Disclaimer: I sadly do not own The Walking Dead. Unbeta'd.
Spoilers: References to Season 1 and 2.
Warning: Rated for themes, language, and violence.
Packages in Zombie Zone, Area S - 6
"Hey! Dixon! Get your pay? I asked scout to keep an eye out for you a week ago. Hope he didn't have too much trouble in finding you."
"Yeah. Just got it this morning. Glenn gave it to me," Daryl said blankly.
"What? Oh, Glenn! How's he doing? I haven't seen him in ages! He used to do jobs for me, you know. He wasn't that good at hunting but he was great at finding the randomest objects—" Daryl tried to keep a straight face at her side of the story but his surprise that Glenn lied trumped any seriousness he might have had. Oblivious to the fumbling of his stern gaze, Amy continued to babble. "—I met him just after all this happened. He had issues with his parents."
Daryl scoffed. "Don't everyone?"
Amy laughed warmly. "Yeah, but he hasn't talked to them for a while." Amy paused and then spoke softly. "He doesn't even know if they're still here, you know?" She sighed. "He's going to get himself killed one day, going off by himself like he always does. He's all alone now. No one there to…"
Daryl looked at her, formulating his thoughts, and opened his mouth. "A—"
"But yeah, Jack likes you. Has another job lined up if you're interested?" She leaned in towards Daryl and lowered the volume of her voice. "Help someone retrieve medical supplies from beyond the Clear and you'll get big bucks."
"Minus your handler fee, of course."
"What? These missions are actually on Jack. He gives you your whole share and gives me ten percent of on top of whatever you got. Not a bad deal, huh?"
"Not bad at all."
Amy covered the side of her mouth, whispering, "Word on the streets is that your brother was seen sneaking around a Burbs hospital swiping antibiotics..."
So that's where Daryl headed. Before he left, he placed the sack of seed in the chicken's cage. He also left a can filled with water. And of course, he checked outside the door for any sign of the kid outside Room 201. After exiting the edge of the Borderlands, he entered the Burbs, a large area of abandoned homes outside of the Old City. Daryl travelled off large streets, choosing to go by the smaller, less used routes.
On his way there, Daryl passed by the old shack a few miles from the apartment. He opened the door and found the old lady hastily drinking a bottle of whiskey. She swallowed greedily while aiming a loaded shotgun at him. He asked her where his hot slice was. She smiled, telling him to be patient, explaining that the best was hard to get on such short notice, that when the package was ready, it would be delivered straight to his apartment. Daryl left, feeling he had been gypped.
He strolled down a paved street past a complex of houses with windows and doors boarded with planks of wood. One of the houses had a pair of eyes watching Daryl. Another had a man perched on a roof with a rifle aimed in the distance. Daryl nodded at them but clutched his weapon tighter. He continued to walk at the same pace, urging his feet to move slow enough to dispel suspicion, but fast enough to get out of there.
Part of the hospital's west wing collapsed when Daryl arrived. Bricks tumbled down from the already broken wall, clumping on the ground, rustling up clouds of dirt. He rounded the side of the building, keeping close to the wall but carefully watching for any falling debris.
Welcoming Daryl was a broken sign, glass shattered inwards and spread around the sidewalk. A fallen light fixture blocked the entrance. There was another that was being held up on one end by a tiny metal coil. The bulbs flickered and Daryl wondered how they were able to afford electricity in a place all the way out here.
A man in scrubs shuffled by, glancing at Daryl from the sides of his eyes. Daryl stared back, trying to refrain giving off threatening looks. He quirked his lips in an attempt to display friendliness but the man sped down a hallway, possibly frightened instead.
He asked around, giving brief descriptions of Merle without divulging his name. The only replies he received were shaking heads and solemn glances. No one had heard of Merle, let alone seen him.
He reached a hallway that echoed sobs. One room had a child strapped to a bed, growling intermittently, and the person who Daryl assumed to be his mother cried from the corner. Another had a man without an arm, whose bandage couldn't keep the blood from pouring out. Daryl ignored the next, forcing his head to look forward. Moans and groans and tears resonated from each and every room.
At the nurses' station, he saw four people in scrubs and a woman in a lab coat. "Seen my brother? He's got the Clap."
She denied seeing Merle but explained that their antibiotic and narcotic supply has been dwindling as of late. He thanked her before she left to tend to her patients. All forty of them.
"If you find any meds that you don't need…"
He scoured the broken hospital wing to find a pile of burnt twigs sitting in ash—in the corner of a room, which smelt of booze. Daryl knew that Merle had been here. But he didn't think his brother would act so stealthily. Each single step he took caused the floor to shake. The ground was unsteady. More bricks fell from the walls.
