Hey, here's the next chapter. Thanks to everyone who's added this to their favorites or alert list. Just watched Slabtown, and holy shit!
[POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO AREN'T CAUGHT UP TO 5x04]
That was a good episode, I just love Beth so much. Like oh my god, her character development over the past couple seasons has been spectacular. So excited for next episode, Carol's my baby too I can't wait to see them kick ass together. I'm kind of thinking maybe Morgan's in the bushes with Daryl? Seeing as Carol ended up at the hospital I assume they got seperated.
[SPOILERS OVER]
Anyways, here's the next chapter. I would still love to get some reviews, I wanna know what you guys think. Rating remains for similar reasons. I hope you all enjoy!
Chapter Two: At First
There had probably only been one walker at first. A straggler that crawled out of the woods, a little boy that had finally crawled free of a busted windshield, some poor bastard who left his car thinking he'd be better off roughing it.
There had only been one scream at first. They had begun to ripple out from there. Car doors slammed, people ran, they screamed - the same process would be repeated the next car up. People were running, but they didn't really know where or why. They grabbed their shit and ran into the woods, ran through the lines of cars, ran into the jaws of the curious dead.
It took a moment to process, the three of them standing as they had been. Her hands in the air with a gun in her face. Little brother reacted first, loading a bolt in his crossbow. His eyes never stayed in one place as he tried to pick out the dead from the living.
Big brother's gun went off. A corpse toppled down the embankment, bones cracking all the way to the road.
Jada.
The dead slowly shuffled in from both sides. A lot more were coming up from Atlanta, drawn by the noise. That little girl was all alone, trapped in a dark car with nothing but a teddy bear and some stranger's sweater.
The brothers could have the mom van. She turned to run, she needed to get back to the Camaro, back to Jada.
She didn't get as far as she would have liked. The dead weren't even the biggest obstacle, it was the living. A foot caught her shin, a knee jammed into her thigh, a pair of hands shoved her down out of the way as a river of people flooded through. A dangling backpack caught her on the shoulder, and already on her knees she started to go down.
Adrenaline had fogged up her vision, seeped like ice through her veins. Her heart was just about the only thing that was moving, beating out in a rhythmless blur. She needed to stand, get up before a sea of feet faded to dead grabbing hands. But each time she started to get her bearings another warm body knocked her back down.
A pair of rough hands gripped her under the arms and yanked up, dragging her back from the crowd.
"Jada," Renee yelled, trying to struggle away, "Jada, I need to get to Jada!" The stampede of people had begun to fade, disappearing farther up the road or off into the woods. Now it was the dead who made their way towards them, falling on the living stragglers, "Let me go!"
"Hush," a gruff voice replied, pulling her back towards that beat up truck. Big brother was popping off rounds, some of them were hitting their mark, some weren't. Renee had the feeling that he didn't really care. That grin was still plastered on, his eyes were still glazed over.
"Merle, cut it out!" Little brother growled from behind her. The farther away the majority of people got, the more interested the dead were in the few who had stayed behind. Particularly the one making all the racket. "Merle!"
"Let me go!" Renee yelled. Little brother swung her up into the truck bed.
"Merle! Get in the truck!" Merle listened this time, ducking into the cab. Little brother kept a straight face as he put bolts through the two closest walkers.
"Please, I need to get to her, she's just a kid!" Renee tried to climb down, but hands pushed her back.
"Ya ain't gonna be doin her no favors by leading a bunch a geeks to her, now get down!" He hissed, climbing in behind her, pushing her to the floor, and throwing an old blue tarp over them.
She couldn't see anything, but she could hear. Hear him breathing hard, hear the metallic hiss of a knife being unsheathed, the gurgling groans of the dead shuffling past, their hands banging on the cab - looking for Merle.
When she was little her dad would take her camping in the back of his truck. It was a bigger truck than this, a hell of a lot newer. At night they'd listen to the crickets and eat s'mores that he'd heat with an old zippo lighter 'cause it was too much work to make a fire.
They'd be wrapped up like baby birds in a nest of blankets and pillows, with zippo s'mores, and PB&Js, and he'd call her Punkin while she fell asleep on his chest.
She didn't know how long they waited for the dead to get bored. It was hard to tell time when it was so quiet. Hours could be minutes, minutes could be hours. Maybe, if she was lucky, Jada would have slept through all of this. Time didn't mean a damn thing when you were asleep. Renee's pulse was still going haywire, but she couldn't hear the walkers anymore.
