"You just… put your hand like this—"
"I know how to shoot a gun, Rick," I snap. Rick puts his hands up and backs a few steps away.
"Alright then," he says "Hit the target."
I purse my lips and look back at the target spray-painted on the side of a shed. Yes, I know how to shoot. I know very well how to shoot; my dad taught me how. I couldn't sing or dance or play music or do sports, but I could shoot a gun. That was how I spent my Sunday afternoons; shooting with my dad.
I'm a bit less experienced with a pistol, but I can work it well enough.
Aim, breathe, aim, steady, hold, pull—
BOOM!
Bull's-eye.
I lower the gun and turn back to Rick with a slight smirk on my face. He nods in approval and says "You can keep it. Just didn't want you having a gun if you didn't know how to work it."
I can keep this gun. The gun I took from the man that attacked me. I don't know if that's irony or just survival of the fittest, but either way I feel a bit uncomfortable. On the other hand, guns are hard to come by, and I'm not going to complain about getting one.
"We should get goin' now, 'fore the Walkers get here."
I nod and turn the safety back on my gun before tucking it into my belt. I look up and start to follow Rick but he holds up a hand and points behind me. "Shoot that one,"
I turn back around and look at the woods, where one snarling Walker is ambling out of the bushes looking for a meal.
A target is one thing, but I know that I'm a bit out of practice, and a Walker moves. But I can hit it; I know I can.
I pull the gun back out of my belt and turn the safety back off. Hold it up, pull back the hammer, aim, breathe, aim, hold, steady, pull—
BOOM!
It's not a perfect shot, but the Walker crumples to the ground and I let out a slightly relieved laugh. I turn back to Rick. "See? I can shoot."
He nods again. "Yeah, now let's go."
XXX
"Dad said you were a good shot," Carl says.
I nod absently as I examine the board. I could put my armies in Brazil and try to break through his hold on Africa. That would lose him some armies next round… but the hold is pretty good. I could completely wreck myself…
"Did you kill a lot of Walkers before we found you?"
I nod again and examine Asia. Neither of us have touched it; we both know that Asia is too hard to hold. But Carl wouldn't be expecting it and I have more territories there, maybe I could take it over…
"Did you ever kill a person?"
I freeze.
I slowly raise my head to look at Carl, who's staring at me with a look of utter fascination in his eyes. He's eager to know. This isn't the kind of question he's asking to get to know me better. He isn't asking out of a sense of obligation, he's asking because he wants to know. He wants to for exactly all the reasons I don't want him to.
"Carl, what did I say?" I ask quietly, glancing at the door to the kitchen, where the rest of the group is congregated "A couple of weeks ago, when we were on watch, what did I make you promise me?"
He frowns. "Not to go cold," he says "I'm not doing that, I just want to know—"
"Exactly!" I hiss "This isn't about trust of friendship or secret-sharing, this is about you wanting to know about death and it scares me, Carl."
"Fine, then don't tell me!" Carl exclaims, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms.
"What's going on?" asks Lori, looking at us from the kitchen, clearly concerned.
"Nothing," I lie smoothly "Carl's just upset that I'm beating him at Risk."
Lori looks suspicious, but she nods and steps back into the kitchen. I look right back at Carl with my best admonishing look, and he at least has the common sense to look a little bit embarrassed.
"I don't want to hear a question like that out of you again," I say sternly "Do you understand me?"
"Yeah," Carl mumbles. He leans forward again, clearly refusing to look me in the eye. I realize how… adulty I sounded right then. I kind of like it.
"Good," I mutter "Now let's finish our game and forget about this, that sound good?" He nods.
I place down my armies and the game continues, albeit uncomfortably. I really, really don't want to see Carl turning into some kind of child soldier, but it seems like that's exactly what's happening and I can't do anything to stop it.
I don't know what to do.
