You Keep Me Going

Chapter 5: The Run

Becca's first run with the group. What will happen?

Enjoy! Kthxbai -walks away-

It was cloudy and cool the next day. A nice breeze was rustling through the trees, and it made my hair dance. The herd of walkers from yesterday dispersed, and we took out the ones who were still there earlier this morning. The group was running low on food and ammo. The kitchen in the community center we stayed at had only so much, Rick told me. It was my first run with the group I was just accepted in, and I wanted to bring back as much as I can. I leaned over to Carl while we were walking to one of the cars the group used.

"Hey, there's a Game Stop right up that road. Want to see what's left in there?" I whispered. Carl chuckled and smiled.

"We can't play anything in there, you know that, right?" I nodded.

"Yes, but there's other cool stuff to check out." Rick, who was behind me, lightly swatted the back of my head.

"We're not doing that, Becca."

"Come on, Rick. Don't be a killjoy," Michonne said. "If we have time, we can break in and be nerds," she said to me.

"Awesome," I said in response. We walked passed Daryl, who was bending over an open hood of a car. I jogged over to his side. "Need any help?" Daryl shook his head.

"No, I'm good," he said through his cigarette, which had a gentle line of smoke coming from the end of it. He tinkered with the engine a bit more. "Actually, go inside and turn this thing on." He pulled out some keys from his pocket and handed them to me. I got in the driver's side and tried to start the car. All we heard was rattling and a wheezing engine. Daryl closed the hood and motioned me to come out. "Fuck it, I'll fix it later." Daryl tossed his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out.

"Are you going far for supplies if you need a car?"

"No. I'm going back to where I found ya, but this car broke down when we got here. There were a bunch of places on the other side of that bridge that might have stuff in them."

"There's a bunch of buildings I haven't even set foot in yet in that area," I said. Daryl pulled out a rag that was hanging out of his pocket and wiped the gunk off his hands and bare arms. If Daryl was going in that area, I could show him the places I've already cleaned out. I'm sure Rick wouldn't mind if I went with Daryl. He already was someone with a sword and a little cowboy at his side. I was so deep in thought, I didn't even hear Daryl calling me.

"Yo, Rebecca," he said in a loud voice. I shrieked and looked at him dumbfounded. "You okay?" I nodded my head.

"Y-Yeah, I was just thinking," I stuttered like a moron. Daryl shoved his rag back in his pocket.

"About what?" I looked into his eyes, and silence and slow motion was upon the world around us once again. He raised an eyebrow as he grew impatient.

"I was...just wondering if I could join you." He gave me the 'why' look. "So I can, um, show you the stores I've already cleared out." He looked away for a bit.

"Well, I prefer to be alone when I'm out on runs like these," he said. I looked down.

"Oh, okay then," I said in a quiet, sad, squeaky voice. Crap, I wasn't playing around when I did the voice. I was actually sad. I felt...rejected. I remembered what Daryl said yesterday, about me being his possible hunting buddy, but he was probably just kidding around.

"Hey," he said and I looked up, "did you want to come with me?" A gave him a sad look.

"Only if it's okay with you..." Daryl sighed and nodded his head reluctantly.

"Yeah." I could feel my face brighten up.

"Really?" I said with a smile.

"Yeah." I tried not to over react. I was really happy, but I held myself back.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome, I guess," he said questionably. "We'll leave in a bit. I gotta piss." I adjusted my glasses.

"Thanks for telling me."

"No problem," he said as he walked away. The vest he was wearing had angel wings stitched into the back. It looked old. If anything, Daryl wasn't an angel, so I giggled at the fact that he had wings on his back. Rick walked to me with a clutched fist.

"Are you going with him?" he asked me.

"Yeah. We're going to where he found me, and we're gonna look at the buildings I haven't cleared yet."

"Okay then. Well, I'm giving you these," he said. He held my hands up and dropped some bullets in them from his clutched fist. I counted ten.

"Thank you," I said softly. I sat down and pulled out my gun from the side of my backpack. I decided not to bring my satchel this time. I took the magazine out and loaded all ten bullets.

