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Daryl

I left Beth back at our camp so I could go hunting. I hadn't seen much in the forest but I didn't know if it was because of the time of year, or because Beth moved through the brush like an elephant.

It took me nearly an hour before I saw my first squirrel. I crouched patiently until I had my shot lined up. I fired and scowled when I missed. I shouldn't have missed. The shot was lined up perfectly.

I walked up to the tree and pulled the bolt out. I hadn't realized the shaft was cracked. It wouldn't fly true again. I bent the bolt and it shattered. I shook my head and threw the pieces on the ground angrily. My supply of bolts was limited and I hadn't considered the possibility of them wearing out.

I was on my way back to camp empty handed when I heard a distinctive rattle nearby. I prowled through the underbrush until I found what I was looking for. It wasn't my first choice, but beggars can't be choosers.

Merle had taught me how to hunt snakes when I was ten. I broke off the branches on a stick to form a tight Y and followed the rattler. I stepped lightly so I wouldn't alarm it into striking before I could get into position. I held the stick above it's head and struck down, pinning the head to the ground. I stabbed, cutting off the head. It wasn't a big snake, but it would be something to eat tonight.

Beth wrinkled her nose in disgust when I returned to camp, but didn't say anything while I cooked it over the small fire she built while I was gone. We ate in silence. There was nothing to talk about. We were surviving, but barely.

"I need a drink," she finally spoke up, after she finished eating.

Without looking at her I threw the bottle of water we had been sharing at her.

She flinched back from it instead of catching it. "No, I mean a real drink. As in alcohol."

I didn't bother to answer her.

"I've never had one. Cause of my dad. But he's not exactly around anymore so..."

I kept eating.

"I thought we could go find some..."

She was acting like a little kid.

"Okay...well enjoy your snake jerky." And she pulled her knife out of the ground and walked out of camp.

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Jo

I hiked along the tracks for a few hours. It was easy walking but there was no sign anyone had been this way. I kept my eyes on the undergrowth, looking for any evidence that anyone had been here. I wasn't as good as Daryl, my only experience was identifying animal tracks. So after a few hours I wasn't sure if there was nothing to find or if I had simply missed it.

I stopped and ate a small amount of food, sitting on the tracks. It was weird, even now it was strange sitting on train tracks and not needing to be aware of whether or not there was a train coming. I wasn't sure if it was something I would ever get used to. I still looked both ways before crossing a street.

I walked only a little further before I came upon a group of dead Walkers. I frowned down at them. Some seemed to have been killed by a blunt weapon, while three looked like a slim blade...or an arrow. I bent over them, studying the killing blows, but there was no way to know for sure. I wanted so badly for it to be Daryl I didn't trust myself.

I looked down at the ground. I couldn't see where the people who killed them went, but I backtracked where they had come from a short ways.

I needed to know if they had come from the prison. The trail was obvious through the woods and it converged with one of the main trails that ran from the prison. Something in my heart loosened and I turned back to the train tracks. I prowled along both sides heading south.

It was late afternoon when I finally found where they left the tracks. I stepped off the tracks and put my foot next to the prints. One was a larger male and the other was about the same size as mine.

I frowned down at the mud. I didn't know how to tell the difference between walker tracks and people. I looked back to the train tracks behind me and the tracks in the mud. I already felt like I had wasted so much time. If the people from the prison were running from the battle they would easily be a full day ahead of me. I couldn't afford to make the wrong choice.

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Daryl

I followed her. I couldn't just leave her to die, not if there was something I could do to prevent it. When I caught up she was cowering behind a tree as a herd of five moved past. She was shaking with fear and she had no idea I was there. When the last left she breathed a sigh of relief and turned. She flinched when she saw me standing with my crossbow in my hands.

I gave her a long look and turned to head back towards camp.

"I think we made it away. I'm pretty sure we got to go that way to find the booze."

She kept yammering on behind me and didn't bother to pick up her feet to step over the perimeter fence we set up. The metal clanged together when she hit it.

"What the hell!" she yelled. "You brought me back."

I glanced to the trees around us, if there were any Walkers nearby she was gonna draw every one of them to us.

"I'm not staying in this suck ass camp." She snarled and she flipped me off and turned to go.

"Hey!" I hollered back at her, grabbing her wrist. "You had your fun." I snapped at her, finally losing my temper. 

She jerked away from me, and I let her go. "What the hell is wrong with you?!" she raged. "Do you feel anything?"

I didn't respond. I didn't know how to respond. Of course I did. But I could never let anyone see that.

