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Chapter Ten: Rabbit
**Carl**
He fucked up.
At the time he thought it was right, but after months of being reduced to something less than a man, he observed enough to know where he went wrong. He watched the other men, the women like Michonne who were more warrior than caregiver and he figured it out.
He was hot headed and rash.
Stalking through the Georgian countryside, he knew what he needed to do to get back to being a full man again. He needed to feed the group.
It was simple. Find food at any cost.
At first he thought maybe he'd head over to Delgado's see if they had anything to spare, but he realized he didn't have anything Delgado would want to trade, so he headed out figuring he'd find something or think of something.
Just having the room to breathe, the ever winding road before him, was enough for the moment. He liked the solitude and the still warm morning sun brought to mind fond memories of his mother.
Better times.
By noon he had put a good many miles behind him and was entering a small town they had already picked over. It was the type of town that looked like it had been the perfect 'Mayberry' type of place before everything went down. Even though the planters on Main Street now sported weeds and grass from the seed birds had dropped and the place was littered with things people lost in their haste to escape.
Kicking a shoe out of his way, Carl avoided a splotch on the sidewalk that looked like a few walkers had a feeding frenzy a while back, all that remained was half rotted tendon and bone and a blood stain on the sidewalk that had seemed into the cement, staining it rusty brown.
Maybe he'd check out old bags of food and stuff for a place to go, like Carol did when she found out about McCaysville. There had to be more places like that around.
Carl stopped mid-step at the sight of a man strolling down the street towards him, loaded down with gear kind of like what the Lieutenant looked like when he was geared up.
Pressing back into a doorway, he watched as the man moved easily under the weight, rifle in his hands.
As the man drew closer, Carl could see the gear was almost exactly like the gear the Lieutenant and Kowalski wore and figured he had to be military. As he drew closer still, Carl almost mistook him for Kowalski, but this man had a little bit leaner face, more pointed jawline.
Then the man passed by his location, still in the middle of the street.
Seeing the weight of the pack, Carl had a moment where he was tempted to raise his pistol and just take care of the solitary man, but he stopped his hand in thought. The man was alone, but there might be more of them.
Quietly, carefully he emerged from his hiding spot, using parked cars to hide behind as he followed the man as he turned the corner of Main Street and paused suddenly by a black brick wall.
Carl ducked behind a mail box and watched as the man set his pack down and strapped his rifle to his back. Kneeling he dug through his pack and pulled out a spray paint can, eyeing the wall as he shook it.
Deeply curious about what the man was doing, Carl watched as he sprayed CHARLIE in bright orange letters. Behind him Carl heard someone approaching and hurried to slip under a nearby SUV, peeking out as a woman joined the man.
"This place is empty, Ryan," she said. "There's nothing left anywhere."
Interrupted, the man paused after the name Charlie and eyed her with his bright blue eyes under his helmet. "Doesn't matter, there's a river nearby, we can always eat our fish of trout."
The woman, tall, middle aged and beautiful as a classic movie actress, eyed the orange name quietly, before saying, "I take it we're staying in the area for a few days?"
"That's what I like about you, Gwen," the man said. "You're the brains of this operation."
"Okay, grumpy," the woman said. "Just remember who fries rabbit the way you like it."
"You mean well done over a fire?" The man demanded.
Smiling, the woman motioned with a tilt of her head in the direction she had come from. "Come on, you can finish your paint job later, let's see how Simone and Phoebe did."
"I'll be right there," the man said, quickly shaking the can and finishing his message in foot high letters. He stepped back and admired his work for a moment, before turning and heading off after the woman.
Carl waited a good fifteen minutes, before crawling out from under the high SUV, eyeing the letters with a frown.
CHARLIE KOWALSKI, IF YOU SEE THIS MEET UP WITH ME AT MARINE HQ. - RYAN
"Kowalski?" Carl murmured. Was Charlie his first name? But he went home to Wyoming.
He gazed in the direction the man and woman had gone with a scowl, before quietly moving off after them, keeping to the shadows and coverage of vehicles cautiously.
