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They made a little camp in the woods. Beth used the side mirror from the car to start a fire in a little hole she'd dug; Daryl went hunting, finding nothing more than squirrels, and ruining one of his precious arrows on one that he missed. Eventually, he used a forked stick and his knife to catch a fat snake. Beth had strung things up around the camp so they'd have warning if anything came visiting, and they charred the snake over the fire and ate it with their hands, wolfing it down greedily.
Daryl was still working on his half when Beth announced she needed a drink. He tossed her the bottle they'd filled with water, but she set it aside. "No. I mean, a real drink. As in alcohol." Daryl kept working on the snake, and she went on, "I've never had one. 'Cause of … my dad. But he's not exactly around anymore, so … I thought we could go find some."
He didn't want to think. He didn't want to move forward, or try something new, or whatever she was going on about. He wanted to sit here and eat the damn snake and then go to sleep, and maybe … maybe never wake up again. He was too tired to keep going, and what was the damn point anyway?
But Beth just kept sitting there and looking at him, expecting an answer. Waiting for one.
Then she gave up waiting. "Okay. Well, enjoy your snake jerky." She got to her feet, retrieved her knife from where she'd stuck it in the ground, and walked off to who the hell knew where.
Daryl kept on at the snake. He should just let her go. She didn't need him, right? She just needed a drink, like somehow that was the answer to anything. She'd get herself killed, then he wouldn't have to be responsible for her, or for anyone—he could just be alone, like he should have been from the beginning.
Only he couldn't, could he? He could see Hershel's eyes, Maggie's … Carol's. All expecting him to go after that little girl, to see that no harm came to her, to save something in this stupid world. So he kicked dirt onto the fire, picked up the crossbow, and followed, in time to see her successfully lure a gaggle of walkers out of her way. She was trying. Maybe she didn't know much, but she'd learned a lot, and she was trying, in the face of everything they'd lost. He had to give her that.
He tried leading her back to the camp, but she wasn't giving up on the idea of finding something to drink somewhere. Even as she followed him, she was still going on at him about it, until she ran into the string with all the jangly things on it that she had put up around their camp.
"What the hell?" she demanded. "You brought me back. I'm not staying in this suck-ass camp." For good measure, she flipped him off. He couldn't decide if that was funny, cute, brave, or just … useless.
Mostly, though, it was annoying. They were trying to survive, not playing around. He grabbed her arm. "Hey! You had your fun."
Beth snatched her arm back out of his grasp. "What the hell's wrong with you? Do you feel anything? Yeah, you think everything's screwed. I guess that's a feeling. So you want to spend the rest of our lives staring into a fire and eating mud snakes? Screw that. We might as well do something!" He didn't answer. She went on, determined. "I can take care of myself, and I'm going to get a damn drink."
She turned and left him there, in the admittedly pretty suck-ass camp. He couldn't see any reason to stay there himself, so he grabbed the crossbow and followed her.
Eventually, they came out onto a golf course, with the clubhouse or whatever they called it in the distance.
Beth turned to look at him. "Golfers like to booze it up, right?"
Walkers had come out of the trees in the distance onto the course. Beth looked at them, judged they were too far away to worry about, and turned and headed for the clubhouse.
"Come on," she called over her shoulder.
Daryl shrugged and followed her. The place was closed up, like maybe someone had used it as a shelter after the world went to hell.
"There might be people inside," Beth said optimistically.
Above their heads, thunder rumbled. Didn't matter if there were people, he figured. They would need shelter, and here it was.
They stepped over a body on the porch. Beth rattled the doors, finding them locked, while Daryl checked the pockets, looking for a key. He didn't find one, and the walkers from the woods were coming closer.
They hurried around to a side door, finding that one open, and they moved inside. People had sheltered here, you could see it. Blankets everywhere, people's stuff, furniture piled against the windows. And the smell of death, and the growling of walkers somewhere inside. Daryl pulled the crossbow, moving cautiously ahead of Beth.
Bodies were hanging from the ceiling, bodies that were growling and reaching for them, and the truly dead were all over the floor. Beth looked around at tables covered in the remains of people's dinner.
At his feet, Daryl saw money. Jewelry. Enough to keep a person set for life. He dropped to his knees, shoving as much of it as he could into a leather bag he'd found.
"Why are you keeping all that stuff?" Beth asked him.
He looked up at her, not sure what to answer, just that he had to, and kept on.
Behind them, something banged on the door. They'd braced it with a golf club, but it wasn't going to keep out all those walkers forever. Daryl put the bag on his back and they ran from the room, closing the interior doors behind them.
Farther inside, everything was quiet except for the drip of water somewhere.
They'd picked up a couple of flashlights in the first room, and they moved cautiously through the building, finding nothing but more death. No food. One walker, and Beth took him out with the remains of a broken bottle of wine and her knife. She looked at Daryl when the thing was dead. "Thanks for the help."
"You said you could take care of yourself. You did."
She rolled her eyes, and followed him into the darkness of the rest of the building.