Walking With the Dead

“Want any more possum?” Daryl leaned forward and offered a stringy piece of meat towards Emma, who wrinkled up her nose and shook her head. “Suit yourself,” Daryl said before gulping down the last of the meat.

Emma, shivering, tightened the crocheted afghan around her body and tried to scoot closer to the fire. “Do you think we could put another log on?” Emma asked hopefully, even though she already knew the answer.

As she’d expected, Daryl shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t risk creating anymore smoke.”

Emma frowned, and watched the glowing orange and red embers in the fire place. Daryl and Emma had found refuge in a small, one-story house just a few streets away from the library and daycare. It was the only house that didn’t have any broken windows or doors smashed in. There had been a single walker lurking in one of the bedrooms, but Daryl had taken care of it without breaking a sweat.

After blocking the doors with heavy furniture and drawing the curtains closed over the windows, Daryl had started a small fire in the fireplace using a couple logs he had found in a storage shed out back. Daryl sat down beside the fireplace, and he cleaned and cooked the possum while Emma sat opposite him and watched silently, wrapped in the only blanket she could find in the house.

No matter how hard she tried, Emma couldn’t get the image of the white Toyota truck out of her mind. When she closed her eyes, she saw the dent in the rear bumper, the chipped paint, and the license plate, and a sickening hope surged through her.

“We need to get back to the prison,” Emma said, her voice thin and meek.

“I know. But we’ll have to wait ‘till morning.”

“But the baby—“

“Will survive the night. She has Hershel to make sure of that.”

I hope you’re right. Emma felt her eyes begin to droop. She was so tired. Crossing her arms over her knees, she rested her head on top of her forearms. “How are we going to get back? We’re out of gas.”

“We’ll siphon some gas from another vehicle.”

“What if there isn’t any? What if those strangers drained every car in this town?”

“Then I’ll think of something else,” Daryl said with urgency. “I’ll get us back to the prison. I promise.”

Emma watched Daryl. He was looking into the dying embers, his face tight and expressionless. Could it be possible that he was as scared as Emma was? They were stranded in a deserted town, thirty miles away from their friends during a snow storm. Daryl would be a fool not to be scared.

“That truck today… What was that all about?”

Emma looked up in surprise. It wasn’t like Daryl to ask questions and start conversations. He was more the type to ignore questions and end conversations. Emma licked her lips, but her tongue was dry and her action was for naught. “Nothing. It just looked like a truck that belonged to someone I used to know.”

“That explains why you looked like you saw a ghost.”

“Yeah.” A fierce shiver ripped through Emma’s body, starting at her core and spreading out to her limbs. A few moments later, a dense pile of fabric was tossed onto her lap. It was Daryl’s woolen poncho. Emma looked up at Daryl, and watched as he crossed his arms over himself, intentionally looking away from Emma. All Daryl was wearing was his stupid flannel shirt over his coveralls. That won’t be enough to keep him warm.

Emma picked up the poncho and threw it back to Daryl, but her arms were weak and the poncho just barely reached Daryl’s feet. “Take it. I don’t need it.”

Daryl almost rolled his eyes as he scooped up the poncho and threw it back to Emma. “Stubborn Princess. You’re shivering so hard it’s shakin’ the floor.”

Emma scrunched her face as Daryl reverted to his old condescending tone. Nonetheless, she slipped her head through the opening and let the weight of the poncho fall over her. She then wrapped the afghan around her legs and waited for her body to warm up.

In the meantime, she watched Daryl, crossed arms and staring into the embers. She could see the muscles beneath his shirt twitching ever so slightly; it was his subtle version of shivering. Emma shook his head. And he calls me stubborn.

Emma got up to her knees, shuffled forward, and sat down in front of Daryl. She then turned around and backed up until her back was pressed against his chest.

“What’re ya doin’?” Daryl asked.

“No point in both of us being cold.” She reached behind her, grabbing a hold of Daryl’s arms, and then pulled them under the poncho, wrapping his arms around her waist. “We’ll stay warmer this way. But no funny business. I’m a lady, after all.” A small, joking smile crossed her face.

Daryl snorted with a soft laugh, and Emma felt his body relax. She leaned back, allowing herself to melt against him. Between the poncho, afghan, and Daryl’s body, Emma was beginning to warm up. By no means was she ready to parade out in the snow, but at least she had stopped shivering so badly.

“Daryl?”

“Mm?” Daryl grunted in place of an actual verbal response.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“If I say no, will you still ask the question?”

Emma laughed softly. “Yeah. Probably.”

“Then sure.”

Emma found herself biting on her bottom lip. All she could hear was the low crackling and popping of the embers and Daryl’s gentle breathing in her ear. “You and Carol… Is there anything between the two of you?”

“No. You know how I feel about relationships.”

Boy, do I. “I know. But you’ve been spending quite a bit of time with her…” Emma was specifically thinking of the way in which Daryl had held Carol in a hug back at the prison after coming across T-Dog’s body. At the time, Emma had been too shocked to feel jealous, but now she could feel tendrils of jealousy clawing at her chest when that image ran through her mind.

