Chapter Nine

It was a good thing that we went to Woodbury when we did. We went back to the town barely two days after the first trip, and when we arrived there was nothing left but some embers that flashed when walkers aimlessly moved through them.

Daryl turned the bike around so fast that I slammed into him and almost lost my balance. We all booked it out of there. Woodbury belonged to the walkers now. It made me shiver to think how closely we had missed the Governor arriving to torch the town.

We got things figured out at the prison. Everyone, our whole big group, ate dinner together in the mess hall. Food allowances were made to each cell/family and people took care of their own breakfast and lunch. A job schedule had been made by the council—Daryl, Glenn, Hershel, and a few of the Woodbury people—and rotated around.

Hershel's crop plot had grown considerably and now included the farm animals. Rick was helping us toil dirt and tend to the fields.

Michonne technically lived with us, sharing a cell with Carol officially, though she really preferred to spend time outside of the gates, searching for the Governor. I had heard from Daryl what he did to Andrea one night. I was still sneaking out with him when he had night watches.

"He didn't even make it fair for her," Daryl said, the disgust obvious in his voice. "He strapped her into a chair and gutted one of his own, leavin' the poor bastard with his innards fallin' on the floor to turn and do Andrea in for him. She was outta the restraints by the time we got there, but it was too late. The guy had turned and taken a chunk outta her neck. There was nothin' we could do."

Daryl shook his head. "Andrea's own sister went out in the same way, a walker bitin' out her neck."

I leaned my head against Daryl's shoulder. I had come to understand that Daryl was not opposed to affection; he just wasn't one to initiate it. I had seen, many times, Rick or Glenn rest a hand on his shoulder and Carol playfully swat him when he would take a bite of food from whatever she was cooking as he walked by. I'd even seen Beth hug him when he would take longer than usual hunting and she'd about convinced herself he was never coming back.

"Sometimes I wonder if it would have been easier in New Mexico. To survive, I mean." I said, to get his mind off of it.

Daryl wasn't just hunting animals. He was helping Michonne hunt the Governor. He had been able to track them to an extent, but the trail had turned cold.

"I mean, it's flat there. It would be easier to see them coming, I'd imagine. But it's hot and dry and windy, so they'd probably just get mummified instead of rotting."

"Bet the chupacabra took a few of 'em out." I looked up in time to see his smirk in the moonlight.

"Or the Mexican drug cartel."

We talked and we joked, but we didn't talk about certain things. Neither of us ever brought up Merle, and Daryl didn't ask me about the family I'd lost in New Mexico. I preferred to assume my parents and siblings were dead. It was easier that way, no hope to lose.

"Some of 'em are getting pretty gross." The moon was full enough that it actually gave us a lot of light, enough that Daryl was able to point out a walker coming up. One of its arms was nearly disconnected, probably only held on by some strands of muscle and tendon and skin.

"Like that one, he's fallin' apart. But other ones look pretty healthy if you ignore the fact that they're dead."

I knew what he meant. The older walkers, the ones who looked emaciated and like they hadn't eaten in a long time, they were decomposing. Newer ones did look healthy, somehow.

"I used to try to guess what their jobs were based on how they were dressed when this all started. It made it less scary, somehow."

"They're not people anymore. They're not even like animals, they're below them."

"Yeah, easy for you to say, Mr. Professional Hunter."

Daryl chuckled and we were quiet for a while after that. Eventually I felt Daryl's arm wrap around my waist and his hand rest against my hip. It surprised me and honestly it made my heart pick up the pace so that it made the blood race in my veins. But neither of us made any move to acknowledge the change. We just sat in the darkness, my head on his shoulder and his arm around my waist.

Besides tending fields and animals with Rick and Hershel, my favorite job was clearing the fence. After the Governor's attack, it was pretty hard to keep the walkers out because the Governor's vehicles had done a number on the fences. They had only bust through the gates, but the force had created a lot of weak spots.

We lost seven people that way, and our graveyard grew from three to ten wooden crosses.

Once the fences were fixed, they were patrolled and cleared daily. More people made more noise and attracted more walkers. The council had decided it best not to take any chances with the fences. We had been lucky to only lose seven.

When I was on fence clearing duty, along the west wall of the fence, so was Daryl. It's not like we had time to talk or anything while we worked, but it was nice to be working with him with the sun overhead.

I was walking along the outer fence line, trying to decide where to start, when I felt a hand on my shoulder to stop me. Daryl picked up my hair where it was spilling from my ponytail over my shoulders and tucked it into the collar of my shirt.

Sometimes, the walkers were able to get their hands through the chain links and grab at your hair and clothes. I was sure Daryl was remembering the Governor's raid, when the walker had grabbed my hair and nearly pulled me down.

"Thanks," I said, blushing. Daryl nodded and moved along the fence, driving an iron rod through the eye socket of a walker.

