Thank you to everyone who read and especially to those who also reviewed my previous chapter. I am happy to see people seem interested in this plot. Your reviews mean so much to me. :) I hope you continue reading and continue to enjoy this story:
xxxxxx
Chapter2
"Daryl?" Glenn hissed in a somewhat panicked whisper as he pulled himself up out of the ditch. As he forced himself to stand, he did his best to avoid using his right arm, which seemed to have been the poor limb to have broken his fall for the most part. Even when he held still, his right shoulder and wrist hurt, so using it to pull himself to his feet would have surely been enough to reduce him to tears.
Next he began his short trek back to the pavement in order to search for his companion. Glenn's right ankle hurt when he walked on it, but not bad enough to suggest it was broken. He counted himself lucky that he was even able to walk considering how fast Daryl had been driving. The wreck could have easily damaged him much worse, or even killed him. He certainly hoped Daryl had been just as lucky...
In the darkness, he could see the motorcycle lying in the road, but saw no sign of it's driver. It was a pretty dark night, but the motorcycle's headlight shone ahead. It was in fact the only light to be seen, but illuminated only a single beam of space, and Daryl did not happen to be in that line of light.
Glenn limped over closer to the bike. Maybe Daryl had been thrown off it as well. He could be lying on the road nearby, or in one of the ditches, "Daryl?" Glenn's voice was becoming panicked as he looked around himself. What would he do if Daryl was seriously injured or dead? Glenn wasn't big enough to carry the man if he needed to, and certainly wouldn't be capable of doing so while also fighting off walkers they'd surely encounter. He wished it wasn't so dark. As much as he tried to survey the area, he could still see practically nothing. He had lost sight of the three walkers that had caused Daryl to lose control of the motorcycle too, "Daryl! Where are you!?" Glenn tried to whisper and yell at the same time. He wanted Daryl to be able to hear him, but he didn't want to alert the walkers to his presence, "please don't be dead..." Glenn muttered with a shaky voice.
Everything was eerily silent. He still neither saw nor heard any sign of the other man, that is, until his ears picked up the sound of an arrow whizzing through the air from somewhere nearby, followed by the thudding sound of a body hitting the asphalt.
"Daryl!" Glenn squinted his eyes in the darkness, but still couldn't see him. He could hear footsteps nearby, some in front of him and some behind him. Only one of those could be his companion. The other footsteps must have been that of a walker, "Daryl..." Glenn whispered. His breathing was beginning to become frantic, and now he noticed his ribs hurt quite a bit each time air entered and exited his lungs. As much as he tried to will himself to calm down, it just wasn't happening.
Since Daryl seemed unwilling to give him any hint as to his location, Glenn decided to just guess. He balled his hands into fists, ready to punch a walker in the face if he needed to and took a few hesitant steps forward.
Up ahead he could just barely make out the silhouette of a figure, but the night was much too dark for him to tell if the figure was living or undead. It was just a non-descriptive shadow. He hoped it was Daryl, "is that you?" he whispered as he walked nearer. The figure seemed to turn toward him, but made no effort to answer his question, "Daryl!?" Glenn hissed, "is that you?" His quick breaths were still panicked as he took another tentative step forward "Answer me, or I'm going to punch you as hard as I can when I get up there," he threatened, feeling his fingernails digging into his own palms.
The person ahead of him still said nothing. Glenn stopped walking toward it. Surely Daryl would have said something if it was him... right? Why wouldn't he? Unless he was somehow hurt so that he couldn't speak... "God damn it, Daryl!" Glenn's voice showed his stress level was rapidly increasing. Everything he said sounded shaky and uncertain.
When he felt something reach out and grab his arm from behind, Glenn screamed much louder than he would have if he had any control over his own reactions. He had already been on edge, so the rough fingers suddenly wrapping themselves around his upper arm did nothing to ease his fear. He tried to turn around and punch whatever had grabbed him, but it held onto him tight and pulled him right up against its body. It even crushed its other hand over his mouth, as if to keep him from screaming again.
In that instant Glenn knew it hadn't been a walker that had grabbed him. A walker wouldn't try to silence him. It wouldn't have cared if he screamed. And If it was a walker, it wouldn't have hesitated to start chewing on Glenn's throat right now, or clawing out his vital organs. But instead of feeling his body being ripped into pieces, he felt warm breath against his ear, "shhhhhh," a voice whispered, "I took out one of 'em," it was Daryl's voice of course, "there's at least two left. Keep quiet. You don't know how many of 'em are out in the woods. The more you scream, the more of 'em you'll attract," he paused, "got it?" he asked.
