Ivy, DevilWIthAnAngelHeart, julie, Jasmin Jade xx, lillytimes, hillaryn, AffairWithACrossbow, itsi3 - Thanks so much for the love an support. :)
I only own the original plot narratives... and characters...
Chapter 18 - Daryl
After the ceremony everyone went their separate ways. I retreated back into my woods, but I'd spent too many mornings with Carol passing between these oaks and pines on well tread paths. Too much reminded me of her. I kept seeing her face. Her face as she left my camp yesterday morning, glowing, happy... beautiful.
Her face this morning, bruised, broken, misshapen, and torn up... ready to die.
Her face as she rejected me.
I huffed and stomped back to my camp. I needed to kill something. I was gonna get my shit and -
I stopped dead in my tracks. My non-present for Carol was still just where I left it, leaning against the far side of a tree, facing away from my camp. I dropped down before it, kneeling like a sinner before a cross.
I pulled at my hair and felt a whimper escape before I could stuff it down.
I felt like I had when Rick told me they abandoned my brother in Atlanta. Desperate, alone, having failed the one person I had in this world.
I wished I could un-hear what Hershel had said to Carol.
His words assaulted me.
Torn apart. Shredded. Damaged.
I tortured myself with them. Repeating them over and over and over. I never wanted to forget the cost of my inaction. I wanted to feel the burden of this everyday for the rest of my life - However long that was.
He said she might never be able to have kids. He said she should tell someone to make it stop, but I knew and what did I do?
Respected her privacy?
I lowered my forehead into the dirt and buried my head under my arms.
She's 18 fucking years old? She's a kid. What the fuck does she know? She should be taken care of by adults not left to handle shit like that on her own unless she asks for help. I'm 27, what the fuck is the point of being older if you can't be wiser?
I hated myself.
Pull yourself together you fucking pussy.
Merle. I ignored him.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize squealing and rolling around in the mud like fucking swine was helping your little woman. That is what you've got your panties in a bunch about isn't it? Why don't you give her you're dorky little present?
It's not a present, I snapped back. I really needed to stop arguing with myself or they were gonna have to commit me.
I sighed and pushed myself off the ground looking back at the... equipment I had gotten for Carol. Maybe if I brought it to her it would remind her of Morning Carol. What she was like when it's just us and the hunt.
I felt pathetic but Merle was uncharacteristically silent on the subject. I grabbed her... tool and headed back for the Greene house.
As I approached I saw Rick, King Shane, Andrea and Skeletor rushing to the Greene house. Well, that can't be good. No one rushed in this heat unless something was the matter.
I'm sure I'll find out sooner or later if it's worth knowin' about.
When I enter the house I hear them all talking upstairs but I go right into the room to the left where Carol go patched up.
She was gone.
My heart started pounding. I dropped her present to the floor and flew out of the room. Sophia was still in the same spot I left her staring at the same spot on the wall.
"Sophia?"
I knelt in front of her but she didn't look at me.
I went to grab her shoulders but stopped myself, letting my hands hover.
"Sophia, where is Carol?"
"She left," whispered a ghost from the mouth of a little girl.
"When?"
"When you were all putting those bodies in the ground."
"Do you know where she went?"
No answer, the girl had retreated back into herself. Whether she knew or not didn't matter cause I wasn't gonna find out from her.
I spun on my heal taking the stairs three at a time.
They all stopped talking when they heard me coming and I was greeted at the doorway by their stares.
"Sophia just told me Carol left during the ceremony, anybody know anythin' 'bout that?"
They all looked at each other and then at Rick who was glaring at his boots. Lifting his face toward the ceiling, or maybe to god, he released a heavy sigh.
"Shit," he said. "Hershel is missing too. Glenn and I were just about to check out the local bar, see if we could find him."
He looked at me now.
"If Sophia was right about when she left, then they didn't leave together. I hate to ask this of anyone but the chances of her being found alive would be a lot better if a second pair when out looking for her."
