Double Crossbow (Daryl Dixon) [The Walking Dead]

Chapter 77 ↣ You ready to order?

a/n 

okay okay did i have to go back and edit chapter 74.........yes. I HAD TO. THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER. i wrote this in a nearly delusional state, and i hope you enjoy. no need to re-read chapter 74.....just know that their.....encounter has been retconned BC THIS ONE IS BETTER!!!! okay ily <3

trigger warning: explicit content last third of the chapter <3

"It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I'd been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on this earth as though I had a right to be here."

- James Baldwin

↣ ↢

Daryl

Less than halfway back to Alexandria, storm clouds rolled in, angry and dark.

"Are we gonna make it?" Kathryn yelled.

A sheet of rain dropped around us, each drop like a bullet on the bike. I let off the throttle and replied, "No."

I felt more than heard Kathryn's resigned sigh. I retraced our route in my mind and took the next right turn. The bike slipped a little around the bend, and Kathryn's arms went rigid even as her weight moved with me into the turn.

I had never told her how to ride on the back of the bike, never had to. If she wasn't so skittish about it, I would've assumed she'd done this with someone else in another life. I knew her better than anyone. I could almost forget that I missed the first few decades of her life, like she had missed mine. Though she hadn't missed much. I wasn't much until the world ended.

But her, I had tried to imagine her before all this. I pictured her in an average diner with bad vinyl booths, pouring coffee. I bet she kept a pencil behind her ear.

The rain started coming sideways. I could only see a little more than a half mile in front of me. I slowed further. We needed to get someplace safe. I glanced at either side of the road. Trees, trees, and more trees. Their branches were whipping around like ropes. But that wasn't all that was moving. I killed the bike and drifted to a stop.

Mixed in with the trees were walkers. They were starting to pour out onto the road. Kathryn was no longer breathing behind me, neither was I. With the wind and rain, they hadn't seemed to notice us yet. Kathryn's hand came up over my shoulder, pointing out into the distance. I followed her direction but didn't see anything.

I shook my head, and she placed her hand under my chin, moving my gaze up. There, among the tops of the trees, was what could be a deer blind. Only problem was that it was through the walkers.

Kathryn stood from the bike and took the bows off her back. I set the bike down on the pavement. The walkers were beginning to turn in our direction. Kathryn tossed my bow to me then brought hers up.

We ran.

The tail end of the herd had locked onto us, jaws snapping. Their normal noises were replaced by the storm. Thunder seemed to pour out of their dark bleeding mouths. I grabbed the back of one's collar, wrenching it away from Kathryn. Its body dropped to the ground, head bouncing off a tree root. It didn't get back up. A sharp ting whipped past my ear, and I ripped Kathryn's knife out of a walker that had been making its way to me through the trees.

She shot another, orange fletching arching in the direction we needed to go before landing in a walker. I threw her knife, and it planted in a walker in front of her. She picked both the knife and bolt up as she passed.