Daryl
The night drags on with my stomach growlin'. I can't sleep. I mean, I really can't sleep. The girl is still unconscious. There's nobody to keep watch. If a walker came along, we'd both be eaten. I could only assume it was about 4 or 5 in the morning, still no daylight, the fire was almost nothin' but smoke and ash.
I lay on my back just a few feet away from the girl. I wonder if she's as cold as I am. I'm sure she's got to be. I feel sorta bad. My flannel can't be too warm...but hell, I'm layin' here in my wifebeater. I guess when daylight breaks, I'll carry her for however many miles I can make. The prison shouldn't be too far by now. I wonder if the Governor has his goons out lookin' for her. There's a reason they beat her and tied her up like an old yard dog.
I close my eyes for just a moment, or what I think is a moment...and suddenly I feel the sun on my face. I sit up and stretch. The girl hasn't moved much during the night. I look her over. I can't get over the bruises and cuts she's covered in. ("Ya ain't never s'pose to hit a woman!" my grandaddy would say. He was probably the only decent man I ever had to look up to, and I'll be damned if he didn't die when I was 9). I find myself wonderin' about what color her eyes were. I think her eyes were brown. I can't remember.
"We gotta get going," I say outloud to myself.
I grab my crossbow and stomp out the embers left from the night's fire. I go over to the girl and prepare to scoop her up. I guess I can try to fireman-carry her a couple of miles. (God knows I carried Merle's drunk ass home plenty of nights. We were poor, and keeping a car wasn't the easiest for us Dixon boys). I put my right arm under her knees and go to put my left arm behind her shoulders, when she jolts up.
"Please! Don't hurt me! I don't have the keys!" She seems almost delirious. She's flailin' her arms and legs all over the place.
"Hey! Hey!" I say, blocking her swinging arms. "Lady! If ya ain't noticed, yer in the woods."
She stops and gathers herself, looking around. "Why? Why'd you bring me here? You gonna kill me?" Her voice is hoarse and raw, like she had been screaming for days.
"I came to Woodbury to find my brother...got there too late. I wanted to kill that one-eyed sumbitch...but I found you instead. I was gonna leave you there, but I couldn't."
I stand back up and switch my crossbow to my other shoulder.
She takes this into consideration, but she's doubtful. "So, you just saved me, out of the goodness of your heart?"
I don't know how to answer her, so I just...I just stand there and shrug.
She flattens the flannel shirt against her legs and looks at me, "Thank you." It sounds almost like a question, the way she says it.
I nod. My eyes divert to her legs. "If ya don't mind my askin', what'd they do to ya?"
"Beat me. Starved me."
"By the looks of it, I thought one of 'em mighta had..." I stopped.
"They didn't rape me. Besides, there are worse things. They have my son."
"You-you have a kid?"
"Grayson." Her voice trembles.
"So, was it just you, your kid, and your hus-" She stops me before the word can come out.
"He died on our way to Atlanta."
I don't know how to respond, I look down at my feet. A good minute passes by. "Why'd he take your boy?"
"Gray is 11. He's an incredible marksman. The Governor can use him, mold him into a perfect little soldier. He's preparing for war, I heard. Making an army. Something about a prison."
I feel a slight adrenaline rush flow through my veins. "Oh?"
"Yeah." Her eyes are downcast.
"Well, we ain't got much time. Plenty more miles to put behind us 'fore dark. I'm gonna take you to my group. We have refuge."
"Where?"
"The prison."
I feel bad for the girl. Walkin' through the woods for at least 2 miles now...shoeless, pantless, and weak. I have her arm draped over my shoulders and my arms around her waist. I am almost supporting this girl's body weight. This girl's. And it crosses my mind, I don't even know her name.
We are walking through some tall grass, "Be careful, um, er...?" I stutter.
"Marissa. Marissa Bolding." She says as she clenches her hand to my shoulder, grimacing as her bare feet scrape across the weeds and dry, dead grass.
"Daryl Dixon." I pull her up a little bit, supporting more of her weight.
"Merle Dixon, was he your brother?" Her sudden question makes me stop us dead in our tracks.
