CHAPTER 4

In Which: Glenn is introduced to the art of hillbilly lawn ornamentation and Daryl's patience is tested .

Guest Appearance: none (there may be one in hiding)

A short segment of infrared radiation tore through the vacuum of space at 670,616,629 mph, ripping straight through the earth's atmosphere on it's unflinching trajectory. After 92,960,000 relentless miles, it's pilgrimage was fulfilled. It was absorbed, it's particles redistributing to feed it's new host.

Afternoon sunshine flowed unhindered into the glade, a pleasant warmth on the back of Glenn's neck that he refused to enjoy while he fretted.

He had turned his back for one minute—one minute—and Daryl was gone. He figured the guy liked him to some degree (let him use The Crossbow, after all) and wouldn't leave him in danger without good reason. But another, nastier part of him figured the hunter was like a sight-hound, sensing something and taking off after it without a thought to anyone else.

Never mind about ol' Glenn. He'd be fine, alone, in walker-and-bear-infested woods with no provisions and a bat. He was resourceful. It wasn't like he couldn't scavenge anything useful from a gopher hole or run freely across the treetops if necessary. He was in his element. He'd be fine.

Though abundant, his sarcasm was a limited resource and dried up like the best wine at a party. The cheap stuff always goes down better after that and he felt himself slipping into hurt and anger. Because really, he hadn't expected this. What an asshole! They seemed to have been getting along decently. Damn it, this was so typical, why he had trusted him, he was such an idiot—and so on.

Glenn was doing an admirable job of working himself into a real fit when he happened to notice the man in question lazily climbing the steps to the cabin.

...Well.

Perhaps he'd gotten a bit carried away; it happened sometimes.

Giving his hat a quick tug, he sprinted the distance and cleared the porch stairs in one step. He reached the hunter's side, breathing easily, just as the man turned his head.

Daryl stood there, crossbow in one hand and doorknob in the other, and looked at him with a satisfied little smile. As if he had been expecting to see him there, as if he had just made a bet with himself and won. Glenn hefted his bat guiltily and nodded that he was ready. The redneck returned the nod, paused three seconds, and shoved the door open with a bang, bow held high and mushrooming with tension.

Nothing happened.

He cautiously entered, quickly checking each corner of the room. He checked behind the door, behind the curtains, under the bed, in the large trunk at its foot. Glenn searched for a closet (there wasn't one) before lifting the rug. He made eye contact when Daryl glanced his way, gesturing to the cellar door he'd discovered. Wordlessly, Daryl opened it. It gave a creaking groan and Glenn winced at the volume. Fishing a maglite from his backpack, he passed the bat to Daryl for a small knife and lowered himself down.

It didn't take long to explore. A few dirt steps dumped him into a tiny store room packed tightly with crates and sacks. He was forced into a crouch to fit and it smelled awful. Not the viscerally recognizable dead-person smell, but almost as nasty. He peeked into the closest bag, gagging as the ambrosial delight of decaying organic matter leaped out and smacked him in the face. Blegh. He puffed out his cheeks and held is breath as he scuttled back up the stairs. Daryl gently lowered the door behind him and handed back his bat.

"Anythin?"

"Nope, just rotten food, few rabbits. At least I think that's what they used to be. Rabbit-sized mammals."

He looked up and was met with a suspicious look.

"Y'sure."

"It's the size of a matchbox down there," he defended, kicking the moldy rug back into place. "And filled with crates and big bags. There's not enough square footage for something the size of a person to hide. And everything was so neat and organized. No way a walker's been down there."

Narrowed eyes held his gaze for a moment longer before the man grunted and walked outside without a word. Glenn rolled his eyes—that was starting to get seriously annoying—and hurried after him.

"Hey!"

To the left, he caught sight of a heel disappearing around the corner of the house. Thumbs tucking into pack straps, he jogged around to follow and found himself faceplanted on the ground with an aching shin. What the fu— No. You know what? This was normal. It took too much effort to be surprised anymore. Getting to his feet, feeling very old and world-weary, he brushed himself off absently and turned to see what he had wiped out over.

It was a toilet.

Glenn boggled.

The porcelain throne, mankind's social equalizer, was sitting beside the cabin in the crab grass, innocently as you please. A healthy bouquet of marigolds sprouted jauntily from the open lid. Glenn did a quick scan of the area, but didn't see any more marigolds. They didn't appear to be wild here. He looked back at the flowers growing in the toilet.

Piñata had been a weird ass dude.

"Short Round! Getcher ass over here."

He found Daryl behind the cabin, standing in front of a 6x4 patch of freshly (relative to the rest) overturned earth. There was a dilapidated outhouse near the treeline that had its own distinctive fragrance. Glenn wasn't sure if it was better or worse than the cellar and concluded that his poor nose was supersaturated with funk and temporarily offline.

"Bout time," Daryl said, shooting him a look that Glenn could have interpreted as accusatory. That didn't make any sense though, so he must have missed something.

"Looks like Piñata had a vegetable patch. Guess we should call him Farmer Joe instead," he attempted a light joke, which didn't come out funny at all.

Daryl continued to suck on his invisible lemon. "Stupid spot for it, shaded lee o' the house. No plants neither."

