Chapter Six:

Something Wicked

"Just put it on," Laurel demanded, handing the shirt out to Merle as he and Daryl made their way out of the complex.

"Get that outta my face, kid. Won't compliment my eyes, somethin' like that."

"Come on, you'll freeze out there without it. I made it for you."

"Made it my ass! You took the legs off and rolled the sleeves up a little, don't mean you made it. Same as drawin' a moustache on the Mona Lisa and sayin' you did it, not Van Gogh."

"Van Gogh didn't paint the Mona Lisa," Laurel corected. She was wearing her own creation- another dismantled jumpsuit, hemmed down the sides into a loose-fitting dress. She wore no shoes with it, her feet pattering lightly against the concrete. She was in a very good mood; she and the other girl seemed to be getting along well. "Just put it on."

"Darn it, girl, you wanna eat tonight or not?" All the same, he reluctantly pulling himself into the shirt. "Happy now?"

Laurel smiled, waving the two brothers off as they headed out to hunt. "Perfect fit, Cinderella! Stay safe out there, you two."

Merle laughed to himself under his breath, then turned back to his brother. Daryl was staring at his pale blue shirt with an unsure expression.

"Hell if I know," Merle muttered, answering a question that hadn't been asked. "C'mon, before those undead fuckers score all the good game."

Carol handed him a bag of emergency supplies just encase they ended up getting stuck out there.

"I'll bring your boyfriend back in one piece," Merle teased. Carol smiled, but there was warning in her glance. Don't screw this up, Merle read. The two said their goodbyes and headed for the field. They passed by Rick, who was still pacing, muttering to himself.

"Nuttier than squirrel shit, that one," Merle noted, shaking his head. "Shouldn't you do something about that?"

"He's gotta work it out," Daryl said, changing his course so that he wouldn't have to confront Rick. Merle followed behind, worrying aloud over where that ninja woman had gotten herself to.

"That black bitch has got it in for me."

Daryl opened up a gap in the fence, re-wiring it once the two were through. "You tried to kill her."

"Details. She was real cozy with that bimbo from back in Atlanta, the one with her nose stuck up so high she'd of drowned if it'd rained. I reckon that's why she's really pissed, cuz her girlfriend's knocking boots with the one-eyed wonder."

As usual, Merle did most of the talking as they searched for signs of life in the woods.

"Feels good to be back in the wild," Merle noted. "Smells like back home.

"Home smelt like cheap liquor and wet dog," Daryl murmured, kicking up some dirt.

"I'm talking about the woods out back, dummy," Merle rebuked him. "Rain and rot and acorns."

"Cigarettes and squirrel shit. I hated them woods."

"Only cuz you used to get lost all the time when you was knee-high to a grasshopper. You tellin' me you don't miss those old summer nights? Campfire, couple of beers... if I had that again some time, I don't think I'd even remember the world had gone to shit."

"Yeah, well it did," Daryl grumbled darkly. "Now shut up, or you'll scare away dinner."

Looking up into the trees, Daryl had spotted a squirrel; it was perched lightly on a branch, ready to take flight should they make any sudden movements. Daryl reached silently for the crossbow, carefully drew up the arrow and aimed it just right; he triggered the release, bolt whizzing at the beast, and the moment before it was about to hit Merle yelled, "Boo!"

The creature darted away from the branch before the arrow could reach it's destination, and it whizzed by and into the trees above, lost in the thickets of the woods.

"God dammit, Merle!" Daryl yelled, shouldering his crossbow, "I had that one, you dumb son of a... You've lost us dinner and a bolt, you dick!"

"Don't get your panties all in a twist, Darlena," Merle laughed, smacking his brother in the side of the head, "there'll be plenty more piddly squirrel for ya to sink your teeth into. I got my sights set on some real meat."

"We said we'd be back before dark," Daryl cautioned, crouching low as the trees rustled above. "Now shut it, I can see the little bastard."

Swiftly, Daryl shot his crossbow again and this time struck the squirrel. Daryl swept through the leaves to where it lay, took out a yard of string and tied the squirrel over one shoulder like a macabre pageant ribbon.

"Impressive," Merle acknowledged, crouching down in the dirt, "but look what I've got..." He directed Daryl's eyes down to the ground, where two thick paw prints could be seen.

"Hello, dinner."

The two brothers stayed on the trail of the deer for almost an hour. They'd encountered a handful of Walkers on the way, all of which had been quickly dispatched. As Daryl moved low through the leaves after the thick dusty prints, Merle brought up the conversation they needed to have.

"I'm fixin' to get out of here, little brother," he drawled, finding another footprint a little way off and picking up its trail. "We're Dixons- this is where we're supposed to be, out in the wild. We don't need those people. Gettin' along with them is gonna be about as easy as herdin' cats."

"We've talked about this already. We're stayin'. You tellin' me there ain't one of these people you could get along with? Carol's talkin' with ya, Hershel wants to give you a chance. Axel and that girl we found like you. I know you got problems with Glenn and Rick, but I'll sort it out. If you let your ego slide a little and just say sorry- and I know you are- we'll be alright."

