There are few visible stars in the sky, just the light glimmer of the white quarter moon, as the search party gathers by the front gates of Alexandria. John's son Jacob makes sure he has a round chambered in his rifle and then brushes back a shock of flaxen hair. Enid double checks the contents of her medical bag and flings it over her shoulder.
Carol adjusts the longbow she learned to use during her stint in the Kingdom, before Daryl spirited her away to the Hilltop. She turns on her walkie talkie to make sure it's working and then clicks it off again. Cyndie wears the second walkie talkie on her hip. Henry, a rifle slung over his shoulder, jogs up beside Cynide in the circle and nods to her
"You're supposed to be with Hershey," Carol says.
"I got Barbara to watch him." When Carol shoots him a scolding look, Henry says, "I've hunted with John since I was twelve. He's like an uncle to me. I'm coming."
Carol doesn't protest further.
Rosita joins the group gathered at the gates. "I heard there's a man out there?"
"Yes," Carol tells her. "John. He left this morning and hasn't come back."
"I thought no one would be out on Christmas!" Rosita says anxiously.
"He wanted to track some bobcats," Jacob says.
Rosita tugs nervously at the pony tail spilling out the tail of her green baseball cap. "Listen, two of my scouts returned from a week-long expedition this morning. They reported spying a small herd of about seventy walkers on the move from a subrub to the west. They were flooding from the housing development into the woods. The herd was far enough away when my scouts left them, and it's Christmas, so I was planning to wait to send the eradicators out tomorrow morning to deal with it. But if we go deep enough into the west hunting grounds…it's possible we may run into it."
Carol rests a hand instinctively on the hilt of her knife. "So it's possible John ran into it."
"Oh shit," Jacob mutters, and Julie gasps and places a hand over her mouth.
"We'll start off as one search party," Carol tells the assembled team. "And if the sign diverges, or it's unclear, we'll break off to cover more ground. But no more than two groups. If there's a herd out there, we need fighting numbers."
Julie, who is holding a torch, hands Daryl one of John's shirts for Merle to sniff and then, swallowing hard, turns to Carol. "I know John and I had a rocky marriage and a bad break-up, but…he's the father of my children." She doesn't say child, even though only one has survived. "We endured the Collapse together. I've known him since I was nineteen."
"We'll find him," Carol assures her.
"It's going to be all right, Mom." Jacob puts a hand on Julie's shoulder. He takes the lit torch she's holding. "Just go back to your cabin and try to get some rest. We'll bring him home."
Daryl hands John's crumpled shirt to another hunter named Marcus, who lowers it to his own blood hound Buster. The dog buries its face in the cloth, and its dark black nose crinkles as it inhales the scent. The gates roll open, and the dogs are off, with the search party close behind.
[*]
Once buried almost a mile in the woods, the dogs disagree. Buster continues to sniff his nose down a trail while Merle stands still in his tracks, lowers his head, sniffs, and looks confused. Merle circles around Daryl's legs, yelps once, sits on his haunches, and whines.
"This way," Marcus says when Daryl stands still. The sixty-something, dark -skinned hunter points down the trail his hound is sniffing. Jacob sweeps the torch over the trail to reveal a faint set of bobcat prints.
"Merle don't smell nothin' that way," Daryl insists.
"But the bobcat tracks lead the way Buster is sniffing," Marcus says. "And you said John was tracking them."
"Merle don't smell nothin' that way," Daryl repeats.
Marcus scratches the tightly cut, gray-white hair atop his head and laughs. "You're as stubborn as your dog. Merle doesn't smell anything any other way either. All the signs point east."
Daryl sweeps the beam of his solar flashlight – which he sets in direct sunlight to charge daily - over the forest floor, stirs some leaves with his boot, and crouches. He comes up and points into the woods. "'Nother set of tracks goes that way. The cats split up here. But I don't see John's prints. Must not of stepped in the mud. Can't know which cat he followed."
"Probably the trail Buster's trying to run down."
Daryl looks down at Merle. "Which way John go?"
Merle whimpers, lays down on the forest floor, and puts his head on his paws.
"Think we should go west," Daryl insists.
"We should go east," Marcus replies.
"Well, it sounds like this is where we split up," Carol says. "I'll stick with Daryl. Cyndie, you go with Marcus so we can stay in contact." She pats the walkie talkie on her hip, and Cyndie nods.
"I'll go with Marcus, too," Henry says, and walks over to stand beside Cyndie.
Jacob seems torn between the two hunters, not sure which to follow, but eventually he joins Daryl.
"Enid, come with us," Carol says, because she trusts Daryl's intuition more than the other hunter's. If they find John, they may find him in a bad state, and they're going to need their medic.
Enid shifts the rifle on her right shoulder and the medical bag on her left and steps forward to join them.
"Like I said," Rostia tells them. "That herd was coming from the west. They weren't moving fast, but if you end up another two miles in, you might need more manpower." She clicks on the flashlight beneath her scope, sweeps the light over the forest floor toward the west, and then clicks it off. "Give the other party the torch," she tells Jacob. "Daryl and I have lights."
