Big Bad Wolf
Thursday, July 26, 1 day until the full moon
King County had always been an odd town. The decades-old unsolved murders, weird stories about creatures in the woods and an old haunted mansion on the edge of town that was supposed to be haunted. Rick Grimes didn't believe in ghosts. Neither had Shane Walsh until he took a girl out to that old mansion and ended up in the hospital with a broken arm. Afterward, when the football team's coach and Rick asked what had happened, Shane swore blind that he'd been thrown down those grand old stairs by a woman in white. In hindsight, Rick wished he'd believed Shane because now they were watching the corpse of that same woman in white burn in her unmarked grave.
"Man, that is some good revenge for my damn arm. I missed the rest of the football season cause of this bitch," Shane was smirking, but Rick knew his brother well enough to see the horror in his eyes at the smell of old, burning flesh. They'd salt and burnt the body just like Lerner said.
"I can't understand how no one knows about this," Rick stepped away from the burning grave, a hole in the dirt at the crossroads outside of town. The woman had been wealthy, very wealthy, until her husband left her for a more fertile woman and she was destitute. Snuck into her old home and used her husband's rifle to shoot herself in the head at the top of the stairs - which explained why she'd pushed Shane in a tumble down them - and back in 1823, they still buried suicides in unmarked graves. Rick felt more sympathy for the vicious ghost than he should have.
"You're preachin' to the choir," Shane ran a hand through his black curls, "Whole town here, whole damn Sheriff's Department, and Lerner chose us to revive the age-old secret ghost hunting tradition. Sixty years the King County Sheriff has known about this, and what, Lerner decides that now's the time ta bring it back, that don't seem odd to you?"
"It ain't just ghosts that we gotta worry about," Rick started shoveling dirt over the dying flames, "Like she said, past few months there's been a werewolf out there killin' people. Our job is finding it and killing it 'fore the deaths get national attention."
"And how are we meant ta kill a werewolf? You better believe that if I hadn't seen this bitch's ghost back in the day then I woulda told Dawn to shove it up her ass," Shane grabbed his own shovel, sweating beside Rick to fill in the hole before daybreak. No one could see them doing this. Strict orders from Dawn.
"We study the books and we use the old weapons," Rick paused in his digging to meet Shane's eyes, "I have that vacation to Atlanta this weekend to visit Lori's parents tomorrow. I need you not to run around hunting creatures we know nothing about this weekend while I'm gone."
"I'll try, man," Shane flexed his muscles and grinned, "Who says I ain't the lumberjack goin' to take down the big bad wolf on my own, huh?"
"You're a dumbass," Rick laughed, "I'm going to spend the entire weekend looking around corners for vampires."
"I keep thinkin' bout every time we ever went out for a night in Atlanta and wonderin' how we didn' stumble into none of those vampire clubs that Dawn was talking about. Man, it gives me the chills."
Tuesday, July 31, 26 days until the full moon
"Daryl Dixon is a good man. I won't have you accusing him of something we can't prove," Rick paused outside the door with Shane, "No one died on the full moon last weekend or went missing that we know of. Daryl hunts in these woods regularly - he could have seen something."
"Or done the killing himself," Shane muttered under his breath as Rick knocked on the door. There was no answer.
"Or he's dead," there was concern in the older man's voice as he knocked again, louder.
"Let's go and have a gander then, huh?" Shane dropped off the two steps of the tiny wooden porch in one leap, striding around to the back of the cabin with a furious stride. Rick followed him, pinching the bridge of his nose. There weren't many people that Rick wanted to die, but he knew that if there were, Daryl Dixon was on the other end of the spectrum. Ed Peletier, Merle Dixon, they were men he'd rather find dead than anyone else in the town, even if he was opposed to death anyway.
"You see anything?" Shane was peering through the small dusty window of the back door, his face wrinkled in disgust.
"Looks like Merle's been in town. The place stinks of whiskey, smoke, and pot," Shane recoiled, and though Rick couldn't smell anything from where he was he believed Shane. They'd yet to arrest Merle for possession, though he had been arrested over in Mert County and imprisoned a few years back.
"You can't see Daryl inside?" Rick scanned the woods around them, nervous about the werewolf's victim. Daryl Dixon wasn't likely to be reported missing in quick time - the only person who gave a shit was his employer at the garage Dale Horvath and the man was currently in New York trying to get his wife better care for her cancer. Irma was dying and they could all see it but Dale, even she could.
