Jinx || Daryl Dixon || The Walking Dead Fanfic

-18-

JINX

The winter was almost over, but they were still on the road. The group had just found another house to stay in for the night. Daryl, Rick, Carl and T-Dog entered first and the others followed. It was obvious other people had stayed there before them. There'd been a couple of walkers, but it had been easy to take care of them.

Lori was heavily pregnant by now and Jinx helped her carry in her bedding. She looked up as she walked through the front door to see Daryl defeathering an owl as he came down the stairs. She sighed, tired of eating animals she'd once just enjoyed catching sight of from afar.

She could hear Carl searching through the kitchen cabinets as Rick closed the front doors behind them. He came back to the living room with two tins of dog food which he quickly started opening while Daryl continued to litter the floor with feathers. The group sat in silence, there was nothing left to say.

"Psst" T-Dog nodded towards the window indicating a small herd of walkers ambling through the front yard and the group grabbed their things and ran back to the cars. There was a time when they could've handled that many easily, but after the lean winter they'd learned not to waste their energy if they didn't need to, there were enough daylight hours left to continue on.

Jinx rode on the back of Daryl's bike most of the time with the kitten tucked inside her jacket, the weather had warmed up enough now that most of them had discarded their winter coats on the journey, but she still borrowed Daryl's poncho made from a horse blanket most of the time they were on the road as the breeze rushing past them would always make her shiver. She scowled and leant slightly closer to him for warmth as she hadn't had a chance to put it on this time.

They stopped a little way down the road, Carl took watch while Maggie pulled out a map and laid it on the hood of one of the cars "When this herd meets up with this one, we'll be cut off" Maggie observed "We'll never make it south"

"What d'you say, it's about a hundred fifty a head?" Daryl asked Glenn.

"That was last week, it could be twice that by now."

Hershel pointed at the map, "this river could have delayed them" he told the group hopefully, "if we move fast, we might have a shot to tear right through there"

"Yeah, but if this group joins with that one, they could spill out this way" T-dog pointed at some of the hand drawn markings they'd added to the map.

"Only thing to do is double back at 27." Rick ran his hand over the map, "and swing toward Greenville"

"Yeah, we picked through there already" T-Dog reminded him, "It's like we spent the winter going in circles"

"Yeah, I know, I know" Rick nodded, "At Newnan we'll push west. Haven't been through there yet. We can't keep going house to house, need to find someplace to hold up for a few weeks" he looked over to where Lori sat in the passenger seat of the truck, they all knew she could have this baby any day now.

T-dog suggested heading to the creek to fill up on water before they left, they could boil it later. Rick turned to Jinx and Hershel who told him Lori couldn't take much more of the moving about. Rick asked what else they could do, pointing out she couldn't exactly give birth on the run. "Do you see a way around that?" Hershel looked down before he walked away.

"Hey, while the others wash their panties, let's go hunt!" Daryl called to Rick and Jinx, "That owl didn't exactly hit the spot".

As the three of them walked along an old railway track, Daryl looked over at a prison, "that's a shame", the three stood and stared at it for a minute and when Jinx glanced towards Rick she could almost see the idea forming in his mind and she smiled.