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Endure

Meri, Meri Quite Contrary

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I turned around slowly, searching all around me for a sign of my “friend.” My eyes widened as I looked into the depth of the woods surrounding me and my hands shook violently. I threw the cigarette pack to the ground and pulled back my tomahawk again, anticipating some kind of movement from the woods. Someone was there, I could feel their eyes on me. I pondered how long they had been watching us and what it was that they had wanted. They had to be within a few yards to see my struggle with the cigarettes, being as dark as it was. They were waiting just out of view.

“Kaylee!” I hissed toward where she was now resting. I repeated her name again and, sensing my urgency, she sprang up quickly coming to meet me where I stood. I told her to wake up the rest of the group and to make sure they were armed. Moments later, I was joined by everyone except Toby and Nikki who were waiting in the tent for their next instructions.

We began to move forward when suddenly the bushes began to shake and two men emerged from the darkness. I had a hard time distinguishing their features, but what I did manage to see struck me as odd. Both men juxtaposed one another, but they had a comradery that was obvious. One was clean-cut and smiling, with an assault rifle strapped over his shoulder and other looked more like he belonged with us, a little bit dirty, a scowl on his face and a crossbow resting on his back.

Three things in particular struck me as extremely odd. The first was that they weren't afraid. In fact, they seemed comfortable and worry-free. The second was that they held their hands up in a peaceful gesture and, even though they were heavily armed, they showed no intention of using their weapons. And the third was that they both looked well-fed. They must have a camp around. Had we stumbled into their territory?

“Hi. We weren’t planning on approaching you this early. I apologize for startling you. Which one of you is in charge?” The man with the rifle asked as he surveyed our group, eventually pausing to look directly at me. “Is it you?”

“Who is asking?” I eyeballed him, and he introduced himself as Aaron. He then introduced his friend, whom we’d come to know as Daryl Dixon. He explained that they had come from a community about 40 miles away and that he wanted to invite us to travel back with them and see if their counsel would accept us into their gates. He called their job titles “recruiters” as if they thought we had something to offer their group. He said that there was food and shelter, running water and electricity. It all sounded like bullshit wrapped in Utopian ideas to me.

“We think we can help you.” He looked sympathetically around our campsite.

“What makes you think we need help?” I asked. The man with the crossbow quickly smirked before returning to his scowl. “You got something to say?” My eyes bore into his.

Aaron quickly jumped in, “I apologize if I offended you, but we noticed that you have injured people here and a pregnant woman. We can help you. We have homes and food and a community.” His voice oozed sincerity.

“You got a doctor?” My next question seemed to catch the men off guard. They looked at one another, before the talkative one explained that they used to have an on site doctor, but that something had happened and he was no longer with them. At that point, he reached into his pack and pulled out a stack of photographs, holding them in my direction.

“We used to carry more, but we’ve recently lost the bulk of them.” He explained apologetically. I refused to take the photographs from him.

“I don’t need to see those.” I said with an added layer of irritation.

“I do.” Ben said, quickly grabbing them from Aaron’s hand. While my group lowered their weapons and huddled around Ben to get a glimpse of the community, I stood staring at our new “friends”. I looked them up and down, trying to find something sketchy or worrisome about them, but I could see nothing in their demeanor that set off a red flag.

I began watching Daryl. I couldn’t read his expression at all, but I looked him up and down. He was wearing ripped pants and a leather biker vest. Was this some kind of fucked up fashion statement or did they think that they’d be able to transport us all on the back of a bike? Did they have alternative transportation methods and if they did, it was as if they had sought us out, looking for people who needed help. I didn’t trust it. I lingered a little bit longer on Daryl and when his gaze shot over to meet mine and I was busted, I cut my eyes at him before looking away, embarrassed.

Ben handed the pictures back to Aaron and was greeted by even more information about the community that he called “Alexandria”. The pitch lasted for at least another two or three minutes without any sign of letting up.

“Can we have a little bit of time to talk this over?” I cut him off.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. We’ll just wait over here.” He gestured to Daryl to follow him to a fallen tree at the edge of the woods. They put their weapons on the ground and sat down beside one another on the log.

I went over to the tent to retrieve Nikki from inside and let her know that it was safe for her to come out. I quickly explained what had happened and when we had rejoined our group, there was no hesitation for everyone to make their opinions known.

“We have to go.” Kaylee said enthusiastically. “Can you imagine brushing your teeth and taking a bath. I want real food, Meri!"

“We don’t even know those men. You feel comfortable following them into the woods?” I asked exasperatedly. I glanced behind me at the two recruiters. Aaron was sitting patiently, looking up occasionally, but attempting to give us our privacy. Daryl was sitting with his elbows on his knees. He didn’t look away from us.

“There are only two of them.” Ray noted quietly.

“That we know of. How do you know that they are not going to lead us into a trap or something? It’s not safe.” Ben was just about to put his two cents in when something happened that silenced everyone completely. Wayne spoke for the first time in three months.

“It’s not safe out here alone, either. They have supplies and food and shelter. We can’t stay in a shitty situation because you’re too chicken-shit to do something different. We have been wandering around in the woods for entirely too long. We’ve lost people out here. Now we have children to think about. You may be okay having people die on your watch, but I’m not, especially not kids. We’re going.” He grabbed his pack off the ground and walked over to Aaron and Daryl.

“We’re coming with you.”

