On the way to the winery, they pass through the historic downtown of a small country town, past drifting trash and ambling walkers, and pull to a stop at the curb along Main Street. As he exits the truck, Daryl takes down a walker with a flying bolt and then swings his crossbow onto his shoulder before drawing his knife. He stabs two more of the monsters while Jackson shoots four with his rifle. The sound of the shots are muted by a suppressor, but they're still just loud enough to draw three more walkers from a nearby alleyway in their direction. When they dispense with those, Daryl sheaths his knife, recovers his bolt, and reloads his bow.
The streets now seem quiet and clear as they make their way to the corner drugstore, which has been broken into and pillaged. A single walker remains trapped behind the pharmacy counter, likely a looter who was killed by another looter. Daryl shoots it with a thunk of a bolt.
"Let's pick over what's left," Daryl mutters, though he's not optimistic.
Jackson grabs one of the dozen blue shopping carts from the small coral by the door and wheels it to Daryl in the baby section, which consists of four shelves the length of a half a store aisle. There is no baby formula left, but there are other supplies to throw into the cart: Six packs of baby wipes, five package of disposable diapers of varying sizes, and a two three-packs of plastic baby bottles. They also toss in some baby oil, baby powder, baby shampoo, a couple packages of pacifiers, and a rectal thermometer. Jackson throws another box into the car, and Daryl asks, "Hell's that?"
"It's a nose bulb thingy. To suck the snot out of their noses. Since they can't really blow them when they're babies."
"Pretty sure my generation didn't need those."
"Okay, Boomer."
"Fuck you. I'm Gen X." Daryl peers at the next thing Jackson tosses in the cart. "What's that? Some kind of horn?"
Jackson laughs. "It's a manual breast pump."
"Don't the baby just suck the milk straight out the tit?"
"Well, ideally, yeah, but this way if there's some kind of a problem, Lori-or latter Maggie-can express milk and then bottle feed. Maybe they could even express and store some extra."
"Can we drink it?" Daryl asks.
"Well…I mean we could. But it would taste weird to us. Heavily sweetened." Jackson points to a box that fallen on the floor. "Can you grab those breastmilk storage bags?"
"How the hell you know all this shit?" Daryl asks as he scoops the box from the floor and tosses it in the cart.
"Well, my baby brother was born when I was seven. He had trouble latching on. My mom pumped and let me feed him sometimes from a bottle. Eventually she ended up switching to formula."
Daryl had forgotten that Jackson had lost a brother. That was something they both had in common, he supposed, though Merle might still be alive out there, somewhere.
"But also," Jackson continues, "it's kind of just common knowledge."
"Nah. Don't think so."
Jackson looks at the shelf. "I guess people took the formula for food, even though they didn't take any of the rest of this stuff. They probably mixed and drank it themselves." He winces. "That stuff is nasty but it does have a lot of nutrients."
The looters took most of the baby medicines, too. The only thing left is a box of infant gas relief drops, two boxes of orajel, and a couple tubes of butt cream. That might come in handy for poison ivy or other forest itches, Daryl thinks.
"Guess we could get them a couple of toys, too," Jackson says. He grabs a set of plastic teething rings, a touch-and-feel story book, and a plastic stacking ring.
Meanwhile, Daryl turns to the opposite shelf, which is empty except for a single row of kid's toys, grabs a Nerf crossbow, and throws it in the cart.
"I think it's going to be a long while before either of the babies can use that," Jackson suggests.
"That's for me."
Jackson snorts and then wanders off to another aisle. Daryl goes through the barren, over-the-counter medicine aisles. One of the set of shelves is completely overturned, with a walker trapped beneath, it's lower, broken left arm protruding from out of the case and its hand grasping at air while its growls echo beneath the metal. Daryl ignores the sound and manages to scrounge up two bottles of Advil, a single bottles of Nyquil, a roll of Tums, two bottles of Benadryl, a jar of Pepto Bismol, and some Robittusin that was overlooked and lays scattered on the floor. Next, he heads to the pharmacy, where he leaves his pack on the counter and goes behind the swinging door. He recovers his bolt from the dead walker he shot earlier, cleans it, and reloads his bow before searching the shelves. They're empty. The only thing that remains is some loose pills, scattered on the floor and countertops, which he's not taking a chance on. He has no idea what they are.
When Daryl moseys back to the counter, Jackson is zipping up the outer pocket of his backpack. "Hell you doing with my shit?"
"Just giving you a gift." Jackson walks off and back to the shopping cart, which he now pushes outside.
Daryl watches him leave guardedly and then quickly unzips the back pocket of his backpack. On top of what he already had in there, Jackson has shoved a box of condoms and a tube of KY Jelly. Daryl jerks the zipper shut, swings the pack on his shoulder, and follows Jackson back to the truck.
After they've loaded up the bed with the drugstore loot, they check out a diner, where they kill two walkers and manage to fill two large cardboard boxes with salt, pepper, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, flour, and Crisco. Most ready-to-eat and canned foods are gone these days, but they still come across a lot of baking supplies. People weren't thinking of settling at the start.
There's not much else on the Main Street strip. They pass a kitschy shop with overpriced, funky clothes, an empty space with a For Lease sign, a lawyer's office, a pottery shop and studio, and then another empty space with a For Lease sign. They cross the street, smash the window of a locked car, kill the walker trapped inside, pop the trunk, and go around to investigate its contents.
