Unconscious meat eaters (The walking dead - Daryl's fanfic)

Daryl was sitting on a tree stump making an arrow when Nadia appeared in front of him holding a plate with some pieces of cake. He pretended not to notice her, but she sat on the ground near him anyway.

‘I’ve made this snack for us. It’s made of orange’, she said, taking a piece and starting to eat it.

‘Why do you lock horns with taking care of me?’, he asked in a rough way.

She smiled.

‘Because you take care of me.’

‘I take care of everyone. And there are other guys taking care of everyone too.’

‘They’re all married or the like. Take a piece. It’s good!’

‘Not hungry.’

They exchanged a look for the first time ever. He noticed she wasn’t happy as usual, especially after she glimpsed some dead squirrels hanging from his chopper handlebars. ‘What the hell’, he thought, and wished none of that was happening.

‘I heard you don’t eat meat’, he spoke with his teeth closed.

‘You heard it right. I was born like this’, she answered smiling again.

‘Also heard you’re from Brazil.’

‘I am. Came here to learn English. I was going back by the end of this year, when snow starts to fall…’

‘Don’t like snow?’

‘I’m just not used to it. Last winter, my first here, I promised myself I’d follow the migratory birds! Guess my plans will have to change a little bit now… You know? I wanted to travel. Europe, South Africa, India, Australia… I had it all scheduled. All my life I stayed away from men because of that.’

He looked at her as if his eyes were saying “Now I definetely don’t want this virgin mary in my way”.

‘I mean, it’s hard to go around the world if you have someone special waiting for you.’

Daryl still seemed to be very unfriendly. If someone got really determined to enter his world, it would take a lifetime of front and backwards moves. Nadia, however, wasn’t determined at all. She took another piece of cake.

‘Well, there was a dog. There is, I don’t know. Kiwi, because he looked like one. He preferred my neighbor for barbecue reasons! I just couldn’t stand the rejection and went as far as possible!’

Her reward for that little joke, she thought, was a second exchange of look.

‘You had no family?’

‘No one close.’

‘A couple of guys in here have no family either.’

Nadia didn’t want to annoy him. She didn’t want to annoy anybody. She swallowed the last bit of cake in her mouth and said in a very kind tone of voice:

‘I know what you mean. Just let me tell you something: I feel happy to be here talking to you. I wish you felt the same, but if you don’t, just ask me to go. I’ll understand.’

‘Go.’

‘Ok.’

She stood up slowly, slapped the dust off her shorts and took a few steps away from him. Her mind was very active, so she was already thinking about what she could do next to fulfill her day when he called out her name.

‘What?’, she asked turning around. She stood still for some endless Daryl’s seconds until he finally reached out his hand to take the plate and go give it to her from a safe distance.

‘Here. Now don’t come back.’

‘He cares about me a lot’, she thought, but she didn’t smile because it would hurt him.

She disappeared among the trees and he started making arrows again, a lot of them, very quickly. Then he went hunting. His pain was his only company and it returned with him even worse that night.

He had a very good excuse to go to the camp, though: a deer he wouldn’t be able to eat not because it was too much. ‘That goddamned witch!’, he said to himself.

He looked everywhere but couldn’t find her. He sat for a while with the others but couldn’t rest. It was unbearable to see some of them preparing the meat. Maybe he was too tired, maybe he was too weak, but some flashes of that people eating the deer with their bare teeth made him want to shoot everybody then shoot his own head.

‘Have you seen Nadia today? She doesn’t eat it but she could help us to preserve it’, he heard somebody asking and got real mad.

‘Don’t say bullshit! And I haven’t seen her since early this afternoon’, Daryl answered very threateningly. ‘The girl goes missing and you only notice it when you need her?’

‘I saw her with a shovel and some boards a couple of hours ago. She seemed to be making a coffin.’

‘A coffin?! And you didn’t find it strange?!’

‘Well, look around. Everybody is dying…’

‘Just tell me where you saw her!’

‘By the swamp…’

Daryl strangled him just in his mind because he had to hurry to find out what was going on. There was only one possible thing, he presumed: she dug a grave, put a coffin inside it, buried herself and no one could hear the shot because of the dirt. ‘Wait a minute! Are you dumb? How would she put the dirt back in the hole?’

Yet he saw her place of death. The pain almost killed him, but he had enough strength to dig it open and pull out the coffin lid to see her calmly laid down! He wanted to hug her and to punch her and to kiss her and to kill her! Nadia unhurriedly got out of her hideout, while listening to him shouting at her.

‘Are you crazy? What do you think you’re doing? Everybody’s giving their best to survive and you just give up?! What were you trying to do? Suffocate in here?!’

‘Please lower your voice.’

‘Please low…’

‘Listen to me.’

They were both sitting on the dirt, their feet barely touching the coffin bottom, side by side.