He shifted his stance and his eyes, as if looking for distraction from whatever had rubbed his fur the wrong way. Then he crouched down, ostensibly (Glenn assumed) searching for clues to this non-mystery in a giant random pile of dirt.

Glenn raised an eyebrow with an incredulous laugh and recklessly decided to voice this.

"Finding any clues to this non-mystery in the giant random pile of dirt?"

He was expecting the man to give him a languid yet scathing summary of why city boys should leave tracking to actual men. He didn't expect Daryl's head to snap up with a crazy face, closed-off hurt mutating to open-ended sneer in the blink of an eye. Glenn's laughter died and he watched in confusion as Daryl stomped away to continue securing the perimeter.

Well. He'd ask if it was that time of the month but he didn't really want his head ripped off.

He trailed after him, cautiously peering around the next corner. On this side of the clearing, a ten foot section of underbrush and trees was missing, forming a clear opening in the treeline. To Glenn's surprise, the ground sloped down at a serious angle into a... well, into a glen. It was parabolic, with the far side having a matching upward slope. The bottom of the shallow ravine had a thick carpet of mid length grasses, with a few trees scattered near a brook that ran lengthwise. It was very pretty. Judging from the fact that Daryl had firmly planted himself at the entrance, priming his bow and scanning the scene below, it was also a very good hunting spot.

Glenn wasn't sure what he should do, so he went with the first thing that came to mind and flopped down next to him, using his pack as a pillow and gazing up into the sky.

"This is a good spot," he said for the sake of speaking. "Do you think this is natural or cut down?"

Daryl grunted.

Okay then.

He closed his eyes, resigned to the other man's mood and allowed himself to enjoy the sunshine. Daryl was breathing quietly and steadily beside him and it occurred to him how rare peaceful moments like this were nowadays. Still boring as hell which he detested with every ounce of his being, of course. But who could say no to a catnap in a sunbeam?

Besides Piñata Joe.

He cracked an eye open at Daryl. "Hey did you see the toilet? I tripped over it."

Daryl bounced his gaze off him and latched onto the distance. "So."

Glenn opened the other eye and shifted up to lean on his elbow. "You did see it. Isn't that bizarre? It's just sitting there! And he specifically planted marigolds in it! It probably used to be inside and when it broke he thought to himself hmm... Chamber pot? Flower pot!"

He enacted the scene more for his own benefit than Daryl's, scratching his chin in deep thought before twirling and stabbing the air with his index finger in the universal 'ah-HA' motion.

Unbeknownst to the others, one of the primary reasons he lasted so long by himself in Atlanta was his ability to keep himself company and entertain himself. Humor is a very encouraging, stress-reducing emotion. This most recent imagined scenario cracked him up and he burst out laughing at his own joke.

"So."

Glenn forced himself to calm down. "What?"

"Howzat funny."

Aaand joke ruined. He sighed. "I've never seen that before. A toilet is a shit pot and he's using it as a flower pot. It's an absurd juxtaposition, and a pun, and it's just so... I don't know, it's funny."

He did not say, 'it's so white trash', which saved his life because next thing he knew:

"Had one in front when I's a kid. Only this'n had daisies."

Glenn's brain had heard words that were too good to be true and froze.

"Wait, wait, when you were a kid... your family had a toilet in the front yard... with daisies planted in it?"

Daryl nodded stiffly. His face began to flush, reflecting the creeping realization that he had just made a grievous error.

Glenn didn't notice because he was laughing so hard. "Wait, wait!" he gasped, the most ridiculous thought ever coming to him. "In the summer, did you ever wear cutoff jeans? Classic redneck shorts, above the knee? Pleaseplease say yes."

Bewilderment and morbid curiosity flickered across Daryl's face. His eyes never left Glenn's as he hesitantly nodded.

"How's it goin, Daisy Duke!"

He exploded with an unattractive guffaw. Panicked birds shot out of overhanging limbs. A distant moose was startled. Daryl's jaw began to tick, his face reddened further with a different emotion and his knuckles whitened.

It was around this time that Glenn's survival instincts decided it was time to break up the party and coughed pointedly in the back of his mind. He finally looked at Daryl—really looked—and his stomach dropped unexpectedly to his shoes.

"Did I say Daisy Duke? I meant Duke Nukem! Definitely meant Duke Nukem. Daisy Duke, that was, pfft... " he made the most scornful scoff he could physically attempt. "That's just—I mean that doesn't even make any sense."

Daryl was looking at him again, jaw still clenched and ticking, but face approaching a semi-normal shade, caught between amusement and white fury. A fat young coyote trotted merrily across the valley floor, pausing now and again to sniff a particularly exciting pile of scat. Neither human noticed.

"That's just stupid. No sense at all, psshh. Daisy Duke... Duke Nukem... But you did say they were daisies... It's too... "

He blinked owlishly, hoping against hope for compromise. "Daisy Nukem?"

Daryl emitted a strangled, enraged growl that frankly scared the bejesus out of him. Then the man stood and furiously stalked away into the forest. Glenn guesstimated a 500% probability that he was not supposed to follow. With a sigh, he retreated into the cabin and hoped he would survive long enough to apologize.

Love lost, such a cost
Give me things that don't get lost
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you

Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past
But I'm all alone at last
Rolling home to you

"Old Man" by Neil Young