Authors note: So I'm guessing you guys didn't really like that last chapter so I'll get back to the show. I'm on vacation this week so I should have plenty of time to write.
Also, I had the thought to make a second story, one where Daryl and Amanda don't know each other. Would anyone be interested in something like that?
Love.fiction.2018: thank you for always reviewing!
Daryl
"If we could just secure the gate, add some extra protection... we could stay here." Rick was saying as he and Daryl checked the outside perimeter of the wall around Wiltshire Estates. Daryl grunted in reply. They had all stayed the night in the first house, someone taking watch every few hours. They hadn't seen any sign of a threat, living or dead. The place seemed safe enough. There were about twenty houses in the closed off neighborhood, all surrounded by a thick brick wall.
"What do you think?" Rick asked Daryl. He could see a hopeful gleam in the man's eye as he turned to him. Daryl chewed on his thumb nail before answering.
"Seems alrigh'" He said, gesturing toward the wall. "can't figure out why it's empty though." Rick nodded his head in agreement.
"Yea, I was askin' myself that all night." He admitted. "Almost seems too good to be true." Daryl made a noise of agreement, that had been his fear too. Almost every place they had found since the world went to shit had been picked through by scavengers like themselves, but this one was practically untouched. He adjusted his grip on the crossbow and continued walking, surveying the wall for any weaknesses.
"Just imagine being able to start a life here." Rick said quietly, more to himself than Daryl. Amanda's smiling face flashed in his mind but he pushed the image away, not wanting to let his hopes get too high. He wanted to know he could keep her safe before he even thought any farther on the subject.
They had almost completely walked the entire wall when a gunshot rang out from inside.
Then another.
Daryl didn't even look back to see if Rick was behind him before he started sprinting toward the gate. He slid to a stop right before they entered as he spotted a sign hanging next to the wrought iron entrance. They must have missed it in the dark snowy night last night. A large piece of plywood was hanging by a nail in the brick. Across it were large black letters, hastily written out in paint as a warning to others.
ALL DEAD. DO NOT ENTER.
Daryl and Rick shared a brief look of panic before sprinting into the development. Lori ran out of the house they had stayed in last night, pointing to the one across the street. "It came from there!" She cried.
Daryl's heart dropped as he realized it was the one Glen and Amanda had said they were going to clean out today. He ran up the steps and burst through the front door, crossbow drawn as he entered the living room. He could hear a scuffle in the next room and he roughly pushed the door open to see Amanda and Glen backed into a corner by walkers. Several other dead bodies littered the floor already as he leapt over them, closely followed by Rick. Seizing the walker closest to him, Daryl drove his knife into its skull, and pulled it free with a sickening sucking sound. He kicked the knee of the walker infront of him so the decomposing body fell to the floor before he gouged the knife into that ones eye socket. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Amanda fall under the weight of the walker on top of her with a cry, it's jaws opening wide to take a bite out of her flesh.
No!" He bellowed.
He turned to run to her when a decayed hand seized his bicep. He shot the owner of the hand in the forehead point blank with his crossbow and pushed it off of him with a grunt. He rushed to the corner where she had fallen. She was wrestling against the fat walker on top of her, it's jaws clamped down on the brace around her arm as she struggled to keep its mouth away from her. Her knife was feet away, out of her reach, her gun out of ammo. He grabbed the walker by the neck and bashed its head into the wall, splattering the paint in a gush of walker gore before dropping its lifeless body to the floor.
His heart hammered in his chest as he seized her arm, pulling her up to her feet. Rick drove his machete into the last walker as Daryl hurriedly stripped the brace off Amanda's arm, scanning her skin for teeth marks. When he found none, he looked up into her wild blue eyes before crushing her against his chest. Her chest was heaving from the amount of energy she had just exerted.
"We have to go." Rick told them. "Now!" All four ran out the door and into the street, skidding to a stop as dozens of walkers began emerging from the shadows behind every house, drawn out by the sound. Daryl could hardly see down the street amidst the stumbling bodies. He pushed Amanda in front of him and they beelined for the truck.
