Those walkers came out of nowhere pretty damn fast, causing all kinds of panic and too much trouble for Daryl to keep an eye on all at once. He'd hearded Carol and Sophia toward the rest of the group and then doubled back to be sure T-Dog got himself hidden. Of course, he'd barely had time to pull a rotting corpse over his own ass before the first walker stumbled by. Carol was momentarily forgotten while he held his breath, waiting for the geeks to find T-Dog. (There was a crazy half-second during which he wondered what he'd do if it happened, but the mental debate didn't last long. T-Dog didn't deserve that kind of death. No one did.) To Daryl's relief, none of the dead did more than sniff around as they passed. He found himself breathing a sigh of relief long before the last walker shuffled past them, but he didn't loosen his grip on his crossbow until he could no longer hear the shuffling gait of the dead.
Even then, he didn't stir. Not an inch. He counted to sixty in his head, knowing it was overkill by the sounds of stable, living feet trampling around a couple yards off. He and T-Dog were further off than the rest of the group, so they were the last people the herd had passed, but Daryl still didn't think Rick would let anyone move around until the man was sure it was safe to do so. With that in mind, Daryl cut his count short, pausing just shy of fifty to shuffle out from underneath his corpse-shelter, groaning in exasperation when his hand plunged into the thing's stomach as he tried to shove it away.
A sudden panicked yelp made him move more quickly, and he craned his neck, straining toward the sound on instinct. It sounded like Glenn, and sure enough, he saw the kid's shoes not a second later. Before he could ask where the danger was, blinding pain turned his vision white. The crack of Gelnn's baseball bat hitting his skull rang in his ears, seeming to grow louder and more muffled with each passing second.
"Daryl?" he heard someone ask. Glenn, a tired voice in the back of his head supplied. "Oh god, sorry man!" Glenn cried, falling on his knees and hauling the corpse off of Daryl. "I thought you were a walker! I'm so sorry!"
Daryl growled something that was meant to be an insult, but he couldn't seem to get his mouth to form actual words. His head was spinning and stinging and searing. The ringing was growing into a steady roar. His vision was going from white, to grainy, to a very alarming black.
Daryl had passed out enough times to know what it looked like. The last thing he was aware of were Carol's screams.
When he came to, there was no one around. He rubbed the back of his head and immediately regretted it when he felt a large bump and then, seconds later, angry lightning bolts of pain. His head was still spinning, but he forced himself to his feet, fighting the nausea that threatened to put him right back on the floor. All the while, he struggled to remember why he woke up on the floor of the Winnebago. All he knew was that his head was killing him, and that he was reasonably certain it wasn't from a hangover. In fact, there was a part of him that very clearly remembered Glenn smashing a baseball bat into his head, but he knew that couldn't be right. No one was that stupid, and Glenn especially wasn't. So he was sure it was only a fever dream. He's always had an overactive imagination, after all.
The thing is, there was no imagining that bump on his head.
"Aw, hell!" he growled, shoving open the flimsy RV door and stumbling down the suddenly too-steep steps. "Chinaman!" he called in a harsh whisper, icy blue eyes flashing as he searched for the kid. "You better hop out of the rabbit hole real fast, kid. I've gotta bone ta pick with you!"
Lori, Carl, and T-Dog were the only ones who seemed to be around. Daryl stepped out into the sunlight and squinted around, ignoring instant discomfort it brought him as well as the worried faces of his fellow survivors. "The hell did everyone go?" he asked gruffly, his eyes sweeping the area once more. They were still parked on the highway, but most of the group was noticeably absent. It didn't sit well with him, especially once Lori opened her mouth and then closed it again without speaking, exchanging a meaningful look with T-Dog as she did.
"They're looking for Carol and Sophia," the Grimes brat said loudly. It seemed like he was about to continue, but Lori was quick to hush him, her meaningful look turning into a grimace when she met T-Dog's eyes once more. Daryl wasn't paying attention anymore.
"She screamed," he croaked, his throat suddenly tight. "I heard her. She was screamin'."
"Walkers went after Sophia and chased her into the woods," T-Dog explained. "Carol ran after her, and as soon as everyone realized what happened, they went to look for them."
