Ollo, my friends! Welcome to the first chapter of my first Walking Dead story! I owe some of the ideas to this chapter to my good friend, WalkerBait16! Thanks, Hon, you have really provided a ton of help! Oh, and please feel free to review on this story and tell me how it goes! Also, I am open to any suggestions for upcoming chapters! Sorry to ramble on, so please just read! Thank you!
Rainbow
Carol
They are standing, bathed in sunlight, and huddled in a circle. The heavens shine rays of warmth upon their bodies, a certain glow enveloping their figures, each curved into the next person, positioned in a circle. It is like they are huddling, keeping warm like the penguins in Antarctica do to keep their eggs safe from the cold winter winds. But here, it is warm, peaceful, and safe.
I step towards them, emerging from the shadows. Light engulfs my own body, now, warming my face in a way I haven't felt in such a long time. As I come closer, one of the women in the circle turns her head, smiling. I recognize her, it is someone I haven't seen for such a long time, and it seems unreal.
"Jacqui?" I look at her, astonished, finding it hard to believe that she could truly be back. Her lips spread into a smile, and she nods to me, beckoning. The others in the circle of people begin to turn around as well, Jim, Amy, Patricia, Otis, Andrea. The ones we've lost. But they are here! I can see them right in front of me, they must be real!
The circle begins to dissipate, opening up like a gate. For a moment, I am blinded by the sun, and as I adjust to the black splotches dotting my vision, I see her.
A carpet of sunlight unfolds my path to her, the one I begin running down. She is engulfed in the light, a beautiful angel to be beheld by my disbelieving eyes. My feet, which are bare, squish in the sodden ground, and I stumble to make it to her, the absolute only thing that matters at the moment. Not Amy, not Jacqui – Sophia.
"Mommy!" she yells, gracefully seeming to dance down the pathway the others have created for her. She has her doll by the hand, and it slaps against her thighs as she barrels towards me with speed almost unbelievable for a child. Together, we collide, my arms going around her, never planning to let her go. She buries her face into my neck, sobbing into my breast bone. I taste salty tears of my own on my face as I press my nose to her short, honey brown hair. She smells like strawberries and cream, similar to the shampoo she washed her hair with before bad things started to happen.
"Sophia, Sophia." I moan into her skinny, flexible body. I have gone so long believing that she is gone, but now she is here with me, safe and sound, brown eyes and freckles intact.
"I missed you, Mom." She whispers into my ear between child-like gasps. "Mommy, don't leave me again."
"Shhhh." I hold her apart from my body to wipe her tears away from her cheeks. With my hands still on her shoulders, I pull her in again. She still clutches her cloth doll against her chest, holding it as tightly as I am holding her. "Mommy won't leave you. Mommy will never leave you."
I wake with a jolt from the dream, my limbs pressed to the thin mattress I am lying on. I shiver, rolling over, pulling the light blue blanket around my shoulders. Stone rooms tend to get cold during the night, and this eve is no exception. Goosebumps rise on my skin, and I pull the familiar, dirty cloth doll to my chest.
This is not the first night the dreams have come. Since the night she went missing, she has come to me in dreams. Sometimes she is healthy, like I have just seen her. Other times, she is the putrid, rotting corpse that is not Sophia, the way I saw her body last. Each dream is painful to wake up from and realize that she is no longer here beside me.
Down the hall, I hear somebody stirring. Judith begins to cry, her high-pitched baby wail echoes off of the stone walls surrounding our domain. Somebody gets out of bed, I hear the creak of the bunk, and she is shushed to soft whimpers. I wipe my eyes as the footsteps get closer to my cell, pulling the blanket over my head so only my eyes are showing. A figure stands in the doorway a moment, back turned, but I can tell it is Lori. She is holding a fussy 5-month-old Judith, who is calming down in her mother's arms.
