In The End | Daryl Dixon

Chapter 50: A Sign

The next morning, I insisted on keeping watch with Maggie. I refused to give up on the rest of our group.

I couldn't.

"You don't have to be up here so much." Rick looked at both of us once he reached the top of the ladder.

"I won't be." Maggie responded, not taking her eye off of what was in front of her. "This is the direction he'd come in. If he sends up a signal, it'll be from out there." She sighed." Or it won't be."

Rick turned to her. "When we go out there, it's never easy, it's never simple. It's always a fight. But we've come back from harder things. From further away. Glenn, Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha, they will, too." Rick looked away to look at the walkers below. "Maybe we don't wait for them to be back. We should start figurin' out how to draw the walkers away. We have some food, and water to last us a while and the walls are holdin'. We take our time. Really think this through. Do it right. Clear it so they can-- they can walk right in."

I gave a small smile at his suggestion.

"I saw Judith in the house the other day." Maggie said. "She's starting to-she's starting to look like Lori."

Rick nodded, "Yeah."

"Made me happy." Maggie said, looking back down at the walkers.

"Me, too."

I watched him climb back down the ladder when Tobin came to him with a few slabs of wood. They walked further along the wall with hammers trying to build up the weak points from the truck collision. But my attention was snatched when I saw a woman with a bucket of black paint beside her. The names Abraham, and Sasha still wet as she started writing Daryl's.

"Hey!" I shouted, swinging the rifle I was holding across my back as I climbing down the ladder. I marched over to her, "Hey!" I grabbed her attention finally as she looked at me in horror. I shoved her backwards "What the hell do you think you're doing?!" I used my sleeve to try and rub the paint off the wall.

"I'm-I'm sorry, I-"

"Hey-hey." Rick gently grabbed my shoulder pulling me away from the wall, stopping me of scrubbing the wall clean of Daryl's name.

"Where are they, Rick?" I pleaded with tears welling up in my eyes. "They should have been back by now. It's killing me."

Rick pulled me into his arms. "I know. I know." He whispered. "They will be back. Out of everyone here, they are more than capable of handlin' themselves out there. You know that."

I wanted to still have hope of their return. But every passing minute that they're not here, makes the sliver of hope I have left diminish.

"What the hell?" Tobin looked past Rick and I up towards one of the look out towers.

I turned around following his line of sight and watched as someone was crawling on a rope leading over the wall to the tower on the outside of the wall. We both took off towards the ladder, once up top I noticed it was Spencer.

"Spencer!" I shouted over the groaning walkers below.

"Spencer, get back here!" Rick called out to him.

"Spencer get back here, now!" Rick said again, but Spencer ignored him as he kept inching closer and closer to the other side.

My eyes traveled to the metal hook that was on the other end of the rope, the metal prongs were scrapping against the metal it was attached too, moving along the metal as Spencer moved.

"Spencer-Spencer move!" I called out to him.

Spencer inched a little further along the rope before the hook jerked, making him loose his balance, his legs now dangling beneath him and just a few inches away from the walkers below.