AN: Here we go, another little chapter! I hope you enjoy.
Let me know what you think!
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It was the most Walkers that Daryl had ever seen and they'd seemed to come out of nowhere. They'd seem to come from every direction too. It was like being swarmed by pissed off bees, except for these bees were far more deadly than their insect counterparts.
And their little group was entirely split. Daryl had no idea, in the confusion of the moment, where his brother was and Alice was even farther away. He'd sent her off looking for canned goods and he'd kept close to Merle, attempting to keep his brother, who luckily wasn't off his rocker today, from taking some shit and harassing the woman.
As Daryl was fighting his way madly through the stinking corpses, the truck barely in sight over the shoulders of more to be worked toward, it hit him.
They were in this alone. Each of them was alone in this. They could travel together and they could want to stay together, but at the moment it was almost impossible to imagine that any of them would survive for their own efforts, less likely that they could have any hope of saving each other. It was every man for himself.
That thought tore at Daryl worse than the thought of the snapping teeth ripping into his flesh. He hated to be alone. He pretended that it didn't bother him. He pretended that he was better off alone. He pretended that he didn't need a soul in this world and that it was better that way because he couldn't guarantee that anyone would ever be there for him.
But for all his pretending, in the back of his mind he knew that it bothered him to be alone and he knew that he had always felt like, even through his protests that it wasn't true, that his brother would be there for him…that someone would be there. Someone might not be there every time he looked, but they would be there.
And now he realized that he was so alone that he didn't know where his brother was, he didn't know where Alice was, and he had very little hope that they would show up again. They were probably dead…and the comfort, perhaps, was that he might soon be joining them.
With all the energy that he could muster up, Daryl fought his way through the piles of animated corpses toward the rusty truck that had gotten them this far. If he could get inside, they couldn't get to him.
Just as he was making progress, he'd get slowed down, and then he'd make progress again. His muscles were growing exhausted, reminding him that he wasn't in the shape that he needed to be in for this new world that he was managing. The process was moving at a crawling pace, but slowly he was getting somewhere.
By the time he reached the passenger door of the truck and moved to rip it open, he barely had the strength to even yank it open. He didn't have it in him to fight off a single other one of the dead men walking.
So when another launched itself at him, the truck in his grasp, he figured he would die in the biggest cloud of irony ever. He would die with his hand on the prize.
And he might have…if it hadn't been for the gunshot that rang out, the first he'd heard since the fight had started, followed by the best sound he'd ever heard in his life.
"Holy shit, lil' brotha! Get'cha dumb ass in the fuckin' truck!" Merle called out.
Daryl laughed. He actually laughed because he couldn't do anything else. There was his brother, making his way out of a pile of the things, their bodies dropping as he came, his garish hunting knife in one hand and the pistol, limited ammunition at best, in the other hand.
Daryl pulled the door open and slid into the cab of the truck and Merle made it and slid in beside him after he killed and yanked back a Walker that seemed to want to come along for the ride.
The door slammed and the protective metal of the truck cab around them, Daryl fought back the urge to cry or to hug his brother, knowing Merle might not appreciate either.
"You saved my life…" he panted.
Merle chuckled.
"Hell…you was just takin' a breather," Merle commented. "I seen you givin' 'em hell. You just too damn soft…gotta toughen the hell up."
"Shut the fuck up, Merle," Daryl responded, laughing because he was happy to be able to say those words at the moment.
"Let's roll, brother," Merle crowed.
Daryl cranked the truck and looked around for absolutely any sign of the brunette that had been travelling with them, his chest catching in a way that he'd never expected it to do when the time came for them to bid her farewell.
"What about Alice?" Daryl asked.
Merle sucked his teeth and looked around.
"I ain't seen her ass for a while," Merle said.
"We oughta wait for her," Daryl commented.
The Walkers were closing in around the truck, though, and if they waited too long they weren't going to be able to even drive through them. They'd bunch up too much.
"Fuck it, Daryl," Merle said. "That lil' woman's deader'n dead. Next time ya see her ass she's gonna look like one a' these fuckers. We gotta go…ashes ta ashes an' dust ta dust."
Daryl felt his stomach churn, but he could tell that Merle was clean. He wasn't bullshitting and he wasn't just trying to be a dick. Alice was dead and if they didn't get out of there while the getting was good, they were going to be equally as dead.
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The longer that they drove, straight down the main highway that they'd been rolling down for days in between stopping and making camp, the more that it got to Daryl that Alice was dead. He was kicking himself now for ever having even started to get attached to the bitch. She was just like everybody else…he'd let her in and she was gone now.
