Starting Over... |Daryl Dixon| |The Walking Dead|

Chapter 15: A Kind Gesture

"What's that?"

My muscles tensed up at the sudden question coming from the other end of the tunnel. The smudged up paper crinkled as my fingers tightened, and I looked up to see Daryl, ducking underneath the chain links and making his way over to me. He always seemed to sneak up on me in the most random moments.

Behind me, the hungry walkers kept pressing themselves into the fence, still persistant as ever. They squealed and hissed as they caught sight of Daryl tromping closer, stepping over the stiff bodies of their fallen comrades.

"Nothing good..." I sighed in response as I read the short sentence over again, "Look."

Daryl reached out and snatched the paper from me, and I watched as his sky blue eyes flashed over the words. His scruffy face twisted up in a mixture of confusion and anger as he glanced back over into my puzzled eyes.

For some reason, I had wanted more of a reaction out of him. But what more could he do, really? He was as clueless as I was.

"Why is this... Govenour guy trying so hard to kill us?" I started blurting my thoughts outloud as Daryl folded the piece of paper and tucked it into his back pocket, "If what Michonne said was true, he's got an entire town. Why does he need a prison, too? Why does he want this place so bad?"

Daryl raised an eyebrow at me as I said this.

"Think about it." He said, "Why do we like it here? Why do we need it? It's a fuckin' fortress, anyone in'eir right mind would want to live in a prison these days... I mean, you did, didn't ya?"

My cheeks flushed at his comment, remembering how we met almost two weeks ago now. I really couldn't believe Daryl was the same man that had chased me through the woods, and sometimes I wondered what had kept him from taking the easy route and just shooting me on the spot... Now, we were starting to become friends.

"I guess you're right..." I muttered as I turned to look at the undead crowd on the other side of the safety barrier.

They really were distracting. They made so many strange, repetitive sounds and eerie, unnatural movements.... It was hard to believe they were regular people once.

I heard Daryl curse under his breath, knocking the toe of his boot against one of the bodies. He put his hands on his hips as he surveyed the rest of the corpses in the confined space.

"We'll worry about this damn note later... Rick's already havin' a nervous breakdown..." Daryl grumbled as he ran a hand through his hair, "Right now, let's get these geeks cleared outta here... I got 'is arms, you grab 'is legs."

He had a hold of the walker laying at his feet, grasping one boney arm in each hand. I followed his instructions, wrapping my fingers around the body's ankles. I made a face and tried to ignore the moist, slimey feeling of the decaying flesh against my hands.

We hobbled quickly to the right side of the lot, hurling the raggedy body over the fence and into the deep pit with the others.

I made a face as I wiped my hands on my torn up shirt, smearing black smudges all over the front. It was ruined, anyway.

When I glanced up at Daryl, he was smightly smirking at me. In the dim light of early morning, I could see the rugged, masculine age lines to his face; On his forehead, and around his eyes and mouth.

But he didn't look old... He was caught in that period of time between young adult and middle-aged. The blonde flecks in his scruffy goatee held onto the younger man in him.

"What?" I asked him as my eyes narrowed, and his smirk faded a little.

"You squimish, girly?" Daryl teased as he nodded toward my still slimey palms.