Zedler, M.D. // Daryl Dixon

Chapter Seventy-Nine: Breaking Point

•seventy-nine•

Beatrix

For Tyreese's funeral, Father Gabriel said a few words as well as a prayer. We all bowed our heads, though I doubt anybody other than him actually believed anybody was listening. In the few hours following, we also came to the realization that all of our food burned up on the bus, and all of our water was poured onto the engine in attempt to put the fire out.

Two days later, and everyone's skin tone has grayed a little. That's what happens when you go two days without food or water, especially in the heat like this. We've all been taking turns, constantly heading off the road to search for water or food. None of us have had any luck, though. We're also unfortunate enough to have accumulated a small horde of walkers behind us. They're walking at about the same pace as us, though, and since we're so weak, we haven't bothered wasting energy on trying to take them out.

"I'm gonna head out," Daryl suddenly says, walking off the road and into the woods.

"Please be careful," I call after him. I hate seeing him go like that, but I know he can hold his own.

"I'll go with you," Carol says, following after him.

"Nah, I'm good," he brushes her off, but she goes anyway.

"What are you gonna do? Stop me?" Carol says before they both disappear into the woods.

I find it weird, how close they are and how much she wants to be around him, but with the amount of energy in my body right now, I couldn't care less.

Occasionally, somebody will try to make small talk. This time it's Father Gabriel trying to talk to Maggie about hair shirts, whatever the hell that is, but she seems very disinterested.

My mood diminishes even more, looking around at everybody. Each person's clothes are clung to their body, drenched in sweat, and their hair sticks to their faces. We each trudge on, despite the ever lasting blisters that I just know everyone has developed on their feet.

About a half hour of walking later, we come up on a bridge that Rick deems as the perfect place to take out the walkers.

"Let me go take them," I offer, knowing I could walk back and slowly take them out one by one.

"It's too risky. You're too weak," Rick shakes his head at me, dismissing the thought. "We can't risk it. I won't risk it."

"Rick, I'm telling you, it'll take much less effort than if you and everyone else tries to take them out," I try to reason with him, but it's to no avail, and I have no energy to argue, so I drop the subject.

The plan is to stand in an open ended V formation and to push them off the bridge, one by one, instead of trying to put them down. It sounds good in theory, but I'm not sure about how well it will actually work out.

Once the walkers get close enough to us, we use our bodies to stumble and trick them into falling off of the edge. Between all of us, we manage to get about half of them down under the bridge before Sasha decides to take it upon herself to put one down with her knife.

"Plan just got dicked," Abraham curses, clearly pissed off as he pulls out his knife, using it to put down the closest walker to him.

I walk into the middle of the horde, putting a few down before the waves of dizziness wash over me again. I have to stop and rest my hands on my knees to catch my breath while the rest finishes taking them out.

"I told you to stop," Michonne scolds Sasha once they're all down.

"Hey, you all right?" Daryl places his hand on my back, and I stand up.