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Chapter Eight: Daryl

Denise shook her head at me for like the third time as she re-bandaged my arm. "What did you do to it?" she asked as she applied some ointment to the raw skin.

Fuck, it wasn't like I reopened the wound on purpose. "I was out huntin' and bagged a deer. A nice fat doe, too. But to carry her back I hadda get her up across my shoulders and that's what done it. Couldn't be helped Doc. We needed fresh meat."

"Well, you need time for this arm to heal if you want to regain full use of it," Denise scolded me.

I just sat there staring at her as she wrapped the gauze around my forearm. She was right and there was no way I was gonna admit that, but sometimes I just need to do shit my way. I knew I flustered her when she dropped the roll of tape for the second time. Tara handed it back to her giving me a dirty look.

"Denise, Rick said you needed to talk to us? What's up?" I asked her. Let's get down to business so I could get myself some dinner.

"Did you figure out if there's anything we can do with him?" Wait...with who? Me? What was Rick talking about?

"Do with me how?" I asked turning to face Rick. "What's going on?"

"Daryl," Denise said as she gripped my newly bandaged arm. "We've been trying to think of a way that you can help the rest of us. We've come up with really just one idea."

"Who the fuck's we?" I'd like to know who was deciding my future without me.

"I've been researching antidotes with the books that Pete has here and asking Taylor's advice. I'd like to try a direct blood transfusion from Daryl to another person. Maybe two. We don't have the facilities or the knowledge to create a vaccine, but if he gave some of his blood to another person, would that change theirs?" It sounded like what Denise was talking about was a crapshoot.

"Could that hurt the receiver of the blood?" Rick asked.

"Well, I don't think so, but nothing is a sure thing. The good thing is that the blood type Daryl has is considered a 'Universal Donor' so anyone can take his blood in a transfusion. Somehow his blood cells conquered the virus that makes everyone turn into..." I could see Denise was trying to come up with a word to call the dead.

"Walkers, we call them walkers," I told her.

"Okay. That turns everyone into walkers. Why won't it do the same when introduced to someone else's blood? That's the theory we are working with," Denise explained.

I watched Rick as he weighed her suggestion in his head. Did we want to chance someone's life this way? Me...I was fine, so I had nuthin' to lose.

"How would we go about doing this?" I could tell that he was leaning to trying this, but ultimately he would make it my decision. I knew he would.

"It's an old fashion way of doing a transfusion. I place an IV catheter in Daryl's artery and one in the vein of the recipient. Gravity does the rest. It's as simple as that." For once Denise actually confident in what she was talking about. That made me feel better since she would be sticking me for the IV.

"Do we have enough of these catheters?" Rick asked.

"Who's gonna be getting' my blood?" Rick had his concerns and I had mine.

Denise went to a drawer and using two hands pulled out a bunch of things that I had no idea what they were. "This is all we have. A little over a dozen. If this works, we're going to need a lot more. I'll use two at a time – one for Daryl and one for the other person. But before I suggest we go out and look for more, we need to know if this'll work."