"Let's go! Let's go!" Rick screamed behind them. The rest of the group ran from the house as they all hurriedly piled into the cars. Tires squealed and they sped out of the neighborhood as fast as they could.
It wasn't until miles down the road at an abandoned clothing store that Rick stopped the truck, throwing it into park and running a hand through his hair.
"Now what?" T-dog asked, climbing out of the Hyundai.
"We hole up here for the night." Rick said, eyeing the dilapidated store front.
"We're almost of food." Lori said quietly. Rick didn't look at her as he answered, his eyes scanning the trees instead.
"Then we hunt." He stated, finding Daryl. Daryl nodded and readjusted the crossbows strap on his shoulder.
WDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD
Daryl's eyes scanned the foliage as he and Amanda crept silently through the woods. She froze and motioned for him to get down, her eyes landing on the rabbit ahead of them seconds before his did. He watched as she unsheathed her knife and held the tip of the blade between her fingertips. After a moment she flung it forward and rabbit fell to the ground, the knife embedded in its body. She smiled at him smugly and picked up the rabbit, pulling the knife out and wiping the blood from it on her jeans. He watched her for a moment as she stood in a patch of weak winter sunlight. The rays shining off her dark hair and casting a glow around her face, the green in her eyes nearly swallowing the blue.
How had this incredible woman come to be his? To be the one he slept next to at night and survived beside in the day? To be the one he could see being with for the rest of his life - however long that may be. She looked up at him from the rabbit and realized he was staring at her.
"What?" She asked curiously in a low voice, careful not to scare away anything else nearby.
"Jus' thinkin'." He said, scratching his head uncomfortably and looking away. She picked her way quietly over the forest floor and stood before him, laying a hand on his chest.
"Whatcha thinkin' 'bout?" She drawled in her Georgian accent with a smirk. He returned the small smile and intertwined his fingers with hers, tapping one against her ring finger thoughtfully. Her eyes followed the movement and her eyebrows knitted together as she looked up at him quickly, understanding his train of thought.
"Wha-"
He hastily interrupted her. "I ain't askin' ya." He explained, stopping the question on her tongue. "I jus'-" He looked away, exhaling deeply, trying to think of how to explain what was running through his mind. He fixed his eyes on hers again. "If we found somewhere safe - really safe - would ya... would ya wanna... talk about.. that.. y'know?" He winced as he butchered the question and felt his face turning red as her eyes grew even wider. When she nodded slowly, looking bewildered, and he released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
They stood there for a moment, hands still together, staring at each other as they realized this relationship had just taking a much more serious turn. She cleared her throat finally and pulled him deeper into the trees, looking for more wildlife.
After a few hours, her voice broke the content silence they'd been in as they walked back to the store. "So what made ya think 'bout that?" She asked him suddenly.
He didn't look up as he stopped walking and reknocked his bow.
"This mornin' was the third time I almost lost ya." He shouldered the bow and looked up at her, she stood staring at her boots where she was kicking at the dirt nervously. He stepped forward and placed a finger under her chin, forcing her to look up at him.
"There's a lotta things I shoulda done years ago." He said in a low rumbling voice. "And most of 'em gotta do with you."
Her eyes shone with emotions as she looked at him, a small smile playing on her lips. "I love you." She said quietly, standing on her toes to kiss him. He responded immediately and wrapped his hand around her back, holding her to him and kissing her deeply.
"Eh-hem." Coughed a voice to their right. In an instant both of them were broken apart and had taken defensive stances, only to relax when they saw Glen and Maggie watching them with grins on their faces.
"Some of us are hungry, ya know." Glen said, eyeing the squirrels and rabbits hanging from Amanda's belt. Daryl scoffed and brushed past them, ignoring the small giggles he could hear coming from the girls.
WDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD
Amanda
Days had stretched into weeks after we escaped Wiltshire Estates. Every day we were moving, scavenging, surviving. Georgia began heating back up as springtime came.
"Dammit!" Rick slammed his fist down on the hood of the truck. It had finally run out of gas, and once again we were sitting with our asses out on a desolate stretch of road.
