Chapter 57 Daryl and Merle — What Brothers Really Mean

If Magnus Vane couldn’t get fuel, then the motorcycle was useless. Out in rural Georgia, where roads and settlements could be separated by miles of empty land, trying to continue on foot while searching for Daryl and Merle would be almost pointless. He could always return to the prison, recover the fire engine, and organize a wider search later, but pushing a dead motorcycle through hundreds of walkers just to reach the pumps was obviously impossible. Magnus took one last look around the restroom wall and muttered, “Unless I suddenly learn how to fly, there’s no getting through that.”

He had already decided to retreat when something strange caught his eye above the convenience store. A pair of patterned shorts had been tied up like a makeshift flag and was fluttering in the breeze, bright enough to stand out against the roofline. Magnus narrowed his eyes, and a moment later he spotted a bald head briefly appearing beside them. His expression changed immediately. “No way.”

Magnus leaned farther around the wall and checked the center of the gas station again. Sure enough, two motorcycles were sitting near the pumps, and the fuel nozzles were still hanging from their tanks as though whoever had been filling them had been forced to abandon everything in a hurry. Magnus closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Of course it’s them. Couldn’t just get lost normally, could you?”

Leaving was no longer an option.

Daryl and Merle had only gone ahead to scout, so neither brother would have packed enough food or water for several days. If Magnus returned later with the convoy, there was a real chance he would find two more walkers trapped on that roof instead of two living men. He looked at the herd again, trying to find some route through hundreds of bodies, but every approach ended the same way. “All right,” he muttered. “How do I get you idiots out without fighting half the county?”

His eyes swept across the station.

Then stopped.

A fuel tanker sat off to one side with the driver’s door hanging partly open.

Magnus smiled.

“That’ll do.”

On the roof of the convenience store, Merle Dixon forced himself upright and looked over the edge again. The walker herd below hadn’t thinned; if anything, more corpses seemed to have wandered in during the morning, filling the gas station with an almost solid mass of bodies. His face had gone pale from dehydration, and after staring for several seconds he gave two humorless laughs before dropping back beside Daryl. “Well, this is one hell of a vacation.”

Daryl lay flat with his black shirt draped over his head to block the sun, his crossbow resting within reach. “Quit moving,” he muttered from beneath the fabric. His voice was weaker than before, not because he was trying to stay quiet but because he barely had the energy to waste on talking. “Moving burns water. Cover your head before this heat cooks you alive.”

Merle stared at the sky. “Tonight?” he asked lazily. “We barely got any rainwater left from that storm, and we didn’t bring food because we were supposed to be gone a couple hours.” He swallowed against a painfully dry throat and gave another weak laugh. “If this herd doesn’t move, we’re gonna die up here one way or another.”

Daryl didn’t answer.

Merle turned his head toward him. “Hey, little brother.”

Silence.

“If I go first, you eat me.”

Daryl pulled the shirt off his face.

Merle continued before he could interrupt. “Drink the blood if you have to. Whatever keeps you alive long enough to get out of here.” He didn’t know that death itself would trigger the infection already present in every survivor, turning his body into a walker whether or not he had been bitten. To Merle, it was simply the last useful thing he could offer his brother.

Daryl stared at him for several seconds.

Then he threw the black shirt directly over Merle’s face.

“You’re a damn idiot.”

Merle fought his way out from beneath the shirt. “What?”

“Listening to you talk feels like getting trapped in a hog pen with a sow trying to kiss me. Cover your head and shut the hell up.” Daryl’s lips were dry and pale, and exhaustion had dulled his eyes, but the stubbornness in them hadn’t disappeared. Even half-dehydrated and trapped above hundreds of walkers, Daryl Dixon still looked more annoyed than afraid.

Merle laughed.

“Don’t get all sensitive on me.”

He pushed himself slightly upright again. “You’re my brother. Better you get something outta me than those dead bastards down there.”

