A/N All characters belong to the writers and creators of The Walking Dead. Except those that arose from my own twisted imagination.
Chapter Six-Following Orders
Daryl took Carl out for more target practice. The kid was good but he was still trying too hard. After the third time he overshot the target, Daryl took his crossbow back.
"Look you're doin' it wrong. You're thinkin' too much about it." He raised the crossbow and demonstrated. "You point, aim, shoot." The arrow hit the bullseye. Daryl loaded another arrow and handed it back to Carl. "Quit thinkin' about stuff so much. It just gets in the way." Carl raised the crossbow, took a deep breath and fired. The arrow hit the mattress. Daryl nodded his approval.
"See? You relax and go." He retrieved the arrows from the ground and the two from the target and handed them to Carl. Carl loaded an arrow, aimed and fired. He hit the mattress again, closer to the paper target this time.
"Good, you're doin' good. Keep workin' on it." Carl loaded another arrow.
"Danielle said she'd teach me how to shoot her bow." Daryl looked surprised.
"Did she now?" Carl nodded, aimed the crossbow and fired. This time, he hit the target. He picked up another arrow.
"Don't you think she's pretty cool?"
"She does what needs doin'. That's all I care about." Carl lowered the crossbow and looked up at Daryl.
"But you like her don't you?" Daryl frowned.
"What the hell are you getting' at?" Carl shrugged.
"I heard Maggie tell Glenn that Danielle had a thing for you." Daryl, who was taking a drink from the canteen, about choked. He recovered quickly and glared at Carl.
"I told you to stop thinkin' so much. And you need to stop listening in on people talkin' bout things you've got no business hearing." He took the crossbow back from Carl. "Go find your dad. Tell him we're heading out in a bit."
Maggie, Daryl and Danielle packed up the car with rations in case they got into trouble on the road. Danielle had suggested heading southeast towards Barnesville, in order to avoid any encounters with scouts from Woodbury.
"When we'd go on runs, we never went this far out. The Governor didn't want to waste the gas." She pointed on the road map. "We don't want to get too close but there's some other stores and houses out that way where we can stock up. The only problem is that unless there's another group out that way who's like we are, the walkers are going to be bad so we won't want to use our guns unless we have to." Daryl and Maggie nodded in agreement.
"But it'll be worth it if we find someplace that hasn't been cleared out," said Maggie. She picked up the full gas can and put it in the car, alongside the three empty ones. This was going to be a big run, one they hoped not to have to make again for a while, so they needed to siphon more gas. Once they were ready, she kissed Glenn and hugged her father and Beth and got in the driver's seat. Danielle climbed in the passenger side leaving Daryl in the back to keep an eye out behind them. As they started up the car, Rick leaned in the window.
"Y'all be careful out there. You know what we need so just get it and get back safe." Daryl nodded. The rest of the group went to the fence to distract the walkers while Carl opened the gate and Maggie headed towards the highway.
"Turn left up here," Danielle told Maggie, reading the map. It had been a long drive but only because they had to maneuver around a number of wrecks, a large group of walkers that Maggie plowed through only after Daryl yelled at her to put the goddamn pedal to the floor and they had finally made it onto Highway 18 and it looked relatively clear. They drove through the countryside, past houses that had seen better days to others that were probably the mansions of the area. So many of the homes looked tempting but the group was too wary of the conditions to inspect them. Looking out the window, the could see walkers in the fields.
"How many people lived in Barnesville?" Maggie asked Danielle. Danielle's ex-husband had been a doctor and often spent weeks in rural Georgia and Alabama at local hospitals and clinics.
"I think about six thousand or something like that." Maggie took a deep breath.
"And we're sure we want to do this?" Danielle looked over at her. Maggie had a look of panic on her face. She'd almost forgotten that this was the first time Maggie had done a supply run since being kidnapped.
"Hey, we'll be fine. Just breathe." Maggie nodded and exhaled. They passed more cars on the side of the road and more walkers but didn't see any survivors. Danielle was starting to worry that she'd made a mistake.
"I feel like we're in the middle of Mad Max or something." She felt Daryl lean on the back of the seat.
"You better hope you didn't just lead us into Thunderdome." She turned and saw that he was glaring at her. "Because I sure as shit ain't saving your ass out of that." Finally, they passed between the two area schools. It appeared that they had been used by the military for a refugee center, probably sometime before Atlanta fell.
"We're almost there," said Danielle. She could see two large buildings straight ahead and the sign for a Shell station. When they passed a Walgreens and a grocery store, Daryl finally spoke.
"This is close enough. We don't know how many walkers there are out here. We got room to get out around here if we have to." He directed Maggie to pull into the market's parking lot. "This place was probably wiped out when they all took off but if the army got people rounded up real quick, there might be some good stuff left." Maggie parked in front of the doors and turned off the engine. All three stared through the glass doors to the dark store. Finally, Daryl opened up the door.
"Well, let's get this over with." The girls followed behind, watching each other's backs and slowly made their way into the store. Once inside, Maggie and Danielle pulled out their flashlights but Daryl motioned for the girls to put them away.