"You can load up pretty quickly," he complimented, even though I took five minutes to shove the bullets in the clip. Wait, was Rick just watching me the whole time? I shoved the magazine back in and put my gun back in its side pocket, and I stood up.

"Thank you. I prefer getting another magazine so I could do a quick reload, but, y'know, it's hard to find one," I said, shrugging my shoulders. He smiled a bit.

"Yeah. Anyway, Michonne, Carl, and I are going up there," Rick said as he pointed to the highway leading away from the community center.

"That's a good place. The town's mall is up there." Rick squinted his eyes at me.

"How do you know?"

"I have a map," I said. Immediately, something snapped in my brain. "I have a map!" I pulled off my bag and shuffled around in it. I pulled out a folded sheet of large paper that was crammed in one of the inside pockets and handed it to Rick. "I found it in some poor bastard's bag when I ran into this town." I got up and Rick unfolded the map. There were a few markings on the map with routes to stores made by the previous guy. The location that was circled was labeled Mall.

"This can really help us," Rick said as he scanned the map. His eyes rested on one specific area. Daryl walked up behind him.

"That was a long piss," I said.

"I had other stuff to do," he replied. Daryl looked over at the map. "Where'd you get that?" Rick folded the map and placed it in his bag.

"From her," he directed his eyes toward me.

"You had that this whole time?" Daryl asked in a harsh tone. He seemed upset.

"Hey, I completely forgot about that shit. It didn't dawn on me until a few minutes ago when I was talking to Rick," I snapped. Rick looked at me when I swore, and I immediately calmed down. I heard a soft thunder, and we all looked to where it came from.

"Hey, dad!" Carl yelled, and we turned to see him. His head was poking out of an open window of the car he and Michonne were in. "We have to go!" Rick nodded.

"Try and get back before the storm gets here," Rick said, and Daryl and I both nodded. Then Rick pointed a finger at my face. "You stay out of trouble," he said and left. I just stood there in silence.

"Well, let's go." I looked off to where the thunder came from. It sounded pretty far, and the sky was still bright, so I knew we had time to walk. We started walking down the same path we took yesterday. There were only a few walkers we had to take down along the way, even though they weren't bothering us much. As soon as we reached the end of the highway, there were stores and abandoned restaurants on both sides of the street. I only raided a few of them. I looked at a small store that looked like it was on fire before, and the décor was shady and black like soot. The large yellow sign on the building read Cherokee Tobacca and Alcohol.

"Hey, Daryl, if you're ever low on cigarettes, you can go there," I said as I pointed towards the store. Daryl looked at me funny.

"You've been in there?" I lowered my arm.

"Yeah."

"For what?"

"Just to get some alcohol." He raised an eyebrow. "Um, for moltovs…" Daryl shook his head.

"It doesn't really matter anymore. You can drink away for all I care." I wasn't lying entirely. I did go into that store to look for something to drink because I was a curious moron, but for a short time, I did use small bottles of wine I found to make moltovs. I stopped doing that when I realized the fire could not only burn down a building, which I did not do recently, but it could also attract walkers from miles away. I looked ahead.

"Hey, there's a food market up there. There's still some stuff inside if you wanna look. I pretty much cleared out these stores right here." Daryl nodded his head and flung his crossbow behind his back.

"Yeah, let's go down there, and we'll keep going down the road." I nodded and we started to walk. We walked passed a jewelry store to find a small pack of walkers chewing on a fallen survivor. One of them turned and snarled at us as pieces of its food fell out of its mouth. The others noticed, snarled loudly, and got up. Daryl took off his loaded weapon, and shot the closest walker. I took out my pocket knife and walked up to one. I plunged the knife into its eye, and it fell. I took out a few others until there was no more for me to fight. Daryl was pulling out his arrows from heads. I looked at the corpse the walkers were ripping apart. It looked fresh.

"Aw, if we came here earlier, maybe this guy would have lived longer." Daryl walked up beside me.