Glenn nodded, "um hm," his muffled answer attempted to make itself around Daryl's hand. Even though he was incredibly relieved to be in Daryl's hands instead of in a zombie's, his heart was still beating at a rate that made him feel like he was having some sort of panic attack.
"Stay close," Daryl whispered as he let go of Glenn and stepped out in front of him. Daryl started walking ahead, his crossbow aimed and ready to shoot anything that moved.
"There's one right ahead, I think," Glenn offered as he followed close behind the armed man, "I saw it before you grabbed me, but only just barely. It's too dark. I thought it was you."
"Shhhh," Daryl repeated his earlier warning, but walked in the direction Glenn had indicated, "yup," he muttered, steadying the crossbow and firing it ahead, seemingly at nothing. Glenn winced as he heard the geek's body thud against the ground. He didn't know how the man managed to have perfect aim even in almost complete darkness. Maybe Daryl had developed some sort of advanced night vision from having practically lived in the woods all during his childhood. At least, Glenn assumed he had probably been raised in such an environment. How else would he have become an expert at hunting and tracking and all that?
Glenn followed the other man as he went over to the fallen corpse to retrieve his arrow.
"Listen!" Glenn demanded in a hushed tone. Both he and Daryl stood in silence for a second, "I think I hear one over there," Glenn gestured to their left, "I can hear it breathing... or panting... or whatever it is they do..."
"It's close," Daryl whispered, moving slowly in the direction of the noise, "we need to get some god damned flashlights to carry around with us. There's a reason I don't go out hunting in the middle of the damn night. You don't got one in that backpack of yours, do ya?" he wondered, glancing over his shoulder at Glenn briefly before turning his attention back on the darkness ahead of them.
Glenn froze. He had forgotten all about his back pack. He in fact was still wearing it, and he indeed kept a flashlight in it. He felt so stupid for not remembering it sooner. Swinging the pack out from behind himself, he quickly unzipped it and started digging through it. His right wrist and shoulder hurt horribly whenever he moved his arm or hand, so he tried to avoid doing so, but he knew finding anything in the bag would be twice as difficult and would take twice as much time if he only used one hand. So he held his breath and used both hands, ignoring the shooting pain radiating up his arm and through his shoulder, "I've got one in here somewhere, I think..." he breathed out, wincing when he suddenly remembered his aching ribs. The entire right side of his body hurt. It seemed moving, and even breathing was going to cause him pain. He wondered if Daryl was hurt too. The man certainly didn't seem to be slowed down by any unseen injuries he might have.
Glenn's arms were shaking as he sifted through the bag, as he could almost feel Daryl's eyes boring into him. He didn't even want to see the look on the other man's face. He was probably beyond frustrated with the younger man.
"Just a second," Glenn rasped. To his great relief, he finally felt the plastic of the flashlight under some clothing in the bag. He wrapped his fingers around it and pulled it up out of the back pack, "got it," he breathed out, relieved that he didn't have to spend anymore time fumbling around with the bag like an idiot.
He held the light in his uninjured hand, flipped the switch, and shined the light ahead. The beam landed on the very walker they sought. Its pale, dead eyes shone in the light and its mouth hung open. Shiny red blood shone around its mouth. Glenn wondered if it was the walker's own blood or the blood of some unknown victim it had devoured. Hopefully it wasn't the blood from anyone in their group. Glenn could see that part of its face was gone. The skin around it's jaw was missing so that all of its teeth could have been seen even with its mouth closed. It looked like it was missing an ear too. Glenn wondered what this person had gone through before they had died. Were they eaten alive? Or did their body fall apart due to decay after their death?
Glenn jumped as Daryl released an arrow which immediately connected with the geek's skull. It's rotten body jerked back and then fell to the ground. The younger man shined the flashlight at the body so Daryl could see what he was doing as he stepped forward to retrieve his arrow. Replacing arrows was even more difficult than replacing bullets, and Daryl didn't have boxes and boxes of them. He probably just had four or five arrows total, so Daryl deemed it absolutely necessary to retrieve every single one. The only way he'd leave one behind was if going after it would mean his certain death... And Glenn had a feeling he might attempt to go after it even then.
After Daryl retrieved his arrow, Glenn kept his light trained on the fallen walker. He often found himself considering that these monsters all used to be normal people, but he was thinking about it even more tonight than ever. That walker was someone's son. He might have been someone's father, or brother, or best friend. Someone, somewhere cared about that monster a few months ago when he was a regular guy. He once had a life, a family, a job, worries, goals... And now all of that was gone. He was reduced to becoming a grotesque, bloodthirsty monster. He had ceased to be a unique individual person who people may have loved or looked up to and had instead become a something to fear.