"Shhh." She croons to her child, her thin body swaying back and forth. This is followed by soft smacking noises as she feeds hungry Judith, and she turns down the pathway, carrying her farther into the bowels of the prison. I pull the blankets over my head again and close my eyes, willing the tears to stay away.
Maggie
I pull my green sweatshirt over my hand and wipe the dew from the watchtower window. Drawing a smiley face with my fingertip, I turn to Glenn as he leans against the desk across from the window. He smiles at my child-like behavior, and I sink into the swivel chair that faces the window.
"You need a haircut." I point out to Glenn as he sits on the edge of the same desk he was leaning against. "It won't be long until I can't see your eyes anymore."
"It isn't so bad." He runs his hand through his dark hair, his eyes rolling up to try to see what he is doing. "How come you don't complain when Daryl's hair is even longer than mine?"
I laugh, pulling my sweatshirt over my hands. Shivers cause my body to shake, and I once again, acting as a child, pull my arms completely into the body of my shirt and wrap my bear arms around ribs. "Because Daryl points his crossbow in your face if you try to tell him what to do."
Glenn takes a turn to laugh and touches the tip of his finger lightly to the tip of the knife he is holding. "Maybe you could give me a quick trim. Don't know if I trust you, though, you'd leave me with a bald patch."
"So what if I did?" I stick my hands through the neck hole of my shirt like a star-nosed mole emerging quickly from its burrow, and scratch my chin. It really is cold, probably only 30 or so degrees out. "Would you slit my throat?"
"Never." He wraps his arms around me from behind, pressing his frigid lips to the skin behind my ear. The early-morning dawn casts dent-like shadows over the contours of his face. I re-insert my arms into the right openings and lean up to kiss him. He catches my bottom lip between both of his, once, and then twice, pressing his forehead into mine to take a breath. I spin around to face him in my chair and lace my fingers in his hair to pull him down closer to me. He pushes my hair back, and then moves his hands down my hips.
We don't need to talk anymore. I stand up, wrapping my arms around his neck. We both shiver at our skin against each other's, chilly in the early-morning air, and I rest my ear against his chest. He links his fingers at the small of my back, and I close my eyes. His heart beats beneath my ear and I savor the sound of it.
"Was it you crying last night?" his hand slides across my cheekbone, the tips of his fingers behind my ear, and he removes a stray strand of hair from my eyes. "I should have gotten up – to see if you were alright."
"No." I don't turn to him while I talk, but count his heartbeats: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. "I slept fine, with Beth. It must have been someone else."
"Carol, I guess." I can tell he is frowning by the tone of his voice. I know Glenn well enough to recognize his loyalty and concern for the remaining original members of his group. I try not to think of the ones we have lost, step-mother, step-brother, life-long friends. He has lost many as well, including the little girl that went missing over a year ago. "She looks so tired – like she doesn't even sleep at all anymore. Lori says she has nightmares, ones that make her jolt around in her sleep."
"We all have nightmares." I point out, flinching at the thoughts I've had lately. The nightmares that have haunted me each night, and even more so Beth, who is 18, only a child. When I sleep beside her, she often mumbles of Jimmy, her boyfriend, who is another we have lost.
"I know. But we-"
BANG!
Glenn is interrupted by a loud popping noise, an unmistakable sound of gunfire. It startles him, and I am shook in his arms as he startles. He grabs for his freshly sharpened knife, and I grab for my gun. He flies out the door, bounding down the stairs three at a time, tripping on the wet, metal steps. I run after him, skidding onto my butt when I hit the grass, but I pull my body back up again and slip and slide across the dewy ground. Ahead of me, Glenn is running to the fence to meet Rick, who has already emerged from the jail, along with Daryl and his crossbow.
"Who the hell has been wasting our rounds?!" Daryl angrily thrusts his crossbow at Glenn who drops his knife as he slips on the wet ground. I trip into him, and he catches me, setting me upright again. I click my gun off of the safe mode and point it at the ground.
