Chapter 4. Meat Coat.
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"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering"-Friedrick Nietzsche
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Rachel Grimes drives out of the small town neighborhood headed to Atlanta with two small bags of clothes, a survivor's manual and one duffel bag full of weapons. Rachel clicks on the radio, knowing it will only work one way but she tries it anyway, she dimly remembers there being a cove. "Broadcasting on emergency channel. Will be approaching Atlanta on highway 85. Anybody reads, please respond. Hello-can anybody hear my voice?" She said aloud.
Rachel imagines people listening in from the other side, frantically trying to reach her, to warn her about Atlanta, but she already knows. She had to take the plunge because how else will she find Carl? All she hears is the crackling of the radio silence, eventually she clicks it off and checks the gas. Her lips press into a thin line, this car isn't going to make it to Atlanta without refuel. The last gas station hadn't had a single drop left and Rachel was getting a little concerned.
Rachel looked at her cargo in the back, I can probably carry it all. But it'd be slow going and she only had a water bottle and a few strips of jerky in her pocket.
It was strange that none she was out on rural country, everything seemed so bright and beautiful, like the zombie apocalypse never even happened. The trees sway with a cool summer breeze and the sun cast a warm green glow all over the horizon. The warm Georgia hills were beautiful this time of year, and it served as a reminder that even if the human race was dying out, mother nature would stubbornly march on.
Rachel drove until the engine sputtered out, she dragged every last inch of energy out of that cruiser. Then she pulled over to the side of the road, gathered her bags and walked. Walked until her feet were sore in her leather boots.
-.-.-
The bond between Gimes siblings was a close one, despite how different the three of them were. Rachel was the older one, by two years, but she had loved and cared for Lori and their younger brother, Jeffrey Grimes, growing up. Rachel had sung them to bed at night, snuck them candy underneath her parents noses, had cheered Jeff up when he broke his ankle in elementary, and consoled Lori about the teddy bear that had torn in two when it had gotten caught on the doorframe.
Perhaps it was growing up with kids, but Rachel was a great mediator between the petty sibling arguments and strifes that normally took place in a Southern American household, and while that was a relief to her parents, it was a solemn task for Rachel. Rachel was there through the screaming and frustrated throes of puberty for both of her siblings. She was there for Lori's disastrous first kiss and Jeffery's first awkward homecoming. She was there at their graduations with a smile and a camera.
But it was fine, until Jeffrey decided he was going to go into the army. Jeffrey had ended up dying overseas before he ever met his young nephew.
Lori has ended up holding Rachel up when she had gotten the news. Rachel had just...fallen apart in her arms in a horrible mess of grief, guilt and a mess of pregnancy hormones.
Lori, the perfect little lady and gentle Southern Belle had held Rachel until she had no more tears left to cry, her own grief soaking her face. Her sister had remained strong and had gone ahead and forged the funeral arrangements before Rachel could lift a finger to help. It was also a reminder, that despite the personality differences between Lori and Rachel, Lori had a quiet sort of inner steel when it came to her loved ones, and always strove to do right by them.
Yes, the Grimes sisters were close siblings because they shared one passion above all. Family.
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After the sun had changed its angle just past noon noon, Rachel found herself in front of a farmhouse. A little wary she dropped her bags off underneath the shade of the shed and pulled out her gun, creeping quietly up to the porch she knocked on the door and counted quietly to ten.
When nothing happened she called out, "Hello? Is anyone there?" Peering through the windows, her lips thinned as she took in the macabre scene of a older couple that had committed suicide, "GOD FORGIVE US" written on the wall in dried blood.
God hasn't been answering many prayers, Rachel thought sadly as she turned from the house. Putting her gun back in her holster she walked back to the truck and tried to start the old thing, but to no avail. A loud nickering broke the silence and startled her, Rachel's hand twitched towards her gun before her mind sorted out the animal sound.
Approaching the barn she carefully peeked her head around the door to see a pair of soft brown eyes looking straight at her. Rachel checked the area but it seemed clear, the horse had been blocked in the barn with hay, but clearly it was hungry because the wood around the cage looked freshly chewed.
A little ticked off at the owners who committed suicide and let this poor beautiful creature starve, she assumed a passive stance and spoke softly, "Here, boy, I'm not going to hurt you." The horse pranced about eyeing her nervously but she kept speaking in soft murmurs, praising him, calming him. In rural Georgia, you couldn't escape your childhood without riding a horse at least once. But for Rachel it had been a long time. Since she was 14 in fact, when her horse had gotten extremely sick and had to be put down.
