DARYL:

He heard screaming somewhere in the foggy existence between dreams and reality and he knew whose it was. His heart leapt into his chest and before he was even completely awake he reached for his crossbow which he kept no further than a foot away from his mattress. He sat up with the blood rushing to his head and his legs performed a wild acrobatic act as he struggled to gain footing on the steep metal staircase. On the verge of face planting, he jumped the last few steps and landed catlike on the floor before rushing towards the cell that Lori and Carol shared. He was not the only one who had been jolted awake from the screams, for Beth, Maggie, and Carl stood around the door while Rick and Glenn helped Hershel to hobble into the cell. From within Daryl could hear Lori panting heavily and knew instantly what the screaming had been about.

"Hershel's here now, Lori," said Carol soothingly.

Daryl tugged on Carl's sleeve and motioned to the cell block door where T-Dog stood guard. "Go over with Tee, y'don't need t'see this."

"She's my mom," said Carl flatly.

"She's in good hands, Carl, go on," said Beth comfortingly. "We should all clear out so that she can get some air."

Carl looked to be on the verge of protesting, but his words were cut off by the sound of gunshots from the prison yard. Movement ceased within the cell block; even Lori had gone quiet in response to the shots. Daryl looked to Rick who was standing over Lori on the lower bunk and saw that his friend was at a complete loss. The decision was clearly tormenting him as the self-proclaimed leader of their group: stay with his estranged wife or fulfill his duties and go investigate the source of the noise.

"Tee, you, me, Glenn'n Maggie are gonna go check this out while the rest've y'all stay here," said Daryl decisively. "Carl, guard the door 'till we get back. Rick, try'n keep that baby quiet when it comes. C'mon y'all, let's go."

"I'll help," said Carol, leaving Hershel's side. "Beth, stay here and help your dad."

Daryl shook his head. "No, we don't need your help. You stay here-,"

"I'm coming," said Carol in a final sort of way, equipping herself with her pistol and a thin metal skewering pole. She brushed past him and headed off towards the door where the rest of the fighting squad had gathered. Daryl swore under his breath and tramped off to lead them out. He took her aside and told her in very firm voice, "I don't' need nobody gettin' lost out there, so y'do exactly what I say when I say it, got me?"

"I'm not the one you should be worried about. My head's screwed on right."

Unsure whether she had meant that as an insult or not, Daryl hurried to the front of the line again. They navigated the maze of passageways to the courtyard door which Daryl very slowly propped open just enough to see halfway across the yard. The moon was half hidden behind unseasonal storm clouds, which made it impossible to distinguish anything beyond the outer perimeter fence. Scanning the surrounding area for signs of the living or dead, Daryl motioned for T-Dog and Glenn to follow him. They hugged the wall, sidling along side by side until they ran out of wall and were forced to creep into the open yard.

"I can't see a damn thing," said T-Dog in an undertone as he and Glenn squatted down to present less of a target of themselves.

"Y'hear that?" asked Daryl quietly, pointing off into the middle distance to emphasize his point. Once was quite enough when it came to remembering the sounds of a reanimated corpse as it stalked closer and closer. The memory would never leave him, not until the day he died. Which might just be t'night, he thought to himself as his eyes adjusted to the near darkness to see shapes looming towards their position and judging by the drunken stagger and the guttural groans, those shapes were not humans.

"How'd they get in?" whispered Glenn.

"Someone must've opened up the hole in the fence," replied Daryl. "There ain't no other way for 'em t'have come in. That's the only entrance on this side've the prison." The question was, What sick, stupid son've a bitch would go'n do a thing like that? Who had fired the shots they heard? Questions left unanswered brewed in Daryl's head, but he pushed them aside, steeling himself for the task ahead. In Rick's absence, he had a responsibility to clear out the yard and make it safe once again, even if that meant battling walkers in the dark.

"Take them out quickly and quietly, I guess, huh?" said Maggie as she and Carol joined them.

"Thought I told the two've you t'stand guard at the door?" hissed Daryl.

"Must not have spoken clearly enough," Carol responded. "Let's just get this over with."

"Maggie and I'll help clear a path to the gate," said Glenn. "From there, the three of you can get over to that hole and patch it up again."

"Real smart idea, Einstein," Daryl scoffed. "Whoever cut it open the first time'll just do it again and we ain't even got somethin' t'patch it up with in the first place."

"There's some chain links in the truck," T-Dog recalled. "We can close up the hole with those if we can make it."

