Highway to Hell
"Hey mumma
Look at me
I'm on the way to the promised land
I'm on the highway to hell"
-Highway to Hell, AC/DC
It felt like hours that Olivia sat out there, hysterical laughter spilling out. Shattered glass was still raining down from the sky and the roar of the flames could be heard behind them. The heat was blistering even from a block away. She knew they had to get moving—Walkers would be coming from miles around after that deafening bang, but Olivia just kept laughing. She was so fucking glad to be alive.
Rick began screaming for everyone to start moving and Olivia finally turned to look at Tony. Her laughter instantly stopped. Tony's face was ghostly white and he was shaking—sweat pouring down from his brow as he clasped his hands around his head.
"Tony!" She jumped up and crouched over him, her leg instantly protested at the action. "Tony, are you hurt?" She quickly scanned over him for injuries and saw nothing.
Tony didn't reply—he just continued to shake and Olivia's heart sank. After he had come back from deployment he had suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It had been years since he had experienced any symptoms and he had been doing very well. But he also hadn't had any bombs go off near him, either.
In his mind, Tony wasn't in Atlanta. He was far away in a third world country. The screams of guns shots echoing around him, blood everywhere, death everywhere. There was a boy screaming next to him—begging for Tony to save him. But he couldn't. There was nothing he could do.
Olivia swore and hesitantly grasped his arms. Tony had never been violent in his flashbacks before but she was still worried about his reaction. As she touched him his head snapped up and his haunted gaze met hers. "Oh, Tony." Olivia sighed, running her hands up and down his quivering arms. "Tony, you're in Georgia. You've been in the States for years now." She was trying to get him to come back to the present. Trying to snap him out of his nightmare. But all he saw was the dying boy pleading for help. Tony didn't even know his name.
Daryl, behind them in his trunk began laying on his horn—eager to get moving. Olivia just flipped him the bird. "Tony, c'mon bro, we need to get moving." She tried again in a calming voice. "I know that was some pretty scary shit but—" She didn't know what to say, she didn't know how this situation was any better than the one he had been in during his deployment. He never talked about it. "I'm here, Tony. I need you. Remember, we have to go find Jared? Our whiny, pain in the ass little brother?"
Tony's shaking stopped but he was still white as a sheet and sweating profusely. Daryl came dashing out his truck swearing, "What the hell is the hold-up? We need to get outta here!" He took in Tony and Olivia and swore again. He had listened when Tony said he had been a soldier and was able to guess pretty quickly what was happening. "Just what we fuckin' need! Some tweaked out veteran. Son of a bitch!"
As he complained, Olivia saw red. Whatever Dixon thought he was doing wasn't helping Tony any. She jumped to her feet and stormed over to him—still ignoring the sharp pain in her leg. "Listen here, hick." She scoffed out the word, giving his shoulder an angry shove and he took an angry step towards her. They were glaring at each other face-to-face. "If you're fond of little Dixon down there I would learn to keep my mouth fuckin' shut." She gave him another shove in the shoulders harshly before storming back her brother, muttering. "Nobody insults my family but me."
"Bitch." Daryl snarled angrily as she tried to get Tony to calm down. Daryl could call me all the names he liked, she thought. She honestly didn't care what people had to say about her... But as soon as they went after her family, they were in her bad books.
Tony still wasn't moving and Olivia could hear the low groans of Walkers approaching in the distance. Rick was yelling at them through his window, telling them to hurry. She quickly ran a hand through her hair—stressed out. "Dixon! Help me get him into the Caprice!" Tony wouldn't be happy, but Olivia was going to have to drive.
"What?" Daryl grunted as he stalked over towards the siblings. He was angry beyond belief at the brunette bitch but he wasn't too cruel to turn a blind eye.
"Are you fucking deaf?" She snapped angrily up at him. "I can't do it by myself. I need your help. Please!"
Daryl stared at her before letting out another sling of swears as he crouched down on Tony's other side and swung Tony's limp arm over his shoulder. Olivia did the same and soon they were hauling her brother over to the passenger side and stuffing him in. Olivia snapped his seat belt around him as Daryl threw their bags into the back seat.
"Thank you." She told Daryl honestly as she fished the keys out of Tony's pocket and turned to the redneck.
"Jesus Christ." He swore, catching a glimpse of her thigh. Her jeans had been torn through and blood was leaking from the wound. Her pant leg was soaked a dark crimson instead of their normal light blue. It looked pretty fucking bad. "You're bleeding."
Olivia took the moment to glance down at her injury. "Son of a bitch." She swore, as she looked at it closer. It stung an awful lot but it didn't look too deep. It was just bleeding a lot. It would probably need a couple of stitches but that was the worst of it. "Tony's gonna kill me if I get blood on his seat."
