Chapter 8 - Small Hands
Even though this was a new tent that I hadn't put up before, with my previous experience and Glen's help, we had it up in no time. I went back to the trunk and he followed, keen to help me some more.
"You need help with anything else?" He asked when I stopped and looked at him.
"You have a collective group storage of food or something?" I asked, he nodded and explained where everything was kept. I emptied my personal items out of the main bag I was carrying and put the food from the sheriff's bag into it. "You want to carry this one while I get the water?" I asked, figuring that the cans would be heavier and I didn't want to overdo myself.
"No don't push yourself, water's heavy. I'll get Morales and Shane to help out." Glen shook his hand from left to right when the thought of me carrying the water by myself came up.
"I don't think it'll take three people to carry all this water." I replied.
"No but me and Morales will get the water and Shane can grab the food while you finish unpacking." Well if he's set on doing the work for me then fine. He went off to go and get help and in the meantime the woman known as Carol came up and stated making idle conversation.
"So what'd you do before all of this?" She asked, leaning up on the side of the open wrangler.
"Construction." I replied. "You?"
"Housewife." Came her response, seeming almost ashamed or like she was feeling inadequate.
"My mom was a housewife." I started, trying to make herself feel better. "But I wasn't really cut out for it, I got bored with the day to day real easy so my husband at the time suggested I find myself a job, keep busy. Construction was what I was good at and it payed well so Dave was pretty happy he didn't have to put in as long hours at the office."
"At the time?" She asked, picking up on the face I wasn't married to Dave anymore. "You marry again?"
"No, nothing like that. We were together for 10 years. But after 8 years of marriage it started to feel like we weren't the same people we used to be. We'd changed, me for the better, him for the worst. I had become more confident and less submissive and him, well, let's not go into that." I explained and she nodded.
"Ever think of having children?" She asked. My heart chose that moment to start aching. At this moment I chose not to tell her, she was nice but I didn't really want her pity, or judgement.
"I thought about it a fair bit." Haha. If only she knew. "But children with David is a bad combination." Just as I finished I noticed Glen had chosen that moment to return.
"Who's David?" Glen asked, pushing his red baseball cap up a bit.
"My ex husband." I told him tucking some of the things I'd taken out of the food bag into another.
"What, he die?" He asked noticing the face I'd put on when mentioning him.
"I hope so." I blurted out without thinking. Carol, Glen and the newly arrived Morales were taken aback but Shane just laughed from behind me. He went to grab the food bag but stopped when he saw the Sheriff's bag.
"You swing by the Sheriff Station?" He gave me a pointed look.
"Yeah. I shot Armstrong." I replied, not liking the look he was giving me. "I spent my first night at the station with him, he got bit earlier that day. He turned when I was packing up the next day. Shot him."
"He give you these?" Shane asked.
"Yeah and the CB. He said the scope's accurate on that one but I didn't check." I replied. I hope he didn't pick up on the fact I was calling it that one and not whatever the hell it was because I didn't want to let on I knew nothing.
Shane nodded and picked up the food bag, headed to wherever it was they were keeping the food. I hadn't been listening when Glen told me. My tools were next to the bag of guns and I placed my bag of weapons next to it.
"Whoo ee. Girl's got 'n armory in her jeep." Merle admired, coming closer to inspect it. He was met with a familiar situation like before, my bat and nails in his face.
"Back off Merle." I bit, hoping he'd fuck off and I wouldn't have to hit him.
"Why do ya keep threatnin' ma brother?" the other guy from before asked, joining us. Great, another redneck.
"What, you want me to threaten you instead?" I asked, leaning towards him, my face right up at him.
"No." He replied. "I want to get yor stupid face outta mine."
"Haven't spent much time looking in the mirror, have ya, asshole?" I replied. "Your face is plenty stupider than mine."
"Alright y'all, you both have stupid faces. Can we wrap this up?" Shane had come back with Glen. I shot Shane a glare and was met with a happy smirk.
"Not what you said about my face before, was it?" I replied shutting the jeep and storming away, past the RV and down to the quarry.
"For the love of god." I heard Shane muttering just was I walked off.
"You gon' make this a regular thing? Storming off all pissy with me?" Shane sat beside me on one of the rocks over looking the water.
"Only if you keep pissing me off." I replied in a smartass manner.
"You know, I know I never called but that can't be all. Why are you so mad at me?" He asked, looking at me, expecting an answer.
"I don't want to talk about it right now Shane." I brushed him off. I did want to tell Shane the truth, that I was definitely pregnant with his baby and I was pissed because he kept not answering when I wanted to tell him. I mean over the phone was a bad way to break it to him but I couldn't tell him the next time I saw him as his best friend had just gotten shot. There just never seemed to be a right time, especially now when the world was currently overrun by the dead. I hadn't even told him I had a son.
"What did you want to tell me, Addison. When are we going to talk about it, huh? You spend all this time trying to get a hold of me and all of a sudden you don't want to talk?"
He had a point. But fuck Shane, that asshole. Wait, I already did. HAhaha. I must have laughed out loud. He looked at me pointedly and asked "Something funny Addison?" He sounded like one of my old teachers back in high school.
"Nothing." I smirked. "I was just thinkin'. You had a point, but I'm still mad at you. So I though, fuck Shane. And then I thought, wait, I already did." I laughed. He just looked at me.
"You sure find a way to be amused at the strangest things.." He replied, probably thinking about that condom story.
"Look if what you wanted to tell me had something to do with your son, don't worry. I already know. But I am a little surprised not seeing him here with you."