Sitting up she shoved the tarp to the side, and leapt down. She could see the outline of the RV she'd been behind just before the bend in the road, Jada would be there. She'd have to be there. Renee didn't want to be the one who got some kid killed.
"Hey!" Little brother called, jumping out behind her, crossbow in hand, "Hey, what the fuck do you think you're doin?"
"Going back to my car. Or do you and your brother want that too?" She grumbled, stalking off into the dark. She must have dropped her flashlight somewhere in the chaos, but she didn't have to time to go looking for it.
Footsteps came up behind her. Little brother was glaring at cars as they passed. He was a quiet one, a lot quieter than his brother. Renee decided she liked that - his brother was a bit of an asshole. She'd met plenty of people like them, they were kind of hard to avoid when in the south. Renee had grown up in a nice suburban neighborhood, the kind with the big houses set apart by yards and oak trees, in the heart of rural North Carolina. Outside of that little manicured bubble though, her town was through and through hick.
Her neighborhood had been built to accommodate a sudden influx of scientists, and lawyers, and doctors for a research hospital that had been founded forty or fifty years back. That's where her parents worked, where their parents had worked. Mom was a researcher - psychological stuff, mostly - Dad was a doctor. The hospital wasn't exactly state of the art like it used to be, but her parents still made good money.
It was impossible to avoid the redneck culture though, it pervaded throughout the little North Carolina town regardless of class. They were your friends, your classmates, the guy you bought spicy slim-jims from at the gas station, cousins whose parents didn't do quite so well as yours. No matter who you were you were a redneck, just some were rednecks with perks. It was a question of who was going mudding in a jerry-rigged jeep, and who was going mudding in their daddy's new F-150.
However, there was also a pretty damned big difference between being a redneck, and being a piece of white trash. She knew exactly which camp Big Brother fell in, Merle appeared to be a grade-A asshole. Little Brother though, he was harder pin down, white trash with a bit of heart.
She could see the edge of her Camaro now, peeking out from behind the RV. Just as she was about to break into a run, Little Brother caught her shoulder, and pulled her back behind him.
That's when her heart dropped.
Little Brother raised the crossbow, signalling her to stay behind. The light in the old yellow Camaro was on, spilling out over the black racing stripes on the hood. The driver's side door was open, the passenger's window streaked with a bloody handprint. No corpses though - big or small.
"No." She rushed past him, "No, no, no. Jada! Jada!" She called out, ignoring the older man's pleas for her to shut the hell up. The car was empty. No Jada, no butterflies, no bear, no sweater. Just a box with two granola bars and a crumpled up bag of chex mix. No blood either, save that one streak outside the window. "I told her to stay put…" Renee whispered, more to herself than anyone else. Why had she left that damn kid alone? She'd known from the moment she met her that Jada wasn't the best at following instructions.
"C'mon," he said softly, "She went this way." He nodded towards the shoulder, and started walking. She didn't really have a choice but to follow.
"How the hell do you know that?"
"Footprints," he grumbled, pointing at the ground. Sure enough, just visible in the dim light from the Camaro, were little feet sized indents in the mud, "You got that flashlight still?"
"Does it look like it?" Renee snapped, holding up her empty hands. He looked at her, thumb going up to his teeth.
"I think I got one in the truck."
"No!" she said quickly, stepping out in front of him, "We can't go all the way back, she can't be that far!"
"Lady, look, it's been a couple hours. She ain't just gonna be twiddlin' her thumbs on a guardrail down the road. We'll find your little girl, but I can't do shit if I can't -"
"She's not mine," she interrupted, "She's just...she's just some kid."
"We'll find her," he said, quiet but firm, for some reason she believed him, "Just need to be able to see her damn trail."
With that he turned back towards the Camaro, crossbow slung across his back. She followed behind, eyes skimming over each dark car as they went, hoping that brown doe eyes would peer out the window at her. She'd promised Jada she was going to come back for her. She was going to keep that promise even if she had to spend the next few days combing the woods with redneck extraordinaire and his violent big brother.
They'd just passed the RV when a door opened.
"Are you Renee?"
She turned around to see an older man poking his head out the RV, it was hard to make out distinct features, but the salt and pepper beard - mostly salt - was easy enough to see. She glanced at Little Brother, and they made eye contact for a second before she nodded to the old man.
