The boy had grown up with his single mother, an Appalachian mountain girl who knew how to live off the land. He was born and raised in North Carolina, which explained why his accent seemed different to Daryl. He'd been "homeschooled" his whole life. That apparently meant his mother had taught him to camp, shoot, hunt, fish, gut, tan, grill, cook, carve, tinker, build, read, write, add, subtract, multiply, and divide, but had otherwise left it up to him whether or not he wanted to learn anything else and what he wanted to learn.
He'd wanted to learn to race motorbikes. He'd had one ever since he was eight years old and had competed in races since he was ten. The shiny red one he had now was a birthday present from his mother.
The boy had never known his father, who had been a hero during the First Gulf War, and who had died three months before he was born from respiratory failure caused by smoke inhalation while trying to save a child from a burning building. His mother had tended bar for a living, which left the boy alone four nights a week. That was why she'd wanted him to learn to shoot at such a young age.
After a bad relationship that had ended in some crazed stalking on the part of the man, the boy's mother had wanted to move them out of state. She'd bought this cabin just last summer, and they'd moved in two weeks before the world collapsed. The cabin didn't have electricity or running water, but the boy was used to that. Their old one in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina hadn't either.
His mother came down with the disease. She had heard about people "undertaking the change" and made her son promise to put her out of her misery, "just like you'd show mercy to a wounded deer," if "the change" should happen to her. It did happen to her, and now she was buried behind the cabin. He'd shot her four times before figuring out that only a headshot would kill.
And then the boy and his dog were alone. Driving his mother's pick-up, the boy looted country houses and stores for food and supplies, and he stored up goods in his root cellar and cabin. He looted the nearest town library, too, of four hundred titles, and his dog and his books became his only companions for the next three months. He hunted, he read, he played with his dog, and he survived alone.
Then one day, about the same time Daryl was having his "first date" with Carol on the paddle boat on the lake, the boy and his dog set out to do a little more looting miles away from the cabin. His mother's pick-up truck broke down. He carried on by foot, looking for a new ride, and happened upon a military vehicle.
He went to investigate and was snatched up by men in army fatigues. They took him – and his dog - to a place called Woodbury. It was a large, walled-in community, in the style of a tiny town, populated by about seventy people, with electricity, running water, a clinic, a school, a library, and gardens.
At this point in the boy's story, Daryl's stomach growled loudly.
"I'm hungry, too, and my soup's getting cold," the boy said. "Come on in. I guess if you wanted to take or kill me, you'd have done it by now." He stood and pounded three times on the door, hollering loudly, "Come on out now and let me in! It's all clear!"
There was the sound of clamoring in the cabin, a door slamming closed, and then the front door was opened from the inside by the curly haired little boy. He gasped when he saw Daryl, so Daryl shouldered his bow to look a little less scary. The blonde girl was straightening out the bearskin rug before the fireplace. When she was done, the dog padded across the rough wood floor and settled on the rug.
"I got a guest for dinner," the teenager said. "Pour him a bowl."
"It's lunch," the girl insisted. "Why do you always call it dinner?"
Daryl looked around the cabin while they talked. The living room housed a couch, rocking chair, coffee table, fireplace, and two floor-to-ceiling bookcases that were double- or triple-stacked with books. The kitchen nook had a wood stove, a shelf with a plastic wash basin on it, a hutch, and a wooden table with four chairs. He could see the half-open doors to two bedrooms.
The little curly haired boy put an extra bowl of soup on the table for Daryl, across from one that was already on the table. "We ate already," he said. The girl brought out an extra spoon for Daryl, poured him a glass of water from a jug, and set the glass on the table.
"Go on to your bedroom for a while," the teenager told them.
The kids left the kitchen. The bedroom door on the right side of the cabin slammed shut behind them. Daryl wondered where they came into the story, if the boy was alone when he arrived at Woodbury, and where the other two crosses fit.
