Author's note: Thank you to those of you who have reviewed. I very much appreciate hearing what you like about the story. It gives me that wonderful warm and fuzzy feeling. The little town of Sunnydale is a tip of the hat to Buffy The Vampire Slayer. This chapter proved a little difficult to write, but with a little help from a friend I was able to revise it and make it flow well enough that I'm comfortable finally putting it up. As promised, Rick does appear at last in this chapter, though his role is much larger from the next chapter forward.
Warnings: Again, I want to warn everyone that things from here forward may spoil parts of the show and if you're not okay with Spoilers, don't read on. Most of the proceedings contain speculation on my part as to what's going on in the background of the show and some of that is pulled from the comics. A lot of it is creative license but I just want to be fair.
Chapter Four
Sasha emerged from the back of the church a good long while later. Her eyes were red and puffy and she hunched a little, like she was in physical pain. Maggie and Carol had gone off to start gathering supplies to stock up the church just a little bit ago, and Jason was entertaining Mika, Beth, Judith and trying to interest Lizzie with the animals. Bob got up and went to her immediately, sparing Daryl the uncomfortable responsibility of trying to be something he wasn't. Comforting people, women especially, just wasn't something he was able to do. At least not well enough for a women who'd just lost her last blood kin.
He did walk over and gently lay a hand on her shoulder. She looked to him, biting her lower lip and nodded. Daryl took that as a yes to his unspoken question and made his way to the back of the church. Dirty work he could handle. He located the back door first, then checked the few rooms until he found the one with the sheet covered body. It was a little bit of a struggle, Tyreese hadn't been a small man, but eventually he managed to get the body outside. For a moment, he considered just walking away now that the body was out of the church, but Andrea's voice whispered in the back of his mind, "We bury the ones we love and burn the rest."
Sasha had loved her brother. Tyreese deserved a grave if only because Sasha had loved him. After all it didn't matter a lick to Tyreese with him being dead and all. There was a small shed behind the church and it took very little effort to break the lock on it. Inside were all kinds of garden tools. When he was finished burying Tyreese, he'd haul the useful ones inside for his people to have as weapons.
It was hard work and it was hot, but Daryl didn't quit until the job was done. When he finally came back into the church with his crossbow on his shoulder and several garden tools in his arms, the others had come back. Maggie and Carol had apparently made several trips while he'd been toiling away in the backyard. They now had enough food, formula, baby food and bottled water to last them the next few days. Long enough, Daryl reckoned, for them to find Rick and the others.
Beth approached him while he set the garden tools on the nearest pew and offered him a bottle of water. He took it with a nod that she returned. "I'm going to stay here with Judith. Maggie wants to go out with you and Jason to find Glenn and the others."
Daryl sucked down the last of the water, not caring that some of it was dribbling down his chin, then crunched the bottle when he was done, tossing it off to the side. "Alright."
Beth fidgeted. "Jason thinks you guys should move out as soon as you're ready. He seems really worried that if any of our people reach The Terminus they'll never make it back out alive."
"Then we best get goin'." Daryl wiped at his chin and started to move past her but her hand on his elbow stopped him. Looking down, he met worried blue-grey eyes.
"You are a very valuable part of this group. You've kept us fed and alive and protected right from the start." Those eyes searched his and Daryl was surprised that he felt no inclination to look away. "If you see the Terminus gates before you've found Rick or Carl or Michonne or even Glenn…you turn your ass right back around and come home. We can't lose you both."
She didn't have to tell him that she meant they couldn't lose both him and Rick. After a small internal struggle – not one part of him was in any way okay with leaving Rick behind, or any of the others – he finally nodded. It was what Rick would have wanted Daryl to do. Rick would have wanted Daryl to make sure his little girl had a good long life and that the others were taken care of. Satisfied, Beth nodded and let go of his elbow before moving on to Sasha who was seated in a pew near the altar. Daryl watched her go a minute, then continued on his way over to Jason and Maggie who were talking quietly by the doors. They both turned to him when he neared them.
