A/N: I have been having a very rough month, with the loss of my jobs, and my trying to find a new one I've been trying to feel so down. However I think that if I can manage this and my problems I'm sure a few good things will come my way. Other than that I hope you enjoy the next bit of the story. Thanks for staying and reading. And yes this will be Dale and Andrea... hopefully I do them justice.
Ghost
Chapter 3
"I don't know how long she has been out; all I saw was her after Shane had come by"
"Shane?"
"He was here; I don't know what he was doing though"
"All of you get out; she's been hurt, I need to get her moved to the house. Rick you keep an eye on Shane ye hear. I don't want to be patching up anyone we get that could get us to safety."
"I…"
"I am willing to leave my home so that my daughters have a chance, don't you want that for the baby?"
"Yes…"
Kamryn was slightly awake hearing voices but the pain in her back sent her back into the realm of unconsciousness again. When she had awoken again Dale and Hershel were sitting at her bedside talking quietly to each other. Grunting Kamryn stayed on her side hugging the pillow she was half on while keeping her eyes closed against pain in her back.
"Lieutenant?" Opening her eyes slightly Kamryn saw Dale kneeling down beside the bed so he was eye level with Hershel standing behind him getting an injection ready.
Unable to trust her voice Kamryn turned her face to the pillow as Hershel worked his magic in giving pain relief, he shooed out Dale who said would be back later on. Once the doors were closed to the room, Hershel went about the room. Kamryn shut her eyes as she felt the bed dip and the bandage that was wrapped tightly around her back and shoulder being cut.
"Take it easy Lieutenant, I had to wrap your shoulder up good and stop your bleeding when Dale had come to check up on you some time during the night. You are lucky to be honest with the way the injury is, and what it is." Kamryn shifted uncomfortably as the dressing was changed and repacked. "I'm going to help you sit up so I can wrap your shoulder again."
Hissing lightly, Kamryn opened her eyes and reached out when Hershel moved off the bed and around, once he was on the side that Kamryn was facing, Hershel reached under Kamryn's left armpit and held out his other arm in which Kamryn gripped tightly and helped her sit up keeping her steady till she was able to keep herself in a seated position. Nodding to Hershel the man left her side and grabbed some pressure bandages and some padding.
"I'm going wrap you up with some padding at your shoulder, but you will really have to be careful how much strain you put on yourself. I don't know what happened last night between you and Shane but you need to be careful of him."
"I know, I learned that when I first met him after saving Dale from that Walker and when he cornered me last night getting off of the RV." Kamryn grunted as Hershel started wrapping her shoulder and back up, when he was done he took a cloth and cleaned off the blood on her back before handing her the now cleaned black BDU shirt from last night a softer short sleeve shirt.
"You can't wear pullover shirts of any kind right now, so hopefully this will help you for the time being." Kamryn took the shirts and pulled on the short sleeve shirt first buttoning it up then the BDU. Looking to her legs, Kamryn realized that she was still clad in her tan cargos sans her two belts; one for the pants themselves and the other that was the tactical belt with the leg rigs. Putting her feet on the ground Kamryn put her left hand up to rest on the top of her shoulder.
"Your belts are on the chair, and your vest I had cleaned of blood is on the chair as well, you are lucky that it's a black vest instead of a lighter color where it would be harder to get that blood out." Hershel turned and watched as Kamryn sat on the edge of the bed testing her weight, when Kamryn stood she was shaky for a few moments before she became quickly balanced.
"Thank you again Hershel for taking care of my back." Walking over to the chair with her belts Kamryn pulled the first through the loops of her pants and did that one up before buckling the tac belt around her waist slightly angling it and buckling her thigh rigs into place. Picking up her vest Kamryn was about to pull it on when Hershel came around the bed and helped her pull her vest on and adjusting the padding so the feel of the vest wasn't uncomfortable.
"You are welcome; you are giving all of us a second chance at life. If you can get us out of here then you are worth all the help and the secrets you carry. Here keep these pills with you, these should keep you functioning and relatively pain free, but the drawback is that they are highly addictive." Hershel held out a blue bottle that Kamryn took label Vidocin, the name was that of Hershel's wife.
"My wife was in pain before she died. This is what remains of the pills that I gathered, I hope these help you." Nodding Kamryn shook the bottle twice and put it into a pouch on her vest before she sat in the chair and pulled on her socks and boots. Once she was fully dressed Kamryn opened the bedroom door and looked back to Hershel one last time and nodded to the man.
"She would be proud of you for doing that you are now, keep on living and when it is your time she'll take you with open arms." Walking out of the bedroom, Kamryn headed down the stairs and was greeted by the smell of food and Dale looking up from his mug of coffee with Andrea over the stove cooking something.
