Daryl had never been so bored in his life. He supposed it was good he was able to be bored, but even before the world changed he didn't handle boredom well. Now he walking the perimeter, aimlessly. When he realized he was counting the slats in the wall, he knew he needed to get out of there and he knew it needed to happen quickly.
On his last pass around he ran into Rick, who appeared to be counting blades of grass. He was sitting on the ground Indian style, his head down and his face set in deep concentration. He was fingering individual blades muttering under his breath.
"Rick," Daryl said loudly, causing the other man to jump and curse. Daryl chuckled earning a frown from the startled man.
"We need to get out of here, go on a run or something. I'm going insane," Daryl remarked pacing now.
"Yes," Rick practically shouted, jumping to his feet.
The next day they had a car packed with provisions, and Maggie and Glenn with them. When the two had noticed Rick and Daryl getting ready to leave, they had all but begged to go with them. The group had been on the road overnight, having only stopped once to nap and eat. They were going further than they had in a while, mostly just to draw out the mini vacation.
Daryl was napping when he was jerked awake by the car coming to an abrupt stop. He looked to Rick, opening his mouth to make a comment on Ricks driving, but stopped short at the expression on the man's face.
Looking out the front windshield he saw it. Spread out in front of them was a sea of walkers. It was the biggest herd they had ever seen. They couldn't even see where the things stopped.
Daryl held on as Rick slammed the car into reverse and whipping it around and speeding off.
"How many do you think there was?" Glenn asked from the back, his voice tight with fear.
"There had to be hundreds. I couldn't even see the end of em'," Daryl answered his voice calmer, but still laced with fear.
They drove on for hours in silence, all lost in their own thoughts, when Maggie suddenly yelled "Stop!"
Rick slammed on the brakes again. Everyone looked at her questioningly, to see her pointing out the window with a terrified expression.
Not a hundred yards away was a small warehouse. They had passed the place once already and it had looked empty, now there was people running around and fighting for their lives. There was walkers flooding in non-stop through the broken down front gate.
Daryl could see people on the roofs with guns trying to help the ones on the ground. It was complete chaos. He knew if they didn't help, there was no way the people would last much longer. With a quick glance and nod toward Rick they all exited the car.
There was easily fifty walkers in the small yard despite the already considerable pile the fighters had made. Daryl fired all of his arrows, before dropping his bow and attacking with his knife. He was vaguely aware of where the others were, not wanting to get to far away from his group.
Daryl was in a zone taking out what he could, not even feeling the splatters of blood and brain hitting his body. Without warning he was pulled back roughly and landed on his back on a snarling and snapping walker. He didn't even have time to panic before a knife was slammed down violently in the eye of the walker. Daryl briefly me the eyes of his savior before they continued the fight.
What felt like hours later they all stood amongst the ruins breathing heavily, everyone trying to gather themselves. Daryl approached the man who saved his life and put out his hand. The other man moved to shake his hand but seemed to remember to late that he no longer had that hand. With a snort and crooked grin he just shrugged.
"Shiloh!" Everyone jumped at the shouted name.
Daryl watched curiously as a woman made a beeline for the man in front of him, practically pushing Daryl to the ground to get to him. Shiloh looked particularly embarrassed as the woman embraced him. Daryl let out a surprised chuckle when the woman smacked the guy across the cheek.
"That was stupid," she said in a scolding voice. The guy had the decency to look guilty.
Rick had moved to stand by Daryl as they watched the confrontation. As the woman turned her eyes to Daryl and Rick they both stood straighter, almost at attention. Daryl was sure he heard Glenn snicker behind them, but chose to ignore it.
"Thank you for your help," Pam said eyeing the group critically. "Where did you come from?"
Rick was the one to answer. "We encountered a large herd earlier and we were running. We saw ya'll from the road. You're not safe here anymore."
The rest of Pam's group were now standing around listening to the conversation. They all looked like they had been through hell.
"We still have people out there," Shiloh said into the silence.
Rick and Daryl shared a glance, knowing that most likely they were already gone if they were anywhere near the herd. Deciding not to say anything Rick made a quick decision. "We have a nice setup up in the mountains. Ya'll are more than welcome to follow us. Do you have any vehicles?"
"Hank has the truck. I mean the ones who were out getting stuff. They were supposed to be back yesterday, but obviously their not," Shiloh explained. He had seen the look that passed between the two men, but he refused to give up hope.
Everyone tensed at the sound of a vehicle speeding in their direction. They all stood tensely, weapons raised.
