Somewhere I Have Never Travelled
This story is set just before season one, episode five but is a bit different. I'm extending the time where Rick, Glenn, Daryl, and T-Dog come back from Atlanta and the walker attack. This story begins in that time. And please do leave reviews! I love them! And I want to know what you all think! 3
Daryl's eyes were fixed on a small rabbit leisurely munching on grass thirty feet from where he sat. He aimed and shot, snagging the hare through it's neck. As he waltzed over to claim his kill a sudden rustle in the close distance startled him.
Out of no where a woman skidded to a halt in the leaves at the sight of Daryl's bow aimed at her.
"Sh-shit—don't shoot me, don't please!" She cried out, her back on the ground, arms raised at the elbows, her chest heaving.
"Where'd you come from?" Daryl asked behind the eye of his bow. The woman wore nothing but her matted blonde hair, an oversized denim shirt that hardly covered anything past her waist, and the blood that covered her entirely.
"Just west of here, 'bout two hours away."
"Gotta camp there?"
"No." She muttered grudgingly. "I-I was out hunting yesterday and got lost. Some men found me, said they had a group, that I'd be safe there for a couple days. They didn't even have anything more than a can of beans and colt pistol between the eight of them, just brought me back so they could have a little fun. I got out before they got their chance." Daryl paused, this woman's accent was certainly not from Georgia, and certainly not anything he'd ever heard. It was like she didn't even have an accent.
"Why you wearin' nothin' but a shirt?" The woman sighed.
"Well, I just barely got out in time. I had no other choice. Moaners were surrounding us and all they wanted was a fucking romp in the woods. I killed as many as I could with my hands and ran. That-that's why I'm covered in blood."
"You been runnin' for two hours?"
"Straight." She nodded, unsure and unsettled that his arrow was still on her. "I'm not looking for help, just don't shoot me. Just let me pass and we can both be on our way." Daryl lowered his weapon slowly and crouched at his backpack, digging through it.
"Nu-uh, girl. They coulda followed ya, all covered in blood like 'at, prolly attracted half the walkers in a mile with a quick wiff." He quickly found what he was looking for and stood back up.
"Shit. I didn't mean to. I was just trying to get back to my camp. It's not far from here. Just let me go. I swear I haven't heard a moaner for at least half an hour. What are you doing?" She asked as Daryl walked toward her.
"Can't take any chances, girl. I'm sorry 'bout this." Daryl said as he pulled a zip-tie and approached her.
"You've got to be kidding me." The woman said as Daryl zipped her wrists together behind her back.
"Jus' takin' precaution."
The woman rolled her eyes as her wrists instantly began to ache with the tension.
Night had fallen and Daryl had made a small fire in between the two of them. The woman sat against a tree, hands still tied, staring occasionally at Daryl with malicious annoyance.
"We'll head back to my camp at dawn, for now you should sleep."
The woman just stared into the fire, ignoring his words. Daryl sighed and mumbled to himself as he peered around, cautious of any walkers. He knew it was stupid for him to take her prisoner, but he didn't think he had another choice. Girl like her running around half naked and covered in blood? Couldn't possibly end well, and he didn't want that on his conscious.
"What's your name?" He asked after about an hour of silence. She continued with her unrelenting secrecy. "Fine, be that way, I don' care." It was a few short moments before she spoke up.
"Lennon. But I prefer Len." She said gently, still staring into the fire.
"What, like John Lennon?"
She chuckled, having not heard that in a long while. "Yeah. My parents were big fans."
"You gotta last name?"
"I don't really have any need for one anymore."
Daryl nodded, "Guess that's true."
"Do you have a name?"
"Daryl." Len nodded, and laughed.
"It's nice to meet you Daryl." She said sarcastically, considering the circumstances they were in.
Daryl chuckled gently and watched with Len as the fire blew to the left with the wind.
Just as the fire was about to weasel down to it's embers Len still hadn't gotten any sleep. She had quickly ditched the idea of trying to run away, as she figured she was safer with Daryl anyway. But she kept at trying to break the zip-tie that bound her wrists together. After Daryl had fallen asleep against the same tree she was leant against she struggled even harder, wearing herself out, if only slightly. As the sun began to rise and the morning dew almost completely extinguished the fire's embers a gargled moan and foot shuffles not ten feet from where they sat made Len begin to panic.
"Daryl." Len pushed him with her shoulder but he showed no signs of waking up. "Daryl!"
