Hello, guys, and welcome to Saved by a Bolt! I've got an idea of where I'm going to head with this, so be excited! Please rate and review and expect more chapters!
-DARYL-
"Dammit!" Merle cussed as he waved his hand angrily in the air. Daryl cast a glance at his older brother and immediately figured that his brother had pinched his thumb when he'd misused the crossbow.
"Shuddup! Yer gonna scare away th' squirrels." Daryl snapped, his eyes back on the tiny animal on the tree some ten or so feet away. He grabbed the crossbow from Merle and swung it up, taking aim at the tiny creature. He forced himself to breathe three breaths as a way to focus.
"Why the hell we hunt'n squirrels for these nigger-lovers 'nyway?" Merle demanded. The squirrel, startled by the man's loud voice, chattered and jumped up the trunk. Daryl's bolt was quicker, though, and it dug into the animal's soft skin, pinning it to the tree.
The squirrel's danger call had done the trick, though, and the woods had fallen silent. Frustrated, Daryl stalked over to the squirrel and pulled at the bolt, tearing bolt and squirrel from their previous holder. Then, rounding on his brother, he yelled, "You got balls, Merle. You go tell Shane we ain't got 'nough for ev'rybody."
"Don't care 'bout none-a them." Merle shrugged as he checked his thumb again, looking at his younger brother devilishly. But, despite looking straight at Daryl, the man continued as if he hadn't seen the murderous look on his brother's face. "They's fuckin' idiots. We don't need 'em. We ken live on our own."
Daryl loved his brother but sometimes Merle just needed to be punched in the face to understand that the world was fucked. Certainly, Merle had decked Daryl enough times for the younger man to realize how futile that was, though. Or perhaps it wasn't love, he mused as he pulled the bolt from the animal's carcass. Perhaps it was something else that made him stick to Merle like glue. Perhaps he didn't want to think about it none.
Deciding that pacifism was the better approach today, Daryl strung the squirrel on his rope and swung the rope onto his back. Then he started walking back to the camp. Like the obvious man he was, Merle stated stupidly, "Hey, where'ya goin'?"
"Camp." Daryl growled but wasn't sure Merle had heard. Whatever.
-DARYL-
Daryl reclined in the chair chewing on the hock of a squirrel. He watched the activities of camp and, like his brother, completely ignored what the women did. No, he was focused on Shane, of course. As their pseudo-leader, Shane was the one who bossed them around. Merle complained constantly, of course, but Daryl felt like the group needed one main leader who bounced ideas off others and actually took leading seriously. Wasn't gonna be him.
"We need to make a run into town," Glenn, as much as a token Asian man as Daryl had ever seen, spoke up.
No surprise, the others agreed. Shane quickly lined up a Mexican, that black dude who called himself T-Dog, and Merle. Complaining, Merle declared that he wasn't getting close to those not of white descent as he shot a look at Shane. Daryl continued to chew on the squirrel leg, gnawing the bone, breaking it and tasting marrow. To his surprise, that blond chick Andrea signed up, and following quickly was The Black Woman. Daryl had never bothered learning her name and only knew T-Dog's because it was so ghetto it made Merle cringe.
Daryl threw the rest of the bone into the low fire they had and watched as they piled into the truck. No one wanted to sit next to Merle. Shit, Daryl wouldn't want to sit next to Merle, either, if he were black, Mexican, or Asian. Took them a while to leave, too. Too long, and Merle fussed the whole way. In the end, Merle had to sit next to Andrea and Mexican, both minorities in his eyes. Daryl was pretty sure the laugh he made in his mind made it to his mouth.
Now, with Merle gone, he could go hunting again. And this time he'd get enough.
"I'm headin' out." Daryl called, hoisting himself out of the seat and picking up his crossbow. He doubted anyone heard him—he wasn't exactly the center of attention—but he saw Dale nod from his position on the top of the RV.
-ANDREA-
Sitting next to Merle wasn't the worst thing in the world. It was pretty bad, of course, but she'd done worse. Jacqui certainly had the better end of the deal, though, sitting up front with T-Dog. Even Morales looked uncomfortable, and she didn't think she ever saw the Mexican uncomfortable outside of being near Merle. She grinned despite herself.
"What'choo grinning at, woman?" Merle asked, glaring at her.
