No idea if the world really needs another Daryl/Carol story, but I'm writing one anyway. Thanks for reading!
The headlights of the old car showed nothing but the taillights of the car in front. Ed was keeping a fair distance between them, though, and Carol wanted to urge him to hurry up. If she'd been driving, she'd have been hugging the bumper of Shane and Lori's car, not wanting to risk losing them. But she couldn't say that. No. Criticizing Ed's driving was a sure way to get backhanded across the face. She was free of bruises right now, and she wanted to stay that way, didn't want to answer any questions or get any strange looks from the others. They seemed like they were going to be living in pretty close quarters for a while, and she wanted to keep her private business just that. Private.
From the back seat came a sniffle and a quivering, scared little voice. "Mama?"
Carol reached back, putting a hand on the little girl's leg. "It's all right," she said, putting a certainty into her voice that she was far from feeling. She had learned over the years that Sophia responded more to her tone than her words, and, to her surprise, that sounding certain often made her feel more confident, too.
"Shut up," Ed growled, leaning over the steering wheel and peering up ahead. The tires of Shane's car were kicking up a cloud of dust, making it hard to see.
Then a figure lurched out of the dark, Ed jerked the wheel, and the corner of the front end in front of Carol clipped the figure as they swerved around it.
"Mama, was it … one of them?"
"Yes, baby." She wished she could sugarcoat it. Sophia was so young, so vulnerable, so terribly fearful. But there wasn't enough sugar in the world to hide what was happening, and Sophia would have to learn to face the facts, whether she was ready to or not.
"Shut up!" Ed said more sharply.
Carol squeezed Sophia's leg reassuringly, patted it twice, and pulled her hand back.
At last, after what seemed like forever, Shane's brake lights flashed. He pulled off to the side of the road. Ed drove past him, pulling off farther ahead, off by themselves. Church picnics, barbecues, school functions, or the end of the world, the Peletiers were always off by themselves, Carol thought, the corner of her mouth away from Ed's view turning up slightly with the dark humor.
Behind them, the whole caravan started coming to a halt, most people parking in a neat line behind Shane's car.
"Stay here," Ed snapped, seeing that the others were getting out of their cars. He went back to join them, standing with the others in the headlights of Shane's car.
Sophia clutched her doll tightly to her. "Mama, will we be safe here?"
"Of course." Carol turned in the seat, watching as the others came together. Shane and Lori, an older man who had climbed out of an RV, a man from a station wagon. Others, coming together in a circle. From the body language, Shane was holding forth. He was a man who desperately wanted to be in charge, Carol thought. Fortunately for him, he also seemed the best prepared for this nightmare they were living in, so the rest of them had been happy to let him lead them up here when he said he knew a safe place. It sounded good to Carol—stone walls, water, fish, trees. Almost wholesome, if you forgot that almost everyone you ever knew were shambling around mindless and rotting. If you could block out the smell, banish the memories of seeing your friends attacked, fighting the dead away from your child any way you could, not knowing what you were doing, just mindlessly lashing out with strength you didn't know you had—
The rumble of motorcycles disrupted her increasing hysteria, and she was glad of it. For better or worse, she had to hold herself together for Sophia. She couldn't afford to let go.
"Hey, Dar'l, let's see what this'n's got," said a voice outside Ed's window, and the door started to open.
A flashlight shone into the back window, and another voice said, "There's a little girl in here, Merle."
"Shit," said the first voice.
The flashlight moved to Carol's window, shining in. A hand motioned for her to roll down the window, and she cracked it just a little. Not too much. She couldn't see the person holding the flashlight, and she tried to think what she would do if he opened the door. She gripped the inner handle of the door tightly, just in case. Maybe she'd be strong enough to hold it closed.
"You okay?"
"We're fine. My husband's back there with the others."
"Back there? Why'd he park so far away?"
There was no answer to that one, so Carol just shrugged. The flashlight moved, and the two men left the car behind, moving to join the little group in the headlights.
"Were they going to hurt us?" Sophia asked.
"No. They just wanted our stuff." Carol wasn't sure she blamed them—in this new world, she imagined they might all have to get used to taking what they needed when there was anything to take. But maybe not. Maybe the quarry would be safe, they could hide here until … someone came to straighten this all out, put down the dead, and then they could all go home. "We'll be all right," she said to Sophia again.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Ed was walking back toward them. He got in the car, grunting as his weight settled in the seat.
"What happened?" Carol asked when it became clear he wasn't going to volunteer anything.
"We're gonna sleep in the cars best we can tonight, start setting up camp at first light." Ed wasn't happy about it, but he was going along, which said to Carol that Shane had been persuasive, and his plan must be all right.
