To Keep You Close to Me

Two months later

It was early summer. The air was hot and the sun was bright. We had settled into our own little colony at the quarry. We had no choice but to stay here; it was safe. The outside world had plummeted to the unimaginable. The last we heard, and that was about a month ago, the population had decreased about half. We had a few options on where to go, well two actually. The CDC and Fort Benning. Though we weren’t nearly prepared to travel. Sure we had the means of transportation, but we were low on ammo and supplies. We were living off of the land up here.

Daryl had become the group hunter, taking long trips out in the woods hunting deer and squirrel. Amy and Andrea were good at fishing, so we often feasted on fish. This new way of life was a big slap in the face, but we quickly adjusted.

We frequently foraged and scavenged in the city. While in the city, we picked up a few loners. Most of them contributed to the group, but stayed to themselves. They were alone in this world and afraid. I still had Daryl, but our time alone was almost nonexistent. Between Daryl always hunting, Merle being Merle and for the good of the group, we never went off on our own.

“Merle!” Daryl called as he arrived back to camp from his latest hunt. I watched him as he strolled past me. About two dozen squirrels were tied to a string hung over his shoulder.

Merle joined Daryl, climbing down from the RV. They walked off together to skin the squirrels, a job that I never liked doing. Daryl only really talked to Merle and me. Of course he talked to the group, but he built walls around himself because he didn’t feel comfortable with them yet. Daryl always had his guard up around new people, and it took a long time for that wall to come down.

“Hey Valerie,” Carol called as she walked over to me with a basket full of dirty clothes. “Wanna help with laundry?”

“Sure,” I agreed as I dropped the book I was reading and followed her down to the water. We had recruited Andrea and Amy as well as Jacqui. Once we got down to the water, we each took an article of clothing and began washing. We usually washed our own clothing, including those in our family. So that meant I was stuck doing Merle’s laundry. I hated having to do things for him because he never did anything for me. He was just an asshole.

“Are you and Daryl fighting? You two seem kinda distant,” Amy asked me. Since she was barely in her 20’s, relationship gossip was what she yearned for.

“Daryl’s just being Daryl,” I answered. “He’s just like that around people. When we’re alone, he’s sweet.”

“That doesn’t seem like a good boyfriend, if you ask me,” Andrea said. Andrea and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. I got along better with Amy, even though she was much younger than me.

“Don’t really have too many other options, do I?” I countered. Andrea didn’t respond to my comment. I didn’t really expect her to, nor did I want her to. She always acted like she had something to say to everything.

Our short conversation reminded me of the many that I had with my old friends when they tried to convince me that Daryl wasn’t good enough. And just as I did with them, I brushed it off.

“That brother of his is a real piece of work,” Jacqui stated.

“All he does is sit on top of that RV acting like he’s too good for this group,” Andrea added. That’s probably the only thing we will ever agree on. That really was all that Merle ever did. He sat up there on lookout with that stupid sniper rifle of his.

Having been here two months, I could tell that no one liked the Dixon’s but me. The group favored Daryl more though. Merle gave Daryl a bad name. Who was I kidding? He gave everyone a bad name just by association. None of that mattered anyway, the world we knew was gone.

“You know,” Amy started, “I don’t think you ever told us how you and Daryl met.”

Ugh.

“We grew up in the same area,” I said. “We played when we were little. My friends always said that he had a crush on me, but he’d never say it. Merle teased him for it so Daryl started to deny it when anyone brought it up. Daryl was always the nicer one, the kids liked him more. But he was there when my parents died, same for me when his mother died. Shortly after my parents’ death, I left and went to school. But it wasn’t until after college that we became closer and it just happened. When Merle found out, he just got out of jail and it was obvious that he didn’t change. He teased Daryl even more than he had saying that he went soft.”

The girls listened as I told our story. They seemed more understanding of it than my actual friends. Maybe it was because of Carol, everyone knew how her husband was. We all knew that he hit her. These people weren’t judgmental and I appreciated that.

“‘Nough of your chitchattin’,” a voice came from behind us. We all shot our heads around to see Ed, Carol’s husband, walking over to us with a cigarette dangling from his lips.

“This ain’t story time,” he added. We silently finished the laundry, under Ed’s watchful eye. We carried the wet fabric back up to camp and each hung it along our makeshift clothesline. Daryl and Merle had prepared the squirrels for dinner and cooked them up. That was all we had to eat for the night.

Shortly after dinner, we all return to our tents for the night. Merle was on watch tonight so Daryl and I had the tent to ourselves for once. I crawled into the tent, covering myself up with one of our many blankets. Daryl came in behind me, sliding his way under the blanket. I rolled over so I could face him. He was laying on his back with his eyes closed. Since we were alone, I wanted to take advantage of it. I rubbed my hand over his chest causing his eyes to spring open.

“Merle’s out on watch, we have the tent to ourselves, ya know,” I whispered, implying my wants.

“Yeah, so?”

“So,” I said, dragging out the ‘o’. “We haven’t had much time alone lately.”

“I don’t think tonight’s a good night,” he answered.

“Why not?”

“It ain’t.”

“Fine.” Frustrated, I rolled back over and went to sleep.