"It's ours," Shiloh said quickly. Everyone relaxed with a sigh.
The groups watched as a man and a woman stumbled out of the truck. Dawn and Dusty moved to stand in front of their group.
"Where's Hank?" Shiloh said panic and dread coloring his voice. He looked at the truck like he expected Hank to jump out any second.
Dusty looked uncomfortable as he explained "We lost Misty. We were ambushed and she was shot, but the rest of us got away. We were in an old cabin when it was over-run, deadies were everywhere. We had decided to break into groups. We got separated," Dusty looked distraught. "We tried to go back there was just too many.
Pam was holding Dawn as she sobbed silently into her shoulder.
"D….Do you think they could have made it out?" Shiloh asked through his tears, wiping at them roughly.
Dusty shrugged helplessly "There was so many," he said quietly, putting his hand on Shiloh's shoulder. "Hank and Carol are…"
"Wait. Did you say Carol?" Daryl cut off the other man "Carol has she been with you long?" he asked hopefully.
"No. She showed up a couple of weeks ago," Shiloh was the one to answer. "She's saved my life multiple times already, motioning toward his missing arm.
Daryl looked helplessly at Rick. "We can't just leave her."
Rick looked to Dusty. Dusty shook his head. "There's no way to get through the swarm. Their packed tighter than I've ever seen. We probably only have an hour or so before they reach us," he explained, feeling bad for the heartbroken expression of the man in front of him.
Rick agreed "We really need to get out of here," he looked to Daryl "I'm sorry we can't chance it. We will give the herd a few days to pass, then we will send out a group to search for them." Rick finished hoping to appease the man.
Daryl wanted to argue, but knew that it would be suicide to take on a herd of that size. He can only agree. He really wasn't surprised to be so close to her again and still unable to get her. Such was his life.
Carol found herself once again covered in walker guts. Hank had stared at her like she was insane when she had knelt by the corpse and started rubbing its innards all over herself. She had to practically tackle him to before he let her do it to him. He could only assume she knew what she was doing.
That had been two days ago. Now they were huddled together on the top of the trailer of an abandoned truck, listening as the herd passed below. After the cabin had been over run their camouflage had helped them travel long enough to find the trailer. Not wanting to push their luck they had carefully climbed to the top and hunkered down.
Carol could hear Hank breathing beside her. She used the comfort of not being alone to stay calm. She hadn't known the man long, but she knew she could trust him. That went a long way these days. The long hours of silence had allowed Carols mind to wander to things she had been able to avoid before.
She thought back to Sophia and Daryl mostly. Two people that had meant the most to her. She had let them both down so many times. She had let Sophia witness the unending abuse and then she hadn't been able to protect her from the new world. She had abandoned Daryl after he selflessly reached out to her after sensing her grief. She had been selfish.
She was brought back to herself by the feeling of Hank shifting beside her. She could feel wetness on her cheeks, she hadn't even realized she was crying. Wiping her face quickly she concentrated on what Hank was doing. He was looking over the side of the truck to the ground below. "It's clear," he said keeping his voice quite. They both sat up slowly, their bodies stiff from being in the same position for hours. The stood stretching and taking in their surroundings.
"I can't believe how bad we smell," Hank broke the silence.
"It got the job done," Carol said simply.
Hank gave a grunt of agreement. "What do we do now?" Hank looked to Carol expectantly.
Carol was quite for a bit, thinking. "I have no idea," she finally answered shrugging helplessly. "I guess we move toward the warehouse, but slowly. We'll find somewhere to hunker down. We don't want to run into the herd again. I say we find a place to wait it out. Then in a couple of days we will move back to your group."
Hank was nodding in agreement. "Do you think they will survive the herd?" he asked quietly.
"Sure," Carol answered, though she was sure she believed it. "We know that Dawn and Dusty made it out with the truck, so maybe they made it and warned the others." Carol could tell by Hanks expression that he didn't really have much hope. Carol sighed "Look we can only concentrate on us now. I know it's hard but there's nothing we can do for them now," she met Hanks gaze and gave her a nod. "Ok good. It's getting dark we need shelter. We're too exposed here."
They gathered the meager belongings they had managed to keep with them through the chaos. Hank was the first to the ladder and made his way down. He missed the last wrung and fell to his back with a groan. Hopping up quickly he exclaimed "I'm Ok," before bending at the waist and groaning again.
Carol tried to hold in, but a laugh burst forth anyway. The outburst earned her a raised middle finger from the ground, which caused her to laugh harder. It was her first real laugh in a long time and it felt really good.