As he crept along, he spied the same message left on the wall on everything possible, like the mad scribbling's of a psychopath. Only it somehow oddly made sense to him.
The man was desperate to find Kowalski, and seemed to know where he should be, which meant he knew Kowalski from before things went bad. Maybe family by the way he looked almost like him, but not quite.
Stopping near a big old brick house just off of Main Street, where the man disappeared inside with the woman, Carl staked it out for about an hour, debating what to do. He just wanted to be on his way, doing his own thing, but something bothered him about leaving without telling the man anything about his brother. If he left a note, the man might think it shady, if he met up with him and he had more people, he could be overwhelmed and in serious shit.
What would his dad do?
Well, his dad would leave the man, but Carl was fast discovering that not everything his father did was the right decision.
So what would Daryl do? Or Merle? Or the Lieutenant?
Daryl might leave him alone too or maybe he'd go. Daryl was a hard one to decipher. Merle definitely would leave the man searching. But the Lieutenant?
Carl rubbed his hands on his thighs, wiping the midday Georgian sweat off them and licked his bottom lip.
No, the Lieutenant wouldn't hesitate to go up to that door.
"Don't move," someone whispered roughly to him.
He froze absolutely still.
"Drop that gun, kid."
Carl didn't know how the man lapped him, last he saw he was heading into the house, but that voice was his and there was no doubt in his mind that the man had a gun trained on him, so he slowly complied, removing his father's pistol and setting it down gingerly, hands going up.
"Well, you're smart at least," the man said, moving to pat him down quickly, manhandling Carl up and against the car he was hiding behind. "Any more of you around?"
"No," Carl said honestly as the man spun him around and continued to pat him for a concealed weapon.
Up close he could read the tag on the man's jacket. It read KOWALSKI in tiny capital letters.
"What are you skulking around for?" The man asked, stepping heavily on the pistol on the ground, keeping his rifle trained on Carl.
"I think I know who you're looking for," Carl said.
The man looked him up and down. "Yeah?"
"He's deaf, isn't he? This Kowalski?"
"Last I heard," the man eyed him again critically, narrowing his electric blue eyes at Carl, before he shifted on his feet and sighed. "Okay, if you promise not to be a bonehead, you can have your gun back."
Resenting being called a bonehead, Carl knelt slowly and retrieved his freed gun, slowly setting it back in its holster and standing again.
The man shouldered his rifle and eyed him. "So?"
"He's nearby, with a group, well not right now, I heard from someone who heard from someone that he's heading home to Wyoming."
"Of course he is," the man muttered. "Little tit." Shifting on his feet again, the man sighed and said, "alright, you get gone now or I will shoot your ass."
Carl frowned as the man turned to leave. "Hey," he objected.
"What?" The man snapped.
"That's it?" He caught up with the man, following just behind him.
"Your story seems to check out, it'd be a hell of a coincidence for you to know about him being deaf and from Wyoming," the man said.
"I mean, that's all I get for helping you?"
"Quid pro quo, huh?" The man said as he continued to march towards the house, crossing the street.
"It's only fair," Carl argued. "I helped you, now you help me."
"Cool story, kid, but welcome to the real world."
"Kowalski might be back," Carl argued. "I don't know if they said he was gone for good, only that he has family there…you, I guess?"
"Just me," the man sighed. He stopped suddenly, Carl practically ramming into him from behind. "Is he from your group? Charlie?"
"Depends," Carl said.
"On whether I help you?"
"I need to find a lot of food," Carl explained. "Like, a lot."
"Do I look like a Winn-Dixie? Come on, kid."
"Look, I need to do this, it's important." He didn't just mean for the group, but if he could do this, bring home the food they needed, maybe he could regain some of what he lost.
"The best kind of pride is knowing you've done something on your own," the man said. "So…you know, go do that…alone."
Carl scowled deeply at him.
