Sharpshooters

Meeting Dixon.

Two women jogged up from a hill to the right and started walking briskly next to us. Whilst on the move, I took a moment to begin observations again:

One of the women had long, wavy, dark brown hair. She wore a blue flannel over a dirty white tank top, blue denim jeans and a pair of dark brown boots. She looked around mid 30's too, I'd say. Thin and weak. The other woman appeared to be indefinitely in her early 50's, at least. She, on the other hand, had ridiculously short, shaved hair, perhaps a religious concept? She had wrinkled skin, but her face was slightly smoother and pale. Her young, deep green eyes stood out amongst her old features, catching the sunlight upon them. They were undeniably beautiful. Besides this, her outfit screamed OLD. A beige, low-necked t-shirt with small, grey flower heads dotted around, faded green khaki pants and brown ankle boots.

The girls soon jogged ahead behind a large shrub, with Rick catching up to speed. The distance between us grew and I thought I should probably keep up, just in case. So, I picked up the pace and followed. As I turned the corner around the bush, there were more people here than I originally thought. Within the newly-formed commotion, I spotted a tall, blonde-haired female. Wait... She was the one who was with Rick when they found me. Andrea, I think her name was. Clinging to her arm was a smaller adult who looked very similar, but just younger. They looked like sisters. Besides the people, the sight in the middle of us all wasn't really new to me- but my stomach still churned. It was a large, brown buck laid limply in the grassy clearing. Two crossbow bolts were stuck out of its neck. With these, a small corpse was ripping it into pieces, digging and clawing into the stomach. Intestines were out, it was chewing them. Liver out, chewing that too. Blood is everywhere.

"Oh god..." Andrea muttered, holding a hand to her mouth. Rick shuffled closer to the side of me and nudged my arm.

"They usually don't come this far up the mountain," he whispered, raising his gun and preparing to shoot. My eyes widened and I shook my head. In an attempt to stop him, I grabbed his arm and forcefully shoved it down to his side. He raised a brow and looked at me with a funny expression. I let go of his arm and grabbed at the handles of my knives tightly. Slowly, I unsheathed them one by one. 'Shnk!' The noise of the blades attracted the walker's attention and it immediately threw down whatever part was in its hands. After letting out a loud gargle, it turned around and looked me straight in the eye. I sighed quietly, raised my knives above my head then took a step forward. A safe distance was still between me and it - but, it still remained in a decent striking range. Without a second thought, I planted my blades into the top of its head. It sliced through the skin, through the skull, with ease and successfully disabled the brain. Now it was dead 'dead'. Unfortunately, it stayed upright on its knees and stared straight ahead.

I spat at it in a disgusted manner and kicked it against the chest with my boot. The corpse slid from my blades and fell backwards, hitting the grass with a heavy thud. A few sighs of relief came from all the girls and Rick. Just as we thought the coast was clear, ruffling came through the trees followed by snapping of twigs and a click of an unidentified weapon. Rick sprang his gun back up and pointed it towards the forest. I backed up and stood to the side, slightly behind Rick's shoulder. Much to our surprise, a tall, toned man trudged through the undergrowth with a solid frown. He must've come back from a hunt - it would explain the string of dead squirrels slung on his shoulder and this buck. He wore a faded green muscle tank with loose grey khaki pants and short, dark brown boots. He had short, dusty brown, tousled hair and a thin, slightly blonde, van dyke beard. The unidentified weapon was a Horton Scout HD 125 crossbow. Quick firing, easily loadable and undeniably BAD-ASS. Wow... I'm surprised I still remember my knowledge of this kind of thing. It's been so long since I was at work. And, where'd he get it from?

"Son of a bitch!" The woodsman spat, "that's my deer! Look at it-" He gestured to the deer, stepped over it and scowled down at the incapacitated walker, "all gnawed on by this... Filthy-" He kicked hard, "disease-bearin'" kick! "motherless-" kick! "poxy-" kick! "bastard!" Huffing, he spat and gave it one last kick. He turned back to the woodland creature, ripped out the two bolts and held them in his free hand, asking, "d'you think we can just cut 'round this gnawed up bit?". He pointed to the flank with the bolts in hand, "Savour somethin'?". He was a very rough-sounding Georgian, heavy on his accent. The grey-haired women looked towards the man and chewed nervously on her nails, muttering a "no".

"That's a damn shame," He sighed irritatingly, "I got us some squirrel. 'Bout a dozen or so. That'll have to do," he turned around and began to swagger back to camp, waving his bolts around. On the way past, he gave me an accidental, but hard shove which caused more wispy strands of charcoal hair to fall into my face, and resulted in me stumbling back. I would've fallen if Rick hadn't put his hand behind my back to steady me. He quickly removed it after I regained my balance.

"Hey! What the hell d'you think yo-" I raised my voice gradually and turned around to look towards where the man walked, but he had disappeared out of vision. Rick nudged me again to shut me up. I sighed madly and blew the hair out of my face. Rick held me back until everyone had gone back through. I looked at him and waited.

"That's Daryl Dixon, younger brother of Merle. He ain't going to be too happy 'bout our decision to leave Merle. So if I were you, I'd steer clear of him for now. Things ain't goin' to be good when we get up there," he nodded. I nodded back and together, we all strolled back to camp. When we got through the bushes, people began dispersing around the camp, leaving only the screaming redneck in the middle of the camp.

This is going to be fun...