"We'll head back to that little neighborhood where you found the shirt and shoe," Jason said. He was all business. "I think you're a good enough tracker that we might be able to pick up their trail before nightfall if we hurry. Maggie says Rick wears cowboy boots and that sounds like a blatant kinda track to follow in all this read dirt."
Daryl nodded, but a sudden presence at his elbow stopped him from he could say anything. Carol had come up with Judith and she handed the little girl to Daryl before he'd fully registered that she was there. "You come back," Carol insisted and leaned up to kiss Daryl's cheek before he could protest or duck away. "She needs you at the very least."
Daryl looked down at the little girl in his arms and then pulled Judith close to kiss her forehead. "I'll be back 'fore y' know it."
Carol accepted this and carefully took Judith back. The little girl squirmed and whined, reaching back for Daryl. It warmed his heart to see her so adamantly interested in him and he reached out to catch her little hands in gentle, calloused fingers. "Hey. You be a good little hellraiser while I'm gone," he murmured. It was hard to let her hands go, but he made himself and then turned to the others. "Let's get goin'. We're wastin' time."
Jason and Maggie abruptly turned and he followed them out the door without a backwards glance.
Daryl had been unable to find a single track that he could definitively say was Rick's. Not on the way back to the neighborhood they'd found the shirt and shoe at. Couldn't find Carl's either. It stood to reason that the boy'd been smart enough to find himself another pair of shoes eliminating the obvious shoe/no shoe tracks. There were just too many tracks from Walkers and potentially other survivors in the yards of the houses in the neighborhood, and it was the same with the shoulders of the road. It was frustrating and Daryl felt his temper rising again.
"Doesn't yer dog track?" he grumbled when they'd stopped for a break several hours later. He knew he sounded pissed off, but sunset wasn't far off and they didn't even know if they were heading in the right direction. It was disappointing and twisted him up inside. Maggie looked just as put out, remaining mostly silent for the trip so far. Traveling down a paved road because they were taking a shot in the dark and hoping that it was the way Rick and Carl had gone since there had been no signs of the pair along the railroad they'd started out on made Daryl feel useless.
Jason seemed thoughtful for a moment and then shrugged as he pulled Striker to a stop. Gypsy and Romeo automatically stopped to either side of him. "He's not made for that like a bloodhound is, but I might be able to make him understand. Like I said before, he's pretty intuitive. We'll try in the morning and use the shirt."
"So we're camping for the night?" Maggie slid from Gypsy's saddle as she asked. Daryl followed suit. He was pretty sore, his feet and legs feeling like lead when they finally met with the ground. He'd never spent so much time on horseback and it would take some getting used to. Briefly he felt a twinge of longing for his motorcycle.
"Yeah," Jason said and reached into his saddlebags for a bottle of water that he could share with Dundee. "We'll move off to the side more, but I don't think going out into the woods with the animals is the best idea. Too much chance for them to get hung up if things turn south somehow."
"I agree," Maggie murmured and started in on Gypsy's tack.
Camp was a pathetic thing with no shelter. The horses' lead lines were dropped in what Jason called ground tying since they had no place to safely picket them, but the bridles were moved to the saddle horns as if they were so that the horses could graze along the shoulder of the road. Maggie started talking about a beagle that her family had had when she was a little girl and how it had always been running off after rabbits and squirrels. Clearly she was just trying to fill the silence, but the soft chatter was actually kind of nice. They kept their fire low and ate small portions of the dried goods for dinner. Daryl was grateful that Carol and Maggie had made sure to stuff a few new water bottles into their saddlebags before they'd left. Jason took first watch while Daryl and Maggie stretched out back to back on their bedrolls to try and catch at least a little sleep. It would be hard with them being so exposed, but at least the fucking weather was giving them a break, staying nice.
At the first light of dawn, Daryl woke Maggie and Jason with gentle shoves to their feet with his gnawed on boot. He was really feeling the pressure of their time limits now, having spent all morning unable to think of anything but Rick and what he might be going through right then alone and injured. He couldn't shake an almost overwhelming feeling of dread. Maggie and Jason got up without complaint and the three of them ate in silence each of them offering bits of their jerky to Dundee to compliment the little bag of kibble Jason pulled out of the saddlebags once a day. It explained why his saddlebags were bigger than the sets attached to the saddles on Gypsy and Romeo since he had to carry the extra necessities to care for a dog and the horses. While Maggie and Daryl broke down camp, Jason took the horses down the road a little ways to a deeper part of the ditch to let them drink their fill of what little water had collected there.
