What the heck happened to for the last 24 hours? It was really frustrating! Please make sure you've read chapter 3 before moving on to this chapter.
Back to the future! This was supposed to be an action-packed chapter but writing got a little away from my plans. It became kind of information heavy. Hopefully it is still entertaining!
Chapter 4 – Alabama, 14 years later
"They're back!" Carl yelled out the door across the back of the compound.
The large area behind the mansion was divided into two sections, the farm and the training area. They had a whole coop full of chickens that were forever laying eggs for them. There was also a dairy cow, named Bessie by the children. They'd traded a car for her a number of years back when there was concern about the young ones not getting enough calcium. Bessie was a decent milk producer but she had a wicked attitude about her. She behaved herself around certain people, including Carol, Sasha and Beth but there were a few she despised and would try to kick at any given opportunity. Glenn was her number one target, for reasons unknown. He tried charming her over in the beginning but that earned him a broken foot when she stomped on it. Now he avoided her like the plague and joked about cravings for veal chops whenever she was brought up in conversation.
There were also several fruits and vegetables being grown. The tomato plants had overtaken much of the back of the property. There were still the peach trees Daryl had snagged on the run to the hardware store all those years ago. They'd also added a few apple trees as well. A few other fields had potatoes, carrots and spinach. Just this past summer, they attempted to grow some corn plants. They only got four ears of corn out of it but it was a good start.
The other side was the training area. There were a variety of targets situated against the far wall, including some swinging ones. Every single person participated in training, even the children starting as young as four years old. They learned about guns, knives, slingshots, bows and arrows and even spears. Guns were rarely used for practice though. Over the past decade, bullets had become more and more scarce. Now the precious little bits of metal and gun powder were coveted, only ever used for serious protection. Even though he still hunted almost daily, Daryl had taken over the running of the training area.
At Carl's announcement, everyone automatically dropped what they were doing and moved towards the front of the house. It was always exciting to find out what happened during a trading expedition and what the team brought back for everyone. They had established trading agreements with three other settlements that were in a one-hundred mile radius from them. Now that the number of walkers had vastly decreased and people were staking out defined territories, civilization was starting to re-emerge.
As everyone else took off, Daryl watched as his daughter readied her bow. This was her traditional ending to any training session and she tried hard not to miss it. Daryl stood back and watched, counting slowly in his head.
1…2…3…4…5…
Amelia pulled the first arrow out of the quiver and in a blink it was buried in the head of a dummy walker. She reached back and instantly got another arrow notched. It flew out to the red center of a straw target close to the ground. A split second later, another arrow cracked through the swinging wooden target fixed to the top of the wall, knocking it right off the chain. Then she turned to Daryl, quietly waiting for her time.
"Eight seconds," he reported. "Ya shaved off two seconds from last time I timed ya. Good job," he said, pride evident in his voice. Amelia smiled brightly and it made her eyes shine. Those blue eyes were so much like her mother's it made his heart ache.
Putting his arm around her small shoulders, he guided her out of the empty backyard and towards the front of the house. He glanced back at the broken target, knowing it would need fixing but he couldn't help smiling at what his kid had done. They joined the crowd surrounding the car.
The smile fell from Daryl's face the moment he saw Rick get out of the driver's seat. Something was wrong. The two men locked eyes, communicating silently. Glenn and Michonne got out of the car then, grim looks on both their faces. Questions started coming from all around them.
"What news from Owens Cross Roads?"
"What's all this stuff all over the car?"
"How come all the supplies we loaded in here are still here? Did the trade not go through?"
Rick held up his hand to silence all the people. "I need everyone to gather in the library now. We have a situation that needs to be discussed." With that, he motioned everyone inside. Daryl watched Judith slip her hand into her father's. That elicited a small smile from the troubled man. Judith was a quiet girl of thirteen, which some speculated was from the trauma of her birth, even though there was no way she would remember that. All talk about her parentage had stopped years ago. She looked almost exactly like Lori, Rick had accepted her fully as his own and that was all that mattered.
They all crowded into the library, the adults standing or sitting on the plush furniture while the kids sprawling out across the floor. Before the addition had been built, there had been arguments to convert the library into more living space. However, nobody really wanted to destroy the charm of the room. With rows and rows of all kinds of books imaginable set in shelves that climbed up near to the top of the vaulted ceilings along with the antique furniture and classic dark wood paneling, it was like a tiny corner of a world forgotten in their house. The compromise was that an addition was built for living quarters while the library was used for all meetings and school work.
"What the hell happened?" Maggie demanded, her arm around a very unhappy looking Glenn.
Rick took a deep breath. "Owens Cross Roads was attacked."
There was a collected sound of shock as everyone registered what Rick said. Daryl's eyes darted over to Michonne's face, the physical evidence of the last attack on their own compound etched into her flesh. A deep scar ran from the middle of her forehead, through her ruined left eye and halted in the center of her cheek. She refused to wear an eye patch, just had Alex sew the useless eye closed. The loss of the eye did not diminish her deadliness at combat.
He glanced over at Max, Alex's father who had initially invited them to share this abandoned mansion so many years ago. Max leaned heavily on his cane now, his mangled left leg barely able to support any weight. The man was stubborn though, refusing to take a seat. Back in the days of hospitals and modern medicine, the injuries he'd suffered in that attack could have been remedied with surgery and rehab. His knowledge along with his son's was enough to save his life though. Daryl turned his attention back to the conversation at hand, knowing now that not the time to dwell on the memories of that awful night.