"Let your eyes adjust first. We got enough light coming in through the windows." All three listened close for any sound. Danielle grabbed a cart. While the place had been looted and there was a distinct smell of rotting vegetables they could see that they had hit a gold mine. Walking down the aisles, it looked like people had gone for easy food to eat on the road. Almost all the snack foods were gone. They quickly found the baby aisle and grabbed most of the powdered formula, six packs of diapers and a squeaky giraffe toy that Maggie could not resist. The girls were almost giddy when they saw that the canned food aisle was relatively well stocked.
"Hershel said to grab vitamins if we find them," Maggie said, reading off the list her father had handed her. Daryl looked down the aisles and waved them over. Grabbing medicine, vitamins and other supplies for first aide, they quickly filled the cart. Daryl was getting nervous.
"This is just too easy," he kept saying. After Maggie checked that they had everything that had been requested, he quickly motioned them back to the front of the store. Passing by one of the registers, he grabbed a pack of Slim Jims and tossed them on the top of the food. Danielle raised her eyebrow at him.
"What?" he asked, a bit defensive.
"Nothing." Danielle could barely hide her smile. Hearing a noise outside the door, she stopped smiling. She grabbed her bow off her shoulder and loaded it.
"Shit. Walkers." Daryl raised his crossbow and walked in front of the girls.
"Stay back and shut up," he ordered. He ducked behind one of the registers and looked out the door. In front of the store, he could see one walker. It was bumping up against a loose shopping cart. Further across the parking lot, he saw three more. It wouldn't take long for one of them to ring the dinner bell.
"Dani!" She walked slowly, ducking down behind the register, until she was next to him. "You open the door and I'll take care of the walkers. You and Maggie get the car loaded up. We didn't come all this way to leave that shit behind." She nodded and crept back to Maggie. After explaining the plan, Maggie carefully positioned the cart by the door, being careful to not let the walker see her. Danielle looked at Daryl who nodded and held up three fingers. On one, Danielle pushed the door open and Daryl ran out shooting the walker by the door and quickly reloading to cover the girls who opened the hatch of the car and began throwing things in as quickly as they could. A couple of cans of soup rolled out and hit the ground. The three walkers picked up the pace when they heard the noise and saw food. Leaving Maggie to finish loading, Danielle raised her bow, took a deep breath and fired an arrow straight through the eye of the nearest walker. While she reached for another arrow, Daryl took out another one. After she got the third, Maggie slammed the hatch closed.
"We've got everything! Let's go!" Scanning the area and seeing more walkers heading there way, Danielle ran towards the three fallen walkers to retrieve her arrows. She heard Daryl yell at her to come back but she quickly reached the bodies, yanked the arrows free and ran back to the car. As Maggie started the engine, a walker slapped the driver's side window. She peeled out of the parking lot and got back on highway 18, flooring it back to the prison. Daryl was pissed.
"Goddammit Danielle! What the hell were you thinking?" He rubbed his face with his hands and glared at her. "Are you just that stupid? Those geeks could have had you!" Her face flamed red and she clenched her jaw. She turned and threw his arrow on the floor.
"You're welcome." He picked it up and shook his head.
"Stupid bitch." Danielle turned back around, shaking. It hurt to see the anger, fear and absolute disappointment on Daryl's face. Like he'd lost what little respect for her he had. Maggie glanced in the rearview mirror and then over at Danielle.
"It's ok. We made it out. It was close, but we did it so let's just get back home, ok?" Danielle turned to look out the window, chewing on her thumbnail. Her heart was still pounding and she didn't know if it was because of her incredibly stupid close call or knowing that she was probably going to have to find a different spot to sleep tonight.
They stopped about ten miles out to put gas in the car and siphon gas from several cars that had been abandoned. Daryl took over driving for Maggie, who got into the backseat and almost promptly fell asleep. He drove fast, weaving quickly around the stopped cars they had carefully driven past earlier. The sun would be setting soon and there was a good possibility that they wouldn't get back to the prison until after dark. With the road open, he floored the gas pedal.
They made it back to the prison just after sunset. Glenn and Rick met them at the gate to let them in. When they parked, everyone came out to help carry in the supplies. Rick noticed that Daryl was even less talkative than usual. He waited until everyone else had gone inside before asking what had happened.
"Little miss redneck swamp girl almost got herself killed going after her arrows. The geeks were right there but she ran at the bodies she dropped like she didn't even see them." Rick put his hands on his hips.
"I'll talk to her if you think that will help for next time." Daryl shook his head.
"There won't be a next time. I'm not going on any more supply runs with someone who don't listen and I can't trust to watch my back." With that he stomped into the cellblock. He put his crossbow on the table and started towards the cafeteria where Hershel and Beth had kept stew warm.
"Daryl." Danielle's voice in the shadows stopped him cold. "Daryl, I'm sorry." He turned towards her voice and saw her sitting against the wall. He stood over her.
"Don't pull that shit on me again, you hear me? When we're out there you listen to what I say. And if I say get your ass in the car, you better listen." Danielle met his eyes and then looked away, nodding. He watched her face for a moment.
"You're not cryin' again are you?" She scowled at him.
"No. I'm not crying." She almost spit out the words. Daryl smirked at her and walked to the cafeteria.