RIDE OR DIE | DARYL DIXON

too far gone

"YOU KILL HIM, you're going to wish you were dead."

⋯

"Looks like we're getting closer." Daryl said, looking at the back of the road map Hershel drew up for them. His depiction of the campus map was somewhat better than that of the road map. "The buildin' we want is just up ahead."

Daryl kept point as he guided them carefully through the learning resources building and into one of the veterinary labs. Just as Hershel suspected, it had hardly been touched. A few stools and papers were thrown onto the ground, most likely when everything first started, but all of the supplies still sat on tables and in cabinets, collecting dust as they to be picked up. They picked up rubbing alcohol, extra gauze that sat around on different work benches, a couple of veterinary books that they thought Hershel would appreciate, and whatever else they could find that might be deemed useful.

In the next room over was the jackpot. Tall cabinets held hundreds of different medications, so many that it was almost overwhelming.

"Anything ending with -cillin or -cin, grab it." Bob told Willow as they sifted through the medication cabinets. "We'll dissolve the pills in the IVs, put 'em right into the blood stream. Dosage will be tricky, but considering the time we lost..."

"How'd you do?" Willow asked Michonne and Daryl as they came into the room. They had spotted another laboratory room and decided to check it out while her and Bob read through the medications.

"Bags, tubes, clamps, connectors. Everything on the list." Michonne said, placing a duffel bag on the table.

"What about y'all?" Daryl asked, setting yet another duffel bag down.

"We got it all, plus more." Willow smiled, happy with their successful findings. 

"All right," Daryl groaned, grabbing the bag and his crossbow, "let's roll."

They started back down the hall in which they came from, but quickly took a different route as a couple of walkers came into view from another room. They kept behind Daryl quietly down the other end of the hallway, following the emergency exit signs. 

"There." Michonne said, pointing her flashlight at a stairwell sign.

They maneuvered their way through a dark room filled with different sized animal cages, a putrid smell emitting from every single one of them. 

It was just their luck that the stairwell was padlocked shut with multiple walkers on the other side of the door.

"How many?" Daryl asked, trying to get a quick glance through the slight crack in the door.

"I can't tell." Michonne answered.

The walkers they had seen earlier must have followed them, now pushing open the door they came in from.

"We can take them." Bob turned to the walkers behind them, lifting his gun.

"No, they're infected. Same shit that's at the prison. We kill them and get any of their blood on us, we risk getting infected too if we're not already." Willow urged him not to take the chance.

Daryl looked around the room for something to break the padlock on the stairwell door, willing to take the chance at those walkers rather than the infected ones. The padlock was already weak, so it wouldn't take much to get it busted and off the chain. Daryl took a chair from the ground, breaking one of its legs off and jamming it behind the padlock, using all of his strength the drive it forward and break it off. Within a few seconds, the padlock broke and the doors swung open, three walkers already coming through the door.