"Man, you want to risk more lives, spread us even thinner, separate our most capable people from each other AND the group that needs us to protect them. For what, for some girl who left of her own free will and does not have any discernible skills of fucking value?" exploded Shane.
I really wanted to break his jaw but there would be plenty of time for that later.
"I'll go," I said.
Shane turned his contempt on me, "you went hunting the first time she was missing, why are you such a team player all of a sudden?"
"'Cause fuck you, that's why," I spat.
Ain't none of his damn business why I do what I do.
"Shut up both of you," snapped Rick. "No one is going anywhere alone so unless someone else volunteers it's a moot point."
Shane crossed his arms in victory. He sure as hell wasn't going to risk his fucking neck. He never went on a single supply run to Atlanta neither.
I was about to ask Rick exactly who was planning to stop me from tracking Carol down on my own when Andrea piped up.
"I'm in too," she said, giving Shane an incredulous look.
"Oh really, you're going to go with him? That - That's just great," snarled Shane before storming out of the room.
I was shocked too, I didn't think anyone else in the group cared enough about Carol to risk their life for her.
Andrea, welcome to my good side.
Everything seemed settled but then Skeletor grabbed Rick, "are we gonna have a conversation about this before you-"
I didn't have time for this. I met Andrea's eye and jerked my head toward the door. She nodded and I headed out of the room feeling far more loyalty to this group than I had felt walking into it. Well, at least to Rick, Glenn and Andrea. I was sure that if Hershel wasn't missing too Rick and Glenn would have gone after Carol as well.
First stop was the RV for some fucking fire power.
Dale was at his usual post atop the RV. Andrea filled him in while I went for the guns. I grabbed Andrea's Smith and Wesson and my snubnosed Colt. When I exited the RV, Dale had climbed down and was speaking in hushed tones with Andrea. They looked up when they heard me come out. Dale gave me a nod, the sort of nod that one man gives another when he respects what he'd about to do.
That's weird.
I returned the nod, gave Andrea a look that said 'let's go,' and turned toward the truck.
"Here take this," I heard Dale say.
"Dale I cant."
"Yes, you can and for the love of God... just... come back alive."
I climbed behind the wheel and looked over when Andrea slung in though the passenger side door. She was holding Dale's Remington 700. Good. The scope was accurate and from what I heard she was a decent shot.
I turned the key and the old Ford F-100 rumbled to life. I pulled the truck onto the dirt drive and headed for the road.
"Where do we even start?" asked Andrea.
"Back to the highway."
"Do you think she's trying to pickup where we left off and head South to Fort Benning?"
I shook my head. "North."
"North, that doesn't make any sense. That's where we were running from. North is Atlanta, and, more importantly, the direction the herd was going in. Why would she go North?"
I didn't answer.
"My only option was to never give him a reason to go after her. She's 11, I just had to survive seven more years and then we could both leave. I could make sure she made a life for herself as far away from him as the world would allow. After that, after she was safe and o.k., I was thinking I could kill myself. Maybe him too."
Carol's words from the floor of the Rec. room in the CDC echoed through the empty hallways of my mind.
"Daryl?" asked Andrea.
"Chalk it up to intuition."
"You're risking your life, my life and her life on a hunch, something you're not even sure about?"
Carol's words wouldn't stop replaying in my head.
"After that, after she was safe and o.k., I was thinking I could kill myself. Maybe him too."
"I'm sure," I growled, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
"How?"
"I was thinking I could kill myself. Maybe him too."
"Because Ed is dead." I said.
"I don't understand."
"Just trust me," I growled as I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
To my surprise, she did.
"I was thinking I could kill myself."
Carol's words were fading, I heard her hollow voice like whisper one last time, then I pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
She better fucking not.
We rode in silence 'til the sun was at its zenith in the sky. I heard Andrea digging around in the glove box. I heard her open something and looked over to see her the crack a plastic case of a cassette tape. She popped it in the tape deck and I was surprised to hear a familiar voice.
"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."