"Got someone in here who wants to see you."
Jada threw her arms around Renee's waist the moment she entered the RV, eliciting a couple aw's from the two women sitting by the table. She knelt down to hug her back, burying her face into the little girl's shoulder. Part of her was relieved they'd found Jada, that she'd been safe all along. Another part of her was just relieved that she didn't have to feel guilty anymore. Leaving a kid in a car during the apocalypse had to be just as bad as leaving one on a hot summer day.
Apparently she'd gotten scared, a walker had started banging on her window so she'd ran. The old man had seen her from the RV, and called her in. It was pretty obvious that she'd been crying, a lot, puffy, red eyes, and a crusty nose. However, any allegations that she had been anything less than a berserker would put the speaker on the receiving end of a menacing glare and a loud "nuh-uh". Being scared was a secret she kept to herself.
"Thank you," Renee said, "For taking her in, uh… I'm sorry I don't know your name."
"Dale," the old man said, "That's Andrea and her little sister Amy. Not relations of mine, apparently I've formed a habit of picking up hitchhikers," he teased. Amy and Andrea smiled, "Found them on the side of the road too."
Renee glanced down at Jada, still wrapped up in her sweater, teddy bear in hand. "It's nice to meet you, I guess you've already met Jada. I'm Renee, and this -" she trailed off. He was gone, not that she knew his name anyway, he was just Little Brother, Redneck Extraordinaire. "Is not here anymore…"
"Didn't really seem like the talkative type," Andrea mentioned.
"No. No I don't think he is," Renee nodded in agreement, glancing out the door looking for his shape weaving in and out of cars. She didn't find him though.
"Well, if you two don't want to stay in your car again. We got plenty of room in here," Dale offered. Renee didn't hesitate to accept.
Andrea and Amy gave up the bed to them, they were guests after all. The sisters stretched out with blankets and pillows on the floor. Dale said he wasn't tired, that he'd keep an eye out for them. Renee wasn't sure if she believed him about the tired part, but she was desperate to sleep herself. It had been days since she'd been in a bed - the dinky old RV wasn't the Marriott or anything, but it was a hell of a lot better than the backseat of the Camaro.
Jada crawled in beside her, teddy clutched to her chest. It suddenly occurred to Renee, for all the shit she'd been through for that bear, she didn't even know its name.
"Jada, what do you call your bear?" She asked, eyes fluttering.
"Franklin," the little girl replied in the same exhausted tone.
Renee nodded. It was quiet for a long time. For a moment she thought the girl had gone to sleep.
"I'm sorry I didn't stay in the car," she said in a small voice.
"I'm sorry I didn't bring you with me."
They didn't say much after that, just slowly drifted off.
When Renee woke, Jada had somehow made her way into the crook of her arm, Franklin jammed in between. His little glass eyes staring up at her, they looked pained, but maybe that was because he'd had his arm ripped off. She smiled to herself, untangling little legs and arms from big legs and arms; and untangling big legs and arms from sheets, she stood up. Warm sunlight filtered through the windows. Outside she could hear people moving around, a few voices, but the omnipresent of hum of car engines was gone.
The RV was empty, but outside she heard laughter. With one last glance at a sleeping Jada, she started to leave, but thought better of it. Instead she crouched down next to the little girl, and shook her.
"Hey, how you doin?" She asked.
"Tired," Jada managed to get out, before rolling her face back into the pillows. Renee smiled.
"You can keep sleeping, sweetie. I just wanna let you know that I'll be right outside if you need me, okay?"
A little camp fire had been started on the road, surrounded with broken chunks of asphalt. A little pot of what looked like ramen was boiling in the middle, steam rising into the less-hot-than-it-could-be morning air. The Camaro was just as she left it. Down the road she could see the distant figure of Merle, sitting on tailgate of their old blue Ford. She had expected to see more bodies, with all the mayhem last night, though she supposed that bodies had gotten awful good at walking away recently.
"Morning, Renee," Amy said cheerfully, "Noodles are almost done."
"We don't have anymore chairs, but I can -" Dale started to stand.
"No, no its cool. I can take the ground," the redhead said, plopping down between Andrea and Dale to wait for breakfast.
"How's Jada doing?" Andrea asked, starting to pull out brightly colored plastic bowls.