‘One: did you forget the things I said yesterday about living instead of surviving when that kid was going to be slaughtered? Two: just imagine! Nothing can come from this side because of the swamp. It’d be very unlikely to reach me from that side because of those cliffs. Also, there are lots of trees all over the place. And if you had paid a little attention to my shelter, you’d have seen an air duct ending on that tree, so that it’s almost impossible to know where I am. Well, at least it’s what I was convinced of. I was testing the thing. But I was quite sure I was safe, you know? I’m just a little upset because I’ll have to do it again. In fact, I’m not upset at all, for it was you…’

‘My turn.’

‘Ok.’

‘Do you wanna know what you are to me? Do you… I don’t care if you do! I don’t care if I don’t wanna talk about it!  I don’t know what the hell you have in your voice that I’m addicted to it. You’re like a cigarette, or a stronger drug! I listen to you, I feel fine for a while. I don’t listen to you for some time, I have to find you. I stay with you for too long, it’s overdose. I think you’re dead, everything else is over.’

‘Daryl…’

‘Don’t say anything! Forget what I just said! I’m hallucinating! Let’s get out of here! Come to the RV with me if you wanna feel safe enough to sleep. I can fix this for you tomorrow.’

He stood up very quickly, grabbing her arm and trying to pull her from that place, but he let her loose too soon, she slipped on the soft soil and fell into the shelter, injuring her knees. He jumped like an arrow into the hideout to help her get into her feet again, but she couldn’t. Then he just lifted her so that she could sit on the soil again – all that without saying a word and in seconds!

‘I think I’ll be able to walk in some minutes…’

‘We can’t wait.’

‘You’re definetely not going to put me on your shoulders. I don’t want to worry anybody. They ask a lot of questions, you know?’

‘Leave it up to me!’

And he carried her out of the woods in his arms.

‘Daryl, maybe I can walk now.’

‘You’re not heavy. Keep eating berries. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three. Why?’

‘Just wanted to know you were not under eighteen. You look pretty… young.’

They entered the camp and some of the others stood up in aprehension, quickly asking what happened. Daryl had it all set:

‘We just got married!’, he replied as sharply as usual, leaving them in astonishment. Nadia laughed a little and let him accomplish his mission with a comfortable silence.

They got in the RV to find out the only bed had already been taken. Either they would share a mat or…

‘Lie down here. I’ll stay awake and stand guard.’

‘This reminds me of a song…’, she whispered, sitting on the mat.

‘What?’

She signaled him to come closer. He left his crossbow on the table and sat beside her.

‘Te fiz comida, velei teu sono... Fui teu amigo, te levei comigo e me diz: pra mim o que é que ficou?’, she sang in his ears. ‘It’s about someone confused in a complicated world.’

‘Me?’

‘All of us.’

They stared at each other for a long time. Nadia was just singing in his mind, but Daryl was very confused, for he had grown up with “no mamma’s arms to hold him, no daddy’s smiles” at all. ‘Why in the hell do I want her to hold me? To smile at me and sing again? She’s turning me into a pussy! If I just went…”

‘Do you want me to sing you another song? It would make you sleep. You’re so strong, but it’s good to rest now and then. Come on, stretch out your back in here.’

He wanted to resist, he really wanted, but he was so tired, and her voice… It seemed to command his eyes till they closed, and his body until it did exactly as she said. Then Nadia started to sing another song, lying down next to him. He listened to the first verse as if he could understand it, as if he knew there was hope all over it. Then she sang another verse, getting real close to him, her mouth almost touching his neck:

‘Todos os dias antes de dormir, lembro e esqueço como foi o dia... Sempre em frente! Não temos tempo a perder...’

‘What is this one about?’, he mumbled, not wanting to be rude interrupting her, but to try to stay awake forever.

‘Time. There’s a lot of time, but there’s no time to lose.’

‘You can continue if you want to…’

She hugged him and finished the song. A long silence followed until he just held her hand and asked:

‘Teach me how to love.’

‘Of course, Daryl, of course…’

And they just slept like that, sharing warmth and certainty.

But it didn’t last to become reality. When Nadia woke up, he wasn’t there anymore, and he spent the whole day away, trying to forget she existed. He almost did it, if it wasn’t for a herd invading the camp in the middle of the night. The fire brought him back, and the fire allowed him to see survivors escaping in cars, leaving two mortals behind. He went for Nadia and didn’t see the other girl disappearing in the woods. Then they rushed to find their campmates, which didn’t take long.

They found one, two, three of the vehicles and Daryl’s chopper was just like a needle sewing all of them together and leading those desperate souls to a safer place. He was good like that. He even wanted to go try to find some missing people, but each one of the remainder had death stories to tell. Also, when he saw the area wasn’t that secure, he helped everyone get a better car, the last drop of fuel he could find and the few useful things that were left to scavenge. Unfortunately, not enough to make it to somewhere free from danger. Just the middle of a road surrounded by nothing.

When they stopped, hungry, scared, cold, grieving, all those negative feelings turned into a chaotic argument whose main consequence was the disclosure of a very inconvenient truth: everybody was infected.