"There's gotta be something around." Glen said, eyes darting around us as we all watched for walkers.
"We split up," Rick instructed, "there has to be houses, buildings, something - anything nearby. Anything you can find, bring it back here, or come find us." Stress was wearing him thin. The hopeful gleam in his eye had been replaced with a bitter hardness. His face was covered by a thick beard and his hair was no longer slicked back and tidy as it usually was before. I looked around at the rest of us, no one looked much better. We were a haggard group.
Daryl tugged at my elbow and we snuck quietly into the woods to go scavenge what we could. He hadn't let me out of his sight for more than an hour since Wiltshire, not that I wanted him to. Every day we were struggling to get by, to find food, shelter, gas, supplies. There had been days we'd been without anything at all, chewing leaves just to quiet the rumbling of our stomachs. If Daryl's watchful eye was the only good thing I could have in this life, I'd take it.
I watched the wings on the back of his vest now as we followed an ancient looking set of train tracks, the wooden ties rotting away from neglect. He had gone back to his sleeveless shirts, no longer needing to fight off the cold. I licked my lips and admired his large, muscle-bound biceps, flexed as they carried the crossbow infront of him.
He stopped walking and crouched down, motioning for me to go the same. I did so and snuck forward so I was next to him. Wordlessly, he pointed to a rooftop off in the distance, barely visible through the brush. We shared a glance and began to creep toward the building.
"Holy shit." I breathed as we came to the edge of the tree line, not emerging in case there were walkers - or even people - around.
He nodded his head, "That's a damn shame." He murmured thoughtfully.
Down the slope in front of us was a prison. The dead were roaming in the courtyard, held in by the double chain link fences lined with barbwire. My eyes followed the fence all the way around, it was only damaged at the back of the building, separated from the courtyard and main part of the structure. I looked back at Daryl and saw the same twinge of hope in his eyes that I knew would be reflected in mine.
What could be safer than a frickin' prison?
He motioned his head back the way we came and I nodded to him. We quietly snuck back towards the road where our cars were.
WDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD
"Watch the back." Warned T-dog as we stabbed our way through the walkers approaching us.
Glen was cutting through the chain link fence around the prison with the bolt cutters as I answered. "Got it." I said, swinging my crowbar through the head of the female walker closest to us. Daryl pulled me toward the fence and I skipped backwards, eyes darting to the walkers still bearing down on us. I climbed through the hole in the fence and held one side open, making sure to keep the jagged pieces of metal away from Lori's swollen stomach as she climbed through. As soon as Rick was in, Daryl and I hurriedly looped a wire through the links, sealing the hole just as a walker slammed its body into the metal, making me jump back in alarm. I glared at it smugly, appreciating that there was finally something between us and them.
"Come on, come on, come on." Rick ushered us into running through the small pathway formed between the two fences. On one side of us, walkers dressed in prisoner uniforms clawed at the fence, mouths gaping at us in hunger. On the other, the same, just dressed in regular clothes.
Like a tunnel of death, I thought idly as I ran, watching the wings on Daryl's vest as he ran in front of us, crossbow raised. He threw open one more gate and we were at the main entrance to the yard. I bent over and rested my hands on my knees, catching my breath.
"It's perfect," Rick said, already eyeing up the next task, and pointing to an open gate at the top of the hill. Walkers were stumbling out of it slowly, one by one, like some sort of production machine. "If we can shut that gate, prevent more from filling the yard. We can pick off these walkers. We'll take the field by tonight."
"So how do we get to the gate?" Hershel asked breathlessly.
"I'll do it." Glen and I said at the same time. We looked at each other and nodded in unison, we were both the smallest and quickest on our feet. "You guys cover us." He said. Daryl laid a hand on my shoulder with a shake of his head.
"No, it's a suicide run." Maggie stated.
"We're the fastest." Glen explained. Rick stepped forward, a plan already circulating in his head. He pointed at Glen.
