The dawn broke and the body count became more obvious. Disemboweled walkers lay haphazardly across the pasture and this time they were really dead.
Daryl put aside his bow and arrows to pick his way through the carnage, kicking any ballooning corpse in his path.
They had snuck up on them when they'd been holding a barbecue the night before when no one had been watching perimeter. No, that's what Rick had told them had happened but Daryl knew the truth. The zombies at best lurched with each step so there would have been enough time to get away. They wouldn't even have to waste valuable bullets shooting them all in the head, they could have run and put yardage on the slow critters.
Not that Daryl had ever run before the apocalypse nor did he back away from a fight. That's why he had scars on his body from all his fights with the living. But a part of him thought if the men had flanked the herd of walkers then the women and children could have headed further into the hills.
"What you wasting your time out here for?"
Daryl looked up and saw Carol standing next to him. The only survivor of her family after her no good wife beating husband had been chomped on by a walker and their daughter had become one of them. Still, she held onto, her feminine body obviously wired by steel. Just recently, he had given her a first lesson in how to use his crossbow.
She had nailed all the targets, paper renditions of the walkers made by Carl during play time the first time up which had shocked him.
Not to mention turning him on. Yeah, the surviving crew thought he had his eyes on Andrea and he'd fancied her when she'd joined him on some missions acting like a man. But then she'd shacked up briefly with Shayne and that made him keep her at a distance.
Besides she'd never been quite right since having to plug a slug in the head of her little sister Amy just as she'd started to change into another walking dead.
"You are going to give me another lesson?"
Daryl looked at the eagerness that lined her face. Damn when she looked at him like that he wanted her but no…they had to focus on survival and coupling with her would shatter his image as the embittered loner.
Merle, his brother who'd chopped off one of his hands to go AWOL in Atlanta would laugh if he saw him now. He'd jeer at him at how soft he'd gone…that it'd only be a matter of time until he turned into a bucket of jello and get his ass eaten by a pack of hungry walkers.
"Maybe…if you ask me nicely…"
Her smile became a frown and her eyes narrowed.
"I'm not doing you…after my husband…I've decided I'm off men forever."
He couldn't blame her for that actually. Her husband had been a loser, walking around totally soft, beer belly hanging on out while he tried to boss the women around. Get them to do all the chores while he taunted and teased them with his ass firmly planted on the ground.
Until Andrea had turned on him and went after him when he slapped Carol around. But just when the women had just about liberated themselves and reignited the "libber" movement, Shayne had dashed in with his fists loaded and beaten the man's face into a nearly unrecognizable pulp.
He had heard about it later…not that it mattered because by then the sorry excuse for a husband had been dead.
"Forever's a long time…especially in this new hell hole."
She shrugged.
"True…but I and some of the other women are having a party for just us girls to remember what it used to be like before society collapsed."
Daryl shook his head fondling his crossbow.
"Stay away from that Andrea chick. She's one crazy assed bitch."
Carol smiled again, bemusement clear in her eyes.
"Just because she didn't want to fornicate with you?"
His mouth twitched.
"Fornicate…sounds like you're one of those Bible thumpers my daddy used to try to straighten old Merle out…not that it did any good…given that he's running around out there with a stump for a hand if he's still one of us."
Carol sighed. He knew that she felt badly about his brother being left handcuffed with a bunch of ravenous walkers lurching around trying to get their mangled hands and snarly teeth on some fresh meat.
They never found out what happened to Merle but Daryl never talked about him like he was dead…certainly not a walker but out there somewhere kicking some serious ass.
"I'm not that strict Daryl," she said, "I mean look how my life turned out. I tried to be a good wife and it wasn't good enough."
The bruises had long faded even past yellow. Her hands had healed up from the bruising they'd gotten when she'd picked up the shovel and smashed her husband's brains in with it. The excuse being to prevent him from changing but she knew she did it to try to even the scales of what he'd shown her.
"Look fine to me…I like a woman with some meat on her…not some skinny girl who looks like she hasn't eaten in a week…"
She smiled at that even though she knew she shouldn't…female solidarity in an increasingly barbaric and sexist world.