"Nawh man, ain't no one been here in a few days," Shane backed off of the porch, "Could be him this time."
"How can you be sure?"
"Dust, old food, he ain't been back here in a while," Shane massaged the back of his neck as he moved before Rick, "We should see if he ain't stayin' in the garage."
"Dale closed the garage until he gets back," Rick dropped into a crouch and groaned into his hands. The first time he'd met Daryl Dixon, the man had been busted up from a brawl outside Abraham's. The bar was full of men worse than Daryl, and when Daryl told Rick how the guy he'd fought had been pinning some barely legal girl up to a wall, he'd gotten back in the car and called in a false 911.
"Nawh man, Daryl was supposed to be opening it up if Dale was gone for more'n two weeks. Shirley came to me ta' fix her car over the weekend, said the garage was openin' on Monday but she jus' couldn' wait that long."
"You just fix her car?" Rick stood, a little relieved, and let the smile cover his face. He was happy with Lori, always had been, and despite their arguments, her pregnancy had brought them back together, but he never managed to tire of Shane's stories, even if he did wish that his brother would grow up so that they could complain about their wives together.
"I didn' feel so good, so I jus' fixed her car. Tits on her though - damn shame I wasn't up for it," Shane walked beside Rick back to the squad car. Rick furrowed his brows as they got back into the car.
"Ain't like you not to be up for it. This supernatural stuff messing with your head?" Rick knew that, no matter how much he downplayed things, Shane struggled with a lot. Rick was the only one who'd seen Shane cry when they were eight and his daddy left them, and he was the only one who'd seen Shane cry after they responded to a call and found his momma's body floating in Queen's Lake, her suicide note taped to the fridge door at home. Shane didn't ever become okay with it; he just pushed it down and moved on. One of these days, he'd get Shane to speak to the therapist at the station.
"I'm good," Shane nodded to the steering wheel before Rick, "We're burnin' daylight here, I wanna find this asshole 'fore the next full moon."
The gas station that Dale Horvath owned was right in the middle of town, next to the convenience store that the Rhee's owned. Rick knew almost everyone in this town, on account of his job, and he made it a habit to ask Maggie Rhee about her family's farm whenever he could. Now that he knew about what lurked in the dark, he wondered how safe that old farm really was. The wolf could easily head on out there, as could anything else, from vampires to wendigos to ghosts... christ.
"There's no one here, man," Shane strolled back from the locked doors and meeting Rick in the middle of the small parking lot, "We should head on over the road, see if anyone at Abrahams has seen him."
"It's our best bet," the officers walked in step with one another as they crossed the busy main road, Rick having to stop Shane from walking out in front of cars twice. These last few days he'd been antsy, ready to pounce at any moment because the pair of them knew now that the world hid much more sinister dangers than normal run-of-the-mill criminals.
"First forty-eight hours, man. Chances are, Dixon's long dead, and ain't no one gonna miss him," Shane said, and Rick shook his head. The noise of town was loud in comparison to the woods around Daryl's cabin.
"No, no, chances are that he's just holed up somewhere. I refuse to believe that this we- that this wolf got another person."
"I think it's already too late for that," Shane looked away and ran his hand through his hair with a fervourous movement, "You ever think we're gonna get ourselves in trouble, doin' stupid shit just to try an' avoid some stranger's death?"
"That's why we do what we do, ain't it? To save people," Rick paused outside the doors of the bar, "I thought you were with me on that."
"'course I am, man. Savin' people, that's what we do. We just try an' ignore the cost, don't we?"
Rick clapped his brother on the shoulder, "I'd lay my life down for you, man. C'mon, we got a missin' person to find."
"Whatever you say, Rick," Shane gave him the ghost of a smile and followed Rick into the bar. Inside, the air stank of beer and old wood. The room was fairly empty, considering it was 11 am on a Tuesday, holding on one man in the corner, slumped over onto a table, and a ginger-haired man behind the bar.
"Well suck my nuts, two deputies just walked into my bar," the owner of the bar, Abraham, laughed his squared-off beard shaking, "Only ones who come in here are corrupt or fired, so which is it?"
"Actually, we're looking for Daryl Dixon," Rick said, strolling up to the bar with Shane, "You seen him?"
