Thanks for the reviews and follows! Those notifications always make my day.
I do apologize for the lengthy delay. Careers and drama and such.
As promised, academy is officially over! I am in the field and having a blast exploring this new part of my life.
Wedding planning will no longer be an issue, as I am newly single, so that opens up some time for some chapters.
Onwards and upwards!
Daryl and Sasha flipped their vehicles around about 100 yards from the front of the walkers, Sasha blaring her car horn and Abraham smacking his knife against the metal door. Star took the opportunity to flip around on the back seat of the motorcycle, spear still in her right hand as she used her left to reach and keep a grip around Daryl's waist. Daryl reached his own left arm around her other side to steady her, using his right hand to steer.
"Go ahead and let go, I'm good," Star told him. He relented his hold on her waist and steadied both hands on the handlebars.
A deep, blaring horn suddenly cut through the sea of groaning behind them.
"What the fuck is that?!" Sasha asked, bewildered. Star was tempted to turn around and look for the source of the sound, but kept her eyes and spear trained on the rambling corpses.
"'s comin' from th' town," Daryl noted over the noise.
"What do we do?!" Sasha responded.
A tense silence followed, four minds measuring their responsibilities and risks.
Finally, Abraham spoke. "We stay," he said decisively.
"But what if they're being attacked?!' Sasha insisted. Star's mind immediately conjured up the booby-trapped grocery trucks and the walker underneath with the 'W" carved into her head, and she tightened her grip on Daryl's vest.
"We stay," Abraham said in the exact same tone. "We lose the herd, and they just add to the shitstorm."
The radio on Daryl's shoulder crackled to life, and Rick's voice emitted from the black box.
"I've sent Michonne and Glenn with the townsfolk to get back to Alexandria. I'm going to get the RV and head in. Do NOT abandon the plan. Going back would be for us, not for them."
The radio static cut out.
"There ya' have it," Abraham said, settling into the passenger seat.
Daryl turned around to look at Star. His mouth was drawn into a tight line, and she could sense his itch to go and aid the community. He was looking for support.
She chewed on the inside of her cheek and turned away from him.
"There you have it," she repeated. The horn inexplicably stopped.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
It only took five minutes for Daryl to get agitated.
"Man, we can't just sit here!" he finally snapped. Star shifted her eyes in his direction from the walker she had chosen as the front boundary.
"Daryl, don't go," Sasha reasoned. "You can make it there, but we won't be able to make it without you. We can't hold this herd on our own."
The two in the car watched Daryl as conflict flitted across his face. The radio on his chest crackled with static, but no information came through.
"Star, turn 'round," Daryl barked. Star tore her eyes from the front walker, but could hear the tension in Daryl's voice. She swung her legs around and faced forward, sheathing her spear in the back holster as she turned. Daryl revved the engine, and Star mouthed an apology as they roared away from the lone car.
They roared down the abandoned roads in silence. Star felt the same weight of their rock-and-a-hard-place, and was somewhat relieved that Daryl was driving, and therefore making the decisions. She wanted to say something, but could sense Daryl mentally battling himself. She wasn't the strongest voice of reason here; he was.
The radio on his shoulder buzzed to life. Static emptied into the dead air, with muffled pops cutting through. Star's eyes widened, and she turned to look at Daryl's profile.
"Rick…" she whispered. The static continued, but nothing interrupted it for several minutes. She could see the gears turning in her companion's head, and he finally gritted his teeth and cursed.
"Fuck it," he muttered as he accelerated into the upcoming turn. Star tightened her arm around his waist and raised an anticipatory hand to the handle of her spear.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
They roared towards the beat-up sedan, and Star could see Sasha let out a breath she probably had been holding since they had left. Abraham simply gave them a single head nod as Daryl turned the bike back to line up next to the car.
"Welcome back," he quipped. Neither of them responded.
