TWD Ch. 10

We didn't drive far from the Sawmill when Swenson finally spoke up, "See that station up there?"

All of us, including Merle, gave him a questioning look. It was our 'personal driver', however, that asked him, "Yeah? What about it?"

The older man looked down to his feet for a moment, the scrunched facial expression telling me he was deep in thought. It didn't take him too long to make up his mind though. "I want you to let me out up there."

Merle scoffed while bringing his attention back to the scenery outside his widow, Daryl gave the man a look through the rear view mirror before his eyes went back to the road. I was different. I was concerned for the man. He wouldn't survive long on his own. "Why are you tryin' to separate from us? You know it wasn't us that cut that fence, so why leave? We can help each other."

His mouth opened to answer me, but Merle had to put his two cents in first. "If that half dead fool wants to go all 'Lone Ranger' on us, then fuck 'im. Let 'im go."

"He doesn't need to be left alone out-"

Swenson's hand grabbing my shoulder stopped me mid-sentence. He gave me a pitiful smile, one that said 'I'll be fine' but deep down, I knew that was a lie. "There might be survivors from my Camp still out there. They would go to the nearest form of shelter and that gas station is the closest there is...I'm gonna hole up there and wait for 'em."

I couldn't help but look at him like he was crazy. There was no way of knowing if any of his people actually managed to escape. There was no way of knowing they would head for or even make it to that tiny gas station. Why do this? I wanted to protest, but by the time I started to initiate that action, we were already parked and letting our passenger exit. As he shut the door, I quickly hopped out of the van. "Mr. Swenson, wait!" He stopped his walk toward the doors and turned to look at me while adjusting the backpack strap on his shoulder. "Are you sure you don't wanna come with us?"

He smiled at me before sliding his bag off and digging through it. "I'm sure, hun." Finding what he was looking for, he gave me a quick hug while placing the item from his bag into my hands. I looked down to find a pair of hunting binoculars. "I know it's not much, but they come in handy more than you think."

My head immediately shook to tell him no. "You already gave us that whole bag of meds. What if you need these-"

He just waved me off and put his bag back on his shoulder. "I'm gonna be honest here and just say what's already on everyone's mind. I'm not gonna last out here." Him saying it out loud made my grip tighten on the binoculars. "But we had families in that Camp. Children...I have to try."

All I could do is suck up my tears and let him know, "I understand."

I didn't wanna move my feet though. It felt wrong to turn my back on him, but he didn't give me much of a choice. He gently turned me and nudged me back toward the van. "Now go back to your boys. And take care of yourself youngin'."

And that was it. I waited to hear the doors to the gas station shut, before finally climbing back into the van and then we were on our way. I wanted to sulk. I wanted to feel bad for once since this whole thing started, but in came Merle Dixon. "That's one less nigger in the world. Don't know why we wasted any of our time on him anyway."

Of course my insides wanted to argue with him, but I felt like my energy was drained. "Shut the fuck up, Merle. I don't need your racist shit." He just huffed and went back to what he was doing.

[Line break]

It was actually quiet for a few minutes after that. I almost fell asleep, but then the raido Daryl left in one of the cup holders started to make noise. Merle reached over and turned the volume up just in time to hear a piece of the Military's conversation. "Lumber Sawmill Camp has been compromised. We got there too late." Hmph, too late's right.

"We'll keep our eyes sharp, Control. If we spot invaders we'll deal with 'em." Almost immediately after that, I could hear the sound of helicopters coming from the direction of the Sawmill. I couldn't see it though.

Merle was looking for it too before looking to his brother. "C'mon, man. We gotta get off the road."

Daryl quickly glanced back at me through the mirror while addressing the older Dixon, "Yeah, they're lookin' for somebody, but it's not us. Wasn't us that killed that camp."

"They don't care 'bout that! They're still after my head, man. And anyway, we can't lead 'em back to my club."

My head shook at the feverish man, it almost made me laugh. "They don't even know you exist, dumbass."

Daryl looked at his brother. "Calm down, bro. Take your pills. I'll find a place."

And find a place we did. About five more minutes down the road, we parked right next to the entrance of Taggart Drive-in. Once again I let the boys get out first while I gathered my bow and quiver, making sure to also wrap the strap on the binoculars around my neck. I also changed my ripped flannel shirt to a loose, black long sleeve shirt. Before I could even make it to my spot next to Daryl, Merle's paranoia came back. "We gotta switch-out, those birds are hawkin' us."

I chuckled at him, "Yeah right."

