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Rick came to the outbuilding where Daryl was hammering a window shut. "Hey, you got a minute?"
"I got nothin' but time, looks like." As far as Daryl could tell, all this bunching up and fortifying meant they were just waiting to die. He'd go along, far as that went.
"I want you to come with me, get rid of Randall. Send him on his way."
Daryl landed on his feet next to Rick, glad that the grunt from the landing hid his reaction to that idea. He should've killed the kid when he had the chance last night, he thought, got this all out of the way. But … what else was there to do? "Yeah, I'll go along."
Rick led him to the porch and got out a map of the area, drawing his finger along the roads to indicate where he thought they should take the kid.
It was a decent enough plan, and if it ended all this— "This little pain in the ass will be a distant memory," Daryl said. "Good riddance."
Before Rick could say anything more, they both stopped and watched Shane's car drive back up from the windmill. Daryl wasn't surprised that Rick had thrown his buddy over—Shane was unbalanced, and if Rick couldn't feel how bad Shane wanted him out of the way, wanted his wife and kid for himself, well, then he was the only one.
"That thing you did last night—" Rick began.
Daryl had taken Rick's gun from his hands and shot Dale in the head. The man had already been dying. Someone had to do it; and Rick hadn't had the heart. Daryl thought he had done only what was right. "Ain't no reason you should do all the heavy lifting."
Rick nodded, watching Shane pull up in front of the house. "So are you good with all this?"
"I don't see you and I trading haymakers on the side of the road," Daryl told him. "Nobody'd win that fight." He was willing to go along with Rick, be part of the group, at least for now. Long as they were alive, might as well do their best to stay that way. Far as Daryl could tell, they had their best shot at survival with Rick in charge.
Shane's car door slammed, and Daryl got to his feet. "I'm going to take a piss." He didn't need to be in the middle of Shane and Rick's big blowout, or whatever they were going to do.
Daryl followed into the woods where Shane led, but he didn't like it. He didn't like any of it. Maybe the kid had slipped his cuffs; maybe he'd gotten out of the building. Maybe he'd gotten the drop on Shane. Any one of those Daryl could believe. But all of them? No way.
Rick sent Daryl and Glenn off, while he took Shane in the other direction. Daryl hoped to hell he knew what he was doing. Shane was about as dangerous as a loaded gun right now.
'Course, the whole world was that dangerous now. And this whole damn fool situation had them out in the woods in the dark, fumbling around, drawing the attention of any Walkers in the area. And how would they know if somebody else found the kid? Call out, draw more Walkers? Just what they needed.
At last, irritated, he took the flashlight from Glenn and went back to the beginning, finding the tracks Shane had told him not to look for. Two sets of tracks, that went on together for quite a while, and fresh blood on a tree, right about at the height of a man's nose.
And that was when they found him. Or what was left of him. The kid was dead, and walking. Between them, Daryl and Glenn took him down. But something was weird. He had no bite marks anywhere on his body. He'd been killed by a broken neck—Shane, almost certainly. Then rose again, without being bit.
Carol and the others were waiting, tensely, assembled in the living room when Daryl and Glenn came back to say they'd found Randall. He'd become a Walker, and without being bitten first. In the process, they also confirmed what Carol, at least, had suspected: Shane had killed him, taking on himself what the rest of the group had failed to do, in his eyes.
Lori begged Daryl to go back out, to find her missing menfolk. He agreed, because that was what Daryl did. He did what you asked him to. What was right. Carol liked that about him. Or she would have, if she had the energy left to like anything. She was so tired of death and anger and arguments and fear.
Daryl hadn't gotten far—just to the edge of the porch, with Andrea and Glenn right behind him—when he saw the end coming. Walkers. Walkers everywhere, from one edge of the horizon to the other. They didn't have enough bullets, enough arrows, enough people, for all those Walkers.
"Hershel!" he called in a harsh whisper. This was the man's house; he had the right to go down defending it whatever way he could.
The others followed Hershel out onto the porch, standing there in horror. Hershel kept his head, though, somewhat to Daryl's surprise. He immediately ordered the lights turned off, and said he'd go for the guns.
Glenn suggested they hide inside and let the herd go by, but Daryl shook his head. Not this time. "A herd that size would rip the house down."
He was trying to figure out what to do, how to make a last stand, maybe keep a few of them alive, when Lori burst out of the house in a panic saying she'd lost her son.
Some part of Daryl was pissed, absolutely enraged at these women who couldn't keep an eye on their damn kids. Some part had expected it. Carl first, then the rest.
Carol took Lori inside to look harder, make sure the kid wasn't hiding.
Hershel came out with the bag of guns, passing them out to everyone. Daryl didn't think there was any point—too many Walkers, not enough of them.
Hershel looked up at him over the barrel of a rifle. "You can go if you want."
"You going to take them all on?"
"We have guns. We have cars."
"Kill as many as we can," Andrea said. "And we'll use the cars to lead the rest of them off the farm."
"Are you serious?" No way they took out enough to make a difference.
"This is my farm," Hershel said firmly. "I'll die here."
Well, that was a stance Daryl could understand. "All right. It's as good a night as any." He climbed over the porch railing.
Two cars went out, driving the perimeter, dropping as many Walkers as they could. Daryl took his motorcycle to do the same thing. Across the field, the barn burst into flames. He pulled up next to the kid driving the RV.
"Must've been Rick or Shane who started that fire. Maybe they're trying to get out back! Why don't you circle round?"
The RV set off, and Daryl took off in the other direction.
Inside the house, Carol followed Lori as she tore around, growing increasingly frantic as it became clear Carl wasn't there. He had gone after his father and Shane, Carol was willing to bet. And there was no way to go after him, or them. Not in the middle of the herd. She felt for Lori—as much as she could feel, right now.
Maybe this was for the best. One big Walker attack, end it all. Finished.
But even as she thought it, Carol felt something in her protest. She wasn't ready to let go, to give up and die. Some part of her wanted to live. She all but dragged Lori, Beth, and Patricia out of the house. They called for Hershel, but he didn't listen. He just kept on shooting Walkers.
Carol led the way off the porch and across the yard. They lost Patricia to the Walkers along the way; they would have lost Beth if Lori hadn't half-carried her away.
Finding herself alone, stranded in front of a shed with locked doors, Carol picked up a branch lying at her feet. She heard herself screaming, but it was just part of the din—Walkers growling, gunshots, flames crackling, the fading shouts of the dying Patricia. Then the Walkers in front of her went down, and she saw Andrea standing there, gun in hand. A Walker took Andrea down, and Carol was alone again. She stumbled away from the shed, but she didn't know where she was going.
The farm was gone, just like Daryl thought it would go. And the group was gone with it, just like he thought. But he didn't feel the relief he'd thought he'd feel. He felt—alone. Lost. Like, what was the point? Sure, he could survive on his own. Probably better. But what for?
Then he heard it—over the crackle of the flames and the groans of the Walkers, a woman screaming. Without thinking, he turned his bike that way and sped toward her, choosing people, the remnants of civilization, over living on his own in the wild.
He found Carol, staggering on her own through the herd of Walkers, and to cover the intense relief he felt when he saw her alive, he snapped at her. "Come on! I ain't got all day."
She climbed on the bike behind him and they sped off into the night, leaving the farm for the Walkers to take.