Knife Edge [Daryl Dixon]

Part One - Chapter One - To Be Saved (1/3)

What shall we do to be saved in this world?
George Savile

Daryl paused when distant screams reached him through the woods. Desperate, terrified screams. A woman, he thought.

Between the screams there were shouts, though he couldn't make out the words. Men, maybe two or three. It could be them...

He had been tracking the Saviors for three days, since they went missing from the satellite outpost. Eugene sent them from the Sanctuary to assess the damage done during the war, but when they didn't come back, true to form, he asked Rick to sort out his mess.

And a mess it was. On getting to the outpost, they found five Saviors had lit out leaving two behind, both dead.

Perhaps Daryl should have told Rick the tracks of their vehicle went south, stopped him when he decided to go back to Alexandria in case the men were going to try and free Negan. He didn't though. 

He wanted to go after the men alone so that if he found them he could shoot them. No talk, no fuss. They had it coming for the humiliations, the attacks, and every friend killed.

The search had started well. He found their car fifteen miles down the road, doors open, abandoned in the middle of a herd. They must have run into it trying to make a quick getaway, and that suited Daryl fine. He had hid his motorcycle in a ditch beside the road and followed them into the woods.

That was when he came unstuck. First of all, he took too long to find their trail on the frost-hardened, walker-trampled ground, and now it sounded like there were other people in the woods. 

The woman screamed again. A high pained cry, sharp. 

He tried to judge how far away she was, but the winter was hard and the trees were stripped bare. It could be miles. He grimaced when the woman was cut off mid-scream but pushed on regardless. Those were the kind of screams he couldn't ignore.

He ran in what he thought was the right direction for about a mile, and by the time he stopped he was breathing hard. He traveled light for the time of year. A thick black t-shirt and shirt under his leather jacket and vest. He preferred to leave the weight he carried to his weapons. His crossbow in his hands, a machine gun across his back, and a handgun and knife on his belt.

His hair stuck to his face with chill sweat while he calmed his breathing to listen.

There was nothing though. Not the careless stamp of a walker. Not the secretive scurrying of an animal. Even the birds were silent where they swooped overhead.

He ground his teeth. He would have to search the entire area to have any chance of finding the people he heard, but it would be dark in a few hours and the woods could swallow people whole. Hell, this whole world could.

     Later, when the sun went down he was forced to stop. All he would find in the forest at night was a walker with his name on it. Taking shelter next to an embankment surrounded by scrubby undergrowth, he tied a thread to the ends of the slender branches around him as a makeshift alarm, then he built a small fire to roast a bird he had caught that day. 

While it spat and sizzled on the spit, he hunkered down and rubbed his hands together over the flames. Welcoming the tingle of warmth as it spread through his fingers.

It rained during the night. Not heavy, but enough to make it miserable. He took cover under a pine tree and smoked a cigarette as the treetops swayed in the wind. The rain pattered against the shreds of fallen leaves that covered the forest floor. 

He tried not to think about what was happening to his friends, their group, but the thoughts forced their way in regardless.

Everyone was scattered now. Maggie was at Hilltop, with her baby being due in a few months, and Carol was at the Kingdom, with Ezekiel. Rick was rebuilding Alexandria, and Eugene was trying, and failing, to hold the Sanctuary together after taking over from Negan.