Smoke rose in great plumes from the pile of bodies at the edge of camp. It lingered and mixed with the fumes drifting upward from the gas generator running beside her tent. The air smelled horrible. He limped on his crutches, careful to keep his foot from ever touching the ground. He remembered how to do this, but his arms were aching already.
They'd wrapped his leg in a garbage bag, tied it shut. He wore a mask over his mouth and nose. It was a miracle he made it through the tent flaps without tripping. Mikey and the black woman stood watch at the door, masked as well, both armed, and heavily. Daryl wondered why, but did not stop to ask.
There was the hiss of an oxygen mask, a horrible gurgling wheeze answering each exhale.
Candy looked up at him, eyes red and watery. She wiped at Aleda's face and arms with a cool cloth; the water smelled of mint.
Her skin was mottled, pale and weak, red with fever, yellow with jaundice. Her liver was failing. Daryl had known enough alcoholics to know what that looked like.
"Oh, Daryl." She grasped him tightly, but carefully.
She took another gurgling breath, muttering something.
"Daryl," Aleda whispered.
He froze in place.
"She's awake, Candy."
The tears came anew, rushing down her face.
"No, Daryl."
"She said my name." He shook his head.
"She's been saying a lot of names. It's fever dreams, Daryl. This is killing her. If it doesn't burn her brain out, the pneumonia will do it, if not that, then her liver and her kidneys. Her whole body is shutting down. She can't even eat. She can't keep nothing down. We don't know what's wrong with her."
OOOOOO
He sits with her for hours, spends hours more brooding in his tent.
He wishes he were alone.
She comes quietly, shyly, all bashful eyes and quick quiet words, sickly sweet, galling, bullshit words, praising his bravery, his strength, his courage, his fearlessness in the face of so much danger, how happy she was that he was healing, how sad she was that Aleda was not.
Daryl couldn't stand the way she looked at him, or the twenty-four just like her that had come before.
"You getting awful popular," Renee grinned at him.
"It's driving me fucking crazy," Daryl growled. "I get one more piece of pie, or cake, or another fucking plate of fried fish I'm gonna chuck it in their fucking faces."
Renee laughed, loud and long.
"Well you oughta think about it. You get 'em to ride you gentle enough might do your pissy attitude some good."
"I ain't fucking interested," Daryl snarled, glaring sideways at the plate of food on the crate beside his cot. "They're all fucking full of shit. Risking her life, risking court martial, taking on their responsibility. Fuck 'em all, I woulda said, but she didn't, and they don't give a fuck about her. She's laying there dying, and ain't nobody even been to see her. They're all full of shit."
"They can't deal with the truth, Daryl. Their savior's gone. They're losing their leader.'
"It ain't the fucking truth," Daryl bellowed. "She's not gonna die. She's not."
"You gonna have to accept it, Daryl."
"I ain't going to. I ain't got to."
He swung his leg carefully over the railing of the cot.
"Where the hell are you going?" Renee asked.
"I'm gonna do something about this. Something."