She tore off her flannel shirt and ripped the sleeve off. She tied it above her cut and pulled it tightly. She grunted at the pain but that was the best she could do at the moment. "Let's go." She told Daryl who was looking at her as if she was crazy. She was one tough bitch. "Walkers are getting closer."
He nodded and dashed back to his truck as Olivia limped over to the driver side and got in. She honked on the horn to let everyone know they were ready and they followed the conga line of cars away from the burning building. She didn't know who made it out alive—Rick and Daryl for sure—but she just prayed that the others did as well.
Tony was still pale next to her. He was slowly coming back but she needed something to jolt him out of his memories. He could still hear the boy pleading in his ears but he was slowly breaking out of his flashback.
Olivia's leg was stinging as she pressed on the gas pedal. Olivia inwardly cursed—angry with herself for being so clumsy to cut her leg.
She was thinking of something to jolt Tony into the present when she finally got an idea. She would sing—like he always did for Jared and her. She thought about turning on the stereo but figured Tony needed something a little more personal. He needed to hear her.
Olivia looked over at Tony as he gazed unfalteringly out the front window. "Ooh dat dress so scandalous, and you know another guy couldn't handle it." She began singing the first song that popped into her head. "See you shaking that thing like who's da ish, with a look in your eye so devilish."
She glanced at him again and he was still sweating—still almost catatonic, so she continued. "Uh, ya like to dance at all the hip hop spots. Then you cruise through the crews like connect the dots." Tony's breaths were evening out, and she began really getting into the song. Singing really did have a calming effect—no wonder Tony did it all the time. "Not just urban, she likes the pop, cause she was living la vida loca!
She had dumps like truck, truck, truck. Thighs like what? What? What?" Olivia was bobbing her head back and forth, momentarily forgetting where she was as she began to belt out the song. "Baby move your butt, butt, butt. All night long! Let me see that thong! Baby, that thong, th-thong, thong, thong!"
She looked over at Tony and there was more colour in his face. In fact, he was looking over at her with a tired but amused look—chuckling lightly. Her terrible singing had broke through his flashback like nails on a chalkboard. It was enough to erase the boy's cries and bring him back to the Caprice.
Olivia instantly stopped singing and looked at him earnestly. "Tony?" She said cautiously. "You alright?"
"Yeah, I think so." He threw his head back against the headrest and gave a shuttering breath. His flashbacks—when he did have them—always left him exhausted. "And you guys say I'm a bad singer."
Olivia laughed whole-heartily. It didn't matter that he insulted her, she was just glad he was okay. "Well, you are way worse than me. Like absolutely terrible."
He closed his eyes as he focused on breathing in slowly—reminding himself of where he was and what had triggered his relapse. That's what the therapist had told him to do eight years ago. "For interests sake; why did you go for the Thong Song? With all of the music out there relating to explosions, you go for the Thong Song? Not even TNT by AC/DC?"
"Oh. That would have been good. Shit."
Tony laughed and looked over at Olivia. "Holy fuck!" He suddenly shouted, making her swerve slightly as she yelped and looked over at him. "What the hell happened to you?"
She glanced down as he leaned over to inspect her injury. It looked a lot worse than it actually was. The bleeding was beginning to clot. "I'm okay!" She told him. "When I tripped before I landed on my knife."
"Shit. Pull over, we'll fix it. And then I'll drive."
Olivia rolled her eyes. "Fuck that. I'm fine, Tony. Besides, we just left! We need to get the hell outta dodge before this place is swarming with Rotters. You need to focus on calming down. You can drive when you're not sweating like a pig and breathing like you just ran a marathon."
Tony grumbled as he continued to look at her leg before deciding it could wait. He leaned back into his seat and closed his eyes—focusing on his breathing. "If there is so much as a scratch on my baby—"
"Yeah, yeah. You'll disown me. I remember." She laughed as she returned to watching the road. It was silent again as she followed the convoy away from the city. Olivia could still feel the adrenaline coursing through her veins and because of that she barely felt her leg. She knew she would sooner or later and she would have to try and clean it up. An infection wasn't exactly going to do them any favors.
They drove in silence for a while. Daryl had ditched his truck a while back—throwing his shit in the trunk of the Caprice and was travelling on his brother's bike. Olivia listened as Tony's breathing became even. She glanced over at him and he looked almost good as new. He had his eyes closed and had a small smile on his face. "What?" She asked him.
"Just remembering when you bagged your first buck." He said, chuckling as he looked over at her.
She laughed as she remembered too. "Oh, yeah! Dad was so proud! We ate venison for a month."