"Hey you two, thanks for getting me help Dale, I think we are even now don't you think?"
"No, you weren't dying or in danger of dying, I was." Dale took a sip of his coffee as Andrea had pour Kamryn a glass of water handing it to her.
"Whatever the matter may be… thank you." Taking a sip of her water Kamryn was able to look out the kitchen window into the sunny fields that the view was giving. Watching as people moved about stacking bodies onto the bed of a truck Kamryn turned to Andrea and Dale with a questioning look on her face.
"There was a problem with one of group and he found that there were Walkers in the barn. He opened the barn and it forced us into a position of killing all of them when Hershel wanted to save them. Hershel is being as strong as possible but he's been having a rough time accepting the events of late. When you saw him, that was the night or two after we brought him back in from drinking to save one of his daughters when she had fallen into shock." Dale had put the mug down and wraped his hands around the mug looking down to the island counter. Andrea finished up the meal she was cooking by putting a plate in front of Kamryn and putting the food on it.
"Here Lieutenant, everyone had already eaten so this is for you. This is my thank you for saving Dale, I… I don't know what I would have done if I lost him." Kamryn offered a crack of a smile and took the fork that Andrea was holding out to her and dug into the food with gusto, whatever she was on painkiller wise was helping keep food down but also make her hungry. Within minutes the plate was emptied and a second helping was put on when Kamryn had asked for more, standing around the island the three talked amongst themselves when Shane decided to grace them with his presence. Thinking that the food on the plate was his along with the water because Kamryn had stepped away to get something from the fridge he picked it up but was on the receiving end of two nasty glares and one very stoic and dark sneer.
"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to touch what doesn't belong to you?"
"What? This is yours?" Shane held the plate and fork in hand staring down at Kamryn, the fact that he had four inches of height on him didn't bother Kamryn who took the plate and fork from him with a jerk before putting it on the counter.
"Yes as a matter of fact it is mine; I was eating that actually when you decided to show up. Now you have three options. One; you can take your ass to the stove and cook yourself something or ask Andrea nicely to cook you something. Two; you can take your ass out of the kitchen and leave us in peace and wait till we are done. Or three; I kick your self-serving ass out of the kitchen and outside for attacking me."
"I didn't attack…"
"Actually you did, now if you want some advice, I suggest you take a good long look in the mirror. That is unless you can't stand the face that stares back out of it." Shane took a step forwards but was stopped when he felt something sharp and pointy against his chest. "Ah, ah, ah. I would be very careful there… I've seen guys like you before; don't think I'm a push over."
Shane leaned in with his face and sneered at Kamryn before he stepped away and stalked out of the kitchen. Turning and putting the knife that Kamryn had in hand on the counter, Dale and Andrea looked to the half-serrated and half-straight combat knife before Kamryn who picked up her fork and regular knife and settled in to eat.
"Where did that even come from?" Andrea asked gently picking up the knife and looking it over, she had looked up to Kamryn who had a fork of food in her mouth. Chewing her food, Kamryn gently took the knife from Andrea and with swift, fluid, and practiced movement, without looking Kamryn had the knife back in its sheath that was hidden in a slot built in the back of her vest.
"You don't want to know" Kamryn cracked a smile and went back to eating. When she was done Kamryn washed the things she had used and followed Dale outside. Raising a hand to the bright afternoon sun, Kamryn went to the RV and pulled keys out of her pocket. Unlocking the pad lock on her large rucksack Kamryn dug around in her and pulled out tightly rolled bag, when she had unrolled it Kamryn looked up and saw that Dale had seated himself at the table watching her.
"I'm not going to pass out or hurt myself Dale, and I know what you are doing" Kamryn watched as Dale's cheeks pinked, he looked to the door then back to her.
"I know, but it's just my nature to make sure that others are alright, and beside I'm curious to know more about you. I mean you can't have had joined the military right out of school."
Kamryn looked up and smiled; she was putting together another backpack and attaching certain pouches to the inside and out. From the larger pack came six magazines that appeared fully loaded that Kamryn looked over and put into the three double stacked pouches, the next thing she pulled out was a not so small first aid kit that was placed at the bottom of the pack. Dale couldn't believe the size of the pack, it only had one strap that went over the right side of the neck and over the torso that went a waist belt with large buckles. It was small about the size of the school pack back and yet Kamryn was filling it with a lot of things that followed the First Aid and the six magazines.
The pack by the time that Kamryn was done had a combat knife with its sheath strapped to the main strap of the pack, a pouch filled energy bars, a hydration pouch, an unopened vacuum sealed poncho for space, a few vacuum sealed food pouches, water bottle, and a surprisingly small tightly rolled fleece blanket. Closing it up Kamryn did one last thing, she unrolled a shotgun sheath and attached it to the last open strapping area of the pack and put the Mossberg 500 without the stock into it.
