The Wolf You Feed
Chapter 53
"There's no damn way anyone jumped from that window!," Daryl hollered.
One of his hands was raised, shading his eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun. He glanced up at Rick, who was hanging half out of the window of Deanna's spare bedroom. Then he looked down again.
The entire area under the window was filled with landscaping. There were two small bushes that Reg kept neatly trimmed. And the rest of the area was filled with brightly colored flowers. Aside from a few broken stems that had clearly been cut with scissors to make a bouquet for the table inside, nothing was disturbed. There wasn't a single broken stem or branch. Not even a dog paw print was visible. The window was on the second story. It was a long drop with nothing but the window frame to hang from. In Daryl's opinion, there was no possible way a grown woman could have jumped from that window and not left a trace of herself below.
Even if she had been able to jump down and not leave so much as a dent in the dirt, someone would have seen her. The window faced the street. Reg had been inside keeping watch. He had only run out front because one of the kids had fallen and scraped his knee. Reg had been applying a bandage to the wound only a few feet from the area under the window.
"Do you think she could have climbed onto the roof and jumped down in another spot?," Rick asked. His tone indicated that even he didn't think that was possible. He twisted his body, trying to look up and see if there was anything that he could use to boost himself up onto the roof from his location. There wasn't.
"Not unless she's fuckin' Spiderman," Daryl hollered back. He was still feeling a slight twinge of bitterness. If they had simply killed the woman, like he told them to do, they wouldn't no be dealing with not knowing where the bitch was. But Daryl also realized that being angry at Rick or Deanna wasn't going to help them find her. What's done is done. The best thing to do was focus on cleaning up this mess.
Gray Wolf and Tony came out the front door of the house and headed towards Daryl. Tony shook his head. They had searched every inch of Deanna's house methodically. There was no one hiding inside. Daryl rubbed his face in frustration before fishing a well smashed pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and lighting one up. He had been trying to quit. Aside from the fact that cigarettes were getting harder and harder to find, he had a baby on the way. He figured the little guy might like him more if he didn't reek like an ashtray all the time.
"If she used the door, we'll never find the trail," Daryl huffed. Deanna's house was a hub of community activity. People were constantly coming and going. And Reg was building a chicken coop in the back near the gardens for some of the new chickens they had gotten from Hilltop. So even more people than usual had been tramping through the area, dragging wood, shingles, and old pallets with them.
"Maybe someone snatched her and took her away to kill her," Tony suggested, glancing sideways at his search partner. Gray Wolf turned, realizing that after Tony's comment both him and Daryl were staring at him with questioning looks on their faces.
"Fuck you both," he cursed, "If I already killed her, I wouldn't be wasting my time looking for that stupid wendigo!" Daryl snorted out a laugh, choking a little on the smoke that shot out of his nose like dragon breath.
Feminine laughter drifted over from the street from the women that were close enough to hear the conversation. Daryl had warned everyone to stay back out of the yard. If there was a trail he didn't want them trampling over it. Olivia and Rowan were standing the closest, in the street near the curb with Rowan's little brother Falcon standing between them. He was clinging to the hem of Rowan's dress to steady himself. In his other hand he was holding a slice of watermelon bigger than his head. The boy was opening his little bird mouth as wide as possible, taking giant bites of the sweet fruit. His entire arm and most of his shirt was already covered in sticky juice from his efforts.
"Will we still be able to have the pig roast?," Olivia asked, her voice full of concern. She directed the question towards Deanna, who was standing as close to them as she dared without the risk of being coated in watermelon drippings.
"I don't see why not," Deanna answered, "It's probably safest if we are all together anyway and I would hate to waste all that food." Deanna was rewarded with big smiles from everyone that was close enough to hear her declaration.
They had been rationing food for what felt like a long time now, trying to can or freeze as much as possible of what they were getting from the gardens so that they wouldn't starve come winter. But earlier in the day, Aaron and Eric had gone out with Enid and Carl to pick all the ripe berries that grew wild in the area around Alexandria. They had gotten lucky while they were picking and spotted a giant wild pig. After the belly, ribs and a few other choice parts were removed, it had been determined that the rest of the animal was to be roasted in a large in ground oven. Tomorrow afternoon they were planning on pulling it out and getting the whole group together. Word had spread quickly through the town as it often did. People had gotten busy planning side dishes to bring. Deanna had even heard some chatter about a game of capture the flag. If she canceled the event now she knew people would be very disappointed. Keeping morale up was just as important as keeping people fed.
