I wrote this story during the hiatus in season 3. Still working on finishing it. So far there's 50 pages so that buys me some time haha. It's rated M for a lot of cursing and later on there will be some sexy time scenes. Enjoy! Let me know what you think :)
Chapter 1: Get Off the Ledge and Drop the Knife
Daryl limped through the forest with a walker trailing about 10 yards behind him snarling and snapping at his feet. The trees blurred all around him as he sprinted through trying to avoid crashing. Branches whipped at his face leaving small cuts behind. His arms were still roped together from the Governor's henchmen at Woodbury and his left leg throbbed in pain from where one of them kicked him to the ground.
They had wanted him to fight Merle, his own goddamn brother.
It was difficult to push the memory from his mind watching the crowd scream for a fight. In a world where the dead came back to life, he almost forgot how bloodthirsty normal people could be.
Badly beaten and thrown into the ring, he wondered what his tough as nails older brother would do since he had never backed away from a fight in his life. The dark of night hid the faces of the crowd making them into a large lethal beast demanding its pint of blood, but he barely heard them while he looked over at his brother's reaction, which went from neutral to nauseated as he realized what the Governor had in store for them. Though only hours had passed since that moment, he was already certain that look would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Daryl tripped over a root sticking out of the ground, which slowed his pace and cursed at himself trying again to free his hands from the bindings. The walker closed in on him, but the ropes wouldn't budge. His adrenaline spiked readying his body for the fight. Desperately, he quickly looked around the small clearing to find a weapon that might give him more of an advantage.
To his right, a mess of curly blonde hair blowing in the wind caught his eye. A young woman perched like a bird high up in the tree watched him quietly holding a bow in one hand and the other poised to snatch an arrow from the pack slung on her back.
"You gonna watch or help?" he spat angrily.
The woman had been hunting for about an hour in complete silence when she saw the scruffy man barreling through the trees straight toward her. She hoped that he wouldn't notice her and when he did she swore that she wouldn't interfere. In a similar situation, she tried to help a young woman only to have her group surround her and try to steal her supplies.
Once she saw that his hands were tied a pang of guilt hit her in the stomach and she suppressed the instinct to help him still in shock to see a live person this far out in the woods.
"For fuck sake," he muttered as he leaned against the tree to brace himself.
The walker lounged at him and grabbed his shoulders trying to take a bite out of his neck. Daryl kicked him in the stomach and pushed him to the ground as he backed further into the clearing trying to think of a plan. The walker hit its shoulder against a low tree branch, which provoked it even more.
Unable to free his hands, he struggled to figure out a way to kill the relentless zombie and grabbed a pointed rock. With a few feet in between, his instinct took over leading the walker toward him and using the space to his advantage. When it lounged again toward him, he ducked behind a tree so that it tripped over its feet crashing to the ground. Without another second's hesitation, he pounced on his back to deliver a fatal blow to the head. Hitting him again, he made sure it was dead and then threw the rock on the ground like a football player spiking the ball in the end zone.
"Like what you see?" he called out to her.
She made no reply unsure how to handle the situation when she noticed a second walker dressed in army fatigues sneaking up behind him.
He didn't notice that the walker was closing in on him since he was still pulling at the ropes around his hands. Because he was distracted, his foot caught a large root sticking out of the ground and he fell straight on his face. Groggily he turned over revealing a cut on his forehead that gushed blood enticing the walker into a sprint toward him.
If he didn't get up the walker would bite him within seconds.
She held her breath hoping he would realize before it was too late.
Without thinking, she notched an arrow in place and shot it straight into the zombie's eye. After a quick scan around, she didn't see any more freaks approaching them so she climbed back down to the ground.
"How about you cut me loose then?" he asked.
"Who did you piss off in the first place?" she retorted approaching him with caution.
"Simple misunderstanding."
"Fair enough. Consider this a favor and don't follow me," she started to back away from him guessing that it would take a while before he got himself free. In that time she could lose him in the woods.
"Yeah right," he scoffed and then fell over on to the tree trunk behind him clearly not a hundred percent from his fall earlier. She headed towards him and considered cutting the rope, but paused to figure out if he was pulling some kind of trick or not.
To the side her hunting partner closed in on the man with his rifle ready to act if there was trouble.
"You move one step closer and I'll blow yar fuckin head off, ya hear?" Dennis hollered at him. "Did he hurt ya, Lu?"
"Nah, had to save his sorry ass."
"Looks like he's been through the ringer," he motioned to his hands. "Think we should waste 'im here?"
"Might have been the same assholes that got Alf," she replied. Even though there was no reason to trust the bound man, she felt the need to step in and protect him. Of course they couldn't trust him right away, but leaving him alone in the woods all banged up was as good as killing him and there were too few real people left in the world as it was.
"Shit, well we can't leave him out here. He'll be dead before the day's over and attract all the walkers to us after they've picked his bones clean. The cabin's not more than a couple hundred yards from here."
"Can you carry him? We can lock him up in the woodshed until we decide what to do with him."