When the horses were tacked up again, Jason opened his hand silently asking Daryl for Rick's shirt. He handed the shredded cloth over and watched in silence as Jason squatted down and called Dundee over to him. The dog came forward and sat obediently in front of his master. Jason tucked his fingers around the dog's collar and pushed the shirt under Dundee's nose. Interested in the new scents, Dundee spent a good deal of time sniffing while Jason turned the garment over and over in his hand, whispering in a soft encouraging voice, "Good boy. Get a good whiff, bud. Where is he? Think you can find him? Where is he, Dun?" Eventually, Dundee seemed to lose interest in the scents and looked up into Jason's face. Jason glanced back at them and nodded toward the horses. "You two might want to mount up. I don't know if he's going to run with this or just move along like usual. He might not understand what we want"
Once they were mounted, Jason released the collar and Dundee moved off with a wave of Jason's hand nose low to the ground. Jason rushed into his saddle and pushed Striker after the dog immediately though Dundee seemed to be in no real hurry. Several dull hours later, they found themselves on the edge of a small town the road they were traveling passing over a few sets of railway tracks. Dundee veered to the left and Jason turned Striker after him. As they passed a lone abandoned box car, Maggie read aloud, "Sanctuary for all. Community for all. Those who arrive survive. Terminus."
Jason scoffed softly. "Catchy."
Daryl frowned and looked hard at the sign as Romeo ambled slowly past it. To be honest, if he'd come across it before, when it had been just him and Beth, he probably would have made a bee line right for the place. It would have been worth at least a look. It was his best guess that Rick, hurting from what the Governor had put him through, without his baby girl or any of the people he'd come to rely on for so many things, would think only of Carl and the safety this place might provide for his son. Rick wasn't stupid. He knew that Carl was capable and probably acknowledged that the kid was more able-bodied than himself right now, but he was a father before anything. Daryl admired him for a great many honorable traits – because Rick definitely had a strong sense of honor as Carol had once pointed out to him a few months before they'd found the prison – and his taking his duties as a father so very seriously was one of the highest ranking ones in Daryl's book. Still there was no denying that there was more strength in numbers. Maggie knew it. It was one of the many reasons she'd offered to leave Beth's side to help them continue the search for the rest of their loved ones. Daryl knew it. Hell, Jason had pointed it out that very first day they'd met, saying he was alone and thought that they might need him as much as he needed them. So it stood to reason that Rick would try to find a new group as quickly as possible if he felt he couldn't find the old one. Daryl felt a weight settle in the pit of his stomach. Had Rick really given up on them or was he hoping to ask the residents of Terminus to help him look for his own people?
"Glenn wasn't on the bus with the Woodbury people," Maggie said into the silence that seemed to be smothering them. Jason glanced over at her. Daryl did the same, broken out of his thoughts by the suddenness of her voice. "They had to have left him behind."
"What are you tryin' t' say?" Daryl prompted after a few heartbeats when Maggie didn't offer anything else. It was clear she was trying to work out where to start looking for her husband when they'd finished their search for Rick and Carl.
Maggie turned to fix him with an intense stare her hair bouncing with the sudden movement. "What I'm saying is, I think I'm going to have to start looking at or at least nearer to the prison. We should try to gather up the supplies we had there too."
Daryl couldn't keep the derision out of his voice when he asked, "And just how the hell are we gonna do that? There were Walkers pouring in by the dozens when Beth and I lit outta there. There's no way we could get back in without getting' dead."
"So, we lure the Walkers out," Jason pointed out. "They're pretty simple creatures. Dumber than cattle really, so they won't even try to get out of being herded or led into a pen. We would just have to take precautions and be extra careful. Take extra measures with safety. Hell, get 'em all in one place and burn the sum bitches. It'll be that many less we have to deal with ever again. Exterminate the plague little by little as we need to. No point making it a vendetta or anything – it isn't worth the risks except where we would need to get through them – but it's worth a little risk to find your family and get supplies."
