Chapter 10: On A Wing And A Prayer

When Jordyn came back to the group, she was soaking wet. She had used a whole bucket of collected rainwater to wash off as much of the blood on her body as she could. Her clothes were likely forever stained, but she wasn't going to brave Cell Block C for a fresh pair of jeans when it had been infiltrated by walkers. So instead she tried to wash out the blood, which just made everything she wore irritatingly damp. But it was better than feeling Lori's blood caking under her fingernails.

"The good news is she looks healthy," Hershel was saying to Daryl as Jordyn arrived.

Carl was holding his crying newborn sister as Hershel looked the baby over. Rick knelt on the ground behind his son, a blank expression on his face. He looked hollowed out; completely disconnected. Glenn had his arm around a tearful Maggie while Beth held Marnie's hand as they all peered down at the baby.

"She needs formula," Hershel continued to Daryl. "Soon. Or she won't survive."

"Nope," Daryl shook his head at Hershel's words. "No way, not her. We ain't losing anyone else. I'm goin' on a run."

"I'll back you up," Maggie said.

Jordyn pulled her wet hair back into a rough ponytail. "Me too."

Daryl looked her up and down. "You sure?"

It was apparent that Jordyn's screaming had not gone unheard by the others; in fact she had been loud enough to warrant Daryl inquiring about her wellbeing in front of the others - something he had never done. Jordyn picked Rick's discarded rifle up off the ground and slung it over her back. Rick didn't even appear to notice her taking his gun. He didn't seem to notice anything going on around him, including his screaming newborn daughter. Jordyn, however, noticed for the first time that both Carol and T-Dog were not amongst the group. Fearing their fate, she didn't dare ask their whereabouts.

"I'm sure," Jordyn said. "I'll go."

"No!" Marnie suddenly burst forward from Beth and grabbed her sisters hands. "Don't go!"

"I'll be back as fast as I can," Jordyn knelt down and stroked Marnie's cheek. Her soft skin was clammy and damp with tears. "You gotta help with the baby, okay? Make sure she stays warm and wrapped up," Jordyn kissed her sister repeatedly on the cheek and then detached her arms from around her neck. "I'll be right back."

Marnie sniffled and rubbed her fist into her reddened eyes, but she nodded to Jordyn, stood back and took the hand Hershel was offering her.

"Beth," Daryl pulled the teenager aside. "Kid just lost his mother, his Dad ain't doin' so hot..."

Beth nodded and looked over at Carl. "I'll look out for him. Marnie, too." She said to Jordyn. "I promise."

Jordyn nodded her thanks.

"You two," Daryl directed to Axel and Oscar. The prisoners were standing back from the group, keeping their distance. They seemed to know instinctively that what was going on did not involve them. But as Daryl addressed them, they stood straighter. "Too many walkers pile up on those fences, we got ourselves a problem!"

The way Axel and Oscar stepped to action at Daryl's command made Jordyn realize how eager they were to help, eager to prove themselves as useful team members and not uncooperative outcasts.

Movement flashed in Jordyn's peripheral vision as Rick shot to his feet. He marched past his son and picked a bloodied axe off the ground. "Rick!" Jordyn called after him, but he made no sign that he heard her and disappeared into Cell Block C. Jordyn moved to follow him; he couldn't see Lori the way they had left her, but Daryl was already jogging for the gate.

"Maggie, Jordyn, let's go!" Daryl yelled. "We're gonna lose the light."

Jordyn spun around and sped into a jog with Maggie. "Where are we gonna look?"

"There's that Piggly Wiggly on eighty-five?" Daryl suggested.

"No, the baby section's been cleared out," Maggie said. "Lori asked me to keep an eye out, haven't had much luck."

The trio jogged to a stop in front of the green hatchback by the gate. "Is there any place that hasn't been completed looted?" Daryl asked.

Jordyn thought back to the roads they travelled just before they stumbled on the prison. She'd been driving with Lori, Carol and Marnie then. "Day before we found the prison, we saw signs for shopping centre just North of here."

"Too much debris on the road," Maggie said. "A car will never get through there."

Daryl shifted from the hatchback towards his bike. "I can take one of you."

"I'll go."

Maggie visibly stiffened. "Jordyn-"

"I wanna go," Jordyn said. "I have to."

xxx

Jordyn had ridden on the back of Daryl's bike so many times she had a routine. She had a preferred way to sit, preferred way to cinch her legs around the vehicle and a preferred way to hold on to her driver. She even had a thin, green cotton scarf she used to protect her lips from windburn. Sometimes they would be riding so long, Jordyn could rest her head on the back of Daryl's shoulder and close her eyes. Not that she ever slept - the sputtering of the bike exhaust or Daryl taking a sharp corner inevitably jolted her right back into reality. But sometimes there were a few seconds, a few breaths, where Jordyn felt relaxed.