"How do you manage to fit all that in there?" Dale looked to the back and saw the smaller back then looked to the larger pack sitting on the floor half mostly empty except for some rather large items like a plastic wash basin and some cardboard boxes with ammunition and a nylon bag with clanging..
"You learn real quick in the military, real quick, but I've always been a bit OCD when it came to space saving, this is a 'grab and go' bag incase anything happens I take this and book it out of there. I can always come back for the rest of my stuff at a later date; I've had to do it before. Pulling the last of the card board boxes and the nylon bag up onto the table, reaching into the Nylon bag Kamryn pulled out a two-and-a-half inch wide by six inch tall black magazine. This was the magazine that fit into Kamryn's rifle; the assault rifle. Opening a paper wrapped 'brick' Kamryn pulled out rounds and set about loading them into the six magazines she had pulled out.
"Exactly how many of those things do you have?" Dale was shocked, he had thought that Kamryn had maybe four or five of the magazines, but when he watched her set six into her pack and looked at the vest she was wearing he couldn't shake that she was a walking munitions container.
"I have a total of sixteen. Six in the pack always loaded, six in my right side of my vest, and four up on my front. Well not always four up on my front, usually there is three up on my front because I have one in the rifle. I hadn't gotten around to it, but I had to use five the last time I was in the city. This is only time I've been able to sit down and actually reload these things." Kamryn had gone through all of her three paper bricks and sighed as she loaded the last round in the black metal box and set it onto the table, looked to the table in thought Dale scooted closer calling Kamryn's name several times. When Kamryn didn't answer Dale waved a hand in front of Kamryn's eyes.
"Hey are you sure you are alright?"
"That's it for these rounds, four hundred an eighty rounds. That's all that I have for the assault rifle. I have maybe forty of the magnum rounds for the M24, and about a hundred and twenty for the Sig magazines. And sixty shells for the shotgun, not including 8 already in the gun. This isn't a lot, it may seem like it, but it's not. Not enough to protect all of you if something goes sideways."
"What do you mean?"
"You would need a handful of guys with as much ammo that I have to stem any sort of walker problem, when I left Atlanta, there wasn't just a small group leaving there was a massive group coming out. If that comes towards us we are in serious trouble."
Dale was shaken to the core, standing up he started taking stock of everything in the RV as Kamryn put away the magazines into the empty slots in the vest. Reaching up Kamryn opened her shotgun shell pouch and saw that they were full. Taking the a black box out from the larger pack Kamryn opened it and pulled out an attachment for the C8 rifle she had, fixing it to the underside of the rifle she had laid on the table she checked the top four pouches of her vest and felt four large rounds that she gently patted.
"And in the case of emergency…" Kamryn whispered to herself quietly, looking out the side window Kamryn saw people mulling about what seemed to be a barn when she heard of yell.
"The bastard snuck up on me and hit me!" Kamryn was up fast knocking her shoulder against a wall in which she set her jaw and grunted in pain. Dale had seen Kamryn and the pain she was in but there was a look in her eyes that spoke enough that he turned and walked out with Kamryn in tow with her assault rifle slung but the M24 in hand.
"Who did?" Kamryn barked, but Shane just sneered at her as the others started a search for someone. Andrea and Rick had come up to Kamryn and Dale and quickly filled her in about the situation.
"You didn't kill him, and yet he was locked up and suddenly Shane comes back hurt?" Shane was walking away to the house, his face was bloody as were his hands, but that could have come from trying to stop the blood coming from the top of his nose. "Something doesn't smell right… but that's just me, I have a funky feeling about things that are happening. I hope you have an escape plan should anything go wrong…"
"We do…"
"No we don't Rick…" Andrea stared at the man who had the good grace of looking chastised, Andrea and Dale walked away from Rick who raised his gaze to Kamryn.
"We have no plan; we shouldn't need to because nothing will get us."
"I hope you are right Rick, because if that Herd from Atlanta is anything to go by… and they pick up more…" Kamryn turned and walked to the RV to help Dale leaving Rick to digest what she said.
"I'm glad you two are taking what I say seriously." Kamryn hadn't been paying attention when she walked in and had to turn around and walk out after he saw Andrea and Dale in a rather close position. Not wanting to ruin whatever moment they were having Kamryn snuck back out and stood by the door with the M24 barrel resting on her left shoulder, the handle business held against her right side with her arms crossed over the gun and around her middle. It was starting to get dark as Kamryn did a walk around, true she wasn't on guard duty due to her shoulder but somehow that didn't stop her from doing it anyways.