"It came from the other side of the fence." Glenn, strides over the chain link fence and infuses his knife into a walker's skull as he presses his body to the fence, shaking the wire with hunger. The creature falls to the ground as soon as he claims his weapon back, its right eye oozing from its already-rotten socket. It seems the mysterious shot has attracted the geeks by the dozen, and a fair number of them are loping lopsidedly towards the fence and towards us, and I aim my gun.
"No, Maggie." Glenn shakes his head, and I lower my weapon. The geeks at the gate rattle the metal, throwing themselves against it trying to get to us, and I back up a little. Glenn has come almost accustomed to the walkers, but part of me still sees them as people. Not like my Dad, but more like bodies. Even though their brains are dead, the body hitting the ground is awfully definite. "You'll attract more."
"Bastards!" Daryl aims his crossbow directly at a womanly walker's forehead and grunts as she goes down with the sounds of bowstrings popping and a pointed, homemade arrow piercing her brain. "To Hell with all ya'll!"
"Yelling will only attract more of them." Rick wipes his hand over his scruffy chin, backing up as a rotting hand protrudes through the holes in the fence towards him. "You only have so many arrows, stop wasting them."
"Stop fighting." Glenn wipes his bloody knife off on his jeans. "We need to figure out where that shot came from."
"Looks like we've got a bigger problem." My eyes scan the tree line only yards from the prison where more dead-brained idiots are emerging from the trees. Some look mildly intact, others have chunks of dead skin hanging from their face, arms, neck. They all wear the most random of clothes, too, some nightgowns and pajamas, some with converse shoes like Beth wears, or only wearing one shoe. Even some of them are dressed up in scratched-up dresses, like they were bitten at a cocktail party. All-in-all, each of them looks like they have been living under a rock for the past few years.
"Think they can break down the fence?" Glenn asks.
"Maybe." Daryl takes his remaining arrow in his mouth and stretches the bow string back to the release trigger. "Those pussy asses get through, we'll block 'em in a different section and kill 'em off one-by-one."
"Great plan." Glenn rolls his eyes, scanning the tree line as I do.
"Well you're the Asian." Daryl shrugs, talking around the arrow in his mouth. "You're supposed to be a genius. You figure out a plan then, Ching Chong."
Glenn's knuckles tighten around his knife, and I rest my hand on his arm. His vice doesn't loosen.
"Obviously, we need to do something." Rick takes his turn to watch even more zombies ramble out from the wilderness. "Whoever shot that gun must have known what they were doing."
"Huh, maybe not." Daryl sniffles and spits a wad of spit into the grass, and it drips down into the dirt. "Numb nuts over there didn't know how to aim a BB when he first put a gun in his hands. Just sayin'." He motions to Glenn.
"Hey, wait, look." Glenn doesn't even hear Daryl's insult as his eyes gaze out, looking at something over the chain link. I find a link in the fence opposite the ones the walkers are pressed to, and climb up it, sitting on the top of it to see out over the herd. From the foliage cover, a figure is emerging, something that is not human. The creature is at a slow trot, definitely an animal, larger than a fox, but much too small to be a deer. I cup my hands around my eyes, shielding the rising sun from my vision, and watch as the figure wobbles from the wilderness.
"What in God's name?" Rick clicks his own gun into place, and Glenn stares in disbelief.
"Do you think – whatever that thing is – was turned?" I straddle the gate like a horse, fixating each of my worn boots in a link on each side. I hold the pole with the fabric of my sweatshirt over my hands like I am gripping the saddle horn of a horse, leaning back on my bottom. The creature lollops at a fast canter now, barreling towards the fence. Its skin looks lumpy and reddish from this far back, like most lamebrains are, and even from here, I can see its sharp-teeth are barred.
"I got it!" Glenn points his gun at the fast-coming animal, but Daryl's arrow is already flying.
"NO!" Rick yells as soon as the nearly-soundless thwap of the bow releases the piercing arrow as it sails through the air in what seems like slow motion. It pierces the running figure in the haunches, and it goes down with a howl not unlike a wolf. Rick turns to Daryl, his florid face a mess of anger and confusion. "That could be our only specimen of an animal! Maybe it affects them differently! Maybe Hershel could have helped it!"
