediatley saw Daryl. She ran into that yard. Rick decided she could handle it so he lead everyone else in to raid the house. Carol stood over him.
"Daryl, are you ok?"
She could hear him mumbling numbers, he was way over, in the fifties. He didn't answer her. But she didn't expect it. She thought she heard a walker so she turned away for a moment. Daryl must've heard it too because he was looking up when she turned back. But then she forgot about it. Daryl was crying. A Dixon Was crying. Daryl. She couldn't form words. Glenn came out of the house. He felt like he understood him so he started talking about his sisters.
"I lost them too...kind of...They might be alive. They were in Michigan with my parents. At least the little ones were" He choked up "They don't deserve to get eaten" Then he straight out started balling which wasn't much help. Carol sent him back inside. Carol knelt down nest to Daryl. She wiped away his tears
"This was your house, wasn't it?"
He stared at the ground, then he got angry and ran into the house. Carol tried to follow him, But he went into his room and locked the door. Rick Glenn and Carl went outside to try and let Carol figure it out. She looked around. There were no pictures. Parents always put out pictures. She knew Daryl's dad was abusive. So he wouldn't. But even with Ed there, Carol put out pictures. Mothers always do. She went to find Carl.
"Did he say anything about the person that died?"
"Not really, he said it was a girl though"
She went back inside, putting the peices together. His mother was killed. And he was watching. He could've been young when it happened. She went over to his door. Still locked.
"Daryl? Can I come in?"
Silence
"Daryl, please, I need to talk to you"
More silence
"I know about your mother"
At first there was silence, then she heard locks being unlocked. She waited a minute, then she walked in. The room looked like one of a little boy's. There was cheap toys scattering the floor. Daryl was laying on the bed, on top of a rolled up blue blanket. Part of it was in his hand. there was a green polka dotted blanket on the floor. He must've favored the one he had. She did realize that the room that must've been Merle's, there no blanket on the bed. She leaned against the wall across from Daryl.
"You guys are too damned smart for me too keep secrets"
She watched him for a minute then realized the m&ms on the floor. "Carl said you were talking about m&ms"
"Me and Merle used to make a game of throwing them at our father when he was asleep"
"Did he get mad?"
"No, I don't think so, when he started to wake up we would leave the house...They were gone when we would get back so I'm guessing he ate them"
"How old were you when your mother died?"
"Bout' three, don't remeber it much, but from my childhood it stands out"
"You were watching"
"Yeah, we were the hated people on the block, she got put in the yard and no one said anything to any cops"
"In the yard?"
"I was sitting where she is now, Merle told me its safe there"
"Being closer to her..."
"Thats how he put it"
She looked around the room and saw locks under the doorknob. "Why are they under?"
Daryl looked at them, "Merle thought it would be easier for me to be safe when I was little if I could reach the locks"
She never realized how much Merle could care for anything...When she thought about it, she realized that he doesn't care about anything but Daryl...Thats why he seems so reckless, so idiotic, so souless, just because as long as he had Daryl, safe with him, he didn't care
"You miss him?"
"I feel really little being in here...This is Merle's blanket"
"I gathered actually"
"I claimed it after he moved out when I was like five or something...It was like he was still there"
"You missed him"
"Since he was gone, not there to protect me and shit, I almost died...Hell yeah I missed him"
"You miss him now?"
He nodded "I never realized how, after he came back and got me, how we were never really apart...He taught me everything he knew"
"You do realize that you're talking about him in the past tense, right?"
"Yeah, but...well shit, he aint possibly alive...With all the blood there musta been on him, just made him smell more appetizing...and in Atlanta"
"You can't think that the one person in your whole life that cared for you and lived for you is dead...You can't just let yourself think that way"
"I miss him...I will keep missing him when we find what's left of him"
Carol's eyes drifted out the window when she heard a familiar noise...Something like a car door. She smiled "Guess again"
Daryl got up and peered out the window, then he ran out the door and stood outside. Smiling. Waiting to meet his brother again