Their laughter faded and they were silent again—both lost in memories. Olivia thought back to her Dad. For all his flaws no one could say Joseph Bridges didn't love his kids. When her Mom died—he didn't know what to do. He was always on the road—he liked to travel and Mom didn't. Suddenly he was stuck with three kids he didn't know what to do with. So he did the best he could—which was raising them like he was a drill sergeant. They went around the country with him—had to because that's what his job called for. They'd spend a couple of years—sometimes only months—in a town before uprooting again. It was tiresome and restless—the only thing the kids had was each other.
He had made sure all of them could hunt, too. His daddy had taught him and he made sure they did too. Olivia was twelve when she got her first buck—he had been so proud. He was more proud of that than when Jared got all A's on his report card.
He was a tough man though—never one to talk feelings. But he loved his kids—just not in words. When the siblings went through all his things after he died, his most prized possessions were the trophies they had earned or the certificates they got.
"Liv, slow down." Tony said breaking her out of her reverie. She blinked and hit the breaks—everyone had stopped. There were hundreds of cars blocking the road. A literal dead end. Slowly, Daryl on his bike began to lead everyone through the maze of ruined cars. As Olivia followed the Cherokee, she tried not to think about what lay inside the graveyard of cars.
They drove quite a ways in until the RV came to a stop and everyone started getting out. "Maybe it's for the best." Tony told her, wrenching open his door and climbing out. "We can take a look at your leg."
Olivia glanced down at her leg as she killed the engine. Her adrenaline had worn off a while ago and it was stinging like crazy. It wasn't bleeding near as much as before—but it still oozed.
She hopped out of the car and onto the hood—Tony handed her their first aid bag and a water bottle to clean it. "Can you manage?" He asked, looking up to where the group was gathering. "I want to see what I can do to help. "
Olivia uncapped the bottle and poured it over her cut—which was showing the first signs of infection. "I got it."
He left and she searched through the bag for some antiseptic wipes. It was going to hurt like a motherfucker but she had to get it cleaned. She cried out as she wiped along the cut—digging out gravel that had gotten lodged in it. It began to bleed again but Olivia figured that was a good thing—bleed out the bacteria. She decided she would need stitches but there was no way in hell she was going to be able to do that to herself. She was a bit of a baby when it came to pain.
Olivia hopped off of the hood and hobbled her way over to the RV where everyone was beginning to scatter—looking for supplies. Tony dashed over and helped her get over to the RV and ushered her inside.
"It's going to need stitches." Olivia told him as he helped set her down at the table. "I cleaned it the best I could."
Tony nodded as he pulled the cloth away from the cut. "You mind getting a new pair of shorts?" He asked gesturing to her ruined jeans.
"Do your worst."
He took Olivia's knife, which she still had tied to her waist and cut just above the wound—repeating the step on the other leg until she had her very own pair of makeshift shorts. The weather was beginning to get hot anyways—shorts would be nice. He untied the shirtsleeve from around her thigh and inspected the cut.
"Yeah, you'll probably need a few stitches. You're lucky it wasn't too deep. There doesn't happen to be any sutures or anything in that bag, eh?"
"No, I checked. Maybe Carol has a needle and thread? Maybe some superglue?"
He nodded as he stood up, handing Olivia some gauze from the kit. "I'll go ask around. Keep pressure on that." He left just as Andrea came walking in.
Olivia sent her a small smile. "Thank goodness you're alive." She said with a relieved sigh.
Andrea looked at Olivia as she sat across from the booth—looking tired and worn out. "Yeah, well Dale didn't really give me a choice." She muttered darkly looking at her hands on the table.
Olivia frowned at the young woman. She was obviously still upset over her sister—and Olivia didn't blame her. "Well, for what it's worth. I'm glad you made it out." She told her, hissing as she applied more pressure on her cut.
Andrea was silent as she looked up at Olivia. "What happened? Were you bit?"
"No, no! I was an idiot and tripped on my knife. Sliced my thigh." Olivia told her. "Tony's gone to look for something to stitch it up."
Andrea nodded and turned her attention to the disassembled gun on the table and fiddled around with it—trying to get it back together. She wasn't making any progress with it and Olivia didn't want to help her out. From what she gathered Andrea had a bit of a death wish at the moment and Olivia wasn't one for assisted suicide.
Olivia leaned back in the seat—closing her eyes in pain as she felt every heartbeat in her thigh. "God!" Andrea suddenly cried, falling to the ground. Olivia's eyes snapped opened as she looked down at the blonde woman. "Olivia! Get down! Walkers!" She yelled in a whisper.
