Ch. 29
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Things are winding down now.
They drove until the gas ran out but still hadn't made it to the cabin.
The noise had brought down more walkers than Daryl had seen in a long time, and the roads were full of them.
One time along the way, they got surrounded and couldn't move forward at all. Walkers had just spilled out of nowhere, and he didn't want to risk running them down and getting stuck, so they sat in the car with walkers banging all around them and Judith crying. When the herd thinned out a little, Daryl hit the gas, ignoring his earlier fear of getting stuck. If another walker slammed into that back window beside Carl, it was going to shatter.
It was almost dark, and they stood in an abandoned house with no food or medicine. Beth's wound was seeping, but he had already looked over it and knew that it was the bottom stitches, near her hip, that had ripped when she was running. Her cheek wasn't too terrible, so he didn't worry about that one.
On the weapons end of things, they had three guns with no ammo. Daryl had his bow, but Beth's had been left behind. She had her knife and Carl and Enid had theirs, too.
There was no food, and Judith was sniffling in her sleep from screaming most of the afternoon.
"What do we do?" Enid asked quietly.
"We get to that cabin," Daryl answered. "Tomorrow we'll find another car. I'll go huntin' for some food."
He looked over at Beth who was holding a clean towel she had found against her lower body.
"Gotta find some gauze and tape," he said mostly to himself.
"Did ya see my dad?" Carl asked, staring a hole in the floor.
"He was takin' care of himself when I went to find Beth. I'm sure he's fine," Daryl answered. "Your old man's tough as hell."
Carl nodded but didn't look convinced.
Daryl didn't know for sure, but he wasn't going to say that. Until Rick came back, Carl and Judith were his responsibilities along with Enid. She didn't have family, though, so she would always be his now.
"Y'all go on to bed," he motioned to the pillows and blankets they had gathered and put on the floor. "I'll keep watch."
They did as they were told, and it didn't take them long before the exhaustion caught up with them, and they passed out.
That was when he moved over to Beth and took away the towel. The tear was jagged but not deep. It had already healed a little from the inside.
"It'll be fine," she said. "It's just oozin' now."
"Yeah, but what if it gets infected?" He asked. "What if ya get some walker blood in it?"
"I won't." She grinned. "You're gonna take care of me, right?"
He shook his head then leaned it against her shoulder. "What the fuck are we gonna do, arrow? We got nothin' right now."
Beth was silent for a long time then she said, "I don't know. As much as I know I'll be fine, I don't think I can run yet, Daryl."
"I know," he whispered.
He stared at her wound for a long time before she said, "I think you should take the kids and go."
"Fuck no," he said and shook his head.
"Not forever," she said with a laugh, though it wasn't funny at all. "Just get them to their dad, okay? There's only so many times he can think he's lost them all. Then come back for me."
He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I can't do that. Not gonna leave ya here with no way of defendin' yourself."
"I've got my knife, and if I'm really quiet, nothin's gonna get me."
"Shit, Beth, we ain't that far from the Wolves. They may have taken over Alexandria, but I doubt they're gonna stop roamin' and killin' now that they got a base camp."
She took his hand and held it tightly. "Then what do you wanna do?"
He swallowed hard. "I'm gonna take Carl with me in the mornin', and we're gonna find us a new car. Then I'm gonna come back and get y'all, and we'll finish the rest of the trip."
Beth sighed. "There's nothin' out there to drive, Daryl, and we haven't seen anythin' for miles. Ya know that. We'd have stopped for the gas if we had."
Her words were making his stomach sink and his heart race. "I'm not gonna leave you."
Neither one of them said anything else, and soon Beth had fallen asleep, too. He sat with his back against the wall, facing the front door. There was no noise outside, and even Judith was sound asleep now, her whimpers gone completely.
He clasped his hands together on his knees and bowed his head to lean against them. Daryl wasn't a praying man. He never had been, wasn't raised in the church or taught about God or the Bible. Hershel had been a God-fearing man, though, and he respected him more than anyone else in the world.
So, he took a deep breath even though he was talking inside his head, and began to ask for help.
Merle groaned as he leaned against the tree and looked through the woods. They'd been on the run since the car got stuck in some mud then a shitload of walkers had come over a hill headed straight for them and Alexandria behind them.
He was dog-tired, and everyone behind him was, too.
The worst part was that none of them knew where they were. They had taken off into the woods, but now that they were there, none of them could point the way out. They had looked to him for guidance at first, but he had shrugged. "I'm about as useless as tits on a tomcat right now."
The sun was starting to rise and Carol walked up beside him. "Did you sleep at all?"
"No," he said quietly.
"Ya gotta rest."
"I'll rest when we get where we're goin'."
