Chapter 7
The first night that was shorter than the night before, Daryl didn't wake Carol for her watch. Partly because he wanted to try to judge just how long the night was, but mostly because he just needed a break from her. No, not from her. He needed a break from people. He needed to walk out under the trees alone and just breath for a while. It was overdue. The restless, uncomfortable energy growing inside him was an old companion, and he was a bit surprised by how long it took it to show up.
The days would start growing longer again now.
In the old world, people would be going crazy proving to each other how much they could spend on stuff that nobody needed. The people who weren't ringing bells and begging for money you didn't have, would be shoving you out of the way to get some damn thing that somebody told 'em they wanted. There would be insipid music playing over speakers in the grocery, and glitter everywhere. Not having to walk through that nonsense was a bonus.
Carol seemed like the kind of person who would have liked the holidays, though. He would bet that she'd put up a tree, and that her house smelled like sweets.
He banished that whole train of thought when he caught himself wondering if Ed had ever let Sophia have a Christmas something like the people on tv had.
He was staring across the span of ground that separated the house from her grave, and his throat was starting to close up.
No. Not thinking about any of that.
Carol said they needed to do one more run.
She'd surprised him at dinner the night before with plans to go after another vehicle, guns, and ammo. It was the dead of winter, cold and wet and dangerous, but she was right. They'd lost the SUV, and the bike offered neither shelter nor the ability to take any of their stores with them if they were forced to leave. And they needed at least one more gun, and some ammo.
Her idea was sound, but the thought of leaving their shelter for any passing asshole to take over was daunting. Daryl was tempted to have her stay here while he went out, except he knew they were going to have to go further than he could go in the space of an afternoon. No, the town was empty of anything of use.
They were going to be gone overnight.
He heard her before he saw her, and he braced himself for anger.
She held a cup of coffee under his nose until he reached up and took it, then settled herself across from him, a bundle of quilts and spiky hair.
"You didn't sleep."
He shrugged, "About time you had a whole night. Tired people make mistakes, and we're goin' out." She tilted her head at him, and he figured at this point he had a pretty good idea what she was about to say.
"So you should have slept, too."
"I'm used to not sleeping much. Never have really. Figure I'll go in now, take a good nap, then we can go."
They finished their coffee there on the second-floor balcony, the quiet of the morning settling around them in a way that Daryl was coming to like near as much as he liked bein' alone. That thought made goosebumps chase down his spine, the feelin' like somebody just stepped on his grave, and he shoved it back to the recesses of his mind where it could get itself lost if he were lucky. Damn sure ought not be flirting with contentment. Best damn way to get dead these day. Always had been the best damn way to bring on the loss of whatever thing was makin' you feel that way.
He wanted to tell her they would go tomorrow or the next day, when the curse he just brought on 'em had time to run out. But then he would have to explain the reason why, and he didn't want to ever have that conversation with her. She'd probably think he was bein' stupid or some shit. He'd learned his lesson on sharing some stuff.
He needed to lose himself in a place where the only sounds were the creaks and pops of the water in the trees freezing, and the wind rustling through the limbs. He despised the winter, but even now he was itching for the feel of the frozen ground under his feet, the little hints of the life sleeping all around him just waiting for warmth to return so it could come busting out all over. He needed Spring.
He needed to be alone.
"You going to take that nap?"
He shook himself like a dog come in from the rain and ran a hand through his hair.
"Yeah. You wake me up it gets to being too long. Not much sunlight these days." It was just a mood. Too little sleep for too long, and the fear of losing everything because they tried to make things better than okay.
Trying to be better than okay had never, not once, worked out for him. And that's all it was.
Hell, first time for everything. They hadn't seen another soul since they left the group. Could be, they take a little trip, get themselves what they need, and get back home – get back here, safe and sound. He needed to get the hell over himself and get some rest.