It was nearly the next morning when they wandered upon a cabin. The cabin looked like it had been abandoned even long before the world ended. They were lucky though, the structure still seemed sound and there was plenty of furniture to block the windows and doors. As they got everything secured the morning sun was bright and beautiful in the sky.
Hank had barely even sat down before he was leaning against the wall snoring. It only took Carol a few more minutes to join him. They slept propped against the wall using each other for warmth.
It seemed like only seconds later Carol was jerking awake. When she got her senses under control she realized it was Hank moving around. Carol watched as he searched the place. After a while of muttering and shuffling things about, he let out a triumphant "whoop" as he pulled out a bucket. He then proceeded to plop and down and undo his pants. It was cases like this when Carol actually envied the men.
Hank let out a high squeal when he heard Carol mutter "That better be all you do in that bucket."
"You can't startle a man when he's pissin'," Hank said with a laugh, cause Carol to laugh with him.
"That was quite the scream you have there," Carol got out through her laughter.
"It was, wasn't it?" Hank responded flippantly.
After they calmed down and Carol took care of nature's call, they started taking stock of their situation. They had three bottles of water and four granola bars. They were filthy and covered in walker filth with nothing to change into. It was going to be a miserable few days, but what else was new.
Two days later they were hungry and miserable and decided it was time for them to head out. It was raining which made travel harder but was welcome to get some of the filth off of them. They trudged through the mud for hours without any problems, but eventually their luck ran out.
They broke out of the covering of the trees into an open field. In the middle was a small encampment. Hank and Carol both froze in place. It took them just a few seconds to move into action, but it was too late. They had been seen.
There was shouts from the tents as people started running about, most of them armed. Hank grabbed Carols arm and they turned to run. They were brought up short by two men holding guns. Carol and Hank raised their hands away from their bodies.
"We're not going to hurt you," the tallest of the men spoke first. Carol could tell from the way the other man's eyes ran over her body, she shouldn't believe him for a second. A quick glance at Hank told her he was thinking the same thing. Carol wracked her brain trying to figure out a way out of the situation. She couldn't think of a single thing.
She had given up when there was a blur and then something slammed into the two men knocking them into each other and then to the ground. It actually took her brain several seconds to put together what was happening in front of her.
Hank was rolling around on the ground with the two men throwing punches. Carol saw one of the men raise to his knees and adjust his gun. Before the man could even the about pulling the trigger Carol had her knife out and thrust into his shoulder. He cried out causing the other man to pause, allowing Hank to deliver a ferocious blow and knock him out. Without hesitating Hank and Carol took off running.
Carol had never run so hard in her life. She was behind Hank and she could see him glancing behind him every now and then. Carol could hear people behind her, she was surprised that there was no gunshots. She assumed they didn't want to draw any unwanted walker attention.
After what felt like hours she could no longer hear anyone behind her. She could only hear her blood pumping in her ears. She knew if they didn't stop soon she was going to collapse. When she knew she couldn't go on any longer Hank stopped abruptly, almost causing her to slam into him. She slid to a stop beside him, gasping for breath. She didn't feel so bad when she noticed Hank was having just as much trouble catching his own breath.
"I've never run that hard in my life. I think I pulled something," Hank said after catching his breath.
It took Carol a little longer to catch hers, but she was finally able to spit out "That was stupid."
Hank was nodding in agreement before she finished her thought. "Honestly I panicked. I knew nothing good was going to come from that. So I just acted."
"Even though it was dumb and extremely dangerous. Thank you. I couldn't think of anything. We were so lucky. That shouldn't have worked," Carol was coming off her adrenaline rush causing her to babble a little.
"I'm not sure where we are," Hank pointed out. "I'm pretty sure we're still going in the right direction though."
"Some of it looks vaguely familiar, from where I was wandering around before I found your group. If I remember correctly there's a small stream around here. We can feel our bottles," Carol finished as she was already moving in the direction of the water.
It took a while but they eventually found the water. They filled their bottles and washed themselves down a little more, removing what the rain wasn't able to. It didn't take long for them to finish. As they restarted their journey they felt slightly reinvigorated.
It took walking non-stop through the night but they eventually had the warehouse in their sight. Even from the distance they were they could see the place was over run. The fences were down and the walkers were everywhere. Carol could hear the walker's cries on the wind.
Carols knees felt weak, she tried not to think of the lives lost. Hank had dropped to his knees, his sobs causing Carols own tears to fall. Carol wrapped an arm around his shaking shoulders, offering what comfort she could.