"No, you, Maggie and Beth draw as many as you can over there." He motioned to another section of the fence, "take as many as you can down through the fence. Daryl, Amanda, go back to the other tower," he pointed to the tower we had just run past, "Carol, you've become a pretty good shot, take your time, we don't have much ammo to waste. Hershel, you and Carl take this tower." He turned toward the gate infront of us, partially blocked by an overturned bus. "And I'll run for the gate." He said gravely. I opened my mouth to protest but Daryl pulled on my arm lightly with another shake of his head, and we quickly made for the guard tower with Carol.
Once at the top I unholstered my pistol, popping out the magazine to double check it was loaded.
Fifteen bullets and one in the chamber, I thought, aiming it towards the field. I watched Lori and Rick share a brief glance before she slid open the gate and he snuck through quietly, hiding behind the overturned bus before stalking out into the open.
I squeezed the trigger and gunshots began to ring out around us, each pop resulting in a walker crumpling to a dead heap below us. An arrow whizzed through the air and impaled itself in the head of a walker getting too close to Rick for comfort. The man nodded at Daryl in thanks and kept moving forward, taking out walkers on his own as well as he slowly worked his way toward the gate.
"Like shootin' fish in a barrel." Daryl mumbled next to me and I couldn't help laughing out loud as I sent another bullet flying through the air, a spray of dark blood erupting from the head of the walker it hit. I let out a cheerful yell as Rick slid the gate closed, locking it with two large carabiners held together with a chain, and slipped into the other guard tower in the yard.
"He did it." Carol said next to me, a laugh in her voice.
"Alright, light it up!" Daryl yelled, circling his hand in the air, and we began to shoot in earnest until the last walker collapsed in the dirt.
I felt like my cheeks were going to crack from the size of the smile on my face as we all walked into the yard. Carol skipped happily infront of us with Carl, amazed at the amount of space we had. I couldn't help joining T as he raised his arms above his head, hooting in joy at our victory. And I was happy to see that even Daryl had a smile across his face, something it felt like I hadn't seen in forever. He threw an arm over my shoulder and we walked into the middle of the field with the rest of our joyous group.
WDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD
"Oh all the comrades, that e'er I had, were sorry for my going away. And all the sweethearts, that e'er I had, would wish me one more day to stay."
I listened to Maggie and Beth singing as I gazed into the fire, my legs pulled up and my arms wrapped around my knees. I leaned back slightly and was surprised when my back hit something solid. I looked up and Daryl was standing behind me, his shins pressed against my back as he looked down at me. There was an emotion in his eyes that I couldn't quite read.
"Better all turn in, I'll take first watch over there. We've got a big day tomorrow." Rick said from the other side of the fire. I pulled my gaze away from Daryl's and looked at the man in confusion.
"What do you mean?" Glen asked him. Rick's sharp eyes gazed around at all of us before he continued.
"Look, I know we're all exhausted. This was a great win." He balled his hand into a fist to drive the point home. "But we've got to push just a little bit harder. By the looks of things, this place fell pretty early. Most of the walkers are dressed as prisoners and guards. That could mean supplies, they would have an infirmary," my eyes glanced over at Lori's stomach before flicking back to Rick, "a commissary.."
"An armory?" Daryl's voice rumbled behind me.
"Outside of the prison," Rick confirmed, "but not too far, they'd have the information on it in the wardens office. Food, medicine, weapons." He swung his hand toward the dark building. "This place could be a gold mine."
It was Hershel who interjected as we all fantasized about the luxuries that could await us inside the walls of the prison.
"We're dangerously low on ammo," he said quietly, "we wouldn't even make a dent before we ran out." I watched Ricks eyes harden and swallowed, knowing what he was about to say next.
"That's why we have to go in there, hand to hand. After all we've been through, we can handle it. I know it." He looked around at all of us, in silent agreement.
"These assholes don't stand a chance." I said, locking eyes with him. His mouth quirked up in a smirk and he nodded before getting up to make his fourth round of the night around the fence.
WDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD
"Ready?" Hershel asked Rick as he clasped the chainlinks in the gate. Rick nodded once and Hershel slid the door open, the unoiled hinges creaking as we made our way into the larger courtyard. My shoulder brushed against Daryl's arm as we advanced in, he had tried to talk me out of coming in but I had won in that argument. Next to me, Maggie leapt forward, burying her knife into the skull of a walker prisoner. I heard T let out a grunt as his crowbar collided with another. I saw one coming closer and leapt forward, driving my large hunting knife through its chin into its brain and pulling it out before it hit the ground.
"Get tight! Get tight!" Glen yelled, urging us back into formation, our backs at the center of the small circle we made as we slowly made progress through the yard. We had just reached the shadow of the elevated walkway when Rick froze, slamming his back into the brick wall and motioning for us to do the same. I risked a peek around Rick and gasped before quickly ducking back behind him. Off to the side of this yard was a smaller yard, filled with at least two dozen walkers. The fence was open and I watched Rick formulate a plan quickly.
"Oh shit." I heard Glen mutter as walkers dressed in riot gear emerged from behind some debris, headed right for us. Daryl fired his crossbow at the closest one and the arrow bounced off his face mask uselessly.
"Daryl!" Rick bellowed as he ran toward the open gate, kicking back a walker that had just started emerging, attracted to the sound of our attack. Daryl threw himself at a walker getting closer to me as I grappled with another, his face twisted in fury as he violently stabbed it through the eye. He ran past me to help Rick and I charged at the riot gear covered walker that was trying to get at Maggie. He had been a tall man and I had to jump onto his back to pull his head up, giving Maggie access to his throat under the helmet. She thrust her knife up into its head and I jumped clear to avoid being crushed under it. She looked at me with happy astonishment on her face.
"Did you see that?" She laughed, looking between myself, Glen, and T-dog. They immediately used the same tactic she had on the walkers assaulting them and I heard the metallic clang of the gate sliding closed and realeased a breath. I looked around the now empty courtyard with a small smile and started following Maggie towards the gate where the rest of our group stood.
"Stop." Rick ordered behind us.
"What?" Glen asked, confused. "It looks secure."
Daryl pointed his knife back towards the gate they had just closed.
"Not by the look of that courtyard." He motioned to a walker we had just taken down, dressed in a floral print dress. "And that's a civilian." He said.
I grit my teeth at the meaning of it. "So the prison could be overrun with walkers from the outside." I stated. Rick nodded once and I let my head fall back in frustration before Glen spoke.
"What if there's walls down? What are we gonna do?" Glen asked, "we can't rebuild this whole place."
"We can't risk a blind spot, we have to push in." Rick said. I squared my shoulders and turned away from the rest of our groups confused faces on the other side of the fence. We followed Rick and Daryl up a set of metal stairs, waiting with baited breath as Daryl pulled the sliding metal door open for Rick. The first room we entered was empty except for the garbage that littered the floor. The emptiness echoed eerily with our footsteps and I held back a shudder. Rick climbed the stairs into a guard tower and emerged with a set of keys. We quickly walked through the next door he unlocked. The large black number above the door stated that it was cell block "C".
I spotted a dead guard and snuck up to his body when something glinted in the weak sunlight streaming through the dirty window. With a dark smile I pulled the pair of handcuffs off of his belt and stuffed them into my back pocket. I jumped when I returned to our search and Daryl was staring at me with a raised eyebrow. I knew he had seen me grab them. I felt my face heat up and shook my head, stalking next to Maggie as we slowly cleared the cell block. After we were sure it was secure we all relaxed a bit, Maggie stating that she was going to get the others.
"We're gonna talk 'bout that later." Daryl's voice rumbled in my ear, making me jump with a gasp. I smiled mischievously and pulled the handcuffs out, twirling them around my finger as his eyes darted between them and my face.
"Yea we are." I murmured, watching his realization of why I grabbed them dawn on him. I absolutely intended for him to use them on me at some point.
"You got some kinda kinks I dunno about?" He whispered and I shrugged, putting the handcuffs back in my pocket as Maggie lead the rest of our group into the cell block. I laughed at the look on his face and walked forward to meet them.
"Guess you'll find out later, Dixon." I threw back over my shoulder.