Jacob hands the torch over to Henry. "Good luck, man," Henry tells him. "One of us will find him."
Jacob nods, but he's starting to look nervous.
[*]
Daryl cautiously follows the sign – mostly disturbed earth and the occasional bobcat print - for a good mile until he finally finds the faint print of bootprint. He shines the flashlight straight on it. It's sunk deep into the mud, so that the treads have pressed a pattern on the dirt, and even the circle in the center, with the brand logo in the middle, can be half made out.
"You were right," Jacob says. "Those are my dad's boots."
"Of course he was right," Carol replies.
"Merle's nose knows what it don't know," Daryl insists.
Despite the heaviness of the moment, Carol smiles. "Try saying that five times fast."
A few steps later, Merle sniffs the ground, walks forward sniffing, yelps, and then runs off into the woods. The search party jogs after him, Daryl and Carol in front, side by side. Carol lifts her walkie talkie as she runs, contacts Cyndie, and tells her they've found John's trail. She can hear Cyndie ordering her half of the search party to turn around.
"We're going to keep moving," Carol tells her. "Catch up with us." She clicks the walkie talkie back on her belt.
They push through brush and crunch over sticks as the hazy beam of Daryl's flashlight scatters over the ground in front.
They come to an abrupt stop, side by side, several yards away from a walker that rises from its hunched position and turns with a piece of flesh dangling from its mouth. Carol smoothly draws an arrow from her quiver, loads her long bow, and fires. The arrow squishes into the walker's forehead. Its knees give it out, and the creatures slumps onto the frozen, dead leaves like a rag doll.
By now, the others have drawn up around them. Jacob grips his rifle and a strangled, worried sound escapes his throat. "Was it eating my dad?"
"No," Daryl tells him. "Bobcat. You hold the light." He hands over his flashlight to Jacob, swings off his crossbow, and, muscles bulging beneath his leather jacket, yanks back to load it.
"No firing guns if we can help it," Carol says as Daryl readies his bow. "We don't want to draw more walkers."
Rosita nods her agreement, shoulders her rifle, and draws her knife. Enid draws hers knife as well, leaving her rifle swinging gently from her shoulder.
They creep cautiously toward the fallen walker, Jacob lighting the way. The beam of the flashlight sweeps out over the fallen walker and to the mangled, picked over bobcat that has been almost entirely stripped. And then the light sweeps beyond the bobcat, between the trees, and across the bodies of several more fallen walkers.
Daryl studies the sign. "Looks like John 'n the walkers found the bobcat at 'bout the same time," Daryl says. "'N most of 'em left the bobcat to run after John. He shot back at 'em as he ran."
"Do you think it's that herd?" Carol asks Rosita. "You said there were seventy?"
"About. We were going to take care of it in the morning. I didn't know John was out here. I didn't think anyone would be out on Christmas afternoon."
"No one blames you," Carol assures her, though Jacob does shoot Rosita a sickened look.
Carol recovers her arrow and holds it in one hand, her bow in the other, ready to load and shoot again at a moment's notice.
The trail is easier to follow now. It's a trail of fallen walker bodies. "Did you see yer dad 'fore he left this morin'?" Daryl asks Jacob as they follow the path of shot-down, decaying monsters. "See how much ammo he brought with 'em?"
Jacob shakes his head.
"The weekly ammo ration for hunters is thirty rounds," Carol says. "And it's toward the end of the week."
"He might've had more," Daryl says. "Hunters been searchin' cabins all over the woods, dozens of 'em."
"And not turning in any of the loot?" Carol asks.
Daryl shrugs. "Ain't on an official supply run when we's out here. Ya drank John's wine, didn't ya? Got that from a cabin."
"Yes, but I didn't know you were regularly raiding cabins out here. Dozens of them. On the clock. I thought you just came across one a couple times a month." That's borderline between an official and a personal act. She's not as much a stickler for the rules as Aaron, but regular raiding without sharing could cause some grumbling if the populace were to know.
"We always turn over meds if we find 'em," Daryl says. "But the ammo rations ain't right. Thirty rounds. Hell. Regular folk get ten, and they don't need to shoot shit."
"Defense only gets forty a week, and we have to take down herds," Rosita says.
"Well there's a formal way to lodge your complaints, you know," Carol tells them. "And to have the Council reconsider."
"Didn't want a fight 'bout it," Daryl mutters.
Carol shakes her head and steps over a fallen walker. The trail of bodies stops.
"John ran out of ammo here, I reckon," Daryl says. ""S just runnin' now."
They follow the path the herd has beaten down through the woods. Jacob sweeps the flashlight left and right, up and down, over the brush and icy leaves as they walk. Eventually, the beam freezes in a single spot. "Is that walker blood or human blood?" he asks. Dots of light shimmer in a dried splotch of red-black and then sweep up over a dripping, limping trail. "It doesn't look like walker blood," Jacob says shakily. "Is it?"
Daryl doesn't answer. Instead, he whistles at Merle and then takes off running along the dripping trail of blood.
The search party runs after him.