Disclaimer- I do not own the Walking Dead.
Shadowoftheblackdeat- kind of want to get them to a safe place before they start meeting groups. 24 people on a road is a lot of people to keep safe.
Alwaysand- I agree. On the road the smaller the group the better. Too many people to keep safe and track off.
Enjoy.
Danny's POV
Everyone has the direction they need to go in so as they all split off I hand the torch to Axel. There are two reasons why I don't have my own, number one is because it's easier to swing my bat with two hands and secondly it's to make sure we don't get split up. As long as I can see the light I know he's next to me. That way neither one of us gets distracted and loses the other.
All of the shelves we've come across so far are empty, just a few empty cardboard boxes. From the labels on the boxes I think this was a food distribution warehouse and it has clearly been cleared out.
"What's that?" Axel whispers at me. I heard it too, the unmistakable groan of a Walker. It must be stuck somewhere otherwise it would have shown itself ages ago.
"There must be one stuck somewhere, watch where you step in case it's on the floor", I tell him.
He shudders. "I hate crawlers, they scare the shit outta me".
"Me to" I whisper back.
He swings the torch back and forth as he searches the floor around us to make sure there's nothing there before pointing it directly at me. I squint against the light causing him to immediately apologise.
"There's a walker trapped", Glenn shouts to all of us. If he can hear it then it means it can be absolutely anywhere, it's growl echoing throughout the building.
I stop dead at the end of the aisle to stare at the very obvious living quarters that have been set up here. People were definitely living here. I'm suddenly shoved forwards as Axel walks straight into the back of me.
There's a thud as he drops the torch causing the light to make some very eerie shadows against the wall.
"Shit, sorry". He reaches down to grab it but he kicks it sending it spinning away from us, it slides under the racking and whacks against the wall where it then turns off sending us into total darkness. "Fuck, shit. Sorry".
I can hear him moving but if he starts walking I know I'll lose him so I reach out blindly and grab hold of what I think is his arm.
He makes a startled noise, "urm… that's you right?".
I chuckle lightly. "It is"
He lets out a breath of air in what I can only assume is relief. "Thank fuck for that". Axel's body touches my arm as he moves closer. "Sorry 'bout the torch. What do we do now?".
My eyes are slowly adjusting to the darkness, the door we came through is still open which is allowing some light into the building but it's not enough for me to confidently move around, so I wait. I can see a torch light coming closer. It's only a few aisles away.
After straining my eyes to try and make out who it is I finally see the glint of the sword that Michonne carries.
"Michonne?".
The light she's holding stops moving around and then after a beat she moves it in our direction. She shines the light onto Axel and then follows my arm up to my face before immediately lowering it.
"You two okay?".
I offer a small smile. "We broke our torch".
Karen's chuckle comes from behind Michonne. "You both look terrified".
I look to my side where Axel is standing because I'm still holding his arm. His eyes are wide and yeah he looks scared and I know for a fact my expression probably mirrors his. "I don't like the dark. You don't happen to have a spare torch?"
"Hang on", I then hear Karen rustling around and then one appears in front of me. It's not a big one but a torch is a torch.
Axel goes to take it but I quickly let go of him and grab it myself. "Maybe I'll take this one". I offer him a quick smile so as to not make him feel bad. "Have you seen where the walker is?"
"No", Michonne says. "But I know it's coming from over there". She shines her torch in the direction she's talking about. As she starts walking towards it I gesture for Axel to go ahead of me as I take the rear.
The groaning gets louder until finally my torch light lands on the Walker, as soon as I actually comprehend what I'm looking at I move my torch away, something bad happened to here. Axel lets out a noise but that's it, no one else says anything, not even a noise. The Walker was a woman, she's been stripped naked and is tied to a section of the racking by rope. She's covered in blood and her throat has been cut.
I move my torch around and just off to the right are more remains of a camp. It's been ransacked and all that's left are some bed rolls and pillows. Bags have been ripped open and whatever was inside is now gone.
More light appears and then Maggie, Glenn, Trevor and Fred appear. They all stop dead when they see the Walker.
"Shit", Trevor breathes out.
"Who would do something like this?" Karen asks.
"Do you think it was the group we met yesterday?" Glenn says.
I shrug, "I don't know, I would have hoped that Sean would have told us they'd been here".
"Or," Michonne says while keeping her eyes glued on the body, "would he pretend he wasn't here. He needs help and could be lying to make sure he gets it".
I hope not, I really hope I haven't fallen for his act if it is one. He could have just told us what was in here, him not telling us wouldn't benefit him in any way.
"We should get out of here". Maggie's voice is basically a whisper.
I nod in agreement, "Okay, I don't think there's anything left in here for us anyway". I let everyone walk past me as they start to leave but I take another look at the woman. I can't leave her like this.
"You okay?" I turn my head to look at Glenn who's stopped to look back at me.
"Yeah, I'll meet you out front".
"You sure?"
I just nod my head in reply, when they finally disappear I grab the walkie talkie.
"Daryl?"
"You alrigh'?" Come's his instant reply.
"The others are coming out", I pause for a second, "Can you meet me please. I'm right at the back".
"I'll be right there". He says without hesitation.
I rest my bat against the shelving and pull out my knife, I then plunge it into the side of her head. When I yank it back out again her head sags forward. To do something like this is barbaric, the ones responsible can't even be classed as human because there is no way a human could do this to another.