WDWDWDWDWDWDWDWD
I woke with a start, my eyes staring at the dark ceiling of the cell block. Daryl's arms were wrapped around me tightly, his breath fanning out warm and even across my skin as he slept. I heard the noise that had woken me again and extracted myself from Daryl's embrace carefully. I watched for a moment with a small smile as he quickly replaced me with my pillow in his sleep, locking his arms around it tightly.
Quietly, I snuck down the stairs from the platform we were on, realizing that Rick had been the one making noise. He was rifling through the guard tower with a flashlight, throwing miscellaneous small weapons into a growing pile as he pulled them out.
"Have you even slept?" I asked him, my voice barely above a whisper. He shook his head and looked at me with tired eyes. "Rick," I said, leaning down on one knee next to him and placing a hand on his shoulder, "you got us here. Look around ya. We're locked in, ain't nothing gettin' to us for the time bein'. You gotta sleep man." He shook his head and looked at me again, his eyes determined under the exhaustion.
"We'll find the infirmity today, the kitchen-"
"Rick, it's gotta be like 3 in the mornin'." He opened his mouth to protest. "Look, I can't tell ya how grateful I am. How grateful we all are. Shane could never'a gotten us here. You kept us alive all winter. So now I'm gonna keep you alive." He stayed silent, his bright blue eyes taking in everything I was saying. "Get some sleep, I'll keep doin' this. I'll keep watch. We need ya on your toes man." I squeezed his shoulder, and he looked down at the floor, nodding in agreement. He handed me the flashlight and stood up. I watched as he walked down the stairs and leaned against the far wall, sliding down until he was just a dark heap on the floor. His eyes fluttered shut and I knew he was out almost instantly. I returned to the project at hand and started on the far left shelf of the guard tower. I found a knife and threw it into the small pile.
When I found nothing more that was useful to us, I started perusing through the documents there, when I came across a log book. I pulled it from the shelf and sat in the chair, flipping through the pages. All the letters were neatly written in blue ink, my curiosity led me to the end of the book where the writing began to become hurried and sloppy.
August 4th, 0900:
National broadcasts reporting deadly virus. Most guards have left building. Myself, Johnson, and Reed have remained behind in C block under orders of the warden.
August 5th, 2100:
Prisoners are beginning to riot. They haven't been fed and we have strict orders to keep them locked in cells. Pending orders to execute.
August 6th, 0200:
Cell block A is gone. Inmate escaped his cell and began biting others. All infected. Prison on lockdown.
August 7th, 0300:
Prison is lost. We were ordered to shoot all remaining inmates. We have been told there is no one coming to relieve us. We are ordered to stay here but we have decided to evacuate for fear of our safety. To whoever reads this log, I locked five inmates in-
My eyes were wide as I read the words that abruptly came to a stop, knowing that they had been the man's last action. I snapped the book closed and climbed down the metal steps, trying to shake off the image of the chaos that must have been here. I quietly opened a storage closet we had cleared earlier, cringing when it made a low groaning sound on its hinges. Inside must have been where they kept the inmates belongings or something, it was full of regular clothes and shoes. I almost laughed when I found an unopened box of Honeybuns.
A few hours later I could hear some of the other members of the group beginning to wake. I was sitting on the metal table in the middle of the room, watching the first rays of sunshine peak over the horizon through the barred window. I bit into a honeybun and thought about Merle. Daryl and I had visited him once while he was doing a stint in the county prison. I smiled thinking of what he would have said if he were still with us when we found this place. My chest ached, missing the bastard.
T-dog stumbled out of the cell he had slept in, eyes full of sleep and dazed looking. I smiled at him with a mouth full of pastry and pushed the box of snacks toward him on the table. He let out one heartfelt laugh and tore open the packaging, shoving the treat into his mouth. Slowly everyone began emerging from their cells, looking well rested for the first time in a long time.
The noise roused Rick and Daryl and it wasn't long before we were strapping up, preparing to take on the prison in the light of the new day.
Please let me know what you think. Reviews are always appreciated.