******

As we walked, I thought back to the campsite. I knew that Wayne had intended for his statement to hurt me. It worked. His words were burned into my brain and they stung. It was my poor decision making that contributed to us being outside in the woods during the winter time. We had come across plenty of groups to travel with and shelters to hold up in during the colder months, but I had urged us to keep going, choosing not to trust anyone and only thinking about getting back to Kentucky where my son was waiting for me. It was my fault that Kevin died and I knew it. Wayne knew it. Kaylee & Grace probably did, too, but they had never mentioned anything. The tension between the four of us had grown into a heavy weight that pushed our morale into the ground. If Ben, Nikki, Toby & Ray hadn’t come along with when they did who knew where we would have been. They distracted us from each other and that was good.

“You better smoke that. They aren’t easy to come by.” Daryl gestured towards the box in my hands. He had kept to the back of the group, keeping watch, and Aaron led us from the front. I was lagging behind the rest and had fallen into step next to Daryl. I glanced up at his face, which was facing forward again. The sun was almost up by this point and it’s light had softened his harsher features and his scowl wasn’t nearly as defined now as it had been.

“You take the first puff.” I tossed the box at him and impressively, he caught it. After sighing quietly to himself and pulling a matchbook out of his vest pocket, he lit it up with deft fingers. I watched his lips as he took the drag and when he exhaled the cigarette smoke, my knees almost gave way in reaction to it’s sweet scent. I nearly ripped the cigarette from his grasp.

“Been a while?” He asked, knowing the answer already.

“I was a ‘pack a day’ smoker before this whole thing went down.” He gave me a slight nod of understanding and we continued to walk side by side.

The group continued to speak with Aaron about the community. They talked about the it’s physical and political structure and who was on the counsel, how housing and food rations worked, and how jobs were assigned. Suddenly, Daryl stopped in his tracks.

“Shh!” He quickly walked around the congregation of people and pushed Ben and Grace, who had been moving along the left side of the tree line, back toward the center. Almost simultaneously, two Corpses lurched toward Daryl. With insane reflexes, he stabbed one in the head, and kicked the other to the ground, where he would then swing his crossbow around like a golf-club, hitting the partially decomposed head, causing an explosion of brain matter to fly all over us.

Silence fell over among the people and everyone stared wide eyed at him. He wiped blood off of his brow and took a bandana out of his back pocket to clean the end of his crossbow.

“What? You never seen anybody kill a walker before?” He looked around at us. Even Aaron seemed a little bit shocked by his skills. We had all killed one of the “walkers” before, but never have we done it so quickly and efficiently, especially with such little indication of their presence.

Aaron was the first to break the silence. “We should probably keep quiet now. We’re attracting roamers. I’ll answer any more questions you have when we get to the van.” We continued on our way in silence.

******

About 30 minutes later, we had arrived at a small clearing. Parked there was the van that Aaron had mentioned earlier and a few feet from it was a very eccentrically designed motorcycle perched up on it’s kickstand. Toby ran up to the bike and began to run his finger along the side. I jerked my head toward Daryl, gauging his reaction. I could tell that he wasn’t super comfortable with the attention the boy was showing the bike, but he didn’t yell or tell him to stop. He went over to the boy and began showing him all the features of the motorcycle. Nikki joined Daryl and Toby at the bike and Aaron and Ben began to load up what little supplies and personal belongings we had. Silently, Wayne got into the front seat of the van, ready to get on the road.

Before long, we were ready to go on our journey to Alexandria. After everything was loaded up, Aaron addressed us as a whole. “I can get the bulk of you guys in the van with me. One of you will have to ride with Daryl unless you want to be sitting on top of one another.” He laughed at himself and got into the vehicle.

“I’ll ride with Daryl!” Grace exclaimed, excitedly. Kaylee grabbed her hand and pulled her into the very backseat of the van next to her. “No you won’t.” I heard her mutter.

Toby joined the girls in the back and Nikki and Ben stared at me for a few moments before jumping into the middle seat and slamming the door in front of me, smiling. I glared back at them and flipped them the bird, before turning back to Daryl.

“Ain’t afraid of bikes, are you?” He mounted the motorcycle and waited for me to get on.

“Nope. Just strangers.” I said, flashing him a half-hearted smile. He looked up at me, returning my gaze to his I walked over.

“What’s your name again?” He asked.

“Meredith. Well… Meri.” The corners of his mouth raised up for a split second before falling back down to their original state. I felt like I knew where this was going.

“I’m Daryl. Now get on, Meri, Meri Quite contrary, we gotta get rollin’.” I rolled my eyes at him and swung my leg over the side and put my feet up. He sat back down and started up the bike.

“The terrain out here is pretty rugged until we get back to the road. You might want to hold onto the bars.” He revved the engine.

“I think I can manage!” I yelled over the noise.

He cocked his head in my direction and yelled back, “Suit yourself!” And with that we lurched forward. Instinctively, my arms flew around his waist and latched on to him.

Notes

Comments

Holy moly!! This was so great!! Thank you!!

JetCmoon JetCmoon
3/8/17

Thank you so much for the updated chapter!! It was awesome!!!

JetCmoon JetCmoon
2/20/17

@GeezLouise
Absolutely!! I check for updates daily!! LOL As I said to another great writer, I am faithful to the writers who put their heart and imagination into their stories so I am not going anywhere!! :)

JetCmoon JetCmoon
2/1/17

@GeezLouise
Of course I will! :D

A Lady A Lady
2/1/17

@JetCmoon

Thanks!!

@A Lady
I am so glad you enjoyed it!! Stay tuned.

GeezLouise GeezLouise
2/1/17