Neither of us are very focused, so the game wraps up a lot quicker than it should've. I win. And as I'm cleaning up the pieces, Carl says something that makes me feel a little bit better about the situation. "I'm sorry."
I stop and look up at him. He's staring at the floor. "It's okay."
He looks up and gives me a tight-lipped smile. I return it just as Lori walks in. "Dawson, can you take this out to Daryl?"
I look up. Lori's holding a bowl of food. A bowl that I'm supposed to take out to Daryl, who's on watch.
"And make sure he eats it!" Carol's voice calls "That man won't eat a thing unless you shove it down his throat!"
I stand up, nod, and take the bowl from Lori. I really don't want to go out there. No, I really do want to go out there, because I really want to see Daryl even though I shouldn't. I still get stupid, teenage, hormonal butterflies in my stomach whenever I see him, and I really hate it. Or do I like it and hate that I like it?
I definitely hate hormones. That I know for sure.
I head out the front door and get a good view of the setting sun. It's pretty, and if I try not to think about how screwed up the world is, it's a bit peaceful. But I'm not out here to stare at sunsets.
I step off of this unfamiliar porch and look around. I don't see Daryl anywhere. Where is he? I step farther into the yard and crane my head a bit. I walk to the right side of the yard and look down the side of the house; I do the same on the left. Seriously, where would he have gone?
I hear some leaves crunch and my hand jerks for my gun as I turn around—it's just Daryl. He was in the woods. I relax my hand and I'm pretty sure my face turns a bit red.
"Damn, girl, chill out," he says with raised eyebrows.
"Erm—sorry," I mutter "I, uh… brought you some food." I hold out the bowl and he takes it, then motions at the house.
"Ya goin' back in?"
"Carol told me to make sure that you eat it," I explain "Said that you wouldn't do it unless it was shoved down your throat."
Daryl rolls his eyes and starts back for the porch. I follow him, the irritating butterflies fluttering away inside me all the while. He sits down on the steps and I sit next to him, deliberately leaving a good amount of distance.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Fine," he grunts.
"Then why aren't you eating?"
He shoots me a look and doesn't answer, but grudgingly puts a bite of… rice? in his mouth. He swallows and finally says "What I do ain't none'a yer business."
"That was a double negative," I note out of habit. "Means it is my business."
"Thought 'choo didn' talk,"
"I had a phase," I joke "Then I remembered that I really liked talking."
Daryl ignores me, takes another bite and the butterflies inside of me let out a dejected sigh. Shut up!
"You were never a people person, were you?" I ask a bit sardonically.
"Had ma brother," he replies "All the people I needed."
I frown. "I'm sorry. What happened to him?"
"Got handcuffed to a roof by summa the group," Daryl explains "Went back fer 'im an' he'd cut off 'is own hand. Didn' find a body—I know he's still 'live. S'prised they didn' tell ya 'bout 'im."
I'm a bit… surprised… by this news. They handcuffed his brother to a roof?
"I mostly talk to Carl," I say uncomfortably "I'm guessing he wasn't a part of the er—um… the group that handcuffed your brother…"
"Don' gotta sugarcoat it," Daryl grunts "I loved ma brother but 'e was a jackass. Was 'is own damn fault 'e ended up the way 'e did."
I raise my eyebrows. "Sounds like a real stand-up guy," I deadpan.
Daryl snorts and the butterflies flutter away. Shut up! I need to stop thinking about the fluttering. I need to think about something else. Like maybe the fact that Carl is slowly turning into a psychopath, that's always fun to think about. Of course, my attention can't seem to remain off of Daryl for more than the three seconds it takes to come up with that idea, but then I get a new one…
"Daryl, you're a good guy," I state "But… you didn't grow up with a good home life, did you?"
"Already told ya, ain't none a yer business."
