The Rift [Daryl Dixon]

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

As I got out of Dale's caravan, I noticed people were already up and running.
I guess I had slept in. I was probably pretty exhausted, I hadn't slept more than two hours at night since this whole thing started. I was always up trying to figure out where I was and where I needed to be before the nightfall or too worried to even be able to close my eyes. I'd fill in the time by searching for new places to get food and water on my map, or just looking for detours when the streets were too infested by those things or the abandoned cars made it too difficult to get from point A to point B.

"Hey, how did you sleep?" Glenn waved at me, with a shy smile in his face.

"Probably the best night I've had in a while." I answered, shrugging. I would be lying if I said I was comfortable being around these many people. Specially when I had strangers like Glenn appear to care enough to walk up to me and say "Good morning." My social skills were a little rusty at this point, although, if it wasn't for my job it'd probably be none existent. The most social interactions I had outside of Bobby, Jack and a couple of people, was the job. Talking to people under the pretense of being a bounty hunter was all the social I got for years.

I thought about the roadhouse. Sometimes I talked to hunters, but all those hunting chats tend to get old really fast. Specially when their greatest hit is a poor excuse of a werewolf with a death wish, eating farm animals in a small town nobody's ever heard of.

"Amy's got a change of clothes if you wanna take a quick bath in the lake." Glenn said nervously, as if that made him uncomfortable.

"No offense." I gave him a weird look. "But I don't wear pink, and Barbie doll over there seems to have all the pink shirts still left in this world." I said, glaring at the pile of folded clothes she was carrying back to her tent. Pink being the most prominent color.

"I'll see what I can find for you. You just get something to eat." He said, a little amused by the uncertain look on my face.

"Nothing too girly. I don't wanna give the wrong impression." I added, stepping down the caravan to meet the boy. "If I start wearing all pink and skirts people will think I'm actually approachable. A flannel t-shirt and some jeans will do it just fine."

"Right, you don't want people to think you won't punch them in the face if they get too close." He nodded.

As we parted ways, I removed my gun from the waistline of my jeans and checked my ammo. I was dangerously low. I had some witch killing bullets and some silver ones in the trunk of my car, but I didn't want to use them just yet. Monsters were still a very big threat.
Maybe I could take the witch killing bullets in case of an emergency.

I walked up to the campfire and found Morales, he was sharpening his knife, but stopped when his eyes landed on me. "I saved some squirrel for you, girl." He stated, reaching for the plastic plate sitting next to the now fuming pieces of wood.

"Thanks, man." I mumbled, taking a seat across from him. "You got a piece of fabric you can lend me? I wanna clean my gun." I asked, looking up at him.

The family man brushed his dark hair with his fingers and looked around the log he was sitting in, before he picked up a white piece of cloth and handed it to me.

"Thanks."

I ate some of the meat on my plate while I dismounted my gun, and focused on my plan for the day. Since I was off to a bad start, I decided I would clean my gun, get those bullets and head out to Atlanta as soon as I put my gun back together. I remembered the building surrounded by walkers Glenn had guided me to, so I knew where Merle was. I just needed to make sure I was ready for my trip.

"You sure know your way around guns." Dale commented, walking up to me.

"My dad taught me to shoot when I was six. He and my brother Dean were into guns. Sammy not so much. I guess I spent so much time with them it kinda rubbed off on me." I simply said, briefly looking up at him.