A lot had changed in our world. Before, I never would have imagined looking into the decayed faces of former people and killing them without a second thought would be a part of my daily routine. But there were things that went on the same, oblivious to the dead. The sun still shone and the wind still blew. And flies still buzzed.

I hated those stupid flies. With the temperature getting hotter every day it seemed, the flies were flocking to the dead. They were always around, and we were always having to swat them away. Earlier that week Carl had accidentally swallowed one of them while playing soccer with some of the other boys.

Outside the fence, a deer wandered from the tree line into the open field of walkers and promptly turned around to sprint off.

"I wonder how the animals are doing in all of this," I said, loud enough I knew Daryl could hear me over the moans and groans of the walkers.

"I mean, the walkers eat them, too. But what happens if the walkers eat all of a species of animal? These stupid things aren't just killing us, they're liable to mess up the whole food chain."

"Is this the kind of fancy-pants thinkin' they taught you to do in that college of yours?"

I laughed and watched him wait for the walkers to line up just right before pushing the rod through three at once. He had to put his boot against the fence for leverage to pull the rod back out.

"Nice one, Mr. Dixon!" One of the boys around Carl's age named Patrick worshipped the ground Daryl walked on. It was really cute actually. Daryl raised his hand to Patrick in a halfhearted wave.

"If you're not careful, you'll get your own fan club going." I teased Daryl while we walked back to the gates.

"Yeah, yeah."

I looked up when I heard the thunder of hooves. Michonne was back, riding her horse at a near gallop in a wide perimeter around the gates to give us time to open them for her. I wondered sometimes if the animals saw the walkers as human or more like an animal danger, something that would hunt them down.

It wasn't until Michonne was safely inside that we realized she wasn't alone. In the saddle just behind her was a small Mexican woman.

"She was asking for supplies. She doesn't speak much English, but she seems really desperate. I thought maybe Livy could talk to her." Michonne said in answer to Daryl's questioning gaze. She turned and offered her hand to the woman to help her down.

"Why me?" I asked. I could speak a little Spanish, and I understood more than I was able to speak, but I hadn't told anyone that.

"Well, you're from New Mexico, so…" Michonne shrugged.

"I can try." I hadn't talked to anyone in Spanish since I left New Mexico for college.

"Hola," I said to the woman once we had her inside the gates. "Me llamo Olivia."

She smiled brightly at me. I think she was excited that someone was speaking her language.

"Me llamo Yadira." From there, the words just tumbled out of her mouth in one big breath. I had to really work to keep pace and understand.

"Wait, wait. Enfermo? Your people are enfermo?" I knew I was butchering the poor woman's language, but I was so rusty. I couldn't even think of all the words I'd have to conjugate to ask fully in Spanish.

"Si, si." She nodded emphatically.

"What is she saying?" Rick's voice behind me made me jump a bit, and I turned to see him holding Judith.

"She says the people in her group are sick." I told Rick before turning back to the Yadira. "Tu necesitas medicinas?" I asked. Do you need medicine?

"Por favor!"

I turned back to Rick. "Can we spare some medicine?"

Rick looked uncertain. He passed Judith from one arm to the other as he stood considering.

"La bebe is muy bonita," she said, her hand out stretched. Rick pulled Judith farther into him, away from the woman.

"Oh, no, Rick. She says Judith is beautiful. She doesn't mean her any harm, it's a cultural thing. In Mexican culture, they're a lot touchier."

"Gracias," Rick said, but he also took a step back. "I'm going to go talk to Hershel and Dr. S, see what supplies we have. Try to figure out what her people are sick with."

"Um, did el muerto," I said, pointing to the walkers so she'd understand, "mordio tu gente?" I was trying to ask if any of them had been bitten, but I could tell by the confused look on her face she was unsure what I was asking. Eventually she shook her head and started talking again.

From what I understood, it was just bad cases of the cold or maybe even turning into the flu. But one person, she told me, an old man had started bleeding from his nose and eyes and ears.

When Rick came back with some Sudafed and Tylenol, the woman seemed happy enough with what we had to offer and thanked Rick profusely. Michonne took her back to where she found her before coming home for dinner and to stay a few days before she got back to hunting the governor.

"Hershel," I said, our group sitting outside while the sunset and we ate a dinner of beans and opossum. "Can a fever get so high that you start bleeding?"

"Where's this coming from, Livy?" My question had drawn attention. Everyone was looking at me curiously. Glenn had his spoon just outside his mouth; he had stopped when I asked my question and it was dangling in the air outside of his open mouth. Carl was eating dinner with one of his friends he had made, so I figured then would be a good time to ask.

"Yadira, the Mexican woman, she was telling me that her people had the cold or the flu, she wasn't sure. But she also said an old man started bleeding from his nose, eyes, and ears out of nowhere."

"It would be news to me," said Hershel. "Sounds like a brain aneurism."

"Poor bastard," I heard Daryl mumble into his bowl.