Daryl just shook his head, "Could be to help. You ever think about that?-"

Merle quickly put his hand up, "Shh! You hear that?" I saw the spotlight before the actual helicopter. It was pretty dark, not to mention raining. "Chopper." The helicopter flew right over our heads and continued on it's way. Wherever that is. "Yes sir, right there." His eyes moved back to Daryl. "They spot us?"

"Man, how the hell am I supposed to know that?"

"Just rustle up a new ride. I'm goin' up that hill to see what I can see. Let me borrow them binoculars, Hollywood Jr."

I glared at the man while pulling the strap from around my neck. So now I'm Hollywood Jr? "You sure you want 'em, Merle? They were a gift from that black man back there. Ya know, the one you disrespectfully called a nigger?"

He gave me a glare of his own and roughly snatched the binoculars from my hand. "Just have your radio on, lil' brother. And keep a tight leash on this one."

There were three undead lingering around the small building you would stop at to pay to get in, so we each took one down. Daryl and I waited a moment and watched Merle climb up the hill before moving forward. We didn't even get past the gate when I noticed something, making sure to inform my partner. "Daryl. This place has electricity."

He stopped and looked around, seeing what I said was true. The street lights surrounding the drive-in parking lot were on, along with a few dim lights inside the building the projectors were in. "Hm, must be a generator." I nodded my agreement and followed him past the gate.

Our weapons were ready and we were on high alert. Even though there were street lights on, they were very dim. And the rain didn't help the impending darkness at all. Being in the dark was scary enough, but the fact that we couldn't hear anything but the sound of raindrops was even scarier. All these abandoned vehicles, all of the people that had to have been trapped in here...where the hell are their corpses? We barley got ten feet into the lot when a woman's voice sounded through an intercom. "Young man? Young man. Don't let those poxie unfortunates hurt you, ya hear?"

That did it. That awoke the dead. As soon as her voice disappeared, we could hear what sounded like hundreds of growls and gurgles moving about. Daryl grabbed my wrist and moved to start running, but stopped in his tracks when the projector of screen one came on and started a movie. She was trying to distract them. And distract them she did. Most of the soulless bodies wobbled their way over to the lit up screen, clawing and moaning at it. But it was the sound of Merle's voice on the radio that made me jump a little. "That nice lady put on a little romance flick for the lovely couple."

Daryl's eyebrows furrowed with anger as he unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt. "Now ain't the time for jokes, Merle. There's a lot of 'em here."

"Well no shit, baby brother. She put the movie on for ya, now sneak around and turn the speakers on to keep 'em off your tail."

Our eyes instantly locked, widened in surprise by the fact that for once, Merle's advice wasn't completely stupid. After hearing that woman's voice, my immediate thought was to go in the building and find her. But Merle's right, we need to keep the rest of this hoard busy enough not to wanna come knocking on our door. So we decided to split up. I know that sounds crazy, but we used the darkness and rain to mask our sight and sound from the undead. Ducking behind the abandoned vehicles and moving quickly but quietly from one to the other. All while flipping the switches on the movie speakers. We focused on the ones closest to the screen, to keep 'em farther from the building.

After finally meeting my quota, I met Daryl under a gazebo on the left side of the building. He was sitting on top a picnic table when I got there, both of us soaking wet from the rain. He didn't say anything, just nodded to the building. I stood there confused for a moment, before meeting his gaze. The building was covered with handmade spikes. I could tell the material used to make the spikes where from some of the picnic tables, as well as the privacy fence that surrounded most of the drive-in. The spikes, however, wasn't what Daryl was trying to show me. Someone had rigged dynamite around one whole side of the building.

"What the fuck?" It came out as a whisper because my nerves wouldn't let me speak any loader. Can you really blame me for being scared of standing next to so many explosives?

Daryl stood up from the table and stopped slightly in front of me. "I know. But that voice sounded like some ol' lady, right?" All I could do is nod my head, my gaze still glued to the explosives. "How could a ol' lady do all this?"

He's right. If that is an elderly woman in there, how'd she manage all of this along with the roamers? Maybe she's not alone. Then again, she could be a hostage victim in there. Taking a deep breath, I looked at my partner with a little more confidence. "Let's go find out."

We snuck our way to the other side, noticing a few of the undead stuck on the homemade spikes. They tried to reach for us, but didn't have enough strength to get free. Once we made it to the double doors on the right side of the building, we carefully wiggled our way through the wooden spears. I reached for the handles and they were unlocked, but something was barricading it on the other side. The two of us pressed a shoulder each on the doors, counted to three and slammed our weight into it. It only took two tries to get it to budge enough to squeeze through.

Once we were finally inside we quickly looked around. To our right is the kitchen, Daryl skimmed through the place, but didn't come out with anything more than a few candy bars. There were posters of movies that was playing at the time plastered all over the walls. Some of which I actually wanted to see, before the world ended that is. We each checked the restrooms, which was vacant. This entire building seemed vacant. Did we imagine that old woman's voice?

