#twdead

He also made me feel somehow closer to Daryl and, incredibly, made me keep the positivity that one day we’d find him. My hopes went down many, many times, to the point I could give up and just accept Daryl was in the past, but Merle would have it. He was certain we’d still find him, just like he’d been certain he would one day find me and his brother. Merle had always though he’d find us together, at the same time, and not separately, but still. He believed it for real and made me keep faith as well.

That day we had been driven away from the bank we’d been holed up in for nearly a week by a small heard and the fact that the place was stinking so bad it was getting hard to breathe in, so we were on the road again. We had taken to drive only two cars and tow the others with ropes as a form of saving gas but still having all the cars.

It was a dirt side road, much like where our previous house had been, and there was an untrimmed, overgrown long hedge that went on for like fifty or sixty yards until there was a wide opening at a corner. I slowed down to a stop, looking at it. Seconds later, Andrea stopped her car by our side and I could see she and Michonne were also observing the same thing I was.

“What ya think’s inside?” Merle asked by my side.

“Let’s find out,” and I moved with the car again until we parked in front of the opening.

Inside we could see it was a paved street that elongated into the area, trees all around it and two or three houses barely visible, one of them pretty close to the opening. It was very quiet. The four of us came out of the cars, all thinking the same. We would do the same thing we’d been doing for so long: check, clear, loot, and if it was good, stay for as long it was possible.

It was a huge square shaped area, streets on two sides with the gateless opening right on the corner, and dense woods on the other two sides. It took us a while to round it all and make sure it was all closed – it wasn’t, really, there was a small metal fence gate on the back that led to the woods, weed overgrown nearly covering it all, rusted and locked tight.  Getting back to the opening, we slowly and silently made our way in.

Before we could reach the first house, though – it was a mobile home styled house, we could see now, walkers came out of the trees and from around the house itself. Many of them. Refusing to shoot because of the noise, we dealt with over a ten of them before getting to the minuscule house porch. More were coming when Merle busted the door opened, no time to check for sound or look through the windows this time, and we entered. There were two more inside, which Andrea and Michonne killed off as Merle and I dragged a couch to secure the door with its ruined lock. Walkers outside tried to get in, loud groans and nails scratching the wooden door.

Still silently, we checked the house and found it was clear. It was a tiny one-bedroom trailer, fully furnished, with just the one door as a way in. I was already opening the kitchen cabinets trying to find anything useful and it was all there, like someone had been living there before the world ended and left without packing anything. There were bags of chips and pasta and cans of soup, meat and sauces. In the bedroom Andrea found a dresser filled with men’s clothes.

Merle was already sitting on the couch, groaning at his aching legs, when we all gathered there, the walkers outside still trying to get to us. Right by the door there was a table and booth and a window above it. Sliding into the booth and taking my knife out, I opened at the window a crack and hit the knife there on the windowsill to get their attention off the door. Using the crack, I started stabbing their heads, making them drop one by one. Michonne quietly approached and gestured me to let her do it after around ten minutes I’d been doing it, and kept on going. The number of walkers increased, their own kind attracting the attention of others, and then dropped again until no more were heard around the house. Outside, there was a pile of dead, fetid corpses.

“Let’s get the cars in,” I told them, the first word I’d spoken in hours.

We had to skip over the walkers’ bodies to get out of the trailer and then went back outside to get the cars. The noise of the engines attracted more of them.

“Son of a bitch, motherfuckers just keep comin’!”

“We’ll do the same again,” I said from his side in the car. “Go further, to the next house.”

The second house was a little larger than the first, and it looked a bit more well taken care of. The owner was still inside, a chubby little old lady who might have been a cute grandma once. It was not hard putting her down. This house was a two-bedroom, cozy little home with flowery curtains on the kitchen window and what had been daisies now dry in a vase.

Right across the street there was the largest of the three houses, painted in olive with white windows and a more spacious porch. This house was the next one we’d go in, but it was probably going to be the last one because it was going to get dark soon. We crossed the street on a quick run and tested the door before busting it open and found it unlocked. Al usual, Merle went in first and froze right there, the three of us hovering around his shoulders.

“Move Merle!” Michonne told him as we eyed the walkers that were coming close to our backs.