Emma felt Daryl inhale deeply, felt the rise and fall of his chest against her back. “Carol lost her daughter. Seems like some people’ve forgotten that. She tries to be strong, but sometimes it’s too much. Sometimes she needs help.”

Emma’s chin drooped to her chest. She hadn’t forgotten that Carol had lost Sophia, but had she been as sympathetic as she could have been?

Once, when Emma was a teenager, she had been watching the news with her mother. A story came on about a mother who lost her daughter in a house fire. Before the news piece was finished, her mother turned off the TV, tears in her eyes.

“That poor mother,” she had whispered. “No parent should ever lose their daughter like that.”

At the time, Emma had silently agreed, but she couldn’t feel the same sadness her mother had. She was only a child herself, and couldn’t understand what it meant to be a mother, couldn’t understand the pain of losing a child. Even now, even after losing everything she held dear, Emma didn’t know whether she could fully understand what Carol had gone through. Hot tears stung Emma’s eyes. She felt like a monster for being jealous of Carol and the attention Daryl gave her.

“Damnit, Emma. Stop shivering,” Daryl said. He rubbed his arms up and down her body, trying to increase blood flow.

“Sorry. I’m cold.”

“Shouldn’t be this cold.” Daryl stopped moving his arms. “Are you sweating?”

“Course not. Why would I be sweating?” Emma shivered again.

Daryl removed one arm from around Emma’s waist. Emma’s teeth started to chatter when a rush of cold air replaced Daryl’s embrace. Daryl placed a hand against Emma’s brow. His touch felt like ice.

“Emma, you’re burning up!”

“No I’m not. I’m freezing.” Emma tried to grab Daryl’s arm. She had been so much warmer wrapped in Daryl’s arms, but Daryl grabbed her own arm and spun her around. Daryl held Emma with one hand on either arm, and he peered at her eyes with concern.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“What kind of question is that?” Emma asked with a laugh. She was freezing cold, tired, hungry, and she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in months. She was tired of constantly looking over her shoulder, afraid to find a walker lurking behind her. In the past few months, Emma had suffered more than she had her entire life. Of course she wasn’t feeling alright. “Of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just don’t seem like yourself.” Daryl let go of Emma, and he would have dropped the issue had he not looked down at his hand. “Shit.”

Emma followed Daryl’s gaze, and saw his hand coated with a dark red substance. Emma gasped. “Daryl, you’re bleeding.”

“It’s not my blood. It’s yours.”

“What?” The blood was on Daryl’s right hand, which had been holding onto the top part of Emma’s left arm. Emma looked down at her arm and, sure enough, a dark patch of blood had soaked through the poncho. “How did that happen?”

“You’re askin’ me?” Daryl tugged the poncho up over Emma’s head and tossed it aside. The sleeve of her coveralls was drenched in blood. Without even waiting to ask permission, Daryl tore the sleeve at the seam and the sleeve fell around Emma’s wrist like a grotesque bracelet. Daryl grabbed a rag from his bag and soaked it with some water from his canteen. He then rubbed at the bloody mess on Emma’s arm.

“Ow!” Emma winced, a burning pain searing through her as Daryl scraped the rag against his arm. “Stop that.”

Daryl didn’t say anything to apologize for hurting her. He was too preoccupied looking at the wound on Emma’s arm. “Damnit, Emma. Did one of ‘em get you?”

When Daryl said “‘em,” he meant the walkers. Emma looked down at the wound on her arm, her senses dulled by a numb panic. There was a jagged cut on her left bicep, about three inches long and at least a quarter of an inch deep. The skin around the gash was red and inflamed, a dark yellow crust on the edges. It’s infected, Emma realized. The veins leading away from the gash were clearly visible through her skin; they had been darkened by the toxins running through her blood. Blood poisoning, Emma thought, suddenly remembering one of the books she had read so many months ago in Hershel’s kitchen.

“Did you get bit? Were you scratched?” Daryl’s voice was fraught with genuine concern.

Slowly, Emma shook her head. “No. At least…I don’t think so…”

“Well think harder!”

“I’m trying, okay!” Emma shouted and her voice cracked as sudden, panicked tears came to her eyes. She couldn’t have been bitten. She would have noticed it… Right? She would have remembered a walker biting into her flesh, right?

Emma closed her eyes and furrowed her brow, trying to remember every walker she had encountered that day. None had come close to her, at least not close enough to bite her. There hadn’t been a single moment where it was possible that a walker hurt her. However, Emma did remember the sleeve of her coveralls tearing when she tried to squeeze through the hole in the chain link fence…

“The fence,” Emma said definitively. “I must have cut my arm climbing through the chain link fence.”

“Are you sure?”

