He and T-Dog hauled the bodies of the walkers he had killed yesterday out of the store and into the loading area. "What do you think about it Daryl? You know, what Rick said about all of us being infected. You think he's right?" T-Dog questioned.
Daryl nodded, the image of walker Dale still fresh in his mind. "He's right. Dale wasn't bit and I saw him get up myself."
"Huh," T-Dog grunted. "I still don't get why he didn't tell us what Jenner said before this though."
Daryl looked at the large black man for a moment. "You think everyone's upset just because Rick didn't say anything before? 'Cause I don't. I think everyone's upset that it's true. Getting mad at Rick is just a way of not thinking about it. If he had told us before without really knowing if Jenner was right, it would have done more harm than good."
T-Dog thought about it for a minute. "Shit, you're probably right. Can't say the idea that whatever is causing all this is floating through my bloodstream as we speak is sitting well with me."
"I hear ya," Daryl replied. "You ready?" he asked, indicating the back door, effectively ending that conversation. He didn't like the idea either and talking about it just made him feel uneasy.
Taking Daryl's none to subtle hint, T-Dog grabbed the doorknob and waited for Daryl's signal. Throwing the door open, he quickly moved aside, letting Daryl sweep the back lot with his crossbow.
"We're good," Daryl grunted, satisfied that the walkers were too far away to be a threat. He turned around and grabbed the feet of the pajama clad male.
As soon as they dumped the body of the female T-Dog asked, "How long you think we're going to be able to stay here?"
Daryl wiped his hands upon his pants and scanned the area. "Not long," he said quietly. "It's too built up. Have to go to far to hunt and we only have enough food to last a week or so."
"Hmmm," T-Dog murmured. "Any idea where we're going to head off to?"
"Nah, Rick hasn't said anything." Daryl sent a bolt flying through the air to take out a walker that had shuffled over a little too close for his liking. As soon as the body fell, he trotted over and yanked the arrow free.
T-Dog walked over to the store and pulled the door open to head back in, "I guess Rick's got a lot on his mind, with Shane and all."
Daryl raised his eyebrows as he followed the other man in. "That's one way of putting it," Daryl thought. It was impossible for him not to notice that Lori had chosen to ride with Shane instead of Rick and Carl, that she'd been glued to Shane's side ever since then.
Daryl didn't think that it had escaped Rick's notice either. The other man had been watching his wife with a tight expression on his face since they arrived.
Glenn came running up to them. "Hey, do you think we can do a little scavenging? No one has any clean clothes and we could see if we could find some camping equipment in some of these stores."
"Sounds good man," said T-Dog. "I can't just sit here anyways. You in?" he asked Daryl.
Nodding Daryl said, "Give me a few, I just want to check in with Carol."
"You going out?" she asked when Daryl walked over. "Glenn was talking about it."
"Yah, going see about finding whatever we can. Write down your sizes and we'll see what we can find." Daryl's eyes slid over to where Livi was curled up asleep on the floor. "How's she doing?"
Carol frowned. "She slept most of the way here and then just drifted off again the moment she sat down. I think she's having a hard time with what happened to Patricia. At least she didn't lose the medications though. I found them all in the bottom of her pack."
"She start taking it?" Daryl asked.
Carol nodded. "Yeah, last night. But it's going to take time to work. Hershel said it'll be weeks till she starts feeling better."
"Weeks..." Daryl thought. He didn't know if they had weeks.
Nine days later Daryl was up on the roof, keeping watch when he heard the hatch open behind him. He didn't have to turn around to know it was Rick.
"You know you really don't have to do this. With the security doors down and locked we're pretty safe in there." Rick said.
"Yeah I know. Gives me an excuse to get out of there though." In fact, sitting up here alone after dinner was the best part of Daryl's day. When it was quiet, he could tilt his head back, look up at the night sky, and it was almost as all this had never happened, that he was sitting in his own backyard.
That wasn't going to happen tonight though since it appeared he was going to have some company. Daryl sized the other man up pretty quickly. "Wanna drink and not talk about it?" he held out the bottle of Jack Daniels.
"Huh," Rick chuckled. "Yeah." He settled in next to Daryl and took a long draw off the bottle.
The two men sat there for a while, passing the bottle back and forth.
"We're going to have to leave tomorrow," Rick said. "Shane's well enough to travel and we're almost out of food."
Daryl tilted the bottle back; he had been waiting for this. "Yeah, I know. Any ideas where you want to head to?"
Rick shrugged. "Some, but I wanted to hear what you had to say. Fort Benning is out, even after everything that went down with those guys in town, I believe that they were telling the truth about it being gone."
Daryl shrugged, he'd never been that keen on going to Fort Benning anyway. "We got three choices, camp, try to find another secluded farm, or move around."
Rick bit down on his lip. "Yeah, that's the problem isn't it, none of those options are that appealing. Doesn't seem like much point trying to start up another farm, just get overrun again. Same problem with camping but now you add in a crying baby and that makes it even worse."
"So we move around," Daryl said.
Rick nodded, "Yup, we move around and hope we don't get pinned in someplace. I think we should look for rural areas that are close to larger towns. That way we can go and scavenge at houses but hopefully they'll be fewer walkers around. Took a look at some of these maps and I think we should head west a bit. There's plenty of roads which will allow us to slip around the walkers and while some of the towns are pretty spread apart, there's a few good sized ones."
Daryl sucked down another shot of whiskey, it burned pleasantly all the way down. "That's the plan then."
The two men sat in silence for a while, each with thoughts of women on their minds. "I don't" Rick sighed, "I don't know-"
Daryl cut Rick off. "What part about not talk about it don't you get?" he asked. "Here, have some more." He passed the bottle back towards Rick.
Rick nodded his head as if he was in agreement with Daryl, taking the bottle he took a long swallow. Daryl chuckled and followed suit.
A few hours later Daryl was cursing himself for letting Rick drink so much. It wasn't that Rick had insisted on talking about what was going on with Lori, in fact, after that one attempt he hadn't said much of anything. The problem was, in order to get back down into the store, you had to swing through the hatch and land on a step ladder. Daryl wasn't sure that Rick could even see the hatch, let alone climb down through it.
After debating for a moment how to approach the problem he turned to Rick. "Alright, I'm going first and once I'm down a couple of rungs I'll let you know. You swing down and I'll help you. Alright?"
Rick looked at him from heavy lidded eyes. "'Kay, I got it, no problem," he slurred. He took a step forward and promptly tripped over his own feet. He would have fallen flat on his face if Daryl hadn't grabbed him. "Guess it's been a while since I had this much to drink."
Daryl nodded, "It's alright. You're not the first guy that's had a few too many. 'Sides, I've got some experience with this." That last part was an understatement. Between Merle and his father, Daryl figured he'd probably put them to bed hundreds of times after they came home completely drunk. Difference was, he knew Rick wouldn't punch him for his trouble.
Somehow, miraculously, Rick made it down the ladder in one piece. "Thank Christ," Daryl murmured when Rick's feet hit the concrete floor instead of his head. Although tomorrow Rick would probably be wishing that it was the other way around.
After dumping the sheriff onto his makeshift bed, Daryl headed over to his own. The light from the moon coming through the high windows was just enough to see Olivia where she lay a few feet from him. Sighing, Daryl stretched out and placed his hands behind his head. The whiskey hadn't slowed the thoughts in his mind like he had wanted. All he could think about was that tomorrow they'd be out on the road, and Livi wasn't any better.
I know this is a little short, and I'm sorry about that, but it really didn't go with the next chapter and I wanted to touch on a few things. As always please review!