Till Death Do Us Part: A Daryl Dixon Story (The Walking Dead)

16

I walked towards the farm house and our campsite after a very long morning and afternoon spent in the stables. I enjoyed tending to the horses, and I had even taken one out for a short ride. It helped take my mind off things on the farm.

'Do you know what's going on?' Andrea asked Glenn, her and T-Dog walking to him and Maggie. 'Where is everyone?'

'You haven't seen Rick?' Glenn asked. He glanced at me. 'Well here's Erin.'

'I was at the stables.' I mumbled, folding my arms.

'Rick went off with Hershel.' Andrea said. 'We were supposed to leave a couple hours ago.'

'Yeah, you were. What the hell?' I heard Daryl's voice. I turned to find him and Carol walking together. My stomach turned over. I really didn't know what to think about the two of them.

'Rick told us he was going out.' Carol said.

Daryl spied my figure and gave me a once over look without much interest.

'Dammit, isn't anybody taking this seriously?' Daryl raised his voice. 'We got us a damn trail! Ah, here we go.'

Shane was walking towards the rest of us gathered by the house.

'What's all this?' Daryl asked, pointing at the guns Shane was carrying.

'You with me, man?' Shane asked him, and I just knew he was talking about the barn situation.

Daryl took a gun with no hesitation.

'Time to grow up,' Shane raised his voice.

Daryl cocked the shotgun and walked align with Shane. Oh, God. This wasn't going to end well.

'Thought we couldn't carry?' T-Dog asked.

'We can and we have to.' Shane even handed me a gun. I took it with a great deal of uncertainty. I didn't take instructions from Shane. Where the hell was Rick?

'Look, it was one thing sitting around here picking daisies when we thought this place was supposed to be safe. But now we know it ain't.' Shane walked over to Glenn. 'How about you man? You gonna protect yours?'

It was no secret that Glenn and Maggie had some sort of relationship going on, and he glanced towards her. Glenn took a gun anyway.

'Can you shoot?' Shane asked Maggie.

'Can you stop?' She responded. 'You do this, you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight.'

'We have to stay, Shane.' Even Carl seemed eager to back Shane.

'What is this?' A worried Lori asked.

'We ain't going anywhere, okay?' Shane said to Carl. 'Now look, Hershel, he's just gonna understand, okay? Well, he's gonna have to. Now we need to find Sophia, am I right?' He spoke exclusively to Carl again.

'Now, I want you to take this.' Shane actually went ahead and handed Carl a gun. 'You take it, Carl, and you keep your mother safe. You do whatever it takes, you know how. Go on, take the gun and do it.'

My mouth dropped a little. Was Shane out of his mind? How could he so freely hand a gun to a child?

Lori stepped in front of Carl and spoke in a fierce voice, 'Rick said no guns. This is not your call. This is not your decision to make.'

'Oh shit!' We all turned to see what T-Dog was looking at. I gasped a little, my hand over my mouth. Coming out of the woods were Jimmy, Rick and Hershel. And they were leading walkers with them.