BANG!
It was as though the camp was frozen in time, as though when the gunshot rang out an unseen hand picked up the remote to their lives and pressed the pause button; the brothers lay before them in a macabre tableau of blood and shocked, pained expressions and they were powerless to do anything about it. Powerless to think, move, breathe; to do nothing but stare. But then, Daryl's eyes rolled back in his head as he fell to the side breaking the spell, and everyone rushed toward him. His fingers limply slipped from the knife buried to the hilt in his brother's chest, where it remained, like a morbid ornament for the newly dead man. Daryl lay there unmoving, his skin already too pale, in stark contrast with the bright red of the blood spilling from the wound on the right side of his neck. The bullet had just grazed him, but it left a rather deep, weeping groove.
"Oh my god," Glenn breathed, "Is he dead?" Andrea was kneeling at the injured mans' side doing all she could to keep the blood inside his body while Shane checked on his vitals.
"He's alive," Shane confirmed to the others, "Although, and I ain't no doctor, his pulse doesn't feel right. Weak, kinda slow."
Dale materialized then, offering a clean hand towel from the RV to Andrea, she took it wordlessly, quickly pressing the material to Daryl's neck. "We need to do something, he won't last long bleeding like that." He moved over to Lori as he spoke, handing her a clean towel as well, to bandage Rick's wound with.
Seeing as Rick was out of commission Shane took charge; he may not like Daryl much, but he wasn't going to just let the man bleed to death on his watch. "Ok, we need to get him in the RV and get that wound cleaned up, then somebody's gonna have to stitch it closed. Now, I don't know who should do that. Maybe one of you ladies knows how to sew?"
"I can." Carol moved forward, her arm around Sophia's shoulders. "Even got needle and thread, been using it to mend the clothing. Sophia, go fetch my sewing things." The girl nodded clutching her doll and scurried off. Carol knelt next to Andrea and placed her hand on the now bloodied towel, "Could you please keep an eye on Sophia while I tend to him?" She asked politely.
"Sure," relinquishing her post, Andrea turned to Shane as she stood. "Can he even be moved right now? Aren't you supposed to stabilize somebody before moving them?"
"Well, yeah." Shane agreed. "My first aid training with the force was limited and while you are right, I don't see that we have much choice right now. This area isn't secure anymore. We've been making too much noise with all this; add to that the gun going off and three people's blood in the air... I think we better head out."
"Where the hell are we gonna go?" Lori burst out, pausing in wrapping Rick's stump. "We can't just go scavenging about like we've been! Rick's injured and Daryl's at death's doorstep in case you haven't noticed, I say we take care of them first!"
"We aren't gonna move out this second, Lori." Shane was getting irritated, ever since Rick came back into the fold his authority was questioned by everyone, but Lori most of all. He knew what they were up against here; if she'd just shut up and let him take care of it, it'd be handled! "What we're gonna do is start packing up, we need to be ready to move at a moments notice. We never got a chance to tell ya'll but we found a place to hole up at, so we have somewhere to go. You," He nodded toward Lori, "clean Rick up and we'll do what we can for Daryl."
"He's already lost so much blood," Andrea murmured, her gaze shifted from the younger to older brother. "What do we do with Merle? Just leave him here? Bury him?"
Before anyone could answer they were interrupted by Carol. She'd been watching Daryl intently for any indication he was waking up, wishing the other's would just shut up and tend to the man before he slipped away, they could figure this other stuff out later. She lifted the corner of the towel Dale had supplied and was relieved to see that, while he was still bleeding, she and Andrea had managed to staunch the flow to some degree. That's when she'd seen his eyelids flutter, although remain closed, then a quiet groan sounded from him.
"I think he's coming around." Carol announced to the group before turning her attention back to her charge, "Daryl! Daryl! Can you hear me?" It appeared that Daryl was attempting to respond, but the noises that came from him hardly even resembled words. Concerned glances were cast about before all eyes turned back to their fallen member. His skin was beyond ghostly at this point.
"Come on, lets get him in the RV." Motioning for T-dog to help, Shane moved to Daryl's head and hooked his hands under the mans' arms, while T-dog grabbed him at the knees. They looked to each other exchanging a silent 'Ready' and lifted together. Daryl's head lolled to the left against Shane's chest, a moan falling from his colorless lips.
Carol kept in step with the men as they lifted and began moving Daryl to the RV, never releasing the pressure she held against his wound. "Shh, its ok, Daryl." She assured hoping against hope that she wasn't lying. "You're gonna be alright. Don't you worry."
Carefully, they laid him down on one of the beds. "You gonna be ok with him, Carol? You need some help in here?" Shane asked.
"I'll give her a hand." Dale answered for her. He'd followed them inside, and was already setting about getting water ready to clean Daryl's wound with. He also had the sewing kit Carol'd asked for; Sophia must have found it and given it to him.
"Alright then." Was all Shane said before heading back outside, T-dog close behind, to break down camp.
Once Shane got back outside he saw that, in everyone's haste, they'd already made a fair amount of progress. Pleased with this, he went to his own tent to gather his few belongings and break down his mobile dwelling. Just as he was beginning to pull the stakes out of the ground Rick, rather ashen, appeared at one of the tents corners and began tugging at the stake there with his one hand.
"Rick, what are you doing?" Shane asked.
"I'm lending you a hand," was the practical reply.
"Sure ya are," rolling his eyes, Shane nodded over to were Carl and Lori were loading the Grimes' things into Carol's Cherokee along with Carol and Sophia's things, "Why don't you go 'lend them a hand.' Or better yet, why don't you go take a seat. You just had a major shock to your system."
