Lone Survivors

Approximately a week after I had met the group of survivors, I was officially let free. I was to share a tent with Andrea and things were to continue as normal. But ‘normal’ didn’t happen for long. Panic started to spread throughout me as Andrea sighted a Walker, as the group called them, heading our way from the dense forest at the edge of the farm. I was keeping Andrea company atop the RV and watched as she shot it in the head, but the men who had approached it recognised the supposed Walker as an alive human. Shane rushed back to camp and shouted at me to come over. I grabbed my backpack that contained first aid supplies and obeyed, beating him back to the scene to see a hugely dirty Daryl lying amongst the grass with blood oozing from the side of his head.

“You can fix him, right?” Rick asked with desperation as I fell to Daryl’s side. He was unconscious and losing blood rather fast. I pressed my hand to the side of his neck to find his pulse. “Mandy! Can you fix this?” I winced at Rick’s shouting.

“I can’t tell yet…” I replied quietly. His pulse was still strong, which was a good start. I pulled out wipes from my bag and used them to clear away most of the blood to reveal a clean gash in the side of Daryl’s head. “I think the bullet just skimmed him. We should move him inside and clean the wound properly.” The men all quickly picked Daryl up in their arms and took him into the farmhouse. I grabbed Carol’s boiling water for her tea on the way past camp while telling her to not panic. As I went inside the house, I realised how much I was worrying. What if I couldn’t clean the wound properly? I’d only essentially handled small scratches when I was with the other group, but this was a bullet wound… How different was it?

“We can’t find Hershel,” Shane announced as he entered the room behind everyone else.

“It’s all up to you, then,” Rick said as I sat on the bed next to Daryl. I tilted his head to the side only to see far too much blood leaking out onto the white sheet below.

“T-Dog, stay here. I need everyone else out so I can think,” I said and they left the room. In silence, I worked as quick as I could, using the hot water and strong alcohol to sterilise the wound. T-Dog aided by cutting away some of Daryl’s hair, compressing the area around the wound, and passing me anything I couldn’t quickly reach. The blood flow had stopped tremendously by the time I was applying the bandages and I felt relieved. We scanned his body for other wounds, finding everything from tiny grazes to a much larger hole in his side, and fixed them up too. He should be okay.

“You should be proud,” T-Dog smiled at me once we were done, my hands covered in blood. I gave him a weak smile back before looking back at the injured man. Poor bastard…