Emma nodded. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind. She clearly remembered the cloth of her sleeve tearing on a sharp wire as she passed through the fence. She must have cut her arm at the same time. It was funny, though, she hadn’t felt any pain when the fence tore through her arm. Maybe it was the adrenaline, Emma reasoned. Killing walkers had set Emma’s adrenaline pumping at full volume. The adrenaline had protected her from feeling any pain. But, unfortunately, now that Emma knew she was hurt, her arm started to throb with a vengeance, as if making up for the hours Emma had been blissfully unaware she was injured. Emma groaned in pain.

Daryl sat back, his features relaxing with relief. “So what do we need to do?”

Emma bit her lip nervously. She wasn’t in the clear yet. Blood infections were dangerous; they were fatal if left untreated. “First we need to wrap the wound, to protect it from any more bacteria.”

Daryl searched through his backpack. “There are some cloth diapers in here.”

Emma scrunched her nose, displeased at the idea of wrapping her wounded arm with something that once covered a babies butt. “It’ll have to do.” Emma winced, hissing sharply through her teeth as Daryl tightly pinned the diaper around her arm.

“What now?”

“Antibiotics. I need antibiotics to fight the infection.” Emma’s heart sank. There had been antibiotics back at the prison, but the prison was miles away and she had no way of getting there. Even if Emma and Daryl left for the prison first thing in the morning, it might be too late.

Without saying anything, Daryl grabbed the poncho from the ground and pulled it on over his head, ignoring the large blood stain on the side of it. He went to the front door, pushing aside the heavy wooden table he had propped against the door to slow any walkers that tried to get in.

“Where are you going?” Emma scrambled to her feet and, suddenly feeling light-headed, hobbled towards the doorway. Daryl was already outside on the front steps to the house.

“My motorcycle. There are some antibiotics in there.”

“Hold on, let me grab my gun,” Emma said, turning to grab the gun she had left the floor.

“No, Emma. You stay here.”

“But—“

“You’re in no condition to go out in the snow. What if a group of walkers find us?”

“What if a group of walkers come to the house?”

“You’ll be fine. You’re safer here than out there. Just stay inside and keep away from the windows. I’ll be gone only ten minutes.”

And it was the ten longest minutes of her life.

Emma sat beside the fire, the afghan wrapped tightly around her shoulders, jumping at the slightest noise. Every time the floorboards creaked beneath her, her heart seized up. Every time a tree branch scraped against a window, panic coursed through her veins. Even though Daryl had advised her not to, Emma crawled to the window and cautiously peeked through the gap between the curtain panels, anxiously searing the snowy terrain for Daryl. Every minute that passed without sign of Daryl was another minute where Daryl could have been attacked by a walker.

After what seemed like an eternity, a bundled form emerged from the darkness. Emma recognized the figure’s posture immediately, and a flood of relief rushed through her. She rushed to the door to open it the second Daryl stepped on the front porch.

“So?” Emma said expectantly, closing the door behind Daryl. There was a dark glower on his face as he brushed the snow from his clothes.

“Those damn scavengers took ‘em.”

“What?”

“You heard me. They took the meds. And my gun and extra rounds.”

Emma felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. Her knees suddenly went weak, and she had to hold onto the back of the couch to keep standing. “What do we do now?”

Daryl was silent. He stood with his hands towards the dying embers, trying to warm his frozen hands. “I’ll follow them. I’ll find whoever took those meds and get them back.”

“How? Your bike isn’t working.”

“I’ll walk if I have to.”

“But you have no way of finding them,” Emma cried. “Their tracks would have been covered by the snow long ago. You’ll freeze to death before you find them.”

“I’ll figure out a way. Here, you take this,” Daryl said, handing the poncho over to Emma. “You need it more than I do.”

“Daryl…” Emma’s lips began to quiver. She looked down at the poncho, refusing to grab it. The colors of the dyed wool blurred as tears sprang to her eyes. “You can’t leave me here again. Please. Don’t leave me alone, please. I’m… I’m…” Scared, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t admit her fears out loud, because that would make them real; that would make them unavoidable. And all Emma wanted to do was push her fears into some corner. She wanted to ignore them, and pretend her life wasn’t in danger. She just wanted everything to be okay.

But Emma didn’t need to voice her fears for Daryl to know exactly what she was feeling. He could read the fear in her eyes. The next thing Emma knew, Daryl had grabbed her and held her tight against his chest. His hand was on the back of her head, reassuringly smoothing down her hair. Daryl felt so strong and so warm that, for a moment, Emma felt as if everything would be alright.

“Don’t worry. We’ll think of something.” Daryl’s voice was a low rumble that Emma could feel vibrating through his chest.

“But what?”

Daryl was silent. For a moment, all Emma could hear was the steady pounding of his heart. Then, he spoke up. “We’ll make those scavenging bastards come to us.”

“How are we going to do that?” Emma looked up, watching Daryl’s face. He was squinting, looking into the darkness. Emma could see his jaw clenching, his brow furrowing in concentration.

“I’ve got a plan.”