Wow! Not at all what I was expecting! Thank you so much to all my readers who favorited, followed the story, and followed me as an author! If you're a writer yourself, you know how much that means, and how much those emails can make your day. It really made mine, so thank all of you! And of course, to the wonderful people who reviewed! As promised, I have personally responded to all of your comments, and here they are. The name of the reviewer is in bold, the review itself is in italics, and the reply is in regular type.

Speedfanatic05- I've never read a Walking Dead story but this one captured my attention. I look forward to reading more! Great work so far.

I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I'm so glad I could be your first initiating fic. I hope I don't let you down and continue to hold your interest.

Emberka-2012- Lovely start. Daryl was right. In the camp was a guest.

But of course he was right. He usually is. Or he likes to think he is. He's stubborn like that. I hope I continue to please you.

jalenreedmua- LOVE IT! Update soon!

I love it when people use caps. I hear the emphasis loud and clear, and I'm really glad you love the story. As far as updates are concerned, I think I will be posting chapters weekly or twice weekly, depending on how fast I can write. I am in school, and I'm also planning a trip abroad and while in Europe, I shall be unable to post. So unfortunately at some point soon I'll be leaving you hanging, but I hope you'll stick with me!

CreepyDaisy- I love it that you aren't going to stick with the storyline. Makes it so much more unpredictable and entertaining to read. Please update soon, I want to know whose hand is that!

I debated for a long time whether to stick with the canon plot and in the end decided to do my own thing, to add greater suspense and tension and to write new endings, or beginnings, for these characters. This is my first time writing suspense/using cliffhangers and I'm glad it seems to be having the desired effect!

X23 Maximoff- Intriguing beginning! I can't wait to see what happens next. Daryl seems tremendously in character, well done! Please update soon. -XM

Fantastic! I worked really hard to try and get Daryl as close to how he is portrayed in the show, not easy considering he's a lot gruffer and has a very different way of thinking than my own, but I'm glad I'm meeting expectations.

And now, on with the show!

A wordless strangle of sounds escaped Daryl as he was forcefully turned around. He shoved whoever had a hold of him, unseeing at first, and raised his bow in defense. When the roar of his pounding heart died in his ears his eyes seemed to focus and he saw Rick's concerned and tense eyes staring straight back at him.

"Daryl, it's me!" Rick said, his voice sharp but not biting. It helped to shake him back to the moment.

"What the hell you got that thing pointed at him for?" Shane snapped as he came running up towards his friend.

Daryl lowered the bow. "Shouldn't sneak up on a man like that." He growled before throwing a vicious look at Shane.

"You can't go tearing off into the woods like that! Especially not at night in the dark with nobody to watch your back!" Rick insisted as they began to walk back towards camp. Daryl narrowed his eyes at him and clenched his bow.

"I don't need no babysitter! You don't need to watch my back!" he spat. He made sure to step several feet away from Rick but Shane cut off his forward progress.

"You go tearing off into the woods like that, what happens if you lead a bunch of Walkers into camp, huh? Ever think about that? For what, what the hell were you chasing?" he demanded.

"Walkers don't come up this far, you know that!" Daryl argued. "And I was chasing the fucking intruder, or did you not get your ass up fast enough to see him getting away?"

"You actually saw someone? The same person from earlier today?" Rick asked.

They had cleared the tree line and by now most of the camp was roused. Dale still had his rifle over his shoulder. T-dog was holding a pistol, as was Andrea. Lori had Carl clutched close. Carol and Ed were standing outside their tent but when they saw Rick, Daryl, and Shane emerge from the trees, Ed stalked forward towards them.

"What the hell was all of that about? Can't anybody get decent sleep around here?" the man drawled.

"Sorry for maybe saving your miserable lives. I won't bother next time." Daryl snarled, spitting at the man's feet.

"What the fuck you mean?" Ed asked, turning from Daryl towards Rick and Shane.

"Yeah, I'd like to know what's going on as well." Andrea demanded. Now they all rounded on Daryl and Dale as well.

"I was just going to get T-dog for watch when Daryl said he saw something. I was climbing down off the RV when he jumped off and started running for the woods. He shot an arrow but it didn't hit anything." Dale looked a little rattled but not angry like most of the group did.

The crowd parted and revealed the stump that the canteen and plastic container had been resting on, and Daryl's arrow imbedded in its side. Daryl stalked forward and ripped the arrow free of the stump but he was pursued by Rick and Shane closely.

"I asked you not to fire unless you were shot at first." Rick said softly, but there was every ounce of authority his old job used to grant him still there.

"Was I supposed to wait for that son of a bitch to do god knows what?" Daryl asked, rounding on the group. He wasn't the least bit pressured by all of the eyes. He could handle a crowd just fine. He hadn't done anything wrong.

"The canteen and the leftover rabbit are gone." T-dog commented.

