Chapter 1: Refuge
It was late, and the few of them who remained awake in their makeshift bunker kept their voices low, so as not to disturb those who slept.
"I wish I'd taken an astronomy class. That would be a really useful thing to know these days," said Glenn. "I'll bet Dale would have known all about it."
Carol snorted quietly. "Astronomy? Are you kidding? What possible good would that do us?"
"I'm serious, Carol. Not the really hard stuff, the physics - I'm talking about the basics, like what constellations are out, and which planets rise when and in what direction. If we knew any of that, and had a compass, I think we could figure out when it is, maybe even down to the day. Weren't you just talking about how frustrating it is not to even know what month we're in?"
She considered it briefly and concluded, "Okay, so maybe it could be useful, although just from the shorter days and the way the temperatures have dropped, I can tell you we're probably already pretty deep into December." She stretched and settled her blanket more securely around her shoulders. "You're right, I do hate not knowing what day it is, and I feel like I should have kept better track, but I don't suppose it matters much anymore. It's just a thing from the past that I have trouble letting go of - I suppose it's a control issue. You might have noticed I have a few of those."
Glenn let that pass without comment, knowing it would only earn him a pinch from Carol. She couldn't see him roll his eyes, though.
Daryl's voice growled softly from the corner, "The two of you need to shut it and get the fuck to sleep, already. Carol, you got the dawn watch, you know better."
"Yessir, Sergeant Daryl, sir," mocked Carol, and pinched Glenn just on principle, before rolling onto her side and closing her eyes.
In the morning they made a hasty breakfast of cold canned goods, packed up as usual and crammed themselves and their meager belongings into the three vehicles. They'd been traveling this way for long weeks now, moving from place to place in search of secure housing, doing their best to avoid the herds of walkers they knew they'd find in heavily-populated areas, except when they desperately needed to make a raid for supplies - like now.
Maggie spotted the strip mall first, and stopped, idling the Tucson's engine and letting Rick pull the Suburban alongside for a consult. "Take a look over there - the front of that little market on the end seems intact; the security gate's still down. Think it's worth checking out?"
"Yeah, I do. We're getting pretty low on everything, guess that's as likely a spot as any." He stuck his arm out the window and signaled Daryl to follow the other two vehicles into the parking lot.
They made short work of the gate's lock with a pair of bolt cutters, and a sweep of the store turned up no unwanted inhabitants. T-Dog took up watch in front, and Lori stayed in the Suburban with Carl while the rest ransacked the place for edibles and any useful dry goods. A check behind the counter uncovered a shotgun and a box of shells, which produced a rare smile from Rick. Glenn quickly popped open the drawers as well, and gave a pleased "Hah!" when he came up with some boxes of loose matches and a digital watch. "Hey, Carol, check this out - it's running, and it even has a calendar!" He slipped it into his pocket and moved to help with sorting their finds into several small grocery carts. They had fallen into the habit of dividing everything up as evenly as they could among the vehicles, not wanting anyone to be left without resources in case they got split up. T gave a low whistle to alert the rest as he spotted several walkers headed sluggishly in their direction, and they hastily shifted the haul into the backs of the trucks and moved out.
"There," said Hershel, pointing out a low brick building. "Unitarian Church. What do you think? Not too big, and Unitarians aren't - or weren't, to my knowledge - the sort to huddle in their pews waiting for the end to come, so I suspect we might find the place to have fewer of them hanging around to bother us. Propane tank, too - might be we could fix some hot food for a change. Every church has a kitchen."
The prospect of cooked food lit a sense of purpose in all of them, and they pried open a side door, took down the two walkers they found immediately inside, and spread out in small groups to clear the rest of the place. Hershel had been right - they counted only five corpses when all was said and done. With the interior purged of walkers, they regrouped and moved through the building, looking for weak points and taking stock of additional things they could use.
The sanctuary was modern, and lacked the usual old-fashioned, beautiful but fragile leaded glass windows, featuring instead narrow columns of glass block that let in plenty of light but thwarted entrance by would-be thieves - and now, the dead. The rest of the rooms were outfitted with similar windows, giving everyone a huge sense of relief; not only was the glass sturdy enough to keep out walkers, but the thickness would also deaden any sounds they might make inside, rendering it doubly secure. The most vulnerable point they could see was the door they'd entered by, and they set a watch on it until they could figure out some means of reinforcement.
