Here's to Future Days

The remainder of the group arrived at the farm the following day. It had been a long night of waiting on Shane and Otis to return with the medical supplies for Carl. He had been circling the drain a couple of times and I thought that would be the end for him. None of us had slept, we couldn't until we knew he would be okay. Herschel did the absolute best he could and by some miracle, he pulled it off. Everyone was grateful to him, he saved Carl's life. The same outcome couldn't be said for everyone though, only one person arrived back from the supply run and that was Shane. He was vague with what had happened at the High School before he locked himself in the bathroom, only returning once he shaved his head completely bald. No one pressed him for answers after that.

We set up our own camp not too far from the farmhouse. Herschel was allowing us to stay here until Carl got better, as long as we pulled our own weight around the farm. Staying here also gave us an advantage when it came to searching for Sophia, we now had a base to return back to and people who knew the area to help us.

"Red!" Daryl called out to me, his crossbow swung over his right shoulder, fully loaded. I was currently chopping up carrots for tonight's dinner. "I'm headin' out to search, you coming with?" He asked. I immediately jumped at the opportunity.

"Glenn you mind finishing these up for me," I said as more of an order rather than a question. He rolled his eyes and nodded his head. I knew doing the cooking and laundry and just the much-needed maintenance around the camp was helping, but I much rather be in the action, doing something that felt purposeful by looking for Sophia. "Where are we going?" I jogged up beside Daryl, grabbing my bag of weapons in the process.

"Covering a new trail just down by the creek, see if we can find any tracks."

I followed his lead, an awkward silence was building between us as we entered the trail just to the right of one of the cattle paddocks.

"You think we have any chance of actually finding her?" I spoke up, wanting to talk about something. Sticks and mud squashed beneath our shoes, from the looks of it this trail hadn't been used by anyone in a while.

He glanced over to me, "You got that look on your face, same as everyone else. The hell's wrong with you people, we just started lookin'," he said, but he wasn't answering my question.

"Well, do you?"

"People get lost and they survive, happens all the time," he said, ducking under a hanging branch.

"Yeah but she's only twelve," I argued.

He laughed, "Hell I was younger than her and I got lost. Nine days in the woods eating berries and wiping my ass with poison oak."

"They found you?" I asked, this was the first time Daryl was actually sharing information about himself with me.

"My old man was off on a bender with some waitress, Merle was doing another sentence in Juvi, didn't even know I was gone," he paused and looked at me, "I made my way back though. Went straight into the kitchen and made myself a sandwich. No worse for wear, 'cept my ass was itching something awful."

I laughed at that last comment, I didn't mean to but I couldn't help it. "I'm sorry," I giggled, "I'm sorry that's a terrible story." He laughed along with me thinking about it, it made me smile more.

"You know the difference is, Sophia's got people lookin' for her," he cut my laughter short. "That's a hell of an advantage." We were silent for a little while longer, our guns half held up on alert as we walked. "What about you, what'd you really think?" Daryl now asked me.

I took a second to actually think about it, "Up until two days ago I thought my brother was dead for sure and then we saw him. So yeah, I think we can find her," I looked over to Daryl and smiled. My answer seemed to please him, like someone was finally on his side with this, that he wasn't out here just chasing her ghost. "Hey, can I ask you a favor?" I asked. He glanced over to me, not saying anything but just nodded his head to say go ahead. "I know you're out here the most looking for Sophia. I just want to ask if you could keep an eye out for my brother, Roy. You saw what he looks like that day," I was trying to hold myself together, "just if you come across him or anything that looks like he was there, could you let me know." I then took his dog tag off from around my neck. "This is his," I said, handing it to Daryl. He took it from me, I'm guessing as his way of agreeing.

"Royce Jensen?" he read out the name.

"Royce, Bentley, and Lincoln. My dad had a thing for cars." I laughed, thinking about it.

Just then we heard a low gurgle coming from around the corner, we readied our weapons as we approached. We made our way onto a small campsite. The tent was still intact, but the supplies looked to be raided by some raccoon and the fire was backend ash at this point. The gurgling noise was louder as we could hear the walker screaming out for us, yet it was nowhere to be seen.

"The hell?" Daryl said as we walked up to the large oak tree the campsite sat beside. Sure enough, there was the walker, hanging with a rope fastened around its neck. "Got bit, world gone to shit, might as well quit," Daryl read off the sign the once human walker had left.

My stomach churned as I stared at the walker. He looked to be in the tree for quite a while. His skin began to rot open and tear, his neck was stretched out so thin from the weight of his body and the clear attacks on his legs by other walkers. They were chewed at and ripped apart to the bone, his flesh hanging on by a thread.

"Oh I'm gonna puke," I said, the smell coming from its legs were rancid. I turned around and hunched over, "Can you please stick an arrow in its head," I begged, not wanting to hear its unfaltering groans.

"Why waste the arrow, he ain't doing' no harm," Daryl huffed out a laugh, "Dumbass didn't know enough to shoot himself in the head, instead he turned himself into a big swinging piece of bait. You puke if you have to though." He was enjoying my discomfort.

"Can we talk about something else? How did you learn to shoot?" I asked, trying to distract myself, I also just wanted to know more about Daryl.

"Gotta eat, that's one thing these walkers and us have in common, I'm guessing this is the closest he's been to food since he turned," he vaguely answered.

"I thought we were changing the subject?" I heaved up what little I had in my stomach as he continued to bring up the walker.

"I call that payback, for laughing bout my itchy ass," he looked over to me and I tried to hide a smile. "Anyways, let's head back," he said, leaving the walker still hanging.

"Aren't you going to kill it?" I asked, yet to move from my spot.

"He made his choice, opted out, let him hang," he walked away. Instead, I walked up closer to it, watching it as it swung its arms at me, desperately trying to grab me. My brother, Ben, popped back into my head again as I stared at this thing. It made me mad looking at it.

"You wanna live now? Or not?" Daryl asked, I hadn't realized he had walked back up behind me. He was referring to the moment I had at the CDC when I paused to think if I wanted to live before he came back to drag me along. I was surprised he remembered that. I turned to look at him in the eyes, he seemed concerned. "It's just a question."

"An answer for an arrow? Fair?" I asked.

"Mhm," he agreed.

I looked at him, my mind made up now, "There isn't anything that's gonna kill me."

He raised his crossbow up beside my shoulder, shooting the walker directly in the forehead. The gurgles and groans finally stopped. "Good, cuz I ain't losing anyone else."