Cult » Daryl Dixon

fifty four

"Quit it, now, or we ain't gettin' nowhere," he threatened playfully.

"Ooh, I'm so scared," I sing-songed back to him. "What you gonna do about it?"

"That ain't to discuss in public," he said, revving the engine. I let out a loud cackle, us zooming out of the gates and onto the road. It wasn't much of a lengthy ride, but it still had me wondering how far we were gonna go. Daryl turned into a grassy area, pulling under the cover of the trees while Aaron maneuvered his car to shield the bike when he parked. I went and grabbed my sword from the backseat and noticed Daryl examining the ground, looking for something to track.

"Aaron, have you ever sent people away before," I wondered, the question just randomly popping into my head. "I didn't know if you've ever had to do that with you being in charge of bringing them in and all."

"Unfortunately," he sighed sadly. "There was a small group I found that I thought would work out, but they didn't. Aiden, Nicholas, and I had to drive them out. We gave them a day's worth of food and water then left." Before Aaron could tell me anymore about what happened, Daryl suddenly put his hand out in front of us to stop us in our tracks. He pulled out a pair of binoculars from Aaron's backpack and peered through them at what seemed to be a guy in a red poncho ahead of us. He was rubbing something on his face. I squinted, trying to see the man better.

"What's he doing? Bathing," I asked in confusion.

"Wild leeks," Daryl responded, impressed. "Son of a bitch knows how to keep mosquitos off 'im." He put the binoculars down. "We should follow 'im. He's been out here a while, could lead somewhere good." Aaron and I agreed with the suggestion, the three of us following the man as he began to step out of view. The path he took led us onto a road that ended at an abandoned food supply warehouse. Several biters wandered about in the lot behind the thick chainlink fence. Daryl grabbed the binoculars again, scanning the parking lot to see if he could find the man in any of the various nooks and crannies of the warehouse lot.

"We checked the forest and the roads," Aaron sighed, disappointed. "We've lost him."

"Then this means we're givin' up," Daryl grumbled, annoyed with how quickly he was willing to drop this whole search.

"We're not gonna give up," I chimed in. "When one door closes, another one opens and since we need to make sure everyone's fed, I think we might be in the right place," I hinted, motioning to the warehouse. Daryl nodded, a smile smile tugging at his lips; he was proud of me taking the reins. He tapped his knife on the fence to draw the biters' attention so we could put them down and safely make our way through. After taking care of the corpses, Daryl, Aaron, and I sauntered across the vacant lot to the docked semi-trailers. We squeezed in between them to get to the back doors. Aaron bent down and pulled the license plate off of one of the trucks. He shoved it into his backpack. Daryl shuffled over to another trailer and bent down to unlatch it.

"Hey, I don't like giving up and all either, but the guy's in a red poncho. You can see him from a mile away," Aaron blurted out, still stuck on the subject from before. "But I mean like you said, Aften, if we go back with a trailer full of cans, that's way better than finding people."

"I'm glad I make some sense sometimes," I smirked, poking fun at him. Daryl finally figured out the latch and lifted up the trailer door, revealing a group of biters inside who started to gnash their teeth at the sight of us. My eyes widened, all the other trailer doors flying open like they were all connected together on a wire. The biters inside began to spill out towards us. It was a fucking trap. The three of us booked it, sprinting back out into the parking lot and killing the biters who lingered over to us. A biter snuck up behind Aaron and clawed at his backpack, knocking it off of his shoulders and onto the ground. I swung my sword and cut the biter's head in half. There were so many of them starting to close in that I didn't have time to pick his backpack up; I was too busy worried about keeping the biters off me. Daryl noticed an abandoned car farther out into the lot.