Olivia's eyes widened as she fell to the floor next to Andrea—trying to remember if Tony closed the door on his way out. She reached for her knife—not wanting to use a gun to attract any more attention than she had to—but Tony had taken it with him.
Suddenly a rotted hand came into view followed by a tall, lanky Rotter. Andrea's hand was quickly on Olivia's, pulling her back into the bathroom. Olivia felt completely useless—she was weaponless. Andrea fiddled around with her gun in a panic. The two women held they breath as the Walker creaked around in the other room, its growling increasing in volume.
The two were about to make it through when suddenly Andrea dropped all her gun parts on the ground with a loud clang. The Walker's footsteps got louder and Andrea braced her legs against the door. Olivia hobbled to her feet, cursing the other woman and suddenly Andrea had a screwdriver in her hand. Olivia didn't have time to ask questions as the door burst open and the Rotter was trying to get in. They let out startled shrieks as its rotted face snapped its jaws at them.
Andrea leapt forward thrusting the screwdriver right into the Walker's eyes. She kept stabbing—blooding spurting everywhere until it finally stopped moving and collapsed to the ground. Andrea let a shaky whimper and also fell to the ground, looking at Olivia in exhaustion. Her face was covered in blood and Olivia could feel it sliding down her own cheeks. Olivia hopped over Andrea and quickly shut the RV door—making sure to be silent. She turned to Andrea before collapsing near the table—forgetting about her leg. "Good shot." Olivia said weakly and Andrea let out a hysterical giggle.
They sat there heaving air into their lungs, waiting for a sign that the Walkers were gone. There was no doubt in Olivia's mind that Tony was okay—he could take care of himself. It was the rest of them she was worried about. After a couple of minutes the door of the RV was opened again and Dale and Tony came rushing in.
"You girls alright?" Dale asked, kneeling beside Andrea. She just nodded, breathing deeply.
Tony helped Olivia to her feet and helped her limp out of the RV—getting her away from the Rotter. He walked Olivia over to where T-Dog was—whose arm was bleeding profusely. It was looking worse than hers. He was shaking and sweating, already. Probably on its way to being infected. "You too?" She asked him as Tony helped her onto the hood of a car. Tony kissed her hair—glad she unharmed. It had been another close call in which he hadn't been there. He felt guilty as he walked away to grab the supplies he had found.
"Yeah. Sliced it on a car door." T-Dog said, embarrassed. "Walker nearly got me. Luckily Daryl was there to help me out."
Olivia looked at the hunter who was close by—shoulders hunched as he shuffled through the trunk of a nearby car.
"Hey Daryl!" She yelled as he turned to look at her with a glare—still not forgiving her for snapping at him. "Can you look for superglue?"
"Whatever." He huffed, turning back to what he was doing.
Olivia laughed at his cold shoulder and turned back to T-Dog. "I'm going to break past those wall of his one day." She promised jokingly.
He let out a shaky laugh. Tony came back with his first aid kit and went to looking at T-Dog's arm. He needed more attention than Olivia at the moment.
Tony threw a damp cloth at Olivia and she worked at scrubbing her face clean. "I'm sure you will." T-Dog said. "What do you need superglue for?"
"Works better than thread and needle." Tony grunted. He was focused on cleaning the wound with antiseptic wipes as T-Dog hissed in pain. "Sorry."
"You do what you got to, man." He hissed in pain.
They were quiet for a while when Rick came running up. Lori, Carol, and Carl also came running up from wherever they had been. "Sophia?" Carol asked Rick hysterically and he shook his head.
Olivia felt her heart stop, as she looked around frantically—noticing that the little girl was missing.
"She's not back yet?" Rick asked, also looking around.
"No! She ran into the woods! You were with her!" Carol began to scream hysterically.
Rick held his hands up. "It's okay. I told her to run back to the highway while I distracted the Walkers but she probably got scared and stayed put. It's all right. She was safe when I left her." Carol nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Shane, Daryl, Glenn, want to come help?" The men nodded, grabbing weapons and heading off into the woods.
"I want to help, too." Olivia told Tony, sliding off the hood of the car.
He grabbed her shoulders and shoved her back on the hood roughly. "On what leg? You're gonna be no use to them, Liv. Don't worry; there is four of them. They can find her." He knew when it came to children; Olivia would do anything to help. They had and always will be her weak spot.
Olivia huffed impatiently as the men disappeared to the woods. They better find that little girl. It was terrifying enough being in this Zombie-infested world, but lost and alone? No child deserved that. She sighed and kept her gaze on the tree line, praying that Sophia's golden hair would come bouncing through the trees.
She felt completely useless just sitting there. This was going to be one hellishly long day.