"Ya knew him?"
"No. I had seen him. Heard of him. But never met him." She holds my gaze for only a moment.
I think to myself, 'Good. At least she's one person that he didn't cause pain to.'
"He died a hero, I heard. He took out a lot of Phil- I mean, the Governor's men."
"I know." And I smile for the first time since...I can't remember when. She gives a small smile back.
Our mere second of solitude is interrupted by that old familiar sound. Walkers. There's about 6 of 'em...and me with only 3 arrows.
"What do we do?" Marissa asks frantically, she has both her arms around my shoulders, like she's about to leap into my arms or somethin'.
"You sit c'here," I ease her down to the ground and hand her an arrow. "Stab the geek through the head if one gets close to ya."
"What are you going to do with 2 arrows?"
"Lady, you really underestimate me."
One good thing about walkers is that they travel in herds, close together. Like packs of ravinous wolves. I aim just right and take out 2 walkers with one arrow. It plowed right through the head of some poxy bastard in coveralls and lodged right into the forehead of an obese female walker in a really bad tracksuit. I run over to retrieve my arrow when one of the geeks gets it's arms around me. I hear Marissa screaming. I take the arrow in my hand and stab the fucker right through the eye. It releases me and hits the ground hard. I load my crossbow quick as I can and run to Marissa in the high grass. I find her laying there, a dead geek in her lap...and arrow shoved right through the poor bastard's temple. She is shivering with it's blood on her hands and her bare legs. She is crying.
"Ain't no time to be cryin'!" I say, standing over her. Thank God I loaded my bow when I did...the remaining 3 walkers were approaching fast. I used both of my arrows. I got one right in the back of the head and the other again in the eye. The eyes were always the sweet spot...easy to penetrate. Marissa is sitting at my feet, I lean down and take my last arrow from the dead geek's head. I take the last walker down. Then I do something I hadn't done in a long time. I pull out my huntin' knife and cut off that dead bastard's ears. And I cut off Tracksuit's ears too. I used my bootlaces to fashion necklaces for me and Marissa.
"The scent will keep the walkers away from us." I lean down and hand it to her, and she reluctantly places it over her head.
I extend my hand to her. She looks up at me with tears in her eyes, fresh blood on her body, but grabs my hand anyway.
We were closer to the prison than I thought. We made it right as night fell.
"Carol! Carol! Hey!" I kick the fence.
"Who's that?" Glenn yells from the guard tower, his pistol aimed right for Marissa. Glenn, once the "nice guy" turned hard by the shithole world we live in. If Glenn's on watch, it must be later than I thought.
"Let us in, bro!" I yell.
"Who. Is. She? Why should I let another outsider in?" He asks sternly, pistol still aimed.
Marissa, still hanging onto me, her eyes are begging Glenn.
"I rescued her from Woodbury! She ain't no threat! Let us in!" My voice is angrier now. I kick the fence several times.
Glenn lowers his pistol, "Alright. But Rick is going to flip."
"Whatever, man. We ain't got all day, now open this damn gate!"
Glenn makes his way down from the tower and fumbles his key into the padlocks. We pass through the entrance and rid ourselves of our geek necklaces. We march halfway up the hill when Glenn cannot restrain from asking the obvious, "Miss, where's your pants?"
Marissa explains while we help her inside.
We make our way to Cell Block C.
"Hey guys, Daryl's brought in a stray!" Glenn says, almost jokingly...but I know he's not. After Rick chased off that black fella and his group of 4 (but one of 'em died here), I can only imagine what kind of argument is about to erupt. Rick has been a lil' "off" since the death of Lori.
Carol's on the loft folding laundry. Hershel and Maggie are sittin' on the stairs, Hershel with his Bible in hand. Beth is in a cell with Judith nuzzled to chest, softly hummin'. Michonne is sitting across the way, against the wall, looking hard as ever. Rick and Carl are rummaging through a bag of ammo. But they all stop. All starin' at us. Starin' at this pretty but broken woman hangin' onto me.
