Chupacabra

"Chupacabra" is the sixth episode of the second season of The Walking Dead Rewrite. It is the twelfth episode of the series overall.

Plot
Glenn, the only one breaking barriers between both groups, knows far too much for his comfort level. Daryl finds a sign of life and, in his delirium, tries to make it back to the farm alive.

FLASHBACK - Day 6
Shortly after the outbreak, Shane, Lori, and Carl are stuck in traffic on a highway leading in to Atlanta. While Shane listens for broadcasts on his car radio, Lori and Carl become acquainted with Carol, her daughter Sophia, and her husband Ed. Helicopters loom overhead. When Carl says he’s hungry, Carol offers him food from Ed's stash of military-style survival gear. But Ed shuts her down, and won't let her share their supply with strangers.

Lori joins Shane at their car, and he tells her the emergency broadcasts about the refugee center in the city have stopped. They leave Carl with Carol and Sophia as a fight breaks out among a few survivors on the highway, and military gunships zoom overhead. They walk ahead in search of someone who might know what's going on, but they watch from the side of the mountain, as the aircraft deploy napalm charges over skyscrapers in the streets of Atlanta. Terrified, Shane and Lori grab onto one another for comfort.

Day 73
At the farm, Lori wakes up late inside her tent, instantly feeling guilty about what was between her and Shane. Carol has already started the chores and suggests she must have needed the sleep, but Lori says nothing when Carol asks if she's feeling alright.

Carol asks Lori if she'd help her prepare the evening meal for Hershel and his family to thank them for taking in the survivors. It's something else to keep her mind occupied with Sophia still missing, she admits, before asking if Lori could be the one to ask for permission to cook the family dinner. She reasons since Lori is the wife to Rick it makes her the highest ranked woman around, and Lori looks back at her, speechless.

Meanwhile, Rick is preparing the search grid with Shane, Daryl Dixon, Andrea, Matt, Morales and T-Dog. Lacey Greene, the youngest daughter of Hershel, offers to search with them because she says she knows the area well and would be more helpful at finding Sophia, saying that Hershel said it was okay that she can help out. But she doesn't have a gun, and Shane says she'll be useless until she joins the group for gun training, so Andrea offers for her to go with her and Matt. T-Dog and Morales are the other team, as Daryl plans to set out on horseback alone to look for Sophia, believing he can spot her better from the ridge, stating that he already made some good progress in the last days.

T-Dog jokes that today might be the day that Daryl will see his chupacabra, and while Lacey chokes down a laugh, Dale fills Rick in on the time Daryl said he saw a chupacabra - one of the first stories about himself that he revealed to the Atlanta survivors. Rick asks Daryl if he believes in a bloodsucking dog, and Daryl shoots back if Rick believes in the dead rising up and eating people.

Glenn and Maggie discuss what happened at the pharmacy. Maggie admits that she's not even sure that she likes him, and Glenn asks if she thinks about it - the best she can. Maggie stifles a laugh and walks off.

While they search the woods for Sophia, Rick and Shane discuss Shane’s conquests in high school, joking that Rick lives vicariously through him. But Shane doesn't like talking about the past, as he says in a cold expression that all the people of their stories are dead now. When Shane adds that nostalgia is dangerous because it keeps people from knowing when to move on, Rick knows him well enough to know that he's talking about the search for Sophia.

Shane challenges Rick about his decisions to always try to help others when they should be focused purely on survival. He reminds Rick that everything they know about missing children from their time on the force has told them that they're looking for a body after 72 hours, and that was before the dead came back to life. Shane is sure that the search for Sophia is holding the group down and they should move on. Then he reminds Rick that Carl almost died, and Otis did die, as they accidentally wander into Andrea and Matt's search grid on their fruitless search.

Daryl is riding one of Hershel's horses through the woods when he spots something by the water. He parks the horse and climbs down, finding Sophia's doll, tattered and wet, against a log. He calls Sophia's name, to no avail. Taking the doll with him, he gets back on the horse and continues through the woods, but the horse is spooked by a snake in the grass, and throws Daryl before it runs off.