Rachel faintly wished for some salt licks or carrots, but she knew that was a dream long passed. Pulling out the bridle she slipped into the pen and coaxed the coarse leather over the horses ears and the metal bit wedged between its teeth. She led him out to a tiny fenced in pasture and set him loose to graze and he wasted no time going over to the water barrel.
"Well, while you're eating, I'll try to find something too." Rachel grinned and turned back towards the house.
Now Rachel felt a little uneasy about raiding a house that had clearly belonged to anguished people that met a tragic end, but the calm rational part of her pointed out that they had no need for the supplies anymore. It took her a few minutes to find a fully stacked cupboards in the kitchen, happily she found some gas too. She cooked herself the first hot meal she had in days, and ate on the porch because she couldn't stand to eat with the scent of decay. Instead, she watched the horse eat his fill too.
When Rachel was ready to go, she ventured back into the home and found a rifle with a few casing of bullets and some hunting knives. She also snagged a large coat and a pair of gloves, both had obviously belonged to the man and were overly large on her. It hung around her knees, "meat coat" she joked under her breath with a little hint of dark humor.
She grabbed another bag of the food that hadn't spoiled, and a thick blanket for good measure. She added to her collection of weapons in her duffel bag before she coaxed the horse over and saddled him up with a Western Saddle she had found. Balancing one bag of weapons on its back, and the other bags of food and clothings on either side. Swinging herself up, she adjusted her sheriffs hat on her head and spurred her heels along its flank. With a small "Woah!" the horse took off in a gentle trot towards Atlanta.
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"Follow the yellow brick road," Rachel said a little too ironically on top the saddle. The road to Atlanta was abandoned, but on the other side of the highway, cars backed up for miles. Now if she didn't know that there were a group of survivors here and that her son was most likely with them, that do be the first sign she would need to turn stuff around. Morgan had told her Atlanta had been a safe haven before it went radio silent, and all the cars leading away from the city would've be the first sign that things had gone far south here.
But while she knew, logically her son was in some sort of stone quarry, she didn't know where the quarry was. In the original, Rick had met with other survivors in Atlanta, with some luck she too would find the survivors that would lead her back to her son. If she had no luck, then hopefully she'd find a map on the city that pointed her to the quarry.
But she wasn't going into the city on the back of a defenseless horse.
"Woah, boy" she leaned back on the reins and slowed down the horse. She stood right next to the green sign that read "Welcome to Atlanta!" in bold white letters south three bullet holes and dismounted. She quickly led the horse over to the trees where she dropped her things ten feet behind the treeline so it was covered from the weather, and unseen from the road.
She picked three knives, gave herself extra ammo, a small bag with bottled water, some food, a pistol and a fully loaded rifle before she turned back to the horse. Then she proceeded to take the reigns, saddle and various blankets off the horse and tossed the to the ground freely.
Petting its nose, she kissed the tip, "Thank you for getting me here," she whispered before she walked around and slapped its flank.
She watched it for a moment, running in the opposite direction of Atlanta and wondered about the instincts of animals. Could it sense the death and decay in the city? Could it sense the danger?
Shaking it off, Rachel picked up the extra large coat she had packed and walked back to highway. Now all she needed was a corpse.
-.-.-
This seemed much easier in the show. Rachel thought to herself a while later, dressed in the entrails of a human being over that huge coat she had. But that, of course, had been behind a screen on a warmed room curled up with a cup of coffee and a fuzzy blanket. Now, it was all of Rachel's willpower not to gag. This smell was worse off from the farm house. For one, this body had been in the sun for much longer and thus, decomposed quicker and smelled worse. Second, this was the only idea she had for getting into a zombie- no - walker infested city without attracting a horde of Walkers.
"Well, I hope it doesn't rain," she said glumly.
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In Rachel's past life, she had never had the opportunity to be a mother. Being a mother was a secret dream of hers, but she had married too early to the wrong man. So before her married life could really start, it was over. The divorce nice and clean, but when she died she mourned the loss of a child she had never had. Which might have been a reason she had jumped the gun in this one. Not married, no boyfriend, but in this life Rachel was 24 years old and heavily pregnant.
But she cradled a young infant in her arms at the hospital, she couldn't bring herself to regret a single thing. She had the perfect son.
"He looks like Dad," Rachel's sister Lori commented softly from her bedside.
"I'm naming him after Dad too," Rachel commented, "Carl John Grimes"
"A strong name for a stronger boy," Lori teased, eyes soft as she stared at the babe.
Lori had been against her pregnancy in the beginning. "You're too young!" She had said, "You can always try again later," when you have a man to help you, was left unsaid. Lori had disagreed with Rachel's stubbornness to keep the baby, but she also knew how unyielding she could be.