She nodded. "If we don't find them soon, I think Rick's gonna lose it."
Merle looked down at her. "He's always on the verge of losin' it."
She snorted softly. "How do we fix this?"
"Ain't no way of fixin' it now. The Wolves got the safe zone. Anyone inside is dead now or wishin' they were. There's too many of 'em, and the man that rolled up in there after we were beat looked pretty psycho from where I was standin'."
"We were really far away," she said with a shrug.
"Yeah, anybody that can get some assholes to do that kind of killin' for him then ride on in and take over, ain't someone ya mess with. I bet he makes the Governor look like a playground bully."
"You're probably right."
"I know I am," he said forcefully. "We need to leave this area. Ain't no good gonna come from stayin'."
They stood silently for a while before she asked, "Do ya think they made it out?"
"Yes," he said immediately. "They got out. All of 'em."
Carol didn't respond, and he knew it was because she wasn't too sure. They had lost a lot of people, but maybe they hadn't. He hadn't actually seen anyone die. Maybe they were just all separated again. Maybe things would be okay.
He sighed. That was a whole lot of maybes.
Beth tried to stand but the stabbing pain in her stomach wouldn't let her.
She had to go to the bathroom, but there was no way she could go alone.
Like he had said he was going to do the night before, Daryl took Carl and they went looking for a new vehicle or more gas. She was left with Enid and Judith.
The young girl sat across from her, silently staring at the door like she was expecting people to charge through at any moment. Judith lay sleeping beside her.
"Enid?" Beth said softly.
She snapped her eyes to Beth and tried to appear calm. "Yeah?"
"Could ya help me to the bathroom?"
She nodded and stood up. For the last few days, she had been helping Beth with this anyway.
Each step she took, even with Enid's help, was torture.
"Thanks," she told her once she was standing inside the bathroom door.
"I'll be right out here," she said and closed the door to give Beth some privacy.
She finished as quickly as she could and managed to get her pants pulled up and buttoned on her own for once.
She would give Daryl and Carl until tonight then they were going to leave her here and walk the rest of the way to cabin without her. Daryl was certain it was only an hour away on foot then he could come back for her.
Judith needed a solid shelter and her father. Enid needed to feel like she had plenty of protection around her. She didn't know much about the girl's past, but she knew she had lost too much, too quickly to be so young.
Without a doubt, Daryl would fight her on it, but she would tell him that she could hole up in one of the upstairs bedrooms and wait for him to come back.
Beth opened the door, and Enid stepped forward to help her back to the living room. She slowly sat down on the couch right as Judith woke up.
"We don't have any food for her," Enid whispered. "She's gonna start cryin' again. What do we do if someone comes? If the dead ones hear her?"
Beth let out a slow breath, trying to keep her stomach from turning as the burning subsided a little. "We need to get her somethin' to chew on. Go look in the kitchen. Maybe there's somethin' we missed since it was dark last night. Then go upstairs and look around again."
"Do ya want me to take her with me?"
Beth watched Judith. She was sitting up and looking from side-to-side. "Yeah, maybe movin' around will keep her quiet a little longer."
After searching the house again, Enid found nothing and Judith was starting to cry. It had all happened so fast, that they had barely had time to grab Judith's diaper bag, but her formula was long gone, and any little snacks she could have weren't available anymore.
"Can ya get me her rag out of the bag?"
Enid did as she asked, and Beth poured a little bit of water over the end of it. "Here, sweetheart." She put the rag against Judith's chapped lips and the baby began sucking in earnest. It calmed her down, and Enid sat down on the couch beside Beth with a huge sigh of relief.
"We're good for a little bit longer," she said.
"Yeah," Beth agreed. "A little bit."
Daryl and Carl walked for an hour before they found a grouping of cars outside an old gas station. It took them another hour to syphon all the gas and put it into one tank while dealing with the stray groups of walkers that wandered up.
They were on their way back to the house around mid-morning, and Carl asked, "What do we do now?"
Daryl shrugged. "Find that cabin. Scavenge and hunt. Try and keep our people alive."
"That's what we did before," Carl said and looked out the window.
"That's the only thing we can do. Ya gotta take care of your little sister. I gotta make sure Beth is okay."
"What about Enid?" Carl asked.
Daryl met Carl's eyes. "Enid can take care of herself. That's why I left her with Beth today. It's good to look out for each other, but if we all get separated again, Enid would be able to survive on her own, so would you and me. Beth wouldn't last long with that injury, and ya don't need me to tell ya how fast Judith would die."
Carl nodded then leaned his seat back. "Can I sleep some?"
Daryl glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. His hat was in his lap and his eyes were closed. It was so easy to forget how young Carl was, but in that moment, he really looked like the kid he should have been able to be.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Get some rest."