Out of control, he tumbles down the tree-covered ridge, landing hard in the shallow, rocky water, with one of this arrows, which had been slung around his back, pierced through his torso. He rips off his shirtsleeves to keep the arrow in place, before he uses a stick to find his crossbow in the chest-deep murky water. He climbs back up the steep ridge, using the stick and pushing himself up in his weakened state. He tries to will himself up the ridge, but loses his grip and tumbles backwards toward the pond.

At the farm, Glenn corners Lori at the tents and confirms she's pregnant. She begs him not to tell anyone. Glenn is stunned that she hasn't told Rick yet, but he disappears as Rick and Shane return from the woods without Sophia. Taking one look at them, she knows that something's wrong.

Rick tells Lori that Shane wants to call off the search, and that he thinks Rick's good intentions are making the group weaker. But Lori assures him that if it was Carl, she would want to know either way, insisting that there's nothing soft about the choices he has to make in their new world. Maggie interrupts them to tell Rick that her father, Hershel, wants to speak with him.

Rick finds Hershel by the generator, and he informs Rick that Daryl took one of his horses, without consent, and Rick informs him that he took Lacey at her word when she said that Hershel was fine with her going out into the woods that day - but Hershel hadn't consented to that, either. Rick concedes that they need to work on their communication, and Hershel requests he keep it simple and says that he controls his people and Rick should control only his people.

Bloody and bruised, Daryl wakes up at the bottom of the ridge, and his brother, Merle Dixon, looms over him, telling him he's wasting his time looking for a little girl, but not looking for his brother. Daryl tells Merle that he and Rick went back to Atlanta for him, but he was gone, and Merle can't believe he's talking about the same Rick who made him cut off his own hand.

In his groggy state, Daryl notices that Merle's right hand, which was last seen inside Glenn's backpack in Atlanta, is firmly attached to Merle's right arm, confirming to Daryl that this is, in fact, a hallucination. Merle assures Daryl that no one in Rick's group will ever care for him like he does; they're not his blood. He tells Daryl that he should return to the farm and shoot Rick in the face for the sake of his brother, yelling at him to get up and threatening to otherwise kick his teeth in.

But Merle isn't kicking Daryl, and his hallucination melts away to reveal a walker grabbing at his feet, and his head clears just in time to kick the walker off him, finding his stick and bashing the walker over the head. A second walker emerges from the brush, and Daryl manages to remove his one remaining arrow from his wounded torso, and load his crossbow, just before the walker descends on him.

He leaves the ridge agreeing with everything his brother said in his hallucination. He cuts off the ears of the dead walkers and makes them into a necklace before resuming his climb, only to be taunted by Merle again as he closes in on the top of the ridge. The taunts help Daryl to make it to the top, having pushed him forward and fed his anger. When Merle tells him that he was the only one who looked after his "worthless ass," Daryl spits back that Merle always talk big but never was there when he needed him, also stating that this a thing which never changed.

Merle charges that he is real like the chupacabra Daryl saw once, also challenging Daryl to make it to the top and kick his ass for insulting his belief in what he saw. Merle taunts his little brother and is ready to take a hit from him.

It's the last thing he says before Daryl makes it to the top of the ridge, his vision of Merle disappearing. Daryl shouts that he better runs like he always did, catching his breath. When Daryl is heading back to the farm, he can't hold himself any longer. He falls to the ground and is suffering from his wound. When a walker approaches him, he tries to stand up but he can't. Before his strength leaves him forever, someone's shout can be heard. The walker gets distracted and faces the shouter - a healthy Sophia. Daryl recognizes her voice and comes to his sins, standing up and throwing the walker to the ground. Sophia then kills the walker, bashing it's head with a big stone. Daryl, exhausted and happy that he found Sophia, says that he knew he will find her.

Sophia tells him that she is glad to see him again and states that she had to kill another walker within the last days to survive. Daryl then asks her if she was in an abandoned home in the last days, which she confirms. She tells him that she needed to leave the house to find food. Sophia then hugs Daryl, thanking him for searching for her. After she agrees to return to the farm to see her mother again, she takes Daryl's hand and together they head back to the farm.

Lori, Carol, Lacey, and Patricia work to cook dinner in the farmhouse kitchen. Carol says she never thought she'd be so happy to see a potato peeler, while Lori notes she's just thrilled not to be roasting squirrels over a fire again tonight. But their presence in the kitchen irritates Hershel.

