I do not own the Walking Dead or Boondock Saints. The rights are reserved for Robert Kirkman and AMC, and Troy Duff, respectfully.
I own Alice, Red, and the rest of the camp.
When Connor woke up he was treated to the same pair of concerned blue eyes that had been following him for two days; and punished by their hands as she slapped the living hell out of his arm. Connor groaned as he tried to grab both of her arms, the wire ties finally off, before actually saying words. His eyes fluttered open to look at the dull grey surroundings.
Almost thinking that he was still outside, Connor groaned when he noticed the all too familiar look of bars on the windows and doors, reminding him of the time that he spent in Boston's own living hell, Hoag Maximum Security Prison. All prisons look the same on the inside, all grey and cold, restricting and uninviting. If there was ever a place Connor MacManus never wanted to be again, it would be another prison.
"What t'e hell you slappin' me for?" Connor groaned, letting go of the young woman's wrist as her turned over in his flat cot. Yep, this is prison, he told himself. The floor of the farm house felt better.
"Why am I slapping you? Hmm? Let's see." She hissed, sarcasm dripping from every word. "You attacked a perfectly random stranger in the middle of the woods, pointed a gun at his face, made his friends get mad at me, tie my hands behind me back, steal my shit, force me into a jail cell with you – all because you had a mental-fucking-break down. So… Yeah… I think that gives me a right to slap you." She finished with another assault on his arm, hitting hard enough to irate him, but not enough to cause any damage bigger than a giant red mark on his arm.
"What? T'ey locked us in a jail cell? Why?"
"Because shooting us would be too messy – how the hell should I know?" She hissed once more before her eyes cut over to the barred door, more importantly the person standing on the other side of it. "Maybe you should ask 'em?"
Connor's neck craned over to the doorway, seeing the cowboy with the gun at the door, watching and listening with his hand resting on the handle of his gun. Connor groaned, forcing himself to sit on of the hard, stone like pad of a mattress.
"W'at can I do for you today?" Connor said, groaning as his faked a little kindness, hoping that might help get him off with the group. He didn't seem to react to the joke as he leaned against the bars of the cell.
"I'd like to know why you thought it would be wise to attack my group." He said questioningly, cocking his head to the side as if he was really trying to understand what he was thinking. "Now I hope that you aren't as stupid as you seem, attacking one of my best fighters in broad daylight, with reinforcements."
Connor's eyes quickly glanced over the cowboys shoulder, the man with the crossbow peeking in on their new prisoners. He looked like Murphy would have, long stringy hair stuck to his elongated face, his eyes narrow as he watched in silence at the two, like a child at the zoo.
"Murph." Connor mumbled to himself, gaining the extra attention from Alice as her eyes grew wide at the mention of his brother.
Alice did a double take, looking at Connor and then back at the man with the crossbow, her eyebrows knitting together as she shook her head. "Connor, that's not Murphy."
"Murph."
"No, Connor, it's not him."
Connor didn't listen to her as he stood from the cot and marched over to the cell door, his eyes stuck on the man with his brother's face. "What the hell are you takin' about?" The image of Murphy said, again with that southern drawl.
"Murph, It's me, Connor!" He said with just a hint of glee as Alice snaked her way between Connor and the iron bars. She grabbed onto his t-shirt, pulling him away from the bars as best as she could. "No, Connor. That's no him. It's not Murphy."
"No, but it is. Ti's my brother."
"No Connor. That's not Murphy, okay?" Alice looked over her shoulder at the thoroughly freaked out Murphy impersonator. "It doesn't even look like him!"
"His name is Daryl." Rick tried to help clear up any confusion with a snarl in his lip. "Not Murphy."
Connor backed off the iron bars, starting to realize that it wasn't his brother. It couldn't be his brother, his brother was dead. His brother was outside of the King county line, not here in a prison cell.
Alice turned around to address the officer and the Murphy look-a-like, taking the reigns as Connor sat back down on the prison cot.
"I'll be taking your calls from now on, gentlemen." She tried joking as it fell on deaf ears. The scruffy man shifted, positioning himself better on the iron bars before he asked. "You and your friend have a lot of supplies. Looks like you're ready for quite the camping trip."
"You know, we thought we might just see the world before, you know, we get eaten."
"Where are you two goin'?"
"Atlanta." She said quickly as the two men both shared a look of concern to each other. The man with the cross bow crossed his arms over his chest, wanting to listen in on the conversation as it just got good.
"Atlanta?"
"Yeah. We heard that some people there were working on a cure; have medicine, doctors, people – stuff like that." She explained, making the man nearest to her shuffle his feet as he stared at the concrete flooring. The man in the back with his arms crossed over his chest just shook his head.
"What?"
"Atlanta belongs to the dead now." He told her, watching as her optimist expression soon dropped. "No one who is still in Atlanta is alive. It's crawling with walkers."