The teenager sat down and motioned for Daryl to sit across from him. When Daryl did, the boy picked up his spoon. "Clam chowder. Campbell's chunky."
Daryl pointed to his bowl with his spoon. "You stole this out my truck. Guess lunch is on me."
The boy told his story between bites. He'd been picked up, he said, by a man named Caesar Martinez and taken to a room where the leader of the town, who was called the Governor, and his newly adopted right-hand man, who was called the Hammer, questioned him. "A right-hand man without a right hand," the boy said. "The irony. He had this tin cup like thing and a blade instead."
Daryl choked on his soup. He swallowed it down hard. "Describe 'em. What he look like?"
"He was big. Short gray hair. Steely blue eyes. Sort of like yours. Late fifties, maybe."
Merle would be appalled by that assessment. He'd only been 48, eleven years older than Daryl. But meth addiction could age a man.
"Everyone at Woodbury said the Hammer was tough as nails," the boy continued. "So tough, he once escaped being chained to a roof by sawing off his own hand and then fought his way through all those uglies in Atlanta until the Governor found him on the outskirts of town. It was a ridiculous rumor, of course. How could he have survived cutting off his own hand? He would have bled to death."
"Maybe he cauterized the wound," Daryl suggested. "Tell me more about this Hammer."
"The Governor took him in about two weeks before I stumbled on Woodbury. He rose immediately in the ranks and became part of the Governor's inner circle."
The Governor had left the Hammer alone with the boy for an hour, and he'd interrogated the teenager. "He ended up asking me a lot of questions. A lot. Even about my childhood. I don't know why he seemed so interested in me. But I kept my cabin a secret. I said I'd been hopping from place to place. The Governor came back and told the Hammer to let up on the interrogation, that I seemed a decent sort, and they should trust me. The Governor gave me a tour of the town and invited me to settle in Woodbury. I said yes, but I still didn't mention my cabin. I wasn't sure I was going to stay. I felt uneasy about the place."
"How so?"
"I think I need a strong drink for this." The teenager stood and walked over to the hutch. "Whiskey?" he asked.
"Sure."
The boy took down one of the bottles he'd looted from Daryl's truck and two eight-ounce water glasses. He poured them each a couple of ounces, pushed one across the table to Daryl, and sat down. The boy took a sip and hissed. Daryl wondered when he'd started drinking, if his mother had let him before the collapse, or if he'd discovered the comfort after. But from the looks of the hutch, he wasn't a drunk. He still had most of the booze he'd looted from them.
"It seemed like a cult of personality surrounded the Governor," the boy told him. "And he had this weird scientist who followed him around with a clipboard. And the Hammer kept taking a strange interest in me, randomly showing up wherever I was, as if he were following me, and asking me questions about my childhood. And there was…entertainment."
The boy said it as though the entertainment was sketchy, so Daryl asked, "Like a strip club?"
The teenager laughed. "If only. Pit fights."
"Boxing?" Daryl asked.
"No gloves. And more blood. And the winner got special privileges. Extra food. A greater ration of electricity. In some cases, promotion in the ranks. That, I heard, was how the Hammer rose so quickly in the Governor's power structure, even though he'd only been in Woodbury for a short time before I got there. He beat Crowley. He beat Martinez. He even beat Shumpert. He never lost a pit fight."
Of course he didn't, Daryl thought. Nobody could kick Merle's ass but Merle. "Why's it called a pit fight?"
"Because they brought in uglies from this pit outside the wall that was full of them. They'd chain them to posts during the fight. It would keep the fighters in the ring fighting each other, because if they ventured out of the ring…they'd get bit. Also, they'd give the chains more slack as the fight went on, to let the uglies get closer and closer to the fighters, to make it more exciting for the audience."
"Jesus," Daryl muttered.
"They made me uneasy, those fights. I mean, I used to hang out the bar where my mom worked some nights when I was little and watch the UFC fights, and I loved those. But this was different."