This time was different.

Everything felt wrong. Jordyn couldn't settle. She kept shifting her feet placement, and altering her hold on Daryl. At first she had his waist, then she held his shoulders, then she had a hand on his shoulder and waist. The normally calming roar of the wind just hurt Jordyn's eardrums. She hadn't had time to find her green scarf and could already feel her lips chapping. The sun was a constant heat baking above her making her skin an irritating combination of both burned but slick with sweat.

The bike slowed to a stop. Jordyn looked ahead to see what Daryl had found. Snapped in half and lying in the grass was a faded sign that reading Lilyrose Childcare. Daryl looked over his shoulder at Jordyn, who nodded, and they followed the arrow on the sign up the dirt road. If nothing else, a day-care centre would have something for the baby to wear.

Only a few seconds drive down the dirt road, Daryl parked his bike by the front gate and he and Jordyn climbed off. She left Rick's rifle by the bike, Maggie's gun was less cumbersome for a task like this, and approached the entrance gate. Once upon a time, Lilyrose Childcare would have looked cosy and beautiful. Now, it was just another weather-beaten house with smashed windows stuck in the midst of a wildly overgrown patch of land. It was nothing like Marnie's old childcare, ABC Day. That was one in a chain of childcares in the city, close to Jordyn's mother's work. The building had been built especially for the childcare, it was all modern and very clinical. Jordyn hated going there because it reminded of a dentist's office.

The outdoor play area of Lilyrose looked like a backyard of a normal suburban home. A rickety swing set, slide, toys strewn about in the grass. ABC Day didn't have grass, everything was indoors and the floor was a soft sponge amenable to toddlers falling on their faces.

Vines had threaded through the fencing, but rain and snow had rusted the chain link and Jordyn managed to pull open the gate with little trouble. She and Daryl crept into the yard of Lilyrose, but there didn't seem to be any walkers. Jordyn took the three porch steps in one stride and peered through the grimy glass. There were a couple of empty cribs amongst a mess of children's toys, clothes and garbage. Jordyn knocked the glass a couple of times, and waited for the noise to draw out any walkers, but none appeared.

Jordyn slid the window up and poked her leg through. Her boot landed on some sort of table covered in junk, which all clattered to the floor. Jordyn held her position, hand on Maggie's gun, waiting for walkers to pop up. But after a few tense seconds, Jordyn was still alone.

The cribs were definitely empty, a fact that gave Jordyn the briefest moment of relief. The floors was littered with remnants of children's art projects and discarded toys. Jordyn went straight for the cupboards, sliding her backpack off her shoulder as she walked. She found no formula, but gathered the folded clothes and unopened packages of bottles that she saw.

Movement behind her caught her eye as Daryl came clambering in through the window. He scanned the room with his crossbow up, then stopped and stared at one wall. It was then Jordyn noticed the wall was covered in paper cut-outs of children's handprints. Each one had a name in the centre of it. The one Daryl was staring at had glittery stars around it, and the name was Sofie. He stared at it for a few moments, then muttered something about checking the rest of the rooms and left Jordyn to search.

With nothing left in the cupboards worth grabbing, Jordyn headed for the next room in search of formula. There was something very unsettling about rooms like this now; Jordyn didn't like to think of children becoming walkers. Her little brother's round face still swam into every one of her dreams. Sometimes Connor looked just like he had before; same chubby little face and goofy grin. But more often than not he was just another walker that Jordyn had to kill. The same with Sophia, she had been appearing in Jordyn's' subconscious more and more lately. Side by side with Connor. Infected. Dead and walking.

"Clear back here," Daryl came back in. "Know what we're looking for?"

Jordyn nodded and pointed towards the doorway ahead of her blocked by a child gate. Inside was a bench with three change tables, four small toilets, a large basin and cubby holes adorning the wall above the sink. The rattling of Jordyn unhinging the child gate alerted something in the cupboard. Whatever it was made a growl and shifted, knocking the cupboard doors. Jordyn enclosed her hand around Maggie's gun and reached for the closet door handle.

There was an animalistic screech, a flash of white fur and then the tunk sound of Daryl firing an arrow. Jordyn stared down at the motionless mound of fluff on the ground. A possum. Hideous in life, hideous in death.

"Dinner," Daryl pulled up the dead creature by its ratty tail. "I'm gonna put it in the bike."

Jordyn grimaced and turned her attention back towards searching. The shelves in this room had been swept clear and some of the cupboard doors hung off their hinges. It looked as though people had just rushed through and grabbed what they could carry. Jordyn knelt down to open one of the closed doors. Two cans of infant formula were on the bottom shelf. They had been lying on their side for so long they had gathered a thin layer of dust, but they were unopened.

