Daryl's soldier

Chapter 5

It's an overweight untrimmed brut on his motorcycle. Oh shit. What's going on?

"Who are you? And where's Daryl?" I ask sternly trying to hide the shakiness in my voice.

"Daryl huh? He told us his name was 'Dixie Normus'" I can't help but laugh, at Daryl's sense of humour, and this guy's stupidity.

"Well...are you going to answer my question?" I ask loosing the smile and not breaking eye contact.

"We caught this asshole leading a herd of biters to our camp out." He snaps back.

"He obviously didn't know there was a camp. He was just leading them away from here...WHERE IS HE?" I yell raising my voice each word. He looks taken aback.

"He's back at camp with the guys..I wouldn't get your hopes up for his safe return...Bruno isn't very happy" he says with a disgusting smirk.

My heart drops. And so does his body off the motorcycle and on the cold hard dirt. I couldn't help it. It was instinct. I shot him right between the eyes. Obviously woken by the gunshot, Rick, Maggie and Glenn all come running out.

"What the hell happened?! Are you okay?! Where's Daryl?! Who shot the gun?!" Glenn asks panicked all in one breath.

I just stand there with wide eyes pointing at the dead man on Daryl's motorcycle. I tell them everything and watch the colour drain from their faces.

"This can't wait till morning. We're running out of time, everyone, get in the truck!" I order.

They obey. But first, Rick grabs Daryl's motorcycle and puts it inside the gate, kicking the brut to the side, then hops in. We start out by driving to the town where we split up. Then we go in the direction Daryl went. Luckily there's barely any places to turn which makes our search a little easier. Finally, after a long time of driving, we find a huge RV parked in the middle of a four way stop. I can already tell we're dealing with a bunch of psycho paths. We open the car door and hear Daryls strained voice;

"Get your hands off me you piece of shit!"

We all look at eachother, nod and surround the RV with our weapons up. I make eye contact with Rick, who's counting down from 3;

"three, two, one.." He whispers. then bangs on the door. It goes silent.

So he bangs on the side of the RV again, only harder. Someone peeks through the curtains, obviously not being able to see us, he slowly opens the door holding up a gun

"who's out here?" He yells.

Clearly this one is an idiot too, considering 9 times out of 10, you hear banging on your RV it's gunna just be a walker. Rick shoots him in the head. We all turn our heads with raised eyebrows at Rick

"what? Shit happens." He says.

Then something grabs me from the behind. I let out a little yelp as it holds my hands behind my back and a gun pointed to the side of my head.

"Shoot me. C'mon I dare you." He insists to Rick Glenn and Maggie.

"We don't want any trouble. We just want our guy back." Rick replies calmly

"says the one who just shot Bruno! What do ya say huh? Make it even? I shoot girly here and you can be on your way." He suggests

"NO! Wait! Can we just talk about this? No guns?" Glenn asks? "What is there to say?" He asks back.

"Please?" Glenn insists, tossing his gun on the ground.

Rick and Maggie do the same. I feel the pressure lifted off my temple, and he tosses his gun with the rest, still not letting go of the tight grip on my arm

"Thank you" says Maggie in a soft tone.

All of a sudden the grip is gone, and I hear the thud of a 250 pound man falling to the earth. Huh? I jump around to find him laying there with an arrow in the forehead; stunned, I turn back to the others, and see Daryl's head and crossbow sticking out the window with a smug look on his face.

"What? He said no GUNS!" he smirks. Oh Daryl. What would we do without ya?

We all rush into the RV and close the door behind us.

"This is awesome. Free RV and all it's supplies!" I say

"Sweet, Em, Maggie and I can drive this back, you guys take the car" Daryl orders Glenn and Rick. Daryl drives and leads.

Maggie and I sit down on the couches and start going through the drawers in front of us to see what we scored. On the bottom drawer, I pull out a dog collar. Maggie turns to me;

"Are you okay?...Your face just drained colour" I look up at her, with no words. It was a faded blue collar.

Just like Toby's. Toby was my dog, and my only friend, and when he was about 13 years old, he got cancer, and wouldn't eat. Everyday I would look at him and see the pain in his eyes. He no longer wagged his tail when I came home, he didn't care for walks, didn't even perk his head when I mentioned a treat. Then on July 18, he passed a slow and painful death. Ever since; I kept his blue faded collar with me at all times in my bag, so it was like he was always with me. I pull it out of my bag, and hold it next to the one I found in the RV, Maggie got the message.

"I'm sorry sweetheart." She says softly.

I look to the left to find Daryl's eyes locked on me in the reflection of the mirror. He looks away and I put Toby's collar back in my bag, and the other one back in the drawer. We drive back in silence. We get back, park the vehicles, and go right to bed because we were all dead tired. Rick takes the last shift.