And for as pissed as he wanted to be that she'd up and died on them, Daryl felt foolishly bad that they hadn't somehow found her and put her to rest. She wouldn't have wanted to be one of the wandering freaks setting out to chew someone up. She was a doctor and she'd declared to Daryl on more than one occasion how seriously she'd taken her job…how seriously she'd taken her promise to do everything she could to save people.
She wouldn't want to be responsible for tearing them to shreds, even if she didn't know she was doing it.
Daryl glanced over at Merle who was quiet. He was more than likely lamenting the fact that they'd lost their entire camp, his motorcycle, and possibly his drugs more than he was lamenting the loss of the brunette.
And as much as Daryl had hoped that they would end up without any way for Merle to get a fix, he'd never hoped that it would come at the cost of a life.
"How far we goin', Merle?" Daryl asked. "Got two good hours before dark…we gonna make camp?"
Merle laughed.
"Make camp with what, Daryl?" Merle asked. "We ain't got shit now. We gotta find some damn where ta restock is what the hell we gotta do or we ain't gonna live half a damn week."
"Plenty a' places ta get shit," Daryl said. "People ain't exactly shoppin' no more."
Merle sucked his teeth.
"What damn people?" He asked. "We the only damn ones ain't dead yet. Trouble is…we gotta head into town for supplies if we gotta start from scratch an' I'm bettin' that's where the hell all them fuckers come from…an' I'm bettin' they ain't the last a' they kind."
Daryl didn't respond. He brought his thumb to his mouth, nipping at his cuticle in the manner that he'd done for as long as he could remember to comfort himself. It hurt his thumb, but even the pinpricks of pain did something to clear his mind and calm him down when he felt overwhelmed by things. It helped a little now too, though it certainly didn't go very far for solving the very real problems in front of them.
When Daryl heard a popping rumble from outside the truck, he had no idea what it was. It had been some time since they'd heard the sounds of the good, reliable government blowing Atlanta to bits and pieces, so he didn't think that's what it was, but it was an odd sound in a world that had so suddenly become so very silent.
"What the hell is that?" Daryl asked.
Merle looked at him. His facial expression told Daryl that he heard it too, but he clearly didn't know what it was. Merle turned around, looking behind them out of the back window of the truck.
"What the hell is that?" Merle asked.
Daryl chuckled.
"That's what the fuck I asked you!" He declared.
He let up on the gas pedal, the truck really moving at a crawl anyway and slowing even more now. It wasn't like they had the gas to speed and it wasn't like they had anywhere to be in a hurry anyway.
"Ho-oly shi-it!" Merle declared.
And he laughed. He laughed so heartily and in such a loud burst that Daryl jerked at the shock of the sound.
But as soon as he looked in the rearview mirror, he knew what the hell it was that Merle was laughing at. And he laughed too.
He cranked down the window of the truck as quickly as he could when he saw the bike swerve to go around him. She let up on her speed, which had been considerably faster than theirs, enough to scream some profanity at Daryl. He only caught that each of them should fuck themselves and then fuck each other.
"We thought you was dead!" Daryl yelled at her.
"No fucking thanks to you!" She responded.
"Don't wreck my damn bike you cunt!" Merle shouted at her with a laugh.
And her response was to open up the bike to a faster speed and dip in front of Daryl, threatening to disappear.
"What the hell is she doing?" Daryl asked.
Merle chuckled.
"I don't know…but follow the bitch. I want my damn bike back," Merle growled. "Can't believe she'd steal the shit…"
Daryl laughed.
"We left her behind…we left the bike behind," Daryl said. "Reckon she figured it was fair."
He put his foot to the gas pedal and followed behind Alice, unsure where she was going or if she even had a single clue where the hell she was going. She rode, though, like it wasn't her first time on a bike, and she rode with enough determination to have convinced him that she knew where the hell she was leading them, though he knew that she was wandering just as much as they were.
He was surprised, though, when she made an odd swerve in the road, and then turned off. He turned off quickly, following behind her down a side road, and it didn't take him long to see what had gotten her attention.
Driving down the road was another truck…a delivery truck or van of some kind…and Alice had fallen in right behind it.
"Who the fuck is that?" Merle muttered, probably not really expecting a response.
"Hell if I know," Daryl responded.
"Where the hell are we goin'?" Merle asked, probably not expecting a response to that either.
"Looks like we 'bout ta find out," Daryl responded. "'Cause she ain't lettin' up…an' we ain't leavin' her ass again."
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AN: So there you go, the next chapter we meet the quarry group (or rather my version of the quarry group for this fic)!