It came down to this, then - trussed hand and foot and gagged, waiting like a compliant sheep to be felled for the butcher. The crack of the bat across the back of the kid's head down at the far end of the trough barely even registered in his mind, nor the dull vibration of the body slumping over sheet metal to bleed out into the drain.
He'd long since checked out. Resigned himself to this being the end of the story for him. What a fucked up way to go, even for a Dixon - turned into long pig for people - hell, he couldn't even think of them as people, more like scavengers, rats scurrying up from the sewers and sinking their teeth into whatever they could reach - who had gone far past the will to survive and turned their existence into a kind of mindless hell he could barely imagine. And here he'd thought Merle was an opportunistic sonofabitch.
Merle. Comin' to you, brother. Any time now.
He bit down on the rag in his mouth and closed his eyes, summoning Carol's face for the last time. She was probably long gone, but at least she wasn't trapped here with the rest of them - if he wanted to, he could choose to think of her still out there somewhere, free and strong. He went far away in his mind, to where her blue eyes sparked with lively annoyance at how completely he'd given up. You need to be ready to run, Daryl. It's not over until we say it's over.
I can't, honey, he said to her ghost. I got nothing left. You wait for me, okay? I'll be along directly. I'm sorry I never told you how much you meant to me. Don't hold it against me.
We can talk about that soon enough, she said, stroking his cheek, and he bowed his head and waited for the blow.