I felt my eye brows raise as I gave Andrea a side long glance. I always took Andrea for a hoity-toity college educated yankee bitch too above-it-all to listen to Cash.
She tapped her hand on the side of truck along to the bass line as Johnny sang about every kind of sinner there ever was. Live at Folsom Prison was one of Merle and my favorite records growing up. I guess we could relate. A fair few of the songs were adapted from the music of mountain people. My mother's father's people were from the Appalachians. I still remember when I was real young my grandpappy telling me of the mountain people before their land was robbed by the coal mining companies, their trust was betrayed by the government and their pride was smoked out by methamphetamine.
My reveries were interrupted by the sight of a car at the side of the road.
I pointed and Andrea confirmed.
"That's Maggie's car!" she gasped, jumping up to attention in excitement. "You were right! She did go north!"
"I'd think you'd be used to me being right by now," I said. It was a joke, kind of. She took it in kind though and smiled with a roll of her eyes.
I stopped the truck next to Maggie's Tan Mercury Sable. Andrea hopped out an investigated. I watched her look through the car, drop into the drivers seat and try to turn the car over. It wouldn't start.
I whistled for her when I saw geeks stumble out of the tree line. She looked around and ran for the truck. Her ass was barely in the seat when I sped off.
"She must have run out of gas. I'm no tracker but there are some pretty clear foot prints in the dirt beside the highway. Looks like she continued north on foot. And Daryl, there was blood on the seat. She must have torn her stitches open. She'll be walker bait and even if we get her back alive, she might not stay that way if Rick and Glenn and Rick don't find Hershel in one piece.
I nodded but said nothing. No sense worrying about things outside of our control. Bringing Carol back alive was our job. I just had to trust Rick and Glenn to do their job.
We sped along until we came across the first exit ramp. I stopped and got out this time. Andrea slid over into the driver's seat and let the old Ford crawl along behind me.
It took a moment to find her tracks but the shape of her foot prints were as familiar to me as the curves of her face and called to me from the din of tire, animal and geek tracks.
She followed this exit off the highway, maybe hoping it led to a town with gas.
Or geeks.
I nodded my head knowing as horrible as it was that it was also real fucking likely. I followed her foot prints until she stepped onto the road and it was impossible to track her any farther.
I ran back to the truck and hurled myself through passenger side door.
"Lets go!"
Andrea stepped on it and the we found ourselves coming up on a road that ran east-west.
"That way," I said pointing east.
She whipped through the left turn so fast we started to power slide before the tires found traction again.
She didn't question me this time which for whatever reason made me more inclined to answer the question I knew was on her mind.
"When they're lost, children almost always walk with sun at their back. Sun's more than half way through the sky, so heading east would put the sun at her back."
I knew it was a stretch but we didn't have much else to go on and we had to start somewhere since she left the side of the road. Maybe she did it on purpose because she thought I might come after her...
It felt like electricity was coursing through my skin and I was about ready to tear it off. I started chewing on my nail as I scoped out the area. We were coming into the center of a town. There was a pretty dense pack of geeks coming together maybe a hundred yards ahead and the point they were all gravitating toward was Carol.
She was stumbling and spinning around trying to fend off the geeks with a piece of ply wood she must have picked up. Whether she wanted to die or not her instincts wouldn't let her go down without a fight. Maybe she just figured she's take as many geeks down with her as she could.
I jumped out of the truck.
"You can't plow through that thick of a mob with the truck. I'm going in after her. Take a parallel road and meet us on the other end of the block. I doubt we'll be able to get out the same way I came."
She nodded and sped off without argument. I was liking that woman more and more. I slung my cross bow over my shoulder, tucked my colt in my belt and pulled out my K-bar before running into the growing mass of geeks.
I took the ones I passed from behind, plunging my knife into the soft space where the neck met the back of the skull, never slowing my pace. The closer I got the thicker the geeks got. I only had to take down three in the first forty yards. Eleven in the next forty. I had to fight the urge to use my crossbow or colt, I'd need them to get out.