"Eh, we probably would've killed him ourselves," he said and I laughed. Its fingers started to move, and its eyes opened. They looked like dusty marbles. It reached its mauled arm to Daryl, and he stabbed it in the head with an arrow. I looked to the side and saw a lone bag in the parking lot. I ran to it and looked inside. I pulled out some smashed shotgun shells, a few energy bars, and a photo. It looked like the man that Daryl just stabbed with a little girl in a yellow dress. It was probably his daughter. "What did you find?"

"Just these," I said as I placed the energy bars in my bag. "And this." I handed him the photo. He looked at the dead man.

"Poor bastard," he said. He placed the photo in the man's hands. We stood side by side over the dead man for a short while.

"Do you think that little girl is dead?" I asked solemnly.

"I don't know." Another silence. "Let's keep going." I nodded, and we kept walking. We entered the parking lot of the market, and a few walkers were just scattered about. The sign on the building were just outlined letters of the words Food Lion.

"Should we take them out?" Daryl nodded his head.

"Yeah, mind as well. Just stay behind me as I take them out," he said. I looked at him funny.

"What, I can't help?" Daryl gave me a sharp look.

"Just do what I say, okay?" I stiffened and nodded. I followed him around the parking lot as he took out the walkers with his crossbow. It really was a good weapon. The ammo is reusable and it's quiet. He had really good aim, so the arrow went through the eye of every walking corpse he came across. While he was taking them out, I stared at his angel wings. The thought of him being an angel with a halo still wanted to make me giggle, which I restrained from, but they made him unique, not like he wasn't already unique from anyone in the group. I tried to strike a conversation when Daryl stopped to retrieve his arrow and reload his weapon.

"So, um," I said awkwardly, "how long have you had that thing?"

"Long before this shit happen," he said in a cold voice.

"Okay. What did you do before this shit happened?" I asked. He looked at me and his eyes were that dull color again.

"Okay, obviously you are not the person to talk things about," I said, scratching the back of my head.

He sighed. "I just did stuff," he answered. Not a very good answer. I wanted to ask what kind of 'stuff' he did, but something in my gut told me that he would end up getting upset. We approached the last walker. It was a decaying woman that had long, matted hair. Her eyes were so sunken that it looked like she was wearing sunglasses. Actually, that would be pretty cool to see- a walker with sunglasses. It snarled at us with its rotting black teeth, and it started to limp rapidly towards me. I took out my knife and flipped the blade to kill it, but Daryl pushed it down and stomped on its head with his boot. The head exploded after one stomp. The crunch sounded like he just stepped on the world's largest cockroach or a thousand croutons.

"I could have just stabbed it in the head. A bit much don't you think?" I said, playing with the blade of the knife between my fingers. Daryl looked at me with a crossed face.

"The fucker was getting too close, and you weren't doing anything," he said sternly. I jutted my arms upwards.

"She was at least five feet away from me. By that time, I had my knife out, and I could've taken it out myself," I barked. I put my knife away, and I made my way towards the entrance of the market, leaving Daryl alone. I pushed the once automatic sliding doors apart and entered, letting them closed behind me. I started to scan the aisles for food and useful supplies. This place was practically cleaned out of those items. I guess some other people came by and took most of them. I found a few cans of food and stuff we could use for bandages, but other than that, there was nothing. The store still had regular everyday stuff, beside food, and that toy aisle full of bootleg toys and stuff you'd find in a toy section of a pharmacy. There were boxes of puzzles on one of the lower shelves. I picked one up. The cover had a picture of all kinds of colorful and shiny candy. The box itself was small, and it had that over 200+ pieces sign on the corner of it. I shoved it inside my bag and kept browsing. There were those fake Barbie dolls inside boxes. There was a fairy princess, a mermaid, a regular princess, a ballerina, and one that didn't have an occupancy on it, which was weird. There were tiny action figures, magnets, sand castle stuff with sandals in the bucket, and crappy looking squirt guns that only held a teaspoon of water. I started to scan the stuffed animals when something caught my eye. From the back of the shelf I was looking at, I pulled out a My Melody plushy. It was really cute, with her beady eyes, the small smile Hello Kitty lacks most of the time, and her adorable pink bunny hat that I envied as a child. And I still do. What I would give just to wear a hat like hers for a minute. I suddenly frowned and tossed the plushy to the ground. It reminded me too much of Jenny. She had a My Melody toy, but it was a lot bigger, and she always slept with it by her side. I walked away and continued to search.

