He picks a small farmhouse with a long driveway, a small barn and a couple sheds, a big chicken coop. The fields around it are empty and faded. From the house, he could see a long stretch of the road going by, the fields in all directions, the woods on the edges, he'd only have to pick a window. There's no vehicles around. He slow-rolls up.
It's quiet, nothing moves but the leaves in the distance. They check the outbuildings first. All the tools are gone, not a pitchfork or hammer left, but a tractor still sat in the barn with its hood up. The coop is just feathers, hay and dried bird shit. There's nothing really in the sheds, either, except the farmer sat leaning against the wall in one of 'em, his face gone, his denim coveralls gory. Lucky it was too brisk for flies and maggots now.
The front door is unlocked. The cupboards and drawers are all left open in the kitchen. It smells musty and a little rotten inside, it needs an air-out, but Daryl makes sure all the windows are locked as they pass. They're only a few steps in when they hear the walker upstairs, making the floorboards creak, groaning listlessly.
They go from the basement up, but there's only one closed door in the whole place, upstairs. The master bedroom and bathroom are open and rifled through, dressers left open. The walker thuds dully in the shut room, unaware of their wary steps and silent communications. Beth slides behind him at the closed door, the knife they shared in the woods already in her hand when he checks over his shoulder.
He swings the door open, and aims. It turns to look at them; he fires. The bolt sloughs off its slipping cheek. It doesn't stop it– him, just knocks him back for a second before he starts at Daryl with new purpose. With hungry awareness.
Daryl drops the bow, and before he can pull his own blade, Beth shoves the handle of hers into his hand. He stiff-arms the boy by the shirt collar, pushing him backward, overwhelming the uncoordinated smaller walker till he trips and goes down. He puts the blade in the eye socket, through too-soft flesh, till he stops.
Daryl takes a deep breath, and a real look. The walker is a brown-haired, teenage boy a little older than Carl. Shut forever inside his teenage boy bedroom. There are posters of cars, and chicks in bikinis, Jessica Simpson in daisy dukes. High school sports trophies are knocked over and scattered on the floor, with some books and magazines, video games and movies. Everything is upset, tipped over and on the floor, smeared with his blood and skin.
It's a sad tomb.
Daryl wipes the blade off on the boy's shirt before handing it back to Beth, hilt first.
"Shoulda kept your weapon," he scolds.
"I got others," she says simply, sliding it back into place on her hip. He wonders where the others are. He glances at her thighs like he'll see one there. She shrugs when she passes him, stepping over the boy's body. "Nothin' behind us anyway."
Beth opens the closet door, revealing a lacrosse stick and old sneakers, shoeboxes, a PlayStation 3 box, some clothes they should probably pack up for Carl. She looks back at him as if to say, See?
She retraces her steps, back over the boy again gingerly, careful not to look too closely at him. She leaves them both there alone together. Something about it, her back disappearing down the hallway, bothers him.
Before he picks up his bow, he yanks the blanket off the dead boy's bed and covers him.
He shuts the door again behind him.