"That was hours ago," Lori said quietly, her hand tight on Carl's shoulder.
He didn't need to hear anything more. He couldn't even think beyond the fact that Carol was lost, he failed her, she was lost, he had to find her, she was lost. He snatched up his crossbow from where someone had placed it beside Merle's bike, ignoring T-Dog's calls for him to slowdown and wait for the others. (He didn't know why these people kept trying to tell him what to do.) He was already at the treeline when Dale's voice rang out from the top of the Winnebago: "They're back!"
The words stopped him in his tracks and flooded his body with relief. They were back. They were okay. He strode toward the search party emerging from the woods just a few dozen yards away from where he'd been about to enter, and there was Glenn - he could almost forgive the kid his headache, he was so grateful. As long as Carol was okay, he wouldn't hurt the kid too badly. It was an honest mistake, after all, and Daryl would rather Glenn be overly cautious than dead. (Because, contrary to popular belief, he would like these people to remain alive. They weren't the best company, but they were usually better than wondering whether he was the last man on Earth.)
As he drew closer to the group, though, the relief that had flooded his veins seconds before quickly turned to ice. Yeah, there was Glenn, and Rick, Shane, and Andrea. The only face he wanted to see was missing.
"Where is she?" he growled, his teeth bared as he advanced toward Rick - the man had a bad habit of leaving folks behind.
"We've been looking for hours without one sign of her, Daryl, and the sun is about to -"
He was snarling before Rick even finished his sentence, eyes flashing quickly between the four. He wasn't sure who to strangle first - Rick and Shane for coming back without Carol or Glenn for knocking him out. (Of course, he would've liked to strangle Andrea just for being Andrea, but it wasn't at the top of his List of Concerns for the day.)
"So you just gave up?" he demanded, his voice bursting out in the evening quiet with jarring force and easily cutting off Rick's tangent.
"Now look, it's getting dark and -"
Abruptly, Daryl turned and took his leave, realizing that every second he wasted arguing with those idiots was a second he could spend finding Carol. So he ignored Shane's angry insistence that he stop and get back over here. (Seriously. He wasn't a dog that they could train and command.) He just kept walking, and soon enough, the quiet of the forest was around him, cooling his temper but doing nothing to ease his jumping nerves.
There was a very real chance that she was hurt, and somehow that alone was enough to negate the feelings of calm and control that being in the woods normally granted him. He was pretty damn close to panicking, actually, and felt about as 'in control' of the situation as he felt in control of the weather. A better way to state it would be 'not at all in control,' or perhaps even better - 'pretty damn helpless.'
He hated that. He really did.
But he pushed on anyway, distress mounting as he realized the forest was covered in the tracks of the others - he could see the tread of Shane's boots and Glenn's punky kid shoes pretty clearly. But Carol's footprints were nowhere to be found. All signs of her had probably been trampled by the group's uncoordinated efforts. They might as well have waited for him to wake up for all the good they did him. It would've made his job a lot easier. They might as well have just shot themselves and saved him the trouble of hating their very existence, because that was what he really wanted. (Except it wasn't. What he wanted was for Carol to not be lost.)
It was after four hours of scouring the darkening woods that he finally stumbled to a resigned halt, sweat dampening his brow and his breath coming in uneven pants. He hadn't seen any sign of her, despite the fact that he'd found the edge of the group's wanderings and had been searching clean forest for the past hour and a half. The sun was going down, and he knew that she must be terrified out there all alone. He knew that her chances of survival went down with each passing second, except they didn't because she wasn't going to die. He was going to find her and she'd be just fine but he needed to do it fast, he needed to find her now.
His thoughts jumped wildly, skipping over the possibility that she might already be gone because she wasn't. She couldn't be. He was supposed to protect her, and he was damn well going to.
"Carol!" he called, his desperation forcing him to break the number one rule of survival: Be quiet.
There was no answer. Not even the groans of the dead drifted toward him through the trees. There was nothing around but him and the sunset.