Daryl must have entered at some point. He was looking at the other half of the store. I walked back to a hallway that led to the bathrooms. I didn't have to go, thank god, but the hallway made a turn to the right. I pulled out my flashlight and followed it to an office. It was probably the manager's. I tried to open the door, but it was locked, of course. I could have walked away and continued to search the store, but curiosity got to me. The door had that small window on it. I broke it with the pipe I still had from yesterday. I stuck my hand through and reached for the doorknob on the other side to unlock it. It clicked, and I opened the door. I shined the flashlight in the small room. Just a regular office. I started to open the drawers on the desk. Nothing so far. I opened the last drawer and found an old first aid kit and a fresh pack of some AA batteries. I opened the kit to find a clean looking gauze and some bandages. I took them and placed them inside my bag, along with the batteries, and walked out the office. I heard a scream.

"Daryl?" Panic covered me, and I picked up the pace. As soon as I made the corner, I bumped into a walker. I screamed, and it fell on me, making me drop my flashlight. I held its arms away from me to avoid being ripped opened. If I let go, it could have a chance to make a meal of me. This walker had the strength of a body builder. I tried to kick it off with my knees but to no avail. I heard yelling and snarling in the distance.

"Get off me!" I yelled. I pulled hard on one of its arms toward me, and a pop was heard from the walker's shoulder. It snarled in what I assumed was pain, and I pushed it against the wall. I quickly took out my pocket knife, but the walker lunged at me, making me drop my knife and having the blade cut my hand. The smell of fresh blood aroused the corpse, and it pinned me on the floor again. I reached my hand to where the knife fell. By vision became blurry through a head rush, and I stabbed the walker in the neck instead of the head. I used the grip of the knife to push it off against the wall again. I pulled the knife out and repeatedly stabbed the body in the head. I stopped and took rapid breaths when the face looked like red mush. I heard another snarl and turned my head. A tall walker with bare teeth in a hoodie was in the entrance of the hallway, and it was coming at me. It fell to the ground when an arrow was shot through its head. I felt the blood pulsing in my ears, and I was breathing rapidly. I couldn't hear anything but my heart beating.

A man appeared to retrieve the arrow from the walker's head. His back was to me. The light made his body a silhouette, but the only thing I saw from him were the wings on his back. He turned to look at me.

"Becca," he said, "Are you okay?" He walked up to me and helped me up. I could barely stand, and the man wrapped his arm around my shoulders to support me. I nodded my head roughly to finally answer his question.

"Y-Yeah, I'm okay," I said very quietly, but the man heard me. In the trance I was in, I forgot his name.

"Ya bit?" I shook my head, and he looked down my arm.

"What happened to your hand?!" he said. I flinched at the sudden outburst. I looked down, and there was a large cut on the backside of my right hand. I remembered my knife getting me when I was pushed down. The man sat me down on a counter and inspected my hand.

"I...got cut. From my knife," I said, still in a trance. The man pulled out a rag from his pocket, pressed it against my severely bleeding cut, and had me continue applying pressure as he took off my bag and looked through it.

"You said you always carried sewing supplies with you, right?" I nodded my head, because when I tried to talk, I just stuttered like an idiot on drugs. He pulled out a small box and opened it to find my sewing supplies. "Here it is." He took out some thread and a needle. "I have to close that thing up." My vision became blurry from being tired and blood loss. The blood soaked through the rag and small streams ran down my fingers and wrist. The man prepared the needle and removed the rag. Blood poured from the cut and it trickled onto his hand as he held mine. "This will hurt," the man said with concern. I looked into his eyes.