The boy's sixth day there, he went looking for his dog, which had wandered off. When he found her, she was clawing and whimpering outside the door of the Governor's apartment, "She seemed so insistent. I thought something must be wrong in there, so I tried the door. It was unlocked. I went inside. And I saw the fish tanks. He had these fish tanks with the decapitated heads of uglies just snapping inside them."
"Fuckin' hell?" Daryl asked.
"And then I found a walker in his closet. It lunged at me, so I drew my knife and stabbed and killed it. But it turned out the walker had once been the Governor's daughter."
"The fuck?" Daryl asked.
"I was caught."
The Governor, the boy told Daryl, was enraged and told the boy he was going to be forced to fight the next morning. "Whether I wanted to or not."
"Fuckin' hell," Daryl muttered. "Who was he gonna make you fight? Not the Hammer?"
"No, uglies, unchained ones this time, but with chained ones along the perimeter, so I couldn't get out of the ring. He was going to start with five in the ring, and then release another every time I killed one. He was going to give me nothing but a knife to fight them."
"Fuckin' hell."
"And he would tell the townspeople I had committed some terrible crime, and that's why he would allow the fight to go to the death, until either me or every last walker was dead. And there was no way I could kill that many without getting bit."
The night before the fight was supposed to take place, the Governor locked the boy and his dog in a room they used as a cell. He was sitting with his back against the wall, petting his whimpering dog as he contemplated his death, when he heard a sudden click. A note came sliding under the door, and then a key.
"The note told me about a way to get out of Woodbury without going through the guarded front gate – through a cellar door at the very back of town. And it told me a car would be waiting for my escape, and the key was to the car, and my weapons would be inside the car. I crept out, and I didn't see anyone."
The boy and his dog made a run for it, by the trail of the moon, and everything was as promised. He drove off as fast and as far as he could, until that sedan ran out of gas. He was about ten miles from his cabin when it finally did. He hiked to find shelter for the night and decided to camp in a high school, where he ended up discovering another group.
"Just four people. A man named Ryan and his two daughters, Mika and Lizzie. That was Mika you met. And they had another kid with them - Luke. You met him, too. They'd been living off the canned food in the cafeteria, but it was all gone when I found them, so I took them all back here to my cabin. We hiked the ten miles. I gave Ryan and the girls one room, and let Luke share mine. Things were great for a few weeks. We lived on my stores, I hunted. It was like having a family. I'd never had that before. I mean, a big family. I always had my mom, but…I'd never had that before."
"What happened?" Daryl asked. He assumed the other two crosses in that graveyard belonged to Ryan and Lizzie.
The boy's grip tightened on his whiskey glass, and his knuckles turned almost white. He lifted the glass and took a big gulp and then pounded his chest when it burned going down. Then the story spilled out of him like a geyser that had been waiting to erupt.
Lizzie was mentally ill. She believed walkers (which the boy called "uglies") were no different from people. The boy caught her trying to feed one that got caught up in his traps. She'd nearly gotten bit doing it. When he told her father, Ryan asked him to look for a specific psychiatric medicine.
"It's why I was in that housing complex. I figured, rich people like that, they probably have a lot of psychiatric meds in their cabinets. It's why I stole that box of medicines from your truck. And the other stuff…well…I had mouths to feed."
"Did you find the meds you were looking for? In our box?" Daryl asked. He'd scooped up a lot of meds, having no idea of their uses, and figuring they'd sort it all out later.
"It didn't matter anyway. When I got back, it was too late." He sighed shakily. "When I drove up the road, and got out of the truck to move the tripwire, I saw…" He swallowed. "I saw Ryan in the cul-de-sac. He'd undergone the change, and he was feasting on what was left of Lizzie. I put him down and went inside the cabin where Luke and Mika were hiding. Mika told me that Lizzie had shot their father in the back in the cul-de-sac. She'd used one of my rifles, one I got when I was ten. It had a youth stock on it. I'd been teaching her to use it. I didn't think…" He shook his head. "I didn't think she'd use it for that."