Frustrated, Daryl decided to continue his search another day. The sun was beginning to set and the hospital was well into the Burbs, close to the Old City. Although he could handle himself, Daryl knew his chances on surviving this deep in the Zone were slim. And the chances of surviving alone at night were worse. Sleeping in the broken wing seemed like a plausible option, but it the crumbling sounds warned him that it would fall any day now.
Somehow, he had found the woman in the lab coat, so he asked her if there was a place he could stay. She brought him to a quiet room nearby the ward entrance. A drape hung in the middle of the room, hiding whatever was on the other side. She pointed at an empty bed, which was surprisingly tidy.
"You're welcome to stay, but if someone attacks, please help us. We don't have much. And we'll be sure to…" she paused. "Give you what you want."
"Hm." Daryl nodded hesitantly.
"Don't worry about making noise. He hasn't woken up yet," she explained. "He's been out for weeks."
Daryl sat on his bed and pulled the drapes slightly to appraise his safety. A scruffy-faced man was his roommate until sunrise. A deputy's outfit hung on the wall, neat and tidy, except for the bullet holes that pierced it. The man was skinny, like a twig. The intravenous had been clamped but was still connected to his body. His hands were strapped to the side rails, his feet stuck out from underneath the blanket's edge. A tube weaved between the thick beard, entering through his nose, filling his gut with fluid from a bag that hung above the bed.
Daryl spied a gossip magazine from before on the man's table and slipped it into his bag.
At least he wasn't sharing a room with someone who had c-diff.
Daryl whispered a good night to his neighbour.
"Sucks to be you."
Daryl left the hospital midday.
He looked towards the Old City and walked the opposite way, heading out, back to the Borderlands.
He reached the complex of townhouses he passed yesterday. The rooftops were empty, there were no eyes poking out of windows. It was quiet. Daryl immediately moved to one of the houses, crouching down, loading his crossbow. Something was wrong.
Three walkers ambled close by crossing the road with no regard for oncoming traffic. A small mob of teenagers stormed by, easily overpowering the three rotting corpses with kitchen knives and garden hoes. They cheered haughtily kicking the rotten heads with glee.
Daryl immediately jumped behind a large bunch of bushes, peeking through the leaves, assessing the situation. Approximately fifteen youth gathered in the middle of the street, cackling about what Daryl thought was a petty victory. A few wore leather jackets, one of them a skull-shaped visor. Made from a deer, perhaps.
Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl spotted a huffing figure rolling, jumping, sprinting, and ducking its way down a row of houses, in the opposite direction the group was heading. Daryl wasn't sure how the figure was so quiet, especially with what looked like a full—yes, a silly red hat. Plaid shirt. Dirty red kicks. Daryl almost gasped when he recognized who it was. But by biting his tongue, Daryl succeeded in suppressing any noise he would've made. Any sighs or grunts would attract the unwanted interlopers.
Daryl slyly shifted his way down the long bush to get a closer look at the figure. He brought his head closer into the bush, moving branches out of the way and gazed across the street. The kid stopped at a house, turning to watch the group in the middle of the road.
The teens complained they were hungry, that there was no food left in the area. Daryl gulped, shifting his head around, looking for a way out.
"Spread out!" was the command from the skull girl. "There's gotta be leftovers somewhere around here! I'm cravin' me somethin' sweet!"
Jeers echoed in the street, their cheers reigned loudly as they pumped up their fists. Glenn slinked his way into a backyard. Not a bad plan, Daryl thought. So he did the same, rolling out of the way and jumping into an alley. Shoving his back against the wall, Daryl leaned over, edging his knife to see that the teen was standing where he just was.
Daryl swiftly tiptoed his way to the backyard, jumping the fence, and made his way inside. He climbed to the second floor and noticed that the previous owners had made holes in the walls between each townhouse, connecting them together.
Peering down at the street, Daryl saw the teens spreading out. He needed to take advantage of their distance to escape without drawing attention to himself. The skull girl remained in the middle of the street, cocking a shotgun. Beside her, stood two others. Bodyguards. And in the distance, Daryl saw the kid making a clean getaway into the woods. Glenn turned back, looking in the direction of the complex, unknowingly being watched. Daryl watched the kid adjust his hat before sliding in between the trees.
Daryl looked beyond the forest, searching for a location where the kid was going. It was past a few hills where he saw a large warehouse in the middle of a grassy plain. And past that was the outskirts of the Old City. The stupid kid was going to kill himself. Didn't he know that the City was crawling with walkers?
Daryl rubbed his face and shook his head because both of them were about to do something stupid.