My arms were coated up to my shoulder in geek gore and I was twenty yards from her now, but the last ten were impassable. The geeks were shoulder to shoulder. Panic started to creep in but then I saw an old Cadillac like a bridge to her, it's hood ended not two feet from where she fought.
I charge through the next ten yards like a linebacker, not bothering to take the geeks down, just knocking them out of the way. I leapt onto to trunk of the cadi ran over the roof and jumped off the hood bringing my knife down on the cranium of a geek as it was about to plunge its teeth into the back of her shoulder.
I pulled out my gun and opened a whole in the crowed with five well aimed shots with my colt.
I grabbed her hand, "Carol let go!"
I pulled her through the thickest part of the mob but shock must have been the only reason she let me drag her along because she started fighting me.
"No!" she screamed and started tugging her wrist from my grasp.
The geeks were closing in fast and we did not have time for hysterics.
I spun around to face her.
"I'm sorry," I said.
She stopped struggling for a moment and looked at me. Just long enough for me to slam my fist into her stomach, and then elbow her on the back of the head when she doubled over.
I knew I would never forgive myself for layin' hands on that girl after all she'd been through, but it was that or we both die, 'cause I sure as hell wasn't leavin' her.
I should have known I had bigger problems then guilt. As I straightened up after throwing her limp form over my shoulder I heard a trigger cock.
"Hand the girl over."
The voice was husky and low, but definitely a woman's.
"Over my dead body," spat.
"That can be arranged," said the woman.
I turned around to see a woman about my age with silvery white hair and an accent that told me she was from way north of the Mason-Dixon line. Beside her stood a man with West-Indian features but an accent to match her's. They must have come from the alley behind them.
I should have thought of that.
"Amelia?"
"Yes, Daniel?"
"Maybe we can discuss this at a safer distance."
Just then a geek lunged for me. I spun and brought my knife up but with Carol's weight I was too slow.
A shot rang out and the geek dropped. I looked back at the woman named Amelia and saw the smoke rising from the Beretta she clung to with both hands. She had save my life, both our lives, I realized as I hugged Carol's unconscious body tighter against me.
Two more geeks lunged for Amelia and Daniel. I threw my Ka-bar and it stuck the geek at Amelia's back in the eye with a sickening thud.
A rifle blast sounded and the geek about to end Daniel dropped. I looked up and saw Andrea standing on the roof of the F-100 with the scope of Dale's Remington 700 to her eye.
We'd all saved each others lives so now I guess we'd have to trust each other. Trust, there was that word again. Seemed I was having to rely on it more and more often lately.
"Run!" I shouted and made a break for the Ford F-100.
Amelia and Daniel must have come to the same conclusion about trust because I could heard their foot steps pounding the pavement behind me.
I heard gun fire at my six and hoped Amelia was aiming for the geeks behind us and not at me.
Andrea cleared the path ahead with her Remington. Woman was good. Never wasted a single round. With ever retort of her rifle, I saw a geek drop. When we finally reached the truck Andrea slung herself into the drivers seat. I dropped Carol unceremoniously into the bed of the trunk. Hurled myself over the edge and then turned so I could offer my hand to Amelia. Daniel helped himself to the passenger seat and Andrea slammed that gas pedal through the floor.
As we sped away from certain death Amelia and I found ourselves staring at each other.
"I think you dropped this," she said with a smile.
Suddenly she tossed me something that caught the glint of the sinking sun midair. I snacked from the air and pulled my hand down to see that I had caught my Ka-bar by the handle.
I looked up surprised, she must have plucked it from the eye of the geek I had saved her from. I was happy to have it back. Happy to have escaped with my life and Carol's.
I felt my chest rumble and laughter burst out of me. Unfamiliar and slightly manic I couldn't contain it. Amelia looked at me and then her sideways grin grew into her own delirious laughter. Soon I heard Andrea and Daniel's laughter join ours. Me must have been quite the sight. Half dead, covered in gore, racing the sun back the farm and laughing our damn heads off. Bunch of lunatic fools but at least we were fools with a pulse.