In The End: A Daryl Dixon x OC Story

Can't Go Back

Daryl and I heard screaming up at camp, but we'd been tracking that deer for hours. He refused to go see what was going on, insisting that we were so close and that leaving it now would have just been a waste of time. He also felt the need to remind me just how many people should be at the camp: Merle, Andrea, Amy, Dale, Lori, Shane, Ed, Carol, Jim, Morales, Jacqui, T-dog, and Glenn, to name a few. They could handle themselves. As long as Shane was leading them. I could tell that I had annoyed him with saying that we should go back, so I had just stayed quiet. Not like it mattered, the tracks were leading us right out of the woods. We'd be back at camp in no time.

Part of me wished I hadn't been right about it taking us out of the woods, when I saw people standing around a little further out from the camp than usual. As we got closer to the edge of the trees, I saw everyone staring, weapons at the ready. Until they saw it was us. Something had them on edge.

It didn't take long for me to figure out what that something was. At their feet was a geek with its head cut off. A geek that had clearly been the one to take out Daryl's beloved deer faster than he had, made evident by the two arrows sticking out of its ass.

However, as I looked over the half panicked half relieved faces of  my camp members, I also noticed someone new. A man I had never seen before was standing with Shane and Dale and Glenn, and just about every man that lived here save for Ed and Merle. He was surprisingly clean shaven, and looked as though he'd just been dropped into the apocalypse instead of trudging through it like we had the last few months.

"Son of a bitch," Daryl huffed, seeing what remained of his prized kill, "That's my deer! Look at it, all gnawed on by this flithy! Disease bearing! Motherless! Bastard!"

Each of his insults were punctuated with a kick to the geeks body as Dale attempted to get him to calm down. I understood his frustrations. Without the deer, we were in fact only coming back with some squirrels, two rabbits, and a backpack full of plants. Following that deer was all we'd really done today. As we followed the prints, I had taken the time to pick up more plants now that some of the mushroom was gone from my pack. But this was still a bit of a temper tantrum if you asked me. It wasn't like we had come back completely empty handed.

As expected, Dale's attempt to calm Daryl down were in vain and only earned him some more personal insults thrown in his face. Note to never tell Daryl to calm down, ever.

"I've been tracking this deer for miles," He huffed, pulling his arrows out of the deer, "Was gonna drag it back to camp. Cook us up some venison. What you think? Think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?"

"Man, I would not risk that," Shane said, and I could tell he was disappointed too.

"That's a damn shame," Daryl said, "I got some squirrel. About a dozen or so. Got some rabbit and some plants thanks to Danny. That'll have to do."

I was so close to being able to feel some pride in what I'd managed to bring back to the camp, but was instantly distracted by the geek opening its eyes and gnashing it's teeth on the ground. I had to swallow back some bile to keep myself from losing the cattail roots I'd chewed on for breakfast.

"Come on people what the hell?" Daryl said, surprisingly calm as he readied his crossbow, shooting the geek right through the eye, "It's gotta be the brain. Don't y'all know nothin'?"

The new guy watched Daryl as he walked off and Shane turned to me.

"What happened to you?" He asked.

"What do you mean, Shane?" I asked, just tired and hungry. Nothing sounded better than being able to lay down in a real bed with a big bag of potato chips. Again, something you don't realize you'd miss until you can't do it anymore.