Stray // Daryl Dixon

The Name of the Game

It seemed like the silence lasted forever, what had only been a couple of seconds, felt like minutes had passed. I stared down at Herschel's bloodied leg, no longer attached to his body. I scooted myself away from it as I tried to catch my breath.

"Who the hell are you?" an unfamiliar voice finally caught my attention, snapping me out of my state.

Daryl ran forward aiming his crossbow at a group of inmates that stood behind a wire cage in another room. We had no idea they were in here.

"Who the hell are you?" Daryl snarled back, his crossbow resting on his shoulder ready to shoot at any given moment.

I immediately got back to my feet, raising my gun to back Daryl up. I stared down five men, three of them had visible weapons in their hands, old pipes and bats they must have found laying around. They were the only survivors we seemed to encounter.

"He's gonna bleed out, we have to go back!" Rick said, not paying much attention to the possible threats that stood in the same room as us. He was focused on keeping Herschel alive. "Maggie, come here, put pressure on the knee. Hard!"

"You come outta there, slow and steady," Daryl called out to the inmates.

Each of them shuffled out slowly, their eyes wide at the scene before them. A greasy, black-haired man in a wife-beater walked out first. He didn't pay any attention to Daryl's weapon, instead, he watched Rick as he scurried around Herschel, preparing to move him.

"What happened to him," the greasy man asked.

"He got bit," Daryl answered.

That's when I saw it, the small pocket pistol sitting in the front of the man's tied-together uniform on his waist.

"Bit?" he asked, visibly scared as he pulled out the gun.

"Woah, Woah, easy now," I said, raising my gun and pointing it in his direction.

"Nobody needs to get hurt," Daryl said as the man swung his gun around aiming it back and forth between Daryl, T-Dog, and I.

"Do you have medical supplies?" Glenn asked, walking past the inmates and into the room they came from.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" A large man asked. He had the arm sleeves ripped off his uniform, showing just how muscular he was, he'd be able to crush Glenn in a second. Glenn didn't answer and walked directly past him, moving fast.

The walkers at the door now drew all of our attention towards it, their groans and gurgles getting louder as more of them huddle outside of it trying to push their way in.

"Who the hell are you people anyway?" The grease ball demanded answers.

"Y'all don't look like no rescue team," a short blonde redneck finally spoke up.

"If a rescue team is what you're waitin' for, don't!" Rick yelled as he sat Herschel up.

A loud crash then came from the room behind them before Glenn wheeled out a long trolly. "Come on, we gotta go," he said as he parked it beside Herschel's body.

Rick and Glenn picked up Herschel's lifeless body and hoisted him on top of the trolly.

"Scar, the door!" Rick yelled to me.

I finally broke eye contact with the inmates and rushed for the door, prying my crowbar from the handles and releasing the dead from the other side.

"You're crazy! Don't open that!" one of the inmates yelled. To my surprise, only one walker remained at the door now. I stood back and swung my crowbar at its head, putting a large indent to the side of its skull and knocking it to the ground.