Disclaimer- I do not own the Walking dead.
Alwaysand- Me too.
Shadowoftheblackdeat- I'm not gonna give any spoilers but I can't wait until they meet him. I really think you're going to like it.
Thank you to all those that have favourited and are now following along.
Enjoy.
Danny's POV
Daryl stops in front of us,so as soon as Merle breaks I climb out of the car. We've only been driving for about an hour but we have two cars in desperate need of fuel and we don't want to keep going until they run out in case we can't find any. Car doors slam behind us as everyone gets out to join us.
"Sasha!" She looks at me as I call her name. "You're in charge of watch, spread them out". She nods at me in understanding and then I go over to Daryl. We're on the edge of a town, there are a lot of buildings around us and a lot of cars. "Axel can you help Merle and Daryl syphon fuel".
"Yes ma'am".
Daryl scoffs out a laugh, causing me to raise my eyebrows at him. "What's so funny?"
Daryl shakes his head and loads a bolt into his crossbow. "Nothing, ma'am".
"Shut up, don't make fun of him". Ma'am makes me feel old but I think Axel just meant it respectfully. "Go and get fuel like you're supposed to. Glenn and I will take a look around".
That sombres him up a little although there is still some humour in his eyes. "Be careful and don't go too far".
"We won't. Just whistle loudly if you need us to come back".
He nods before him, Merle and Axel start walking off. Glenn appears beside me. "You ready?"
I nod, "Yeah… just give me a second". I turn slowly, looking for Sophia, when I spot her stood with Carol I head straight over to her. "Caro…."
"She's already asked me", Carol cuts me off before I can say anything. "She can go with you", Carol slips the strap of her gun onto her shoulder and then lays her hands on Sophia's shoulders. "Listen to everything she says, I'm trusting you to do this".
"I will mum, I promise". Sophia wanted to start helping on runs, this isn't really a run of sorts as we won't be straying too far away, but it'll be far enough to make Carol worry.
"We'll be gone an hour, max".
She smiles at me, silently telling me it's okay, she trusts me.
The three of us start heading down the road towards the apartment buildings at the end of the street. There's a Gorbelli food truck outfront of it.
When we reach it Glenn turns the latch and lets the door slide open, there's not much inside except for a few cardboard boxes but once Glenn jumps in the back we realise they're empty. Someone's already helped themselves to what was in the back of here but considering it's labelled as a food truck that's not really surprising.
He jumps back out and picks up his rifle. "Should we check a few floors in there?" All three of us stare up at the apartment building, weighing up our options. It doesn't look very inviting but there are a lot of homes in there which means there must be at least a few that have something worth taking.
"Okay, just a couple of floors", I agree with him. We don't want to get trapped in there.
He leads the way over to the front door and tries to peer inside, but it's dark, obviously. There's no natural lighting in the hallway. "Do you have a torch?"
I smile at him, "Of course," I can feel Sophia pulling at my bag's zipper as she gets it out. "Didn't Daryl tell you guys to make a go bag, keep it on you at all times".
He chuckles, "Yeah he did". I raise an eyebrow, waiting. "It's in the car", he finishes.
"Well that doesn't really make it a bag for emergencies does it, sitting back in the car where all the normal food and belongings are".
He shrugs, "You have yours and I know you have enough food in there to share".
"If we get separated from the group I'm not sharing my supplies with you, you shouldn't have forgotten your bag".
He takes the torch from Sophia, "You love me too much to not share with me".
He's right, I do. I gesture towards the door. "Just open the damn door".
"Yes Ma'am", he winks at me before trying the door handle, the door swings open. I ignore him, he obviously heard Axel and is finding it just as funny as Daryl did. I'm not going to entertain either one of them.
Glenn switches his rifle for his hand gun and with the other hand holds up the torch, he shines it around every inch of the entrance way before stepping over the threshold. This hallway has six doors on it, every single one is closed. When Glenn shines his torch right to the end of the hallway the sign for the stairs glows.
We stop at the first door, Glenn puts his ear against it and lightly drums his fingers against the wood. We wait a few seconds but nothing makes a sound inside so with a quick glance at me he pushes open the door.
We get through the ground floor rooms pretty quickly, we've gathered a box full of supplies which we leave by the front door. We found some food, some matches and a few candles. This place looks ransacked but I don't think it's from scavengers. I think the people who lived here grabbed everything they could in a hurry and bailed.
This time I'm the one to put my ear up against the door. When I can't hear anything I push open the door a fraction and peer out into the hallway of the next floor up. A few doors on this floor are open so instead of just walking out I tap my bat against the floor but after a few seconds, when nothing appears, I open it fully and step out.
"We'll see how long it takes to check this floor, if it takes too long we'll head back. I did tell them we'd only be gone an hour". I turn sharply on Glenn, making him close his mouth suddenly. I know exactly what he was about to say. "Don't say it".
He grins and shrugs, "No idea what you're talking about".
Sophia moves past the two of us, "It's my turn".
We clear two of the homes that have their front doors already opened, the next one has its door closed so Sophia copies what Glenn and I did and puts her ear against the door. She stands there for ages with her eyes closed until suddenly she opens them. She heard something.
"How many?" I mouth at her. She holds up a finger.
"One, I think. I heard something shuffling but it's not banging against the door so it doesn't know we're here."
"Okay, step back". She does as I tell her. Glenn stands to the side and grabs hold of the door handle and then on my nod he opens it.
I hesitate for a millisecond as a gun is pointed straight at me but then I blink and my gun is pulled out and aimed straight at the woman before me.
"Put your weapon down before I shoot". She threatens, but her voice is shaking and so are hands, albeit very faintly.
