Stray // Daryl Dixon

Something's Gotta Give

I was half asleep when I heard a twig snap. A very normal noise to hear when you were by the forest, but the sound of it caused my body to shoot up from the indent I had made in the grass, my heart crawling up my throat and sitting there. I don't remember falling asleep last night, but eventually, all of us did, the stress of yesterday's events coming down hard on our already tired bodies. My head swung back and forth, my eyes scanning the tree line and what I could see past the bushes into the forest. Another twig snapped and I could hear the crunching of leaves under whatever approached. In the case of it being a walker, I didn't want to make any sudden movements or noise to draw attention. If we stayed still enough it could just keep passing through, not even realizing we're here.

Wanting to have a backup if it was a walker, I slowly reached my hand over and placed it on Mark's foot which didn't lay far from me."Mark, Mark," I whispered, attempting to wake him as quickly, but peacefully as possible. I saw his eyes squint closed like he didn't want to open them yet. "Mark," I whispered again, but this time a little more urgently. Hearing the tone of my voice he finally opened his eyes, his head lifting up a little to look at me. Before he could say anything I pressed my finger to my lips to quiet him and pointed in the direction the noise had been coming from.

He swiftly sat up upon hearing the footsteps and rustling that came from inside the forest. Instinctively, he went to go grab his weapon, but stopped once he remembered that we didn't have any. It felt like we had been sitting there for hours waiting for the rustling to trail off deeper into the forest. I even went as far as to hold my breath, while my eyes stayed locked on the tree line. A couple of minutes passed before we no longer heard any more sounds that seemed out of the ordinary. I breathed a sigh of relief, we made it through the night.

"Well, good morning sunshine," Mark said, which caused me to finally break my line of sight with the trees. I thought he was talking to me before I looked over and saw that Linc was finally waking up.

"How long was I asleep?" Linc groaned while he tried to sit up. He grimaced and held onto the side of his torso, but managed to sit up straight.

"About six hours," I answered him.

"Come on, we need to get a move on," Mark said, getting up from his spot in the grass, "we should be able to make it back in a couple of hours." Mark helped Linc get to his feet and we quickly made our way down the road again back home.

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Linc was getting tired, I could see on his face that his body was shutting down on him and it was beginning to worry me. We had only been walking for about an hour and even though we were getting closer to the prison, we still had a bit of a way to walk.

"There should be a town coming up just ahead," I said, trying to lift his spirits. I wanted to motivate him to keep going. He rested his arm over Mark's shoulders, steadying him as we walked. This definitely slowed us down as Mark had to carry a lot of his weight, but it was the best we could do given his injuries.

I prayed that there was something in this town that we could find useful to us, we needed anything. Whether it be food, water, or just something that could prove to be useful against a walker.

As I had hoped, I spotted a small gas station just up ahead. The convenience store attached to it most likely had already been raided, but I was determined to look through it. We approached the driveway into the small plaza and my eyes lit up when they fell on a little green Toyota that sat abandoned at the gas pump.

"I can try and hotwire this," Mark said as we approached the car, inspecting the inside. There were no walkers trapped within the car.

"You know how?" I asked.

"No, but I do," Linc spoke up, "I can walk him through it."

"You can't even walk," Mark cracked a joke making Linc laugh as he opened the passenger side door for him, placing him down on the seat and Linc scooted in.

"Alright, I'm gonna go take a look in there while you get that going," I responded, eyeing the convenience store.

"Be careful," Linc called out as I made my way up to the window.

I pressed my hands up to the glass, cupping them together and pressing my face up to them so I could shield the sun and peek inside. I scanned the vicinity through the grimy window. The inside definitely looked bare from already being raided by multiple people, but from what I could see there were no walkers looming inside. Nevertheless, I still knocked on the window to draw any walkers over that hid out of sight. I waited for a couple of moments before deciding that it was all clear.

The doorbell chimed as I swung it open, causing the hair on my arms to stand upright. Upon walking in the air was hot and dry, a thick layer of dust coating the counters and floating through the atmosphere of the room. I immediately grabbed a little grey basket from behind the cash register and began weaving through the aisles. Most of the product had been knocked over and sprawled out on the floor from people coming through in a rush. I placed whatever I would find useful in the bottom of my basket.

I managed to find one crushed protein bar, a couple of bags of very expired Sun Chips, a small bag of trail mix, and luckily a warm bottle of Gatorade. It really wasn't much, but it was some food to get into our bodies as we made our way back to the prison. I was about to take what I found and bring it back out to the car when my eyes landed on one of the fridge doors handles that had broken off. It lay on the tiled floor with only a part of it still loosely attached to the glass. Thinking this could be a useful enough weapon, I placed my basket on the ground and gripped my palms around the black handle and positioned my foot against the bottom of the door for resistance. Thankfully, with one swift tug in the opposite direction of where the handle had still been attached, the piece cracked off. I fell back onto the ground from the force of the yank but got what I wanted. I left the convenience store satisfied with my little basket of food and my two-foot handle.

"Scar, we gotta go!" Mark's voice yelled out to me, I could tell by his tone that he was frightened. To my surprise, they had got the Toyota working and a wave of relief washed over me. A feeling that was very short-lived when a chorus of gurgles became amplified on either side of me. Walkers had stumbled out from behind the convenience store, the sound of the car starting up drawing them over to us.

I ran over to the car gripping tight onto my supplies and throwing myself inside the backseat door. Before I had the time to even get the door closed behind me, Mark sped the car off leaving the gas station behind in our rearview mirror.

We drove in silence with the windows down after I had passed around the food between us. With my stomach somewhat satisfied I was finally able to relax for a moment, resting my head on the window ledge as the wind whipped my hair behind me. We'd be home in no time now. After what had happened, the night we'd gone through, I was eager to return home. The nerves still bubbled in my stomach as I was impatient with getting Lincoln back to Herschel to get some proper medical help. Although, I forced myself to try and relax. He was getting weaker by the minute, but he was still awake and alert, he'd make it.

"Five more minutes," Mark spoke up, breaking the peaceful silence between us. A surge of excitement rushed through me, I couldn't wait to be home. At this time Carol or Tyreese would be on the barbeque cooking up some meat for lunch, Rick and Carl would be down in the field gathering some vegetables and fruit to hand out while the meal was finishing up, and people would be gathering around and having a laugh. Then after lunch, I would be able to have a proper sleep in my little cell room.

My wishful thoughts were cut off when my head shot up from the ledge of the window, reacting to the noise that echoed through the car and bounced off of my eardrums.

"What the fuck was that?" Lincoln questioned, sitting up and leaning forward to peer through the windshield.

The sound of an explosion had just gone off, coming from the direction of the prison. My stomach flipped, what little food I had in there threatening to creep back up. I leaned forward between the two front seats, staring out the windshield.

"There." I pointed between them, my finger directing them to what I spotted. Just over the top of the tree line, we could see one of the prison's guard towers. The roof of it had been completely blown off, flames engulfing what was. They're in trouble and so were we.