The Fear (The Walking Dead / Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 53 - Home

"Take the light, go upstairs. There shouldn't be anything up there. I'll get the kids." I kept the headlights on and told Luke and Molly to go inside where they were then met by Martinez. He took them upstairs and to a bedroom and a bed to get some sleep while I started unloading the back of the truck. Martinez soon helped and we carried it inside where I could then begin to organise it. 

"If we want to be leaving here soon we should get to digging that grave." He said carefully. 

I looked up, silent for a moment before starting to nod. "There's a place down by the barn we buried some of our dead. But it's probably been burned over by now and we shouldn't stray too far from the house. Up on the hill to the left when you go outside. There's an oak tree and a mound of rocks in place as a memorial. Maybe on the other side."

"I'll find it." He nodded. "You keep sorting through this, someone should stay inside in case Luke or Molly come down. I'll get you when it's dug."

I wanted to do it, but I knew the house and where the supplies were we needed. I'd let him dig the hole and I'd cover it in. "You'll see the shed, drive the car down and use the headlights, leave the flashlight here. There should be a shovel in there along with maybe two more cans of fuel and a small green bag with essential tools in it."

He nodded. "I got it."

When he left I got to laying everything out after closing the front door to keep the room secure. I folded up the clothes and put them all in one bag. There was only two jumpers, two of Daryl's shirts and two of mine along with a pair of his jeans and mine plus underwear. There were two clean blankets and the sleeping mattress. One 3m and one 5m heavy duty ropes, the fire place racks and campfire pot,  three throwing knifes, Daryl's hunting knife and my machete which was still with Martinez, the pocket knife and a smaller hunting knife that was in the car, a compound bow with seven arrows and a sling that would need a few stones gathered. Plus the hand gun I had grabbed and the one that was in the glove box with two boxes of bullets, the sniper rifle with one roll of bullets and the automatic with three boxes. There was also two 1L water bottles we would fill up with the two 10L plastic bottles I left in the car along with one 20L can of fuel and hopefully another two that Martinez would find along with my tool kit and we would probably keep the shovel. 

The medicine contained 5 bandages, three gauze pads, thread for stitching and some butterfly tape, two bottles of disinfectant cream, three bottles of antibiotics, two bottle of probiotics, a heat rub, a bottle of saline solution and a bottle of steriliser plus a bottle of whiskey that would be kept for disinfecting not drinking. Among the tools were a scalpel, sutures, tweezers, a stethoscope I didn't remember grabbing, and a hand saw that was used for amputations because the electric ones normal used in practises weren't exactly convenient these days. There was also plenty of plastic chord for a tourniquet and a wide flat blade that would mostly be used to cauterised after being heated. 

Then there was another item, one I had grabbed and not really known why. It came from the cell a few down from Daryl and mine. A diary. Beth's diary. I wasn't sure why, but I saw it by her bed as I went to pass and I couldn't leave it. This black and white polka dot thing she had somehow managed to grab from the house before we fled over a year ago. For some reason it was important enough to her to grab then and I remembered when she had bought it maybe two years before. She only wrote the important stuff she had told me once. That way it was all in one spot and it would last. I couldn't leave it. I stared at the cover for a long while, but didn't dare to open it. I pushed back a tear that threatened and then stood up.

In the basement I found the stash my dad had hidden. Two slabs of 500ml water bottles, two baskets of fruit that had long since rotted, a good amount of dried jerky which was fine, a tin of powdered milk, five cans of fruit, at least ten small cans of tuna, bread that also had gone bad, potato chips, canned corned and beetroot, an entire basket of different powdered soups and a couple of bottles of juice that was probably safer to leave. But back in the kitchen at the back of a the cupboard I managed to find some pasta, coffee, rice, and sugar.