"Foo—!"
Daryl turned to see a teen in with him, a frightened boy weighing no more than a buck twenty-five. He was shaking, holding a knife with an unsteady grip. Daryl jumped, reaching for the teen, wrapping his head in a chokehold. The teen squirmed, flailing, trying to kick his way out of Daryl's grasp, but his actions were futile.
He released his grasp on the kid, allowing the body to fall onto the ground, before peeking out the window. The skull girl was pointing in his direction, barking orders at her followers to flank the target.
Daryl ran, pounding his feet hard, using the hole connecting him to another house. With a twist, Daryl flung his crossbow onto his back, strapping it into place. He unsheathed his knife, gripping it tightly in front of himself, ready to strike.
The bark dug lightly into Daryl's sweat-soaked shirt. His pants were loud and heavy from his aching lungs. The sun was slowly setting above him, the little light fading away from above the forest ceiling. He took a few minutes to sit down, wiping his knife clean of blood on the grass and catching his breath.
It took him a few minutes, but Daryl admitted that he was an idiot for deciding to follow the kid. While crawling through the thick bush, Daryl rehearsed a script about Glenn being an idiot for going deep into the Zone by himself. He planned to drag the kid back to the Borderlands one way or another.
He moved in the direction of the warehouse, sheathing his blade and equipping his bow. He listened to the sounds of the woods, paying attention to shuffling rocks and snapping twigs. Footprints were scattered lightly into the soft forest floor. Judging from the curvature, Daryl deduced that these tracks were fresh and the person who made them always made sure to check their back.
Daryl determinedly followed them, passing between bushes and crossing over small streams. He skipped the first stream, wary of its contents, but drank at a second when he saw a gerbil sipping at its shore. Daryl filled his bottle to the brim, drinking his fill before he continued his pursuit.
A small patch of grass interrupted the tracks, leading Daryl to become flustered. The grass showed no signs of being trampled, yet the footprints led Daryl to believe that Glenn went straight through them. He crouched down, eyeing the ground for the slightest sign of—there! A few feet away were broken twigs and grass bent in one direction. Quick analysis told him that an animal didn't do this. Must be a person. Or a walker.
The edge of the forest was a short distance away, breaking into tall grass plains with a clear path to the warehouse. But instead of going straight, Daryl noticed the tracks made a turn, travelling alongside the forest perimeter. Daryl stared at the two paths and after a few minutes, followed the prints that he assumed Glenn left behind.
He passed a large tree with a patch of wet dirt between its roots. Daryl held back a smile, quashing his thoughts when he unzipped himself and pissed on the other side.
That's when he heard the screams.
He reached the end of the tree line and kept low to the ground, quickly browsing the fields of tall grass for the sounds' sources. In the middle of a clear path, Daryl saw a man and a woman, reaching with their arms high into the air.
He slid on the ground, crawling towards a large boulder sitting on the edge of the forest. Spying the two, he watched, waiting to see what would happen next. But nothing did. The two continued to scream yet stay in the same position, reaching up and down, as if something was holding them down. Trapped? Daryl frowned, unsure of what to make of the situation. He shook his head and left, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He continued to follow the tracks.
The tracks ended at a small stony path. Daryl followed the path, but from the side of it. Eventually, he found himself at the warehouse's rear. Chatter echoed in the forest and Daryl saw people travelling in and out of the small backdoors. Two men stood at the front, watching everyone who entered.
Daryl quickly fell to the ground, hiding behind a rough bush, waiting, watching.
The people were scattered, in large and small groups. Though they were old and young and from different cultures, all of them wore weapons on their backs and scars on their skin. Daryl's eyes unintentionally focused on a small baseball cap in the middle of the field.
Glenn.
There he was, chatting with a woman with a bloodied katana strapped to her back. The kid waved his hands around, as if he was sharing an epic tale of romance and war, stabbing the air with an invisible sword and holding someone in his arms. She released a puffed-up laugh and patted the Korean's shoulder heavily enough for him to wince under her clasp. The woman handed him a small rectangle wrapped in cloth before leaving the area, heading deeper into the Zone.
Daryl jutted his jaw, doubtful but interested. Because how could a kid like that survive in a world like this?
Glenn gripped the object in his hands tightly, almost removing the back off his back but stopping before he did. The kid looked around slowly, possibly calculating his next move. Instead of putting it away, he shoved it in his pocket. He went inside the warehouse easily; the men guarding the doors moved out of his way without hesitation.
Daryl stood abruptly, causing a trio of older men to stare at him questioningly.
"What are you doing hiding behind them bushes?" one of them asked, while the other two raised fists at Daryl.