"Come back for that later." Daryl points to the battery-power-pack car jumper. They can charge it from the boat's solar power. It will be good to have.
Jackson unzips a duffle bag and rummages through it. Ignoring the clothes, he digs out some medicines to put in his own backpack. "Xanax," he says.
"Good. Lori could use a chill pill."
Jackson chuckles. "Maybe not while pregnant though. Valium too. And antibiotics! I think."
Daryl glances at the bottle as he unzips the second duffle bag. "Yeah. Must of had an STD." He looks down at the contents and exclaims, "Damn!" The duffle bag contains a short barreled shotgun, several boxes of shotgun shells, a handgun, and about two dozen boxes of 9mm ammunition. "On second thought, let's lock this shit in the extended cab 'fore we go on."
Jackson drops the duffle bag of clothes on the street and pulls forward a cardboard box toward the back of the trunk. "And look here!" It's full of canned food.
Once that loot is in the truck, they check out the last of the shops. There's a coffee shop where they snag some powder creamer, sugar, and a few packs of ground coffee, though it's probably lost a lot of its flavor by now. Two more storefronts are For Lease, and then they come across a pediatrician's office.
"We should check it out," Jackson said. "It might have formula. They get sample cans a lot from the manufacturers. And, of course, it could have medicines."
Daryl is already pounding on the bay window which is painted from inside with flowers and happy faces. An adult walker throws itself against one of the happy faces and growls. Daryl can see a bit of its gray flesh through the yellow paint. Then, in a clear spot of the glass come little walker hands and faces – a pair of kids, not more than seven or eight.
Jackson breathes in sharply and steps back. "On second thought, let's skip it."
"Promised Rick formula," Daryl says. "And if we do need it, it's lifesaving, right?"
Jackson swallows hard.
"You ain't got to do it. Just open the door when I tell you to." Daryl pounds a little longer, and can see through the window the walker-turned receptionist thrusting its arm through the circle in the plastic covering over the reception window and then futilely trying to get its head through the slot in the bottom for passing papers. It can't get out of there, or through the closed door leading back to the exam rooms.
They walk to the unlocked door, and on Daryl's nod, Jackson pulls it open wide and stands behind it while Daryl stand in front of it. He clicks with his tongue. The mother is out first, and quickly greeted with a bolt to her head. Daryl swings the bow on his back, draws a knife, and throws it into the head of the little boy walker. The girl lunges growling toward him, and he draws a second knife and stabs it.
Jackson avoids looking at the fallen children as Daryl recovers his bolt and thrown knife, cleans them, and reloads his crossbow. Together, they head inside. Daryl waits for the walker at the reception desk to step back, at which points its head is in the frame of the open circle. He takes a careful shot and feels a rush of confidence as his bolt flies perfectly through the circle cut in the plastic of the reception window and right into the walker's forehead. "Check it out!" he tells Jackson, but Jackson is starring in hoor at the floor of the waiting room.
Daryl follows his gaze. A tiny walker baby – not more than four months in the old world, probably, lies stomach-down on the ground, where it must have been dropped by its walker-turned mother. It can't crawl, or roll over. It thrashes it's little limbs and hisses, almost like a kitten.
Jackson wretches. He heaves, and then runs out of the pediatricians office where he vomits on the sidewalk. Daryl takes a deep breath, marches forward, and ends the baby walker's existence with a knife. There's no threat from it, but he can't stand the idea of it living like that.
He goes back outside, where he tells Jackson, "Stay guard out here. Make sure no one comes and takes our shit."
"Yeah," Jackson agrees, clearly relieved not to have to be in that office one more second.
Daryl makes a lot of noise at the reception window, to make sure there are no more walkers roaming free back there. One, wearing a lab coat, does finally come forward. It bends over the reception desk and tries to get its face through the slot at the bottom, which gives Daryl an opportunity to stab it easily between the eyes.
He's just about to open the door and go into the back when he sees the hands on the wall, cut out from colored construction paper, with the names of patients on them. The receptionist must have written them, because they are done in neat, bold, black strokes. His eyes fall on one that says Sofie, and his teeth grit instinctively together. It's too close a name. Too close, and he's grateful Carol isn't here with him.
He swallows, turns, and jerks the door open. He can hear walkers behind the closed doors of exam rooms. It must have hit them suddenly in this place. They had to have dropped like flies, in the midst of their efforts. They didn't run and close up shop like so many of the other businesses. They kept working until the end.
He stays out of the exam rooms and finds the supply pantry, and leaves that place, one large cardboard box at a time, with three dozen cans of sealed formula powder, infant and child medicines, and a few other supplies. "Let's get the hell out of here," he tells Jackson.
The bed of the pickup truck is full to the brim now, but there's still space on the floor and seats in the backseat of the extended cab. Daryl takes the wheel this time. When the shops are in the rearview mirror, Jackson mutters, "Sorry. Sorry I couldn't help in there."
"Ain't got nothing in the world to be sorry for, son. Not a goddamn thing."
It's only when Jackson glances at him with a hint of a surprise in his eyes that Daryl realizes he said son.
"Thanks," Jackson says quietly, and returns his eyes to the road.