Minority page 9
Character head count: Rick, Lori, Carl, Carol, Daryl, Merle, T-dog, Glenn, Andrea, Peaches, Katherine, Charles, Herschel, Maggie, Beth.
"You've been bitten!" T-dog announced and jumped away from Merle like he was already a walker. Merle looked up from his dinner and stared at the man like he was insane.
"What the hell are you jawin' about?" Merle asked as he looked at his arms. He was still covered in dirt and walker blood from the debacle at the farm but he had no bites or scratches.
"Your leg." T-dog pointed and suddenly all eyes were on Merle. He looked down and noticed there was blood seeping from a wound near his calf. His heart raced for a second. He didn't remember getting that but the day had been such a mess that his memory was a jumble. He dropped his plate and sprang out of his chair. The pain shot up his leg when he put weight on it. He had only been sitting for less than five minutes but it was long enough for his adrenaline to wear off and feeling to come back in sharp focus. "Shoot him!"
"No!" Peaches screamed at Rick when he reached for his pistol. "Take your hand off that or I'll kill you."
"She's crazy, she'll do it…" Merle said – his voice sounded weak as he stumbled back. Charles tried to help him back to his seat but Merle snatched away. "All of you get the fuck…away." He wheezed and doubled over. He felt light headed and nauseous all of a sudden.
"Merle, sit down. Let me see." Peaches said as she touched his shoulder. Even her he jumped away from.
"Fuck you woman I ain't—
"Sit your dumbass down or I'll let him shoot you." Peaches growled. Merle stared at her for a long moment – she felt the other men shift as if they were preparing to take him down should he not listen to her. He wobbled and she helped him sit back down in his chair. She used a cooler to prop up his leg and slowly took his boot off. His once grey tube sock was completely soaked in red. "You've been bleeding all day. How did you not notice this?" she asked as she rolled up his pant leg.
"Too busy saving those assholes lives and running for my own." He said. Everyone gathered closer to get a look once she revealed what was causing his bleeding. It definitely wasn't a bite. It looked like he had caught himself on the edge of something – the tailgate of the food truck or the steps on the porch back at the farm – and gashed his shin really bad.
"Ew, that's white meat." Peaches said and looked at Charles. Merle twitched when the other man examined his leg.
"He's gonna need stitches." Charles said. "Daryl, Rick, help me get him to the clinic."
"I don't need your lousy help—
"Shut up." Daryl said as he haled one of Merle's arms over his shoulder. He helped Merle stand up and Rick moved to his other side.
"Back up." Merle pushed him away. Rick huffed indignantly. Both Dixons glared at him before they wobbled away and followed Charles to a room on the bottom level. Peaches and Katherine went about back tracking all of Merle's movements from the food truck and found a rather large puddle of blood around the gas pedal – it nearly blended in with the rust color of the inside of the truck. Upon closer inspection of the tailgate they saw the fabric from his pants and a bit of skin from where he caught himself. The fresh blood ran the risk of attracting walkers so they cleaned up the truck and moved it into the storage shed just in case. When they got back to the campfire Peaches glared at T-dog.
"It was an honest mistake, Peach." He started to apologize. "I'm sorry." She then looked at Rick.
"And you?" she asked.
"What?"
"You had better check yourself if you plan on staying here. You try to kill him again without a second thought and I will grant you the same." She warned.
"You gotta be kidding – this is the man that beat the crap out of T-dog and nearly gave me a concussion the first day we met. He's a threat—
"The only threat here is you!" Peaches yelled. Katherine held her back when she took a step towards Rick. "You openly admit to kidnapping two boys, killing two men in a bar, vow to 'protect' your family at all costs and claim you killed your best friend to save us and you got the gall to bring up the ass beatin he gave you nearly a year ago!" Rick just glared at her. "You claim that other people are dangerous but you are the only one that has taken it upon yourself to kill 'living' people and when ever they challenge your ill-deserved authority."
"Peaches—
"It's not your job to put us down when ever you feel like it. And if he ever turns it'll be up to me to take care of him." She stormed off after that and went to see how the stitches were coming. Rick looked at Katherine and she just went back to eating her dinner.
"Those two are out of control." Rick said.
"What do you want me to do about it?" She asked. "I have no right to tell them what to do – neither do you." She then looked at T-dog. "And you need to get over what Merle did to you. You're in his house now."
To stay away from the motel as much as possible Rick reasoned that they should start searching for Andrea. Daryl refused at first – remembering how his search for Sophia had been futile and heart breaking. But Glenn reminded him that he was the best tracker they had. Pulled on his heartstrings with flattery and telling him they truly needed him. Honestly Daryl wanted to stay behind and make sure no one from Rick's group tried anything against Merle while he was incapacitated. He ended up going with them on the first day of the search – pointing them in the right direction and tracking Andrea for a few miles before they called it a night.
They returned to find the women busy cleaning up and securing more rooms. There was more than enough space for everyone on the top level and it was safer than the ground level. They used the downstairs rooms for supply storage. They ventured back to the farm and brought back a few cows and chickens. Most of them had run off or been tore to pieces by walkers. They were lucky to find the ones they did without walker bites. Even luckier that there were both males and females. In the spring they'd have more calves and more to eat. Daryl caught a rabbit but didn't kill it.
"If I can catch another one…" He trailed off as he lifted it's leg for a moment. "If I can catch a female we can breed them and have a near endless supply of meat. They mate fast too." He built a pen for his new 'pet project' and soon enough he managed to snare a girl bunny. He was feeding them when he heard yelling coming from Merle and Peaches' room.
"…You can't go out, you're hurt!"