Daryl went quiet.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

Then Daryl said, “You’ve always been an asshole.”

Merle gave him a sideways look. “When the hell wasn’t I?”

“I’m talking about when you left.”

Merle’s grin disappeared.

The roof became silent again.

Finally, Merle looked away. “Me leaving was probably the best thing I ever did for you. Dad gave me enough hell. Figured maybe things would be easier without me there making him worse.”

Daryl laughed once, but there was nothing amused about it.

“Yeah?”

He sat up.

Then pulled the shirt completely off.

Merle’s expression changed.

Daryl turned enough for the scars across his back to catch the light.

Some were old and faded.

Others were deeper.

All of them were unmistakable.

Merle slowly sat upright.

“I… didn’t know.”

His voice lost almost all of its usual swagger.

Daryl didn’t look at him. “He hit me too.”

Merle stared at the scars.

“Same as you.”

His face tightened.

Guilt, shock, anger, and something much harder to name passed through his expression almost too quickly to separate. “I thought…” Merle started, then stopped. “I thought once I was gone…”

“Yeah.”

Daryl’s voice remained flat.

“You thought wrong.”

Merle lowered his eyes.

Daryl turned back toward him. “So if you fought that hard to get out back then, don’t start quitting now.” He reached forward suddenly, grabbed Merle by the collar, and pulled him close. “See these scars? You owe me for every damn one of them.”

Merle stared at him.

Daryl’s expression hardened.

“You don’t get to die before you pay me back.”

For all their similarities, the brothers had always handled emotion in completely opposite ways. Daryl cared through action and silence, rarely saying what he felt unless pushed beyond his limit, while Merle buried anything vulnerable beneath aggression, jokes, and cruelty. Daryl understood that better than anyone, which was why he knew sympathy wouldn’t reach him now. Merle needed anger.

Merle shoved Daryl’s face away.

“Don’t piss me off, little brother.”

He turned his head.

His eyes were red.

Daryl saw it and said nothing.

For a few seconds, the two simply lay there beside each other.

Then Daryl suddenly pushed himself upright.

His entire body went still.

A low mechanical rumble was coming from somewhere beyond the station.

It grew louder.

And louder.

Daryl crawled toward the roof edge and stared.

A fuel tanker came rolling down the road.

It was enormous, nearly as imposing as Magnus’s fire engine, and it moved slowly enough to remain visible for several seconds as it passed the station. The diesel engine growled loudly through the empty countryside, immediately drawing the attention of the herd below. Hundreds of walkers turned almost in unison.

Merle forced himself up. “What the hell is that?”

“Don’t know.”

Daryl narrowed his eyes.

“But somebody’s driving it.”

The tanker continued down the road at maybe fifteen miles per hour.

The walkers followed.

At first they only shuffled after the sound, but the moving vehicle steadily pulled the herd away from the pumps and convenience store. More and more bodies joined the flow until the gas station began emptying before Daryl’s eyes. Within minutes, nearly three-quarters of the herd had been dragged down the road behind the tanker.

Merle stared.

“No damn way.”

Dozens still remained scattered around the station, too slow, trapped, or badly positioned to follow the larger group. Compared with the hundreds that had surrounded them before, however, the difference was enormous. For the first time in days, the motorcycles below were actually visible between moving corpses.

Then came a wet impact.

Splat!

Daryl’s head snapped toward the sound.

A walker near the side of the store collapsed with its skull crushed.

Another body dropped behind it.

Then a familiar figure stepped into view.

Blood-stained armor.

A splinted right arm.

A massive Stone Sledgehammer resting in the left hand.

And a grin that looked far too cheerful for someone standing in the middle of a gas station full of walkers.

Magnus looked up toward the roof.

“Gentlemen.”

Daryl froze.

Merle stared.

Magnus’s smile widened.

“Been a few days.”

He shifted the hammer onto one shoulder.

“Miss me?”

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