Chapter Text
Now.
Daryl’s eyes widened as he spotted you, hands bound to each other behind your back, a bloodied and sweat-soaked tank-top clung to your torso. Your eyes were just as wide, maybe even wider.
You thought you might be dreaming. A trick, a hallucination – something like it, it wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before. But he didn’t disappear, didn’t fizzle away or turn into somebody else who only looked like him. No, it was him alright. His hair was a little longer than you remembered, his eyes a little darker, a leather vest replaced the flannel. A little older. But you could never mistake those eyes for anybody else’s.
He swallowed, breathing steadily. His eyes darted across the group; trying to predetermine the unknown’s next moves. They all had a tight grip on his friends; Michonne, Rick, Carl, you. He never quite expected to see your face again.
There was only one way out of this mess, Daryl knew it.
But his eyes couldn’t escape yours. “I found you,” he breathed.
***
Then.
You were crouched in the thick shrubbery when you saw them. You were after a couple of rabbits when the noise they made scattered them too far away, disappearing into the trees. You wanted to whine about it, but you didn’t want to alert the two men that stood a little far off from you, inspecting whatever it was they were staring at in the dirt.
You sighed almost silently and decided to observe until there was a clear moment to safely move away.
“Do you think…?” one man questioned but couldn’t finish as he bit his tongue to keep himself from saying it. He was crouched down beside the other man and both figures still blocked the view of the dirt in front of them. He was wearing a brown deputy sheriff’s hat paired with khaki-colored, county-police uniform.
He certainly looked out of place, you thought, and resisted the urge to snigger at the irony of his appearance.
“I dunno,” the other man, who had a real redneck look about him, replied, sitting back on his heels, “but it doesn’t hurt to look, then at least we know for certain, right?” You still weren’t sure what they were talking about. The man who replied to the deputy wore a flannel-vest, button up shirt and he had a pretty nifty crossbow slung over his shoulder.
And you thought you were lucky to own a quiver of arrows and a bow, imagine having a crossbow as your primary weapon in all this chaos.
They discussed their plans for a little while longer, both men had thick, Georgian accents. You were only a little used to it by now but sometimes you had to strain your ear to understand it properly, especially with men as they seemed to mutter more.
Then, you watched as the redneck tossed his weapon beside him in the dirt and pulled out a large hunting knife. You admired it from a distance. That would certainly be of use if you had one like it. Then he plunged the knife straight down and you heard a soft, tearing noise – then an echo of ripping flesh and muscle.
You slapped a hand over your mouth to cover your gasp but fortunately for you, no sound made it past your throat, you were so surprised. Just a shock of air. You kept your hand over your mouth nonetheless and watched with wide eyes as you finally understood what it was that they were doing. Though, you didn’t completely understand.
You had thought it was a body that they teared through. And yes, it was, but not a freshly killed one. It was one of them. Those things. The ones that came back, so who knows how long it had been dead before these guys ripped into it. The question was, why?
You watched carefully as he changed position slightly so you could see him dig his hand through the blood and organs, which was an abnormal dark color, and didn’t surprise you the least bit, and saw his face squish into an unpleasant looking one. Well, you thought, at least he wasn’t enjoying sticking his hand in there.
You were curious to find out what it was that he was looking for when a shape off in the distance caught your attention. It was soundless, which was unusual. And it was quick. You wanted to shout out at the men because they hadn’t even noticed it yet, with all the digging around in guts and all, and you soon realized that they might not even reach their weapons in time if you did alert them of the dead thing running towards them.
It was like none you’d ever seen. Tall and skinny, light on their feet. No shoes, which minimized the scuffing sounds of their dead shuffle. But it was hardly shuffling.
With blood rushing in your veins from the sudden burst of danger, you quickly loaded your bow. Just as the dead thing neared the crossbow guy, literally inches from clawing at his naked, sweat-slicked flesh, you released the arrow, so it struck right through its head.
With a moment’s hesitation, the body lingered upright as if contemplating which direction it should fall. Both men had looked up at the sound of the arrow – the redneck turned to look as soon as the arrow left its place in your bow, spotting your crouched position immediately – and now they were quickly backing away, weapons in hand and standing upright.