Dennis was a short strong man so he was able to throw Daryl over his shoulder, but after a couple paces he realized that it would be too difficult to lug the dead weight across the uneven terrain.
"Fuck, this skinny guy weighs more than ya'd think. Wake up, man!" he said as he propped him against a tree and slapped him across the face. The guy nodded his head a bit and began to put one foot in front of the other with most of his weight resting on Dennis.
Slowly they made their way back to camp swearing that if any group of walkers came along they would have to ditch him. Luck must have been on his side since there were only two, which Lucy was easily able to put down without Dennis and the unnamed man even breaking pace.
At camp, a little girl with short chopped blond hair came running out to greet them and see the man. Any new addition was immediately of interest because they were so small as a group of four.
Dennis was a 50 year old former construction worker and marine so any type of muscle they needed was from him. Originally he had been one of a trio. When he first met the others, he had escaped from Atlanta with his two sons, who were in their twenties, but they had an unlucky encounter with some walkers within the first couple months afterward. Dennis never mentioned them anymore to the others. There was no need. Everyone had some similar whole in his heart.
Lucy and Dennis had grown much closer since his sons had passed. Without them around to help keep guard and hunt, Lucy was forced to pick up the slack along with other chores like running for supplies. They say you never get more than you are able to take on and luckily that theory held true. Before the fallout, she had never shot a gun let alone hunted for survival and now other people depended on her to provide for them and keep them out of harm's way.
The other two were an elderly woman named Nell, who was beginning to get arthritis in her hands, and her 9 year old granddaughter, Annie, who was so skinny that the others were beginning to suspect there was something more medically wrong with her than just being hungry all the time.
Everyday Lucy worried a little more about keeping the group alive. It was difficult enough watching out for herself, how could she possibly be able to keep an old woman and a sick kid alive too?
"Who's he?" Annie questioned.
"Found him in the woods running from a walker," Lucy explained.
"Why'd you tie him up?"
"Don't know if we can trust him yet. Open the door, Annie."
The girl scampered over to the woodshed and pulled the door open. Dennis and Lucy laid him inside tying him up more securely to the pole in the middle that provided foundation for the roof. The shed was more secure than the house constructed of concrete and wood. It looked like they had taken the quick way out and filled the cracks with plaster and concrete to make it more resistant to the elements rather than rebuild it from scratch.
"Think we made a mistake bringing him here?" Lucy whispered to Dennis.
"Too late to think about now."
"Maybe he can help us out."
"Don't get your hopes too high, kid," he said as the two of them checked again to make sure he didn't have any bites or scratches. He was so beat up though there was no way to know for sure except to wait.
"Did you find anything?" Nell asked Lucy when she entered the cabin.
"Couple of rabbits and squirrels. They're so scrawny though doubt we'll be able to get more than a meal out of them."
"Don't worry. I'll figure out something," she reassured.
"They put a man in the shed," Annie told the other woman.
"Alive?"
"Barely, he was bleeding all over the place and making a racket," Dennis answered.
"What's his name?"
"Annie, we don't know. He was unconscious when we found him," Lucy lied.
"Can I ask him?"
"No, you don't go anywhere near that shed," Dennis warned her.
"Why not?" she naively wondered.
"We don't know if he's a danger yet."
"Seriously, Annie. No where near that shed," Lucy emphasized.
Nell prepared them a small dinner of rabbit stew so they sat around the table in the cabin and attempted to eat without thinking too much about the bloody man locked inside the woodshed. Annie asked a dozen more questions. Lucy tried to stop her, but it was difficult to explain to her how dangerous a situation might be for them. She still had that young naiveté which prevented her from seeing threats as her older companions saw.
Dennis and Lucy realized months ago that without Nell they would have been a lot worse off with making things seem as normal as possible. She had that motherly knack for making the most out of the resources that they managed to acquire and comforting people when they were too stressed. As the weather became colder, she used the extra scraps from hunting to make soups that went a lot further than the meat and bones would have alone. Without her they would have no idea how to ration things out or pack on the go.
The sun started setting and Lucy shot a look over to Dennis. They spent so much time hunting and fighting together they were able to communicate fairly well with non-verbal cues so as not to alarm the others. She knew that once the man woke up he would not be thrilled with being tied up in the middle of nowhere unable to defend himself.
Right on time, the man started hollering from the shed hurling a string of obscenities about what he would do once he was free.
"Great dinner, Nell. Let me excuse myself," Dennis set his dish in the sink and walked outside. "Lock the door behind me, Lu. May take a while."
"You goddamn idiots! What the hell ya got me tied up for? Ya brought me here for chrissakes! I didn't ask for help."
Dennis opened the door and carefully closed it behind him. Wordlessly, he lit the lantern and pulled a chair over just close enough so that he could look at him straight on. Enough time had passed and he still hadn't turned into the undead, but the question of what to do with him loomed large in Dennis' mind.
"No need for hollerin' like that. Ya know there ain't no one around that's likely to help ya."