"You so sure about that?" Merle mused. "Ain't safe round here, you ain't dense enough not to sense that. Got the cop wranglin' the wrong side of Scitzo Street, the little China kid runnin' his mouth like he owns the place-"

"-He's-"

"-Yeah yeah, I know, Korean. Doesn't matter. We ought go, now, whilst we've got supplies and they ain't expectin' it. They're all dead anyway when the Governor comes, no reason for us to go out with them. C'mon."

"I've told you already. I'm staying with them."

Merle sucked his teeth. "You'd choose them over me, your flesh and blood? The people who locked your own brother up on a roof, left me for dead?!"

"We went back for you- not just me, all of us! Rick, T-Dog, Glenn. We came back. You can't blame none of us for cutting off your hand, you did that all by yourself, and you were sure as hell askin' for it from what I heard."

"This to your own brother who looked after your ungrateful ass since the day you were born-"

"What, same as when we were kids? Bullshit! You were locked up half the time!"

"I was in a bad way- bad crowd, you-"

"And I wasn't?!" Daryl yelled in a fusillade of abuse, "you left me with him-!"

"What, and that's why I lost my God-damn hand-?!"

"No, you lost your hand cuz you're a simple-minded piece of shit!"

"Yeah?! You don't know-!"

Merle grabbed hold of the back of his shirt, screaming at him the whole time- Daryl faltered and fell so that the shirt ripped open, exposing his bare back.

Merle let go and stepped away in disbelief, staring at the pattern of thick scars seared all across his baby brother. Daryl struggled to his feet and turned away, ashamed.

"I... I didn't know he was-"

"Yeah, well he did," Daryl spat. "He did the same to you, that's why you left first..." Daryl gathered up his crossbow and began to stumble back through the trees in the direction of the prison. The herbage of the forest floor was caught thick beneath his fingernails, and he set about removing it with his teeth as he swept quickly through the woodland.

"I- I had to, man!" Merle tried, picking up pace behind him, "I- you know I'd have ended up killin' him otherwise... hey, where you goin'?!"

"I'm goin' back to the prison," Daryl barked, "back where I belong. You can stay out here if you wanna... Daryl threw the bag of emergency supplies at his brothers feet. "But I ain't coming with you. I may be the one walkin' away, but you're the one who's leavin'. Again."

Daryl disappeared through the trees with a crashing of footsteps and Merle stood still in the middle of the empty forest, not knowing whether he even had the right to follow.

Then he heard gunshots.

Daryl stopped momentarily, then began to run towards the sounds.

"Hold on a minute, what the hell are you doin'?!" Merle roared, following after him, "we gotta go, boy! If the Governor's there, they might as well already be dead!"

"I'm not leaving them, they're family!"

With that Daryl was gone- muttering under his breath, Merle took up speed, the two brother's argument quickly forgotten as they ran alongside one another to the prison.

~oOo~

Carol barely had time to gasp as Axel's body hit the concrete. The bullet had come out of nowhere, it seemed, as she and the others had been at work securing the outskirts of the courtyard with fence panels to serve as some form of protection should an attack come. With the prisoner's blood splattered upon her face, Carol dived low and used his body as a shield as more bullets showered before her; she spotted a sniper up in the left guard tower, heard Maggie cry out to her as she began firing at their assailant. With a spritzing of bullets, Maggie was able to terminate the sniper in seconds. Seizing her moment, Carol forced herself to her feet and scrambled across to where Carl, Beth and Laurel were crouched, hidden behind a concrete wall. Carol snatched a rifle from Carl and waited as the gunfire came to a halt.

"Where's your dad?!" Carol yelled to the two sisters, ensuring that the rifle was ready for use.

"He went out front to talk with Rick!" Beth blustered in a panic.

"Get Carl back inside!" Maggie instructed her sister; the boy wouldn't move however, insisting that he could help.

"I'm a good shot!" he cried, ready to fire at their assailants. He glanced at Laurel, and realised that she wasn't holding a weapon. He pulled a rifle from their station and handed it out to her.

"You have to fight. We all have to."

Laurel shook her head. "I... I don't know how to use a gun. The place I was at, it was quiet. I never had to learn."

Carl looked at her as though she were speaking a foreign language. He put the handgun aside and kept the rifle for himself.

There was still silence from their opponents. Cautiously, Carl glanced through the slots in the paneling and saw what looked to be an ice-cream truck parked up in the central field. The dead were pouring out of its back doors, fumbling about the field in search of prey.

"I have to find Dad," Maggie said, springing to her feet in spite of the danger. Carol was quick to try and stop her.

"Don't do it Maggie, they're trying to get us out in the open, that's what they want!"

"I don't care!" she screamed back, firing out at the Walkers even as she was heading for the gates. The others rushed to help her, dealing with the gates as Maggie headed for a vehicle; then Laurel saw that the truck holding their true enemy were already leaving, speeding away down the long dirt road- and there was Glenn, returning from his run.