As the sun had finally set Kamryn ate a quick dinner and made it back to the RV where she took some more painkillers to help with her shoulder. Having taken off her vest and earlier to get her dressing changed, Kamryn was sitting at the table reading a book when she heard Rick and Shane walk by arguing about something. Looking to where Dale and Andrea were sitting and talking quietly amongst themselves Kamryn noted that they didn't seem to care if there was any sort of verbal argument between to the two men that had walked by.
Getting up and looking through the kitchen sink window towards the fields, Kamryn felt that something was off. It was small at first but as time ticked by the hairs on the back of her neck raised. While everything was quiet, it seemed inhumanly quiet. Taking her pack and putting it by the RV door along with the M24 strapped to the side with the shotgun, Kamryn pulled her vest back on and made sure it was settled in alright. Dale and Andrea were still talking amongst themselves not paying attention to Kamryn who pulled the sling of the C8 over neck and shoulder and letting it hang at her side. Glancing to the other pack, Kamryn had told Dale if he couldn't take the RV, he had to be sure to take that pack, there was more than survival things left that wouldn't fit in her 'Grab and Go' Pack.
Stepping out of the RV Dale and Andrea was pulled from their conversation following Kamryn as she walked out, stepping out behind the navy-woman they watched as Kamryn cocked her head down and slightly to the side like a dog trying to hear something. Moments later a gun crack rang out through the air just behind the hill of the field.
"Stay here; if I come calling back I expect you to listen to what I have to say, got it?" Dale and Andrea nodded to Kamryn who brought her weapon to bear as she started for the fields, not even a minute later and Kamryn stood in her tracks as Rick and Carl, Rick's son were running towards her, five seconds later the first of the Walkers appeared.
"WALKERS!" Kamryn roared, she brought her gun up against her shoulder and looked down the rifle sights and squeezed the trigger once. A single bullet sped out of the barrel flying over Rick's head into the Walker that surprisingly had some speed nearly grabbing the man. Squeezing the trigger again the head of another Walker exploded into a shower of gore.
"Get everyone into the cars!" Kamryn yelled out turning towards to the house where out of the back forest came more of the things. "Shit!" Kamryn raised the rifle up again and pulled the trigger several times as people game out of the house with guns in hand opening fire on the Walkers.
"Get to the cars!" someone called out from the side of Kamryn. Too focused on keeping the Walkers at bay, Kamryn didn't know what was going on with the barn till it went up in flames. Turning to look over her shoulder to the fire Kamryn heard screams coming from the one side of the RV. Running towards it Kamryn turned the corner as she saw Dale with a look of fear on his face as a Walker had him pinned against the siding.
"HELP!" Dale screamed, he had no weapon in hand as it was lying on the ground by him. Letting the rifle fall to her side Kamryn pulled her knife from the back of her belt and grabbed the thing's forehead from behind pulling it back and slamming the blade into the base of the skull. The Walker stopped moving and fell to the ground as Kamryn released her hold.
"Get as many people as you can into the RV and leave!" Nodding at Kamryn's barked orders; Dale made it inside as Lori turned the corner with Hershel and his daughters with a pack of Walkers, pulling her rifle back up Kamryn opened fire but wasn't fast enough as Patricia was grabbed and pulled away from Maggie and Beth. Hershel couldn't get a good grasp on them as Lori pulled on the arms of them all to get them into the RV. Finally managing to kill all the Walkers that had come up behind the RV, Kamryn saw in the corner of her eye a SUV running circles and drive by's with Glenn sitting out on passenger window with a shotgun in hand firing.
T-Dog was in another truck with Andrea and Jim driving away when they heard screaming and saw Carol pinned. Kamryn heard the screams from the RV and looked out watching as the Andrea jumped out of the Truck to help Carol and Jim who was reaching for Carol was pulled out by the Walkers and ripped apart, but seeing the Walkers surround, Kamryn looked from the window inside the RV to the others and Dale who was driving. A loud rumble drove by, it was Carol and Daryl.
Slinging her 'Grab and Go' Pack and buckling up Kamryn made sure her gloves were on and Shemagh was around her neck before she opened the RV door and jump out, even at the slow speed that the RV was going at Kamryn's knees almost buckled as she switched her rifle into AUTO and opened fire heading for Andrea who had fallen from view.
The RV had stopped and someone poked their head out and screamed at Kamryn.
"What are you doing!"
"Get the fuck out of here; I'm not leaving Andrea behind." Kamryn pulled the empty magazine out throwing it into her dump bag at her waist and slammed and fresh magazine home before she opened fire again while screaming out. "Fucking drive!" The RV pulled away as Kamryn made her way to Andrea, that woman was holding her own and when Kamryn made it to her, she pulled on her arm heading into the forest where the Walkers had come from while keeping up a barrage of bullets. "Let's go!"