He tells Maggie, who's setting the table, that he thinks they need to set clear boundaries with Rick's people, and she says she doesn’t understand why it’s a problem. She thinks its just dinner. Disconcerted, he asks about "the Asian boy." She tells him Glenn's a friend, and he asks her not to make him chase her around like he does with Lacey. She replies that she's not too young, and he doesn't need to chase her around. He tells her not to get close to him, reminding her that the survivors won't be around forever.

Andrea's taking perch above the RV, brandishing a rifle and watching over the farm. Dale teases her about her "Annie Oakley routine", to which Andrea just laughs. Dale then asks for Morales, to which Andrea replies that he took Eliza and Louis into the farm house, visiting Carl.

Dale heads inside the RV, where he finds Glenn returning one of his books. Glenn asks if Dale thinks Andrea's on her period, as Dale tries to make him keep his voice down. Glenn tells him that all the women are acting weird around camp, and that he read somewhere once that when women spend a lot of time together, their cycles line up. Dale asks why he thinks that Andrea is acting weird, to which Glenn says that she spends recently more time with Matt than with the group. Dale gets him off the subject, forcing him to back up. He then comes back to what Glenn said before, and asks him who is acting weird too. Glenn answers that Maggie and Lori are acting weird recently.

When Dale asks about Lori, Glenn backtracks, but opens up to Dale that he and Maggie had sex, but now she doesn't even want to talk to him. Dale gives him a hard time for not thinking it through because Maggie's father is their host, but Glenn says he did it because he thought he could be dead tomorrow, and Dale backs off. But a disappointed Glenn leaves the RV, and Andrea spots a lone walker emerging from the woods. She peers through a pair of binoculars, the sun's reflection beaming off the glass, and announces, that she could kill it from the RV's spot.

Rick orders her to put the gun down, and Shane tells Andrea that the men will take care of the issue. Rick tells the group that Hershel wants to deal with walkers on his land but Shane, T-Dog, Matt and Glenn grab weapons and run towards the woods. Rick follows, brandishing his gun, but when the men come upon the supposed walker, they realize that it's Daryl, covered in dirt and blood and little Sophia behind him, which shocks everyone. Dale recognizes Sophia being at the place too and begs Andrea not to shoot, but she tells him tersely to back off, as she thinks that Daryl is still a walker who tries to bite Sophia.

Staring down the men, Daryl spits at Rick that it is the third time he points his gun at his head and asks him if he is now going to shoot him. Rick lowers his gun and asks if Sophia is alright. Before Sophia can reach Rick and the others, Andrea takes her shot from the top of the RV, hitting Daryl in the head. Rick screams in horror and Andrea's face falls.

Lori, Carol, and Hershel's family run screaming from the farmhouse and the sound of the gunshot, demanding to know what's going on. Daryl mutters that he was kidding, before he passes out after the shot, the bullet having grazed his temple. Dale and Andrea run towards the men in the field, and Andrea's pleading that Daryl's not dead. Rick and Shane carry Daryl back towards the house, and Glenn points out that Daryl's wearing ears. Rick stuffs the necklace in his pocket and tells the group to keep that to themselves.

Sophia then sees everyone arriving at the scene and when Carol spots her daughter, they both are stunned and having a reuniting family moment after so many worries and days. Everyone looks on and feels happy for them. Sophia states that Daryl saved her and brought her back to the farm and pleads the group to help him now.

Later, inside the farmhouse, Rick questions Daryl about how he found Sophia while Hershel tends to his wounds and comments that he never thought they would go through the antibiotics so quickly. He's still annoyed that Daryl took his horse, which is now missing. Daryl apologizes for this and says that he is happy enough with Sophia being back.

Andrea's despondent on the front porch steps and Dale comes to sit with her. He tells her that she shouldn't be too hard on herself and states that everyone wanted to shoot Daryl once. She raises a smile at him and he lets her alone again. Matt joins Andrea and they talk about what happened. Andrea feels guilty and thinks she risked the chance of the group staying at the farm now since Hershel's rules are against guns on his land. Matt is sure that Hershel will understand it and maybe he changes his mind after the training shooting day. Andrea thanks Matt for being there for him and she opens herself to him, and tells him about her dead sister, Amy. Andrea and Matt are coming closer to each other.