It didn't take long for Daryl to realize that they were in trouble. The house was remote enough that, now that there weren't a bunch of people and animals around, the scent of food on the wind didn't bring near as many of the dead their way as were heading out of the cities. Walkers, unless they were distracted by prey, followed the path of least resistance. But any sound, or light, or the scent of living things would draw them toward you. A shift in the wind could mean a shift in fortune, and there was no predicting or planning for it.
At the farm, he and Carol weren't enough of a presence to draw them from very far away. But as soon as they hit a real road that changed. They were in the territory of the dead, now. Daryl wanted to head North, all the way up to Fairburn, and check on some places he was familiar with, but it seemed like very mile was a battle and they were running out of both gas and daylight when they hit the outskirts of Peachtree City. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why there just so damned many around here. The only thing that made sense, was people. Live people, that they just hadn't seen yet.
Just the thought made his guts tie up in knots.
Carol's hands were twisted up in his shirt tail at his waist, and he wasn't sure if it was her shiverin' or his own, but he pulled into a thrift store parking lot just the same. There were a few dead shuffling around, and but not as many as they'd dodged at their other stops, and he was acutely aware of the gas in the bike.
Carol was off the bike and stretching quicker than a shot, moving around in such a way that he was pretty sure was as much about getting warm as it was about stretching her legs.
Daryl shook his head and exchanged looks with her, then held up one finger and indicated the lot.
If they didn't find what they needed here, it was time to find a place to camp for the night and get the hell back to the house come sun up.
They would worry about what happened when more dead found them there some other time.
The first car was empty of gas. And the second. And the third. Someone had already been here. Carol had taken out two while he was running the hose, and there were more heading their way from the far end of the lot.
She tapped his shoulder, tilting her head toward the growing group of Walkers, and he nodded at her as he tried one more time.
Empty. He was pulling his gear out of the tank when something fat, wet and white landed on the back of his hand. He felt more snow on his neck at the same time.
"Son of a bitch!" He shouted it, Walkers or no, and kicked the back-quarter panel of the car that had as hard as he could. The dent he left wasn't even satisfying. He knew it. He knew this mornin', wrapped up in blankets and sipping on coffee, that things were too good. He knew it.
He felt Carol stiffen behind him at the same moment as he heard the gunshot. She was already gone, sprinting across the lot, before he even managed to turn toward her.
He'd seen her kill a couple dozen Walkers by now. She didn't hesitate like she had in the beginning, and he trusted her with his back. She knew her limits, and didn't hare off acting like she was in some damn movie or something. She respected the hell out of the danger those things represented. If anything, Daryl figured she underestimated what she could do most of the time, and was a little over cautious as a result.
She sure as hell wasn't being cautious now. He'd never seen her like this before. She was across the space with her knife in the back of some suit wearing dead asshole's head before he switched the siphoning hose for his bow, and then she was in the middle of a group of five of the damn things.
He switched to his knife and took off, cursing a blue streak under his breath at the sound of her yelling.
She was screaming no, over and over again, at the top of her lungs and for a minute he thought she'd lost her mind. That she just broke on him, right there in front of a thrift shop because there weren't no gas.
But then he saw Carl trouble magnet Grimes, big eyed and white faced, looking at the gun that was still too big for his hands like it had betrayed him.
There had only been one shot. Damn thing jammed on the kid. To his credit, the kid wasn't still for very long. He had his knife up, but a kid was a kid and it was a lot harder for him to try to end one of them with knife than at a good distance with a gun.
Daryl moved so that Carl was between them, tryin' to focus on gettin' the job done and not on how off the positionin' felt. There was a litany in the back of his head as they fought, his own voice whispering she's fine, she's fine, she's fine.
There were more shots, and then it was just them, back to back with the boy between them, surrounded by rotting corpses. Rick stood in front of them, T-Dog next to him.
The man still had his gun up.