"You see! That bastard stole it!" Daryl said, vindication rushing through him. "We should mount a search and go after them. Before they come back, maybe with others."

"No." Rick said firmly. "Not in the dark, not with the evidence of it being an actual person being circumstantial. A fox or coyote could have taken those."

"Bullshit!" Daryl cursed. "Animals don't take plastic containers! They'll stay and pry it open, but they won't run off with it, especially a canteen and a Tupperware dish."

"He has a point. An animal wouldn't have taken the canteen." Dale piped up. Daryl shot him an appreciative look, until he kept going. "But I agree with Rick. Mounting a search now is dangerous. Daryl chased whoever it was back into the woods, they know we're armed now, I doubt that they'll come back tonight, and if they do, we should be ready here."

"There ain't nothing to search for!" Shane argued. "Tearing off into the woods at any point is risky, let alone at night. I'm sure you were just tired and were starting to see things. It happens to the best of us." Shane reached for Daryl, almost in a friendly way, but Daryl kicked a clump of dirt at him.

"Piss off! I know what I saw in the woods today, and just now. But if you're so sure there ain't shit out there, don't bother taking watch anymore." Daryl stalked away, shooting daggers from his eyes at anybody who dared get in his way.

"He's just testy cause of what happened to Merle." Shane said quietly as he and Rick headed back towards the center of camp while the others fanned back out to their usual sleeping places. T-dog climbed the roof of the RV armed with the rifle to take watch.

"I think he might be right though. There's no reason why there can't be people in the woods. We should be careful." Rick answered.

"Man, we're the last living people for freaking miles. Ain't nobody out there. It's just us against a world full of Walkers. Daryl's just seein' things. The first night in camp he tried spooking us about how he saw a chupacabra once."

Rick's eyebrows cocked a little. "Huh. Well, to be safe, I think we should search the woods tomorrow morning. It can't hurt."

Shane shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever, man."

Daryl slept later than he had originally intended, but heat has a way of keeping a man tied down longer than he plans. When he woke the tent was like a furnace of wet, suffocating heat. He sat up and felt sweat pouring off him and was thankful he had only used the sheets as a pillow. Less laundry for the ladies. He may not eat breakfast with them, but he didn't believe in making people do his dirty work, laundry included.

When he managed to drag his carcass out of the tent he was hoping, and kicking himself, for thinking there might be a cool breeze. None such luck. Only thick, humid, stagnant, insufferably hot Georgia air. The camp was already awake and taking care of the daily chores; people fetching water, cleaning up the remains of breakfast, and hanging up laundry. Carl and Sophia were playing a game of Go Fish under the close supervision of their mothers while they hung clothes to dry. Rick was standing on a rise at the edge of camp, staring back towards Atlanta, the buildings just visible in the hazy wave of heat shimmering in the air.

"You search the woods yet?" Daryl asked, not wasting time with an introduction.

Rick shook his head. "Was waiting on you. I figured you could show me where you first saw the intruder's trail, or maybe pick it up again from camp."

Daryl nodded. "Fair enough. Let me get my bow and I'll be ready."

"Wait, take this." Rick said, offering him one of the fancy protein bars that they'd salvaged a long time ago on the way up to the quarry, picking through abandoned cars for anything they could use.

"Thanks." He took the bar from him and tore the wrapper off, stuffing it in his pocket before tearing off a huge piece of the bar. The sweetness of the honey that held the granola and nuts together racked his tongue more harshly than he would have liked but he wolfed it down in two bites on the way back to his tent to get his bow. While Rick gathered the rest of the people that would be going into the woods, he went and doused his head with the water that remained in his canteen. It was warm but it made him feel at least a little more awake. If there was one thing he really missed from the world before it had gone to shit was coffee. Not that fancy iced mocha Starbucks shit, but good strong coffee, black as black gets. He used to take it from his dad's canister when he was a kid. Merle had given him his first taste when he was about five. He'd spat it out then, and his brother had laughed and called him a pussy and offered to put milk and sugar in it but as he'd gotten older and understood what it meant to be out all night and have shit to do in the morning, he appreciated the bitter tang and sharp kick of caffeine.

He took the last swallow of water from his canteen to help wash out the sweet taste from the protein bar as he shouldered his bow and headed towards where Rick was waiting for him. Also present were Shane, Glenn, and T-dog. All eyes were on him as he stalked over but he didn't say a word. Rick took the lead.

"Alright, here's how this is gonna work. Daryl you take the lead and take us down the trail of the intruder from where he entered last night. We'll fan out and go from there. Anybody see anything don't be shy about saying something. Don't shoot unless you're shot at. We clear?"