The dead body fell into the dirt, right next to the other corpse.
The crossbow was loaded quickly and pointed in your direction, behind the bush you were hiding in. He wasted no time. “Show yourself or I’ll shoot,” he ordered with a stern voice, arrow at the ready. His friend, the deputy, had some kind of machete or axe in one hand, though his fingers were itching for his gun tucked into its holster.
You stood up slowly from the bush, your bow already loaded with another arrow. You kept it aimed at the crossbow-guy, but your heart was beating right through your chest, almost.
“You shoot me, and he’ll shoot back, you know,” crossbow-guy stated, matter of fact.
“I don’t want to shoot either of you,” you replied, trying your best to keep your voice from shaking with nerves. It wasn’t every day that you threatened the lives of the living ones.
“Well,” deputy said, his voice loud but calm, “neither do we.”
You wanted to believe him because of his uniform but who knows if he robbed it off some poor corpse. You wanted to believe that two guys in the middle of the woods wouldn’t harm you, but this world was different now, hell, even in the before you would be nervous if caught in a situation like this. Especially since they were just digging their hands into a dead thing.
“What the hell are you doing with the corpse?” you asked bravely, keeping your aim strong. You knew that if your aim shook with your nerves, the redneck would be able to spot it a mile away. He had a hunter’s ear and eye, that’s what your dad would’ve said.
Deputy looked to the other man and then back to you, “We’re… checking. To see if…” he couldn’t seem to finish.
You waited for a response, but it seemed that neither of them could give one. “You know, you can’t go around eating those things, right?” you pressed, knowing that the answer they gave you would be the deciding factor on whether to shoot or not.
Crossbow-guy huffed, “Fine. We’re checking the stomach to see if he’s eaten a little girl we’re searching for. She got separated from the rest of us, from her mother, and we’re trying to find her before it gets dark. We thought we should check… because then we’d know, for sure.”
You lowered your bow. And it didn’t take them long to lower their own weapons, too. Though there was slight reluctance from the redneck.
“Have you seen her? A little girl, ‘bout twelve?” Deputy asked, taking his hat off and running a nervous hand through his damp hair.
You shook your head. “Sorry. I… I haven’t seen anyone, just a couple of rabbits, you two and those corpses.”
Deputy nodded. He looked concerned. It seemed as if they were telling the truth which was helpful but unfortunate, you wouldn’t want to be that little girl, lost in the woods without her mom. The deputy finally put his hat back on and stuck out a hand to you as you neared them, still cautious, he said, “Rick Grimes,” and then gestured to his companion, “this is Daryl.”
“Y/N,” you replied, and shook his hand. You didn’t particularly want to shake Daryl’s, because of the blood and guts, and he knew it, so he didn’t offer it.
“Did you find anything?” you asked.
Daryl, suddenly quiet, shook his head, “Just a mongoose. Found the skull.” He looked over at the other corpse that you shot down, “Guess we should check that one too.”
It was quick but the noise was merciless. He found rat bones and that was all.
He wiped his hands as best he could and somehow, it didn’t really seem to bother him much. You weren’t that surprised… but you wouldn’t be able to do a task like that.
“We’ve got a group up at the highway,” Rick started, sheathing his weapon in his belt. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, “You’re welcome to join us. We don’t have much… but we could always use more people.”
You thought it over a moment but there wasn’t really much keeping you from walking back with them. You’d been sleeping up in the trees, which was uncomfortable, but safe. But only because you were by yourself, if you had others, you wouldn’t have to worry about strapping yourself up somewhere high. And you were on your last quarter of water and the rabbits were long gone by now.
“Sure, that sounds great.”
“It’s the least we can do, you know, for the walker,” Rick said, and began to lead the way through the trees, up to where his group was waiting on the highway.
“Walker?” you asked.
“It’s what we call ‘em,” Daryl answered, keeping his eyes focused ahead of him.
“What do you call them?” Rick asked earnestly, despite the rough attitude from Daryl. It seemed he was trying to calm the tension. You didn’t really think to take Daryl’s attitude personally though, you just guessed it was his part of his personality. Besides, it was a rough world you lived in, now.
“Corpses. Dead guys.”
Rick chuckled, “Fair enough.”