[Finished] Living Among the Dead

09. Still

Daryl and I run from some of the dead and out through some bushes, and once we get outside into a clearing I notice a car. I motion to the trunk; as I rush to the front to pop the trunk. Daryl gets the idea, and as thunder rumbles overhead helps me get in, he hops in after me and then closes the trunk amd ties it with an old red oil rag.
The thunder rumbles overhead as the dead start pounding and shaking the car.
I feel my chest clenching painfully, and try to breathe through any on coming panic attacks. Daryl notices, and uses one arm to pull me up so that I'm in between his legs, basically laying ontop of the poor man, my back to his chest. He holds his crossbow in one hand and me with the other. I clench my eyes shut and we stay like this all night.
I guess I fell asleep, because I wake up to him moving and notice the trunk filled with sunlight.
But the car isn't moving, and I can't hear any growls around us, so I undo the trunks hood, and we both climb out, I immediately stretch out, my whole body sore from the confined sleeping quarters we'd shared. Daryl comes out after me; and we both start rummaging through the car. Grabbing the things we might need. We do this all in silence. Not a word has been spoken between us since our spat.

As we walk, he begins hunting for food whilst I build us a fire. Then together we make clankers for if the dead get too close to our camp.
Daryl skins the rattle snake he catches; and I cook it on the fire.
Once it's finished, we sit down to eat, and it's honestly not too bad. But I'm getting restless, I need to find my boy. Dead or alive, I need to know. "We need to go," I say.
He ignores me, just like before. "Seriously, I need to find Mason. I have to." He continues ignoring me, so again, I get up and leave by myself.

I walk right towards a small heard of the dead. Of course, just my luck. I throw a stone to try to draw them in the opposite direction, and it works.
Or at least I think it did, until a twig snaps behind me. I spin around, knife at the ready, only to find Daryl. I breathe a sigh of relief, before he turns around and starts walking back to camp.
I think we're going back to pack up, but he sits back down.
"Fuck you!" I snap, turning back around to leave once more, why I even followed this jackass to begin with, I'll never know.
I hear him move, saying, "Hey, you had your fun!" and he grabs my arm, so I pull it out of his grasp.
"I'm not looking for fun, you asshole! All I want is to find my son. To see if he made it and you're just so damn content playing camp; but I'm not! We can't be the only one's who survived, so fuck you! Fuck your negative attitude; I'm going to find my damn son; enjoy your camping trip," I turn on my heels and storm away, pissed off as hell. What a fucking jerk! It isn't long before I hear him come trudging after me. I almost hate myself for feeling relieved.

We make it out of the trees again to see a big golf course, "Someone from the prison could be holding up in there." I point out.
I make my way to the building.
Once we hit the entrance, I hear thunder rumbling over head again and I cringe, I hate thunder storms.

It takes some jimmying but eventually Daryl is able to unlock the locked entrance door.
When we walk in we notice someone had made a mess of the place, and there are dead hanging from the ceilings. People who'd tried to commit suicide. More dead people are laying around the floor.
I notice Daryl shoving money and jewels into a bag, and I watch on confused until we hear the dead pounding on the entrance doors trying to get in.
"Come on," Daryl says as we rush throuth another set of doors that he slams behind us.
I start looking around for anything that we could possibly need later on, flashlights that Daryl had found in the first room turned on as we both search the country club. There has to be food somewhere, I think before I feel one of the dead grab me from behind, the guy dressed as a barkeep. I struggle to take out my knife, and stab the guy right threw the top of his head; ceasing his movements. I turn to see Daryl staring at me.
He shakes his head and just walks the other way without a word.
There's a point where we have to army crawl our way under a knocked over dresser of some sorts, and then we end up in a clothing store. One of the dead was placed on a manican with a sign that reads RICH BITCH on it.
We go through yet another door and just as we pass an old antique grandfather clock; it goes off, spooking us both.
"Okay," Daryl says, and then we turn around to walk right into a group of the dead, these ones moving. We get further into a larger room and Daryl and I immediately go back to back as we start killing the dead, once I put my knife through another one of their heads I turn to see Daryl hitting one over and over again with a golf club until his skull basically explodes.
I notice a bar in front of us, and all of a sudden some alcohol sounds fucking fantastic.
I turn to look at Daryl, "I don't know about you, but I'm going to get a drink."
I see a look of disaproval on his face, but choose to ignore it.
I walk over to the bar to see almost everything is gone or broken.
One bottle ramains, but I'm distracted as glass shatters behind me, Daryl is breaking the glass to a picture frame and then he takes the picture.
"You have your drink yet?" He asks, meeting my eyes.
"I guess? It's no bottle of Jack Daniels, but ... I guess Pink Schnapps will do the trick seeing as I haven't drank anything in over a year."
I uncap the bottle as Daryl starts throwing darts at what I'm assuming is the pictures of the heads of the Club.
I hope he's distracted because I feel the weight of the last few days weighing down on me. Tears start coming to my eyes heavily, and somehow I'm unable to blink them back.
I close my eyes, allowing myself a short cry just while Daryl's distracted only to hear the sound of glass shattering once more. I open my eyes to see the bottle of Pink schnapps broken on the floor.
"Ain't gonna have your first drink in years be no damned peach schnapps." He snaps before approaching an exit door, "Come on." So I follow him once again. A more managable task on our hands. Find us a drink.