Saturday, October 23, 2010
Daryl smelled straw. Straw and manure and bacon and old lady perfume, and he was lying on something, a bed, maybe, yes, a bed in a house, he thought, a house that smelled of straw and manure and bacon and old lady perfume. And ghosts were moving in and out of the room as he moved in and out of consciousness.
Father Christmas was here.
Father. Fucking. Christmas.
And Father Christmas had a pocket watch on a silver chain that he must have been using to take them back in time, because suddenly, that snobby blonde cheerleader was here. Yeah, that one. The one who had given Daryl his first public boner in 8th grade by sitting in front of him in English class and turning around and telling him, "You smell. Do you ever bathe?" Not because she told him that, but because she was far more developed than any 8th grader had any business to be, and because when she turned around, she slung her arm across the back of the wooden desk chair in a way that popped those things right in his line of vision.
Father Christmas had tucked away his pocket watch now, but they were still traveling back in time. They must be. Because now Daryl's mother was here - his brown-haired, stern-faced, twenty-six-year-old mother glowering down at him and then sighing heavily because he'd wet the bed. Except her hair was short instead of long. And he was only a newborn baby. If she was still twenty-six, then he was still a newborn baby, so of course he'd wet the bed.
And now his grandmother was here, which must have meant they'd gone back in time to before he was even born, because he'd only seen her in pictures. She'd looked hardened and a bit worn-out in those pictures, at only the age of forty-five, like maybe she'd live some life. She looked hardened and a bit worn-out now as she set down a glass of water on the nightstand beside the bed and asked Father Christmas, "Is he going to make it?" and Father Christmas said, "I've done what I can, Patricia. I've done what I can."
[10:05 PM]
"Carol, hey Carol!" The beam of Rick's flashlight painted the black asphalt a glowing gray as he walked toward the exit gate of Fun Kingdom where Carol stood, hugging herself with one arm, holding the crackling walkie talkie in the other, and staring through the slats of the iron bars at the empty parking lot.
"Hey," Rick said softly, panting slightly from the hurried walk. "It's time to come in. He must have had to track that deer extra far, and then he probably had to camp another night. He's just out of range. He'll be back in the morning."
"What if he's not?"
"If he's not back by ten tomorrow morning, we'll send out a search party. Okay? I promise. Come back now." Rick waved his hand inward. "You have to come back now. Sophia's worried and scared."
Carol nodded. She had to come back now. She had to put on a happy face for her daughter, lie and tell her she wasn't worried at all, that Mr. Dixon was surely fine, and that she expected him to come strolling through those gates tomorrow, dragging a deer behind him.
Sunday October 24, 2010
7:15 AM
Pain. There was a searing pain in Daryl's left shoulder. Sunlight filtered through the curtain lace. Lace on the windows. And then…the crowing of a rooster. He was sure that's what he heard: the crowing of a rooster unconsumed by the flesh-eating walking dead.
He threw off the covers. He was naked except for a pair of black-and-blue checkered boxers and a bandage taped to his shoulder. His bare feet landed on the dark wooden floorboards, and he tried to stand.
The door creaked open. Father Christmas walked in. "Settle down. I wouldn't try to move just yet. You lost a lot of blood."
Daryl's head spun. His ass landed hard back on the bed. "Whose boxers are these?" he muttered. He didn't own a single pair of underwear. He preferred being unfettered, except when hunting in winter, when he wore long johns. "Who the fuck's underwear am I wearing?"
"Those are my son Shawn's. He's no longer living with us in the farmhouse. He won't mind you borrowing them."
"Where's my bow? Where's my deer? Where's Miss Murphy?" Daryl fell back onto the bed. He felt himself swiveled into a vertical position and the covers thrown back over him. Then his mother's face came into focus again, but not it didn't look like his mother – just some brown-haired stranger woman.
"You had a walkie with you," she said, all business. "But it's just static. Who has the other one? Is that your Miss Murphy?"
"Miss Murphy," he repeated.
"Who are you, and how many people are back at your camp? How many guns do you have? What were you doing alone in those woods with a walkie talkie?"
"Maggie, please," Father Christmas said. "He's wounded and weak. This is hardly the appropriate time for an interrogation. Bring the antibiotics."
"The last of them?" Maggie shook her head. "We don't even know if he's going to live."
"If he's made it this far, he probably will," Father Christmas replied, "as long as he doesn't get infected."
"Merle's stash," Daryl murmured. "Merle had the clap."
"He's delirious," Maggie told Father Christmas. "Call me when he's making sense." She walked from the room.
[*]
Carol clipped her jasmine knife to her belt, and then her rose knife to her pocket, and then slid her handgun into her holster. She seized her AR-15 from where it stood in the closet.
"You're going with them?" Sophia asked from the open doorway to their room as she watched her mother suiting up as if for war.