But the women had formed their own club. Andrea and her and Amy…at least when she'd still been one of them and…Jacqui before she'd inexplicably decided to leave those who cared about her and held hands in solidarity with some mad scientist before going ka-boom. The scientist could have been lying to them about the end of the world.
Only one woman had been banished from their group and that had been Lori.
It had been a mutual decision by the women not to include her. The woman had no class at all, hooking up with her dead husband's best friend within five minutes of leaving Atlanta and hooking up with some others. That's how the story went. Carol would never have treated her own husband like that…well not without throwing a party first if he'd died.
She would have done that if the others hadn't taken it the wrong way so soon after some walkers had encountered poor Amy and gnawed on her young flesh before being blown away by shotgun fire.
But Carol had come upon Lori riding or being ridden by Shayne in the field, their clothes askew and moans from both of them reverberating across the meadow. What a tramp, she thought and then of course her husband, Rick the sheriff turned up alive not long after and then she acted like she had been misled to believe that he'd died.
Carol had done many wrong things in her life but she took responsibility for most of them. She never blamed them on some man who had been trying to either comfort her or get a piece of her. When she had seen Lori and her poor son Carl distance themselves from Shayne and how it had impacted him…it had tore at her heart. No wonder the poor guy had gone on some power trip and then had when it became a tossup whether it'd be Rick or Carl who killed him, fate made it possible for both to do the deed. Rick had stabbed Shayne in the gut and then Carl had somehow gotten hold of a gun and finished Shayne off when he'd changed into one of the walkers.
That had shaken everyone up because Shayne hadn't even been touched by one of the walkers let alone bit or scratched yet…he had started to exhibit the pale skin, the fervent yet vacant eyes and the clawing hands and raspy breathing…there was no mistaking it.
"I don't want to end up like her…"
She hadn't realized she had spoken out loud until she saw Daryl react. His eyes followed hers towards where Lori was acting all lovey dovey with her poor clueless husband. After all, Carol had caught Lori eying Daryl from across the community dining table at breakfast.
"You won't…Lori's weak…she's treacherous and hasn't any real backbone inside of her…unlike you."
Carol blinked, surprised at his generous assessment of her. She didn't even know Daryl liked let alone admired women. The women used to gather in their group meetings talking about how the men just viewed them as labor to cook and clean their dirty laundry for them when they weren't fornicating in the tents or hidden in the bushes at night. Although they had to keep most of their clothing on in case they had to make a quick getaway from the walkers.
"Rick really loves her and he doesn't know about…"
Daryl smiled.
"That she looks at me like that? Like she wants to be more than friendly?"
Carol bit her lip nodding.
"Would you, would you ever…"
He appeared to think about it.
"Maybe if I were drunk but it'd have to be a lot of booze and I'm not stupid enough to be flat assed drunk next time the walkers come calling."
Carol shook her head, thinking that the man always had his wits about him.
"The man's a fool…he's a good shot but he's a fool…that woman will slit his throat just like she did with Shayne without a knife."
She knew that he suspected as she did that Lori had engineered the downfall of Shayne so she could rehabilitate her fractured family.
"You're probably right…adultery is one of the major sins…and she's not even ashamed."
That's what galled Carol more than anything. After all it could have been her own dead husband that Lori could have coupled up with if he'd had abs of steel rather than a beer body and a full head of curly dark hair.
Darryl reached out and with some callused fingers stroked Carol's face.
"I know…I could never lay with a woman who dirtied herself inside the boundaries of marriage."
Carol felt relieved by that and couldn't wait to tell the other women in the group tonight. She decided to head back to her tent to do some Bible reading before dinner. But when she started to walk, she realized she was surrounded by the truly dead. Daryl noticed her dilemma and kicked a pathway for her to walk, with bodies bursting spewing entrails and heads bursting open like ripened melons with brains spilling out. The pungent smell of their rotting remains filled the air.
She walked away from Daryl and turned to look at him. He smiled back and she continued on to the tent thinking that next time…next time would be the time that he'd kiss her.