"I'll stop when I'm good an ready."
"Strong fellow like yourself has encountered the things that creep around in the night. No need to let 'em know where ya tied up neither."
Daryl stopped shouting since he knew better than to attract all the walkers especially in his current predicament. He pulled his hands for the hundredth time to see if there was any chance the beam was loose, but to no avail. His wrists would be cut and bloody before the post moved an inch.
"Why ya got me tied up?" he asked.
"We've had a couple of situations. Learned to take precautions. Why don't ya tell me who ya are?"
"I'm nobody. None of us ain't nobody anymore. What kind of stupid question is that?"
"Something to hide?"
"Not into tellin' some stranger my life's story."
"Why were ya tied up? Seems to me that I ain't the first person to think ya untrustworthy."
He grinded his teeth while he considered his options in the current situation. If he told the man the truth, there was a chance he would take pity on him and maybe even thank him for the heads up on Woodbury. On the other hand, he could take it as a threat that they would be after him and his group for housing their prisoner and if he lied there were any number of different scenarios that he knew he wasn't smart enough to plan for the outcomes.
"Fine. We'll start small. What's ya name?" Dennis questioned further.
"Fuck off."
"Hello Fuck Off, I'm Dennis. Now how many others are in ya group?"
"A bunch," he muttered.
"10? 20?" he pressed, but Daryl refused to answer him. He turned his face away to the corner of the room staring off into the dark. "Not too interested in them. Just lookin' to keep my people safe. Understand that, don't ya? Probably feel the same way about your group."
"I ain't telling you nothin'. You can keep me here long as ya like."
He stood and pushed the chair back in the corner only the sound of his boots clicking and the young man's labored breathing could be heard. The two stared at each other sizing each other up trying to see any hint of weakness.
Dennis took another step toward him and cracked the knuckles in his right hand signaling his comfort with beating him to a pulp.
Daryl recalled the previous month when Rick had asked him to interrogate that little shit Randall. He hadn't even hesitated since he was angry with Rick and Glen for bringing him back to farm in the first place and putting everyone else in danger. After hearing what happened with the other men in the kid's group, Daryl assumed the kid was guilty thinking of other young guys he knew as a teenager.
Put enough of them in a group together and you got that mob mentality. One time some neighbor boys beat a 12 year old close to death and as soon as they were caught they were all blubbering how they didn't mean to and blamed each other. Within 6 months they killed a guy and got sent away for years. He had always been sort of a loner to begin with but that one sealed the deal. No reason to have some kid's blood on your hands just because someone asked you to help him out one time.
"See now that ain't cuttin' it and I need to know who your people are. If ya don't want to do things the easy way, it'll get hard."
"Guess it's gonna get hard then," he shot back.
Dennis wasn't a violent type of man by nature, but the world has other plans sometimes. He placed his gun and knife on the table far enough away were the captive couldn't reach it and then began the interrogation like he had been trained for in the marines special operations. He began with a blow to the face that hit so hard his jaw seemed to loosen. Dennis repeated his questions and every time Daryl refused to answer he hit him in the stomach
"How many people are in your group?"
Daryl flipped him off.
Dennis fists crashed down on him so many times that he lost count.
A steady stream of blood began pouring from Daryl's face.
"Where's your group?" he yelled at him.
"Go to hell," he spat blood from his mouth.
Dennis threatened him a couple of times and continued to beat him, but Daryl refused to give him any information. He settled in for the night unable to stop without being completely sure there weren't other people coming to murder them in the night.
Outside, Lucy sat on the small porch wrapped in a blanket and holding her gun to keep watch while Dennis finished the interrogation. Annie sat by her feet telling her about some story that Nell told her earlier, something about the squirrels fighting with each other, but when they overheard the muffled sounds coming from the shed she sent the kid inside. No reason to let her know exactly how bad it would get before the night was over. After about an hour, Lucy saw Dennis approach the house with his knuckles caked in blood and dirt.
"Any luck?" she asked.
"None, that lil' sob is tough. He wouldn't tell me nothin' about the people he's with," he told her while he grabbed a towel to wipe off his hands.
"He's got to be with someone. I'm more concerned with why he was tied up when we found him. Someone might be looking for him to settle a score."
"Well, I ain't gonna Guantanamo him anymore. We'll fix him up in the morning and leave him be. We should try moving west in a couple of days. Find somewhere safer for the winter. You know they won't be able to handle the cold very well," he lowered his voice so the others wouldn't overhear the last part.
"What's your take on him?"
"Probably grew up same as most of the guys I know. Learn to rely on yourself. Don't take shit from strangers. Doesn't seem like the type to take something that isn't his, but you can never tell for sure anymore."
"I'll patch him up in the morning."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I'll play good cop and see if he tells me anything."
"Try not to flirt too much," he chuckled.
"Oh yes, can't keep my hands off those dirty rednecks."
"Why don't ya try and get a couple hours," he suggested. "I'll wake ya up in a bit to takeover."
"You better, Dennis. Can't stay awake all the time."
