It Comes With The Name

Chapter 5: Eye In The Sky

"He had enough in him to take out these two sumbitches. One-handed." Daryl observed, stepping over one of the bodies. "Toughest asshole I ever met, my brother." He continued, taking a moment to reload his crossbow. "Feed him a hammer he'd crap out nails."

"Any man can pass out from blood loss." Rick reminded him, continuing down the hallway. "No matter how tough he is."

"Unless he cauterized it," Lauren said quietly. "But I don't know where he would find the stuff to do that in here." As they continued down the hallway, Lauren wrinkled her nose up in disgust again.

"Oh god, what is that smell?" Glenn questioned. Lauren honestly wasn't sure, but her stomach churned nonetheless. As they approached the next room, the smell grew so strong she could almost taste it. They walked into what appeared to be a sort of kitchen where the putrid aroma originated. Merle's bloody makeshift tourniquet belt had been discarded on the floor next to a small stove that was burning. On the counter beside the flames was a bloody cast iron grill press. Along with the blood, it seemed to have some sort of charred remnants melted on the flat surface.

"What's that burned stuff?" Glenn asked.

"Skin." Rick replied, moving closer to inspect the scene. "Lauren was right. He cauterized the stump."

"Told ya he was tough." Daryl reaffirmed though he did look a bit concerned at the sight of his brother's burnt flesh. "Nobody can kill Merle but Merle."

"Daryl, he cauterized it but he still lost a lot of blood." Lauren told him. "I know he's tough but he's still human. You can only lose so much."

"Yeah?" Daryl challenged, moving towards the window on the other end of the room. "Didn't stop him from bustin' out of this death trap."

The five of them hurried over to the broken window that led out to the fire escape. On the ledge, among the broken glass, was a blood-soaked towel.

"He left the building?" Glenn asked anxiously. "Why the hell would he do that?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Daryl shrugged. "He's out there alone as far as he knows, doing what he's gotta do. Surviving."

"You call that surviving?" T-dog questioned. "Just wandering out in the streets, maybe passing out? What are his odds out there?"

"No worse than being handcuffed and left to rot by you sorry pricks!" Daryl spat. "You couldn't kill him." He said, turning to Rick. "I ain't so worried about some dumb dead bastard."

"What about a thousand dumb dead bastards?" Rick countered. "Different story?"

"Why don't you take a tally? Do what you want. Imma go get him." Daryl sneered, heading towards the door.

"Daryl, wait," Rick called, grabbing the back of the man's shirt.

"Man get yer hands off me!" Daryl whipped around, lunging towards Rick."You can't stop me."

"Stop it!" Lauren finally snapped, stepping in front of Daryl and shoving him backward. It didn't do much, but it did take his attention off of Rick. "You know as well as I do that Merle's not getting very far with that injury." She said, taking a step closer to the man who was now staring daggers at her. "Now, we're here to help you find him but if you keep blowing up like this every five seconds, we're gonna have geeks all over us before we even get a chance to look. So if you want any chance at finding him you need to chill the fuck out!"

Daryl stared for another moment and opened his mouth like he was going to respond but decided against it.

"We can help you check a few blocks around but only if we keep a level head." Rick said from behind his sister.