"Daryl's out - camping - has been since last Wednesday. You wanna let me know what you want my man for?" Abraham placed two cold bottles of beer on the counter, "On the house, for your service."
"You've heard about the wolf attacks," Rick said, "I gotta drive."
"I don't," Shane took a seat at the barstool, grasping his cold beer, and Rick might have slapped him for drinking on duty if he didn't know Shane was better at speaking to people like this, "We're thinkin' that the wolves might have gotten Daryl an' we're jus' makin' sure we ain't overreactin' 'fore we have those woods searched for him. You heard from him? We ain't gonna throw him in the cells for illegal huntin', we already know 'bout that an' I don't care, we jus' wanna make sure he ain't dead."
Abraham looked about for a moment before yelling, "Sasha!"
A woman came out of the back, her frizzy hair pinned back into a fashioned ponytail, and a piece of what looked like break lights hanging from a silver chain around her neck, "Hi officers."
"You seen Daryl, baby?"
"He's hunting, ain't he?" Sasha looked between the two officers and paused, realizing her mistake, so Rick flashed her his nicest smile.
"We're just worried about him, darlin'," Shane offered, raising one hand in surrender when Abraham narrowed his gaze, "Sorry man, I was jus' bein' polite."
"Daryl said he'd be back before Monday," Sasha said, looking between the three men, "He might be hurt, Abe, we gotta look for him."
"No," Rick snapped before he could stop himself. They couldn't have people running around the woods, even with twenty-six days, not including that day, until the full moon, "It's dangerous out there. We'll set up a search and we'll let you know, just let us collect some contact information, alright?"
"Look, we know that it's been mostly hunter's dyin' so far, man," Shane took a large bite of his cheeseburger, the two men sat in the parked squad car in the dark parking lot outside of Dale's gas station, waiting for a man that had in all likelihood been torn apart by a werewolf. Rick still couldn't get his mind around it - supernatural creatures, living amongst humanity, all this time.
"I met Daryl that night you were with your Grandma Jean in hospital," Rick ate one of his fries - Shane had swapped Rick's burger for his fries because he was reallt craving meat and Rick wasn't sure he could keep anything too heavy down, "Protected a woman from some sleazebag. He seemed like a good man."
"Good men die, Rick, it's what happens," Shane hung his head to the side, staring out of the window in silence. When Shane was thinking too hard you could see the storm in his eyes, and Rick was about to scold him for thinking too loud when his phone starting buzzing, that annoying 'Baby Shark' song that Carl liked more than he should have for a fourteen-year-old boy. He'd said something about 'memes' before changing the tone on Rick's phone.
"Man, don't, I just got that damn song outta my head," Shane complained as Rick pressed answer, putting the phone to his ear.
"Hey Lori, what's wrong?" they'd been doing well recently, and the affection showed in Rick's voice.
"Do you remember when Carl was young, and he used to say he saw the ghost of a guy in a - in a red suit, the one he said lived here before us?"
"Lori, what happened?" Rick could hear the tears in his wife's voice, and the mention of a ghost had him on overdrive. Could the creatures know that he was fighting them now?
"He's - he's outside, Rick. He's staring through the window but no one else can see 'im, not even Carl. I'm so scared, Rick."
Rick's blood went to ice in his veins and he turned to Shane, who somehow had already managed to hear the conversation because he was grabbing the salt and holy water from the glove box as Rick put the car into drive. Shane barely managed to pop out the side of the window to dump their trash. His brother grabbed the phone as Rick drove, putting it to his own ear.
"Lori, listen to me, I need you to make a circle of salt on the floor and stand inside of it with Carl," Shane let out a frustrated growl, "I don't care that it sounds stupid, you do it and you do it now, you hear me? We're comin'."
A/N: Woah, I actually really enjoyed writing this - and after seeing the trailer for episode 5... I AM SO EXCITED I LOVE JON BERNTHAL SO MUCH AND I CAN NOT CONTAIN MY SQUEALS OF JOY (anyone else plz it can't just be me that needs more Jon as Shane in my life)... and thus, I am posting this as a random chapter of a thing I kept daydreaming about during my exams. I think it'd be fun to write more but what do y'all think?
Happy Halloween! Remember, it's the night the dead are closest to the living ;) spooky scary