"Yeah, you think everything's screwed. I guess that's a feeling. So you want to spend the rest of our lives staring into a fire and eating mud snakes? Screw that! We might as well do something. I can take care of myself and I'm going to get a damn drink."

She stomped off through the woods away from me.

I looked back towards the camp. It was meager but relatively secure. It was far from the suckiest place I ever slept. Guess that wasn't the case when you were daddy's little princess. Shaking my head in disgust I went after her.

She walked on a weaving path through the woods until it opened into a golf course. I was surprised we had come this far west.

She turned to look back at me before stepping onto the fairway.

"Golfers like to booze it up right?"

Coming over the rise behind us were five Walkers. She looked at them and shook it off. "Come on," she snapped and headed towards the clubhouse.

We stopped near the front door. "There might be people inside." Her voice trembled slightly in fear and I guessed she wasn't going to be leading this little adventure no more.

The doors were locked and when I searched the body of the walker laying there all I found was a golf club.

I went cold as I held it in my hand. 

"Hey," Beth's voice called. "Hey," she said again when I didn't answer her. "What's wrong with you?"

I looked up at her. I knew there was no emotion on my face, but I could feel it roiling through me. I looked past her, just in case. I didn't want her to see what I was feeling.

The herd on the course had doubled in size and was heading our way. I adjusted my hold on the rubber grip and led the way around the back without a word.

I pulled the door open. I held up a finger and stuck my head in, making sure it was clear. "Come on," I said, ushering her inside.

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Jo

I made the wrong choice. I wandered through the woods for longer than I should. I lost the trail after the first hour, but I kept moving determined to find something.

By the time I realized it was a lost cause, I was in over my head and I ran into a herd. There were walkers all over. I drew my knives intending to fight. I was surprised to find so many so deep in the woods.

I heard another growl from in front of me. I backed slowly away from the herd as it was moving through the trees. It was a bigger herd than I thought. I moved from one tree to another, keeping them between me and the herd. I counted twenty before I quit and crouched down. I couldn't afford to be seen, I could never handle that many. Stress bubbled up in my chest as I started to consider how I could get myself out of this if I was spotted. There weren't many options and the stress quickly turned to something else. I was on the verge of a full blown panic attack. I tucked myself against the trunk of the tree and forced myself to breathe through it.

It was hard, being out here by myself and I hadn't realized how hard it would be until this very moment. There was no one to help me, no one to watch my back. I, of course, knew this before but it really hit me. It wasn't that I didn't have anyone to help me fight, but there was no one here to pull me back from the edge if I went too far.

Even in Woodbury I had Merle. He came down every night after a fight and sat outside my cell talking to me until I answered him. Sometimes it took hours before I was able to, but he never gave up. And then there was Daryl. He had brought me back even further the last few months. He had gone far beyond what anyone should have had to deal with. He helped me through panic attacks and PTSD episodes. He had stared my demons in the face and helped me fight them. 

The growls were getting closer and I closed my eyes. I moved, shifting my weight. I was getting ready to run when I felt something beneath my boot. I opened my eyes and looked down, lifting my foot.

Beneath my foot was the broken pieces of an arrow. I took it in my hand. The fiberglass shaft was split and the two pieces were only held together by the smallest thread. I closed my hand around it, brought the green and white fletched arrow to my chest and closed my eyes. The panic attack was completely gone. I felt like Daryl was helping me all over again.

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Daryl

We found the kitchen, and I began prowling around looking for anything we could use. We were desperately short on supplies, and while that may not be a big concern for her, it was for me. Most of the kitchen looked like it had been cleaned out. All I found was a bottle of cinnamon sticks. I shoved them in my pocket and kept moving.

Beth went off on her own, and I let her. I could hear her moving through the supply rooms. She couldn't be quiet if her life depended on it.

I heard the walker attack her. I moved into the hall and stood in the dark just out of sight as she fought it off. I had my crossbow in case things got out of hand, but I wasn't going to babysit her anymore. She was naive and selfish and I wasn't going to let her get me killed because of that. 

She fought it weakly, smashing a bottle over it's head before she even thought to draw her knife. She finally managed to stab it and jump back, sagging against the wall as she gasped for breath.

When she saw me standing there she narrowed her eyes at me angrily. "Thanks for the help," she snapped.

I glanced down at the walker. "You said you could take care of yourself. You did." And I turned away from her.

I led the way downstairs. The path was blocked by a trophy case and grandfather clock leaning across the hall. I crawled under them and set the clock back up gently so we could get through.