The kitchen was located at one end of a room filled with tables, and adjacent to what seemed to be a small preschool or daycare, complete with a stack of small mattresses for naps. Rick looked around and said, "We should set up sleeping quarters in here. Look, if we put two of these side-by-side, that's plenty of room for each of the adults; throw a sleeping bag on top and we should be pretty comfortable. Lori and me and Carl can stick some more together, make ourselves a little Grimes pile." Lori rolled her eyes at that, but didn't comment. She still wasn't speaking to her husband much more than was absolutely necessary. "I'll tell you what, it's gonna be a real treat to be able to get up and move around at night without worrying about steppin' on someone."
Making a sort of bucket brigade between the parking lot and the side door, they quickly moved their gear and some of the food inside. Daryl caught T-Dog's eye and jerked his head toward the rear of the building. "There's some outbuildings back there we should check out before we get too comfortable. Looks like they had a garden started, too - might get lucky and find some cold-weather stuff that's still good." Glenn joined them, and they made their way silently past the brick walls, unwilling to chance attracting any walkers in the area.
Carol and Beth both held their breath as Lori tried the stove. When the match she held caught, turning the escaping gas to blue flame, all three of them clapped and squealed, bringing everyone within earshot running. "Look!" Beth exclaimed. "Hot dinner, coming up!" She turned to hug Carol, stopping at the sight of the older woman in tears. "Oh, honey! I thought you'd be happy?" Carol sniffled and reached out to embrace the girl, saying, "Don't pay any attention to me, sweetie, you should know by now I'm a weeper. I'm thrilled, it's just the thought of having hot food in my stomach made me all… emo."
A few minutes later Daryl came through the door, a smug smile on his face, and dumped a pile of vegetables on the counter. "Ladies, dinner is served. Ain't rabbit or squirrel, but it should fill the belly nicely." Several small cabbages, a couple of heads of kale, a double handful of miraculously un-frozen if somewhat woody carrots and beets, and a hard-rind squash that had been buried beneath the foliage - it was the first fresh produce any of them had seen since leaving the Greene farm. "You like that, you're gonna love this - boys, bring 'em in."
T and Glenn marched in, wearing identical satisfied smirks and carrying two large kerosene heaters and a five-gallon can of fuel. "There's another can of kerosene out there, and we found some plywood we can use to barricade that door. Just give us a couple hours or so to get 'er all set up and runnin', and we'll be toasty-warm in no time." He shot a worried glance at Carol, asking Beth, "Why's she cryin'? I figured she'd be happy?" Beth grinned and shrugged. "Happy tears, Daryl. Don't fret about it."
"Well, hell, if that makes you happy, Carol, wait'll you hear this: There's two full rain barrels out there, up under the eaves of the building. Must hold at least fifty gallons each, Probably want to boil any of that we wanna use for cooking or drinking, but it should be just fine for washing," He looked to Rick, saying, "We should still be careful, conserve all we can, but there's enough there we should be able to stay here at least a couple-three days, maybe more, get rested and fed up. I'm thinkin' this might even be a place we could hole up all winter."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Daryl," Rick cautioned, meaning, don't get their hopes up before we think this through. "For now, let's just see about getting some of that water in here, let people clean up a bit, get some food in our stomachs. We can talk more about it tomorrow. I don't know about you, but I'm damned tired of sleeping in the cold, so let's get those heaters going, then we can work on the rest."
As the chill began to lift from their sleeping room and the kitchen, some of the tension eased from faces that had grown thin and worn during their time on the run. Carol, who was almost always cold, sat beside one of the heaters for a while, soaking up the warmth, the tears on her face mixing with a wide, grateful smile. It was amazing what small comforts could do for your state of mind: what had been that morning almost unthinkable, to get at least somewhat clean, real vegetables for dinner, hot food, a warm place to sleep… She was surprised more of them weren't right there with her, crying for the joy of simple things.
While the water warmed on the stove and the rest took turns getting washed up in the nearby restrooms, Beth and Carol set about concocting something from the mish-mash of groceries they'd found. Before long the smells of cornbread, canned stew, and sauteed cabbage drew everyone back to the central area, where they gathered around one of the long tables and tried to be patient. Carol kept a wooden spoon in hand, and anyone who attempted to sneak a taste got their knuckles rapped for their trouble.