The man sighed. "Look, dude, I get home from overseas on leave, right? My mom calls, my baby brother is in Georgia, deaf because of an explosion, then the next day there's this weird guy in our backyard in Cheyenne. Only when my girlfriend goes out to see what's up, he eats her face off, so naturally, I'm freaking out. Three days later I get called back to service, only shit's going down like a motherfucker, my unit goes up, there's no sign of anyone remotely in charge, so I head home, I'm back on the ranch with the family, only my brother Jordan's dead, my dad is in denial about the dead just walking around, my baby sister gets ripped apart by an infected, my mom freaks out, has a stroke, then things really go to shit. All winter I take care of her, protect the rest of my family from these things and then everyone up and dies on me anyways. Baby bro Charlie is my only hope to find family still alive and I'm not really in the mood to help anyone but myself."
"What about that woman?" Carl asked.
"What?"
"You said your girlfriend got her face eaten off, so who's the woman you're helping?"
"Alright, look, give me a break, okay? Do you know what kind of hell I went through to get here?"
"It'll probably take Kowalski a few months to get back, if he comes back at all," Carl said. "You may as well just help me out, because you'll be needing the food soon too and I could use the back up."
"That's your best argument, huh?" The man asked. "Seems kind of…weak."
"If you help me out, Delgado might let you stay on with his group," Carl pointed out. "That's where Kowalski would be if he gets back."
"That's an even worse argument," the man said. "Go home, kid."
"I'm not a kid."
"Yeah, you have a gun, but you're – what? Like twelve?"
"Fourteen," Carl growled.
"Come on, Ryan, let's help him," the woman from earlier said as she stood on the front porch of the house with two young girls. "I think he's cute. Like a little lost puppy."
"You're killing me, Gwen," Ryan said.
Carl eyed one of the girls in particular, a pretty, pixie-like girl who looked about his age. She smiled sweetly at him from where she stood holding a rifle by the porch swing, but dropped the smile when her mother glanced over.
"Ryan, let's help him, he seems cool," the girl said.
"Simone, you're a hormone riddled teenager, what he seems like, is a boy your age," Ryan objected.
"He's right, honey," Gwen said. "You're just horny."
"Mom!" The girl exclaimed. "Jesus Christ!"
"Simone, a girl your age is so riddled with teenage angst and hormones that if Ryan were younger and didn't act like complete and utter shit, you'd be after him."
"I can hear you," Ryan called over his shoulder.
"Actually, I'm not entirely sure any woman would be stupid enough to go after Ryan. Maybe I should be proud that you recognized that stranger danger, baby."
"Every word, Gwen," Ryan reminded her dryly.
The woman turned to Carl with a warm smile. "What's your name, baby?"
"Carl Grimes," he said.
"Carl, I'm Gwen, why don't you come inside. We'll see what we can do for you."
Carl hesitated. Talking to these people on the street was one thing, but following them into their temporary set up seemed dangerous. There could be more of them.
Sensing this, the woman descended from the porch and approached. He could see the natural warmth and kindness she had to the almost stunning beauty of her face. He thought she looked like some kind of angel, her brown eyes were so welcoming and her smooth, flawless skin seemed to invite him to drink her in.
"Where's your family, Carl?" She asked him.
"My mom's dead," Carl said. "My dad is back home with my baby sister."
"Why aren't you with them?" Gwen asked.
Her voice kind of reminded him of his mother's, it had that motherly tone to it that he missed and it almost brought tears to his eyes.
Glancing at the girl on the porch, he cleared his throat and shrugged. "They need food. If we don't get enough before winter, a lot of my people will starve."
"And you want a little help to find them some food, hm?" Gwen said. "I know what that's like, we had a tight winter, the girls and I."
Ryan cleared his throat. "Yeah, I recall helping with that."
"I recall thanking you," Gwen said breezily, smiling at Carl. "Okay, Carl, if Ryan won't help you, I will. We'll find some food for your family."
Carl nodded. "This'll make them happy with me."
"Happy with you?"
He shrugged.
Gwen looked him over with her beautiful, whiskey coloured eyes. "What happened, Carl?"
Again he shrugged. "Doesn't matter. This'll get me back on top with them."
"Carl," Gwen began softly, leaning in close to him, "I understand."
He didn't say anything. The woman was making him uncomfortable with her eyes, the way they seemed to peer right through him into his mind.
