*Author's Note*
Hey Guys, as ever, thank you for the lovely feedback! Couple things: Yes, this is another chapter! And no, it's not even your birthday! (But next Monday, it is mine. So here's an early birthday present). No, but really, the reason I'm posting another chapter is actually that Chapter 13 was sooo short. Like the last time I did this, I kinda feel like I short-change y'all when the chapter is less than 3,000 words. So, since Chapter 13 came in at about 2,500, I'm posting a second chapter this Wednesday, Hope you like it!
Oh, one last thing:
StrongLikeMusic I think it's safe to say that Rick and Michonne told everyone only what they needed to hear, and not even Hershel knows the full story of what happened to Maggie. (He doesn't know that, of course).
BandM You asked a while ago and I just realized I never answered. Since I figure you probably aren't the only person who's wondering about it, I'm just going to answer it here: Once the last of the Army completely abandoned Ft. Benning (this was after the more organized evac that Beth and the kids were a part of), the civilians and military personnel still left behind were on their own in a situation where the infected had already breached the base. As a result, there weren't any survivors. RIP Lori and Grandpop Grimes :-(
Welp, there weren't any more questions that I noticed but if you guys have others, I'll be happy to answer them in subsequent notes.
Until then...
7/27/15 02:21 EET
Incirlik AFB, Adana, Turkey
"Ahh...I think he's finally starting to get it."
Get what?
Michonne looked over at Milton, sitting listening as well in the jumpseat across from her. He seemed to know what she was asking and shrugged.
She looked over at Tobin, who was sitting in the front of the small cockpit, in his pilot's seat still fiddling with knobs, and checking and rechecking his instrumentation. She sighed in frustration. It was as if he were on a different planet. Did he fail to grasp the implications of the conversation that Rick was having with the mystery man on the radio? If they were unable to extract any jet fuel from the underground stores to power this plane, it was barely more than a giant metal coffin.
They had to get off this plane, she realized suddenly.
Maybe that was the thing that Rick was realizing. Michonne jumped to her feet, startling Milton and went to look out the front windscreen.
"What?" Milton asked urgently. "What do you know?"
"We have to rejoin the group," She said to him leaning over the copilot's seat to peer outside, "We can't wait here any longer. This plane isn't going anywhere."
That did the trick in rousing Tobin from his fantasy world. "Excuse me?"
He turned in his seat and looked up at Michonne as if she'd just blinked into existence at that very moment.
"This thing isn't going anywhere. We have to get off and get to the group."
"So what are you suggesting?" Tobin asked densely.
"I'm not suggesting, Capt. Douglas. I'm telling you, this plane is not going anywhere. We have to get off."
"No, n-no," Milton sputtered frantically. "Captain Grimes said to stay here."
Michonne looked out again. Even with her almost 20/20 vision, Rick and his people were barely ants under the lights of the hangar in the far off distance. They might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. Plus, they'd already been attacked twice just making the trip to the hangar, and she was pretty sure she gathered they were now down at least one man. Sitting patiently waiting to be rescued had never been something she was good at and she'd already had to do it once before in the past forty-eight hours. She didn't have any intention of doing it again if she could help it.
Still, Dr. Mamet had a point. Rick could not have been clearer when he told them to stay put until he returned, but a tingling in the pit of her stomach, one that had rarely done her wrong in the past was telling her not to wait.
"Yes, he did. When he thought we were going to be refueling this plane. But you heard them, they can't refuel this plane. They can't refuel any planes anymore."
Milton fell silent, terrified, yet seeing the logic in Michonne's words.
"Then they'll come back for us." He resolved. Folding his arms like a stubborn child.
That was undoubtedly true, she knew. How many people though —people they couldn't spare— would die in the attempt?
Michonne watched Milton, fiddling nervously with his round, wire-framed glasses, cleaning them compulsively. He was the braintrust of the entire operation. He was also shaking like a leaf at the mere suggestion that they leave the safety of the plane. There was little chance he could walk straight, let alone shoot it. She looked at Tobin and came to the same conclusion Rick must have when he told her about the Captain's knife. The man was useless. Rick recognized Tobin wasn't to be relied upon. She realized then, protecting Milton in Rick's absence would fall to her and he obviously couldn't be moved right now.