"The place was crawling with walkers, fresh ones. People we knew from trading," Glenn spoke up, a shudder in his voice.
"We had to plow through a group of them just to get out of there. That was what was all over the car," Rick said, answering young Joe's question. He looked up at Rick with frightened eyes until his mother Maggie pulled him into her lap. That seemed to reassure the boy.
"How do you know the place was attacked? It's been months since our last trading expedition there. Maybe they had a disease breakout," Tyreese offered up from the corner where he was leaning.
Rick shook his head but Michonne actually spoke up to answer his question. "We ran into survivors on the way back." She fell silent so Rick resumed explaining.
"They told us that they were invaded in the night. Said they were like savages, had like black and white paint all over their faces. There were no guns, they used spears and bows and arrows."
"And fire," Michonne said quietly.
"Yes, fire too. Many of their arrows were burning. Our friend Josh said they used all the bullets they had left. Killed about thirty of them but he swears there were probably close to two hundred of them. They swarmed in, killing anyone standing in their way, except for the youngest children. He saw them gathering them up, probably to take them. The only reason he and the other four lived was because they ran. Jumped in a car and drove like mad. The savages did not have any vehicles, no way to pursue them," Rick relayed to the silent group.
After a moment to let all this information sink in, Carol piped up in a soft voice without a hint of accusation. "Why didn't you bring the survivors back here?" Daryl glanced over at her sitting on the sofa. He could help cracking a half smile at her question. It was so like her to be concerned for others, even people she'd never met before.
Shifting uncomfortably, Rick looked down at the floor. "We offered to bring them back with us but they refused. They're going up to another colony just over the border of Tennessee." He paused, clearing his throat and then looking at the members of his extended family before him. "He thinks we're going to be the next target."
The room erupted into chaos with that statement. Maggie and Sasha were up out of their seats and Tyreese had stepped out of his corner. Even Daryl was leaning forward in earnestness. Everyone seemed to be shouting at once, throwing questions and calls for validity at Rick. A few of the younger children started crying, frightened by all the commotion. Beth left the room with a screaming Lindsay in her arms, making Carl promise to fill her in on every word discussed.
"Stop!" Rick shouted. That got everyone's attention because it wasn't often that Rick raised his voice. "We've got to figure this out rationally, people," he said in a more normal voice but there was still exasperation evident at the edges. Maggie and Sasha plopped back down into their seats but Sasha raised her hand. Rick nodded at her.
"What makes Josh think we're next?" she asked.
"Apparently, two other compounds he knows of have been attacked. The pattern seems to be moving eastward and that puts us directly in the path of it." Rick answered. Maggie raised her hand but blurted out her question before Rick acknowledged her. "Did they come in the night or during the day?"
"During the day." Murmurs went around the room, comments on the brazenness of a daytime attack.
Shannon spoke up from the back of the room. "Maybe we should leave, head west or even follow them up to Tennessee."
A few people glared at her. Daryl verbalized their thoughts in a gruff voice. "We ain't leavin'. This place is ours." He looked back at Rick.
The man looked tired. He was pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes like he had a headache. He breathed out a heavy sigh before talking again. "I think we need to have every contingency plan in place. We have no idea when, or even if, these savages are coming after us. There is the possibility that they have numbers far greater than ours. Hell, Owens Cross Roads had at least double our numbers and they were massacred. However, they didn't have a wall protecting them like we do." He paused, seeming to look at each of them individually before continuing. "This is our home. We've built a life here and thrived. But this place is not worth our lives. It's not worth the lives of our children. We are going to prepare to fight, to try to drive these savages away from us. But we're also going to prepare to flee. If it comes down to this place versus our lives, we run," he stated firmly. People nodded in agreement around him.
Daryl's eyes swept over the room. There was a time in his life when he wouldn't have given a crap for any of them. It had been him and Merle. That was all he thought he'd needed but it had been a lonely existence. Now all these people had become his kin, his family. He'd kill for them, had already killed for them.
His eyes fell on those closest to his heart. Amelia was on floor by her brother, listening intently to Rick. She was a sweet girl with a large dose of his own stubbornness. Her constant practice and natural talent with the bow and arrow made her a true archer, even at eleven years old. His gaze shifted to Hunter, sitting against the sofa at Carol's feet, his arms wrapped around her legs. The kid had always been a momma's boy, gravitating towards Carol. Daryl didn't mind, couldn't blame him. The boy was sensitive and quiet, much like he'd always been. Yet, Hunter could pick any lock in the house and appear silently out of thin air. Some joked Hunter could have been a master criminal in another life.
Carol. His wife. It took a long time for him to admit his feelings for her. He'd lashed out, pushed her away and even tried leaving her back in the beginning. Yet, she'd always been there for him. It was like she had waited for him to realize his feelings for her, for it to penetrate through his thick skull. In some ways, she was stronger than he could ever be. As sappy as it sounded, she was truly the love of his life, the mother of his children. Rick was right; if it came to choosing between some property and the lives of his family, he'd burn the place to the ground himself.
Daryl spoke up then in a growl. "So whata we gonna do about these fuckers that wanna take us out?"