‘Except Nadia!’, the guy said pointing at her as if she was guilty. The next second, all of them looked at her, then at themselves and at the guy who said that and they all started asking questions to make sure it was real. How many times had they listened to some undeniable info such as “we must love our children”, “we must stay away from guns”, “we must build a sustainable world”? They had never really listened. They were going to hear another one, though. A very painful one. Actually, a new fact for most of them.

‘It’s because she doesn’t eat meat’, Daryl mumbled. ‘Maybe her blood is our hope to find a cure.’

They couldn’t help but stare at her. Everybody thought she was just a useless sixteen-year-old burden who hasn’t really caused any real trouble – yet. Now, hearing that was as if Daryl had hit them with an arrow in their heads, and no one was able to digest such a strong idea. So, everybody just changed subject. They had to organize a new camp and guard shifts. They had to think about what to do in the morning. They had to dream about a different world. A world full of Nadias instead of unconscious meat eaters…

When the first part was settled, Nadia sat right next to Daryl, who felt very uncomfortable, although all of them were also very close to each other, looking for safety. She nestled her head against his chest and shivered with cold, so he instinctively passed his arm around her to try to warm her up a little, feeling even more awkward, but at least he thought he knew why he had been keeping his distance from her.

‘Where are the clothes we found?’, he asked someone.

‘In the first car.’

‘C’mon, let’s find something for you in there’, he said, standing up.

She followed him directly, but overheard one of the women saying ‘I don’t know what the hell is going on between those two’. Her first impulse was to get back and tell them everything, but then she thought it would be rude, and she hadn’t quite decided yet what to do when Daryl told her to hurry.

He opened the trunk then a heavy bag, telling her to choose something fast. She noticed he wasn’t worried about an attack.

‘Daryl, when you said you wanted me to teach you how to…’

‘I was out of my mind! Can’t you see it now?!’

‘Now? Now what? Now that we need each other more than ever? Cos I need…’

‘You need to stay away from me! From every man!’

‘You mean…’

‘I mean you’re not infected and you have to remain like this! Do you think is it just the meat?! I’ve been thinking…’

‘Yeah, I see your point now. I feel I have no other option than to tell you a little story.’

‘Go ahead then.’

‘Look, I’ve lost my mother when I was 11. I used to be a sweet child, but after that I became a brat. You know? A total spoiled little monster.’

‘You? Hard to believe.’

‘Until something happened – at my 13^th birthday party. Something that changed me completely again. I had this cousin… He was a little bit older than me and I hated him – well, I actually hated everybody at that time. He stayed for the night and I think he decided to take revenge from all I had done to him… by raping me.’

‘Wha…?’

‘You know, we’re a very sensual people in Brazil. We start our sexual lives early and free of guilt.’

‘I don’t unders…’

‘Look, although I was open to have sex with some guys, I hated him, remember? And he forced me regardless. I almost couldn’t breathe because he covered my mouth, so I passed away after feeling a lot of pain.’

Daryl’s face hardened and it was impossible for him to keep on looking at her. She touched his arm very fondly,  what just made him try to come off.

‘Put this on before you freeze.’

‘Thanks. I wonder if we can find some pants.’

He helped her in that darkness until they found the same pair of jeans together. Nadia thought she had already given him the time he needed to be ready to listen more and she finished her story before entering the car to change his shorts.

‘I went back being sweet because of that, you know? I spent a lot of time silent, thinking, then I realised I should had seen it coming. I deserved it.’

‘How can you say that?!’

‘We all deserve what we get. I read lots of books, watched tons of movies, listened to some good bands and I decided to change. I don’t know what I did to deserve losing my parents – yeah, my father died last year, but maybe it was the only way to bring me here. Maybe this is where we can work things out instead of being extinct. Anyway, I told you my secret because I don’t want you to think this is like HIV, I mean, I think sex is a natural thing and I didn’t get infected with it. I want you… to be… someone… very close to me, now. But you can take your time and feel free to tell me you don’t want me.’

‘You talk to me as if I was a little girl! I’m not a fucking idiot! I said we got married, didn’t I?! And I can’t infect you! You said you want me, didn’t you?! Do you think I’m a pussy?!’

In spite of all that verbiage, he wasn’t able to do anything but walking back and forth! She expected he would when she pissed him off on purpose, just to see if anger could motivate him since love couldn’t.

‘I think you must get rid of your prejudices’, was her thought while he finally managed to use his “manhood” as an excuse to hold her strongly and kiss her lips wildly. He wouldn’t admit he had imagined that moment some times before, but he told her she was his last hope. Humanity’s last hope, in fact.

‘Now I’m going to protect you 24/7. Nothing is gonna happen to you because you don’t deserve it and I’ll be the one to make sure the world treats you right. I feel like we’re close to a solution. We can find somewhere safe. Are you really 23?’

She grinned at him, her eyes sparkling, and nodded.

'Then let's get in the car', he suggested, all hands on her, smiling with the corner of his mouth.