They rode in silence for a few moments, each seeming lost in thoughts of Walker extermination or loved ones.
"If Glenn is there, he might have holed up with the food and water we left behind," Daryl muttered contemplatively and scratched at his chin. His stubble was starting to get out of hand even by his standards, but he'd worry about it when people's lives weren't on the line. "Even if he'd gotten off the bus after they'd cleared the incoming Walkers, we should still backtrack and it would be worth it to get our hands on the supplies there."
"We can talk more about it after we've regrouped. We'll round up a map of the area and see where people have been and make note of the places we should still check. There's no guarantee we'll find him, but if we have a plan our chances get better," Jason suggested. Maggie nodded and then turned her attention back to their surroundings. Dundee continued moving on ahead of them at a steady walk. The silence fell around them again, but this time it felt lighter. Maybe having a little bit of a plan already had lightened the tension winding around them the longer they went without evidence that they were taking the right route.
It was late in the afternoon when they came to the edge of a fairly large city. It wasn't the size of Atlanta but it was significant compared to the little bergs and villages they'd been passing through and around. Dundee stopped and started casting about in a five foot circle, nose working overtime one the ground. Jason twisted around a bit in his saddle taking in his surroundings.
"The Terminus is on the other side of the city. It's on the outskirts really. You can just see it," he explained and pointed. In the distance, looming over the tops of the not-too-tall businesses of the city, was the outline of a few industrial buildings about a two hour walk away if the city were clear. "This place is where all of the little towns we've gone through were evacuated to, so this city… it's going to be crawling with Walkers. Dun, sit."
Daryl watched as the dog stopped sniffing around and sat on command. Ears up, he stared out into the streets beyond the cross street they'd stopped at. Across that street were the first buildings of the city. Daryl looked down the street as well and narrowed his eyes. He could see a few Walkers meandering about down there, unaware of their presence for now. That could change with a shift in the wind. Sliding from the saddle he moved to stand beside the dog.
"We don't know for sure that your dog was tracking Rick's scent…" Maggie hazarded, looking antsy as she noted more Walker shambling about, popping in and out of alleyways and side streets. Daryl cast her a look that clearly said man up and pulled his crossbow off his shoulder before walking forward to the middle of the cross road. Stopping he turned back and looked at them.
"Let's go. We ain' got all damn day."
Jason studied him for a moment before saying, "We should leave the horses here. They're not the best on pavement and cities have too many tight spaces for them." He was already glancing around them, but seemed at a loss as to where exactly they could leave them. Daryl had just taken a step back toward Romeo, when Dun shot back to his feet, turning to the right and staring, his ears twitching. Jason seemed not to notice, looking in the same direction with his back to the dog.
"Jason," Maggie called softly and the kid turned in the saddle to look just as the dog bolted.
"Dun!" Jason barked, startled. Instead of whistling as Daryl would have expected, he whirled Striker to the right and took off after the dog. Daryl rushed to Romeo's side. Maggie and Gypsy were already hot on Jason and Striker's heels, and Romeo, not wanting to be left behind, was moving before Daryl was fully in the saddle. With a last heave, he pulled himself up and settled in the seat, cursing the whole while.
Dundee skidded around the corner of last building on their left, forced to turn by a fence that stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. It ran alongside the building creating an alley wide enough that Jason was able to take Striker in after Dundee once he'd slowed the horse down enough to make the turn. As Romeo and Gypsy followed suit, Maggie cast Daryl a terrified look and Daryl could practically hear her thoughts about being boxed in and overrun. Romeo and Gypsy stopped just behind Striker's giant ass a few feet into the alley, and Daryl looked out into a train yard below them. Multiple tracks ran side by side and the train yard was mostly empty of box cars, but the few that were there. Those few served as a backdrop for the scene playing out before them; a scene that had Daryl's heart bouncing right up into his throat.