There was a small murmur of agreement and Daryl took the lead. He hated the idea of Shane behind him, watching his every move, maybe thinking about ways to make him look a fool again, but he did his best to ignore it. He stalked over to Carol and Ed's tent and inspected the ground where he knew the intruder had to have set foot on. There were faint scuff marks from boots that led towards the trees. He followed them closely and as they entered the woods the world seemed to change. Everything became quiet and for a while he forgot people were behind him and he just focused on the trail in front of him.

Whoever had been running was in an all fire hurry to get the hell away from camp, because they hadn't bothered being careful or discreet. There were ways to move in the woods without leaving an obvious trail, and they hadn't taken the time to do be so careful. The tracks told him whoever they were, they'd been running hard.

"They ran this way." He called, leading them down another embankment. There was a smear of now dried earth on a rock, similar to the one he'd seen in the opposite direction yesterday. Whoever this was, they were used to getting around quickly here.

The trail continued away from the embankment deeper into the woods where they found another creek cutting a narrow swath through the trees and underbrush. The mud was kicked up in one place and there were definitive shoe prints that were now baking in the sun. He called the others over to see.

"Told ya I wasn't seeing things." He growled, eyeing Shane with a look of disgust.

"Still, this could of been a Walker." Shane countered, glancing at Rick for conformation.

"Walkers have never made it this far through the woods." Glenn said quietly. "I've only seen them maybe half a mile outside the city."

"We call them Walkers for a freaking reason, Glenn!" Shane snapped, rounding on the Asian kid. He skittered back a step or two, despite holding onto a shotgun. Daryl rolled his eyes. The kid had balls, but they seemed to only appear when Walkers were between him and a set of wheels out of the city.

"Nah, Daryl's right. There's no kick marks, no scrapes, no blood or flesh. Whoever made this wasn't injured and both their feet worked just fine." Rick said, bending down and lightly touching the softened earth with his fingers. He glanced across the creek up the shallow embankment and into the next set of trees. "It keep going?" he asked, glancing at Daryl.

The hunter followed the one footprint across the bank, scooping up a little of the cold water from the creek and splashing it across his neck as he did so. When he reached the other side he saw nothing. He paced up and down several yards in each direction but saw no indication that whoever had come this way had crossed the creek.

"Nothing?" T-dog asked as Daryl continued to look.

"They must have walked through the creek a ways, maybe trying to throw us off. They had to have come out sometime though. Look for any footprints or disturbances in the creek bed, kicked stones or sticks, anything unusual." Without another word he turned and headed downstream.

"You don't think they would have gone that way do you? Its all rocks, not mud. They could slip and fall and break something with the current pushing their feet, especially in the dark." Glenn said as he and the others started to follow Daryl again.

"That's the point, Chinaman." Daryl drawled, half annoyed that his train of thought was being interrupted. "If someone really wants to throw you off, they'll do whatever they think they have to. Including risk a broken bone or two."

They fell silent again and Daryl sank down into his hunting mode. He was looking for any sign that a human had come this way, and like his quarry, he made sure to move in the water. The best way to find someone was to act like them. He'd found his brother after days of being absent that way many times. His father too. The others behind him kept to dry ground but he couldn't be bothered to care about the trail they were leaving. It could be a deterrent if his quarry saw and realized how many people were out this time.

The creek started to become deeper, hitting him at mid thigh now and the current was getting stronger. He shouldered his bow and kept his hands free. Once he put his foot down and even though he was wearing boots the soles couldn't grip. He slipped and staggered and his hand flailed out, snagging onto a branch that had embedded itself into the creek bed. When he regained his balance he looked up and saw that earth had been scraped away from the side of the embankment and there were thick gouge marks in the dirt. Someone or something had crawled their way up there.

He climbed up out of the creek at the same place and saw at the base of one of the thicker trees that the bark was scraped off. He glanced up into the tree and saw a piece of cloth snagged on one of the midlevel branches. He made sure his bow was secure across his back before hauling himself up into the tree, noticing a few twigs were snapped in places.

"They were up here!" he called down as the rest of the group crowded around the base of the tree. He pulled off the scrap of cloth away from where it was snagged but didn't come down just yet. More bark was scraped along the length of the tree's thicker branch. There was another tree not far away with a branch thick enough to support a human's weight.

"Holy shit." He chuckled lightly. Whoever this was, they were damned determined not to get caught. He climbed down from the tree and hit the ground lightly, holding up a piece of black cloth between his fingers.

"They climbed through the trees to avoid leaving a trail on the ground. But they had to come down sometime. Come on." He pocketed the piece of fabric and led the group through the trees, this time keeping his eyes skyward. When the trees thinned and became further apart, he started looking at the ground. He caught the faintest outline of a footprint in a pile of leaves in between two trees.

"Well? Where to now bloodhound?" Shane drawled as Daryl paused, squatting down to inspect this barest trace of a footprint. A few grey fibers were clinging to a piece of bark, fluttering in the faint breeze that began to blow. He plucked them free and stood up.

