The Fear (The Walking Dead / Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 13 - Ticking Time Bomb

They didn't wait for a week, more like five days, but Randall seemed to be healing fast, so my dad deemed it long enough. Rick and Shane were out there now, taking him 18 miles out.

Beth was awake and eating, not as much as she usually does, but enough to sustain her. She didn't come out of her room though, and spent most of her time in tears.

"I'll tell you something... what happens out there, happens out there. And we... we're just trying to keep it together till they get back." I heard Lori's voice as I made my way downstairs from visiting Beth. I hadn't spoken to her since she crashed Maggie's car and I was avoiding it. I was not in the least impressed with her hero act the other night.

"Things were good, maybe I..."

"Glenn's a big boy. He makes his own choices." Lori cut Maggie off. Glenn and Maggie were having yet another rough patch. Turns out Maggie had told him that she loved him before they left to fetch our dad and because of it Glenn had frozen while they were in the middle of a fire fight simply because he wanted to live to get back to Maggie. And apparently in his eyes that was a bad thing because he put the others at risk, or something. Their entire romance was more than complicated, but I was certainly routing for them. "Do you have anything to apologize for?" Lori then asked my sister as I finally came into the kitchen, walking over to a bench and picking up an apple.

"No." Maggie answered, shaking her head as they continued with their conversation, not worried about my presence.

"Then tell him to man up and pull himself together." Lori shrugged.

"Maybe, steer clear of the words 'man up.'" I added, causing Lori to nod.

"Mmm, that never goes well." She agreed with a chuckle. "Let me take this food to Beth, you two have a break." She then added, picking up the tray of food Maggie had been preparing and taking it upstairs.

"You should go and find Glenn. Have a talk." I stated.

"Yeah? You spoken to Daryl?" She shot back.

"Shhh." I hushed, looking over my shoulder to double check that no one was there.

"Well that's a no."

"Different situation." I responded.

"Fine, I'll go find him." She eventually sighed before taking her leave.

I finished off my apple and threw the core in the bin before also leaving the house and making my way to the shed. I passed Rick's group on the way, some of them anyway; Carol, T-Dog, Andrea, Dale and Daryl, all eating breakfast.

"Morning!" T yelled over to me as I passed.

"Kat, Hershel wants your help." Dale quickly added before I could respond. "He told me to send you to the far East paddock once you came out of the house."

"Did he say what for?" I asked curiously.

"He said that one of the cattle was spooked by something last night and got caught in a fence. Not a walker or else it would have..."

"Yeah, I got it." I quickly cut in, not wanting to hear the rest of the sentence. "Thanks." I nodded before continuing over to the shed and then jumping in Betty and starting her up.

"What happened?" I asked my dad as I pulled up the car and jumped out. He stood by the fence, shot gun in hand and a dead cow at his feet, rapped in wire.

"No more than a coyote. A walker would have hung around, taken a bite. Probably scared her, she ran into the fence and then the other cattle scared off the dog." As I got closer I realized that she had been alive when my dad got here and he had put her down. "Could have cut her out, but she broke her leg." He explained. "Woke early this morning, drove around to check on things and went back to the house to grab the shot gun after I found her. I put the rest of the cattle in the other paddock, but we need to cut her out and fix up this mess. Wire cutters are in the back of my car." He finished explaining.