This changed when Rachel had asked Lori to be in charge of the baby shower. Lori had caved over the cute and stylish baby clothes and little toys and carved cribs. Towards the end of Lori's pregnancy, Rachel had caught her sneaking in a large plush monkey into the baby's crib with a little wistful look in her eye. That's when she knew Lori was going to be just fine with the new addition to their family.
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Walking confidently down the middle of the street, ignoring the obscene squish of blood and organs on her person, she observed that none of the walkers seemed to notice her there. It was like she didn't exist. She looked closely at the building, looking for hints of recent break ins and survivors that she knew were struggling in this city. She had walked a few blocks and turned the corner to meet the nasty surprise of a horde of zombies loitering about.
Nope. Rachel thought and turned around, fully intending to backtrack and go a different way,
BAM! A bullet tore into the asphalt a few feet away from her,
"Damn it!" she cried aloud and backpedaled quickly. She coached behind a tank, but it was too late. The area was being swarmed with zombies and the chances if her making it out alive were growing slimmer and slimmer.
BAM, BAM, BAM she watched as some undead heads exploded just a few feet from her location. The zombies were in a frenzy now, looking for fresh meat that they couldn't locate. In a few more minutes she be trapped.
"Psst, dumbass!" she heard a voice call, "Feeling cozy over there?"
Down a pass between her building, twenty feet from her location she saw an Asian kid in a baseball cap waving her to attention. "Get over here," he whisper-yelled.
With a quick thought of, really? She took another look around and dashed over.
BAM, BAM! This time she didn't turn to look which bodies fell to the bullets, just grateful for the distraction. BAM! She shot a zombie in her way and watched it go down.
Then Rachel reached the kid, and he said hurriedly, "There's a ladder over there, but we need to hurry," he looked pointedly over her shoulders and she followed his gaze to a few hungry undead that had tracked them here.
"Double damn," she whispered. Well, her luck could only stretch so far, Rachel supposed.
"What are you doing?!" The kid hollered back, "Come on!" He pulled a ladder off the side of the building down and started to climb. Rachel held off the zombies swarming the front of the alleyway with a few more bullets and started to follow him up, one Walker in particular grabbed her boot and she swiveled around and shot it point blank between the eyes before scrambling to safety.
"Nice moves there, Clint Eastwood." The kid said with a dry grin, she noticed that he was staying his distance and was observing her battlegarb in fascination. Feeling a little ridiculous she shrugged the coat off to reveal her clean Deputy Sheriff's uniform underneath. That earned her a grin that was a little more genuine.
"You the new sheriff come in to clean up the town?" He joked and tugged on his baseball cap.
"It wasn't my intention, I assure you" Rachel said wryly in a tone as dry as the desert.
"Yeehaw, you're still a dumbass," He said cheerily.
"My names Rachel," She said, "and thanks for helping me." Though I probably would've been alright on my own, she added silently. Still, not many people would go out of their way to lend a helping hand.
"It's Glenn," The kid said, "And you're welcome, our spotter pointed you out. Figured you couldn't be one of the geeks since they sorta lumber about and you walked in a straight line."
"Well thank you anyway," Rachel gave him a smile and asked, "but why did you risk your neck to save mine?"
"Call me naive," Glenn said, "But if I'm ever up that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. Guess I'm a bigger dumbass than you."
"We ought to kill you!" Rachel heard a feminine screech from behind Glee before he was pushed aside and suddenly Rachel was looking down the barrel of a gun.
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Recap: In which Rachel reminisces, adopts a horse, and goes full out Clint Eastwood style.
She's just barely made it to Atlanta and I intended to get further with this scene but the whole thing wrote itself and the plot ran away with some ideas of mine. This chapter though, really takes some more time to fill in the blanks and has more character development that I felt it needed. More changes are coming with the next chapter though, as promised.
As a note: Often I write on a goggle docs page on my phone, so there might be a lot of grammatical errors I've missed. So sorry if you hate that. On a separate note, I am willing to look for a beta reader, but they've got to have an email. Please message me if you're interested!
To the reviewers: Thank you for the lovely reviews! To reach out to Siltox, it's going to be a little bit of the comic inspiration and most of the TV show adaption. If you caught it, my scene with Shane from chapter 1 was actually inspired by the comic too. But I know the show best so a lot of the character's are coming from there. Also, it's a little ironic you mentioned Jeffrey Grimes before this chapter was published, he's only going to be mentioned here, maybe in a throwback like the one in this chapter but he will not be making any appearances.
My least favorite character on the Walking Dead is Negan or the cannibal episode where they eat everybody who comes looking for shelter *shudders*. Life's bad enough after society collapses without people wanting you dead too.
Question: Okay, now who is your all time FAVORITE character on the Walking Dead, and why?