They made it to the cabin later that afternoon after dodging walkers all along the way. Daryl got out of the car first to make sure it was still secure since the front door was wide open.
He came back a few minutes later, shaking his head as he got in the car.
"What?" Beth asked and reached for his hand.
"Got some great writing all over the walls now."
Her heart sunk. "Was it our people?" She asked, her heart pounding in her chest.
"Nah," he shook his head. "Just another unlucky bastard that got jumped."
"What do we do, Daryl?" Carl asked from the back seat as he held Judith.
Beth looked over at Daryl and saw him staring through the windshield, lost in his thoughts. They were completely defeated.
Daryl got out of the car again and went inside. When he walked back out, he was shaking a can of spray paint and then started writing on the front door.
Going back to Hershel's.
DD, BG, CG, JG, & E.
One day after ASZ fell.
Beth couldn't believe her eyes, and when they filled with tears the words blurred together anyway. He was going to take her home, and he had let them know without giving any clues to Wolves that might stop by.
Merle beat his fist against the tree in front of the cabin. They were three days late, and it was obvious why Daryl had moved them on.
The Wolves had struck again, and Daryl was trying to protect the people he was with.
Underneath Daryl's message was another one.
Abraham and Rosita.
Continuing on.
Morgan and Noah
Going back to KC.
Two days after ASZ fell.
"They've got the kids. They're gonna get 'em there," Rick said. "Time to go back."
"This was a wasted trip," Maggie said.
Glenn shook his head. "We go back and do what?"
Rick shrugged. "We survive. Just like we've been doin'."
"This ain't survivin'," Merle said angrily and turned toward them. "This was us bein' up in the air after the prison fallin'. We just ran and ran and got knocked down all along the way. Been chasin' white rabbits all over this fuckin' country, and now, we're headin' back to where it started pretty much?"
Carol walked beside him and put a hand over his shoulder. Her touch was gentle, drawing him in. "Yeah, we go back and with all our experience, we try and start over."
"Can we?" He asked, not just her but the rest of the group.
Michonne, who had been silent nearly the entire time since the Wolves took over, finally spoke up. "We have to do somethin'. If we stay on the path we're on, there's no savin' any of us."
"We don't get to go back," Rick said from the porch. "We don't get to start over. We can go back to Georgia, but there's no erasin' what's happened. No way to change back to the men and women we were before this. Hell, even the people we were before the prison fell or the farm."
"We've gotta try," Maggie said earnestly. "I can't pretend anymore, and I think if we go back home, we can keep to ourselves, Rick. That's what always gets us—when we start building a place."
"We're gonna go back," he said. "I'm not leavin' my kids. I'm just sayin' that we can't gloss over the past. We have to own it and move on. Acknowledge our mistakes and not make 'em again."
Merle was about ready to pop off, but Michonne beat him to it. "Can you do those things, too, Rick? This isn't just a statement directed at the rest of us, right?"
The held each other's stare for a long time, and Merle wondered why nothing had come from that relationship but realized it was probably because Michonne spoke the truth too plainly at times, and Rick didn't want to hear it. Kinda like him and Carol.
Rick was the first one to look away with a slight nod. "Yeah. I won't say that I won't mess up, but I'll promise to try and not make the same mistakes."
Michonne nodded and turned back to the cars. "We've got enough gas to get us a good ways. If we take turns drivin', even through the night, we can get back before mornin'."
"I'll drive first," Glenn said and went toward the truck they had stolen. "Everyone pile in."
The barn was burnt to the ground, but the fire hadn't spread to the house. It seemed like God had spared it altogether. It had been almost three years since they had ran, but it was still in perfection condition.
The windows were boarded still, and the front door remained closed. Daryl insisted they sweep the inside, but once they had done that, they found that it had remained untouched since they moment they had took off years before.
The air was musty, so they left the front door open with Carl keeping watch as he helped Beth up the stairs and peek into each room.
Beth felt tears well in her eyes as she looked over her family pictures scattered around her room, her friends that had long since been dead, her family that was gone, too. Prom pictures, and trips to the lake, all documented and frozen in time.
"Ya were a cute little girl," he said quietly from her left.
She turned and saw him looking down at the picture of her when she was about six, front teeth missing and holding a fish from her line. Her daddy was standing right behind her, his eyes bright and his smile blinding.
That was when the tears became too much, and the ache in her throat was too hard to ignore. The sob that escaped relieved it for only a second before more followed after. Soon, she was being hugged so tightly that she wondered if Daryl thought he was holding her together.
"We shoulda gone some place else," he muttered.
"No," she said quickly. "No, this is perfect."