"Why?"
"She thought the uglies were real people. That there wasn't any difference that really mattered between them and who they once were. She told Mika that she would see. That when their father was dead, he'd come back, and he'd be human again. She wanted to prove it to Mika. So she shot her father, three times, in the back. And Mika heard it and ran out of the cabin. Luke came running out, too, and Lizzie told them, Now we wait for him to come back to us. Luke grabbed Mika's hand, tugged her into the cabin, and locked Lizzie out, because he was afraid she'd try to shoot them, too. Lizzie stayed out there with Ryan until he underwent the change. And then…I guess she tried to play with him or hug him or something…and Ryan did what those things do."
"Jesus Christ," Daryl muttered. This was a weight the boy had been carrying in his chest for the past sixteen days, completely alone, until Daryl had showed up on his doorstep.
The boy blew out a stream of air, as if he'd been holding his breath. "So now it's just me and them." He lifted his glass and took another sip of whiskey. "Last Monday I road my bike through a path in the forest that way." He pointed in the general direction of Fun Kingdom. "I left Mika with that youth rifle, and she and Luke knew to hide in the secret cellar under the trap door if anyone comes while I'm out."
"Under the bearskin rug?" Daryl asked.
"How did you know?"
"Saw Mika straightening it."
"The rug's glued on partway so when they pull the door down over them…you can't see it. Anyway, I wanted to try hunting in that direction. Once the terrain got too rough, I buried my bike and moved on by foot, crossed a creek, hiked a ways, and then I came upon this deer that had been shot by your bolt I think."
"Yeah."
"I thought it might be a trap, so I went back. Hid my tracks along the way."
"Hid 'em well," Daryl said. "I lost you completely at the creek."
"When I was almost back, I ran into the Governor's men in the forest. They shot out my bike's tire, and I skidded out. I've since replaced it. Obviously."
The Governor's men – the Hammer, Caesar Martinez, and Crowley - had been to the cabin first. They'd busted through the door – which the boy had since repaired - but Luke and Mika had hidden under the trap door. Thinking the cabin empty, the Governor's men went to check the nearby woods for the boy. It was Martinez who shot out the teenager's tire and Crowley who disarmed him. Then the Hammer casually strolled in and leaned against a tree.
"I thought I was dead," the boy told Daryl. "Not then and there, but soon to be, back in Woodbury, fighting uglies. Daisy - " The dog barked suddenly. "- That's my dog - was growling, and Martinez turned his gun on her, but the Hammer stopped him and told him the Governor wanted the dog in that ring, too. The Governor had it in for Daisy, I guess, because she sniffed out his fish tank full of heads."
They bound the boy with rope - his hands behind his back - and started to walk him back to the cabin where they'd left the armored vehicle. The Hammer, who was in the rear, pulled a long-range radio off his hip with one hand, turned it on, and said, "We got him, Governor. We found him exactly where I thought he'd be. Camping out at the West Georgia Correctional facility." And then he turned the radio off, tossed it on the ground, and stomped on it with his booted heel hard enough to smash it.
"What the hell?" Martinez asked, swiveling with the boy to face the Hammer. "This cabin's eighty miles from that prison!"
Crowley turned, too. "What are you doing, man?"
"Do none of y'all have a problem with this?" the Hammer asked as he shrugged his AR-10 off his shoulder and into his good hand.
"What do you mean?" Martinez replied.
"This? Takin' a barely seventeen-year-old boy and his dog to fight walkers to the death."
"He killed the Governor's daughter," Martinez said.
"He put to rest her walker," the Hammer insisted.
"Well, that's not how the Governor sees it," Crowley told him.
"And that makes sense to you?" the Hammer asked.
