Mercy

By the time Mercy got back to the train car, she knew that Annie would be asleep. She opened the door slowly and slid inside, closing it behind herself again before she walked over to the little girl, huddled in the corner with most of the blankets. A soft look formed on her face when she saw the fear etched on her small features.

It was kids like Annie that made Mercy hate this the most. The kids who’d lost everyone; who had nothing but a life of pain and suffering ahead of them.

She could see the unspoken questions on Annie’s face and for a moment, she considered lying to the girl and telling her that Derek had abandoned them. It would be a little easier than breaking the news of his death to her, and after all, even Mercy had only known it would be a matter of time before he left. Their group hadn’t been stable since everyone else had died.

“Derek is gone, and he won’t be coming back,” she spoke slowly and quietly.

Annie just buried her face further into the pillows and Mercy sighed, walking over to the other corner of the train car. It would be a long, sleepless night for her as she stood watch the way Derek had done most nights. She would start thinking of a plan in the morning but for now, she was going to keep watch over Annie.



When Mercy could see the sun starting to creep up behind the trees, she stirred Annie from her sleep and began to gather everything up without a sound. The little girl helped her; she knew that it was time to leave the train car, even if neither of them knew where they were going. The pack of walkers they’d taken on yesterday was probably only a taste of how many probably lurked in the trees, and Mercy wanted to get them as far away from here as possible.

She helped Annie into the cab of the truck before putting all of the supplies in the back, making sure to pack them just the way Derek had. She bit her bottom lip when she remembered that she had left his pack with him back in the woods. There was ammunition out there with him and a couple of guns.

She knew that she couldn’t leave them to waste.

“Annie,” she murmured to the girl. “We need to do something before we leave, okay? C’mon.”

Taking the girl to see Derek’s dead body wasn’t something that Mercy was prepared for. She knew that things like that mentally scarred kids, and especially ones as young as Annie appeared to be.

But leaving her behind to fend for herself for an hour wasn’t an option, either. This was what their world was like now; these were the kinds of decisions that needed to be made, and Mercy knew that in the long run, Annie had already seen more than enough to fuck her up for the rest of her life, however long or short it was. One more dead body couldn’t make that much more of an impact.

Annie followed her without a word or an ounce of hesitation, and the two quietly began making their way into the forest. Mercy wasn’t certain of where she’d left Derek’s body, but she knew that she needed to try and find it. That ammo and those guns were too valuable to lose at a time like this.

“Stop,” she whispered to Annie after they’d been in the woods for a little more than twenty minutes. She could hear voices in the background and she didn’t like it at all.

“Down,” she whispered to Annie.

She knew that with the camouflage clothes that Derek had raided for the three of them out of an abandoned, nearly destroyed hunter’s cabin awhile back, no nearby people would spot them if they laid on the ground. She watched as Annie first laid on the dead leaves before she moved down to her stomach as well.

The voices were getting closer and it only made Mercy more and more uneasy. She no longer had faith in humanity; she no longer trusted people like she had back before the plague had broken out. People had changed. They were colder; more angry. They were willing to kill over the smallest things, and no one was willing to compromise anymore.

There was no community left; no world left. It was all vigilantes and she hated that. She truly wished for the world to go back to the way that it was, but she knew that it couldn’t be that way again; not with the walkers and no sign of a cure.

“What the fuck were you doing back there? You’ve changed, little brother. You gone soft.”

“There were kids,” Mercy heard a softer voice speak. Her eyes widened when she realized that she recognized it as belonging to someone she’d known as a child. Someone whom she’d never thought she’d ever see again.

“So?” The first man retorted. “Ain’t nobody innocent in this world anymore, Daryl. Nobody. Kids, you…me. Nobody. Ain’t no innocence left, so what the hell does it matter?”

“Shut up, Merle.”

Her eyes widened.

There was no possible way that it could possibly be the brothers she’d known back when she’d been a child growing up in northern Georgia. She hadn’t really gotten to know Merle so much as she had a boy named Daryl. The boy she’d known, his brother Merle had always been in and out of juvenile detention halls all over the state, and that had meant that he hadn’t been around when Daryl had needed him.

But she had been. And then she’d left, and the last thing she’d seen in his eyes before going was pain and the realization that even someone who swore on their heart to stay with him would eventually break her promises.

She heard a snap behind her and her face drained of color. She knew damn well that twenty years ago, Daryl was a trigger happy son of a bitch. Judging by the attitude he’d shown Daryl just now, he hadn’t changed much.