The fence beside the building that had once separated the alley from the train yard was down by several panels. From their vantage point on their side of the fence, they looked down a hill and into the train yard below, giving them the perfect view. Dun stood on one of the knocked flat fence panels, toes falling through the diamond shapes of the chain link as he stared avidly at the herd of Walkers below, panting. They shambled, alert like they'd been startled by some noise, but weren't yet in the full on feeding frenzy that said they'd realized a meal was near. Crouched behind one of the box cars, all of them hunched low and looking exhausted, were Michonne, Carl and… Rick.
Even with the distance between them, Daryl could tell the man was suffering. He held himself stiffly, hunched forward with an arm around his midsection for support and Daryl's own ribs ached in empathy. He'd had broken ribs before and it was no fucking picnic. Rick looked seconds from passing out, half-supported by Carl while Michonne peered around the edge of the box car. There was no way to get their attention without getting the attention of the Walkers too. Daryl's hands tightened on Romeo's reins and the horse tossed his head, dancing a little in place as he picked up on Daryl's tension.
"Oh, god," Maggie whispered, eyes still wide but now even more terrified. "What're we gonna do?"
Daryl growled, snapping out, "We have to get them the hell outta there or they're gonna end up Walker chow."
Silent, Jason just moved Striker forward at a slow walk. The horse seemed to tip toe over the downed fence until he was standing on the narrow strip of grassy hilltop just on the other side of it. Dundee had moved forward as well, standing by Striker's front hooves like he was ready to spring forward at a moment's notice. Daryl flicked a glance Jason's way as he moved Romeo up on Striker's right. He could just see the kid processing the scene, eyes flickering from Daryl's family to the too-close Walker herd and then on down the tracks away from the yard. When Maggie pulled Gypsy to a stop on Striker's left, Jason glanced at her and then finally looked to Daryl.
"We're going down there. The hill's not steep at all. The horses can take it at a gallop. Two riders per horse otherwise things will get complicated."
Maggie shook her head. "Those Walkers are too close."
"They'll be on us before our people could get behind the saddles," Daryl agreed, eyes falling back to the way Rick tried to straighten and curled in on himself in agony in turns. "Rick's hurt," he added into the contemplative silence. "It's gonna take more than a minute to get him up behind me."
Jason didn't respond. After a few moments more of studying the scene below, he swung out of the saddle and dropped to his knees behind Dundee. The dog turned to face him and Jason took the dog's face into his hands, pulling him close to kiss the white spot on his head before burying his face in the dog's thick fur. Daryl glanced up from the two on the ground and met Maggie's wide brown eyes. She looked as confused and concerned as he felt. After a few heartbeats, Jason rose to his feet and climbed back into the saddle. "You just get down there. I'll take the boy. Maggie, you take the woman. Once everybody's mounted, we run hard down the tracks together or the horses will go stupid. They don't like being separated much. Everybody clear?"
Jason looked to each of them in turn, staring until they nodded. Then he looked out over the scene one last time, took a deep breath and said, "Dun." The dog tore his gaze from the Walkers and stared up into his master's face with the single most eager expression Daryl had ever seen on an animal's face. "Run the line."
The dog whipped around and launched himself off the hilltop. He landed on the side of the hill at a flat out run. The sudden movement and the sounds of a running dog caught the attention of Michonne, Rick and Carl, and they all watched as the dog flew towards the front line of the herd. The closest Walker turned, alerted by the sounds of a something living. Dundee barked at the creature, darting in and grabbing the awkward thing's pant leg, tugging once and dancing away so fast the thing barely had time to react. Then he was off again, running up and down the front line of Walkers, antagonizing them like it was the best game in the entire world. Back and forth. Bark. Bark. Back and forth. Bark. Bark. Bark.
That was all that Daryl got to see of the show because Jason launched Striker down the hill, and Romeo and Gypsy followed with hardly a nudge. Dundee had the Walkers' full attention and Daryl understood now what Jason's plan was. Let the dog distract the Walkers while they got their people up and ready to go. Daryl felt a little bit of genuine gratitude towards the kid. It was a tough play, but he hadn't hesitated to make the call.
