Stronger Than The Rest

Glenn Is Not Allowed to Hold Daryl's Crossbow

Somewhere

On the Road Out of Atlanta

     The group was sitting in the van quietly until T-Dog lifts his head with an exhausted "Oh shit." Everyone looks toward him. "A's going to be pissed about Merle." Rick glances back, noticing almost everyone with their heads in their hands.

     "That Merle's girlfriend?" T-Dog sits straighter and more alert. "Hell no! She's Glenn's sister, but she has a good heart and isn't the type to leave someone behind... You know the type of woman who can give you a look and make you feel thousand times more guilty?" The comment makes Rick chuckled, "Yeah I do. My wife's quite good at it."

     "Yeah well so is she and I know for a fact we're all going to get that look." Rick shakes his head, "it couldn't be helped." Everyone nods and leans their heads against the walls of the truck. The rest of the ride back is silent as a blanket of guilt falls on them.

On the Hunting Trip

     "Man, where is this fucker?" I whisper under my breath, knowing that I wasn't going to get a response back from Daryl, especially with him concentrating so hard on the tracks and making sure every step he takes is silent. I go to give another sigh when I hear a loud, high-pitched scream. Daryl and I stop to look at each other. "That was Sophia!" I take off as soon as I finish my sentence with Daryl following. I push myself to go faster, just in case she wasn't close to any of the adults in our group, knowing that Daryl wouldn't be able to reach her before me.

     I jumped out through some bushes to see the rest of the group surrounding a geek eating the deer we had been hunting. The men all surround the geek, taking turns hitting it with what they had but still not making progress while I go and check and see if the kids are alright. Once I'm satisfied knowing that they weren't hurt and just got scared I turn back towards Glenn to give him a hug as Dale finally moves and cuts the head off of the body. Glancing down at the deer with a chunk missing out of its side, I sigh. "Daryl's going to be livid." If I hadn't been so focused on the deer, I would've noticed that everyone seemed to tense and look at each other when hearing Daryl's name.

     "That's the first one we've seen up here." Dale states.

     "Well, they're running out of food in the city, that's why." Another one of the men responds, and if it wasn't for his pacing back and forth, I would've thought he said that a little too calmly.

     The bushes start to shake and everyone other than myself lifts their weapons, ready in case another geek was following the first, the fear overcoming the rational fact that it was most likely Daryl- who I had left to go hunting with. He wouldn't be far behind and if something had happened to him, I wouldn't be so calm.

     "The hell you are girl?" I heard him holler as he stepped over the same bush I had to run through, reminding me of the height difference we had. He pauses momentarily at the weapons aimed at him until he sees the very dead deer we had been tracking for miles on the ground with the "dead" geek beside it.

     "Son of a bitch!" Daryl starts, walking up to the animal. "That's my deer!"

     "I think you mean our deer." He ignores my comment, continuing on. "Look at it. All gnawed on by this..." he kicks the geek's body, "filthy *kick*, disease-bearing *kick*, motherless *kick*, poxy bastard!" He finishes with one last strong kick.

     "Calm down, son. That's not helping." Dale interrupts his rant, and if Daryl's glare could kill, Dale would be six feet under. Or I guess, just on the ground waiting to be reanimated. 'Stop. Don't even go there.' I mentally shake my head clear of any thoughts of losing him.