"I took care of the problem! Did you want some rabid animal tearin' down the fence?!" Daryl slings his down over his back with anger, throwing his hands up. "I ain't havin' anyone get hurt anymore!"
I tune out the arguing as Glenn interjects into the conversation. Instead, I focus on the struggling animal on its side on the ground, blood oozing from its shoulder. The walkers ignore it, but it is not coming still, the arrow protrudes from its shoulder, and I think I hear it whine.
"Hey!" A voice suddenly yells, and I startle out of my reverie. The fence I am sitting on disappears out from under me, and I fall towards the ground. My boot is caught in one of the links, and my body gets turned upside down before it finally shakes loose and I hit the hard ground on my back. I turn over, coughing, my chest aching and back ringing with ripples of pain. I remember what Dad told me when I was only little: "If you're hurt, lie still until you can figure out if you are seriously injured. Try to move your arms and legs slowly at first and see if you have any broken bones."
I move my arms, feeling a pain radiate into my back. The same happens when I move my legs, and my spine just begins to absorb the impact of the 20 foot fall. I moan and sit up, hot tears running down my face from the sudden wrenching pain, and I fall backwards again. The gate creaks, I hear it, as someone opens it, and I pull myself up holding onto the chain link, bending from the kink in my back.
"Maggie!" Glenn shouts from far away, and I feel disoriented, like there is cotton stuffed in my ears. There is a muffled gunshot and I roll over to see a walker go down, blood spraying out the back of his head.
"Glenn." I moan, letting out a shout as I wrench my back into place again. My legs are fuzzy as I push the now-closed gate open again, and I stumble into the herd of hungry zombies. They immediately make a grab for me, yanking my hair back, but I pop the ones touching me in the head with Beth's Vektor I borrowed from her this morning. I run towards Glenn, or at least I think I run, but really I am stumbling like a walker. My vision shakes like my eyes are a camera that someone is holding while running, the ground swooping out from under me.
"Maggie!" I hear Glenn shouting again, but he is closer now. "Watch out-"
I fall to my knees, grabbing for that ground. I hit it with a smack, and with a gurgling shriek, I am dog-piled by rotting bodies. I almost unconsciously kick the nearest body off of me as I spiral onto my back on the ground, nailing the living corpse in the face. He shrieks his low grunt, and I keep pushing myself back by kicking my feet. It is no use, and another one is soon closing in on me.
"Get back! RAH!" I hear a deep grunt and the sound of a skull being knocked in by a blunt object, a sound I have sadly become accustomed to. A shadowed figure hits the geek off of me with a club, and it falls back with a gush of black, gooey blood, which sprays all over my shirt. Panting, I scramble backwards again, only for another dead body to grab for my face.
"For the love of gravy, Jagger!" The same person who wacked the first walker whistles a long-pitched, low whistle with a sudden high, swooping pitch at the end, and the sound of quick, light feet on sod meets my ears. Without the person doing a thing, the vicious walker is pulled from my body. I can hear barking and snarling, and other voices, along with the sounds of guns.
I lie there, watching like it is in slow motion as the figure, who I now see is a fairly heavy-set man that is covered in the remains of a dead walker. I moan, watching him slay a few more walkers, clubbing them with a wooden club. Snarling and howling is still audible, but my vision is fading quickly.
"Glenn." I say a third time, but this is the quietest of times, and I know that he can't hear me anymore. As my eyes slide shut, I see an animal standing over me, tongue rolling out, panting in my face. The thing is covered in guts.
"Maggie. Maggie." A voice whispers, urgently, but also gentle. "Maggie, baby, come on." It is Glenn, and he is close.
My eyes slide open, adjusting to the dim light in the room. His face slides into view, swimming like his features are a puddle. My head throbs like it has a heartbeat that is separate from my body, and it hurts to breathe.
