A Brother's Influence (A Daryl Dixon Story)

Finding a Place

 Chapter Sixteen

Finding a Place

It had been weeks since the last old farm house they were at. It had taken Daryl that much time to calm down after he had to kill the people there. They were animals and it didn't bother Daryl about the killing of them, it bothered Daryl about their victims. Who knew, somebody he knew might have been in there.

They had been scaling the city limits of Atlanta, not seeming to be in a rush anymore to get to Alabama. The feeling of hopelessness was threatening to overtake Daryl. Merle was Merle, he always thought life was shitty and he always will. He didn't have much hope in the first place so he was just fine.

Daryl, though, who was not a dreamer, at least always had hope. Now he didn't think there was too much to hold out hope for. At that moment, a deer was walking through the woods right at the edge of the road. Daryl pulled out his bow and aimed and landed an arrow right through the head. "Meat tonight!" Daryl exclaimed.

"That's good because we have a whole camp that could use a good meal." A blonde woman with a big black guy came walking up towards Daryl. Daryl looked at them from under his bangs that had grown out so long. "Who says I'm feeding everyone?" Daryl was tired of trusting people. You got hurt either way. If they were good, they broke your heart if something happened to them, if they were bad, they tried to break your head. 

"Listen, we got a lot of good people at our camp. You're welcome to come join us, it's mostly all families. We have water; have to boil it but it's there, we all got our jobs and it works. Why don't you bring that deer and come take a look see, maybe it's someplace you'd like to call home for a little while. Oh, by the way, my name is Theodore Douglas but most folks call me T-Dog." He held his hand out to shake Merle's hand but Merle just looked at him. An uncomfortable silence dropped for about ten seconds then Daryl stepped up and held out his hand. "My name is Daryl Dixon and this here is my brother Merle. How's it going?" He looked at the blond and said, "and you are?"

"My name is Andrea, you guys gonna share or what?"

Daryl liked this girl, she had grit. But it was Merle who spoke up, "Well darling, that depends."

"On what?" She gritted her teeth, she didn't like this guy, he made her feel like bugs were crawling all over her body when he looked and talked to her. 

 "On what ya got to offer us back. I like to call it, the barter system."

"Ugh, there's nothing that I would ever barter with you." She looked at him squarely in the eyes, "Especially not that." She added when she saw him look down at her V.

Daryl looked at Merle to try to get some indication of what he was thinking. He gave him that nod of his head to indicate that he would like to check out this camp. "He don't want none of that." Daryl nodded to her Y again. "He was thinking more like a tent or something enclosed so we can get some sleep." He knew what his brother was but he also knew he wasn't any rapist. He was a thief and liar. No more.

"That could be arranged, do you want me to help carry the deer?" The guy named T-Dog asked.

"Naw, I got it." Daryl didn't require any ones help.

He pulled out his arrow and cleaned it off on some leaves. He did a field dressing of the deer and then hoisted it up in arms, blood spilling on his clothes. "Lead the way, but we don't want no trouble."

"Ah, don't worry about that, the most trouble we have is keeping the kids quiet around camp, but their getting better about that now, now that they know the danger of them geeks."

"Geeks?" Merle asked.

"Ya, you know, them people that chase you to eat you. What do you call them?" T-Dog asked.