Authors Note: A bit of background on this story. I was recently laid up in bed for a few days with an injury from work. I rarely ever use the tv in my room and as a result, I still had the entirety of season 2 on my Tivo. So I started watching and when I came to the finale, I was dozing off when the episode blacked out and a commercial for the movies on AMC came on. As soon as I saw a clip from the one that inspired this story, I had an A-Ha, lightbulb above the head moment. This is a short chapter and is really only serving as a set up for the rest of the story. Later chapters will be much longer and updated regularly.
Read on and enjoy!
It had been two months since the night when they had been forced to flee the safety of the farm. They moved from house to house, road to road, always in search of their next meal, a place to sleep, or perhaps, even a place where they could be free from the horrors of this world. But no such place had been found yet. They had made camp at various houses, gathering what supplies they could along the way, but inevitably, the dead would push them out, back onto a path full of tension and uncertainty. The air around them had grown colder and it was clear now that, even in the mild Georgia climate, winter was fully upon them. They had been driving for hours along a back country road, perhaps a road they had traveled before, it wasn't clear anymore where they were going. Rick led the way, and everyone followed, unsure of what else to do. They still had a few more hours of daylight, but when the sky started to darken and the first snowflakes began to fall, Rick signaled for the rest of the group to pull over. They did, slowly emerging from their vehicles to find out what the plan was.
Rick looked up at the ominous clouds before he spoke. "It looks like we're in for a storm. We need to find shelter for the night. We don't know how bad it might get and we don't need to end up stranded out here in the middle of nowhere."
Everyone agreed and when Beth mentioned that she had seen an abandoned library a few miles back, they all got back into their respective vehicles and turned around. They found the building easily, it was secluded and from what they could tell, it seemed to be clear of walkers. They came to a stop, backing the vehicles up near the door in case they needed to make a quick retreat. Rick and Daryl told everyone to stay put, raising their weapons and entering the building, making sure that it was clear before allowing the rest of the group in. When they emerged a few minutes later, Rick motioned for everyone to grab their gear and enter, while Daryl dragged out the corpse of what had once been a woman, the lone biter they had found inside and pulled the bloody arrow from its head before tossing the body on the side of the building.
When they entered, they found that it appeared to be relatively untouched. The main area was rather large, the walls lined with books. There were two rows of tables and chairs, separated by an aisle leading to a large abstract sculpture in the middle of the room. Overstuffed armchairs arranged in a circle on one side of the room and on the other side there were a few separate, smaller rooms. An office, a small, meagerly stocked kitchen, and to the delight of a few, a children's reading room, full of plush couches and even a few foam sleep mats on the floor. They had spent the last night sleeping in their cars and everyone was looking forward to some well-deserved rest. They made a small meal out of the packs of crackers and pretzels they found in the cupboards of the kitchen and some of the canned vegetables they had grabbed at their last stop. With the hunger pains in their stomachs momentarily silenced, Lori, Hershel, Carl, and Beth said their goodnights and headed off to bed. So far, this trip had been especially hard on the weaker members of the group. The children were both obviously exhausted and they had gotten way too thin, the lack of regular meals draining the energy from their growing bodies. Hershel had come down with a bad cold a week earlier and though he didn't complain, it was clear he was not feeling well. Lori was now nearly four months pregnant, or five, depending upon who her child's father was, and in addition to her severe morning sickness, she was extremely depressed, the stresses of her family, their never ending fight for survival, and the loss of Shane at her husband's hands causing her to nearly shut down. The door to the reading room closed behind them and it was unlikely that any of them would emerge again until morning.
Rick, Daryl, Maggie, Glenn, Carol, and T-Dog remained in the main area of the library, all of them tired but none of them ready to turn in yet. It was still fairly early and they started to scatter around the room, each in search of something to occupy their time. T-Dog had volunteered to take the first eight hour watch shift and had grabbed a thick blanket and a rifle before heading back out into the now raging snow storm to hold up in one of the cars and keep guard.
Carol was wandering through the racks of books, running her fingers thoughtfully along the spines as she looked for a something that interested her. She finally found a book and took a seat in the last chair at the table furthest from the door, wrapping her knees to her chest as she stared at the pages before her, seeing them but not really reading, too lost in the turmoil in her own mind to concentrate.