"Maggie, you okay?" He gently strokes my hair back, letting his hand remain on my cheek. I put my own hand on top of his, weakly smiling.
"I'm fine. Got a headache that hurts somethin' terrible, though." I push my fingers to my temples, feeling the throb deepen. He wraps his arm around my upper back, his hand touching my shoulder blade, and lifts me up from the bunk I am lying on. He wraps his other arm around me, pressing my head into his stomach, and his lips brush the top of my head.
"Not surprising. You fell off the fence, and hit your head pretty hard. Hershel thought you'd got a concussion." He gently rests me back on the pillows, but I pull myself back up.
"No kidding." I rub a goose egg forming above my left eyebrow, feeling how tender it is. My back also feels wrenched in an unnatural position, and I try to rub it with my hand.
"Here." Glenn slips his hand beneath my fresh t-shirt from the back and his warm hand rubs against my sore back. I smile at his concern and he looks to me with that expression of his, the one where he is trying to figure out what I am thinking. With his rubbing, my back really is feeling better, and I am able to make sense of my surroundings.
"Thanks – Mmmm." I wince at a kink he hits with his calloused palm, and he pulls away. "No – no, it felt good – Glenn? What happened out there?"
He looks down. "Maggs…"
"I wanna know." I swing my legs over the side of the bed, reaching for my boots. My feet are bare, and my toes are numb from the cold. Glenn sighs, pushing his hair up through his fingers.
"Maggie…" He looks away. "We don't need to talk about this now. Rest."
"Yes, we do." I cross my arms. "Who saved me?" It is not a question, it is a statement really, a demand.
"The person who shot the gun – he's a survivor, like we are. He claims that he's been wandering the woods since the apocalypse began. He's got two people with him – kids, really. A boy and a girl. We've got him locked in a cell, Rick says it's a safety precaution, and they have guns." Glenn spits out random information about my savior. I don't care who this guy is; he saved my life, and the reason for my existence does not deserve to be locked in a jail cell.
"The wolves." I rub the back of my head that aches like I've been clubbed. "What about the wolves?"
He looks at me with a slightly confused expression at first, but then understanding causes him to raise his eyebrows. "The guy has dogs. That's what the animal was, it was one of his dogs. Daryl shot it; Hershel's taking care of it."
"I want to see them." I sit up again, ignoring the pain. He doesn't interject, just follows me as I pad barefoot down the corridor. Each of the cells that are occupied for sleep, Beth has labeled with paper and permanent markers with our names. It is a sort of home touch, something only my kind-hearted sister would think of doing. Beside each of our names, she has drawn a tiny picture: a border of flowers for her, a rattle for Lori, Rick and Judith, a cat beside Carol's name. The doodles bring us light in this life, even by the small things.
Dad is in the main "dining" area, working over a yelping, whimpering, non-human figure. He has a pair of latex gloves on, carefully working out an arrow from its front flank. I rest a hand on his shoulder.
"Maggie." He nods to me. "I see you're up and around again."
"Is the dog alright?" I lean over the table of the poor animal. It is covered in what appears to be black muck, possibly smeared in parts of organs. It seems whoever is the master of these pooches, they have taken advantage of the zombie smell, which masks humanity, and for this dog's case, its animalness. Dad has cleaned the fur around the wound, but the dog is still in danger of infection.
"Maggie, you animal lover. You nearly get a concussion, and you worry about some rabid animal." Beth speaks up. She and Carl are sitting on the steps nearest the cell where out refuges are supposedly housed.
"Hush, Beth." I watch our father work over the animal, struggling as she dog fusses and writhes as he tries to exit the arrow.
"Stop!" I hear a voice from the cell. "You're hurting him, stop hurting him!"