"David got him out. They were gone before I got there, he left me a note. It was him that told me not to go to Atlanta. I went home and packed my things, the next place I wanted to go was the police station, see if you were there." I put my hands on the back of my head, elbows outstretched and I sighed. "I got there just as Armstrong was shutting the gates, he was all that was left. He told me you'd gone to get Lori and Carl out of the town, which I was glad about. They're like my family, you see, and it meant a lot you'd gotten them out, even though I know you didn't do it for me."
Shane nodded taking all this in. "Not what you wanted to tell me though?" He asked, knowingly.
"No." I confirmed. "But I'm too tired to talk about that now. We can talk about it another time. I won't forget."
"Me neither." he replied. "I'll remember you have something to tell me, and I'll remember to ask you about it every day until you tell me." he promised. Asshole.
"You get your tent all setup?" He asked, walking me back to camp.
"More or less. Gotta set things up inside a little more." He pushed me up the rocks a little, helping me get to the top. Not that I needed it.
"Addison?" He asked after a moment.
"Yeah?" I looked at his face, his eyebrows knitting together.
"Never mind." He shook his head.
"Nuh-uh. You can't keep me in the dark with this one. If you're gonna keep reminding me, I'm gonna keep reminding you."
"What are you, five?" He asked annoyed.
"You bet." I grinned. He went off to go do something else as I pulled the air mattress and pump from my trunk. I pulled apart the plastic packaging inside the box and pulled out the new airbed. I put the hose nozzle from the foot pump inside the hole of the airbed and started inflating it by stomping on the pump. It was about halfway up when Glen walked past, noticing what I was doing.
"Whoa, an airbed." He looked on appreciatively.
"Sweetcheeks has all the modern comforts, I know where I'll be bunking tonight." Merle commented. Boy I just couldn't shake the rednecks, could I?
"You will, will you?" I snarled. "For fucks sake Merle!" I was about to lunge at him when Shane popped up again, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Merle, why don't you give it a rest?" He demanded rather than suggested. Merle stalked off while I kept pumping up the air mattress.
"Hey Glen?" I called for the mesmerized young adult's attention.
"Yeah?" He looked at me.
"I've got a spare in the wrangler if you want it. I was planning a camping trip just before this all started and these things were pretty unreliable when I was a kid. I prepared for an accident." I offered.
"Sweet." He grinned, I imagined he'd been sleeping on the ground this whole time. "You picked a hell of a time for a camping trip." he commented. (That was a line from the book tomorrow when the war began. Really good book, you should read it. If you don't like books there's also a movie.)
I finished pumping up the mattress and put the plug in to stop the air from coming out again. I took the pump with me and headed back up to my car. I handed Glen the pump and was about to send him on his way with the spare bed when I saw his shocked face.
"Four pillows?" He asked, raising his eyebrow at me.
"I over compensated. Like I said earlier, I was in shock when I packed a lot of this so a fair bit of this is non essential. Go ahead and grab a pillow if you want. I won't need 'em all." I grabbed my quilt and some sheets as well as the mattress topper. "See look at this," I gestured to the sheets. "What did I need all this for when I packed a sleeping bag?"
Glen laughed and I handed him a few extra blankets as well. I'd made friends with him and I wanted to make sure he wasn't going without. Who on earth goes away on a trip and doesn't think to pack a bed. Common sense really, you should at least have foam mats so you don't fuck up your back as badly. Americans. Even Aussies have mats in their swags.
I pulled the padded mattress topper over the airbed, followed by a fitted sheet and a top sheet. I also put on this one blanket. You know the one, it's plaid and scratchy and it's got nice stitching on the outside but don't let that fool you it's Satan. But that Satan blanket keeps you warm as hell.
Next I put my doona on top with an extra blanket folded at the end of the bed, couldn't be too careful. I didn't need my sleeping bag so I tossed it in the back of my Jeep again and grabbed the bag of my clothes. I left everything else in my jeep for now and yawned. I spotted Glen who was coming out of his tent looking very cheery.
I went over to talk to him for a while as I didn't have much else to do for the late afternoon. We got to talking and he mentioned he was thinking about going on a run into Atlanta in a few days when everything died down. I smacked him on the head and immediately called him an idiot.
"Can I come with you?" I asked after whacking him.
"After you just smacked me?" He looked at me like I was crazy. He paused for a moment. "Yeah alright." He said with a smile.
We laughed and discussed clearing it with Shane who had ended up the group leader. I yawned again and said my goodbyes to Glen, saying I was headed to my tent for a lie down. I closed the fly screen and took my boots off, laying down and dropping off almost immediately. I must have been more tired than I thought.
"Anyone seen CB girl?" Morales asked, having been instructed to gather everyone to the evening meal.
"She told me a few hours ago she was going for a lie down in her tent." Glen replied.
"Shane would you go check on her please?" Lori asked, her hands full with cooking and looking after Carl.
I looked at her for a moment. Me? Addie smacked me first chance she got and has been off with me all day, and Lori wants me to go wake her up? What's the phrase? Let sleeping dogs lie. Yeah the day I wake up an irritable construction worker whom I happen to know carries three guns and a spiky baseball bat around with her at all times. Fuck that.
"Sure." I replied after receiving a pointed look for my hesitation. I am a man, I am not afraid of 5ft 4" Addison West. Or Lori Grimes for that matter. Shane Walsh takes orders from nobody.
I walked up to her tent and hollered. "Yo, sleeping beauty, you in there?" I went to the door of the tent to see her sleeping form. I'd only seen her like this two other times and she looked just as beautiful as ever. I unzipped the fly screen and stepped quietly over to her.
"What is it Shane?" She asked before I could shake her awake. At least I thought I was quiet.
"Lori says dinner's ready." I replied quickly. She yawned and nodded, sitting up and then taking my hand to help her up. She had such small hands.