"The fuck, Rick?" He was breathing heavy, the sweat dripping down his face cooling fast in the cold air. The snow was coming down faster, and Rick Grimes was still pointing a gun at his face. Daryl shifted without thinking, moving in Carol's direction.
Rick cocked the damned gun. T-Dog somewhere between more confused than nervous.
"Carl, get over here."
"You actin' like I'd hurt the kid, now?"
"I don't want to. But it's been a while, Daryl. You understand I can't just assume I can trust you, right? Come on, Carl."
Rick looked torn between caution and gratitude, but Daryl wasn't in the mood to give the man credit for feelin' bad about acting like an ass. "Carol just saved his ass! Where were you at, huh? Leadin' the Walkers away while the kid was supposed to hunker down and fend for himself? Or you save that plan for little girls?"
The sound of Carol's breath hitching felt like a knife in his gut.
Rick's face was turning purple.
"Hey, now. Let's just everybody calm down. We're all friends here." T-Dog stepped in front of Rick's gun, looking supremely confident of his own safety.
He was either real brave or real stupid, and Daryl didn't really care which.
"Thought we was," Daryl answered. "Knew the asshole was gonna point a gun at my head again, I'd've let his kid buy it!"
"Yeah, that's a lie," T said, grinning. "Why don't we all head back to camp and swap stories?"
"We're not showing them our camp." Rick declared.
Daryl rolled his eyes. "Could find it if I wanted to, hotshot."
"We don't need your food, but we can share a fire for a bit," Carol said softly. They'd been slowly shifting toward until they were nearly shoulder to shoulder, now that Carl wasn't between them. Her voice was close to his ear when she said, "I don't know about you but I'm cold, and I'm getting hungry, and I don't feel like getting swarmed again because you have to yell at each other."
"You were the one shouting up a storm a minute ago," Daryl whispered. She gave him a look out of the corner of her eye that he couldn't quite interpret.
"Come on, Dad. It's Daryl and Carol. They aren't going to try to kill us," Carl said. "And they're bringing their own food."
"There are three rabbits over at the bike if the Walkers didn't get to them. We'll add them to the pot, along with two cans of beans and three potatoes," Carol offered, smiling brightly. "And I have half a chocolate bar in my bag that Carl can have after dinner.
Daryl bristled. "One can of beans and a potato. You give away all my damn meat, we're keeping the canned goods."
"Fair enough." Rick gestured in a vaguely northeastern direction. "We're about a mile and half that way in some fenced in self-storage units. You'll leave after you eat." He made the last sound like a proclamation.
Carol nudged him with her shoulder as she passed, strolling almost casually toward the bike that would make it that mile and a half, but not much further without gasoline. He followed her, saying as much under his breath when they had some distance from the others.
"Just as soon find gas and get on home," he said. It sounded a little too much like pouting to his own ears.
She sighed, "Honestly? Me too. But that's just hurt feelings over Rick being an ass. And he wasn't exactly wrong, you know. It's been a while. Besides, they're probably where all the gasoline in this parking lot disappeared to. We go, we make nice, we figure out something to trade for some gas."
"They've likely stripped the whole damned place clean they got a camp that close. Have to head home, then start all over again in another direction. We're on borrowed time, tryin' to keep our place with rocks and a couple of sharp fuckin' sticks." She was nodding, but he got the impression he could have been singing dirty drinking songs at her and she would have been doin' the same. Her eyes were far away. "You okay?"
When he shifted to get in front her eyes, she turned her head so she still wasn't looking at him. "I'll be fine."
"Will be ain't is," he whispered. "I shouldn't'a brung her up like that. I just – "
"You were angry. And you were right. Please stop."
"Yeah. Sure. Let's go see what all Glenn's found around here. Ought to steal him out from under that jackass. Got guts, and a talent for findin' shit."
She made a humming sound in the back of her throat that was neither agreement nor disagreement as she slung her leg over the back of the bike. "Come on, then. Let's get this over with."