I turn to the small, barred room to see an almost covered-in-zombie-innards boy, almost unrecognizable. His hair I slicked back, not with hair gel, but with glue-like, black blood. Though he is completely plastered with the goop, I can see his bright blue eyes, electric with an urgent surviving force I haven't seen in anyone in so long. He is tall, skinny, from lack of nourishment, with a face smeared with red and black, yet I can still see his straight, long nose and straight teeth, strong hands, and those bright, bright eyes. He is holding the bars of the door, pressed up against them, watching Dad laboriously work over the dog.
"It's alright, son. I'm a veterinarian." Dad nods to him as the dog lets out a low yip and squirms. Under the goo covering his body, I can tell it is probably some sort of hunting dog, and a beautiful one at that. The fur showing is a pale gray with darker black spots, and his eyes are a light, orangey brown.
"I can make him hold still!" Boy shouts again, distressed by the pain of the animal. "Please, I can't stand him hurting!"
"It looks like he knows what he's doing." Another softer voice comes from behind him, and a girl or what I perceive to be a girl, under the thick layer of gunk rests a hand on his shoulder. Her hair is in two braids and she is wearing glasses. One of the lenses in cracked, caving in towards her right eye. "Kase, let him be."
The boy, Kase, now is crying, tears creating paths in the patches on his cheeks. The dog whimpers again. Kase rattles the cage.
"Kase, for the love of God, knock it off!" Another gruffer voice yells from next to the girl. I notice two other dogs at his heels, sitting obediently at his side. One of them ruffs at me as I look it in the eye.
"What do you expect me to do, Oz, they're hurting Boots!" Kase yells back. I impulsively grab the keys from the hook and jam the largest key into the lock and turn it until it clicks. Before anyone can stop me from doing this, I am pulling the rancid-smelling young boy from the cell, locking the door after him before any of the prisoners can squeeze their way through the opening.
"His name's Boots?" I ask as I am leading him by his sleeve to the operating table. He nods, wiping his tears with the back of his hand.
"Yeah." He sniffs, taking the dog's head in his hands, stroking over his triangle-shaped ears. "He's my constant companion. Since – all this – Shit, do we have to talk about this now?" He gets emotional again, kissing Boots' face and stroking his snout.
"No need to." Dad holds a bloody arrow up, waving it in triumph. "I'll patch him up as soon as he's cleaned off. Maggie, if you wouldn't mind, take him into the showers and clean him up."
"I don't mind." I turn to Kase. "You wanna help me?"
He nods, scooping his hands beneath Boots' body, lifting him into his chest. He pays no attention to the girl or the guy he was recently imprisoned with, just carries the weak dog as he follows me to the showers. I turn one on after stripping my socks and rolling up my jeans, and Kase stands awkwardly in the doorway, holding Boots.
"Well, come on. Bring 'im in." I nod to him after laying down a tarp for the dog. He hurries in, setting the whimpering animal down, stroking over his ear again. I let the lukewarm water wash over his fur a moment so he can get used to the temperature.
"Thanks." He finally looks up, obviously thankful for his dog.
"No problem. You're Kase, huh?" I lather a bit of regular soap in my palms.
"Uh-huh. And you're Maggie. Sorry you got hurt." He looks down sheepishly.
"It's fine." I shrug, still walking off the aches and pains. "Were you the one who startled me and made me fall?"
"Yeah." He looks down, suddenly interested in the mill-dewy floor tiles. "I didn't mean to – just – Boots."
"Consider it in the past." I smile slightly, soaping up Boots' tangled fur. "I should probably point out, though, you smell like rotting flesh, and it's burning my nose."
"Oh, right." He lifts a piece of fabric near the collar of his shirt and sniffs it, making a disgusted expression.
"Women's showers through there." I point through the door to the only empty showering room. "I'll get Glenn to bring you down some clothes, you're probably close in size."
"Thanks." Kase pets Boots one more time, standing up. Reluctantly, he pauses in the doorway, staring at the dog.
"I'll take good care of your dog." I nod, rinsing the soap by holding the nozzle close to his fur. "Don't worry."