"It doesn't have to make sense to us," Martinez replied. "The Governor's kept us alive this long. He's maintained what's left of civilization. We're taking this boy back, and that's the end of the discussion!"
Crowley agreed. "It's in our interest to stay on the Governor's good side."
"Yeah, well…." The Hammer said, "I ain't interested no more." He casually raised his AR-10 and shot Crowley straight between the eyes. Then he swiveled on Martinez as Martinez raised his gun. The Hammer shot Martinez in the forehead, but not before Martinez managed to squeeze off a shot from his M16, hitting the Hammer in the chest. Martinez thudded to the ground and died instantly.
The Hammer took longer. Clutching his chest, he dropped to his knees. He looked up at the stunned, bound boy and said, "Luke, I am your father."
"What?" the boy asked.
"Luke," the Hammer rasped. He laughed as blood began to trickle up internally and out of the corner of his mouth. "I am your father."
And the teenager told him, "My name's not Luke."
The Hammer coughed. More blood spluttered out of his mouth. He choked through the blood as he coughed out his final, dying words: "It's a Star Wars reference, dumbass." And then he fell face down, dead, on the forest floor.
The confused boy sawed the rope off his writs using a tree branch, grabbed the Hammer's AR-10, and ran to the cabin, terrified they might have found and killed the kids. Daisy bounded barking ahead of him and was the first at the broke-in door. They found the kids safe in the hidey hole.
Next, the boy did a full perimeter check. He covered up the armored vehicle tracks on the dirt road as best he could, in case someone else was out looking for him. This took some time, as he had to do one track at a time, walking backward and sweeping. Then he reset the tripwire at the entrance to the cabin. Finally, he went to recover his motorbike and pack and the guns in the forest. When he got there, the bodies of Martinez and Crowley had been ripped open and the organs and part of the flesh consumed, but the Hammer was gone.
"I figured he'd undertaken the change and then stumbled off as soon as he'd eaten as much as his belly could hold," the boy continued. "I don't know how much they have to eat to get full, but I guess they do, because you see so many half-eaten bodies. He must have changed quickly. I was only gone for a couple hours to do all that stuff."
Daryl felt an immense sense of relief unwind his nerves. His brother hadn't tried to hurt this kid. He'd saved the boy. He'd died to save him. And he had lied to that Governor to ensure the teenager's continued safety.
Daryl looked into the piercing blue-green eyes of the auburn-haired boy. A red-headed, green-eyed mother, and a brown-haired, blue-eyed father could have easily produced such a combination. "What's your name kid?"
"Dixon."
"Unusual name. Usually a last name."
"My mom said it's a Scottish family name. The family's motto is Fortes fortuna juvat – fortune favors the brave. She said that's why she liked the name."
"Is that so?" Daryl asked. "Was your mother named Dixie Hayes by any chance?"
"How in the hell did you know that?"
"'Cause Dixie Hayes was my sister-in-law for 'bout seven months. Married to my brother Merle Dixon. And I reckon Merle was your daddy, though he didn't know it, 'cause your mamma took off in the early morning one morning and never looked back."
Maybe Dixie had left because she found out she was pregnant and she hadn't wanted to raise a child with a Dixon for a father, even if she had given the boy the family name. Merle had started in on drugs again a week before she left. He'd been clean for six full months this time, largely at Dixie's urging, but he never could kick the habit for good.
Dixon shook his head. "Nah. No, no. My mother told me my father was dead. He died before I was born. He died. He died after saving that kid from the fire! He died a hero!"
"He did die after saving a kid. He did die a hero. But he didn't die before you were born. He died last Monday."
"Are you saying my mother lied to me?" the boy practically shouted.
"I'm saying my name is Daryl Dixon. And my brother Merle Dixon, who you call the Hammer, was your daddy, even if your mama never gave him a chance to play the part. I'm your uncle. And I'm taking you and your little charges home with me. To Fun Kingdom."