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The group of them spent the fall on the run. The local woods were full of the herd, and it felt like more Walkers arrived every day. They'd break into a house, stay a few days, and find themselves surrounded and needing to break free.
Finally, they found a small-town duplex with a large fenced-in yard that appeared safe enough, once Daryl and Rick had cleaned it out of Walkers.
Over dinner that night—an assortment of canned goods from the pantry—Daryl spoke up suddenly. He had been doing that more often as they began to rely on his skills for survival. "If we've got a couple days here, I think we should start teaching everyone how to shoot." He didn't look at them as he said so, but it was clear he meant Beth and Carol, who were the only ones who really didn't know their way around a firearm at all. Beth, alarmed, glanced at her father, who put his arm around her, making it clear he didn't want her put in harm's way like that.
But Carol felt challenged, and she sat up straight. "Good idea."
Rick nodded. "Tell you what—Daryl, you teach Carol. Hershel, you can give Beth the basics. Glenn and Maggie, you're on food and supplies, see what's left in town. T-Dog, you and I are on Walkers." Lori's advancing pregnancy had everyone giving her softer jobs, and Carl was more or less permanently assigned as his mother's bodyguard.
So Carol and Daryl went out into the back yard the next morning, and he started showing her how guns worked. She had always been a good student, and good with her hands, so she picked it up quickly. "Thank you for doing this. I don't want to be a drag on the group."
"You ain't. You're like a magpie, always finding the food and stuff."
She smiled. "I used to shoplift in high school. Made me pay attention to what people were hiding."
He frowned at her. "Nice lady like you?"
"My family was religious. They didn't believe in things like makeup and music. If I wanted it, I had to steal it. Actually …" She aimed and sighted, squeezing the trigger, and was satisfied to see the bullet landed just inside the circle Daryl had drawn. It wasn't a Walker's head, but she would get there. "I shouldn't say high school. Ed kept me on a strict budget. Sometimes I had to walk out of a store with something in order to have things I needed."
"Why'd you stay with him?"
Once, she'd had her reasons. Now, so far removed from that life, it was hard to remember what they were. "I thought I had to. Didn't think I had anywhere to go. Someone tells you you're useless and unwanted enough, you believe it," she said simply. The words no longer affected her—no one had the chance to be useless anymore. Everyone had to pull their own weight. She was learning how to haul hers.
T-Dog came into the yard, his shirt bloody from a tussle with a Walker. "Think that's the last of 'em. Should have clear space for a while now."
Daryl would believe that when he saw it. The woods and roads were crawling with the assholes. No reason to assume this place would be different. If they got a couple days to rest, that was as much as he'd expect. He nodded in approval as Carol reloaded the gun. She was picking it up quick. They wouldn't need to waste much ammo teaching her.
Shivering, T-Dog ripped his shirt off and replaced it with a clean one he'd found in the house. "Sure don't ever want to be one of those myself," he said. "You do me a favor? Stick a knife in me, I ever die."
Carol aimed and squeezed the trigger. Better shot this time; closer to the center. "Me, too. Forever wandering, spirit never settled? That sounds like a nightmare."
Daryl wondered if she was thinking of Sophia. She didn't talk about the little girl much, like she'd never existed. But he supposed none of them talked about the before times anymore. Not a lot of room for that, not when they were on the run all the time.
"You think about that, Daryl? Turning?" T-Dog asked.
"No. I'll be all right, or I won't. And if I ain't, I'll never know. Don't pay to think about it more than that."
Carol smiled, a sharp edge to it. "I used to think, when I was with Ed, that I had nine lives. I don't think I've used them all yet."
T-Dog looked at them both like they were crazy. "Well, I don't want to die. I just want to … find a place, and settle down, and not have to look over my shoulder all the time." He left the back yard.
Daryl and Carol exchanged a look. He had learned to see her as a realist, for all she'd seemed so soft and fanciful at first, and he knew she agreed with him, that they'd all be lucky to make it through the winter, much less to find a place to settle.
"Try it again," he told her, and he watched her as she lifted the gun, aimed, and squeezed. This time, the bullet landed dead center.
Maybe they'd live to see the spring after all, Daryl thought. Just maybe.