I was starting to believe that theory, until I heard someone mumble, "I hope that young man isn't injured." Daryl and I quickly looked at each other, then made our way to the projection room we heard the voice coming from. Opening the door, the room was quiet. All that could be heard was the light clicking of the old movie projector and the rain outside. The room was slightly lit and an elderly black woman sat in a metal chair right next to the projector. All by herself. She wasn't being held hostage, but next to her sat a cane. There's no way she rigged this place up by herself. No way. Her voice grasped my attention quickly. "Oh, there's two of you. Please tell me you didn't come here all by your lonesomes, not with things bein' what they are."

Daryl glanced around, allowing his guard to lower slightly. "No ma'am, my brother's keepin' watch."

Huh, to think, a Dixon actually has manors. "Such a nice young couple. But you should gather up your brother and head to Palmetto Estates."

Daryl gave her a small smile before answering, "We're goin' that way, soon as we can get new wheels. Can you spare one of those?"

"Oh, those aren't mine to give, I'm afraid. But I own a car I could let you have."

Daryl nodded his thanks. "Anything we can do for ya, b'fore we go?"

She grabbed her cane and held it to her chest as she contemplated that offer, "Well...if you could be a dear and retrieve Satchmo from my house, it would be all I could ask for. It's in that housing edition behind the lot."

Daryl looked to me for my approval and I smiled at him. That being enough of an answer he looked back at the kind woman and said, "Consider it done."

I didn't have a problem with this, even though we could simply hot wire any of those vehicles, it feels nice doing this for her. She gave a slight chuckle and said, "I'll look for my keys while you two are gone."

Before we did this, I just had to ask. "Um, ma'am? Who-who made all those spikes and rigged the dynamite?"

She smiled and looked down for a moment, seeming to reminisce on something before answering me. "It was my son. He put all that there and handed me the detonator before leaving to look for some more supplies. Told me to press it if he didn't come back in a few days. He begged me not to let those poor souls get a hold of me."

Daryl looked at her with sympathy while I gathered the courage to ask, "How long's he been gone?"

She looked me right in the eyes and said, "Three days", then looked at her cane. And that's when I noticed it. A small remote duck taped to the middle of the aluminum walking stick.

[Line break]

After she drew us a quick map, we snuck through the lot to the other side of the fence. It wasn't hard to find her tiny house, in fact, it was right at the end of the road. Running into the door, we immediately started whisper-yelling, "Satchmo!" But there was something wrong here. I kept hearing the familiar growling, but none of it seemed to be coming from inside. Taking the initiative to glance out the living room window, I spotted the problem. Half the fucking hoard was making their way down the street right for us. "Aw, shit! Daryl!" My adrenaline had me moving instantly. I rushed to pull the couch in front of the door. It wouldn't hold 'em all back, but it would buy us some time. Hopefully. Daryl came running in from the kitchen as soon as I finished pushing it all the way to the wall. "We got a major problem here."

He looked at me confused until Merle's voice came in to explain. "Hey, man. I don't know what the hell's goin' on, but most of the eaters are movin' to the housing edition behind the drive-in. Just a heads up."

Daryl immediately cursed and started searching more aggressively for our prize. "Dammit! Satchmo! Where the hell are you?!"

"Satchmo!" It wasn't long before I heard a panicked 'meow' coming from the bedroom. "Daryl, in here!" He slammed his way through the door and we instantly spotted a cat carrier with the name 'Satchmo' painted on the side. The poor cat was hissing and clawing at the metal door, begging to be free.

"Guess that's you, huh?" Daryl quickly grabbed the handle and headed to the back door. The undead was already scratching and banging on the walls.

We stopped at the door and Daryl quickly pulled out a grenade from his pocket. "Whoa, where the hell'd you get that thing?"

He pulled the pin and kept his grip tight on the trigger. "Found a few of 'em by that dynamite." He picked the cat carrier back up before continuing, "Get ready to move that couch. Soon as the majority of 'em move to the back, we're boltin'."

I nodded and ran back into the living room, sliding the couch enough where one big push would be all that's needed to get it completely out of the way. The sudden vibration of the blast almost knocked me down, but seeing Daryl damn near fly into the living room with a cat carrier in his hand, put me back in gear.

Placing my hands on the couch, preparing myself to push while Daryl watched out the window. Once most of the dead made their way to the back yard he yelled, "Alright, now! Go! Go!" I pushed with all of my adrenaline fueled strength and the old couch slid a couple feet from the door. Daryl yanked on the handle then grabbed my wrist and we ran as fast as we could, dodging and swerving all of the lingering dead folks left on the road.

