I know... this took forever... and I am so sorry. I've been busy reading the Hunger Games, then watching the Hunger Games, then reading Hunger Games fanfiction, and then wandering if I'm too old for Josh Hutcherson (by the way, I am, but I think I'd be willing to go cougar for the kid.)
Anyways that is why I was saying that I would need to you guys to help me focused! I got sixteen reviews last time and I present to you the same goal... twenty reviews! I have 124 people getting an email when I update, I thinks it's fair to hope that at least a sixth of you would drop me a line.
Please drop me a line if you don't want me to get distracted and start writing Katniss/Peeta stories!
Question: Favorite book?
11
Daryl leaned forward in his seat and pulled the red shop rag from his pocket. Shaking it out, he pressed it into Linzie's hand and clipped the lead on Cooper's collar. "You stay in front of me."
Linzie met his eyes and nodded as she closed the bolt on her rifle. They shared one last look as they opened the truck doors. Linzie took a second to situate, tucking her revolver in her shorts and looping her arm through the hunting lead, before joining the others, her eye already trained down the scope. Whispering, she approached Rick and Shane. "I don't see anything moving... it's all dead..." She paused. "Dead Dead, not movin'."
Rick nodded and they moved forward slowly, picking their way around the bodies of so many people, a sea of bone-white, camouflage and fleshy, decomposed red. Linzie wheezed and coughed and then remembered Daryl's shop-rag. Juggling her rifle around carefully, she was able to get the shop-rag out of her right hand and pressed against her face with her left.
As they reached the door. Linzie passed Cooper's lead to Carl with a shaky smile, and took the flashlight Daryl handed her. Quickly, nervously she searched around the perimeter of the door. Cursing vilely, she checked again, her shaking hands causing the flashlight's light to bounce all over the door. "Nothing."
"What?" There was a frantic edge to Carol's voice.
Linzie glanced back quickly. "I was expecting some sort of biometric system, something that requires a password or code of some sort. But I should've known."
Lori was the next to speak. "Known what?"
"Biometric or pass-coded systems are too easy to get into. Anyone with half a brain cell and a cursory knowledge of mechanics and basic electrical principle can get in." Linzie cursed again and the fact that no one said anything was a testament to how scared they were. "It's a pulley system." She lay a hand on the metal door. "Probably airplane grade aluminum or something like that, with an armored mechanism housing to prevent tampering. And then I'd wager that the system is linked into some sort of computer program. Maybe that was biometric... but it ain't out here."
Shane strode past her and tried to push the shutter up.
Linzie pulled her pack of cigarettes from her pocket and pulled one in between her lips, her hands shaking so violently that she almost couldn't light it. "Ain't gonna work, I'd bet a month's supply a' food that the only manual way to open these doors was electrical in nature. Too heavy for jus' elbow grease."
Rick banged on the door and T-Dog voiced what they all feared in coming here. "There's no one here."
Rick turned sharply towards them and pointed at the doors. "Then why are these shutters down."
Everyone looked at Linzie as she puffed out a dispassionate smoke ring. "He's right." Rick sighed and Linzie chuckled mirthlessly. "No way that I can see to close that door from the outside, and even if there was, there's no way they could get that door down before the walkers got them. That don't mean they're still alive though..." Linzie could feel the panic in her throat. "Coulda got bit, coulda realized that this is the end and took the easy road, coulda died of starvation, heart-attack, coulda gone crazy and could be wondering these hallowed halls." She giggled a little hysterically and jumped as Cooper whined and pressed against her leg.
"Walker!" Daryl killed the walker and turned on Rick. "You led us into a graveyard!" He brushed passed Linzie as she sat smoking.
Shane glared at Daryl. "He made a call."
"It was the wrong damn call!"
Shane advanced. "Shut up! You hear me? Just shut up."
Linzie raised her rifle in between the two pushing men and shot an approaching walker, then went back to smoking her cigarette.
Shane and Daryl stared at her, before Shane turned back towards Rick. "Rick this is a dead end."
Daryl glared down at her. "You just gonna give up?"
Linzie shrugged. "What else is there to do?"
Daryl cursed. "Fight."
Linzie chuckled again. "Fight what? Inevitability? I'm an engineer, Daryl, a pragmatist. As long as we had a quiet place to hide out from the walkers, there was hope. But where do we go now?"
Daryl glared down at her. "Don't be a bitch."
"Fuck you." She threw the cigarette down. "You don't know shit."
They started to move back towards the car, when both Rick and Linzie stopped and turned back to the doors.
"Did you see that?" Rick wide eyes met Linzie's.
"No but I heard it."
"Heard what?" Daryl hovered over her shoulder.
"The camera - it moved." Rick stepped closer to the door
"You imagined it."
"It moved."
The doctor held out his hand and Linzie placed her arm in his hand.
"Any chance you could be pregnant?"
Linzie snorted. "No."
Jenner nodded. "Any diseases?"
"No."