Connor jumped from the cot, making his way over to the bars behind Alice. "You mean, t'ere's no cure?"
"No. And there isn't anyone working on one neither."
"What about the CDC? Don't t'ey specialize in t'is shit?"
"The CDC is gone." The Murphy double said, his gruff voice echoing off the walls of the cell and Connor's head. "Blowed up real good."
Connor stood from his cot, his brows furrowing together as he tried to understand what Murphy was saying. He began to get lightheaded, grabbing onto the concrete walk to stop the world from spinning. The CDC, the cure, the only thing that was going to bring Murphy back was gone, disappeared, 'Blown up'. Connor felt a presents heavy in his heart, weighing it down; guilt. After everything, everything that Connor did for his brother, keeping him alive as long as he did, pushing him through the pain, promising a cure to this illness – it was all gone. Like a flash.
Alice ran her hands through her hair. "How long has it been gone?"
"About a year or so. You didn't know that?" The man with the gun said, almost entertained by the idea of someone not knowing something that he knew.
Alice narrowed her eyes at the man. "No we didn't. Obviously."
Connor had brought them out there for no reason, to be killed in Atlanta by the sound of it. Either the trek there or actually reaching Atlanta would have killed them if it wasn't for Murphy and his friends out in the woods.
The Lord works in mysterious ways…
"You have a group?" the man with the gun asked. "You couldn't have survived out there that long, just the two of you."
"Especially with one of you crazy." Murphy said, his blue eyes narrowing at the Irishman.
Connor shook his head and lied. "No, we're alone. Got kicked out of our group a while back. It's just been t'e two of us." Connor snaked his arm around Alice's shoulders in a protective way.
"Good." The man with the gun said, walking away from the bars and ending the conversation. Connor watched as he took the man with the crossbow with him, Murphy not looking back.
"Hey, wait!" Connor said, reaching his fingers around the iron bars. "Murph! Wait!"
He watched as he brother turned back for only a moment, a curious look on his face before turning back around and disappearing into the cell block. "Murph!" Connor screamed, his accent bouncing off the walls. Alice grabbed him by his shoulders, trying to get him to snap out of whatever dreamland he had disappeared into.
"Connor, stop!" She hissed at him, shaking him by the shoulders as he watched Murph disappear out of view. It was only after Connor could no longer see Murphy that he looked at Alice, like he was in some sort of trance around the man. Connor looked down at Alice with a haze in his eyes, like he wasn't really there. "You're scaring me."
Connor looked back passed the bars, seeing without seeing the other eyes in the cellblock looking at the two of them with a wild curiosity, the kind of looks that wild animals get at the zoo from the tourists.
"Connor." Alice tried again to get his attention. "It's not Murphy. That's not him."
"But it is-"
"No it's not. His name is Daryl, not Murphy." Alice said before pointing behind her. "He doesn't even look like him."
He didn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. Why couldn't his brother be alive? Why couldn't this Daryl guy be his brother? What was stopping him from making that happen?
"I know it's not him." Connor said quietly, lowering his eyes to the ground. "I see him everywhere t'ough. Just because it's t'e first time I've mentioned anything, doesn't mean –"
"I know. I know." Alice said, resting her hand on Connor's shoulder, his skin suddenly feeling like it was on fire. "I see him too. I see him, I hear him, sometimes I can even smell him."
"You're wearing his coat." Connor pointed out, sniffing loudly as Alice looked down at the black pea coat around her shoulders. "Oh… That might explain a couple things."
Connor laughed a real laugh, looking back at Alice once more. He'd gotten her into this mess, his plan backfired horribly; why did she still want to be around him? Maybe she was more of a shadow than he thought. He scratched behind his ear before asking in all seriousness: "He really doesn't look like Murphy to you?"
Alice turned around, catching a glimpse of the crossbow wielding man passing the hallway before she turned back around. "The nose, maybe?" She said with a shrug, giving Connor a slight smirk.
Red Donahue tracked the footsteps to a large farmhouse. The pair of boot prints lead up the porch to the front door, which had been standing wide open. With his pistol withdrawn and his finger on the trigger, Red made his way into the farmhouse, while the rest of the group stayed outside near the cars. He'd have to kill the Irishman for this, taking his only daughter God knows when there are walkers around every corner? Red prayed, for Connor's sake, the he never finds them alive.
He followed the muddy boot prints through the house, most of them being right in the living room area, while the dining room was blocked off by couches and furniture. Yeah, they were definitely here.
Red walked through the house some more, exploring a bit before he came across the curious smell of a fire pit. Besides the fire burning on the hot coals, Red could smell something else, the putrid smell of rotten eggs being cooked, with a sweet smell alongside that Red couldn't put his finger on. Red ran through the house, making his way to the back porch easily. He ran through the storm door quickly, covering his nose and face at the intense smell.