"Like I haven't experienced this before, Daryl," I said in a cold voice, remembering the man's name. He nodded and pierced the needle through the top of my cut, and I made the most pathetic whimper I've ever made with each stitch. Hey, just because I've sewn up many gashes and cuts on my body, that doesn't mean that I can't feel pain. His work was slow and a bit sloppy, but he was able to close up the cut. He pulled out the gauze I found and wrapped it around my hand and placed all my stuff back. I inspected my hand with heavy eyes. I was still fighting not to pass out.

"Are you okay?" Daryl asked. I looked at him and nodded slightly.

"Are you?" I asked back, and he did the same thing I did.

"Sorry I didn't get to you earlier. These fuckers just filed out of the kitchen behind the deli area." I smiled.

"It's okay," I said quietly. He saw in my tired eyes that it was okay. Really, it was. I don't know if he would've had the same reaction if he was the one in my situation, but someone like him probably wouldn't be in the situation I was in. He was too fast and too strong for just one walker to get him to his ground...right? Daryl helped me down, and I slipped on my bag. I looked at my hand again. It didn't hurt as much as before. It probably lost feeling because of the gallon of blood that left my hand.

"How's your hand?" Daryl asked me, inspecting my hand again to make sure the gauze wasn't too loose.

"Hurts less than it did before," I forced out a smile.

"Good," he smiled slightly as he let go of my hand.

"Thank you," I said, "You did a good job on this."

He scoffed. "Well, some little weirdo kid once told me that it didn't take a surgeon to stitch up a cut." I glanced at the finger that Ella bit him on. It had a new, but dirty, gauze wrapped around it. I looked at him.

"And I'm that little weirdo kid, right?" I said, placing my good hand on my hip. He smirked and ruffled my hair.

"C'mon, I think we found what we could in here. Let's go check a few more places before the rain gets here. I nodded and followed him through the maze of dead bodies he just put down. When we walked out of the store, the sky was dark and grey, and the air was very moist. I could smell the rain coming. Daryl pointed to what seemed to be a restaurant. "Let's check this one here." We walked through the front doors and scanned the room. The place was surprisingly bright, but it was unsurprisingly filthy. A couple of rotting bodies were on the floor, and they stunk up the place. We managed to find the kitchen, but the only thing we found was a half-filled bottle of whiskey, which Daryl downed in one swig. Any food that was left in the storage was beyond rotten. I was checking some shelves, and I grew a bit frustrated that I couldn't find anything useful. I really wanted to bring back stuff to the group, but even the supplies I found at the Food Lion place wasn't enough. Daryl noticed the frustration and gave me a worried look. I nodded that I was okay, which I wasn't at the moment, and he ducked behind a counter to find more things. I tossed an empty can to the side when I broke the silence.

"I can't find anything," I grunted, kicking the can between my feet like a soccer ball. Daryl popped up from behind the counter with a pot hanging from his head like a sideways baseball cap. I laughed a bit.

"Yeah, me neither, but at least you're smiling," he said as he took the pot off. I kicked the can to the other side of the kitchen.

"Why do you care if I smile or not?" I said. Daryl walked over to the can, and he kicked it back to me.

"I just do," he said as I kicked the can to him. He tried to kick it back, but the can spun under a counter. I took a look around the kitchen again.

"Well, there's nothing in here we can use," I stated.

"Let's head to another-" Daryl was cut off when a loud clap of thunder shook the room. I shrieked and tensed up my shoulders as the sound surprised me. "Relax, it's just a little thunder," he said when the noise stopped. I loosened up a bit.

"L-Little thunder?! That was fucking scary, I thought it was an earthquake!" I yelped in fear. I really hate thunder. A little rumble like the one earlier today was nothing, but thunder that sounded like a million giants clapping and stomping their feet to a heavy metal concert always scared me. More mega thunders came as buckets of rain punched the windows of the kitchen and the building, making the place feel like it's shaking. Daryl looked out a window.

"Fuck, there's a shit ton of walkers. The thunder must've drove them out," he said angrily now. I looked out as well, and he was right. There was a bunch of walkers just outside the building and even more along the streets. Where they came from, I don't know, but what I did know was this- We were stuck for a while.

To Be Continued...