RIDE OR DIE | DARYL DIXON

when the bells toll

FORT BENNING was their next big plan.

The group had stopped by an abandoned warehouse for the night before continuing the next morning. Daryl and T-Dog were able to siphon some gas from a few cars that surrounded the warehouse, filling up the vehicles equally.

Daryl decided to ditch the truck and use a motorcycle that the bed of it had been carrying.

"You ain't ridin'?" He called out to Willow, about to climb into the RV.

She shook her head.

All she wanted to do was lay down and sleep. The thought of Jacqui being in that building when it blew into smithereens kept her up a majority of the night.

She looked away from him, climbing into the RV, going straight to the back, curling up onto the couch with Sienna. T-Dog, Glenn, Andrea and Shane watched her flip onto her side, her back facing the four of them.

The group didn't attempt to speak to her much after the CDC. They could read the room. Willow was completely and utterly heart broken at the loss of the sweet woman from their group.

Andrea wasn't interested in speaking to any of them either. Though it was her choice to walk out of the CDC with Dale, she felt angry that he played her hand for her.

-

"I said it." Dale swung the RV door open. "Didn't I say it? A thousand times. Dead in the water."

"Problem, Dale?" Shane said sarcastically in front of the smoking RV.

"Just a small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no hope of-"

Dale looked over at Daryl who began rummaging through the open trunk of a vehicle that was packed with many different things.

"-okay, that was dumb."

"I can siphon more fuel from these cars for a start." T-Dog began to head up the road.

"Maybe some water?" Carol looked around at the graveyard they were in.

"We'll look around, gather what we can. Dale and Glenn, work on fixing that damn RV." Shane talked over his shoulder as he started looking into the cars.

The group checked each car that wasn't too far from the RV. Willow bent over to look into one, finding a rotting corpse in the passenger side, flies coming and going from the gape of its mouth. Her eyes trailed to the back seat that had a black hat and a few other things in a grocery bag. Opening the door, she threw on the hat in hopes it would help her eyes from the sun, and rummaged through the bags. Her eyes lit up a bit as her hands fumbled against a couple baby bottles, wipes, and canisters of formula. Her slight happiness didn't last long once she saw the baby seat next to where she retrieved the bags from. She stepped back in horror at the amount of blood that stained it.

"You alright?" Daryl had looked back at her, noticing the look that was on her face. He trekked over, taking a quick look at what her eyes were fixed on.

"Come on, you don't gotta see that." He put his hand on her back, guiding her to the car he was looting.

He reached in through the door he left open, pulling out a rusted crowbar and a few cans of green beans, tossing them into the grocery bag in Willow's hands.

"Get down!"

T-Dog was shuffling towards them, his voice barely a whisper. Willow and Daryl turned to him. His striped shirt was damp and stained in blood as he held his right arm, an 8 inch gash beneath his touch.

"Walkers." He panted, falling down the side of a car.

Their eyes trailed back where T-Dog came from, looking at more than three dozen walkers weaving between cars.