"Yeah but I've caught a case of cabin fever – I need to get out of here." Merle said, as he got dressed. His leg only hurt when he moved it but sitting around all day was driving him crazy.
"Sit down!" Peaches yelled at him and gave him a push. He stumbled and glared at her. He was a bit stunned to find her with her face in her hands a second later.
"Peach—
"Just shut up!" she snapped and pushed him again. He sat down on the bed and watched her. He had never seen her cry before, it was like watching a train wreck – he felt terrible but he couldn't look away. "I can't take it." She sobbed.
"What?"
"You jump the gun and go out there and a walker will get you. It'll be able to smell your wound and it'll get you because you're still weak from the blood loss and I could not take it if…something happened to you." She confessed. They had never talked like this before. They weren't emotional, bleeding hearts like Rick and his crew. Before they left each others company they had always given one another confident good byes – assured that they would see each other again. But it seems the attack on the farm had shaken her. He knew she cared but she had never said it – and vice versa. But apparently swallowing their emotions had come to be too much for her. As soon as a few tears fell from her eyes she wiped them away and her mood took a swing. "Stupid idiot – you don't wanna listen to me you go right ahead and get yourself eaten."
"That's just what you and everybody else wants, isn't it?" he asked. He knew he shouldn't pick a fight with her like this but he couldn't stop himself. He wanted to assure her like they always did but something in him was making him snap at her. "You think I'm weak – think I can't take care of business like I always do." He stood up and walked to her. "The only thing making me weak is you." He growled before he stormed out. Daryl watched as Merle came limping down the stairs with his hunting knife and a rifle.
"You dumb cracker! Get back here! We're not done talking!" Peaches yelled from the balcony.
"Talk to my ass, spook!" He yelled back before he disappeared into the tree line. Daryl looked back and forth between them before running after his brother.
"Merle, slow up." He called. "Damn I've never seen you two fight like that. What's up—
"She started it." Merle huffed as he hobbled along. "I been keeping her fat ass safe for over a damn year and she thinks I can't no more."
"Come on, she don't believe that." Daryl said. "No one does. She looks at you like you're Superman."
"Bullshit!" He snarled. "They all fucking think the same. Should've never joined up with them mother fuckers in the first place. We'd be back home and I'd still have my hand and wouldn't have to deal with any of this shit." Daryl tried not to laugh as Merle had his tantrum. But Merle noticed his smirk and stopped walking. "What the hell are you grinning about?"
"You sound like daddy." Daryl said. "Bitchin about stuff you assume instead of the truth."
"The hell I do." Merle scoffed. "… What truth?"
"I'm guessing she showed some emotion you couldn't deal with."
"She got all weepy about me leaving – she's never done that before." Merle seemed to calm down a bit. Daryl just nodded.
"Freaked me out the first time Glenn did that. I didn't know what the fuck his problem was but it pissed me off." He said.
"Maybe we should take our chances and get the hell out of here while we can." Merle suggested as he looked around the woods. "Won't have to answer to nobody."
"No." Daryl said sternly after a moment. The second Merle suggested that his mind raced right back to the motel – where Glenn was waiting in their room, reading his 'Electrical Work for Dummies' book. He thought about the panic that it would cause if they never came back. The look on Glenn's face as he searched for him everyday and the eventual heart break he'd experience when he realized Daryl wasn't coming back to him. He was attached to him in more ways than one. It wasn't just sex anymore and they had long ago passed the point of simple companionship.
"Why not?" Merle asked.
"Don't make me say it." Daryl pleaded as he shifted from one foot to the other. Merle sighed when he realized what Daryl was trying to say. There were people that loved them, actually loved them back at the motel and that was far better than being superior – than being alone.
"Alright…alright. Shit." Merle cursed and sighed again. "Let's just go hunt or something I can't go back there right now." Daryl nodded and they headed deeper into the woods. He understood – they had never experienced anything like this before. Sure their mother loved them but she was always working – too busy to show it all the time beyond disciplining them so they didn't act up at school or in church. And when she died the only love in their life had been the rush of breaking the law or screwing some drunk bitch in a bar bathroom.
Daryl really did freak out when Glenn started showing that he cared. The first time Glenn looked him in the eye and told him he loved him Daryl nearly ran to Tennessee. He didn't even love himself. And getting involved any deeper would force him to deal with intimacies he had never explored before. The unknown was scary and when Dixon's were scared they lashed out violently or got the hell away from what was scaring them. Merle was going through that right now. He had committed himself to Peaches without even considering the possibility that they could actually love each other. Daryl imagined Merle only claimed her so he didn't have to share her with anyone else. He had come to grips with sleeping with a black person but not with loving her.
"We are so fucked up." Daryl mumbled.
"What?"
"Nothin." He said. They both froze and crouched down when they heard a loud crunch in the leaves. They looked around and Merle whistled when he spotted the person walking through the trees. Not a walker but a person – a girl, getting along a little sluggishly and dragging a bag behind her. Daryl hopped up when he spotted her blond hair. "Andrea!" he called out. The girl jumped and looked at him and he drew his crossbow when he realized it wasn't her.
"Help." She said as she started towards him.
"Are you bit?" Merle asked as he stood up slowly.
"No I promise I'm not." She said and held up her hands so they could see. "I'm not a danger. I'm alone. Please help me." She begged. Daryl glanced at Merle for a second and he shrugged. She was young, probably younger than Beth. And she looked exhausted. Daryl sucked his teeth and motioned for her to come closer. "Thank—hey!" she tried to pulled away from Merle when he grabbed her arm. He hiked up her sleeves to get a closer look at her – to see if she had bites. He then looked at her neck before letting her go.
"We should get back to the motel."