If we can make it. That sounded reassuring. Still, they didn't have much of a choice and the walkers were nearly within shooting distance now. Daryl consented and drew his knife. It would be nearly impossible using his crossbow in the dark and he wanted to clear out the yard without a sound being heard. Trying to remember if walkers could see well in the dark, he instructed Glenn and Maggie to cut left while he and Carol took the right to make way for T-Dog.

They moved swiftly, silent and accurately as they dispatched walkers in a stealth-like manner. It was difficult making contact with the walkers' skulls without proper lighting to guide their way and more than once Daryl felt a swooping plunge in his stomach when he thought he might miss his target and risk getting bitten. After his fifth walker he heard the groan of the truck as it sank into the soft ground slightly with T-Dog's added weight in its trunk.

"Move, let's go, let's go," he said in a harsh whisper to the others as they came together and jogged off towards the gate walkway where more walkers were converging on the vehicles. T-Dog swung his crowbar into one walker's ear and wrenched it out with a sickening squelch to put another walker down just feet away. Daryl thrust his knife upwards into a rather tall walker's jaw and pushed it aside to move onto the next. Behind him he heard Maggie's grunt as she swung her kukri in a giant arch.

T-Dog had the chains and went sprinting ahead to block off the hole before anymore walkers could climb through but the number of walkers waiting their turn to pass through the opening was too great to seal off and in the darkness Daryl knew that they would never be able to accomplish such a feat.

"Tee, leave it!" he called. "We'll close the gate and keep 'em in the pathway until the mornin', c'mon!"

Halfway to the hole, T-Dog made a wild turn-about and ran back towards Daryl with several walkers hard on his heels. Daryl had no reliable weapons to spare T-Dog some time and the sight of faceless monsters closing in made him spin on his heel and take off in a mad dash for the second gate that closed off the pathway. He had to use his crossbow as a makeshift battering ram as he ran, for several walkers remained that Glenn, Maggie, and Carol had not yet managed to beat off. Twenty feet shy of the gate he collided with Maggie and both of them went down on the gravel. Cursing for half the yard to hear, Daryl groped blindly for her arm. Instead she found him and hauled him to his feet, diving out through the gate jus as T-Dog and Glenn dragged it shut and began looping the chains around it to secure it.

Carol screamed.

Daryl saw her still battling inside the pathway with one walker, locked in hand-to-hand combat with the hulking figure. He threw himself at the chains and attempted to pry them open once again, but T-Dog held him back. Walkers clawed at them as they surged against the gate and Daryl broke free of T-Dog's grasp to run around to the side of the fence, hollering at Carol who had finally managed to shake off her opponent. On the opposite side of the fence T-Dog, Glenn, and Maggie were striking the fence with their weapons to create a distraction for Carol.

"Lock yourself in one of the cars!" Daryl shouted. "Carol, the cars!"

He drew walkers to him with his voice and his beating against the fence with his shoe but for all of his efforts, it made no difference. How could Carol have fallen behind? Why hadn't T-Dog or Glenn stopped to help her? How was it possible that they had closed the gate without knowing that Carol wasn't with them?

The dark, he told himself. They thought Maggie had run out b'fore them and they assumed Carol was with me. They couldn't tell, couldn't see…

"Carol!" Maggie screamed.

Separated from her only by the fence, Daryl could do nothing but watch as the walkers surrounded her in an unforgiving semi circle with her back pressed to the watchtower. Daryl could see half of her face, calm and ready. She put her pistol to her mouth and clamped down over the barrel with her teeth.

Daryl blessed the darkness for masking the blood that had surely burst from the back of her skull as she pulled the trigger. A ghostly echo of the shot carried on the still night air. The walkers fell upon her body, though she would never know that pain of being torn into thousands of fleshy scraps for the dead to feast on. Cold shivers ran up Daryl's spine, but his body did not react to them. He swayed on the spot, forcing himself to turn away and head back up the hill leading to the courtyard. Hell descended from the sky above as he listened to the sounds of Maggie sobbing back at the gate.

Alone in the courtyard, he came to a dead stop, fists bawled. The gunshots…the decision…the price…

He would have to face the accusing stares from the others at dawn, for there would be no more sleeping this night. He had no choice but to walk back into the cell block and tell Rick that he had failed to protect the group; the others would see that he was no leader and no man to take Rick's place. His one guaranteed ally was gone by no fault of Rick's. He, Daryl, had brought this down on himself for choosing to brave the night and face the unknown in the darkness.

Screams would not plague his dreams; dreams were a thing of the past to be replaced with nightmarish images of his friend forever blocked off from him by a metal fence.