Zedler, M.D. // Daryl Dixon

Chapter Forty: Not Good

•forty•

Beatrix

It only takes Maggie and I about five minutes to reach the part of town we want to go to. I figure that staying close will mean we're safer and we'll get back sooner. Maybe if we get back soon and bring back some decent supplies, Daryl will see that I am very capiable, and then hopefully he won't freak out as much when I want to go off on a run without him.

The place we pull up at was a small convenience store, something that you'd expect to find on a backroad in a small town, which is really fitting. Maggie and I glance around the back of the place before moving to stand in front of the door.

"Have you ever cleared a building before?" I ask, gripping my katana tight.

"Not by myself," she shakes her head.

"Me either, but I have an idea," I mutter before taking my hand and smacking it on the glass window a few times.

"What the hell, Beatrix?" Maggie whisper-yells at me.

"If there are any walkers in there, they'll come to the front and we'll be ready for them instead of just stumbling in on them," I explain. She nods her head, showing that she understands, as we wait for anything to come up to the window.

"It looks empty," Maggie notes after a few moments of silence.

"Then let's go in," I shrug, throwing the door open, unafraid of anything that could be lurking inside of the store.

The inside of the store is eerie and dark. I shine my flashlight around to get an overview of the place. It looks like food is on the right and everything else it on the left. I nod my head to Maggie, showing that I'm going to the left to see if I could find anything that we could possibly need.

I grip my katana tight in my left hand as I walk down the aisles of miscellaneous items. Two boxes of band-aids catch my eye, and I sigh, tossing them into my bag. There isn't much here.

"Hey, Maggie," I call across the store. "Having any luck?"

"Surprisingly, yes," she answers. "There's a bunch of canned food over here."

"Awesome," I mumble to myself, letting my fingers drag over each item on the shelf, tossing only what I thought was necessary into my bag. Soon, I found myself at the end of the shelf to meet up with Maggie.

"Did you find much?" She questions.

"Some band-aids, jumper cables, soap, and more car stuff. I though it could be useful at some point," I explain, and Maggie nods.

I make my way over to the counter, seeing what it has to offer. I smile to myself, noticing a rack with tubes of chapstick. I shove two of them in my bag, leaving the leftover candy bars for Maggie to grab, even though there were only like four of them. Walking behind the counter, the wall of tobacco products is almost completely bare. The only things left are two packs of menthols. Daryl doesn't seem much like a menthol guy, but I take them for him anyway. It's better than nothing.

My head snaps up to look at Maggie as we both hear people talking outside. Her eyes widen, and she glances toward the door. You can't see in or out of it, because there's so much dirt and grime covering it, but we can definitely see shadows. It looks like there are two men, and the closer they get, they better I can hear them. The voices sound eerily familiar, and it only takes me seconds to remember who they belong to.

"Those are some of Bob's men," I whisper to Maggie, tiptoing around the counter and towards the back of the store with her.

"Shit," she whispers back, grabbing my arm, urging me to follow her through the door to the back of the store.