"It's Glenn!" Laurel cried out to Maggie, backing away as the others shot at the approaching Walkers; the steel-blue truck burst through the gates and began veering the field, picking up Michonne on its way in it's search for Hershel. Glenn found the old man lying in the grass at the field's outer-edge, and between the pair of them he and Michonne were able to haul him inside the vehicle before Glenn drove them back inside the safety of the inner prison fence, the car doors already opening back up before the vehicle had come to a halt.

Maggie and the others greeted them in flustered relief, before moving to the fences and surveying the damage. There were not many Walkers left out in the field, though the noise had begun to draw quite a gathering to the outer fences; in among them Laurel spotted the two Dixon's and Rick, making short work of dispatching the monsters, and breathed an inner sigh of relief.

When the work was done and the three men returned, the group was already in flustered conversation about what their next move should be. Merle spotted Laurel a small distance from the others, staring down at a body on the ground. Merle did a mental headcount and realised the mustachioed fella, Axel, wasn't a part of the conversation. He trailed away from the group as they headed inside to talk more and stepped up beside the girl, who was staring down at the corpse in silence. When she sensed his approach, Laurel spoke up.

The girl sighed. "I didn't sign up for this. Jesus Christ."

Merle molded to her change in disposition. "You saying you want out? It was mighty unfair of them to bring you here without warning you of the full story."

"I still don't know the full story. Too late now though, right? Besides, where would I go?" Laurel cleared her throat. "I like these people. I liked this guy. He taught me how to play rummy. He was a little intense. But I liked him. Fuck, I... I can't even remember his name."

"Axel," Merle frowned. "That was his name."

"Yeah," Laurel recalled, her head bowed. "Yeah. Axel."

"He seemed a nice fella."

There didn't seem much else to say. Merle decided that was the closest the ex-convict was going to get to an obituary.

"Sorry," Laurel said, shaking her head a little as though to rid herself of bad feeling. "Are you all alright? Saw you guys fighting those things out there."

"Right as rain, sunshine. We should get back to the others, you know."

Laurel chuckled a little, or at least tried to. "Merle Dixon, a team player?"

Merle ran his hands down his neck. "Yeah, well. Sometimes you gotta make exceptions."

Laurel smiled, then asked,

"Can we move him first? Axel, I mean. We can't just leave him out here like this, all... bust-up."

Merle agreed. The two fetched some tarp from the back of one of the trucks and wrapped Axel's cadaver up, carrying him into the cell block where the others were now deep in discussion. It quickly became heated as accusations began to arise, of who should have been on watch and how unprepared they were, of why Glenn wasn't back sooner and why the two Dixon's had even been allowed to leave in pursuit of hunting at such a critical time.

"Next time I'll let you starve to death," Merle coughed at his accuser, folding his arms across his strapping chest.

"He should never have been let out of his cage in the first place," Glenn spat, eyeing Hershel accusingly. That comment rubbed the eldest Dixon up the wrong way, and suddenly the two were at one another's throats, hurling arguments back and forth.

"This is all your fault!" Glenn yelled at Merle, "if you hadn't taken us hostage in Woodbury the Governor would have never even known this place existed-!"

"Don't you blame this shit on me!" Merle bellowed, and made to grab for the smaller man. Daryl and Rick pulled him away as the two screamed in one another's faces, Maggie joining in the tirade as she grabbed at Glenn's arm.

"You did this to us! What you did to Glenn and me, it caused all of this-!"

"I didn't lay a hand on you, girl!" Merle barked, spitting in her direction as he spoke. "Whatever that prick did to you ain't nothing to do with me-!"

Suddenly a sheet of maroon exploded across Merle's face as Glenn hit him in the side of the head, one swift punch which held enough force to send the much larger man reeling. That sent the whole group haywire, and in between restraining the two and the hurling of insults the madness was deafening. Daryl intervened, pushing back at Merle's shoulders and stepping between the two men.

"Can't y'all see this is exactly what the Governor wants?!" the younger Dixon yelled to the pair of them. Things went a little quieter. "Axel's dead. We didn't do that. The Governor did. He's what we gotta fight against. And all y'all are doin' is arguing among yourselves."

"Daryl's right," Beth choked, her eyes now lacking their usual lustre as she tightly cradled the baby, "blaming each other isn't going to help at all... what are we going to do?"

"I'm done with this," Merle hissed, breaking free of his brother's grip. He wiped his bloody face on the shirt Laurel had made for him and balled it up in his fist, heading up the stairs to the upper rooms as he muttered beneath his breath. The others stared after him, a little lost at what to do.

"Good riddance," Maggie muttered, encouraging Rick to continue. Rick did so for a while, but it soon became clear that Merle's knowledge of Woodbury and military practice would be essential were they to formulate some kind of a response.

"He's a tactician," Rick said, sounding a little defeated. "He knows the way the Governor works. We need him down here."

There was silence for a minute.

"I'll talk to him," Laurel offered.

Daryl reached out to her. "Nah, trust me. If he's actin' all whack-"

Laurel shrugged, heading for the stairs. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I'm good with whack."