"He'll be fine. He can hold his own," Star quietly comforted Daryl. He didn't respond, just kept his eyes trained on the road. She squeezed his waist and then carefully turned back around to resume her watch post, spear twirling in her hand.
About an hour passed, a mildly less tense silence settling between the occupants of the two vehicles. The moans of the undead had gradually become background noise, and Star found herself zoning out and dropping her head to Daryl's back, keeping her lazy eyes trained on the rambling corpses.
Star's head snapped back to attention when she heard Daryl mutter, "Try t' keep up," into the radio.
"Daryl, have you seen this car?" a static-covered Sasha quipped back. "Trust me, we want to get back just as much as you do."
Star let out a small sigh of relief as they hung a left onto HWY 642. Home. Thank the deities.
The highway crossed into a small stop town, with a mechanic's garage, gas station, and a few eateries. The two vehicles slowed down to navigate the debris and ensure the mob didn't lose them in the maze. Star was just about to ask Daryl how far out they were when a whizzing sound, followed by a very narrow burst of air, went flying past her head. She and Daryl instinctively ducked down, and the round went right past Sasha and Abraham.
"DOWN" Daryl barked at her as he gunned the bike to a higher speed, and Star ducked her head below his shoulders. It was a useless maneuver, she realized, as they sped by strange gunmen on either side of the road. She heard glass shatter as the junker behind them lost its back windshield. A round bounced off the handlebars of the bike, and Daryl yanked his hand away reactively. Star felt the machine beneath them begin to wobble, and she jumped off and rolled into the nearby shrubs, her spear in her hands in a split second. Star whipped her head back to see Daryl skidding under the bike along the pavement, the orange junker whizzing by him and narrowly missing the bike as an unfamiliar blue sedan gave pursuit.
Star crouched low against the dense foliage, spear cocked back behind her shoulder. She saw Daryl struggling to get to his feet.
"Daryl! GET UP!" she hissed at the man. A gunman down the road began advancing with a rifle, its sights trained on the downed motorcycle. Star snagged a small knife from inside the waist of her pants and gripped it loosely in her weak hand, aimed, and let it fly.
"FUCK OFF" she yelled as the man caught her knife in his lower gut and stumbled backwards. Daryl was back on his feet and laboriously lifted the bike to its wheels, slowly pushing it towards her. He remounted and got the machine going again, furiously gesturing at Star. She leapt up from her hiding spot and jumped back onto the bike again seated backwards. Wordlessly, she spun around and yanked Daryl's Glock from his hip holster.
"FUCKING GO!" she shouted at him, and he furiously urged the machine onwards as she fired sporadically at the two dusty vehicles chasing them. She felt the bike weaving around obstacles, only seeing them after they had passed. A walker flew by about two inches from her elbows, but she gritted her teeth and kept her eyes trained on their attackers. One of the vehicles dodged a hoard of walkers but smashed into a derelict bus, crumpling to a stop.
The motorcycle finally cleared town and found the open road, Daryl pumping on the gas and trying to ignore the metal clinking and grinding of the vehicle.
"Lose em?" he shouted back.
"One of them," Star answered as the blue SUV squealed sharply around the last shipping container.
"We'll lose 'em on a hill," Daryl promised.
The SUV came over the crest and roared past the thicket of trees without a pause. Daryl drove across the road after it, back into the cover of the forest. Star let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and immediately set her focus on assessing the damage.
The motorcycle didn't sound right, and she had no idea where they were on gas. Daryl's left sleeve was torn to shreds, as was his pant leg. The same side of his face was caked in blood and dirt. She reached around him to take a better look at the wound, but he shook her off. Her own right knee was exposed and already black and blue, but other than that, she felt fine.
She felt the bike lean to the side again, and felt the machine slow down. Daryl's usually steady and strong posture was slouched and shaky.
"Daryl…" she was about to command him to stop when he collapsed over the side of the bike and into the charred forest floor. Star launched from the heavy piece of machinery for the second time in an hour, landing clear of both her companion and the crushing weight of the bike.