Maggie and Glenn made their way into the office, finding no useful supplies. They were about to leave when they saw that there was a large circuit box on the far wall, the labels on the switches indicating that the building was hooked up to a solar generator. Cautiously optimistic, Glenn reached out and flipped the main power switch. Maggie laughed as the overhead lights in the room blazed to life. They walked out of the office, finding the rest of the group looking up in awe as the rows of fluorescent bulbs above them slowly flickered on and a strange neon blue glow was cast over the room from the accent lights that lined the ceiling. Maggie and Glenn sat down at the table in front of Carol's, a chair between them. Their releationship was still new and though they were sneaking off on a regular basis to fool around, there was still an awkwardness between them.
Rick was seated at the first table in the opposite row from where everyone else was seated, studying a large map that was spread out before him, hoping that some solution would jump out at him from the mazes of blue and green lines. He needed a plan, some solid course of action. The stresses of leadership were starting to wear at him, slowly chipping away at his calm demeanor. He had assumed the role of protector for the group easily, his overwhelming need to maintain order suiting him to the job. But as he scanned his eyes over the map for the hundredth time, he found himself wishing that the day he had found his wife and son, he had simply collected them and left. The group relied on him guidance and at this moment, he was almost certain that he had none left to give.
Daryl looked out over the room with a scowl on his face from his place behind the checkout desk. He was rifling through the drawers, not really sure what it was that he was looking for. He was growing restless already, unable to hunt and locked in a vacancy. He often wondered what the hell he was still doing here. If it was just him, things would be so much easier. He could hide out in the woods, killing the dead and living off the animals and plants of the forest, the one place he had ever truly felt comfortable in his whole fucked up life. But even after the loss of his brother at their leader's hands, he remained with them. And for reasons completely unknown to him, he had nearly killed himself trying to save the life of a little girl who, despite his best efforts, hadn't survived after being bitten. He even found that in the midst of all of the horrors they saw on a daily basis, he had formed an uneasy attachment to that little girl's mother. Maybe he stayed for her, maybe he was just a glutton for punishment. He really couldn't say for sure. All he knew was that he felt some primal urge to protect these people, but it sure as hell didn't mean he had to like them. He refocused his attention on the task he had placed before himself. Finding nothing more than a tin of breath mints and a fairly sharp letter opener, he slammed the last drawer shut, hopping up to sit on the counter, jabbing the letter opener into the soft wood, over and over again, simply as a means of releasing the tension that was forming in his chest.
The silence in the room was deafening, the only sound was the steady ticking of the clock on the wall. No one spoke, there was nothing to talk about. At the moment they were safe, there was no imminent threat and aside from conversations pertaining to the everyday task of survival or situations that affected the group as a whole, no one ever really had much to talk about. They were a strange kind of family, but at the same time the five people in this room were strangers. They knew the basics about each other, name, age, sex, skills in relation to their roles within the group. But that was it. Aside from a few offhand remarks, they never talked about the world as it was before, their families, their jobs, the hundreds of tiny things that made them into the people that they were now. It all seemed so insignificant, their former lives were like a dream that you wake up from and can't quite recall the details of, something that had mattered so much in the moment, but was quickly forgotten when reality set in. No one ever questioned this arrangement, no one felt the need to.
They remained as they were for a while, the tick tick tick of the clock echoing through the room. They were all focused on their own thoughts when Glenn's voice interrupted them.
"Guys, I don't know if this is just me, but does anyone else have déjà vu right now. I feel like I've been here before, like when I was a teenager or something." he said as he glanced around the room again, a look of realization coming to his face when he figured out what it was about this scene that felt so familiar. "I got it, this feels just like high school detention."
So there you have it. If you already know where I'm going with this, kudos to you. You have good fucking taste in movies. If you don't have any idea what I'm trying to set up, please google John Hughes and watch all of his movies as soon as possible. This story is one that could easily become kind of cheesy and I'm going to do my best to make sure that it doesn't happen. This will not be a word for word remake, but simply an homage. Our characters will still remain our characters, and I would like to think of this story as a missing scene from the time jump between seasons 2 and 3. Thank you very much for reading and please, please, pretty fucking please, review. Feedback makes me a very happy girl : D
xoxoxo Bekah xoxoxo