Knife Edge [Daryl Dixon]

Part Two - Chapter Ten - The First Blow (1/2)

The first blow is half the battle.
Oliver Goldsmith

Rick grimaced when he took the binoculars from Daryl as he joined him by the storeroom's broken window. 

They traveled down from Hilltop the day before as planned, spending a tense night at Sarah's base in the north of the city. Then, that morning, he, Daryl and Jesus left the others behind, driving down the 295 so they could sneak up on the men from the east. 

Not that he was getting much sneaking done. Though Daryl had picked a near silent path across the floor, his boots seemed determined to find every loose piece of glass. 

Taking heart that the sun was behind the building, leaving the storeroom in the shade, he trained the binoculars on the base. No matter what angle they came at it, it didn't get any better.   

It was a small preschool built in an L shape, its main entrance in the inside corner of the L. With guards on the corners, then every twenty feet along the fence, no-one was going to get near that door without being seen. 

Even if they did get past the guards, they would be going in blind as the windows on the inside of the L were roughly painted over with white paint, while the windows and exits on the outside were covered with scrap wood and metal. 

Rick didn't like any of it. Not one bit.

They could cut through its six foot chain link fence easily enough but not the oil drums, furniture and tires it was lined with. And while its wide double gates were its weak point, the buildings in front of the school and the uneven waste ground down its side prevented them from being rammed.

Jesus was right, they were dug in.

He panned the binoculars around the cars, trucks and motorcycles in the yard searching for the red and white pickup but none of them matched the one they were looking for. 

A man wearing jeans and a puffy jacket walked into his field of vision. Just an ordinary guy, if you ignored the AK-47 in his arms. Rick tracked him as he strolled to the gate where he shared a few words with one of the guards. 

Needing a moment, Rick lowered the binoculars. Every time he looked at the base, he came away feeling off-kilter. He just didn't know why. 

It was drizzling when they reached the school and the only people in sight were the fed up looking guards but now that the sun was out, the yard was full. Some guys were working out, using a set of weights in the corner of the yard. Everyone else seemed to content to chill in the sun. 

He focused the binoculars on two guys who were cleaning their guns. One was skinny with a ratty beard, while the other had long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. They were taking apart their sub-machine guns confidently, smoking and talking as they did so. The skinny one suddenly laughed, slapping his thigh before popping the other one the finger. 

It occurred to Rick, 'They're young.'

Daryl dismissed his observation with a shrug, but now Rick had seen it, he couldn't unsee it. Most of the men were in their twenties. Okay, some were older but some were even younger. Carl's age. 

He felt a pang of doubt. Maybe this wasn't the right group after all. He couldn't bring together the image of these men, these boys, sitting enjoying some early spring sunshine and the frozen screams on the dead women's faces in the woods. 

Daryl spoke from the shadows, 'No women.'

Rick breathed. That was it. It wasn't only the men's ages that was bothering him. They had been watching the base for hours but there were no women anywhere. Not one. Not on guard, not working, not sitting in the sun. That was what was bothering him. It was unlike any community he had ever encountered.