You want somebody, just anybody
To lay their hands on your soul tonight
You want a reason to keep believin'
That someday you're gonna see the light
Daryl jammed a foot into the stirrup on the end of the crossbow and pulled back on the string with both hands until it locked into the trigger mechanism. Straightening up, he slipped a bolt under the retaining clip. The razor sharp edge of the broadhead tip glinted in the setting sun. It would be dark soon, and the darkness would hide the walkers, make it harder to see them until they were close enough to smell the fetid stench of their decomposing bodies. Closer than Daryl really wanted them to get. But getting that close would be the last thing a walker ever did.
He'd agreed to take the first night watch for the camp, because it gave him time alone while everyone else whiled away those useless hours between sunset and bedtime. Not that bedtime didn't come early when you were living hand to mouth, rising with the sun to start cooking, or carrying water, or washing clothes by hand in the nearest stream. But after the sun set, there wasn't much to be done except sit around and talk. Or fuck, if you had a soft, warm body to keep you company. Sometimes he heard Lori and Rick going at it, and although he found release by his own hand, it was a cold comfort compared to having a real pussy to fuck.
Even though he was never much of one for navel-gazing or self-reflection, lately he'd taken more and more to spending his free time alone, hunting. Sometimes he hunted living things so the group could eat. Sometimes he hunted dead things that didn't know enough to lie down and stay dead.
But he'd rather be alone than face Carol right now, to see the pain in her eyes and be reminded of Sophia. She'd tried to tell him that he was a good man, when he'd gotten hurt while out looking for her little girl. That he was just as good as Rick, or Shane, or Dale. And later, when she'd come to him as he tried to saddle up the horse to continue the search, he'd raged at her rather than hear her say he should give up.
God damn it, woman, don't ask me to give up on that little girl. He wanted to say to her but couldn't get the words out. I may just some trailer-park white-trash redneck, but I'm better than that wife-beating son of a bitch that you were married to. I'm better than him, than my own Pa, who never paid me no mind except when he was beating the shit out of me. But I'm not like Rick, and if it comes down to you or me, I'm gonna choose me every fucking time. Don't you understand that? Don't you see what I am? So don't tell me I should think of my own hurt rather than go back out looking for Sophia.
And then they'd found the little girl in the barn with the other walkers. He felt a heat rise in his face, and his breath hitched. She was just a fucking little girl. When she'd shuffled out of the barn dragging her feet and lurching to one side, he'd felt, just for a second, a twinge of hope that somehow she had been spared, that she'd been hiding in the barn, untouched and whole. But she'd stepped right over all the walkers that they'd just put down, growling low in her throat and drooling as she reached questing hands toward living flesh. She was still wearing the striped leggings and shirt with that damn stupid rainbow that she'd been dressed in the morning she disappeared. Her skin was still flawless, pale and smooth like a porcelain doll, and the sunlight brought out the highlights in her strawberry-blond hair. If he ignored the filmy eyes and the rabid expression, he could almost believe that it was still Sophia in there.
He'd heard Carol's anguished howl and wanted to add his own to it. No, no, no, no! It's not supposed to end this way. She's lost, just lost out in the woods, and we just need to find her. But instead, she'd been here all along—they figured out later—probably put in the barn by Otis before he'd accidentally shot Carl. In all the confusion and worry, Otis never mentioned it to anyone. And then he got himself killed.
Daryl dug a knuckle into his eyes when his vision started to blur. Couldn't let himself get distracted. He couldn't let even one of those fuckers get past him and into the camp. Soon, everyone would be bedding down for the night. And they were counting on him to help keep them safe.
He remembered how he'd just sprawled there in the dirt, holding onto Carol and watching Sophia, listened to her snap and slaver like a feral thing. He'd known what had to be done—hell, they all did, despite Hershel's insistence that walkers were people—but he couldn't do it. He couldn't fucking do that one last thing, not for Carol, not for Sophia, to put the little girl down and give her peace. When Rick stepped up and put a bullet in her brainpan, he was ashamed of the relief that flooded through him, that someone else had taken care of it. Someone who was a better man than him.
Merle could have done it, would have done it with a smile and a wink, no doubt. But Daryl wasn't like his brother, either. Merle enjoyed hurting things for the pleasure of watching them squirm and writhe. Had made him good for hunting walkers, but not so good for dealing with real live people. And as much as Daryl looked down on some members of their motley group—more out of a lifelong habit of hating than anything else—at least they were still people.
And they were counting on him.