We came out into the pro shop. Beth immediately went to the clothes while I started raiding the jar of matches. I looked around to see if there was anything else we could use, but it was mainly rich people clothes. I climbed up on the counter and started chewing on a cinnamon stick while I waited for Beth to do whatever the hell she was doing now.

I was staring at a dead female walker when Beth came up behind me. "Help me take her down," she said urgently.

I glanced over at Beth to see she had changed into a new yellow shirt with a white sweater. I shook my head at that. "It don't matter, she's dead."

Beth's face hardened and she glared at me. "It does matter."

I thought for a few minutes and pulled a sheet out from one of the racks and tossed it over the body. "There," I said and led the way out of the store. 

We were headed back down the hall when the clock clanged. We both flinched and walkers snarled as the noise drew them. It was stupid of me to put it back up and not think it would make noise. Beth shrieked and took off but they followed. I growled when we came to the locker room and stopped turning back to them. There were only five and I was tired of running.

I fired my crossbow at the first, lodging a bolt in its brain. I shoved the second one back to give me space for fighting. I dropped my crossbow and grabbed another golf club off the floor. I destroyed the second ones skull with one swing. I turned on the third one but the head broke off in it's skull and I only came away with the shaft of the club. Piece of shit wasn't the quality Jo's golf club had been. 

I remembered her fighting with it in the forest, and outside the CDC. I stabbed the next one with the broken shaft, leaving it in the skull. I turned to the last one with my bare hands. I kicked it back, and it fell. Another came through the door and I pulled my knife. . How many times had Jo been forced to fight for her life with her bare hands. I slid the blade through the Walker's forehead. How many had Jo killed with nothing but a knife. And now it didn't matter anymore. 

The one I kicked away rebounded at me and I snatched up another golf club. I swung at it's chest, knocking it down. It didn't matter because she was gone. I swung again and again, hitting it everywhere but the skull as I felt the anger and self-loathing surge through me. It was all my fault, my fault everyone was dead and I was stuck here with Beth.

I beat it until one of the blows was off and took the entire front of the skull off. It splattered across the room hitting Beth's pretty white sweater and yellow polo. Beth stared at me with wide, fear filled eyes. I looked back at the bodies of the Walkers and threw the gold club down on the ground. How had she managed to stay this sheltered for so long. I snatched up my crossbow, exhaled a shaky breath and stalked out of the room.

Finally we reached the bar. I was done. I was ready to be out of here.

"We made it," she said in a shaky voice. Then she turned towards me, her eyes burning with intensity. "I know you think this is stupid. And it probably is, but I don't care. All I wanted to do today was lay down and cry, but we don't get to do that. So beat up on Walkers if that makes you feel better. I need to do this."

The bar had already been raided. There was broken glass everywhere. I walked over to a picture on the wall of a map of the area. I smashed it glass with the butt of my bow. 

"Did you have to break the glass?" she asked.

"No," I snarled back at her. "Did you have your drink yet?" I thought I did a pretty good job of matching my voice to the same judgy tone she had used on me.

"No, but I found this. Peach schnapps. Is it good?"

"No."

She looked disheartened. "Well it was the only thing left."

I snorted. There was a reason for that. I found the dart board and started throwing darts at the faces of the club presidents. I turned back to her.

She was sitting at the bar, holding the bottle in her hand and she started to cry. I threw the last dart, sinking it loudly in the wall before I went back to her. Shame burned through me. I had done nothing but be an asshole to her. I wasn't the only one in pain. The girl had lost her father and her sister. I marched over to her, snatched the bottle from her hands and smashed it on the floor.

"Ain't gonna have your first drink be no damn peach schnapps."

I snatched up my crossbow and stalked over to the door. I shoved it open, flooding the room with light. "Come on."

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Jo

The herd had been over fifty walkers at least. I had never seen one that size moving through the woods before and I wondered what could have drawn it. Typically, the walkers stuck to open fields and roads. They tended to take the path of least resistance.

I spent the rest of that day combing the woods in the area surrounding the broken arrow. I sank one of my steak knives into the tree I had been hiding behind when I found the arrow. I doubted Daryl would come back, but it gave me a point of reference. I worked my way out in a circular pattern, looking for any further evidence that Daryl was still in the area.

A small part of my brain reasoned that someone else could have found and been using his crossbow. That I shouldn't get my hopes up. It didn't necessarily mean he was alive. But another part, the part that had me gripping the broken arrow in my hand for the rest of the day, needed to believe he was still alive. Because what the hell else was I going to do out here all on my own.

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Hey guys, I hope you are enjoying the story! Jo's closing in on Daryl and Beth! Thank you so much for continuing to take time to read my story. I would love to hear some feedback. Please vote/comment.