Instead, Merle put his arms up, his knifed stump in the air as he said, “No need to shoot, man.”

Fuck.

Looking around him, I saw there was a man inside, a .12 shotgun pointed right at Merle’s chest.

“Incoming!” Andrea warned us and I had to turn away from the living man threat to deal with the dead ones. Still under the man’s aim, Merle didn’t move to help us, but he did step away from the threshold and back onto the porch. We were lucky there weren’t many of them on this tide. Finishing the last one, I ran back to Merle and rounded him as I dropped my bush axe and stood in front of him.

“Fuck you doin’?” Merle reacted.

“Hey, we mean no harm!” I told the man who looked from Merle to me. He looked like he was trying to be firm but his eyes betrayed him. He was scared as hell. “We’re just looking for a safe place, same as everyone else! We’ll just go,” and I nudged Merle with my back to his chest to make him take a step back, which he did.

“Will?”

Okay, what? It was a female voice, weak and sounding real old, coming from the inside of the house. The man, Will, turned his head nervously to look at the direction it came from and them back at us.

“D’you have company, dear?” she spoke again.

“No, Ma!” Will said nervously. “Was just someone at the wrong house. They’ll be goin’ away now!”

“Oh, okay. I just made lemonade, if they want some!”

“Go!” Will ordered.

“You got a group?” I asked him.

“Sam, let’s just go!” Michonne whispered from behind me.

“No group, but this is our house and you’re not welcome!”

“It’s just you in this place?”

“That I know of.”

“We ain’t a threat, Will,” I told him, trying to sound calm, my hands still in the air. “Were just looking for a safe place. We might stay in one of the other houses for the night, if you don’t mind.”

“How can I be sure you ain’t a threat?” he asked and his voice shook a little.

“You got an elder here, man,” Merle answered instead of me. “Wouldn’t harm an old lady.”

His shotgun went down just a little as he said, “Just stay away from my house!”

“We will!” I assured him and told the others over my shoulder, “Go on guys, let’s go back across the street.”

Behind me I felt them move backwards, Merle’s chest not touching my back now, and I saw as Will licked his dry lips nervously.

“You got any food?” he asked.

“Not much, but I can spare you some if you’re hungry,” I told him. “But only if you stop pointing that gun on us.”

He looked to his side into the house again and back at us nervously before doing so. We were still outside.

“She’s 97,” he told us. “She ain’t got a clue what’s happenin’.”

“I understand, Will. My name is Sam, this is Merle,” he looked at Merle who was hovering over my shoulders. “Andrea and Michonne. We really don’t mean any harm, okay?”

He nodded nervously, swallowing hard.

“She didn’t really make a lemonade, ya know.”

“Thought so,” I tried smiling at him, but my heart was still accelerated. “It’s just the two of you?”

“No, my sister’s out there, went looking for food. We wanted to go in the other houses but there’s always dead people inside. Can’t get bit and leave Ma alone.”

“Okay, just make sure your sister doesn’t shoot us when she comes back home?” I asked him and he nodded. “We’ll get you some cans, alright?”

“Ya sure ‘bout that, darlin’?” Merle asked me. “Man just had a fuckin’ shotgun pointed at my chest a minute ago.”

“Yeah, and we tried to break into his house. You’d do the same.”

“Ya sure ya can spare?” Will asked and eyed my stomach. “I see ya need it.”

“Wouldn’t give it away if we couldn’t spare it.”

I did give him some, we’d found a good amount in the first house and had all that we’d been carrying with us in the cars. We were good. We didn’t get to see his old mother then, we just went back to the house across the street and stayed there. Sun went down and we arranged a quick dinner – there was still gas in the gas canister outside, so we could warm the food up and boil the water that came out of the faucet. It was a clear water but you never know. After eating we make sleeping and lookout arrangements.

Merle wouldn’t take his eyes off the window and the house across the street. We could see the light of oil lamps in there and shadows inside. Once I could see three of them, which meant the sister had come back without us seeing it. Maybe the house had a back door. They didn’t get out or did anything else, though, but I could see Merle was worried and if I knew him well, he wouldn’t be leaving that window any time soon.