"Daryl!" she scrambled back to him. She looped her arms under his and dragged him clear of the bike. He groaned and lifted his head up.
"Stay down," she ordered sternly. He obliged momentarily, but jerked back to attention when they both heard the throaty, nearby rasp of the dead. Star slowly turned to look over her right shoulder and came face-to-face with a melted, moving motorcycle helmet, attached to the molten body of a walker.
"Christ," she startled, and kicked the charred corpse away from them. Daryl slumped back down into her arms, pulling her to the ground as his eyes rolled back into his head.
Star looked around, bewildered and lost. She lowered herself down into a protective crouch over Daryl's unconscious body, spear at the ready.
Damn it Damn it Damn it Damn it Damn it.
Daryl saw black swimming before his eyes, and heard a slight human pant above him. He pulled his eyes open and blurred colors swam before his eyes. Black below the horizon, white above, and a tan blob in the center of it all. He blinked, and blinked again, and slowly the burnt forest floor, the blinding sky, and Star came back into focus. Star was squatting above him, her spear gripped alongside her forearm, eyes piercing the perimeter. She winced, shifting her weight to one side, and he saw her swollen knee and old tattered bandage come into focus.
He groaned and sat upright, and she turned to look at him.
"You ok now, Angel?" she quietly asked.
"Ya," he responded, getting to his feet. "We gotta get outta here."
"I'm with you all the way on that," she agreed, handing him his Glock to reholster. She gave him an incredulous look as he crossed back to the fallen bike. "Daryl it's useless in here. And it weighs a shit ton."
"We need it," he insisted.
"Then we'll come back for it," she stated, and began walking away. She stopped in her tracked and turned around to find him pulling the bike upright and pushing it with effort along the soft, sooty ground.
"Daryl, seriously!" she started to argue.
"Don't it look like 'm bein' serious?" he said without any change in his tone or volume. Star growled but backtracked to him and the hunk of metal, begrudgingly pushing on the opposite side.
They had been pushing and walking for about twenty minutes. Neither commented on the burnt tree stumps or the charred skeletons they dodged along the way. They had injuries and a broken vehicle and a hit squad to deal with; already dead, albeit creepy, things could wait.
Daryl tried the dented portable radio every few minutes with no response. Blood dripped steadily down his arm, and Star wanted to say something, but felt like Daryl needed her to just be there and get them both through this.
The bike's front tire found its way into a groove along the path, and stuck stubbornly. Daryl finally let it fall to the floor, and Star let the metal meet the dirt. Daryl tried to shrug out of his torn leather jacket, but the blood was sticking to the material. Star went behind him and softly guided the jacket past his shoulders and down his arms, Daryl hissing in pain. Her heart broke and her need to fix something, anything flared up, but she simply followed Daryl's lead.
"Bag attached t' th' bike" Daryl requested as he retrieved his crossbow from the handlebars. Star found the saddlebag and slung it around her weak shoulder, her spear still mounted the opposite direction. Daryl pulled some blackened branches over the bike, silently signaling defeat to the bike's cumbersome weight.
They hadn't taken more than five steps when the dull snap of a branch brought Daryl's crossbow up and Star's spear out of the holster. Daryl took slow, silent steps toward the sound, Star watching their tail. Without prompt, two young women popped up from the ashen foliage with their arms raised, hands up.
"Ok, here we are!" the brunette spoke to the sharp end of the crossbow. "We earned what we took."
Star's eyebrows furrowed, but she kept her spear trained on the blonde. "What are you talking about?"
Daryl whipped around suddenly, but quickly met the floor as a 2x4 collided with his head.
"The f…" Star got out, before she met the same percussion-based fate.
Phew! That was quite the exercise, trying to get back into writer's shape. My apologies, again, for the prolonged absence and inevitable rustiness. I fully intend to continue working more regularly on this fic again. Like, regularly as in, I'll start on the next chapter right now.
As always, reviews are lovingly devoured.