Wild Roses ~Daryl Dixon Love Story~•

The Barn

I left Glenn after Dale asked him to go get some water. Whatever Andrea said to him must have seriously hurt him deep down. I felt bad but didn't know what to say to him if I talked to him. I decided to go to the stables to help tend to the horses. No one was in there when I came, but after a minute of looking around the tack room, I heard light footsteps. I stepped out to see it was Beth. "Hey, sorry I thought there'd be work to do with the horses" I said quietly. "If you'd like we could groom em'" She replied lightly pointing to the grooming buckets. I grabbed one and she began walking to some of the older horses. Walking by one of the stables, I heard a loud thump and a whinny from one of the horses. It startled me so I jumped back a bit, but eased up a bit when I saw it was a tall black mustang. "Wow," I gasped looking at the beauty of the horse. I stuck my hand out slightly, and she cautiously sniffed, but soon leant her nose into it. "Hey girl," I said softly carful not to spook her. "No ones been able to even go near her without her rearing.." Beth's confused tone echoed through the stables. "What's her name?" I asked still not taking my attention away from the horse. "Thunder" she replied, earning a stomp from the horse. I could see why they called her thunder. Her stomp was very loud against the concrete floor. "You can groom er' if ya like. I'll groom Nelly." She said with a soft smile, trudging over to the stall across from mine. I opened the stall door and started to gently groom Thunder. "Darn, I forgot I was supposed to help Mags with lunch, are you okay here until I get back?" She asked locking up the stall and putting away the bucket. "Of course, I'll be here if you need me." I replied brushing out Thunder's tail. I thought I would take her out for a ride to look for Sophia. I started to tack her up when I heard a loud bang which startled Thunder and I, only to learn it was Shane. "You going to protect our own?" He said shoving a M1911 into my chest. "What are you talking about?" I questioned taking the gun. "Those walkers in the barn are a threat. We need to take out the threat," he said sternly walking away. I closed the stall and said a quick goodbye to Thunder. I ran to catch up with Shane who I saw giving guns to everyone else. "Can you shoot?" he asked to Maggie holding out a gun. "Can you not? You do this, you hand out these guns my dad will make you all leave tonight." She said sternly. "We have to stay Shane," Carl announced. "What is this?" Lori franticly asked. "We're not going any where ok?" Shane reassured. "Now look Hershel, he's just gotta understand ok? he, well, he's gonna have to. Now we gotta find Sophia am I right?" Shane said shrinking down to Carl's level. He handed a gun to Carl and said mumbled something about keeping Lori safe. He can't just give a kid a gun, that isn't right. I just stayed silent the whole time. Lori stepped in and whispered something to Shane looking rather furious. I glanced over to Daryl to see him already looking. He nodded his head and turned back to the group. "Oh shit!" T-Dog yelled. I followed his glance and saw 5 figures coming out of the tree-line. It was Rick, Hershel and Jimmy leading 2 walkers to the already full barn. Is Rick crazy?! By adding more walkers he could be putting us all at risk. We all started sprinting behind Shane. "What the hell are you doing?!" Shane screamed. "Why do your people have guns" Hershel said struggling with the walker on the end of the pole. "You kidding me?! You see what your holdin' on to?!" Shane yelled. For once I actually agreed with Shane. " I see WHO I'm holding on to." Hershel back fired over the snarls of the dead. "Naw man you don't!" "Just let me do this and we can talk" Rick demanded. "Whatcha want to talk about Rick?!" Shane screamed. We could all tell Shane would explode any minute. I looked around at all the worried faces and landed on Carl's. I nodded giving him a sense of security. "These things ain't sick!"I heard Shane yell making me look away from Carl. I knew something was going down, so I gripped my gun a little tighter. "There not people! These things right here, they kill! There the things that killed Amy, they killed Otis, They'll kill all of us if we don't do anything about it!" The last part sunk in. The farm may have been un touched, but the world wasn't. We grew numb to it. "Hey Hershel man, lemme ask you something. Can a living breathing person, do they walk away from this?" and with that, Shane shot the girl walker in the chest 3 times, earning another yell from Rick to stop. "That's 3 rounds to the chgest. Someone who's alive, could they just take that?! Why is it still coming?" Shane pointed his glock at the dead again and shot. "That's it's heart! It's lungs! Why is it still coming?!" He screamed shooting the dead again in the chest. "Shane enough!" Rick yelled finally getting through to him. "Your right man, enough is enough." He said plainly walking up to the walker and shooting it in the head, ending it. "Enough, risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!" Carol's face went white and I had to hold her up. "Enough, living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us! Enough! Rick it ain't like it was before! Now if y'all wanna live, if you wanna survive, you gotta fight for it! Right here, Right now!" I fixed the grip on my gun tighter and held it up to shoot, waiting for what came next. The next thing I knew, the barn door flew open and the dead piled through. I shot. One, Two, Three. Instinct taking over. I could no longer hear the gun shots around me, just a blur, like everything was in slow motion. There was no more walker's in the barn. The flow had stopped. There was sounds of sobbing all around, until it was cut off by a tiny growl coming from the barn. A little girl walker emerged from the bar, earning gasps from the group. It was Sophia.