Close to eight bodies were lying in the open fire pit, lying on top of one another. Their clothes had already burned to ash, their infected blood burning and probably giving off the sweet, metallic sense in the air. Each one was shot in the head, their bodies burned for cleanliness.
Red silently cursed his daughter; if this was her idea of staying low and not being found out, then she had another thing coming…
Silas walked around the side of the house, not taking a chance being attacked by walkers without a weapon, to Red's side, watching the Walkers bodies bubble and pop on the hot coals.
"They were here." Red said quickly, running his hands through his thinning hair line. "They've probably been gone a couple hours though.
"That's good right? At least they got away."
Red's eyes cut over to Silas as the young man avoided Red's gaze. "Got away? Are you suggesting that they wanted to get away from me?"
"No, that's not what I meant-"
"It sure as hell sounds like it. They day I want your opinion I will give you one!"
Silas looked away from the screaming mad man, watching out for walkers as if he cared. Surely most everyone in the group would agree that if Red would get eaten by these lamebrains it would do the group a lot better.
Red's eyes traced along a new set of tracks from the fire pit leading out to the woods; Two sets, one larger, about a size ten boot and the other smaller maybe size six-seven hiking boot. They were through here.
The group began to move into the farm house, taking the bags and personal items from the vehicles and moving them into the house, Red's mind was working in over time. If he could find where they had gone, maybe he could bring them back – Lord knows they need the fire power. Silas went in the house through the back porch, the storm door slammed shut as he made a joke about having to get that fixed. Red silently shook his head while watching the pile of bodies' burn. They wouldn't be here that long, not long enough to get comfy.
He was going after Connor and Alice.
Night had fallen over the prison. Connor and Alice watched in silence at the inner mechanics of the prison as it worked like a well wound watch. The people inside the prison, mothers, grandmothers, children, watched the two of them inside of the cell like zoo animals. It was getting to Connor more than Alice as he was mentally drained. Never before had he been so powerless, and the idea of it was making him sick to his stomach.
Shortly after the prison curfew and all the survivors went to bed, Connor did as well, burying himself beneath the wool blanket even on the sticky, hot summer night.
Alice waited up, watching the moon outside the one window in this prison, giving some relief to the idea of being held captive in a prison. She sat against the bar; her knees drawn close to her heart as she watched the moon light slowly make its way across the floor.
The cell door opened in, causing Alice to jump and be pulled from her day dream as a shadowed man walked in with a plate of food. It wasn't anything major, a bit of canned beans and some almost-molding bread, but it was more than she'd seen all day. Her eyes grew at the mere sight of food before the man put it down on the floor.
"I thought you weren't supposed to feed the animals."
"For you and the Leprechaun." The southern drawl said quickly and quietly, hoping not to wake anyone up. Alice looked up at the man and was taken a back at how much he really did look like Murphy in this light.
"Thank you." She said, whispering before ripping the stale bread in half. "For everything."
Murphy eyed her curiously, staying silent.
"If it wasn't for your group, then we'd still be out there. Lord knows how long we'd survive. Connor's not that good with tracking things. He's a shepherd, not a hunter."
"Sounds like he's got a lot more problems than that." He said. Alice nodded her head, peeking over at the tuff of dirty blond hair that poked up over the blanket.
"He lost his brother." She admitted. "About a month ago. He used to be really calm and laid-back, easy to get along with but – after Murphy died, he's been different. Distant, jaded."
The Murphy look-alike almost nodded his head, understanding the pain of losing a brother like that.
"Is it the same guy that he was calling me out in the woods? Michael?"
"Murphy, and yes." Alice said, "I'm sorry about that again. I know he won't apologize, but he really didn't mean to hurt yah."
"He pointed a gun in my face."
"If it makes you feel any better, it wasn't personal."
Murphy shook his head, setting the plate down in the cell before going to leave.
"We've all lost people." Murphy said, closing the cell door behind him with a metallic ring. "Tell him to get over it."
Alice was left alone in the darkness once more, the moonlight had crossed another couple inches since her talk with the Murphy double. She looked over at Connor, hiding underneath the blanket and hogging most of it.
Alice stood up from her place near the bars, picking up the plate as she went and walked over to the small cot where the tired saint was resting. He'd be hungry in the morning, she thought to herself, setting the plate down by the bed side.
Slowly, Alice climbed into the cot, the springs the enemy as they shrieked with every muscle she moved. She climbed into the cot, snuggling up to the warm body beside her. It had been so long since she's slept by herself. She felt Connor move beside her, moving around as he shared some of the coveted blanket with the young girl spooning him.
It was a comfort that she could not afford to lose, sleeping next to someone else. Alice tried to keep a distance between Connor and herself, but in the tight confines of the cot that was virtually impossible. Before long, Alice found herself sleeping on Connor instead of sleeping beside of him.
I hope you enjoyed it!
~pure.