Daryl saw Michonne grab Rick's shoulder, the first to spot them coming. Rick looked up and in that moment he looked so weak with relief that he might faint. Carl and Michonne didn't give him the chance, helping Rick to his feet almost forcefully. Daryl kicked Romeo hard and the horse surged forward, passing Striker and reaching the trio strides before the other two horses. Romeo stopped hard in front of the three and Daryl, grateful that the horse was a smoother ride than any he'd been on in the past and that the sudden stop hadn't sent him over the horse's head, reached out one hand, offering Rick help up. "Need a lift, Officer?"
The grin on Rick's face was priceless, and Daryl found himself returning the smile without hesitation or self-consciousness.
"Daryl, you crazy son of a bitch," Rick gasped through gritted teeth as he pulled his arm off Carl's shoulders and slowly reached up to grip Daryl's forearm. Daryl gripped Rick's own forearm in turn, holding tight and pulling up. With Michonne and Carl's help, Rick made it up behind Daryl's saddle and wrapped one arm tight around Daryl's waist.
Unable to resist, Daryl gripped tight Rick's wrist at his belly and looked over his shoulder. "Don't fucking let go cuz we're about t' haul ass outta here."
"Yeah," Rick whispered voice hoarse with emotion and pressed his forehead into the back of Daryl's neck, tightening his arm around Daryl's middle. Satisfied that Rick wouldn't be doing anything stupid, Daryl looked down to Carl.
"You're riding with the cowboy," Daryl told him and glanced to Michonne who nodded and dragged Carl over to help him onto Striker's ass. She was up behind Maggie a heartbeat later, and Daryl finally looked back out toward the herd. The Walkers were closing in on Dundee from the sides, forming a horseshoe that the dog danced in and out of with glee. If they waited much longer, the Walkers would be encircling him, blocking his escape. He looked to Jason, who had Striker squarely facing the herd, his eyes never leaving his dog. It was time to go and Daryl told him so by saying, "Let's get the fuck outta here."
Jason, dropped the reins so that the knot fell on his side of the saddle horn so that he wouldn't lose them and pulled both pistols out of his hip holsters even as he let out a loud, short and very sharp whistle. Dundee turned, blowing out of the closing circle of Walkers like he'd been shot from a cannon. Jason fired into the skulls of the foremost Walkers, giving Dundee plenty of room to escape and as the dog neared, he snapped, "Dun! Point!" and the dog whipped right on by tongue lolling.
One pistol found its holster as Jason took up the reins again and it was as if Striker was reading Jason's mind. The horse spun so fast one hoof ground into the dirt of the train yard like a drill bit into wood. Jason's upper body remained mostly stationary twisting only in the middle as the kid continued to shoot Walkers right up until the point where Striker launched forward. At that moment, the other pistol was holstered and Jason hunched low over the horse's neck. Everything had seemed to run in slow motion as the Walkers began shambling toward them, but it must have taken only a handful of heartbeats before they were all on their way. Carl clung tight to Jason's waist, burying his face in Jason's back with one hand holding his hat on his head. Michonne hugged tight to Maggie and both hunched low over the horse's back, both of them familiar with riding at speed. Rick cursed colorfully behind Daryl every few strides as his ribs were unavoidably jarred. With one hand on the reins and the other on Rick's wrist at his stomach, Daryl let out a whooping holler not even needing to look behind them to know that they were leaving the Walkers in the dust. Maggie and Michonne started to giggle and even Carl let out a whoop of his own. Jason remained grim, focused on the bobbing tail hauling ass in front of them.
Daryl couldn't help but wonder why, if they'd been so successful, the other young man seemed to feel like they'd lost something? Then again, he'd almost sacrificed his best friend and partner for perfect strangers. It wasn't unreasonable for him to be a little shaken up by events. Rick cursed again behind him and Daryl, unable to help it, looked over his shoulder and shouted, "Stop being such a pussy," just to get a rise out of the other man. Rick, in retaliation, pinched Daryl's stomach hard, but said nothing. He didn't have to. Daryl could feel the other man's grin against the back of his neck.
TBC…