Jordyn stuffed the cans in her bag. It wasn't a lot of food for an infant, and they were small cans. A large tin, about double the size, used to last Marnie a week in her first few weeks at home. Two small cans would only last a day or so. But that was enough. The newborn had to eat now, and they could go out searching again tomorrow.

Under the sink were some tubes of cream, baby powder and cloth diapers. Jordyn stuffed them into a checked gray diaper bag that was lying on the floor and slung it over her shoulder with the backpack.

Next, Jordyn followed the smell of rancid food to a door labelled Staff Room. It too was protected by a child gate and had been raided. Jordyn added an almost-empty tin of coffee, four tea bags and a pack of sugar to the diaper bag. She turned to leave and came face to face with a gigantic mural painted all across one wall. It was a colourful depiction of grinning children, playing games and laughing. It seemed to make a mockery of what Lilyrose looked like now.

After finding Marnie, Jordyn tried her hardest to be optimistic about children, about how they fared after the infection. But the longer things went on, the more Jordyn realized what a freak stroke of luck it was that Marnie had been with good people. Really good people who had protected her, kept her safe and warm. People like Carol, and Lori. Good people like Lori.

With her bags full and the urge to leave welling in her chest, Jordyn headed back outside to Daryl. He was making room for the possum corpse in the carriage of his bike.

"There's a shed over there," Daryl said. "Might have some gas."

Jordyn dumped her bags of baby supplies and took Maggie's gun from her waistband. "I'll check."

"You sure?" Daryl called as she walked off, but Jordyn didn't answer him.

It was sweet, really, and Jordyn was sure that later she would be touched at his concern, but right then she bristled at Daryl's implication that she was incapable of handling a simple task. Although in fairness, Jordyn as still sticky with Lori's blood and so she probably didn't appear all that capable.

The shed was barely standing. Just by pulling open the door, Jordyn thought it might collapse like a house of cards. Quite a miracle that it had survived the winter; it sure didn't look like it would make it through another one.

Inside the shed was a ride-on lawnmower rooted in the dirt covered in cobwebs, and a workbench with only the barest selection of tools. There was, however, a pitchfork leaning up against the back of the mower. On the shelf above the workbench there were various chemicals for dealing with weeds and insects, but no gas. Jordyn grabbed the pitchfork - she never left a weapon behind - and turned to leave the shed when she saw the base of a red fuel can under the gap between the opened door and the ground. Jordyn pulled the door back to pick up the can and heard a soft growl on the wind.

The female walker was a mess. She was a good ten feet from the shed and was so slow Jordyn felt no need to move. Jordyn stood on the spot watching the walker edge towards her. The walker was missing both of her legs. Well, one was missing completely while the other was broken off at the knee, but still hanging on by a thread of muscle. The walker tried to stand upright, but could only manage kneeling up on the stump. When she tried to pull up her other leg, she just fell on her face.

Jordyn took two steps forward; the walker was still too far away to reach her. Jordyn watched, feeling, of all things, some sort of appreciation at the persistence of the walker. Nothing stopped her, not even missing limbs.

The walker stopped attempting to stand and instead dragged itself along the ground towards Jordyn. The bones of her arms were bared as her skin was rotting away. It took it's time, reaching and dragging along, little by little, until it reached Jordyn's feet. It grabbed for her boot, but it couldn't even hold on to her. It just sort of slapped and bumped its broken fingers at Jordyn's shoe and snapped its mouth open and closed, as if somehow it would find the energy to pull the boot to her teeth and bite into her.

Jordyn held the pitchfork above the walkers head and then just let go of it. Its skull was so degraded, gravity was all that was needed to puncture its brain. She saw a shadow out of her peripheral vision and turned to see Daryl walking towards her staring down at the dead body.

Daryl surveyed the walkers disintegrating body. "That one's messed up."

Jordyn nodded. Then, without realizing it, she starting talking. "I killed Lori. She asked me to save her baby. I-I had to c-cut her open." She had to stop to take a breath. "I killed her."

He said nothing. For a few moments, all Jordyn heard was the sweet sound of birds singing somewhere through the trees. No groans, no snarling, just the sound of a peaceful afternoon.

"We gotta go," Daryl said. "Be dark soon."

Jordyn nodded. "Okay." She left the pitchfork lodged in the walkers head and followed Daryl back to his bike. She looped the backpack and diaper bag over her shoulder and climbed on behind Daryl. He started up the bike, and Jordyn's feet found a place. Her hands wrapped comfortably around Daryl's middle and she angled her head in a way that Daryl's shoulder blocked the rush of wind. The day turned into night, Jordyn kept her position and Daryl drove them back home.

xxx