The walker shuffled it's way over to them and Len quickly shot her foot out and tripped it in front of her. It yelled and clawed at her but she quickly slammed her bare heel into it's skull, not fulling killing it. She stood quickly and jumped up off the ground and onto the walker's skull, smashing it's skull and squishing it's brains in between her toes.
"Oh gross." She groaned as she wiped her feet against the grass, a sad attempt at cleaning off the red-brown clumps. And then she heard another moan. "You've got to be jok—Daryl!"
The walker grasped Len's shirt and ripped the sleeve as she jumped over the dead walker and glanced at her captor who was still soundly sleep. Her eyebrows knit it panic and surprise that that man could still be asleep. She kicked some ember's into the thing's face and that made it stagger back as she rushed around looking for something to help her break the zip-tie that held her hands behind her back, completely incapacitating her for the most part.
With no success she forced the bile down her throat and rushed toward the walker's legs, knocking it to the ground as she tumbled to her back. Len quickly killed it just as she had the other. But her yelling and grunting suddenly attracted two more walkers already on top of her. One grabbed her hair and the other grabbed her leg.
"DARYL!" She screamed, ripping her leg out of the dead man's hands, forcing away the feel of it's skin that remained on her ankle and rammed her head back into the other's nose, making it fall to the ground. She laughed, seeing that the bone had penetrated it's brain. Catching her breath Len forced the walker back with her shoulder, kicking it with her leg.
The thing still moaned and clawed at her, gargling and clamping it's jaws at her.
With a deep breath and concentrated force Len broke the zip-tie, slicing her wrist only slightly. She grabbed a rock Daryl had used to form the fire pit, aimed and clocked the walker in the forehead. It stumbled backward and fell on top of Daryl's legs, waking him with a start. He saw it and kicked it away, pulling out his knife, but it was already dead.
He looked around and caught sight of Len who's chest was heaving and was covered in even more blood.
"Morning." She said, trying to wipe the blood from her eyes.
"...Holy shit." He breathed out, still half asleep and completely shocked at the bodies that laid around his feet. He looked at Len who's lips were formed in a line, waiting for him to do or say something. "Why didn' ya wake me up?!"
"You wouldn't fucking wake up!" She yelled back at him. "You're welcome, by the way." Len walked past him to his pack, looking for a cloth to clean the brain clumps from her feet.
"Jesus." He muttered to himself. "...I-uh think I saw a stream not far from here, you can get cleaned up better there." He dug through his bag, handing her a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. "Here. It's all I got right now until we can get back to camp then I can drive you up to yours."
Len nodded. "What direction?"
He pointed north, "'Bout a five minute walk." He handed her a knife, "Take this."
Len widened her eyes. "You trust me with this now?"
He scoffed, "I trust ya with my life now, girl. You coulda let them walkers get at me, but you didn't. I owe you."
Len shook her head and muttered before walking away, "You don't owe me anything."
While Len was gone Daryl inspected the four walkers that she had killed. He could hardly believe that that woman was capable of something like this. She had to be fast, that was the only probable explanation that he could come up with. She even got out of that zip-tie as well. While zip-ties aren't impossible to break it takes a lot of force and when he bound her wrists they were exactly the most burly set he'd ever seen. In fact they were probably some of the thinest he'd seen. This girl was probably thinner and definitely smaller than Lori, how the fuck was she capable of such brute force?
About twenty minutes later Len arrived back with Daryl's t-shirt on, the end tied in a knot at her waist and his jeans held up with her hand, the legs rolled just above her ankles. Daryl paused from his packing as he watched her walk up slowly. She handed him the knife silently, fresh blood on it's blade but no blood on her face or her arms. Daryl was slightly taken aback by this.
"I didn' hear ya scream."
"That's because I didn't." Daryl watched as she sat down against a tree.
Len was beautiful, at least the most beautiful thing he'd seen since this thing had started. But he ignored that thought from his mind as he sheathed the knife back to his belt grabbed a piece of cloth and ripped it.
"Don't have a spare belt, but that should hold for now." Len smiled as she took it and looped it around her waist. He eyed her upper arms, that were tattooed in some foreign language down to her elbows, but Daryl couldn't place it if he tried. And he figured she wouldn't tell him about them even if he asked. "Camp's about an hour's walk from here, we better get goin'." Len nodded as she rubbed the arches of her feet still sore from breaking a set of skulls earlier. But she stood quickly and began to walk next to Daryl who had already started leaving.