The Darkest Storm

The all too familiar beads of sweat drip down from Darcy’s forehead as the sun lifts itself up high in the morning sky, forcing the world to not only go through a torment of biters roaming the earth but it’s relentless heat as well.

With the back of her hand she wipes the drops away from her eyes as she continues to follow Daryl only after having a rather entertaining encounter with him not even before dawn.

“Thought you said you couldn’t trust me.” Darcy sighs. It has been hours since Daryl first picked up the trail by the deer he claims to have brought down. If anything, Darcy knows that someone or something would have picked it apart by now.

“Yeah, well, we’re fightin’ the same shit ain’t we?” He gets up from his crouched position and glances back over his shoulder at her. There is something oddly charming by the way he squints in the sun as he talks. “Don’ make much sense to be fighting other people.”

Darcy doesn’t bother to respond but simply lets him lead her somewhat further into the woods whilst climbing upwards so it seems, letting the half-hearted conversation fade away back into silence, which she rather prefers.

But alas, Daryl pursues some sort of vocal contact and when he speaks, the southern drawl breaks through the quietness and startles her, “Weird havin’ someone followin’ me around.” He says with an annoyed tone, lifting up his head to spit as he continues on.

Darcy scoffs, “Don’t get used to it.”

“How’d ya end up by yourself anyway?” He asks, glancing below at his feet then forward again while unbeknownst to him, the tangles inside Darcy’s mind pull tighter at the memory.

The small group became even smaller that night, without warning or preparation. They sat around the glowing embers of the bijou fire as they watch and listen to the sounds of nightfall for anything to sneak up on them with anticipating panic. No one speaks; no one even makes the slightest sound. Only the quiet popping of the burning limbs of the firewood makes any noise at all as they sat in the empty darkness…until they came.

Darcy coughs slightly to clear her throat, “A group of biters came through, wiped only but a few of us out.”

Daryl wrinkles his nose and gives her as inquisitive look, “What’d ya get lost ‘er somethin’?”

Darcy blinks and furrows her brows together as she regains her footing. “No.” She replies flatly, “People started making the wrong calls, so I left.”

Daryl doesn’t dare to press the topic further, he knows better than anyone when the question at hand is something for another time or not at all. Instead he pushes forward with his eyes glued to the slightly packed ground of the forest floor, but he can’t help but wonder what Darcy means exactly.

Hidden with complete vagueness – and no sign of letting up otherwise - Darcy is secretly waiting in anticipated dread for a repetition of the dark and difficult times she once suffered in the other group’s camaraderie. But as quickly as she allows her mind to wander into those lifeless thoughts, she is brought out of them.

A shout across the way cuts her thoughts short as her and Daryl turn with breaths held in their throats to find themselves in the nearby presence of his group the whole time. Darcy’s head snaps up from the feather she’d been thumbing when the shout quickly turns into more of a terrified scream.

Daryl leans into her sideways and roughly tells her, “C’mon.”

Shouts began echoing down around them as they jogged towards the closest break in the wood where what seemed to be the location of the sudden mayhem. She sees a few shadowy figures in the same clearing, clenching sticks and bats as they beat continuously down on a biter leaning over a mauled upon deer that Darcy figures is the one Daryl has been tracking this whole time.

Daryl glances back behind him slightly, checking to see if Darcy was still there or if she decided to run off last minute. An odd weight in his chest subconsciously causes him to grab her hand and lead her under the unstable limbs of the trees, dodging some here and there that probably created a source of misleading noise for the rest of the group waiting in anticipation to see what was on the other side.

They appear suddenly in front of the small group of men, all with wide eyes and half blinded by the panic and adrenaline from the small break in barrier from before, mixed with a sense of confusion as they saw Darcy arrive a few seconds after.

“Jesus.” One of the men sighs, lowering his gun.