Kase nods, ducking into the women's showering area. I clean Boots until his dark, gray-flecked fur is visible again, and all of the guts are washed down the sink. He really is a pretty dog, and now that I can see him, I recognize him as being a birding dog, like one I used to have when I was young. They make great companions, and are best at hunting birds and other small game.
"There ya are, buddy." I smile as I help him stand. Blood still drips from his shoulder, but he is able to walk all the way back to Dad, who is waiting with fresh bandages. The prisoners watch from their cell as I help him wrap up the dog, setting him on his feet again.
"Where's Kase?" The girl with the glasses asks after a while, meekly.
"Showering. Ya'll can rinse off once he gets back." I reply.
"I don't see why you're keeping us in here." The older man looks up from petting the larger dog's head. "You've got our weapons. Hell, girl, I saved your life when you were rolling all over the ground like a codfish fool!"
I flinch, knowing his words are true. "Those your dogs, Mister?"
"Uh-huh." He nods. "This here is Jagger. Like Mick Jagger." He motions to the larger dog, who is male. "The other's Mimzie. She's a real sweet girl."
"And you are?" Rick walks down the stairs, followed by Lori, who is holding Judith, Carol, and Daryl.
"Ozzy." He nods. "That's Dylin." He motions to the pig-tailed girl with the cracked glasses.
"Are you going to let us out of here?" Dylin raises her delicate eyebrows, her clothes weighed down with the weight of the walker remains.
"Workin' on it." Daryl strides by, chewing on a toothpick. He turns down the hallway, cockily swaggering.
"Where're you going all alone?" Beth looks to him with concern.
"To take a leak." Daryl shouts down the echoing hallway. "Good lord, you try ta get some privacy around here."
"I'll be right back." I nod to Glenn who is now leaning against the doorframe. He has a pile of clean clothes in his arms, which he hands to me.
"Don't over-do it." He looks to me, concerned. I lean up, pressing my lips hard to his a few moments, sinking into his body.
"Consider that the preview for tonight's movie." I wink at him, taking the clothes from his arms, and sweep down the hallway.
I leave the pile of clothes outside the shower room, sinking down onto the bench outside. The stench of the dead washing down the drain fills my nose, and I pull my clean t-shirt over my nose to smell the starch and clean air.
A few minutes after this, Kase emerges, dressed in Glenn's clothes from the showering room. He looks hardly anything like the gore-covered boy I remember from earlier. He's a bit taller than Glenn, so his pants are a bit flooded, but the shirt fits his noodle-like body well. I realize he is a bit older than I had guessed, maybe closer to 17 or 18, not the 16 I had figured. He is malnourished all the same, with dark hair falling in wet clumps over his pale forehead. His arms are long to match his legs, and his fingers are slim and gentle. I notice that even though he is now washed off, his eyes are still as voltaic as ever.
"Warm water – GOD." He moans, sitting next to be, resting his head against the wall. "Can't remember the last time I've felt that."
"Rick figures the prison has its own treatment system." I tell him, wrapping my arms around me ribs. "And water wells. Fells nice."
"Sure does." He grins, and I notice one of his bottom teeth is crooked, just slightly rotated a bit in his palate. "Thanks again, Maggie."
"You saved me. You've earned my trust, and Glenn's."
"Yeah, he really loves you, I can tell." He smiles gently, folding his skinny fingers together.
"Are Ozzy and Dylin your family?" I ask.
"Nah." He looks away, obviously sensitive to the subject. "Dylin was a girl in my school, a year below me. The plague started gettin' real bad a day we were in school. Sirens started goin' off and everything, and I didn't go home, I went to the police station. Apparently, she had the same idea. All the cops were gone, 'cept Oz, who's a private investigator, or at least was. He had his cadaver dogs with 'im, Boots, Jagger, and Mimz."
"What's a cadaver dog?" I turn to him, interested.
