RIDE OR DIE | DARYL DIXON

from a friend

"FROM A FRIEND"

They stared at the bottles and gallons of water that sat in the middle of the road with the white sign. They found it when they began their walk again the next morning, only a few feet up the road.

"I say we take them." Carl suggested.

Rick shook his head firmly as he glanced around for any sign of the person that left them.

"What else are we going to do?" Tara licked her lips as she stared at the bottles.

"Not this. We don't know who left it." Rick was on edge, more so than before.

"If that's a trap, we already happen to be in it." Eugene voiced. "But I, for one, would like to think it was indeed from a friend."

"What if it isn't? They put something in it?" Willow was a bit shocked that some of them would even consider drinking it without knowing who or where it came from.

"Eugene-"

"What are you doing, dude?"

He stepped forward, quickly picking up one of the bottles and unscrewing the cap. "Quality assurance."

Right as he pressed the lip of the bottle to his mouth, Abraham slapped it out of his hands, the water spraying Eugene in the face. They all watched to see what Abraham would do next, but he stepped back without a word.

"We can't." Rick repeated himself.

They looked at each other for a moment, questioning if they all heard it. They glanced up to the sky, dark clouds rolling across it with more thunder that they weren't sure they heard correctly the first time. They felt a drop of water splash on their faces followed by more and more. They smiled as the sky began to rain, harder with each passing second. Whatever heat that clung to them was immediately washed away and substituted with the cold water that continued to fall on them.

"Everybody get the bags. Anything you can find." Rick was already rummaging through one of them.

They pulled out old bottles and containers and set them on the asphalt to collect the rain. They were happy with how fast they began to fill up, but it didn't last long. The thunder continued to roll in at a quick pace along with darker and more dangerous clouds. Willow and Carl tried their best to cover up Judith and Sienna from the rain as they began to cry, but nothing would suffice until they got to cover.

"Let's keep moving." Rick directed them as he began to pick up the bottles.

"There's a barn." Daryl told him.

When they were out the other night, they came across an old barn deeper into the woods. It wasn't much, but it was safer than being out in the storm.

The two of them led their group to their finding as quick as they could, the rain and thunder becoming dangerously wild. Their feet got heavy with the caked up mud that stuck on them as they ran, but the barn wasn't much farther ahead of them.

Rick entered first with his gun, but the barn was small enough to clear with just a couple of glances around it. They piled in once he gave them the go ahead and began looking for anything they could use to bring some light inside the barn. It was a decent sized barn, but it lacked windows, and with the dark clouds overhead, no sunlight was getting through the ones it did have.

To their luck, the barn had a few oil lamps and some dry sticks to start a small fire. Daryl managed to find a metal pan, and got the fire started on it right away. They sat around the small fire, their bodies shivering from their drenched clothes. It took them a while to warm up with how small the flame was. There wasn't much to be used as ignition.