About ten feet away lies the animal that confirms Darcy’s previous notion that Daryl has been leading them to a somewhat dead-end the entire morning. She watches him ignore the concerns of the others, still heaving their chests up and down at the sight of a biter too close for comfort to their camp. She forces herself to tare her stare away from a rather uncomfortable pair of crazed eyebrows that were raised to a certain gentleman’s mid-forehead.

“Son of a bitch.” Daryl sighs. “Tha’s my deer.” He scratches the back of his head and leans over to pull his three arrows out of the lost animal. “Been trackin’ this deer for miles. Was gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison.”

Daryl steps over the deer’s legs and jerks the three arrows back and forth with his hand, flicking the loose blood off the ends. “What’d you think?” He looks towards a man with a red baseball cap carrying a shotgun casually over his shoulders. The sudden pointed tone tears his stare away from Darcy quicker than he’d like.

“Do you think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?” Daryl asks.

The man looks disgusted and a frown covers his features, “I would not risk that.”

Daryl walks around and sighed, “That’s a damn shame. I got some squirrel, about a dozen or so.” He says, lifting the string off his shoulder with a slightly more optimistic tone. “That’ll have to do.”

The focus of the conversation, held by only a few of the remaining original group members that grew bored of the lack of terrorized excitement, turns to Darcy when Daryl motions to her suddenly. “You stayin’?”

“You’re more than welcome to.” The red baseball cap wearer says, “I’m Shane. This is Rick, Dale, Jim, and that’s Andrea and Amy over there hiding.” Shane pointed to the members of the group. “There are more of us back up that hill there.”

Daryl begins to leave the small circle by throwing a hand back over his shoulder, “Tha’s Darcy.” He introduces stiffly, before strutting over to a small smoking fire and setting down the dozen squirrels. “Merle! Get your ugly ass out here! I got us some squirrel!”

Dale, the older man tilts his fisherman’s hat slightly to readjust it and smiles at her, “I’m guessing since Daryl’s asked if you were staying with us, you’ve been on your own for quite some time. Am I right?”

Darcy crosses her arms and scratches her shoulder, “Two weeks.”

Rick steps forward with a kind and sincere caring smile etched on his pale features, “Well, we are happy to have you with us. It’s your choice if you want to stay, but there are good people here who look after each other. I’ve only been here a night and I feel right at home.”

Rick tilts his head suddenly with an even bigger smile and a laugh to follow, “But then again I was just reunited with my family so I’m a bit biased.”

“Before we do anything else, we gotta settle things with Daryl ‘bout Atlanta…” Shane frowned, doing his best to avoid as much drama as possible and fades his speech away when Rick turns to walk back to camp with him.

Dale still holds a welcoming smile; warm and inviting, despite the bushy brows that could send a threatening look paired with a wide-eyed stare at any moment. “C’mon. We’ll get you settled in...”

He stops when Daryl calls out for his brother again. Dale waves his hand slightly in second thought, “Actually, it’s probably for the best we just wait for that later when this is all dealt with.”

“When what’s dealt with?” Darcy looks around for Daryl but instead sees the entire camp surrounding the poor soul, still calling out for his non-riposte brother.

“Daryl’s brother got left back in Atlanta.” A young Asian boy appears from behind her, leaning casually up against one of the few vehicles around camp. “I’m Glenn. Just – just, stay back. Daryl can be a loose cannon when it comes to Merle.”

Darcy’s eyes narrow in wonder and ignores the uneasy shiver that creeps along her spine at the thought of anyone being left behind in Atlanta of all places. She takes the spot next to Glenn against the vehicle kindly offered to her and turns to watch Shane now rubbing the top of head and taking a wary step forward.

“Daryl, just slow up a bit. I need to talk to you.” Shane eyes Daryl’s back as he steps forward into the large circle unintentionally made-up by the group’s members.

Daryl turns, eyes narrow and, for not the first time that day, he gets the impression that those around him are preparing for the worst and avoiding him from a distance. “About what?” He asks hesitantly.