Daryl frowned, unsure of how to reply. Chances were he'd be able to take them out—but not without attracting the attention of the crowd mingling beside the warehouse. He quickly glanced between his feet, an old habit he's had ever since he was a child, a tactic used to make himself small.
"Oh." The man laughed haughtily. "You don't need to take care of that out here."
The other two joined in before making their way to the warehouse courtyard. Daryl quickly looked down to see what the man noticed and realized that he forgot to zip himself up after taking a piss. He blushed and frantically closed his zipper before he made his way to the warehouse doors, wondering what the man had meant.
The men outside the door stared at Daryl, not saying a word. They eyed each other with short gazes at Daryl in between. The tanned one murmured something that caused the other man to stand down. After listening to them spat, Daryl was permitted entrance into the warehouse.
He stepped inside the building before quickly passing cramped and cluttered booths bartering food and clothes. Each one had tattered cloth signs, mismatched wooden structures, and shady people trading goods behind the stalls, calling out to the customers. It was more crowded than Daryl expected. The warehouse was dim, with moonlight piercing dusty windows from the ceiling. The air was damp, smelling of booze and sex. Daryl felt uneasy, Daryl felt dirty.
Travelling between the aisles, he searched for Glenn. There was a stall of rotting vegetables being bought by whoever was desperate enough to eat them. One person took an offer of a half black cabbage for a padlock. Another stall carried weapons of different kinds: a Japanese blade Daryl wasn't familiar with; two baseball bats, a golf club, and a broken hockey stick; a whip; a branding iron; and a set of mismatched kitchen knives. There was one where cans of food were being bartered. There were no signs of the kid anywhere. If he asked around, he would be targeted as unfamiliar with his surroundings, someone that can easily be duped. Luckily for him, his physique lent the idea that he belonged here. Daryl shivered uneasily at the thought.
After realizing that the area he searched wasn't large enough to fit the entire warehouse, Daryl asked one of the vendors if there was something more to this place. He received a cheeky grin and was led behind the aisles. They waved through crowds of rowdy customers, slim hallways, and in and out of stalls, to reach a closed door.
"Just in here," whispered the man, drawing Daryl deeper into the dark corridor, further into the warehouse. "Walk down the hallway and you'll find a curtain. Go past that and you'll find what you'll seek."
And Daryl did as he was told, walking with his fists ready at his sides, ready for possible enemy encounters. Behind a dark curtain were the stalls, booths, and mattresses selling favours and firsts. A woman beckoned from her knees. Daryl looked away. A man nodded at him toughly. Daryl shook his head. Something tugged on his sleeve. Daryl looked down and found a child, probably four or five looking at him with a desperate face. He pulled his arm high above the child's reach and lightly pushed the child aside. He gulped when he reminded himself he was here to find Glenn.
He searched between the aisles and lovenests, bringing his ear close to curtains when he heard moans, peeking inside when everything was quiet. He peeked into the lovenests of many, squirming at a few, gagging at others. Children, men, and women were giving themselves up for anything to survive: food, technology, weapons, protection, blankets, and water. Daryl nearly blushed when he saw a young couple going at it. He growled when he saw a young boy being heavily petted by an older woman. He stared when he saw two men gripping each other tightly, caressing the other in the afterglow, but immediately turned away, his face flushed. There was another section with chains and whips.
Daryl gave up the search when his head began to feel light and his gait uneven. Daryl found no sign of Glenn, which gave him an odd sense of relief. After he dodged countless offers to suck his cock and ride him senseless, he finally reached a large wall with three men standing in front of a closed door.
"What's past that wall?" he asked around, finding people who weren't engaging in sexual acts.
"I don't know, but we're not supposed to talk about it."
"That leads to the end of the warehouse, of course."
"That brings you outside. No one goes out through there, though. We always use the back door."
"Don't go near those doors if you value your already miserable life."
He found a child with a bed, who asked for a can of food from outside her curtain-covered stall. Daryl gave him a few strips of meat and fell onto the bed as the girl drew the curtain. She was about to peel her shirt off when he placed a hand on hers and told her to stop. That what he meant by sleeping was just that.
Daryl slept for a few hours before the girl's mother came barging in, asking why Daryl was taking so long with her daughter. He shook his head, apologizing, staring down at the woman, before he made another round through the warehouse.
After discussing with himself, Daryl realized two things. First, that there were three sections of this warehouse comprising of trading goods, sex, and something beyond the tall walls, something hidden and thoroughly guarded, something potentially dangerous. And that if Glenn wasn't either of the first two sections, then that meant he was in the last.