"No, it's just…" I sigh "I'm worried about Carl. This world is making him… hardened. No, worse than that. Earlier, he asked me if I ever killed anyone and he had this look in his eyes like—like he wanted me to say yes and he wanted to hear about it and—it's freaking me out. And you grew up in a bad place but you ended up good and I'm trying to figure out—"
"Ain't the same thing, Dawson," Daryl says. I ignore the flutter when he says my name and try to listen to what he's saying "I had an absent mother, a drunk father, an' a jackass brother. I didn't have no dead people walkin' 'round tryin' ta eat me. An' Carl's gotta helluva lotta people that give 'im the time o' day. So if yer wantin' help in turnin' 'im into a good lil' citizen, yer lookin' in the wrong place."
I sigh. The butterflies are dejected again, and I'm trying not to feel the same way in the rational part of my brain. I don't want to talk to Rick or Lori about this. Rick has a lot of things on his plate and Lori's… Lori.
"So what do I do?" I ask.
"Hell if ah know."
Daryl sets down the bowl, which I can see is completely empty, and leans his arms on his knees. The butterfly part of my brain notes how easy it would be to lean over and kiss him, and I stomp it with a mental foot.
If I kissed Daryl, he would either go for it and take me against the side of the house or he would push me away and tell me to get my shit straight. From what I know about him, I'm leaning towards the latter, but men are weird and unpredictable.
"This conversation was enlightening," I mutter, picking up the bowl. Even if it sounded sarcastic, it's a bit true. I found out a bit about his life, which is nice. I'm going to be spending the rest of the foreseeable future with him, so it's probably good to get at least a basic history.
I stand back up and head inside, ignoring the frustrated tightening in my stomach. Maybe I should talk to Maggie about this—of course, she might burst out laughing, which would be worse than the whole suffering in silence thing.
I'm really hoping that this—crush—God that's stupid—goes away on its own. My dating experience is limited to one movie with a boy I knew since kindergarten. That was a few months ago. He's probably dead now.
But that's off the point. I don't really know how these things work. I don't know how fast these teenage phases are supposed to pass, or how irritated they're going to get. Am I going to have romantic dreams of picnics in flowery meadows?
Actually, the picture of Daryl having a picnic in a flowery meadow is a little bit humorous.
I'll give it another few weeks. Then I'll talk to Maggie. As much as I dread it, I know that she wouldn't actually laugh at me. She'd probably love the opportunity to talk about something normal for a change.
I walk into the kitchen and give the bowl to Carol, who's washing the dinner dishes. She smiles when she sees that Daryl ate it all. "I was starting to worry," she jokes "You were out there for a while."
"I got him to have a conversation," I boast.
"Wow," Carol chuckles "That takes perseverance."
"You know it," I reply with a yawn. "I think I'm gonna check out, do you need anything else?"
"No, you go on ahead."
I give the woman a quick side-hug and head to the den where I've set up a makeshift bed on the couch. It's comfortable enough, and T-Dog is sleeping on the floor next to me so I feel pretty safe.
I tuck myself into the blankets and watch the light fade from the already dim room until it's almost pitch black. I hear everyone else in the house going to bed as well. T-Dog comes in and plops onto the floor with a quick "'Night."
I think of another thing they never mentioned when talking of the apocalypse. In addition to the endless hours of boredom, there's also a lot of drama. I'm dealing with Carl and Daryl, who knows what kind of drama everyone else is dealing with? I'm sure Rick and Lori are having marriage problems.
Maybe Hershel and Glenn secretly hate each other or Beth has a crush on Daryl too. Who knows what's going on in everyone else's minds?
I need to focus on surviving. I need to put aside the petty stuff and focus on the really pressing matters. Survival is my main priority. Carl is my second. I need to keep track of him and what's going on in his mind; I need to keep him in check.
Daryl doesn't even make the priority list. I'm just a silly teenager with a crush, and I need to stomp out those feelings as quickly as possible.
I take a deep breath and turn over in my bed as T-Dog starts snoring.
Right now, I also need to stop thinking and just get some sleep.