"Cancer?" He regarded her seriously. "I can smell the smoke on you."
Linzie shrugged. "I got checked before the end of the world."
"You can't smoke in here."
"Figured." Linzie winced and felt her stomach roll as he took the first vial of blood from her arm. "Surprised you'd let me keep my dog."
"Don't think I could have dragged the animal from your side." Jenner smiled, pulled his gloves off and ruffled Cooper's ears. "He hasn't let you five feet from him since you entered the building."
Linzie smiled. "Yeah. He's a good dog." He put on a new pair of gloves, prepared a second vial and Linzie felt her head spin. She cursed lightly and closed her eyes.
"Don't like blood?"
Linzie's brow furrowed. "Don't mind blood. Dizzy."
Jenner nodded. "And what did you do before.." He trailed off.
"I taught mechanical engineering at Auburn."
Jenner chuckled and capped off the vial. "Could've used your help months ago. We're done, your sleeveless friend is next."
Linzie nodded and stood, fighting to keep upright and marching past the others, her gut turning. "Daryl, your turn."
Linzie let herself rest against the wall behind her, Cooper leaning against her leg. She looked over and watched as Sophia and Carl drew on the white-board behind the good doctor. On the other side of Jenner there was a complex mathematical formula scrawled on the board.
She pushed off the wall and walked to the board. Locating an eraser, she erased an entire section of the formula. She could feel everyone's eyes on her back as she solved the problem correctly.
"Signs were wrong, this reaction is exothermic, system was probably losing a lot of energy in heat. Without taking that into account, this system looks efficient but was... probably using a lot more energy than you thought... ten maybe fifteen kilowatts more."
Jenner snorted. "Figured that out the hard way."
Linzie capped the marker and turned around, catching Daryl's and everyone else's eyes on her. "What?"
"I haven't drank this much since college." Linzie swigged another mouthful of Southern Comfort.
Andrea chuckled. "Frat parties?"
Linzie snorted. "Do I look like a sorostitute?"
Andrea arched an eyebrow. "Sorostitute?"
"Yeah a sorority girl... Kids in my class called them that."
"I was a sorority girl." Andrea looked like she might be too drunk to be angry.
Linzie downed the rest of the alcohol in her cup and drug her wrist across her face. "I'm not surprised, but I wouldn't have been allowed fifty feet from the sorority dorms."
Dale filled up her cup. "They didn't have houses of their own?"
Linzie giggled. "Nope, some old biddie from days gone by made the school promise that they would never allow sororities to have houses, because she was afraid they'd turn into brothels."
"Mom, can I have some?"
Linzie laughed outright as Lori almost spit out a mouthful of wine. "Absolutely not." She passed Dale her cup.
"You in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with dinner." Dale passed back the cup, flushed with the wine. "And in France."
Lori nodded. "And when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then."
Rick giggled, more carefree than anyone had ever seen. "What's it gonna hurt, com'n."
Lori relented and Linzie glanced at Daryl as Carl gagged on the wine.
"I think you should stick to soda-pop there." Shane grumbled from behind his hands.
"Not you, Glenn."
Glenn looked up, half bleary. "Wha?"
"Keep drinking little man, I wanna see how red your face can get."
Linzie shoved up from the table and made her way unsteadily to where Daryl leaning back against the counter, a new bottle of Southern in his hands.
She popped herself up on the counter and almost fell forward. She giggled as Cooper set himself right between his people.
"Wha's so funny?"
Linzie looked up and caught Daryl's eyes. "What isn't funny?"
Daryl rolled his eyes and grinned. "Neva woulda taken you for a giggly drunk."
Linzie nodded and drained the rest of her cup. "Woulda neva seen me drunk."
"Wha?"
"Quit drinking after I got my undergrad." Linzie stole the bottle of Southern Comfort from Daryl and sloshed it all over her. "Shit."
"Why?"
"I have a prop...prop.. propensity, I think, for getting myself in trouble when I drink. That's what the cop said when he arrested me." Linzie shrugged, still grinning a little maniacally.
"What you get arrested for?"
Linzie giggled. "Punched some dude in the face, started a bar fight... don't rightly remember why though...Got lucky, the cop let me off the hook. Woulda lost my job."
"It seems to me that we haven't properly thanked our host."
Linzie and Daryl looked up as T-Dog raised his glass alongside Rick's. "He is more than just our host."
Daryl raised his bottle. "Here's to you, doc. Booyah!"
"If you shower, go easy on the hot water." The doctor moved on down the hall and the other's dispersed, leaving Daryl, Linzie and Cooper in the hall.
"You want to conserve water with me?"
Daryl blinked. "Wha?"
"I said you wanna conserve water with me?" Linzie smiled shakily and leaned against the wall.
"You're drunk."
"You too."
Daryl shrugged and leaned over and kissed her.
Remember review and answer the question: favorite book? And we're shooting for twenty reviews, if one in every six of you review, we will make that goal!