"Yes, of course, I'm going with them."
"Be careful, Mama. I can't lose you, too."
"You won't lose me. And we haven't lost Daryl. We'll find him."
Carol had to jog to catch up with Rick, Glenn, and Shane, who were walking toward the gate.
"Carol," Rick said, "I don't know if it's the best idea for you – "
"- I'm coming. I'm coming with you."
Rick sighed, but he didn't try to talk her out of it. They walked in silence toward the gate, and all Carol could think was – none of us knows how to track. None of us knows. Daryl was the one who knew. They were just local county cops, Rick and Shane, not federal marshals, not Border Patrol agents, not trackers. They'd spent their days pulling over speeding cars, responding to domestic disputes, joking over coffee at the donut shop, not cutting sign. Not tracking escaped convicts through the woods. The one-time Rick had been called in to stop a fleeing felon – he'd been shot and ended up in a coma. Four months ago, Glenn was delivering pizzas, and Carol had been ironing Ed's plumber uniform.
Some search party.
They were a few yards from the gate when they heard the loud neighing of a horse and saw it rearing up before the iron bars. The horse clomped its hooves down on the asphalt. A young woman sat atop it, with a dark brown felt cowgirl hat on her head and a wooden .22 rifle slung over her shoulder. "Which one of you is Miss Murphy?" she called.
Glenn looked at the cowgirl in open-mouthed awe.
"I am!" cried Carol, raising her hand and half running to the gate. "I'm Miss Murphy!"
"Your man is at our farmhouse," the cowgirl called through the bars of the gate. "One of our farmhands accidentally shot him while he was trying to shoot a deer in the woods. He's hurt badly, but he's alive, and he's hanging on. He's talking now. He said you would have strong antibiotics here to prevent infection, something about raiding Merle's stash for clap?"
"Merle had the clap?" Glenn wondered aloud.
"He said there's a bag in the writing desk in his room," the cowgirl said.
Shane swung the gate open and Carol mounted behind the cowgirl to gallop back to the House of the Future. Soon the men were running after the horse.
At the sound of horse hooves, people began spilling out of the house.
"What the hell?" T-Dog asked.
Carol dismounted the horse and flew to Daryl's room. The first drawer she pulled open had nothing but pens, pencils, and the four foil-wrapped condoms Daryl had not yet asked to use.
In the second drawer she found a curved, upside down magazine that she assumed, with some muffled disappointment, must be porn. She yanked it out to see if Merle's stash was underneath, and when she threw it on the desk, she saw it was the October 2009 issue of Bowhunting World.
She went through every single drawer and didn't find Merle's stash. Maybe Daryl had forgotten where he put it. She went over to the nightstand between the two beds and jerked open the top drawer – where she found a Gideon Bible, three boxes of ammunition, and two knives. She breathed in heavily. It was okay. It was okay. They had those antibiotics from the CVS somewhere. They must have taken twenty bottles' worth. They might not be a strong a Merle's but they would do. They would have to do.
In a last-ditch effort, she yanked open the bottom drawer of the nightstand. There, to her relief, sat a gallon-sized ziplock bag of pills. Merle's stash. Thank God Merle had the clap.
When Carol came out of the house, the cowgirl was handing Glenn – who was still half-panting from his jog - a map. Sophia was stroking the nose of the horse.
"I was just telling Glenn," the cowgirl said, "you can drive, but the shortest way from here is directly through the woods. There's a diagonal shortcut, and a partly worn path to our farm. Otherwise, you've got to drive a long way around the forest on the highway and then backtrack on dirt roads. So, if you want to climb on with me - "
"- Yes! Yes! Let's go!"
Carol mounted the horse behind the cowgirl, who kicked her mare and shouted, "Hi-ya!"
Behind them, Glenn called, "Hey, hey you! Female Zorro! What's your name?"
[*]
Carol dismounted the horse and ran up the wooden stairs to the front porch of the farmhouse. An old man with white hair and suspenders and a Santa-Claus-like belly stopped her by blocking her way. "Calm down, ma'am. I'm going to need you to lay aside the weapons before you enter my abode."
"Fine." Carol leaned the AR-15 against the side of the house and began to push around him.
"The sidearm, too, ma'am," he said. "I don't take kindly to strangers bringing weapons into my home."
"Well then you shouldn't have shot Daryl and brought him in your house!" She pushed him out of the way and burst through the front door. Maggie – that was the name of the cowgirl – had already told her Daryl was in an upstairs bedroom in the farmhouse.
A blonde girl stepped out of her way on the staircase as Carol flew up it. She burst into one room – obviously the wrong one, as it was empty – and then into another – where she found Daryl lying in the bed, shirtless, gauze covering the front of his shoulder, and the comforter pulled up to just above his naval. He grinned, a huge, dopey grin that made him look high. "Heeeeeey, Miss Murphy!" he said.