It was a fate they would all fall into eventually. If Dale had ended up convincing Andrea to leave Amy there back at the campsite, and no one had destroyed her brain, she could be one of these creatures by now. Had Andrea shot her though? Maybe she'd thought about this already and shot her own sister just so she wouldn't turn into one of the walkers. Would he ever even know? It's not like he could bring it up in casual conversation... And maybe Andrea wasn't even alive anymore. Glenn didn't know what had become of all the other members of their group.
"Hey, you listenin' ta me, Chinaman?" Daryl waved his hand in front of Glenn's face.
"What?" Glenn blinked his eyes a few times and raised his eyebrows. He squinted in the darkness as he tried to see the face behind the voice. When he had no luck, he shined the light up at Daryl so he could see his face.
"Don't shine that damn light in my face," Daryl ordered, swatting Glenn's hand roughly so that he dropped the light onto the asphalt with a sound that could almost be described as a crack. Daryl reached down and quickly snatched up the light before Glenn could and shined it in the younger man's eyes, "I said are you alright?" he said in a slow tone as if he was talking to an idiot who couldn't otherwise understand him.
Glenn squinted. He brought his right hand up to shield his eyes from the light, wincing as the movement reminded him of the intense pain in his shoulder and wrist, "I'm fine," he hissed, but he actually felt quite nauseated. He was exhausted from running, stressed from having almost been killed, in pain from having been thrown off the motorcycle... And the bright light shining in his eyes wasn't helping one bit.
Daryl sighed loudly, "I didn't ask you so you could play tough and fuckin' lie to me. If you're hurt you gotta say so. Can't fix it if you deny anything's wrong."
Glenn hesitated, "can you at least stop shining the light in my eyes?" he requested.
"Not much fun is it?" Daryl scoffed as he shoved the flashlight back at Glenn, pressing it against his chest so that it was shining down at their feet.
Without thinking, Glenn brought his right hand up, as it was his dominant hand. He grabbed the flashlight and proceeded to immediately wince and drop it. It landed on the pavement again, with another cracking sound. It even flickered off for a moment, "I'm sorry!" Glenn gasped. The last thing they needed was to ruin their light source. He bent down and grabbed the light back up, holding it with a tight grip in his left hand.
"Your hand broken 'er somethin?" Daryl wondered, reaching out and grabbing Glenn's right wrist.
Glenn gasped in pain and flinched back, but Daryl held onto him too tightly for him to pull himself away from the other man, "I think my wrist's broken," Glenn hissed, "if you must know... And my shoulder might be dislocated. But you're not a doctor, so there's nothing you can do."
"Hey," Daryl glared at him, "don't assume I'm an idiot just 'cause I aint a city boy like you. Shine that light up here so I can see what I'm doin."
Glenn felt his eyes widen and tried again to pull his arm out of Daryl's grip, "Let me go, Daryl," he requested in a shaking voice. The older man still held onto his wrist too tightly for Glenn to easily pull out of his grasp. If Glenn wanted to get his arm free, it was going involve a lot of painful struggling, "Don't worry about it, Daryl," he insisted, "I'll just... uh... let someone look at it when we meet back up with the others..."
"Oh yeah?" Daryl asked, gripping the younger man's arm with both his hands now, "who?"
Glenn shook his head, "I don't know..." his breathing was becoming quite rapid again. Glenn wasn't comfortable even letting trained doctors look him over when he was injured. He certainly didn't want this guy who had absolutely no medical training trying to treat him. Daryl was probably more experienced in breaking bones than in mending them.
"Hold still," Daryl instructed, "I'm gonna pop your shoulder back into place."
"No..." Glenn shook his head again, "don't..." he tried to pull himself free, but Daryl was still gripping the limb too tightly, "Daryl, please... Just leave it alone. I'll deal with it later... It's not so bad... I can just wait. Surely Rick or Shane know something about it. Cops have some medical knowledge, right? They deal with emergencies all the time..." He could hear in his voice a hint of fear.
Daryl scoffed, "I wouldn't count on it. Cops don't know shit. Come on, Chinaman. It's no big deal. I've done this lots of times. You have any idea how many times Merle and I got into fights and fell out of trees and shit when we were kids? I've known how to fix a dislocated shoulder since I was fuckin' nine years old. I got this," Daryl assured him, "just hold still. It'll be over in no time. The longer you wait, the stiffer yer arm's gonna get, and the more it'll hurt when you finally fix it."