Daryl's torch lights me up and then when he stops beside me it lights up the body. "Fuck".
"We have to talk to Sean, if this was that group and he didn't tell us… He could be up to something." I let out a heavy sigh, "And if it's not them then it means there's another group out there that's dangerous". I take a step back and tilt my head back a little. "This is….. Daryl!" I know I'm about to start freaking out, I can feel it in the sting of my eyes and the tightening of my chest. We outnumbered that group yesterday by a lot but it still could have gone bad. If there is another group out there doing this to innocent people, we have no idea if we will be stronger than them, outnumber them by enough.
"Hey!" He says to make me look at him. "We'll leave here, we'll pack up and go and from now on we're tighter than normal, more people on watch". He turns to fully face me. "I won't let this happen to you or anyone you care about".
I would love for that to be something we can promise everyone but how can we? These people probably didn't even know the wolf was at their door. They could have been ambushed or they could have let people in thinking they were good. How do you stop something like this happening?
I nod my head once and swallow heavily. "Can we at least cut her down?" I don't like the idea of people stumbling across her like this, like we did. She doesn't deserve this.
He takes out his knife and slices it through the ropes holding her up, when she lands against him he carefully lowers her to the floor. I grab one of the blankets from the camp that was here and when Daryl steps away I drape it over her.
With a hand against my back he leads me out of the warehouse.
I squint as I step outside, as soon as my eyes have adjusted I zone in on where Merle is, Sean isn't standing too far from him. He looks a little stressed as I head towards him but everyone is either giving him side eye glances or just out rightly just staring at him. He knows something's wrong but he also looks unbelievably confused. The look alone makes me think he has absolutely no idea what happened inside.
"You were here?" I ask as soon as I get close enough to him.
"What?" Sean stutters back.
"You and that group," I stop in front of him. "You came through here didn't you?"
"No, no we didn't".
I stare at him, trying to work out if I can fully believe him or not. I take another step forward. "If it ever comes to light that you had any part of that in there then I won't protect you", I bring my hand up and point right in his face. "I won't feed you and not a single person here will help you. You understand me?"
He swallows heavily, his eyes drift to whomever is behind me but from the way he looks back at me whoever it was doesn't offer him any help. "I… I don't… Don't know", His voice trembles as he stutters. "What you saw in… in there but I… I promise…" Merle's hand lands on his shoulder rather heavily, causing Sean to stumble under the force.
"Buck up". Merle then squeezes his shoulder and lets go when Sean nods.
Sean squares his shoulders. "I promise I had nothing to do with whatever it was."
I finally nod and step away. "Okay". I smile at him. "Have you eaten anything today?"
He nods slowly, "Yeah, uh… She gave me some food earlier". I look over to who he nodded at to find Tara. When she sees me looking she gives a little mock salute.
"Her name's Tara and good".
When I turn around to leave him alone Michonne is standing behind me, her hand on the hilt of her sword that's still on her back, but when I look at her she slowly lets go.
I head over to Daryl who is standing next to the bonnet of our truck with a few of the others. When I stop beside him Abraham chuckles.
"If you'd spoke to him for one more second I'm a hundred percent certain you'd have made him piss himself".
I make a noise that constitutes a laugh before looking at the bonnet where they have a map spread out. "Do we have a plan?" We have a blocked road to get around and a herd that we need to miss.
"It's a seven hour detour to just get back to the same distance we were at yesterday". Abraham says, his voice definitely has some anger to it.
I look at Daryl. "Seven hours?"
He nods. "All the quicker routes lead back to the road with the Walkers, we don't wanna get stuck behind them". Or we break down in front of them and have them constantly on our tail.
"We have taken detour after detour since Houston. It's been a fuckin' shit storm after shit storm". Abraham remarks.
"But if we want to get there safely then this is what we have to do", I say back at him. I get what he's saying but what's the point of getting there at the cost of people's lives. I'd rather it take us longer if that means we are more likely to get us all there in one piece. "We will get there, I don't care if it takes us a couple more days. And you shouldn't either".
"We have to get him to Washington". Is all Abraham says back to me.
"And we will." He grunts at me before grabbing the map and folding it back up. Seems to me that the only thing that's important to Abraham is getting Eugene to Washington. I get it, he wants to save the world. Maybe he also wants every life lost to mean something. They died doing something that matters.
When Abraham finally walks away he leaves just Daryl, Glenn, Maggie and me.
Glenn waits until he's out of earshot before talking. "He pretty much threw a hissy fit when he first looked at the map. Something tells me if we have to take any more detours he's gonna lose it".
"You think?" I can see that, I look at Abrahams retreating form quickly. "Anyone think they could take him on if he gets angry?"
Maggie grabs Glenn's arm to stop him speaking. "Glenn would give it okay, wouldn't you? Not sure you'd win it though".
"Merle would say he could", Daryl says.
"You think he could". I ask, already knowing the answer.
"Not even a chance. Merles been out of the army a long fuckin' time, he's outta shape". Daryl says with the tiniest quirk of his lips.
"I wouldn't let him hear you say that. I called him old once and he was moody with me for hours".
They all chuckle at me but Glenn and Maggie instantly stop when Merle appears beside me, although there's still the hint of a smile on their lips.
"We ready to roll?" Merle asks.