"Dogs trained to trace the scent of blood, or human remains. Oz was more to the pups than just work, though, he trained them himself, took 'em home, gave 'em a good life, ya know? Anyways, he didn't let us go home after we got there, things had gone pretty much to shit already, and he took us far away. We've been in the woods since then, since now I guess. It really comes in handy; also, the dogs are trained to attack. Helps with a stampede of corpses comin' your way, though."
"Don't they ever get bitten?" I ask, thinking of Boots' seemingly unscratched skin, minus the arrow wound.
"That's the thing." A grin spreads across Kace's face. "Jagger's been bit a few times, so has Mimzie. Pretty gruesome bites, too, but they never changed. Got infected, yeah, but didn't turn. Guess it doesn't affect animals."
"Interesting. I'll let the others know I'm becoming an Animargous."
He laughs. "You didn't strike me as a Harry Potter girl."
I shrug. "Guess people can surprise you."
"Yeah." He is quiet a very long time, possibly contemplating.
"You like Boots a lot, huh?" I ask, remembering his concern for the dog.
"One of the only things I got, right?" He brings his knees up to his chest, wrapping his long arms around them. "People – they leave. People realize the world's gone to shit. People go by human nature. Dogs – they're just dogs. They don't know any different, they just live their life as it comes. Boots – he's a good boy. He always curls up right next to me at the end of each long day, his wet nose nuzzling my hand to make sure I'm still there. It just – feels good to be needed after – being the opposite for so long."
"He is a good boy." I nod. "I had a dog like that once. Hunted good game, too."
"Boots is the reason we eat." Kase talks with love of Ozzy's dog, who is truly his. "I didn't think I would ever say this, but I owe my life to a dog."
I smile, standing up, taking a mop off the wall. Then, I begin to mop the undrained water up from the floor. "I wouldn't be able to survive without my dad and sister."
"Your sister?" His eyebrows perk with interest. "Beth? She's nice; she made sure we had food, and blankets. She was the only one to not complain about how bad we all smelled."
I laugh. "You've got me there."
"Well," Kase stretches, yawning. "Guess you should take me back to my cell, then. Don't want the others to think I'm getting special treatment."
"You don't have to go back in there. I think you've proved you're on our side." I hang the mop back up, heading toward the door. "We'll get the others cleaned up, and then we'll figure what to do."
Kase sighs with relief. "Good. Can I see Boots now?"
"Sure." I smile sympathetically, leading him back through the maze of stone corridors, listening to his footsteps behind mine. The shoes, which are his blue converse I've washed in the shower, squish, as they are not completely dry yet.
"It's actually pretty nice here – safe." I tell him, turning around to look at him when I speak. "Rick thinks we can stay here a long time, as long as we have enough food and water, which we do. Let me tell you, it feels nice to brush your teeth regularly again. We even – Uumph!"
I make a noise as I collide with Daryl, turning the corner directly into his chest.
"Wouldn't count on that, Lil Bo Peep." He looks me directly in the eye and motions for us to follow. He breaks into a run down the hallway, and Kase and I follow him. The cell where Ozzy, Dylin and the other two dogs is empty and no one besides us is in the main dining area.
Daryl leads us out the main doors, and finally pants into a slow walk toward the rest of the group. They are standing, watching, gazing out to the fence. It appears when I flung the gate open to help Glenn, I forgot to close it. On the other side of the fence, nearly a hundred walkers are pressing against it, groaning and squealing in high pitches. After they break down this fence, there is only one link fence separating us from them.
"What – what do we do?" I turn into Glenn's chest and watch Boots nuzzle his nose into Kase's hand. He looks to me with a fear in his electric eyes.
"What else can we do?" Lori holds young Judith to her breast, bouncing her to cease her crying. Ozzy holds back his other two dogs, still covered in innards.
"Only one thing we can do." Rick turns to face all of us. "It isn't safe here anymore. We need to leave the prison."
Don't forget to review, if you have the time! I am open to any suggestions. Next chapter to be up soon! Thanks!
Rainbow