Oblivion - D. Dixon (ON HOLD)

8. Wildfire (Part 1)

Daryl returns Emiko's pistol to her with a grunt. She nods, understanding that he's trying thank her. She walks thru the camp filled with dead walkers and bodies to her tent, removing her knives from the walker's heads. She grabs a rag, a sharpening stone, and a bottle of water from her back and makes her way back to the others. She climbs the latter of the RV silently and sits on the roof.

Glenn, knowing what she was doing, grabs a flashlight and joins her on the roof of the RV. He shines the flashlight on her knives, she smiles at him in thanks and looks back at her knives, cleaning the blood from them. She places the sharpening stone on her lap and pours some water on it. She carefully starts sharpening the blades.

"You're blaming yourself, aren't you?" Glenn asks. She pauses her movements for a moment and continues to sharpen her knives, occasionally wetting the sharpening stone.

Glenn sighs, switching the hand holding the flashlight to the other, "I know you're thinking that if you stayed here, you could have stopped people from dying. But you choose to take accountability of your actions in the city and tried to get Merle back." he paused, "You did the right thing, I'm proud of you"

Emiko puts her knives and sharpening stone aside and hugs Glenn tightly. Her body shakes as she cries into her best friend's chest. He gently pats her back and just stays silent, knowing that was what she needs.

She pulls away sniffling and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her jacket, "I'm sorry about your shirt"

He looks down at his shirt, now stained with her tears and snot. "Don't worry about it. I can always wash it."

They both sit on the edge of the RV's roof in comfortable silence. The only sounds were the crickets in the forests, the wind rustling leaves, the soft cries of the others who were mourning the loss of their loved ones, and the soft scrape of Emiko's knives on the sharpening stone.

No one slept that night. The men who can shoot took turns taking watch while the others remained restless in their tents. Andrea was still hunched over Amy's body.

»»————-　➴　————-««

Emiko puts on her harnesses and walks out of her tent to help move the bodies. Daryl walks up to her, holding two pickaxes. He hands one to her silently and raises an eyebrow. She nods and the both of them use their pick axes to make sure all the dead stay down.

T-Dog and Glenn pick the body up and toss it onto a nearby fire that already has other corpses on it. The group gathers around the campfire.

"Y'all can't be serious. Let that girl hamstring us?" Daryl gestures to Andrea and Amy, "The dead girl's a time bomb."

"What do you suggest?" Rick asks,

" Take the shot." He walks up to Rick, "Clean, in the brain from here. Hell, I can hit a turkey between the eyes from this distance."

"Daryl!" Emiko says, shocked.

"No. For God's sake, let her be." Lori scolds, sitting down.

Shane shrugs his eyebrows, Rick shrugs his shoulders. Daryl scoffs and walks off. Even though he's cleaning up the corpses he doesn't pick up the one near the cook fire. Emiko rolls her eyes and heaves the pickaxe into its head. The other's flinch at her grotesque action. She pulls the pickaxe from it's head and puts it down, "I'm not saying that he's right but he's trying to look out for us." She pauses picking up the walker fireman carry style with a grunt, "In his own, occasionally, unethical way."

She walks over to the bonfire, carrying the walker. She sees Daryl and Morales start to pull a corpse to the fire where the walkers are being burned. Glenn notices too and walks over to them. "What are you guys doing? This is for geeks. Our people go over there."