He'd failed Sophia. He's failed Carol. He'd even failed Merle, who had spent so much of Daryl's younger life locked away in juvie. Merle was all Daryl had after their momma had run off and their daddy had crawled inside a bottle. But Merle hadn't protected him from their father's alcohol-fueled rage or from the mean streets when they got older. Someone should protect little kids, keep bad things from happening to them. No one had kept him safe, and now they—he—had failed to keep Sophia safe.
But maybe, just maybe all those things Merle had said to him when he was hurt weren't true. The others looked at him differently—if not with respect, at least a grudging acknowledgment of his skills, of his willingness to work to protect the group.
To protect the group. Because they were counting on him. He'd never had anyone count on him that way before.
Even Carol looked at him differently. Behind the pain in her eyes, he saw something else. At first, he was afraid to see it, because he was sure it would be disappointment, even disgust, but it wasn't. He saw in Carol's eyes a reflection of the man he might become, that he was starting to want to be.
He heard the twigs snapping just before the breeze carried the stench to his nostrils. Slotting the stock of the crossbow into this shoulder, he looked down the sights for the walker he knew was nearby. Even with his adrenalin-sharpened vision, he didn't see the damned thing until it was about ten yards away and coming straight at him.
At one time, it had been a woman. That was about all he could tell, since the few clumps of hair left clinging to her head were matted with mud. The skin was gone from most of the lower half of her face, and he could see the muscle and sinew moving as her teeth snapped together in anticipation. The guttural sounds she made were primal and wet, like the sound of meat going through a grinder. He'd worked a short stint in a meat plant once, and that was the sound of the walkers—chunks of beef being minced into hamburger.
He took all this in during the scant seconds before he squeezed the trigger, and then the noise stopped as the bolt buried to the fletching in her forehead. She toppled over backwards. He quickly spanned the crossbow again and loaded another bolt. Rarely did they find a lone walker; in the woods, they usually traveled in pairs or small groups. In open areas, they would congregate into bigger herds. He scanned around for more movement, listening for the telltale rustling, sniffing for the whiff of putrefaction.
Then he saw them. At least a half dozen shadowed forms shambling through the trees, heading in the direction of the camp. Fuck! More than he could handle on his own. He reached for the pressurized can hanging from his belt. He held the air horn high above his head and… hesitated. Blowing the horn would alert the others back in the camp to come running, but it would also draw the attention of the remaining walkers to him. And if the others didn't come fast enough, he would be facing the walkers alone. Time to fish or cut bait.
He slammed his thumb down on the button twice, long and hard, sending out the prearranged signal that walkers were coming.
All their heads whipped around to look in his direction. Oh fuck oh fuck ohfuck! He dropped the can to the ground and brought his weapon back up, stock to shoulder, cheek pressed against the smooth metal, and drew a bead on the closest walker. The bolt slammed into the thing's right eye socket with a splash of blood and vitreous fluid before punching a chunk on bone out of the back of it's skull. He was down to his last bolt, and no time to span the crossbow before the rest would be on him. Slinging the bow on his back, he drew the machete from the sheath on his hip and started edging his way toward the camp, not wanting to turn his back on the walkers to break into a flat out run.
He hadn't gotten more than about twenty steps when he heard the first gunshot and watched the head of the lead walker—now less than a dozen yards away from him—erupt in a spray of blood and gore. Turning, he saw Rick with a shotgun tucked against his shoulder, taking aim at another walker. A second later, Shane and Andrea stood shoulder to shoulder with him, each firing handguns with deadly accuracy. T-Dog grabbed Daryl by the arm, stepping in front of him to stand with feet splayed, gun held in both hands out in front of him, as he fired at another walker still advancing on him and Daryl. In less than a minute, all the walkers were on the ground, finally still.
"Is that it? Is that all of them?" T-Dog asked him.
"I think so. Check around to be sure." Daryl shifted the grip on his machete and stalked toward the pile of bodies to retrieve his bolts and make sure none of the walkers were going to get up again.
Rick walked over to where Daryl had dropped the air horn and scooped it up. While the others did a quick survey of the area, he returned to where Daryl was checking bodies.
"Are you hurt? Are you bit?" Rick asked him in a low voice.
"Nah. I'm good."
"Here," he said, holding out the can. "That was a good idea. No way we were going to sleep through that thing going off." He clapped Daryl on the back with a friendly smile. "Good thinking."
Daryl flashed a quick smirk, a little stunned by the praise.
T-Dog came back first. "Nothing else around," he reported to Rick. He turned to Daryl. "Hey man, you want me to take over now? I got the next watch anyway, and I don't think I'm going back to sleep after that action."
"Sure, man." He started to walk away, then looked T-Dog in the eye. "Thanks."
When he got back to camp, he was going to see if Carol would welcome him into her tent, let him hold her for a bit while she cried out her grief.