Glenn still wanted to protest, but it didn't look like anything he said was going to make a difference. Daryl thought he knew what he was doing, and he was going to do it whether Glenn okay-ed it or not. So he squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath, hoping the older man wouldn't make his injury worse than it already was.
Daryl held onto Glenn tightly and in one swift motion pushed his arm back, realigning the socket in his shoulder. Glenn actually could swear he heard a popping sound.
"Done," Daryl's voice sounded almost proud.
Glenn breathed out a shaky breath as he opened his eyes. He moved his arm slowly, cautiously. Sure enough, Daryl seemed to have fixed it. It still didn't feel great, but was definitely better off than it had been before. He looked over at Daryl, "thank you..." he breathed.
Daryl just shrugged, "can't do nothin' about yer wrist though," he reminded the younger man, "like you said, I aint no doctor. If I tried to fix that, I'd probably end up breaking it worse."
Glenn instinctively drew his wrist closer to himself, hoping Daryl wouldn't make any attempt to fix it when he was clearly unsure of his capability in to do so.
As Daryl began making his way back over toward the motorcycle lying on its side in the road, Glenn followed behind him.
The older man must have made an assessment to the damage caused to the vehicle before Glenn could even see it, because Daryl promptly kicked the bike and swore under his breath, "god fucking damn it!"
Glenn shined his flashlight at the wrecked motorcycle and tried to see whatever it was Daryl had seen. There was a pool of liquid under it. Probably gasoline. The fuel tank must have been ruptured somehow, "can you fix it?" Glenn wondered, hoping the other man wouldn't find the question to be too stupid to warrant an answer.
Daryl pulled the bike up and looked at it, "Nah. It's fucked," he pushed it back down, causing a loud crashing sound as the bike's metal frame ground against the rough asphalt of the road.
Glenn winced at the sound, hoping it hadn't alerted any walkers to their location.
"Guess we'll have to walk then," Daryl decided.
Before they abandoned the bike, the older man sifted through the compartments, taking out a large zip-lock bag filled with drugs, along with a few other things. Glenn wondered if those drugs were illegal. Not like it mattered now.
"What if the others kept going?" Glenn worried as he and Daryl started walking away from the bike and hopefully in the direction of the rest of their group, "I mean, for miles and miles? What if they stopped so far ahead that we can't get there on foot in one night? Where are we gonna go?"
Daryl shrugged, "we don't need them," he insisted, "if we don't find 'em, we'll find some sort of car or truck or whatever the hell we can. We can make it without 'em. Don't know 'bout you, but I never needed 'em in the first place."
Glenn frowned, "we're still going to look for them though, right?" he stared at Daryl, keeping his flashlight pointed at the ground, even though he really could have used it to help him read Daryl's cryptic facial expression, "maybe you don't need to be part of a group, but I do. I'm better at scouting alone... But I don't want to be completely alone for the rest of my life..."
"Am I nobody?" Daryl scowled down at him, "what definition of 'alone,' does you and me fit? We're two people, aint we? But yeah... We'll look for 'em. They'll prolly come back for us. If they were willing to go back for my brother, they'll sure as hell come back for you."
Glenn frowned, "that's not what I meant..." he hadn't meant to imply traveling with Daryl would be just as dangerous and unpleasant as traveling alone, "I'm glad I'm not actually all alone," he assured the other man as they started walking away from the site of their collision with the walkers and toward where the rest of their group had hopefully gone, "and I'm really grateful you didn't leave me back at camp. I just mean... Well, I liked the dynamic of having a whole group... Like a family. Everyone had jobs and we all looked out for each other."
"Two people can be a family too," Daryl muttered, "Merle and I never fit in with your group. We'd have done just fine without all you guys. Probably should have left when we still could. I'm sure you noticed, but Merle don't play well with others."
Glenn laughed. He hoped his reaction wouldn't offend Daryl, but he couldn't help it. There was certainly truth in what Daryl had just said, "yeah... I noticed."
He looked over at Daryl who was also grinning slightly, "He's my brother, and I love him, but he sure can be a pain in the ass."
Glenn kept silent. Agreeing might not be his wisest move. He knew full well that insulting your own family was a lot more okay than someone else insulting them. So he wasn't going to say anything at all to that.
"I don't like other people any more than he does, but god damn... Sometimes you just gotta deal with people..." Daryl frowned, "But I think he kind of likes messing with people. He don't like 'em, but instead of avoiding 'em all together like I'd prefer to, he goes up to 'em and harasses 'em."
Glenn nodded. He had noticed that about the Dixon brothers. They both seemed to dislike living with the rest of the group. Daryl typically just stayed away from everyone, while Merle seemed to enjoy getting into arguments with them.