That evening as Carl sleeps, recovering from his injuries, Lori sits alone at his bedside, tearfully wondering what she's going to do about her pregnancy. Carol enters the room with Sophia to tell Lori that the festive dinner's ready, not at all surprised to find her crying in the world they live in. Sophia looks at Carl and Carl awakes from the noise. He sees Sophia infront of him and thinks that he is dreaming, but Sophia goes to him and kisses him on the cheek. Carl then realizes that he is not dreaming at all and is happy that Sophia is back. Sophia tells him that Daryl found her in the woods and that she heard how Carl got shot on his search for her, thanking him again. Carl promise her he will tell her everything when he is feeling better and Sophia agrees, wanting Carl to recover from his injuries as fast as he can. Sophia goes to her mother, as Lori wishes Carl a good night. Lori wipes out her tears, and together with Carol and Sophia she heads down to dinner.

The two groups of the survivors sit down to a silent, awkward dinner, and Glenn tries to cut the tension asking if anyone knows how to play guitar because of the one Dale found at the traffic snarl. Patricia says that Otis knew how to play a guitar, and the silence drones on. Rick then holds a little speech about what happened this day and that they should be happy that Sophia has returned to them. Hershel, who symphatizes with Rick here first, tells that it costed Otis' life and the treatment of Carl's and Daryl's wounds costed too many medical supplies. Surprisingly, Sophia then interferes their discussion and starts to talk about how she spent the last days without the group. Everyone can tell, whatever happened to Sophia, that she changed within these few days, as she isn't really shy anymore.

Glenn, who is sitting at the "kids'" table with Lacey, Sophia, Eliza, Louis and Maggie, gets a note from Maggie, which got passed under the table. "Tonight where?" it reads, and he looks up, smiling at her. He excitedly scrawls something on the paper, which can be heard throughout the dining room as they others listen to Sophia's story. Hershel and Dale look on disapprovingly, as they realize the on going things between Maggie and Glenn.

Carol brings a plate of food up to Daryl, and thanks him for what he did looking for Sophia and for finding her, kissing his bandaged head. Daryl rebuffs her, telling her to watch out for his stitches and turning to face the window. She tells him that he did more for her little girl today than her own father did in his whole life, refering to Ed's bad treatment of his family. Daryl thinks that it is nothing what Rick and Shane also would have done for her, but Carol thinks that Daryl is more special to her.

Lacey and Maggie are cleaning dishes after dinner, and Lacey asks her sister out. Maggie doesn't want to talk about it, but Lacey knows her sister enough to tell that she and Glenn are hooking up. Maggie pleads her sister to keep it as a secret so far, to which Lacey agrees if she helps her to convince their father to not treating her as a child. Maggie sighs, but accepts it. Lacey then agrees with Maggie leaving her duties. Maggie sneaks away to read Glenn's note. "Ever done it in a hayloft?" it says, and Maggie's eyes go wide. Glenn is at the barn with a flashlight and a sleeping bag, finding the barn door chained and padlocked. He walks around the barn and finds a ladder into the hayloft, while Maggie runs desperately towards the barn.

Once inside the barn, Glenn catches a whiff of a rancid smell, and shines his flashlight towards the barn floor when he hears the familiar growls. There are dozens of walkers below, reaching up for him hungrily. He runs fearfully for the door and right into Maggie, who says regretfully that he wasn't supposed to see this.

Special Guest Star

 * Adam Minarovich as Ed Peletier
 * Michael Rooker as Merle Dixon

Co-Stars

 * Maddie Lomax as Eliza Morales
 * Noah Lomax as Louis Morales
 * Jane McNeill as Patricia

Deaths

 * 1 squirrel

Trivia

 * The title of the episode, "Chupacabra", refers to the fact that on his first night in the camp outside of Atlanta, Daryl claims he once saw a chupacabra while squirrel hunting.
 * It also refers to the chupacabra taking the form of his abusive older brother, Merle, as a representation of his inner demons.