Deciding to ignore him, Andrea checked her gun. She had little knowledge about guns but had read the name of this particular gun when finding guns and thought it the perfect suitor for her. "Ladysmith," the silver gun's name was, had kept her feeling safe throughout the beginning of the outbreak, but she hadn't ever seen the need to use it. In her mind, she called it Lady, but she didn't know much about guns and certainly wasn't good at its upkeep. She tried, of course, but none of the men seemed to care about her or her gun.
So be it; she'd learn by herself, and she'd show them all.
"What do we need?" Morales asked Glenn as he shifted uncomfortably next to Merle.
"Food, mostly. Guns, too, if we can find them. We'll stop by a main store for clothes and I'll go out on my own. It's too risky bringing the whole group. You guys will have to be my eyes." Glenn answered.
"Fuck that, Asian." Merle said and probably would have spit if he had thought about it. Disgusted, Andrea looked away. "I ain't watchin' over you at all."
"Then you can go be walker bait." Glenn answered back, and Andrea cast a glance up at him, noting his fearful eyes but his calm demeanor. If Merle wanted to, he could probably kill Glenn right now. "No one's stopping you."
Andrea so wanted to be in the front with Jacqui right now. But perhaps, too, she was learning how to deal with gits like Merle. They sat in cold silence for a while, their bodies moving back and forth with the sway of the truck, until it suddenly stopped. Andrea looked up in mild surprise—they were there already?—and waited for the others to get out first.
There was no 'ladies first' here.
-DARYL-
He would have never found such damn juicy squirrels if Merle had tagged along. The two men worked well together when they weren't hunting, but if Merle was with someone else, he jabbered like a mockingbird. Daryl preferred to hunt alone. Took him a day to scrounge up these squirrels. Mostly, he had to travel a while to get to the traps he'd laid. Over half of them didn't have anything, but he was happy to have caught one of the biggest squirrels yet in one of them. He'd shot three with the crossbow. Dozen or so.
Then he found the deer. It had actually startled him at first, but he'd been downwind and he hadn't been detected. The deer munched on some grass and Daryl took aim. The first bolt hit it squarely in its haunches and the deer took off into the undergrowth, crashing about. He pursued the deer for a long while and was able to get a second bolt into the deer's hindquarters before losing it again. A cry went up in the canopy, but he ignored it, continuing to track the deer.
It wasn't hard. The deer was stumbling around, and he was sure he'd hit one of its leg muscles. He continued to pick his way around, following its path, knowing he was close. He didn't expect anyone to be around when he rounded the next obstacle.
He sure as hell didn't expect a group huddling around his deer. Nor did he expect a shotgun in his face.
"Jesus." Shane said, pulling the shotgun away.
No time to be surprised. He looked at the group then looked at the deer. Anger welled in him. "Son-a-bitch! That's my deer!" He declared, ignoring the group and heading over to the walker. It had taken a huge bite out of his animal. "Look at it all gnawd on by this filthy, disease-bearin', motherless, toxic bastard!" He said this with accentuated kicking, attacking the walker's prone body with his feet.
"Calm down, son, that's not helping," someone tried to reason.
Recognizing Dale, he retorted, "What do you know 'bout it, old man? Why don't you take that stupid had and go back to 'on golden pond'?"
Then, ignoring the withered excuse for a man and turning back to his animal, he continued, "Been trackin' this deer for miles. Was gonna drag it back to camp. Cook us up some venison. Whadda you think, think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?"
"I would not risk that." Shane said, and Daryl didn't even glance at him.
"S'a damn shame," Daryl conceded. Then he hefted his rack of squirrels, "I got some squirrel. 'Bout a dozen or so; that'll have to do."
Then the walker's severed head (yeah, they'd severed its head and hadn't even thought about attacking it) opened its eyes and started moving. The girls, oh yeah, those two sisters were here, too, got disgusted. Daryl barely even glanced at them while the younger one whispered, "Oh God," and the older one ushered her away.
"Come on, people, what the hell." Daryl declared and shot the walker's head. Then he pulled out the bolt, disgusted not at the walker, but at the living. "It's gotta be the brain, don't you know nothin'?"
Even more disgusted, Daryl didn't even bother to clean off his bolt as he stalked back to camp. This he had to tell his brother.