Thanks so much for the reviews you guys gave me on the last chapter! And no, they are not at the prison yet!

Get ready for a chapter with Merle POV!

Warning: Racism (I mean come on, it's Merle). Disturbing content.

I do not own The Walking Dead

Chapter 4

The next morning Merle woke up to a heavy rainstorm raging outside his borrowed - and ripped - tent. Jus' fucking great. Thanks Officer Friendly. He groaned, running his hand over his face, listening to the rain pounding against his flimsy tent. Jus' like that night in Atlanta. Merle thought to himself, standing up to get dressed for the day, avoiding the small puddle that was gathering in the corner from the rip in the rainfly and the tent.

Guillermo and those old farts in that beaten up, used, worn-out warehouse. Yeah, he remembered that group of spics who helped them old folks.

"Well, Merle." Guillermo said, walking leisurely a few paces ahead of Merle as he made his way through the first floor of the old building, "you can stay here for a few days, unless you'll be a major drain on our resources with that," he pointed to the stump that was once Merle's hand, "inconvenience, you've got there." The man chose his words carefully, knowing this white boy in particular would be trouble and willing to fight if someone insulted him.

The only indication he gave to the Mexican was a grunt, continuing to eye his band of Mexican jumping beans brandishing shot guns that looked a lot like police guns, and Merle would know from personal experience what types of guns the law chose.

Suddenly Merle found himself almost running into the man in front of him, and he smirked. "Whoa, easy there Paco. Why ya suddenly stoppin'?"

He heard a faint barking-like sound and strained his ear, amused at what he heard. A dog? He listened a little longer. A small-ass dog yappin', that's for sure.

"You hurt any of the old folks, or any of my Boys, and I'll cut you up, feed you to my dogs. Three of the nastiest, man-eatin' bitches you ever seen. Got'em from Satan at a yard sale." There was a threatening tone under his voice and Merle almost laughed at the willed-intensity of it.

"Yeah, they sound REAL tough there, Taco Bell. I'm really shakin' in my shoes now." He teased, an arrogant smirk across his face. "Now why don't you show ol' Merle where he'll be stayin'?"

Merle chuckled at the memory and stepped outside, Man I fuckin' hate watch when it's rainin'. He thought, cracking his knuckles on each hand, rolling his shoulders like he did when he was about to fight someone.

Rick was standing by the railing of the nature reserve park they had found, a rifle clasped in his hands. The man had no jacket on - fucking idiot - and his curly hair was flattened against his forehead, water droplets dripping into his eyes every now and then.

"Yo, Officer Friendly, where's your jacket? If ya hadn't noticed water's falling from the fucking sky." A small smirk danced at Merle's lips when he noticed the ex-cop jump. He loved making these assholes jump outta their skin. Shows how much the man was on GUARD.

'Course, the rain didn't help none.

Rick sighed, the poor guy looked like he had run a marathon, climbed up a mountain and back, fought against a herd of geeks, and yet still volunteered for watch. The only question was, why?

Merle could give you a thousand guesses, but only a few stood out. One, he could be trying to prove himself a leader. 'Hero-status' as Merle called it. He hated guys who did that - well, in the normal world he would have said that. Now he respected a man like that. Another reason could be simply the man just couldn't sleep. Not everyone was equipped to carry the emotional baggage that this world entailed you to. The only reason Merle could take all of that emotional shit was because he'd even dealing with it his whole life - as had his baby brother. No, I can't think about that now. And the only other reason that he could imagine would be the man's wife - what was her name? Something starting with a L…Daryl always calls her Olive Oyl…maybe that is her name, for all I know. Merle chuckled to himself, yeah, she definitely looks like an Olive Oyl. And with the way she toys around that asshole cop? For a minute Merle actually felt a twinge of sympathy for the man in front of him, but then internally scolded himself at the idea. Merle Dixon doesn't feel sympathy for anyone, except his baby brother.

Running a hand over his face, Rick groaned, "It's Lori." Bingo, he knew it. "She's just…getting under my skin lately. Especially with how she backs Shane up on everything…"

Nodding, Merle took the rifle from Rick's hands. "Get some sleep man." Before Merle continued, he cleared his throat and mentally kicked his own ass a hundred times. "Take my tent, if ya hafta." Rick then eyed the older man wearily, wondering what the hell he would find in the man's tent before nodding, making his way over to the make-shift home.

*Beauty Can Be Deadly*

Daryl awoke with a strangled scream that had been trapped in his throat, so his lower jaw slacked and hung open, a small drop of water repeatedly fell on his forehead. His eyes were firmly closed, sweat covering his face and his chest rising and falling heavily, the curves of his stomach concaving every time he inhaled. Shaking his head rapidly, his sweat-drenched hair falling into his eyes and sprawling across his face, he tried to force the remnants of his nightmare far away from his memory - yet, the images stayed, burning holes into his adrenaline-rushed brain.

