A Broken World

Thirteen

We went back to the office with the kid from the group that took Glenn. I sat on the floor with my head leaning back and my eyes closed. I still had a pounding headache. Rick, Daryl, and T-Dog were all talking about what we should do to get Glenn back. I blocked everyone out as I slowly began to fall asleep. Just as sleep was about to overtake me, I was shaken awake. "Yn. Wake up, you can't sleep right now." I groaned and opened my eyes. Rick was crouched down in front of me with a look of concern on his face.

"What kind of name is Merle? I would name my dog Merle!" Before anyone could stop him, Daryl was across the room, fist gripping the front of the kids shirt, with a look of murder in his eyes. "Back off, Dixon! That won't do any good in getting Glenn back." I stood up with the help of Rick and walked over to Daryl. He looked at me, and I could tell he wanted you to say something, so I spoke up first.

"Why don't you show him what you did to the last guy that crossed you? You know the trophy you took." I gave him a pointed look, hoping to God he caught on to what I was saying. It was a good few seconds, but he finally let go of the kid and walked over to Glenn's backpack. He pushed his hand inside and pulled out Merle's hand. "Wanna see what happened to the last guy who pissed me off?" He unwrapped the hand and threw it at the kid.

As soon as he noticed what it was, he flung it off, toppling the chair over and pushing himself backward against the filing cabinets. "What the fuck!" Daryl knelt down beside him, pulling his knife, and pressing it against his leg. He started making threats of starting with the feet until Rick pulled him back and tried talking to the kid. When he still didn't answer he let Daryl back at him and only then did he tell us where his group was.

We headed that way and met the leader of the group. He wouldn't take his guy back and wouldn't give ours back until we came back with the bag of guns. We ended up going back to the office where we left those guns and Rick started loading a few of the rifles and shotguns. He handed all of us one and took one for himself and we headed right back. We had a plan set in place. T-Dog was up on the roof in case we got into a fight. Luckily that didn't happen. Instead we were led inside by an older woman.

The place we were in was a nursing home. Glenn was perfectly fine. The families and staff just left the elderly here to die. The guy Daryl shot in the ass with an arrow was a nurse. The guy who was the leader of the group used to be the janitor of this place. When we left we ended up leaving with one less gun and one less box of ammo. We headed towards the railroad tracks where they had parked the box truck but it was gone. We knew who took it. "He's gonna be takin' some vengeance back to camp," Daryl said. So we started walking back to the quarry.

Night had fallen by the time we got back to the quarry. We were walking the long dirt road that leads up to camp when we started to hear gunshots. That's when we started picking up our pace and running the rest of the way back to camp. When we got there walkers were all over the place. Everyone was trying to back up towards the RV. I lifted the shotgun I was holding and started shooting. After the walkers were taken care of I looked around. We had lost a few people including Amy, Andrea's sister. I also learned that Ed, Carol's husband, was also killed.

We had decided that everyone would try and get a few hours of sleep and as soon as it starts to get light out then we will be killing up the bodies. Loved ones would be buried and the others would be burned. Andrea refused to move from Amy's side. I went straight to my tent and sat down on my cot, putting my bag beside me. I pulled the first aid kit out, grabbed the small mirror I had in the front pocket, and  turned my lantern on. I tried to look at the back of my head using the mirror, I wanted to make sure that I didn't have too big of a cut in my scalp.

Someone cleared their throat outside of my tent. "Can I come in," Shane asked. I sighed and set the mirror down. "Yeah." He unzipped the door flap and stepped inside. "I just wanted to check in on you. Rick said you were hurt when they found you." He looked at the first aid kit beside me and stepped closer until I held up my hand. "I'm fine, thanks," I told him. He held his hands up and took a couple steps back. "I can help if you need it," he said. I shook my head, "I'm good. I think I just need an hour or two of sleep."

Shane left and I put everything away, then I laid down, closed my eyes, and fell into a light sleep. When I woke up it was still dark out. I checked my watch to see it was almost four in the morning; I had slept longer than I intended to, but I needed it. I hadn't even bothered changing my clothes last night. I didn't see the point when I would just be sweating all day from the hot Georgia heat and cleaning up dead bodies all day.

I felt a bump on the back of my head when I went to fix my hair. Before I could even process what I was doing my feet were moving and I was in front of Daryl's tent. I knew he was awake because of the movement going on in the tent. The flap was already open so I pushed it to the side. "May I come in?" Daryl turned around and looked at me. He didn't say anything for a long couple of seconds before he grunted.

I stepped inside and looked around. Merle's things were in one corner. "What do ya want?" Daryl asked, not looking at me. "I wanted to…I don't know what I wanted to do. Look, Daryl, I did try to save him. He's an asshole but he's still a human being. It doesn't matter how horrible of a person he was, he didn't deserve to be stranded up there. I get it, he doesn't trust me and neither do you." I took a deep breath giving him a chance to say anything he might want to say. When he didn't I continued.

"But your brother…your brother isn't a good person. He got handcuffed to that roof because he was out of control. He deserved that and I could have left him up there all alone to die a horrible death. But the thought of you coming back from you coming back from your hunting trip to find out your brother was left behind and not knowing if he was dead or alive made me stay. Because I still care about you even if you hate me."