"If you put yours down, we'll lower ours, nobody needs to get hurt". I tell her truthfully, I don't want to hurt her. We can leave her in peace, this building is hers so I'll let her have it.
There's a bang against a door and then the sound of growls fills the room. She has Walkers in one of the back rooms.
"You're breaking into my house and you want me to trust that you don't mean any harm."
I understand her point of view, I do but with the way her hands are shaking I don't trust her. One of us could make one wrong move and she'd panic and could shoot one of us. "Glenn, Sophia. Lower your guns and go back to the stairwell".
They lower their guns but neither one of them moves back. "We aren't leaving you here". Glenn whispers at me.
The woman in front of me keeps moving her eyes onto all of us, one at a time. We outnumber her and it's freaking her out. "Glenn, please. Go back downstairs. You can wait for me there. I won't be long".
"Danny". I ignore him, I don't take my eyes off the lady but I know he's staring at me. He wants to ignore me, he wants to stay here but he can't and when he lets out a defeated sigh I know he finally gets it. He walks behind me. "Sophia, come on".
When I hear the door to the stairwell slam shut I lower my gun. Now there's no danger of her shooting either one of them, I'm willing to play by her rules.
"My guns down, please lower yours". She doesn't move. "You can keep it on you and I'll put mine away just please lower it".
I slide mine back into its holster and wait, finally she lowers her own.
"I'm Danny, we didn't know you were here, if we did we would have left you alone. We've just stopped in town for some fuel and a quick scavenge. That's it".
The Walkers in the room behind her, don't let up. In fact I'm sure the banging gets worse.
"Are you okay here? The Walkers in that room, do you need help with them".
"They're my family, I can't kill them".
"But if you want to stay here you can't keep them locked in there, you won't be safe".
She looks behind her at the door her family is behind and then her shoulders drop. "My dad, he was sick. He died as we couldn't get the oxygen he needed, he turned but he wasn't bit. I don't know why he turned but then he got my sister and her… and her daughter." She pauses to sniffle, trying to keep the tears at bay. "I managed to lock them in there. I know they need to be put down but we haven't been able to kill any of the dead. Bullets won't kill them".
Those last four words shock me. It's been well over a year, the last I saw of people struggling to figure out how to kill the dead was way back at the start. I look around her room, there are empty cans piled up in the corner, lots of them. They fill an entire corner of the room. "Have you been here since the start?"
She nods, "That food truck down there. The one you looked in, it was filled to the brim with non-perishable food. We've managed to survive off of that, plus with whatever we could find in these apartments." She knew we were here way before we entered the building.
I stare at her, she's trying to be brave but I can see the pain she's in, it's written all over her face. "I can help you, I can put them at rest. All you have to do is ask".
She closes her eyes and takes in some very visible deep breaths. She stays like that for a while before finally opening her eyes, when she does the sheen of tears is so obvious but she's trying so hard not to cry. "Why? Why would you help me?"
"Because I know what it's like to have someone you love taken away from you and you're not able to help them. I couldn't stand it knowing my mum was living like this out in the world". It broke my heart, I finally felt at ease when I was able to finally put her out of her misery and let her rest. "Please let me help you". It doesn't seem right to just walk away from her now without helping her. She's in so much pain.
She finally nods, "come in". She pushes the door the rest of the way open and lets me walk into her apartment. "My name's Tara".
"It's nice to meet you Tara." I offer her a smile as I walk past her straight towards the back room. "There's three inside?" She nods. "You don't have to help me, you can stay out here". She starts contemplating but I stop her before she can answer. "You should stay out here. But I will tell you this, they require serious trauma to the head, that is the only way to take them down".
I slip my bat back in its holder and pull out my knife, three of them in close quarters, alone. Daryl will definitely have something to say about this but I have to help her. I grip the door handle and push it open a fraction until the little girl appears in the crack, before she can get her hands through it I force my knife into her head. She crumples to the floor as the man appears and tries to pull the door open by forcing his way into the tiny gap. He gets his hands in a lot quicker so I drop my knife and with all of my body weight I shove the door open, sending him stumbling backwards into the third and final one. They both fall to the floor in a heap. I yank out my bat as I step over the girl and bring it down hard on the mans head, causing his skull to collapse. His weight stops the last one from getting up, it doesn't have the motor skills to push it off so everytime it tries to sit up it just collapses back down. This one must be the sister. I could just bring my bat down on her head but knowing that Tara will want to come back in here has me going back to pick up my knife.
When I'm done I step back out of the room to find Tara hasn't moved, she's still in the exact same position with her hands held against her chest. "I can also help you bury them, we can do it out front in the grass".
She nods, "Okay", her voice is still trembling.
"But we will need help carrying them down the stairs, I have people who can help, if you'd let them".
"I… I don't know what to do without them". A tear slips down her cheek.
"We'll do it a step at a time. Let's bury them and then we figure out what's next afterwards. Okay?"
"Yeah". She swipes away the tear with the back of her hand and straightens out her back.
"Come on".
I lead us back down the stairs, regretting not grabbing my torch back from Glenn so we only have a candle that I swiped off her kitchen counter.
As I push open the door that leads to the downstairs hallway I hesitate in surprise. Glenn must have been very worried but also somehow managed to convince them not to come upstairs, I wonder how he managed that. Daryl, Glenn, Merle, Carol, Oscar, Maggie and Tyreese are standing in the hallway by the front door guns raised. Daryl's face instantly relaxes when I step out of the stairway although his mouth forms a tight line when Tara steps out behind me.
I hold my arm out to the side trying to make her feel at ease. "She's okay. But we need your help".