TWD: Merle - Chapter 13: Marcus's Past (Patreon)

By evening, the three of them returned to camp carrying five gutted white-tailed deer.

The moment T-Dog and Glenn saw them, they stepped outside the barricade and hurried over to help.

Merle handed the deer off his shoulder to Glenn. His usual swagger was nowhere to be seen.

There was only one reason.

He was exhausted.

Right now, all he wanted was to get back into camp, knock back a couple of drinks, smoke a cigarette, and take a dip in the lake.

Daryl wasn't doing much better. His face was flushed, sweat soaked his clothes, and he was breathing heavily.

He even stumbled when T-Dog took the deer from him.

Wade was the only one who still looked relatively fresh. The smile on his face made it obvious he was in a very good mood.

Not only had he carried the two heaviest deer, he'd spent most of the trip back giving Merle hell.

"You doing okay over there? Legs aren't giving out already, are they?"

"Well, look at that. Good old Merle can't even carry a young deer without slowing down."

"Looks like you still need more practice, buddy."

At first, Merle had cursed him out. Then he'd stubbornly fired back with insults of his own. By the end, all he could manage were a few quiet grumbles.

There wasn't much else he could do.

The kid's stamina was downright monstrous.

"Whoa, man. Did you guys raid the whole damn forest?"

"That looks like enough meat to feed us for a week."

The four children in camp were excited too, especially Cathy. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd eaten meat.

Nearby, Marcus watched Wade with growing approval.

A successful hunt like this proved the young man wasn't just all talk.

He really did have the ability to protect them.

At this point, Marcus's choice seemed obvious.

Daryl sat down, but he didn't rest for long. Before long, he called Wade over to help skin and butcher the deer.

In weather like this, the meat would spoil quickly if they left it sitting around too long.

"Got another hunting knife? I can help."

Wade paused and studied Marcus's calm expression for a moment before nodding.

He returned to his tent and took two bags of salt and a spare hunting knife from his Storage Space.

He tossed the knife to Marcus, then turned to Daryl.

"Marcus and I can handle the deer. Take T-Dog and Glenn and build a smoking rack."

Daryl gave Wade a distinctly skeptical look.

His expression practically said, You sure about that?

"Trust me, buddy. I used to work at a slaughterhouse. You really think this is harder than butchering a cow?"

Daryl's expression eased considerably at that.

He nodded, grabbed an axe, and took T-Dog and Glenn into the nearby woods to cut timber.

Rick and Shane naturally weren't going to stand around doing nothing either. They didn't know how to butcher an animal, but they could at least help move things.

Carol somehow found a large barrel, then joined Andrea and Amy in salting and curing the meat.

Wade's knife moved smoothly and efficiently.

In less than five minutes, he'd removed an entire deer hide in one piece.

Then he worked around the joints. The tip of his knife slipped into the flesh, twisted slightly, and sliced through the tendons. With a firm turn of one hand, he separated an entire leg.

He repeated the process piece by piece, and before long, the deer had been completely broken down.

Marcus had never butchered an animal before, but he was a quick learner.

After watching Wade's technique and listening to his explanation once, he'd already memorized all the important details.

He was extremely careful while skinning, keeping his cuts light so he wouldn't damage the hide.

But when it came time to separate the meat from the bones, he seemed like a completely different person.

Every cut was firm and precise. In fact, he made it look even easier than Wade did.

After watching him for a while, Wade couldn't help asking, "You've seriously never done this before?"

Marcus didn't even look up.

"No. But from where I'm standing, it's not much different from the anatomy work I did in medical school."

Wade paused.

"Wait. What exactly did you do before all this?"

Marcus's knife stopped for a brief moment, and something unreadable flickered through his eyes.

"I was an associate chief surgeon in emergency surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital. Then some things happened, and I ended up coming back here and opening a small clinic."

Rick and Shane both reacted immediately.

Rick couldn't help asking, "Man, how old were you?"

"Twenty-seven. Why? You checking my résumé now too?"

Andrea looked up from where she was working.

"Holy shit... They actually fired you? They must've been out of their damn minds. You don't throw away a surgeon like that unless something inside the system is seriously screwed up."

Wade stared at them, completely lost, his knife unconsciously coming to a stop.

"Okay... what am I missing here?"

"Wade, Grady Memorial is one of the best trauma centers in the country, and Marcus was already an associate chief surgeon there."

Rick's expression turned serious.

"I'm not exaggerating. If you got shot right now, as long as it wasn't immediately fatal, Marcus would have a real chance of pulling you back from the brink."

Wade's eyes lit up.

Holy shit.

Did he seriously just luck into someone this valuable?

In a world like this, nobody could guarantee they'd never get injured.

Having a doctor this skilled around was practically priceless.

"Dr. Marcus, you absolutely have to join our group."

Marcus smiled but didn't say much.

He simply nodded, and the knife in his hand seemed to move even faster and steadier than before.

As everyone chatted, Daryl returned with T-Dog and Glenn, dragging several logs behind them.

Daryl didn't head back out.

After saying a few words to T-Dog, he handed over the axe and sent him and Glenn back into the woods for more timber.

Daryl picked up a shovel and dug away the topsoil to make room for a fire pit.

Then he started building a triangular frame. He lashed the pieces tightly together with wire, spread the supports apart, and buried the ends in the ground.

Across the middle, he secured three thinner branches as crossbeams, then strung wire between them.

With that, the simple smoking rack was finished.

The corner of Daryl's mouth lifted slightly.

He seemed pretty satisfied with it.

Then the sound of timber scraping and creaking through the woods reached him.

His smile vanished almost immediately, and he went right back to work.

It wasn't complicated.

It was exhausting, but satisfying.

On T-Dog and Glenn's third trip, however, they came running back without any wood.

Both looked panicked.

"Walkers coming from the southeast! A lot of them! At least thirty or forty!"

Wade immediately stopped what he was doing.

He grabbed the recurve bow he'd yet to put away, shot to his feet, and shouted, "Shit! Those barricades won't hold that many. We need to thin them out before they reach camp. We cannot let them get inside!"

Shane reacted immediately.

"All the men, grab your weapons and get ready to fight! Women, get the kids to the vehicles! Move!"