*Okay, I am too excited about the approaching season 4 of The Walking Dead. I can't wait! I have written this short story from just the season 4 trailer and sneak preview. I am POPPING these chapters out for you guys, rapid fire.
The producers said there will have been a 6-7 month gap between seasons 3 and 4, and those who read my previous story 'Daryl and Rebecca' will know how I love to fill a hole ;-)
This is just a short story. A little fic before the excitement of season 4. Enjoy!
Standard warning: my stories can be dark sometimes. Not to mention, erotic literature and adult themes.
Disclaimer: You know I don't own anything. TWD and its characters are all AMC and Robert Kirkman.
Another run. Another run into another town. But now the towns are getting bigger. The suburbs bring greater rewards but the risks are greater with it. Bigger towns, bigger stores, bigger scores, bigger herds, bigger threat.
"Why did you have to come? Can't you ever just once stay at the prison?" The Asian man asked the slight brunette as he wrapped her calf in a tight makeshift bandage, tearing strips from his discarded flannel shirt. The steady drip of blood from the bullet wound in her calf was going to draw the 'walkers' right to their hiding place. The gas station bathroom with the single high, small window, was a death trap. No way out but the same way they came running in through, slamming the door and locking it with the deadbolt.
"You know me, I can't be told." She replied with a weak smile.
"This isn't funny Maggie." He shot back, eyes dark and sad. This was no time to let down your guard.
"Don't you think I know that, Glenn." The room died into silence as their eyes said what their mouths didn't have to.
They were in trouble.
…...
"Anybody hit?" Michonne asked, looking around the small group of people she hid in the craft store with.
Surrounded by balls of wool and sewing machines, the undisturbed store was dark and quiet. For the 'new' people, this was some of the first real danger they had been in since joining the prison.
Sasha shook her head and looked around at the others.
"I don't think so." Said Tyreese.
Michonne looked around the half a dozen faces, shadowed in the darkness, weary of anyone with a pained expression. They appeared ok. It would seem that none of her small pocket of people were hit by the spray of bullets from The Governor's men. The dark woman returned her eyes to the store front, contemplating their next move.
…...
Daryl, Bob, and Karen had seen the whole scene from their position in the alley way.
Martinez and some other men, had driven past the store front in their military hummer and shot up the glass windows. In their second pass, they fired upon Michonne and the bulk of their group, who had made it down the street and around the corner to the right, before the large vehicle had caught up to them. Maggie and Glenn had taken off down the same road, but got cut off from the group by a deafening spray of bullets and were forced, by the pursuing vehicle, to run down a road to the left.
"Look like them fucker's 'ave cut 'n run." Daryl turned and spoke, rage bubbling beneath his composed exterior, unable to hear the large vehicle anymore. Bob and Karen nodded in agreement. "All that noise, gonna bring walkers to town. You two go get the trucks. One a ya go get Michonne and them lot, other go down that road." He said, nodding to the side street Glenn and Maggie had ran to. "I'm gonna go ahead, see if I can find Glenn 'n Maggie."
Bob and Karen glanced quickly at each other.
"Jus' do it!" Daryl shot in angrily. Leadership issues aside, their group did what it had to when someone gave an order. Just sometimes people needed to be reminded with a sharp tongue. Daryl's voice got the pair moving and they turned back, towards the rear of the building. Shaking his head, Daryl peered around the brick corner, making sure the road was clear. A few walkers down the road a bit, making their way towards the noise made from the cracking automatic weapons. No immediate threat.
Daryl raised his crossbow to his eye line and took off in a jog towards the side road where he had seen his family run.
The road was clear but for a few scattered cars. Daryl continued his pace, looking for any sign from Glenn and Maggie. A hundred yards or so down the paved street Daryl spotted something that made his stomach turn to ice. A small puddle and a large smear of crimson blood trickled, with the slope of the bitumen, toward the gutter. Following the trail of large drips and splatters, Daryl raised his crossbow and jogged faster down the street.
It appeared to Daryl that the blood trail was leading to the stand alone gas station at the end of the street. The one with four walkers gathering at the station's bathroom, and more coming from surrounding buildings.
A sudden and loud crack echoed down the street. Daryl stopped and put his hand to the sting at his right side. Pulling it away for a quick glance, knowing already what he would see, his hand was wet and warm and red.
The large military truck pulled out from a side alley in front of Daryl, to his right. He fell to his knees in the street. The shock and pain suddenly taking his strength and dropping him to the ground, as the Hummer reved loudly and tore away from the town.
The agonising death of a stomach wound was The Governor's favourite, ensuring his victim would either have to take their own life with a bullet to the head or eventually die and turn in to the monsters that haunt this world.
The hummer was long in the distance but the gunshot had drawn the attention of the amassing numbers of local walkers. Daryl fell forward, one hand on his bleeding wound, the other shaking beneath him, bracing him from falling face down to the hard, hot surface of the black road. The walkers, drawn to the smell of an open wound and blood in the air, started to close in towards him.
A black Chevrolet El Camino pulled out from a side street and stopped beside Daryl. He turned his head weakly as black spots started to clot his vision. The passenger side door, opened from the inside, swung out towards him.
"Hey! Get in now!" The woman's voice yelled at him. "GET IN!"
Daryl drew a breath and fought away the creeping darkness in his eyes. The car was close enough that, with one hard push to his feet, he was able to dive for the open door and land half in the car. Her hand shot forward and grabbed on to the collar of his leather vest, pulling him in best she could.
The car was already in gear and she took off before Daryl was all in. She gave a yank of his clothes and returned her hand to the column shift. Changing to the next gear, she drove past the gas station where, unknown to her, Glenn and Maggie were hiding.
She again grabbed on to Daryl as she turned the car down a street to the right. Using the momentum of the turn, she hauled the heavy, now unconscious, muscular frame of Daryl, further into the car. His feet now in, the door swung shut and closed with a snap. She managed to pull his head to her lap, and quickly glancing from the road, she looked at the face of the man between her and the steering wheel. She put her hand to his mouth and checked to make sure he was still breathing.
He was still alive. With a temporary wave of relief, she returned her hand to the steering wheel.
Her stomach felt like it was at the back of her throat as she considered her next move.
She had been sitting in her car. Hidden down an alley beside a building, she had been looking through the small stockpile of supplies she had collected when the loud gun fire had exploded through the quiet streets. Ducking down in her seat, she heard a large vehicle drive past her El Camino undetected. It stopped somewhere out of her sight, but had not gone all together. Peeking out over the dash of the car minutes later, she saw a man with a crossbow jogging down the road. She didn't move and he didn't see her, too distracted by something on the ground in front of him. The last crack of the rifle out of sight zapped through her, turning her guts to stone. She heard the roar of the large vehicle as it left the town, her thoughts jagged and disjointed in her mind. Torn between staying hidden and getting out of this apparent war zone, her hand moved by itself to the ignition. Turning the engine over, she placed her child on the seat beside her, and drew the seatbelt around him securely.
As she pulled from the alley, the shuddering body of the man with the crossbow, consumed her vision. He was on his hands and knees, and before she could think about it, she had pulled the car over beside him, despite the closing crowd of 'biters'. She threw open the door and screamed at him to get him in the car. Releasing his seatbelt, she moved the child beside her on the bench seat to her knee, wedging the small boy between her and the door.
The man dove into the car and she dragged him in, as best she could, by his biker vest. Getting out of town fast, she drove to her place, not stopping to think about her own actions.