Shooting his friend a withering look Rick bit out, "I'm fine." With a sigh he went on, "We need to talk about what to do with Merle Dixon's body."
"Uhh, we do nothing. We leave it were it is to rot, we head on out of here and find someplace safe." He said it as though this was perfectly obvious, and Rick must be an idiot for not noticing.
To Shane's mind this was ludicrous. Merle had waltzed into their camp and threatened their peoples lives and Rick was suggesting they care what happened to his damn body? What the hell?
"We can't just leave it there." Rick's passion on the subject was evident already. Shane was about to protest, but Rick plodded on, "This isn't about Merle. This is about respect for Daryl. He's one of our own and we can't just leave his brother's body this way, no matter what kinda shithead his brother may have been."
At this Shane faltered, looking around the campsite. It was mostly packed up and Glenn and Andrea were both standing to the side watching his and Rick's conversation. Seems they'd overhead. Well shit, he thought, looks as though this was going to turn into a group discussion. He and Rick had finished uprooting his tent, so he began folding it up. Turning to Rick he said, "Well I guess we'll just discuss it with everybody, since we can't ask Daryl what he thinks."
They gathered a few feet from Merle's body, his dead eyes gazing sickeningly at them, a sneer forever pasted on his cold face. The blood from his and Daryl's wounds slowly seeping into the ground around him. Shane found himself staring at the obscene display, "Hmm. Blood brothers."he thought morbidly, making him want to laugh. To smother the urge, he bent down and yanked his knife from the man's chest; earning him a cringe or two.
He turned to the discussion at hand, Dale was saying how they owed it to Daryl to give Merle a proper burial. God, these people irritated him sometimes, like they had time to bury this man.
"He's gonna want to be present for that though," Andrea put in her two cents.
"Yea, well I don't see him being able to attend any funerals any time soon." Lori pointed out.
"Lori's right about that, and Andrea and Dale are right too. The way I see it, the only thing to do is bring Merle's body with us. When Daryl's back on his feet, we'll bury him." Rick looked around the group to gauge their opinions on the matter.
Everyone seemed to think that was a reasonable solution to their problem. They'd shit on Daryl enough in the past, no one wanted to wrong him anymore. A few of them were a little uncomfortable bringing a dead body with them, but after everything they'd been through that wasn't the worst thing they'd dealt with. Besides it was to be considerate of Daryl.
With that decided Glenn and T-dog began wrapping the dead man in a ratty sheet, it was nothing special but they could spare it; then they began lugging him inside the RV to place him on the unoccupied bed.
Carol looked up when they came inside, "What are you doing?"
Before answering they laid Merle on the bed, "It's Merle," Glenn told the woman. Her eyes widened and she shied away a bit at this revelation.
"It's ok," T-dog began explaining. "We thought it'd be best to bury him, but Daryl's gonna wanna be there so we're gonna bring his body with us and wait till he wakes up."
"Oh, ok." Carol wasn't entirely at ease with this reasoning, but it made sense, so she'd abide it.
"How's he doing?" Glenn asked, concerned.
"Well the bleedings stopped enough finally, I'm about to clean the wound then stitch him up, Dale went to sterilize the needle for me. I don't know what's taking..." she stopped when Dale entered the RV.
"Sorry I took so long, I got caught up in the discussion about Merle." He held out the needle, "I did the best I could to clean it. I asked Shane to drive the RV when we leave; I'm going to ride Daryl's motorcycle."
At this news, he found himself staring into three shocked faces. "What?" he asked with a chuckle.
Glenn stared at the aging man, "You know how to ride a motorcycle, Dale?" he was incredulous.
"Well, it has been the better part of 40 years since I've ridden one, but yes, I do."
They stared a moment longer, "Well we better get back outside, Glenn." T-dog stated heading out.
"Yea," Glenn glanced back at the two beds holding the Dixon brothers before following.
Back outside everyone was nearly finished breaking down camp, "How's he doing?" Rick asked T-dog and Glenn.
The two exchanged a look, "He doesn't look good, Carol says she's about to stitch him."
"She hasn't done that already?" Shane said it as though it was T-dog's fault.
"Hey, I'm just the messenger! She had to stop the bleeding first, damn man, chill." He defended with his arms up in a placating gesture.
Shane wasn't in the mood to be placated. "We can't get a move on while she's trying to stitch his goddamn neck up! We're almost ready to set out!"
"Then we'll be ready when she's done," Rick told him with no room for argument.
The three men were holding a glaring match at this point, Glenn looking on uncomfortably until Andrea's voice pierced the air, "Walkers!"
They looked up to see that walkers were indeed heading toward them, and not just one or two, it was a damn herd of those dead bastards!
Everyone scrambled for their respective vehicles, grabbing what they could of the things still left out on their way, before speeding off.
Carol was holding the needle staring between it and the ghastly wound on Daryl's neck. She was nervous about this; mending someone's clothes and mending their flesh were two different things entirely, let alone when doing it to someone's neck.
Just as she was about to begin she heard Andrea's cry, hitching her breath she looked out the window. There were so many walkers out there! She saw the others scrambling for the vehicles as she sat back down, stunned. In moments, the others designated to ride in the RV were there and they were off. She looked back to Daryl with a silent apology and prayer that he hold on; she couldn't stitch him up while they were moving. As she watched the wounded man, unbeknownst to her, at her back clouded blue eyes were beginning to open.