The Walking Dead

Chapter 7

Silence descended on the group again. 

"Okay!" I clapped my hands, "Well, I should be going into the forest soon. I'll be hunting so, yeah!" I turned around to face Daryl. "Would you like to join me?" I asked. 

"It would be my pleasure." He said, smiling slightly.

"Great! We'll be heading out in a couple of hours. I need to take care of all... this." I motioned around.

"How?" Rick asked.

"Burn 'em." I walked over to my bag and took out a pair of gloves and slipped them on, the black leather clinging all the way up to my elbows. I began piling the bodies into multiple stacks and pouring gasoline over them. 

"I have a horrible feeling that I'll regret this sometime." I muttered, staring at the flame that danced on the edge of my last match. The other piles blazed behind me, fire dancing on the dead bodies. I dropped the match on the pile with a sigh. The bright orange flame flared up, capturing me with the hypnotizing colors that swirled in the heat.

"All right. Let's go." I muttered, walking past the smoldering piles of charred flesh, grabbing my crossbow and facing Daryl.

"You ready?" He asked. 

"Yeah." Walking from the group with Daryl beside me, I felt like we could survive this world. Like we could get through this horrible world, if we only had each other. My hands itched to hold his, feel the roughness of his finger pads gently rub my knuckles. I gulped and shoved my hands in my pockets, not trusting myself. This might be harder than I thought.

"How long have you been on your own?" Daryl's voice broke the silence between us.  

"Since I was eighteen." I answered. 

"Oh." 

"Yeah. What about you? How long has sir Daryl been been the lone wolf?" I nudged his shoulder teasingly.

He grunted a laugh at the nickname. "I've been alone since I was sixteen. I 'reunited' with my brother when this all started."

"That's... cool. I guess." I murmured.

"Yeah."

We fell into a comfortable silence, the only sound was the dry, dead leafs crackling underfoot. "Stop." We said at the same time, both holding our bows up. 

I fought back a grin, the edges of my mouth curling up slightly. I wanted to say nice instincts, but their was something up ahead, walker, deer, moose, something. Had I had more time, I would have used the extra minuets to examine the surrounding areas for foot prints, or tracks to see what we were up against. But, sadly we didn't have the time.

"You know that animals can't get the virus, right?" I whispered.

Daryl nodded, then motioned with his fingers for me to go to the left and him to the right. We would split up, then using a 'universal' sign, we would release our arrows and hope that one of us hit the right place, and puncture deep enough so that the deer would go down immediately, not having to suffer more than it really did.

I leveled the bow, looking through the sights, and spotted the game. It wasn't big, it wasn't small, but it was doing alright for the apocalypse. I kept my hand steady and looked over at Daryl. He nodded, his hands moving in gestures.

I almost smiled, his actions making him look adorable. I could see his baited breath as he waited for the kill shot. I breathed in deeply, then sighed, and released my arrow. The deer fell immediately, the arrow piercing deep enough in it's brain to where it fell down dead. The brain seemed to know that it was dead, but the body was a whole other story, it bucked and twitched, refusing to give into it's fate, as if it could out run it.

I sighed, Poor thing. It doesn't know that running is useless. Fate will eventually get you, and it can be heaven, or it can be hell.

I set my bow down, just as Daryl raised his a second time, aiming at me. I raised my hands up in surrender. "Behind you Faith!" He shouted.

I sprung up, spinning around and saw the two walkers lurching towards me. I cursed myself for being so stupid. "Seriously Faith, what was the one thing you learned to teach yourself? Always stay on guard." I spat. I reached back, feeling for my shirt, and finding that I had only my sports bra on. I felt a moments mortification, but pushed aside the feeling. There was time for that later. If I didn't focus, then there would be no more time. At all.

I wouldn't see Daryl if I died. Sophia. Carol. I wouldn't see the people who had become important to me in the small span of time I had know them. White hot fury filled me, red winking in front of my vision. I withdrew two daggers, the silver glinting in the weak sunlight that filtered through the tree's leafs.

My lips curled into a sneer as I brought my daggers up. I wasn't going to lose this battle. I waited for them to get to me, ignoring everything else around me. I focused solely on my enemy. I breathed in and out slowly, my breathing slowly calming down my heart beat. One reached me first, and I threw one of my daggers, it lodged in the brain, the walker going down.

Then the second one was on top of me. Literally. I fell back, my back landing on the ground roughly. I wanted to stop, catch the breath that left me when I fell. My other dagger clattered to the ground, too far away to reach. I uttered a curse, and reached for a dagger strapped to my arm.

It finally came free, and I plunged it into the walkers' head, a sick squelching sound coming from it. It collapsed on top of me, dead. I rolled the vile thing off me, just as Daryl came sprinting around the corner.

"Oh! Hey I didn't know we were going to-" I began sarcastically, before being squashed into Daryl's chest again. "Again, really? I mean, I hate hugs, but I guess yours are okay." I mumbled, my voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt.

"Were you bit? Scratched?" Daryl asked urgently.

I chuckled, "I've been up against bigger crowds. I'm fine."

Daryl's lips thinned as he scanned my body for bites or scratches.

"Hey," I murmured, laying a hand on his cheek. "I'm fine. No bites, no scratches, no harm done. Except to the walkers, of course. But other than that, I'm a hundred percent! Well, not mentally, but physically, I'm A-okay."

Daryl's sigh was mixed with two emotions, relief and lingering worry. I sighed and shook my head, smiling slightly, mind you. He was sweet, he really was. Oh, how I wish I could stay just as I was, in his arms. But we had to get that deer back to camp.

I tried to pull back, but my body didn't budge. "Uh... Daryl? We need to get the buck back to camp before it gets dark."

"Fine." He sighed. We picked our way down the hill, the fading sunlight making the trip down seem like we were in a romance movie.

Bleck.

Anyway, on the count of three, we hauled the deer up off the ground and started the slow journey back to the camp.

~*~

We took the final steps into camp, and if your wondering,  yes. We did stop and set up a fake trail of the blood, leaving a couple rabbits, a fox, and a squirrel at the end of the trail. If you thought about it, the whole thing was a typical scavenger hunt. Literally.

I knew this would work, but only of Rick and Shane decided to listen to me. I set the deer down gently, then spun around and grinned up at Daryl.

"Nice job!" Someone exclaimed, I think it was Dale, but I wasn't sure. 

"Thank you." Daryl and I said at the same time. I looked over at him and winked, he gave me an adorable half-smile and winked back.

Rick and Shane came running from where ever they were and stopped in front of us. "You got something." 

"Please. What did you think would happen when you sent out the world's greatest hunter?" Daryl scoffed. 

"And by that he means me." I cut in to clarify.

He bumped his shoulder into mine, and I turned around, seeing him smiling childishly at me. I grinned back up at him. Then we shared a secretive glance, and things got a little... crazy.