"Carol!" he called again, louder this time. He moved erratically through the trees, calling her name every few yards. There was no way she wouldn't hear him. There was no way anything in this forest wouldn't hear him eventually. He'll never admit it, but the thought scared him just as thoroughly as he was counting on it to be true.
There's no other way, he told himself. There's no other way, and I can't let my own worries get in the way.
So he kept going, still calling out for Carol despite the fear eating at his belly. Nothing had come after him yet, but it was only a matter of time. His eyes were constantly scanning and his crossbow was at the ready, but he knew he'd probably hear anything coming his way long before he saw it. So he listened carefully between his calls, hoping he'd hear Carol's voice and absolutely dreading the sounds of the dead.
But when he finally heard signs of life, it was neither that assaulted his ears. The scream that seemed to rip the very forest in half belonged to a young girl, and with a sinking sense of guilt, Daryl remembered that Carol wasn't the only one lost in the woods.
"Sophia!" he yelled, surging toward the sound, a string of curses escaping him just after her name. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten about her.
"Momma!" Sophia shrieked, another one of her terrified screams gripping the night. The sound made Daryl's skin break out in goosebumps, and he swore to himself that he'd never forget the girl again. From now on, he'd worry after her at least as much as he worried after Carol. After all, what good would it do to save a good mother if he lost the woman her child? His guilt grew with each scream and then seemed to take over his body when at last he came upon the girl. Fear and anger twisted in his gut as he took in the scene. How could the others have abandoned their search so early when something like this could be happening? Was currently happening.
Sophia was up a tree, but not nearly far enough. A walker was tugging on her shoelaces while another scrambled to grab her ankle and a third shambled toward the tree. Her screams were sure to draw more, and Daryl wanted to be long gone before that happened. He raised his crossbow and sent a bolt flying through the head of the one that had her by the shoelaces. The creature immediately slumped forward, lifeless once more, but it's bony fingers were still caught in the girl's shoelaces. His wordless shout of horror was drowned out by Sophia's terrified squeals as the dead walker fell to the side, bring Sophia down right after it.
He didn't have enough time to reload his crossbow. The second walker was bearing down on Sophia, quickly overpowering her vicious kicks and valiant attempts and scrambling backward. The girl was fighting just as hard as she was sobbing, and if Daryl had had the time, he might've admired her for it. The girl was tougher than she looked. She had a fighting spirit - one that might be even stronger than his. Daryl couldn't imaging his skinny, twelve-year-old self facing down a walker, even though Merle'd been teaching him to fight for years before that. But in the few seconds it took for Daryl to sprint to her aid, she seemed to deal with the walker remarkably well, all things considered.
That ended when the walker collapsed on top of her, Daryl's knife protruding from the back of it's head. All that fight seemed to drain right out of her body, and she stared up at Daryl with panicked, watery eyes, her little body still heaving with the force of her sobs. For one heart-wrenching moment, Daryl was caught up in her red-rimmed stare. Fear and pain warred for dominance in those baby blues, but there was something else. Something small and quiet but exponentially relieved - grateful, even.
Then that moment was over, and undead arms were wrapping themselves around his shoulders, nearly pinning his arms to his sides. He struggled to throw the creature off while straining to reach the knife that was still lodged in the other walker's skull. He could hear the creature's rattling breath; could feel it come out in cold, impatient huffs. It was so close to his throat that he could taste the rot and decay that hovered around it like a veil, and before he knew what was happening, he was knocked off his feet and the thing was on top of him, blackened teeth just inches from his lips and coming closer every second in what was sure to be the worst kiss of his life. He kicked at the walker's stomach to no avail - it didn't even pause, still straining forward. All he could do was try to hold it in place with a demented hug.
The thing was huge. Bigger than him, and it hadn't been dead for long. The older ones didn't have this much energy, this much raw power. The thing was quickly breaking out of his grasp, and as his fingers, clasped behind the walker's back, slipped just a fraction of an inch, he knew he was done for. He was going to die.
And then he wasn't, and the hilt of his knife was inches from his cheek, the blade hidden inside the walker's skull.
He shoved the monster off of him, grabbing his knife as he did, and did a quick scan of the area before turning to face the panicked little girl that'd saved his life.