"They took their shoes off to make less of an imprint. Either they're desperate or their camp isn't far."

Judging by the sun it was about three in the afternoon and the heat was unrelenting, but even through the trees they could all see the gathering storm clouds in the distance. It wouldn't be long until those clouds reached them. They all looked at Rick, asking him to make a decision whether to stay or to keep going.

"All the tracks point to heading deeper into the woods?" the sheriff asked Daryl.

The tracker nodded. "I could follow it if I really took a mind too but now they're being careful. It'll take longer to get anywhere."

"Come on Rick, we should head back to camp. If someone really is out there, we'll be ready and waiting for them if they come back." He caressed the side of his gun with his thumb and Daryl didn't miss the cold gleam in his eye.

"Do you think you could pick the trail up again in the morning? Early?" Rick asked, turning back to Daryl who forced himself to drop the 'fuck you' look he was stabbing Shane's way.

"As long as the rain doesn't wash it out, should be fine. Or if this washes out, I could try where I saw the tracks yesterday morning. Odds are once they knew I was after them, they ran back to wherever they're holed up."

Rick nodded. "Alright then. You come back in the morning and keep looking. For now we head back to camp. We got work to do."

The trip back was silent and Daryl made sure he walked behind Shane this time. He'd had enough of feeling the man's eyes on the back of his neck. It was worse than a cold steel blade pressed against his skin.

When they got back to camp, most of the women were waiting for them anxiously. Lori jogged up and hugged her husband while Shane looked on, envy burning over every inch of his skin. It was the big dirty secret of the camp that Shane and Lori had been screwing around up until a week ago. Daryl wasn't sure exactly how many of the camp members knew, probably only the ones who worked with Shane closely on a regular basis. Shane was never exactly the subtle type, not for nothing, and it didn't take a genius to see the way Lori looked to him whenever Rick wasn't around.

It was after the evening storm had broken and he was using his little dagger to pick dirt from beneath his nails that he had an idea. If the intruder came back, why not have a little something waiting for them? Something in an opportune place where if they could be lured out into the open and they'd have a better chance of catching them, or at the very least getting a better look so they knew what they were dealing with. He proposed the idea to Rick over dinner.

"It's basically setting bait." He finished.

"What kind of bait did you have in mind? We can't go giving away more food." Andrea commented as she chewed the last piece of squirrel meat from yesterday's kill. He'd have to hunt again tomorrow. Sometimes he wished that he wasn't the only one capable of killing critters effectively but then again, it gave him an excuse to get away from camp for long periods, and that was a good thing no matter how he sliced it.

"Nah, not more food. I was thinking something a little more tempting." He held up the little dagger in his hand. The blade folded over and tucked into its handle like a pocketknife, but it could do more damage than those little weapons. This could kill, if handled properly.

"Oh great, you wanna give them a weapon now?" Amy scoffed. He shot her a look to which Andrea leaned forward over her sister possessively. It was like everyone was scared he'd jump them if they pissed him off. To his credit, he had a little more control than Merle had.

Although maybe not much more.

"It's something they wouldn't want to pass up." He reasoned. "If you were out in the woods alone and there's a possibility of Walkers running around, a knife ain't a bad thing to have. It's not a gun, but it's valuable."

"I'm not exactly comfortable with the idea either." Shane said as he scooped the last of the beans out of his can. "Plus if we just leave it in the open, it's an obvious trap. They won't go for it."

"We could have people waiting in the shadows nearby. If they come, we can snag them. There's almost twenty of us against one of them."

"You hope it's just one of them." Dale said quietly. "Maybe tracking them into the woods today scared them off. If it were me, and I was alone, I wouldn't be coming back here any time soon. Not after almost taking an arrow."

Daryl eased some of the tension in his jaw. Dale had a way of saying what he wanted, getting his point across, and usually he didn't step on too many toes in the process. If anybody could reason a point across gently, it was Dale.

Shane on the other hand could always be counted on to break bones whenever possible. "No. We're not leaving weapons out as bait. If they do have others with them, we can't let them have any edge, not even a little knife. Now I think we all know how easy it is to get killed these days. We need to minimize the chances."

"By doing nothing? That's real productive." Daryl snapped as he used a shard of bone to clean in-between his teeth. He shot a feral look at Shane and was pleased when he saw a thin twitch of fear run through his eyes.

"We'll have more guards on watch, in different parts of camp. If someone comes in, we'll see them." Rick said. There was a clear dismissal in his voice. The matter was over. Daryl just shrugged his shoulders and left the group. He had nothing else to say.

But he had plenty left to do, and he didn't need anyone's permission. Merle hadn't raised a spineless coward to bend to the will of others. He was a Dixon, and heaven help that son of a bitch if they came into camp again.

Although hell might have been the one to cast the bet on. There weren't any pearly gates or golden roads where they were going.