Luckily we didn't have to jump the privacy fence this time, since the roamers had busted through it, leaving a big hole. As soon as we hopped through the threshold, Merle came back in, "What the hell are you doin'?!"

Daryl released my wrist to lift the radio to his mouth. "What's it look like I'm doin', I'm savin' the damn day!"

We managed to get back inside without alerting anymore of the dead, but that hoard by the house isn't going to be distracted for long. We both ran into the projector room, stumbling the whole way in. The old woman lit up with joy when she heard the scared meows of her pet feline. "Oh thank God and thank YOU Mister!" Daryl gently placed the plastic cage next to her feet while she handed him the jingling item we worked for. "Here are the keys. I forget where I parked Betsy, but there's a chirper on the ring."

Daryl waited a moment to fully catch his breath before asking, "You sure you won't come with?"

She chuckled a little while wiggling her finger through the door of the carrier, trying to comfort her pet. "I've done all the running I'm gonna do for this lifetime. Now, you go on. Go on, we'll be just fine." Daryl nodded then made his way out the door. I leaned in to give her a gentle goodbye kiss on the cheek, but she gripped onto my arm. Whispering in my ear. "I know Betsy is parked somewhere near my house. But listen to me carefully child. Soon as you sound the chirper, find a place to hide until the time is right."

[Line break]

I told Daryl what the woman said to me as we snuck our way back to the housing edition. We wasn't sure what she meant by it, but decided we would listen to her anyway. We hid a couple houses down from the one we extracted Satchmo from. Half of the herd still wandered around it. Daryl pushed the button on the key ring and the car we was looking for beeped a couple times as well as flashed it's lights. This attracted the undead and they immediately started migrating to it, but it was only moments after that we heard an amazingly loud bang. The wave from this explosion really did knock me on my ass. Daryl quickly helped me up while watching the flames slowly rising from the projector building.

We weren't the only ones watching it though. The entire hoard of dead all moved to the inflamed building. My hyperventilating started almost instantly. "She-But she-Why would she..."

Daryl pulled my back into his chest, leaving a tender kiss on my head while holding me tight. "Yeah. One last badass move...from one badass woman. She saved us, Kelsi. It was her choice now just breath. Breath."

Tears fell from my eyes as I watched the flames grow bigger. I forced my breathing to calm down as I choked out a prayer for the kind woman and her cat. "Dear God...please...please just bring 'em home. Don't let 'em feel no pain."

We waited for all the roamers to leave the street before finally getting into the SUV. Before we could even start the thing, however, Merle came in again. "What's takin' you so long? All these cars to high jack and it takes you guys an hour?"

"We're on our way, just hold up."

Merle...this is all his fault. His stupid paranoia caused so much trouble. We have to trade a van for a fuckin' SUV. We risked our lives for a cat and now...now that poor old woman is dead. Why? Why do we have to do everything Merle asks for like he's some kind of king? Why can't Daryl stand up for himself and know when to say no?

[Line break]

While Daryl siphoned all the gas from the van and put it in the suv, Merle and I moved all of our supplies. Throwing the last bag into the trunk, he chuckled and asked me, "So, what caused that explosion that ended up savin' you two sorry asses?"

That's enough. I've had enough of this man. He's heartless, racist and just a straight up dickhead! Wait a minute...speaking of dickhead. I shoved my bag into the trunk, turned to Merle Dixon and with all my might, kicked him straight in the nuts. He let out a moan that could rival the dead, grabbed his family jewels and fell to the dirt. "Fuck! You!"

Daryl dropped what he was doing just in time to hear his brother cuss me. "Oh! That stupid, no good...bitch!"

Daryl's arms came out in the shape of a cross. "What the hell, Kelsi!? What'd you do?!"

"She got me, bro...ugh! She fuckin'...kicked me right in the balls!"

I stomped my foot and pointed at the injured man. "This is all your fault! Thanks to your selfish bullshit, we have to give our van for something smaller! The military doesn't give a rats ass about you! Because of you, we almost died down there and that poor old woman and her poor old cat had to blow their way to Heaven to save us!"

He finally, but slowly pulled himself to his feet. If looks could kill, I would've dropped dead on the spot. "You. You kicked me in the nuts for a old hag?!" Then, before I could even blink he lunged for me.

"Hey!" Daryl pushed his brother back and pulled me behind him. "You said them birds are lookin' for us, right? Well we got a new ride so let's move b'fore they come back."

Merle spit a big loogie, said, "Whatever." And hobbled to the passenger side. I don't care how much trouble I'm gonna be in now. That felt good.