Red ~ TWD (Daryl Dixon)

First Impressions

Our first encounter was like a slow motion train wreck.

You see it coming, you can't avoid it, but you sure as hell can't take your eyes off it either. The morbid fascination of the event simply too much to overcome. Most people would say since our first meeting was such a Greek tragedy that statistically speaking there was nowhere for us to go but up.

Those people clearly never met Daryl Dixon.

The guy fit into statistically probabilities about as well as a square peg fit in a round hole. He was the outlier throwing off the entire equation. Which was just a fancy way of saying he was a complete pain in the ass.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I haven't really decided yet, that pain in the ass changed the course of my post-apocalyptic world that day in the forest.

It was a typical summer day in Georgia. So, it was hot as fucking hell. As I stalked slowly through the woods, carefully with each step, I debated whether it was hotter here or the surface of the sun. Right now it felt like a toss-up.

My black cargo pants clung to my legs uncomfortably as I squatted down examining the deer tracks. I groaned internally at each bead of sweat that ran down my neck and back. My tank top was soaked, sticking to my skin in a way that made me want to rip if off, the smell wafting off me a constant reminder of the last time I cleaned properly. Pressing my hand gently against the tracks I felt the mud give way, still tacky and wet. Fresh.

Rubbing the mud between my fingers I looked up, scanning in the direction the tracks led, my eyes squinting against the harsh southern sun. Licking my lips I wiped my forehead with the back of my fingerless gloves as I stood, continuing forward. I'd been tracking this deer for what felt like days, but in reality could only have been a few hours, and this was the closest I'd been.

Never in my life did I think I would be hunting a deer, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And let's face it, the apocalypse was about as desperate as they came.

I prayed to anyone listening that all the conversations I'd listened to for years as the guys around me blathered on about hunting were loading properly in mind. If I knew then what I knew now I would have sat beside them with a pen and paper annotating every boring detail, but alas I had no idea I would survive the end of the world and be forced to hunt my own food.

I was by no means a girly girl before the world went to shit, but I wouldn't exactly call myself the Crocodile Hunter either. I bought my food in the grocery store like every other civilized person. Why hunt when you could just hit up H-E-B? Plus, they had baked goods, and let's be honest was anyone even sure where tacos lived?

But you gotta eat to live so here I was about to bag my first real meat in a week.

The sound of a snapping twig made me freeze as I dropped down on all fours at the edge of a small ridge. I flattened myself against the ground, inching forward in an Army crawl, using my hand to create a space between the dense foliage directly in front of me.

Raising my rifle I peered through the scope to the small clearing below. Less than 150-meters away was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next few weeks if I played my cards right. I positioned my Ruger 10/22 Takedown against my shoulder, slowing my breathing as I readied the shot. Taking one more deep breath in and letting it out slowly I held my breath as my finger curled around the trigger, the crosshairs centered between the deer's eyes. It was a risky move going for the head, but it also meant more meat to salvage and little chance of the deer scampering away after impact. It was hard to run when you were missing a head, and I didn't have the time or the strength to chase this deer around Georgia until it died.