She ran to him and hugged him and he hissed in pain. "Watch the stitches!"
Carol pulled back, apologizing. She set the bag of pills down on the nightstand.
"Hey, c'mere, gorgeous and give me some sugar." He pointed to his lips.
Carol was puzzled by his uncharacteristic phrasing, but she bent down and kissed his lips. Then she pulled away and asked. "You have stitches?"
"Yeah. Father Christmas took out the bullet and then stitched me right up." He made a sewing motion with his arm, the same one with the gauze on his shoulder, saying, "Sew sew sew away!" He winced, shouted, "God damn that hurts! Motherfucker! Shouldn't move that arm probably. Just pretend I'm sewin', gorgeous."
Maybe he didn't just look high. "How did that man manage to shoot you in the shoulder?"
"Shot through the deer's head. Guess that's about where I was."
"That white-haired man? He's a doctor?"
"Veterinarian," Daryl replied.
"Then why didn't he have antibiotics?"
"Hell if I know. Maybe he's a hippie farmer. Likes all that organic bullshit."
"Well, he did say he didn't approve of guns in the house."
"See. Hippie. Goddamn hippies! No chemicals my ass! What's water, Miss Murphy? Dihydrogen oxide, motherfucker! Goddamn hippies! Think I saw one of 'em hippies, out the window this mornin'. Got up out of bed, looked out there, saw one, wranglin' a walker on some kind of pole, had some kind of clamp around his neck, was walkin' it across the field like a marionette. Made himself a walker puppet!"
"Daryl, did they give you something? Some kid of…medication? Why would anyone want to make a puppet out of a walker? I think you might have hallucinated a little."
"If I was hallucinating, why would I hallucinate that? Now tell me that, Miss Murphy?"
"I don't know, Daryl, but you definitely seem…not yourself."
"Why would I hallucinate that when I could hallucinate you instead? Why wouldn't I hallucinate you in hot red high heels, bent over the handlebars of my motorcycle, with your ass out and your skirt all hiked up, and your panties thrown on the side of the highway, and your legs spread nice and wide and your pussy all sweet and wet and wantin' and just cryin' out for some good, hard – "
There was the loud clearing of a voice in the doorway.
Carol looked up from Daryl to the white-haired, suspendered man standing in the open doorway.
"Cock," Daryl concluded, and then cried: "Cock a doodle dooo!"
"What did you give him?" Carol demanded.
The man in the doorway sighed heavily. "He was in a lot of pain, so I gave him half a pill meant for horses. It's not approved for human use, but pills are pills and animals are animals. I assumed it would knock him out so he could sleep off some of the pain. But it seems to have had more of a narcotic-like effect. Don't worry. It should wear off before long."
"I'm fiiine!" Daryl insisted. "That little pill didn't affect me a'tall!"
"I would beg to differ," Carol told him.
A bald man in his early fifties, with a graying brown beard, poked his head in the room. "Is he doing better?"
"As well as can be expected," the older man said. He had a calm, soothing sort of voice.
"Once again," the bald man said, "I'm really sorry. I just didn't see you behind that deer."
"That's why I taught Miss Murphy!" Daryl said loudly. "I taught Miss Murphy you got to be sure of your target and what is beyond it. What is beyond it, Otis! What is beyond it! How the fuck you grow up on a farm and not know that? Miss Murphy knows that! That's rule number six of gun safety right there! Rule number six. Ain't it, Miss Murphy?"
"Yes. Rule number six," Carol agreed, put a calming hand on his wrist.
"What's rule number three?" Daryl barked. "Hey, Otis, what's rule number three?"
"I'm going to get going again," Otis said nervously. "I just wanted to say I'm really sorry and I hope you don't hold it against me."
"I aint gonna hold it against you, but I tell you what. Shoot me again, and you best pray I'm dead!" Daryl pointed a finger at Otis.
"Yes, sir," Otis said and slipped from the room.
Daryl called after him, "Where's my deer? You better not be claiming that deer! That was my deer!"
"We told you already," the old man in the doorway said calmly. "Otis left that deer behind. He felt getting you back here alive was a higher priority."
"Goddamnit!" Daryl shouted. "Two deer I missed out on. Y'all cost me two deer."
The old man turned his attention to Carol. "My daughter tells me you brought some strong antibiotics?"
[*]
Daryl was given the antibiotics, water, and some chicken noodle soup for lunch. He drank the broth straight from the bowl and then slurped down the noodles like…well….like he was high. Then he yawned wide and said, "Will you tuck me in, Miss Murphy. I love it when you tuck me in."
Carol did tuck him in. She made sure the blanket was up to his chin, and then she kissed him gently on the forehead and whispered, "Goodnight, Daryl," even though it was only a little after noon.
He hummed happily and replied, "Nite, Miss Murphy."