The house went silent and we lit a few candles to be able to see anything. I stood by Merle, looking out as well. There were crickets and cicadas singing outside and it reminded me of the quarry camp, the tents, and Daryl. As if on cue, the baby moved and I rested my hand on my stomach and I saw Merle look down at it quickly before looking out again.

I thought of when we were on the road and stopped at a gas station, right after we left Savannah. Daryl and Merle were bickering and I heard Merle tell Daryl not to hit on me and I hadn’t wanted to hear it that time, but now thinking of it I knew Merle didn’t approve the idea then. That’s why I hadn’t told him yet. He’d get mad at Daryl for doing what he told him not to do. For some reason… But I wanted to tell him, he deserved to know, especially if we were gonna find Daryl sometime in the future. I didn’t want it to be a surprise to Merle when I jumped on Daryl right in front of him.

“Hey,” I said quietly and Merle looked at me. I pointed at my stomach where my boy was moving quite energetically. Merle didn’t understand, so I reached out for his hand and pulled it so he’d feel it. His eyes went wide when the baby jumped under his palm. He’d never felt it before. “This baby? That’s your nephew,” I whispered. “Daryl may not have made it, but he wanted it. And I wanted it to be his too, so it is. That’s your nephew.”

His look was unreadable, expressionless, but his large, calloused hand still rested there. The baby stopped after a few seconds and I let his hand go and he withdrew it, but still looked at me.

“I know you told him not to,” I moved on. “But we did get together. For a whole four days before that fuckin’ night. And it was real. It was that real thing people talk about and I never believed I’d find.”

Merle looked out the window again, thoughtful. “Thought so,” he told me. “The way you talk ‘bout ‘im…”

“I love him, Merle,” I told him firmly yet gently.

He nodded and was silent for a long moment until he finally said “Told him not to come onto ya.”

“I know. Just don’t know why.”

“’Cause we Dixon’s no good,” he said bitterly ad looked sideways at me. “Known that my whole life. Thought ya could do better.”

“That’s not true, Merle. Fuck do you mean, no good? You two have been rocks in my life since that fuckin’ night at my place. Having my back, protecting me, being my friends, my family. Even before when you were a sonofabitch all the time, you were my friend.”

“Even when I tried to get you ta drink?”

His voice was so bitter when he said that, that I knew he’d been thinking about that night. He felt guilty, ashamed for what he’d done. And he should, it had been a shitty move.

“You did wrong then, Merle, but ya different now. A sober Merle’s a whole different person. I guess you just didn’t know that ‘cause you’d been drunk and stoned for too long.”

“Got told that ma whole fuckin’ life,” his voice sounded like a low thunder. “Old Will Dixon?” he said taking an unconscious look at the house across the street where the other Will lived. “Always sayin’ we were just like’im.”

“Yeah, I know all about the old Dixon,” I said angrily. “What he did to Daryl… And to you, getting you two to believe you were pieces ‘o shit like he was. He just wanted his boys not to be better than him and you both believed it. You even kept telling Daryl those things yourself, ‘cause you believed‘em,” and then I turned fully to Merle, arms crossed. “Well, ya know what? Old Dixon had no fuckin’ idea what he was on about. He didn’t know his sons the way I do now. Ya good enough, Merle. You good enough to be my family and Daryl’s good enough to be my man.”

I don’t think nobody had ever said good things to Merle before. I don’t think anybody had had his back. Nobody had been kind to him and that’s why he got fucked up like he still was, believed himself a piece of shit and therefore acted like it.

He was silent for a long time and I let the moment stretch. He was thinking hard.

“We had a sister, ya know?” he finally said.

“I know. Georgia.”

He nodded, “Meningitis,” he told me. “She was seven, just one year older than Daryl, I was fifteen. Ya reminded me o’ her,” I nodded, wordless. He’d called me Georgia up on the roof in Atlanta. “If that baby there’s my nephew…” he looked at me. “That means ya my sister.”

My eyes filled up with tears. That was it, this was my brother. I had a family. I had two sisters who were sleeping right now, and now I had a brother as well.

“Not that ya takin’ Georgia’s place,” Merle felt the need to say. “No replacing that little angel.”

I laughed tearfully, “I know that. And ya know, you my brother, Merle, but Daryl?” I shook my head slowly. “Daryl ain’t my brother!”