She looked forward to community again. It was exhausting, hiding Ed's … moods from others, but it was equally exhausting lying on the edge of sleep, aware of every move he made all night, keeping herself between him and Sophia, never taking her hand off the little girl just in case the dead came for her, never able to relax her vigilance for a second. Between Ed and the shambling figures of what used to be people, Carol hadn't slept in what felt like a week. She released the lever that would let the car seat lean back, and touched Sophia's leg softly. "Get some sleep, baby."
Ed was already snoring. Faking so he wouldn't have to take on any of the task of settling Sophia, always nervous and now downright terrified, down for the night. Carol didn't mind. She was used to it, anyway. She began to sing, very softly, feeling Sophia shifting in the back seat, curling around her doll.
They had survived another day. Another day closer to normal, maybe. Anything was possible.
"Look at these idiots." Daryl gestured to the camp around them. "Actin' like they're on some campin' trip, lettin' those kids run around like it's safe. Don't they know nothin'?"
Merle grinned. "Better for us, little brother. Safer they feel, easier we've got it. We just pretend to be friendly awhile and then we get the best of what they got and we're off."
Daryl shook his head, but didn't bother to argue. It never paid to argue with Merle. But the plan had a pretty damn big flaw, far's he could tell, and that was where the hell there was left to be off to. The whole world was overrun with these dead people. No point in taking the stuff of another lot of people who were gonna be dead soon, too, the way they were taking it easy, and running off to find another group of scared refugees who didn't know the first thing about how to survive. Left up to Daryl, they'd be at their daddy's old tumble-down booze shack, fencing it off and setting traps. The two of them could live pretty good, hunting and fishing, 'til somebody from the government fixed this mess.
No talking to Merle, though. He still thought the fix was coming soon enough that stealing people's stuff was worth doing. So here they'd stay, 'til Merle got himself a new idea and wanted to light out somewhere.
Looking over the camp, Daryl wondered if the government could fix this at all. People of all kinds setting here, rich and dirt-poor redneck and everything in between. Those blonde girls, Andrea and Amy—they'd had it good in the real world, he could tell. Andrea was digging in, lending a hand, but she didn't really know what she was doing, he could see. And that tall woman, Lori, with the little kid. Leaning pretty hard on her man, there, acting like the queen of the camp. Seemed like he hadn't been her man, before, and she had switched mighty quick, Daryl thought. He supposed that was the way things were gonna go now. Not enough of them left to worry about what used to be.
Looking down at his hands, stained with dirt and engine oil, he figured some things that used to be weren't gonna change. He'd seen the way all the clean people stared at him and Merle. They were always gonna be the dogshit under everybody else's heels, no matter how much the world fell apart.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the woman they had tried to rob last night. She was setting up her tent, her little girl glued to her side, looking around her with big scared eyes. Her momma was talking to her, trying to cheer her up. But Daryl noticed she never tried to send her girl off to play with the other kids. No, she kept her close
The man spoke up from inside the car, where he was taking it easy out of the sun, ordering the woman to move the tent.
She looked at him, a very small pause as if she wanted to argue, then obediently set about doing as she was told. The move put the tent farther away from the cluster of the other tents, Daryl couldn't help but notice. Like they had parked, off by themselves. Sure, he and Merle had set up camp off by themselves, too, but they knew how to handle theirselves. This man, soft and fat as he was, didn't know, and neither did his little woman or his terrified little girl. Did he want to get them all killed?
Then the little girl strayed off toward the car where her daddy was and the woman called her back, her name sharp and clear, and Daryl saw the whole picture. Why the woman was so nervous, why she watched her daughter so much closer than the others did their kids, even why she wore a long-sleeved sweater while doing hot work on a hot day.
His hand closed tight on the can of beer they'd swiped out of a camper on the highway, crumpling it. Nothing he hated worse than a wife-beater, except for a child-beater.
Even as he had the thought, Merle came up to him. "Come on, little brother. Let's go make nice with the locals." Merle grinned. "Maybe they'll need some help settin' up their stuff. Maybe they'll be too scared to notice if they don't have so much stuff once we're done." He started off in the direction of the woman and the little girl. "Those two look like they could use a man to help 'em."
Daryl caught his brother's arm. He could imagine only too clearly what would happen if they went up and started talking to the woman in front of her man. "Not them. Think they got anythin'? Not likely. Now, those ones over there—" He pointed to a Mexican family, the dad exasperated with the tent poles, the mother distracted chasing down her little ones.
Merle looked from one group to the other and nodded. "Good call. Let's do 'er."
They left the car, and the woman and child in it, alone. Daryl didn't give it much more thought. Woman as scared as that? She'd be dead in a few days, poor thing.
