[Yet another one…this one I'm only on the fourth chapter so I might update it as I progress with it as a reader insert. And unlike the inserts it's not really going to be a surprise at the end…sad face…but I thought this mini crossover was a fun idea. ]
Atlanta Survivor Camp:
Louise yawned before opening her eyes, and she knew from how dark it was that she overslept. Clamoring out of the sleeping bag she hopped off the floor to change her clothes. It was hot, too fucking hot; it shouldn't be this muggy with the sun down. But as the time kept passing she figured that was how the south was. She liked the people, the scenery was beautiful, but the sweltering heat always had her longing for home.
"Good morning sleepyhead, or should I say good night?"
She smiled, rolling her eyes. "Always funny, Amy. Everything okay today?"
She shrugged. "The same, except…"
She strapped her knife on, glancing back at her when she went to tie on her shoes. By Amy's darting eyes and swaying something happened.
"What's the matter? Did someone get hurt?"
Her brows rose. "No, nothing like that, Glenn and I thought it'd be a good idea to give you a warning."
"Where is Glenn?"
Stepping out of the RV Louise was further immersed in the heat, though the smell of burning wood coming from the middle of camp was pleasant. The sky had turned to navy, some stars beginning to twinkle with barely enough pink drifting down the mountains. Making her way to the various chairs and logs she and Amy plopped themselves down next to the young man.
"Why didn't you wake me up?"
Glenn shrugged, taking a huge bite from the skewered meat he held. "Thought you could use the sleep, you scavenged the whole night before."
"Here you go, hon."
Startled she turned to see Carol holding a plate out to her. "Thanks, I'm sorry I didn't help cook, someone decided to let me be tardy."
Glenn sputtered, talking around the food in his mouth. "This is what I get for being nice?"
"Don't talk with your mouth full, Glenn."
Looking sheepish he nodded to the older woman. "Yes, ma'am."
She nudged Glenn's side. "Thank you for letting me sleep, I do appreciate it. I just want to pull my own weight around here. All you He-Men think you do everything, like to prove otherwise."
"We do not."
"Do too."
"Not."
Amy chimed in with her. "Too."
They giggled, Glenn feigning exasperation with them both.
"Amy said you both had a warning for me…very ominous."
He shifted in his seat, looking back to his food. "Not really a warning, per se, we got a few newcomers to the camp. Just want you to be careful."
She looked around the camp, counting the same number of tents as the night before. Amy pulled her arm.
"They set up their camp down that way."
Squinting her eyes as they were still adjusting to the diminishing light she made out smoke as a fire was being lit, a bump of what had to be a tent set up on the edge of the cliff.
"Why're they down there?"
"Loners I guess. They weren't too friendly, tried to say hi and one grunted while the other made a pass at me."
She laughed. "Oh, God, Glenn why didn't you wake me! I missed out – if they like to be alone, why'd they come here?"
"Safety in numbers? That's all I could come up with, not going to complain about it. They brought us food already."
Louise realized what she had been shoveling in her mouth wasn't fish. "Oh."
"Hunters. I like them fine as long as they stay down there."
Aghast, she scoffed. "Wow, Glenn, I never thought I'd see you be the unfriendly one, Walsh or me usually take that role."
"They keep calling me Chinese. I told them I'm not, I'm freakin' Korean!
She pinched his cheek. "Of course you are. Look at this face it's too kawaii to not be Korean."
He tried to look mad, failing, as a grin tugged his face. "That's Japanese."
"Still think it applies."
One by one they started leaving. Lori, Miranda and Carol going first to usher their kids to bed. Glenn and Amy always tried to stay up as long as they could with her but ended up succumbing to the night and going to bed. With that it was down to her and Dale who was dozing in the lawn chair on his RV. She stoked the fire, making sure it kept going to give her some help in the dark but low enough it wouldn't attract much attention. She gathered the laundry that had been left out for the night; dirty clothes were never ending here – the ladies doing the bulk in the daytime with her doing what was left at night. She needed to check her traps too, so she headed towards the water with the basket on her hip. Going past she thought about seeing if the inhabitants of the new tent had anything that needed tending but with it so late she decided not to. She settled to tell them she'd be glad to take care of their clothes before she went to sleep.
Setting the clothes in the water she put some dish soap on the stains, scrubbing the spot before allowing them all to soak, going to fold the clothes that were dry from the day. Louise climbed back up setting the clothes outside the designated tent, a rock on top to keep them in place. The net trap she had in the lake didn't have much in it, so she repositioned it, praying it would have a better haul when she came back. With her penlight she ventured through the woods, checking the snare traps she had laid out near the camp. Only two had caught anything, but every one of them was missing the tiny bit of bait she had used.
"Damn, animals are getting smarter."
A small rabbit and a squirrel, to feed over twenty people. Besides the mushrooms Lori could find there wasn't a lot of vegetation in the woods, so a stew seemed to be out. It would be hard but maybe she could talk everyone in letting her borrow a vehicle to go on a run soon. She didn't like the idea of anyone coming with her, but they knew she was smart, and fast so hunger and need for supplies could be in her favor to let her go. She was heading back to the quarry when she heard twigs snapping near her. She halted, hearing silence, a walker wouldn't have paused whatever made that was either animal or human. Turning behind slowly, she tried to see if anything caught her eye when it didn't she pushed back forward.
"Hell ya think yur goin'?"
It wasn't that it was human that scared her, but that it was unfamiliar. Gruff and pissed off – male for sure.
