A Broken World

Forty-One

Daryl
Flashback
Mountains of Georgia 2010

Daryl was with his father, Will, and his Uncle Jess up at the cabin on a hunting trip. Everything was quiet and peaceful. Merle was locked up in the county jail for a couple of nights, which isn't anything new.  He got locked up for starting another bar fight.

Right now, Daryl, Jess, and Will were out in the woods hunting. Daryl was off on his own but not too far from where his father and Jess were. He could hear Jess telling Will about some blood. He heard the comment, “Has blood always been this dark?” He too had noticed some blood trails where the blood seemed to be much darker than he's ever seen before. Fresh kills always see a bright red. The blood he has been seeing is dark red, almost black, and it's still wet. He knows blood darkens as it dries and starts to coagulate, but this blood is still freshly wet.

It was all but a few minutes that he'd continued walking when he heard several gunshots go off, then Jess yelling out for him. It didn't take more than two minutes to reach his father and uncle. Will was laying on the ground, blood seeping from his neck. “Dad!” He ran over to him with mixed emotions running through him. “We have to get help for him.” Jess shook his head and looked at his own arm. “There ain't nothing we can do for him. Ya gotta put him down.”

Daryl's hand shook as he took the pistol from his uncle's hand. He brought it up, raising it to his father's head. He couldn't do it; he couldn't shoot his father. He wouldn't stand here and say he's never thought about doing it before. Because he has; he has thought about killing his father before just to be able to get away from the abuse. But here he was, standing above his father with a gun pointed at him, and he couldn't do it.

“I can't…I can't do it,” he said, dropping his arm. Jess took the gun from him and brought it up to look at his best friend; his brother. “Sorry brother,” were his final words to him as he pulled the trigger. Daryl flinched and looked away. There was no time to pick Will up to give him a proper burial, not when there were sick people…dead people?

Daryl wasn't really sure what was going on. All he knew was that these people were violent, and the only way to put them down was to shoot them in the head. He had learned that very quickly when he and Jess were running for their lives.

Daryl had fired the rifle in his hands, hitting one in the chest, right in the heart. A normal person would have gone down. But this one kept coming. They weren't even affected by it. They were surrounded by the time they got back to the truck. Jess was getting weaker and weaker. “Go! Get 8n the truck and go, Daryl! Find Merle and get outta here!” That was the last thing he said to Daryl before distracting the mob of infected. Daryl got in the truck and watched the only man he knew as an uncle be ripped apart.

The Prison
Spring 2011

YN

We had cleared the prison yard. It didn't take that long to do it either. Some of us went up into the towers, and the rest spread out on the other side of the fence. Rick was the one to make a run to the other gate that led to cell block C. Once that gate was closed and locked, we were able to relax for a little while and enjoy ourselves. After we got the cars pulled in, we gathered the bodies and put them in a pile on the other side of the yard far from where we planned to set up for the night.

A fire was built as the sky grew darker, and the air grew a little chiller. The squirrels Daryl had shot were cooked up and evenly portioned out. I was sitting by myself when Carol came into my line of sight. She held out a bowl with a small amount of meat in it. “I was going to take this to Daryl, but I think you should go do it.” I looked up at her and shook my head. “No, I think it would be better if you took it to him. He doesn't want anything to do with me.”

“Get up, you're going to go take this to him. Come on, stand up!” I raised my eyebrows at her. “Now. You can not keep avoiding each other.” I put my hands up and slowly raised to my feet. She handed me the bowl and pushed me a little to make me start walking towards the overturned bus Daryl was standing on.

“Brought you something to eat,” I said when I grew closer. I reached up and set the bowl down and started to climb up onto the tire. Surprisingly, Daryl helped me up the rest of the way. “Carol made me bring you this,” I said, handing him the bowl. “It's not much, but if you don't eat now, you won't eat at all.” He took the bowl with a head nod. “Guess little Shane over there has quiet and appetite.” I snorted at his comment, catching the smallest pull at  the corner of his mouth.”

Silence fell between us as Daryl ate. I looked behind us at our group; our family. That's what they are, right? They're our family. We've been through some much together for the past year. “Where were you when the outbreak happened?” I asked before I could stop myself. Daryl licked his fingers as he side eyed me. “Was at the cabin with my dad and Jess.” I nodded my head, looking down at my boots.

“Dad was the first to get bitten. Had his neck ripped out. Jess handed me his pistol to put him out of his misery but…I was too much of a coward to do it. Jess shot him, and we ran. When we got closer to the truck, we had a group of walkers on us. Jess had been bitten when he tried to save dad, so he sacrificed himself for me to get away. I hopped in the truck and took off.”

It was surprising that Daryl opened up to me at all. “What–what about Merle? Where was he?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself. “County jail.” I hummed, nodding my head slightly. “Starting fights at the bar?” I asked him, and he nodded with a grunt. “But you were able to get him out. That's a good thing. He didn't end up like these prisoners. Yet again, Merle would have found his way out of there one way or another.” Daryl scoffed out a laugh and started to climb down from the bus. “Come on.”