"Carol?" He murmured after he noticed that his left side was colder than usual. Looking around the tent, he realized she wasn't there. Odd, he thought. Carol was always there beside him.

He lifted up from the floor, pulling on his jeans and boots, not bothering with lacing the damned things. The rain fell on his warm skin of his back as he stepped outside his tent, frantic eyes searching for her.

Her slender figure was over by the railing - she had watch and didn't tell me? - and he noted her arms were hanging loosely by her odd thing was, even though at the time in his nightmare it had not struck him as such, her hair was not cropped and silvery. It was her old hair - auburn curls reaching past her shoulder blades. In the dream, he had thought this as normal, nothing out of his place...except maybe the way her shoulders didn't rise and fall the way they normally did from the force of a human breathing; her shoulders were perfectly still, and her ribcage was not expanding either.

Daryl gingerly made his way over to her in the rain, and when he was in a few feet's proximity of her, the smell of death struck him like a brick wall, causing him to physically step back.

Popping and cracking noises reached Daryl's ears and he looked back at Carol, seeing her body start to move.

Yet her movements were not the graceful, fluid movements he had found happy to become familiar with over the harsh winter. These movements struck him as odd - sharp, slow, eerie…dead.

No. No, no. He thought, his eyes widening and he saw her rotted skin, the way her arms hung lifelessly at her sides, the creepily-slow way her head moved before her body to turn to him. Her nose was up in the air as if she could smell him - smell him! – and as she turned to face him, he saw a flash of something gleaming from the ground as if to yell at him, 'hey, I'm important! Notice me!' His eyes shifted down for a second to see the gun on the ground with the silencer.

That's when he noticed the gunshot wound on her head, and the burn from the silencer.

Why? Why now? She was an asset to the group, had finally learned how to deal with Sophia's disappearance - hell, she had even gotten enough courage to say she loved him! Why? Daryl's mind was racing with questions that seemed to dominate his brain, taking over his body.

He was painfully aware of the hot tears falling down his cheeks, and he could see the stains of dried tears on her dead-flesh covered cheeks as well.

Carol's body stumbled over the gun - irony was a bitch - and he struggled to reach him, arms extended and hands grasping for him through the rain. She had her head tilted, blood making her auburn hair seem black; her once perfect blue eyes were now white and dead, red veins filled with dead blood prominent at the edges of her eyes, a pale smoky-colored pupil resting off-centered in her eyes.

They didn't move from the base of his throat where he could feel his pulse trying to rip through his skin and run away from the scene. Daryl backed up to only run into another cold body.

Daryl could barely bring himself turn slightly to see the Walker-Merle.

"No, not you too!" He yelled, somewhat amazed that he could use hid voice at all.

Then, as of Merle and Carol's dead figures weren't enough, he saw everyone else he had come to care for and hate.

Sophia, stumbling out of the woods, those same dead eyes and a huge bite in her shoulder, holding the hand of an equally as dead Carl Grimes, his sheriff's hat missing a piece or material in the rim. There was blood on his teeth and Daryl came to the disturbing conclusion on his own - Carl had bitten Sophia.

Rick was next, his dead body following after his son. The rifle was strapped across the man's back - well that was real fucking useful.

Then the dear Greene family - Hershel and Beth, with Maggie stumbling behind and a geek-version of Glenn following the very dead family.

After a few minutes he saw Shane's body trudging out from a different place in the woods, a scowl that he wore most of his time during his life still plastered on his stupid face. How Daryl would have given anything to see that man actually scowl right now.

But the last sight was enough to make a grown man weep and pray to god on his hands and knees, begging to be graced with death so he wouldn't have seen that sight.

Lori, very much dead, staggered from the RV - that thing was supposed to be at the farm - and her stomach was open, a walker baby hanging from the inside, long-dead flesh hanging from the small mouth. The thing's eyes weren't even open, hands disformed and an odd-shaped head.

They all advanced on him, and he felt the cold hands of the dead - his friends, family, enemies - all tearing him open.

Except for one.

Carol was the only one not ripping at him. And she was the last thing he saw, her figure standing above his head, watching him die slowly.

Now, Daryl looked at his side. Carol lay there, a small arm curled around his. She was alive.

ALIVE.

He grabbed her head in his hands gently and kissed her silvery hair, running sweaty fingers through it lovingly, silently grateful she didn't wake then.

Daryl had a shit-load of praying to do, thanking God it was only a nightmare.

R&R me lovelies!

And please excuse any minor spelling errors!