"I'm going back to my camp…what about you?"
Peering over her shoulders she searched again, the man coming from behind a thatch of branches.
"Didn't see ya up there before, how I know ya ain't lying and tryin' ta steal something?"
Her eyes usually did well in the dark, but with the figure so far away she couldn't make him out.
"You're the new guys aren't you, the hunters?"
The man didn't reply, and her shoulders slumped. "If you have to you can ask Dale or Glenn in the RV. You know the one you keep calling a Chinaman."
He came up to her then, dirty pale skin that was starting to tan coming in view. "Come on then."
Leading back out to camp, she waited to follow him to the RV but was surprised when he started going the other way.
"Hey. I thought you needed to…confirm my identity."
He hitched a crossbow on his shoulder before looking at her with what could be described as feline eyes. Slanted, calculating, daunting, and colored in an unnatural shade of blue.
"Ya wanna wake them up we can, ya know their names unless ya been stalkin' them didn't see how you'd know them otherwise."
"Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt then. Since you're awake if you need someone to I can mend and wash your clothes for you. I don't mean to brag but I'm pretty good at getting out stains. Just leave them outside your tent before you go to bed and I'll get to them."
His stare was meant to intimidate, but when she wouldn't drop her eyes he relented shaking his head without a word while heading for his tent.
"I'm Louise, if you were curious."
He didn't give her his, instead narrowing his eyes and gestured to the woods.
"Only thing I'm curious about is how the hell yur stupid enough ta go off in there when it's dark. Ya that suicidal?"
She shook your head. "No, I'm not. I can't be out in the daytime, and it might not be twenty-twenty but I can see well in the dark. I can handle myself decently. So I take night shift. Let people rest while I do what I can, hence, why I don't mind to do the laundry. It keeps my hands busy."
The question was easy enough on his face, making her sigh.
"I have solar urticarial it's not as severe as it could be but I still can't –"
"The fuck's that?"
Giving a pensive smile, she shrugged. "I'm allergic to the sun."
He hadn't believed that shit at first. How can someone be allergic to the goddamn sun? It was easy to see now; she refused to go to sleep after last night, walkers infesting the camp so now the girl dug graves with the Asian boy. And with the clouds dispersing the sun beat down harder and he could see the harsh red welts forming on her hands, splotches on her face, the hoodie she had put on to shield her making it worse as sweat gathered on the spots.
"Give me that thing and get inside."
He reached for the shovel, but she twisted it out of his reach.
"Thank you, Daryl, but no. They were my friends and I want to do this for them."
Damn stubborn streak pissed him off, any other woman here would've handed the damn thing over.
"Ya look like a damn lobster."
She gave a tired laugh, wiping the excess sweat from her face with a sleeve. "But a cute one right?"
He snorted. "No such thing as a cute lobster."
The smile she flashed had his ears burning. "I'm from the north and I can tell you that's not true."
Yeah, he knew she was a damn Yankee, something Merle had loved to tease her over before he was gone. She hadn't minded it either. He couldn't help but stare as she continued working. Why the hell did she have to be so nice to everyone? She had bitchy moments like the rest of them, but still she was nice. The only ones in camp to come over and ask if they needed anything, to see if they'd join the rest for supper, to see how they were. It was weird, and he waited the first week for her to come out and ask what she really wanted from them but it never came. Then Merle was gone, she continued to come over, but without his crude remarks to make her laugh it was mostly polite conversation and ill-timed smiles. But Daryl had started coming out more at night, claiming Dale's old ass wasn't doing any good falling asleep on everyone. He didn't sleep much anyways. And one night he caught her attention while he was cleaning his arrows.
"What're you doing?"
There wasn't revulsion in her tone, nothing to say he was doing something wrong and she decided to judge him. Usually whenever she asked something he could hear the fascination inside, curiosity making the awkwardness fade.
"Fixin' the carbon shaft so I can reattach the fletching to it."
"May I help?"
"Ya ain't got laundry to do?"
He wanted to hate that laugh she gave, hated it more that he didn't. "There's always laundry to do. But this looks fun, might come in handy to know too. If you'll let me."
He stopped the knife on the shaft, clicking his tongue at the genuine interest on her face. "Fine, sit yur ass down and don't ask too many questions."
"He's bit! JIM'S BIT!"
Both of them turned towards the camp, Jacqui backing away from the older man. He looked him over; he could smell guilt on him.
"Show us."
Jim refused and when he was held down he ran up to look seeing the huge chunk out of his side. He needed to be put down, before it spread. Before whatever shit that saliva had got to his brain.
Everyone kept saying how he was human and didn't deserve to be killed; they wanted to treat the shit like the flu like popping a few pills would cure him. Gripping the pick he had he lunged for Jim, stopping when Louise flung yourself on the man. When he froze he heard a gun clicking behind him.
"We don't kill the living."
That was funny, real fucking funny. And he started to stampede off when Louise stopped him.
"I do agree with what you meant Daryl. It's going to be bad for Jim. It's – he's going to rot from the inside out until there's nothing left of him. But the way you went about it was wrong."
"How the fuck was I –"
"It was hateful. You were doing it out of logic and fear of what could happen –"
"I ain't afraid of no –"
"Jim's a good man, and he shouldn't have to be killed like that. People like him shouldn't have to die feeling hated. No one deserves that Daryl."
He chewed his tongue, picking up his pickaxe to return to the bodies. "Get yur ass inside before I throw ya in."