"Ryan's a stick in the mud, because he doesn't know how else to act," Gwen went on. "The bad things we've seen, they just stay there behind our eyelids, so that every time we close our eyes, we see them. You stick with me, baby," Gwen said with a smile. "I'll help you get your food. Come on, come inside, let's see what we can do about changing grumpy's mind. How much food do you need?" She asked as they headed inside.
"About six thousand pounds," Carl said.
"Six thousand pounds, Gwen, what is that in metric?" Ryan shouted after her from behind them.
"Two thousand, seven hundred and some kilos, Ryan," she returned casually.
"That was rhetorical."
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"Let's see here, Alabama, Texas, Texas, Texas, Wisconsin…"
Gwen was going through empty food wrappers and boxes, looking for another place in Georgia to find more food, while Carl said quietly at the kitchen table, sipping from a bottle of water she offered him and eating some stale oyster crackers she had pulled from her bag for him.
Ryan sat at the window in the front parlour, sullenly eyeing the street beyond, while Gwen's two daughters sat beside Carl on either side.
"You're kind of broody, aren't you?" Simone asked him. She was a coltish girl with long, straight brown hair and a face like her mother's. In contrast, her sister Phoebe was a freckled, strawberry blonde with glasses and a curvier frame.
Phoebe didn't worry him so much, as she stayed behind a book on technical engineering.
"What?" Carl demanded. "I'm not."
"Yeah, you are, my mom would say you have an adolescent anxiety disorder due to a recent event or loss, but I think it's kind of sexy."
"Simone," Phoebe said from behind her book, "your whole life will forever be a sexual anxiety disorder." She dropped the book and looked across Carl at her sister. "As in you creep people out."
"Well, at least my anxiety disorder isn't social," Simone snapped.
"Baby's," Gwen murmured from the kitchen cupboard, "you're both beautiful messes, but if you keep fighting I will poison your food. Ooh! Here! Uh, oatmeal…dry goods, Atlanta, Georgia!" She hopped over to show Carl the empty canister.
"No," Ryan said from the parlour. "No major cities, you know that, Gwen!"
"But the infected will be mostly all gone," she protested. "We might have a better chance at finding untouched food in Atlanta."
"You might be right," Carl said. "The dead around here, they've been rotting, dying off. Maybe they kept looters out of Atlanta, we might find a lot more than just that factory…grocery stores untouched, uh, houses, it might all be untouched! I didn't even think of Atlanta! Well, none of us did, it was a graveyard! Dangerous, but…Atlanta. I'll go to Atlanta. Thank, Gwen!" Carl stood up abruptly and headed for the door.
Gwen caught him in the parlour. "Wait, honey, we're going to Atlanta. We're going to help you. Aren't we?" She asked Ryan.
"No," he said.
"Yes," she said, turning back to Carl. "We'll get your people the food they need. I can't let anyone starve, especially if there's children."
"No," Carl said. "Maybe you'd better not, it's going to be dangerous."
"Carl, I've come this far, despite what Ryan might tell you, I'm kind of a touch old broad."
"She really is," Simone insisted, moving to stand beside her mother.
"We'll all go with you to Atlanta and if we find more than enough food for your people, then all I ask is you give us some, deal?" She said.
Carl nodded and stuck out his hand. "Alright, but only if we find more than enough for my people."
Gwen shook his hand warmly.
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DarylDixon'sLover - Bitch is accurate. ^_^
Brazen Hussy - Even the female characters, eh?
itsi3 - Well, look at it this way. At least the convent is hard to find.
Yazzy x - Well, you know the Lt. stocked up on stuff to trade to Merle with.
Merle's Right Hand - Thanks for giving me the sex store food idea! ^_^ Seriously, they did.
Surplus Imagination - No one ever thinks of the sex shop for useful things...like rubber marital aids as blackjacks or clubs...
vickih - Thanks, I'm actually pleased to be able to see both the Lt's pov and Rhoades pov on the subject.
spygrrl99 - Oh, they're so a married couple...without the sex, but I like to think on the road as they were, they just sort of grew closer than ever. Bickering close.
Fairies Masquerade - If she doesn't show up, one of us isn't doing our job.