"Fine I think. Kid's pretty tough. She's young though, not sure how much of this has really sunk in for her," she said softly, glancing back at the RV, "I think she's starting to figure it out though. She's already given up on finding her family, I mean she hasn't said anything, but she stopped really talking about them after a couple days on the road."
"I'm assuming you aren't related?" Dale asked.
"Nah. Found her trying to get out of Atlanta, she'd been in the same hotel as me. She'd dropped her stuffed bear, gone back for it, I guess her parents were too preoccupied with the other kids - it was a pretty big family - to notice she'd fallen behind. When I got to her there was a walker on her, I think she thought it was trying to take that stupid bear from her….the thing ripped one of its arms off trying to get at her."
"You kill it?" Andrea asked, looking mildly impressed.
"No, no I just pushed it, grabbed her hand and started running. She wanted to go after her parents, but I told her we'd find them on the road. No idea where they'd gone, wasn't worth getting eaten to go on a goose chase 'round Atlanta."
"Well, she's lucky to have you," Dale said, starting to scoop out bowls of ramen.
Renee scoffed, "I almost got her killed last night."
"Well we learn from our mistakes, don't we?" Dale asked. Renee decided it was rhetorical question, and dug into her noodles.
Jada was still asleep when Renee headed back to the Camaro, it was only one car behind, it wasn't like she was going all that far. It was quiet now anyways, most of the people had either fled into the woods, died, or both. There were no walkers to speak of, at least not ones that had gotten free of their seat belts - just a road full of ghost cars, and a handful of survivors here and there. A few cars down a woman with short gray hair was wiping food off a girl's mouth, they were both skinny things, the woman stood as if she were older than she was. The girl had to be twelve, but looked about as nervous as a cat.
Maybe she'd like to play with Jada. She was a good bit older, but it was better than no kids at all.
The door to the Camaro was still open, blood still stained the window. She was going to have to clean that up at some point. First though, first she wanted some clean clothes. She still needed to find some for Jada, though she wasn't sure how keen she was to go interact with the rednecks again. Little Brother was okay, but Merle was a dick. There had to be other cars full of kids stuff, plenty had been abandoned last night.
Sighing, she popped the trunk and went to rifle through her suitcase. Pulling out a suitable looking tanktop and shorts she slammed the trunk, and nearly screamed. Fucking hell he's quiet, she thought as she caught her breath. There was Little Brother, like right there. The only reason she hadn't seen him in the first place was cause the trunk was in the way, and now that she could see him she had to try her hardest not to laugh.
She hadn't been able to see him all that clearly in the dark. She'd been able to tell he was one of those tough guy rednecks, the ones who would spend days in the woods not showering, and then get home and take a smoke while they rubbed themselves in bacon or some shit. From the look of the layers of grime on him, he certainly hadn't been bothering with personal hygiene - though to be fair none of them had. He was scruffy, but she supposed he wasn't all that bad looking. He had pretty eyes, she thought, during a brief moment of eye contact, but when he noticed the repressed amusement he turned to scowl at the ground.
Slung over his shoulder was a pink Cinderella backpack, matching suitcase trailing at his side. It was positively adorable. He shrugged it off and held it out.
"For the kid," he muttered.
"Thank you, really," she said, a hint of a smile on her lips, "for everything. I don't think I got a chance...for last night -"
"S'nothin…" he mumbled again, running a hand over his neck and up through his hair. He stood there awkwardly for a moment, pretty blue eyes unable to fixate on anything. First he'd look at the ground, then the bags, then her, the Camaro, the ground, her. The silence was awkward. He bit at his thumb, nodded to her car, "That thing take a lotta gas?"
"Yeah." A hint of exasperation crept into her voice, "Don't know what I'm gonna do when it hits empty, it's getting pretty close."
"Ya know how to siphon tanks?" He asked. She shook her head. He nodded, turned, and started to walk back towards his truck. Man sure knew how to make conversation.
"Hey! Wait, you never told me your name!" He muttered something in response, "Errol?"
"Daryl," he snapped, at least she could hear him now, "Daryl Dixon."
"Nice to meet you Daryl, I'm Renee Waller."
He nodded stiffly and walked away. Amazing, man had been more socially adept when surrounded by dead people, than he was just talking. Renee shook her head and smiled at the bags he'd left her. Jada was going to be happy.
Well there's the second chapter! I hope you guys liked it. I'd love to get some feedback from everyone, or just strike up a conversation over message if you want. Hope to get the next chapter up soon.
See ya soon!