“About Merle. There was a- there was a problem in Atlanta.” Shane places his hands on his hips and waits for Daryl to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Daryl stumbles in his steps and his voice drops. “He dead?”

Shane shakes his head and heaves a sigh, “We’re not sure.”

“He either is or he ain’t.” It is a simple concept really, something one would doubt any man would feel at ease in such a defensive position to have to ask.

“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it.” Rick struts forward.

Daryl’s eyes narrow and he throws an arm Rick’s way. “Who are you?”

“Rick Grimes.”

“Rick Grimes,” Daryl mocks, “You got somethin’ you wanna tell me?”

“Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He’s still there.”

Darcy rubs her fingers roughly over her lips out of habit and catches herself just a moment too late as she curses through gritted teeth, avoiding showing the look of shock and disgust that flitters across her face.

It seems she doesn’t hide it well enough because just then Glenn has a sturdy hand on her shoulder, “I wouldn’t get involved.”

“It’s not Rick’s fault. I had the key. I dropped it.” A young black man holding a heavy load of firewood steps forward, his presence gone unnoticed until now. He sighs and drops his head in defeat, but at the same time disgrace for letting the situation happen the way it did.

Exhaling slowly and grimly eyeing up the current situation, it’s times like this Darcy truly enjoys the simplicity of having a dog as a companion. She ponders for a moment if she’d rather take her chances at a walker lunging wildly at her instead of the drama that cease to end after only a half hour of meeting these people.

Daryl’s features go unnaturally pale with the painful urge to swing away at T-Dog’s rueful face. He wipes the tears threatening to fall with his forearm and throws another angry hand towards the two police officers. “Hell with all ya’ll. Just tell me where he is, so’s I can go get him.”

Darcy uncrosses her arms and takes her bow off her shoulder with the watchful eyes of Glenn not too far behind. Darcy has decided this isn’t worth a few moments of human interaction and some scrambling’s of food, which most likely smelled and tasted like old socks anyways.

She picks up her feet and walks towards the dirt road in silence, not daring to throw a glance back over her shoulder at those she leaves behind. She hears no rushed footsteps coming after her or hushed whispers in her direction, so she keeps onward until the targeted feeling is removed from her back.

Managing to put a few miles of distance in between her and the others, she stops along side of the road with pursed lips and a furrowed brow to discover that she actually has no plan or strategy of where to go and how to get there.

Before bumping into Daryl her main objective was cliché enough to just keep moving and keep herself alive. She bites her bottom lip when she feels an odd lump forming in the back of her throat. Resisting the urge to cry Darcy lifts her head up and sinks in a deep breath through her nostrils, picking something out of the air that diverts her yearn to cry entirely.

Rubber? Smoke? Then an engine sputters behind her on the dirt road, kicking and spinning particles into the air making it rather hard to breath. She closes her eyes and grunts to herself whilst leaning back on her left leg. She holds her bow tightly in her left hand and watches as the box van squeals on its breaks and opens it’s back door while still in motion.

Daryl hops out and bounces on his feet. He walks straight to her, eyes inspecting the woodland surroundings before reaching her. “The hell you’re doin’? He asks with urgency in his tone that surprises her.

“I can’t stay –“

He scoffs, “You just got here.”

Rick steps towards her, “Being out here by yourself isn’t the answer. There isn’t anything out in this world anymore that any of us can hang onto but each other. This is the reason we are surviving, because we have something to hold onto.”

He sighs when she purposefully avoids his stare. “Listen, Daryl says you’re a decent shot with that bow. Help us get our guy back, and we’ll give you some supplies if you chose to leave. Weapons, ammo, food, whatever you need.”

“You want my help?” Darcy asks.

“We need it.” Rick nods. “And by the looks of it you need us too. You may have lasted awhile out there already, but not for much longer.”

Darcy hesitates and glances up at Daryl. He has his back to her – on the lookout – but turns his head slightly and stares at the ground waiting for her answer.

Darcy raises her right hand slightly and sighs, “Alright.”