Daryl slung his cross bow over his right shoulder as he continued walking down the road, "you think we could do without the light?" he wondered, "It'd be a shame if we used up all the battery now and ended up needing light later."
Glenn turned the light off. Sure enough, they could still see a bit. The dim light of the moon and stars wasn't much, and if they heard any sound in the nearby woods, he was going to turn the light back on in a millisecond, but for now, he supposed they could get by without it.
Each time he stepped on his right ankle an uncomfortable feeling of pain radiated up his leg. He knew it wasn't broken. It didn't hurt enough for that, but it certainly was making walking more than a little unpleasant. And to make matters worse, Daryl's pace was picking up, which forced Glenn to walk faster, which forced him to breathe more heavily, which caused his most-likely-bruised ribs to throb with a dull pain as well.
"I'm sorry about your brother," Glenn broke the silence as he almost jogged to keep up with the older man, "I mean... I didn't really talk to him much... In fact he kind of scared me... But I still wish we hadn't had to leave him behind... If I could go back, I'd have made sure we handled the situation differently."
Daryl glared over at him, "yer actin' like he's dead."
Glenn raised his hands defensively, "No... I just mean it must suck to not know where he is... To not know if he's okay or not."
"You know where all yer relatives are?" Daryl raised his eyebrow as he glanced over at the younger man, "They even have this whole zombie business goin' down in China?"
Glenn sighed heavily, partially because his quick pace and exhaustion were making breathing quite a chore, and partially because of his annoyance with the other man, "I'm not Chinese, Daryl. How many times do I have to tell you that?
"Korea then," Daryl's tone showed he didn't see any difference between the two places and thought Glenn was being petty for even bringing it up. But the fact that Daryl was the one who corrected himself assured Glenn that Daryl did in fact remember where the younger man was from. He was getting it wrong on purpose, just because he knew Glenn didn't like it.
"I imagine if the rest of the world wasn't going through the same disaster as we are, they'd have sent someone in to help," Glenn looked over at the older man, "but my family isn't in Korea either. They're in Michigan..." he frowned and looked away, "and I guess they're probably dead."
He felt Daryl clap him on the shoulder, "so you got no reason ta be feelin' sorry for my brother. He may be minus a hand, but at least we got good reason to believe he's alive."
Glenn winced loud enough to cause Daryl to move his hand back quickly.
"Sorry. Forgot about that," Daryl gestured toward the younger man's shoulder, "and sorry yer family's probably dead... but you never know... Michigan's a long way away... Maybe stuff ain't as bad there."
Glenn shook his head, "you see how many people are left around here? Atlanta is a huge city, and out of all the people I've seen lately, most of them aren't alive... not by my definition of the word. The chances of any of my family, let alone all of them, being alive are pretty much none."
"Just tryin' to look on the positive side," Daryl shrugged, but immediately his focus shifted, "shhh," he reached his hand out and stopped Glenn in his tracks, "you hear that?" He stood still and silent, waiting for Glenn to listen and hear the same sound he'd heard.
It sounded like something walking out in the woods. Glenn could hear leaves rustling and twigs snapping nearby, not close enough to say whatever it was was right on them, but not far enough away to keep him from worrying, "maybe it's just a deer..." Glenn suggested without much confidence in the likeliness of this possibility.
Daryl shook his head, "come on," he grabbed Glenn's arm and pulled him forward for a second, but proceeded to release his grip and end up a few paces ahead as he walked rather briskly, "I'm not sure how many are out there, but I'd rather just get out of here instead of waitin' to find out. They probably heard all that commotion earlier, so the slower we walk, the more of 'em are gonna swarm up together. We should get out of here, fast."
The older man was starting to jog, so Glenn was forced to begin jogging as well, no matter how much his body protested. He knew Daryl was right; they needed to get out of there while they still could, before their spot on the highway became a mini-repeat of the disaster that just went down at their camp site. He just wished he wasn't already so exhausted.
He still hadn't fully recovered from his earlier run back to camp. His legs had felt like jello this whole time. That on top of his hurt ankle and ribs was making this method of travel extremely uncomfortable. He could hear his own breathing sounded more like wheezing. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep up with the older man's pace. Daryl was already getting too far ahead for Glenn's comfort. The older man was the only one with a weapon, so Glenn didn't want to get left too far behind...
xxxxxx
Please review if you've made it this far. :) The next two (last two) chapters of this story are shifting to be more in Daryl's point of view as opposed to Glenn's. Glenn, of course, will remain a main character, as he is one of my very favourites (and of course you can see, based off this story and my other Walking Dead story, Daryl is my other favourite)