Chances were, he’d aim blindly into the thick trees if he thought he heard something, as opposed to going and checking it out for himself first.

“You hear that?”

An audible sigh from Daryl could be heard, and she prayed like hell that Merle would just ignore them. She had every instinct in her body telling her to run to Daryl right now; to apologize for leaving him, for abandoning him the way every other person had.

But she just couldn’t do it. It was too dangerous, and that had been another world entirely.

Because as much as Mercy would like to believe it, Merle was right. There was no innocence left in this dark, painful world full of disease, death, and solitariness.

There were walkers. There were survivors who had lost the last few bits of humanity they’d had left in themselves when they’d watched their family and friends die in front of them, or perhaps even in their arms. They had lost that innocence when they’d had to kill the people they cared about for fear that they’d turn into walkers; the very thing everyone tried to avoid.

Humanity had become lost, and Merle wasn’t lying when he said that innocence had gone with it.

But that didn’t meant that Mercy didn’t believe it could be found again. She turned to see Annie standing on the small pile of leaves that buried Derek, and she swallowed hard when she realized that one of his hands had become uncovered, probably from a gust of wind. She prayed that the little girl wouldn’t see it.

She’d scream. That would definitely draw unwanted and unneeded attention.

“I didn’t hear nothin’, Merle. Now dammit, let’s get out of this forest and get back to camp so we can figure out what the hell we’re doing.”

Merle grumbled under his breath and she let out a sigh of relief when he finally began to reluctantly follow Daryl out of the thicket of trees.

She was almost safe and in the clear when she heard Annie let out a loud, gut-wrenching scream. Daryl and Merle both froze in their tracks, weapons raised and she cursed, rushing over to Annie and placing her behind her.

“I told you to stay quiet,” she whispered harshly to the little girl before she looked up to see both of the brothers approaching the woods with caution.

“I know you heard that, baby brother.”

“It was nothing,” Daryl shook his head. “Must have just been some kinda kid a couple of miles away.

“Bullshit,” Merle spat before he shot into the trees. “You in there? Afraid?” He sneered. “Well, you better get your asses out here or the walkers are gonna get ya!”

“Shit,” Mercy whispered under her breath, turning her head when the sounds of rustling and groaning in the trees became louder, the trees seemingly coming alive as walkers from all corners of the forest began making their way towards the sound to investigate.

She knew there was only one thing she could do.

“There’s a child in here!” She yelled, not lowering her own weapon. “She’s not been infected and neither have I!”

“Whatcha doin’ hidin’ in there, sweetheart? Come out and show Merle that pretty little face of yours, hy don’t you,” Daryl taunted back at her.

She swallowed hard. She knew that either way she went would be a tricky situation. If she walked out there, she knew that the chances of getting shot ran high. If she stayed hidden in the trees with Annie, however, there was a 100% surety that she and Annie would be targeted for shooting.

“Alright,” she called clearly. “Please lower your weapons, she’s only about five. I don’t want her getting scared,” she warned. “I’ll come out with my weapon holstered.”

She watched, waiting for Merle to drop his weapon, but he did no such thing. Instead, he almost smiled.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he grinned. “I don’t work that way. Get your ass out here now, lemme see what we’re workin’ with here.”

“Merle,” Daryl warned, shaking his head. “Just let them go. She says there’s a kid, don’t scare her. Kid’s probably been through hell already.”

Merle huffed under his breath and she waited, wondering if maybe there was a way she’d be able to get out of this. Several minutes went by of silence before she finally heard Merle talk again.

“Don’t pull this kind of shit again,” Merle finally spoke. “Me and my brother don’t take too kindly to strangers. If I was you, I’d get out of the area ‘fore we find you and finish you off before the walkers do.”

He didn’t say anything else as he and Daryl began making their way out of the forest, leaving both of them alone. Annie was shaking as she looked down at Derek. His face had become uncovered by a slight breeze as well, and she knew that the little girl had to be more than a little upset by the gruesome scene in front of her.

“Come on, sweetie,” she whispered when she was sure the coast was clear.

Moving on would be tough, especially without Derek. She grabbed the supplies off of him that she’d come for, along with his bag before she grabbed Annie’s hand, dragging her out of the forest. If there was one thing she knew, it was that it just wasn’t safe to be here anymore. Merle wasn’t a liar when it came to threats. He never made empty ones, and she knew that he’d have no qualms of killing her if he wanted to, and the child’s too.

She wanted to get to safety. It would be hard, but she had to for her sake and for Annie’s as well.