I speak first. "This here is Marissa. I helped her escape from Woodbury...they had her tied up like a wild animal." There eyes are unconvinced. "She knows things about Woodbury, about the Governor. She might can help us," I add.
Carol makes her way down the steps with some laundry in her hand, "You poor girl. What happened to you? Bruised...half naked-"
"I have a good idea, " Maggie interrupts, fire in her eyes.
Glenn hangs his head down. Rememberin' the time he and Maggie were once held captive by the Governor. Rememberin' what that sumbitch did to Maggie.
Rick is still assessing the situation. We all look at him. Look to him. He finally walks up, a hand placed on his chin, almost like he's inspectin' a new car as he looks her over.
"Name?" His blue eyes go over Marissa's blackened face.
"Marissa Bolding."
"Age?"
"29," Marissa cocks her head in confusion.
"And what did Marissa Bolding do before the world went to shit?" He asks. I see what he's doin'. He's determinin' how useful she will be to us.
"I...I was a nurse. I worked in a nursing home for years, and became a post-op nurse just a few months before the outbreak." She seems puzzled by the question, but Rick looks pleased. Somebody with experience caring for sick and injured humans. Very useful.
"And you know the Governor? How do we know this ain't a set-up?" He continues his interrogation.
Suddenly, Michonne rises up from her seated position, still leaning against the wall. She never makes eye contact with Marissa, only Rick. "I recognize her. She was all buddy-buddy with the Governor's right hand man, Milton."
"Is that so?" Rick looks from Michonne to Marissa.
"Yes. Milton was a doctor, not a real doctor, but for all intents and purposes, he was. We worked side by side for a while. The Governor had us working on a cure."
"A cure?" Rick seems amused.
"Yeah, I didn't think and still don't think it's possible." Marissa says, but quickly speaks again before she can be interrupted with any more questions. "Look, you don't have to trust me, but please believe, I want what you want." She shifts her weight from her right leg to her left, but I continue to hold on to her. I can feel her knees buckling. She could collapse and be comatose again at any minute. She's so exhausted. Hungry. Dehydrated. This ain't no time for her to be arguin'.
"Which is?" Rick responds.
"The Governor dead."
"Why?" His blue eyes are tense.
"Is that your son?" Marissa nods her head towards Carl. "He's got your eyes."
"Yeah. My boy, Carl."
"You love him?"
"He and Judith (Rick motions his head over to the baby Beth is holding) are all I have." Rick rubs his fingers across his lips.
"The Governor has my boy. My boy is all I have." Marissa eyes look alive for the first time.
"I need to talk this over with the group. Daryl, put her in a cell until we decide." Rick commands. "Carol, get her some water and a can of food."
I walk her down to the last cell, hoping she won't be able to hear us. I ease her onto the cot. As I lay her down, her arms are still wrapped around my neck, "Thank you."
I just nod and ply her arms from around my neck. Carol is standing at the cell door with a glass of water and a can of English peas.
"It ain't caviar, but it's all we have for now." She says apologetically.
"It's okay, I'm more than grateful." Marissa responds, sitting up, welcoming the food and water with outstretched, tremblin' hands.
It feels like we deliberate over it forever. Mostly everyone is for letting Marissa stay. Rick remains apprehensive, though.
"She fucks up once, Daryl, once...she's gone." He says, pointing his finger at no one in particular.
"You'll need to teach her how to hold her own," Hershel chimes in. "She's been sheltered in Woodbury, might not have much survival skills."
"I can do that," I reply.
"I can help," Michonne adds. "I could see her disdain for the Governor when I saw her in Woodbury. The way she looked at him. And now he's got her kid. We could have the Governor dead in a month," Michonne smiles an ominous smile.
Carol stands up, rubbing her hands on her pants, "Well, let's get her some clean clothes. A shower. The poor girl, she's been through a lot."
"Daddy, maybe you could look her over? She looks like she could have breaks or fractures. Her bruises are so...so agonizing to look at." Beth says to Hershel. Beth was a kind soul.
"I suppose I could look her over...but she is a nurse...she may not want advice from an old, one-legged veterinarian," Hershel chuckles.