She sighed. They had to do something, that she was sure of. They were sitting ducks here.
Tobin, thinking the matter settled went back to the instrument panel, looking at things. Michonne looked back out the large windscreen. The rain was easing. If Adana was anything like the parts of Turkey she'd been to before, this rain was going to give way to a crystal clear night sky and, if the moon was in the right phase, a very brightly lit night. That could work in her favor, maybe they could—
"...So you're saying that those things don't like the rain?" Rick asked then.
Michonne didn't realize she'd been tuning out the conversation that was still happening on the radio. She saw Milton perk up too, listening intently.
"I don't know what they like and don't like. What I am saying is we notice they don't move a lot in the rain," The voice answered.
"What, Doctor?" Michonne said when she thought she saw a lightbulb go off in Milton's brain.
"They're hydrophobic," Milton answered as if things were dawning on him.
"They're what now?" Tobin said skeptically.
"Afraid of water." Michonne answered as doubtful as Tobin was.
"No, listen, that makes sense." Milton adjusted his glasses excitedly. "They're spreading this disease through bites, right? In order for bites to be an effective mode of transmission, the saliva has to attain a certain viral load, meaning microns of virus per microliter of saliva. Normally, it couldn't because people and animals swallow their saliva constantly. The average human swallows 2400 times a day, that's roughly three pints of saliva a day. That's why infections are very rarely transmitted through kisses. Ever notice you can kiss your boyfriend when he's sick and you probably won't catch it?"
Michonne unexpectedly blushed, when Milton looked at her. The image of Rick kissing her that morning coming instantly back to her mind. She put a hand to her mouth self-consciously. Milton noticed with a brief frown but kept going.
"...That's because saliva's usually a very ineffective vector. Blood to blood transmission is optimal. Sex, transfusion, etc. A hydrophobic organism is a means to ameliorate this. Hydrophobic animals are afraid of water and liquid of all kinds. Including drinking water or swallowing their own saliva. Which in turn allows the viral count in saliva, gathering unconsciously in the mouth, to rise to sufficient levels for infection to spread. It makes a lot of sense."
"Like Rabies," Michonne said with a shudder, thinking of "Andrew" slobbering all over the glass at the consulate trying to get at her.
Milton smiled approvingly. "Exactly, Ms. Philippe. Exactly like Rabies."
"So these things are rabid?" Tobin asked, appropriately disquieted by the thought.
Dr. Mamet rolled his eyes.
"Captain, it's far more complicated than that," He replied contemptuously, but then conceded. "But for lack of a better term right now, yes."
"I just thought the rain was fucking with their ability to locate people," Tobin muttered surprising both Michonne and Milton.
He hadn't seemed to be on the same page as them all this time. Michonne was shocked he'd been giving it any thought at all.
"Well, Captain, rain or I'm assuming any precipitation that interferes with the hearing would not be ideal for them as well." Milton hypothesized. "They are operating on the most basic brain functions, these things are virtually brain-dead and our visual cortex is one of our most complex functions aside from the higher cognitive processes: emotion, reason, memory, etc. Hearing however, though complex is somewhat lower on that scale. That's why it's the last sense to go when you die."
Michonne was fascinated. A memory of the nurses at her mother's hospice reassuring her that her mom could still hear her, suddenly came back to Michonne. She remembered how they'd encouraged her to tell her mom how much she was loved. At the time, it had just seemed like nonsense, meant to make a little girl feel better. She teared now a little at the recollection.
"So wind, rain, snow are all our friends? That settles it, I'm movin' to Vail when we get back," Tobin joked inappropriately.
Michonne dabbed her eye with her thumb. This was important information. She lifted the walkie-talkie to her mouth and pressed the button.
"Rick? Rick?" She said urgently into it. "Find shelter now! Mamet says they are afraid of water and the rain is about to stop any minute."
"Well, heeeello there! I guess this was a party line, huh?" The other voice said. "The plot thickens. And where, may I ask, are you?"
Michonne didn't speak and Milton watched her anxiously during an extended silence.
"Aren't you two peas in a pod?" The voice chuckled. "Well, Rick, is it? Your girlfriend is right. You need to find shelter ASAP. As soon as the rain eases up, they're gonna come out in force from wherever they're hiding now."
02:33 EET
Rick scowled with irritation as water dripped into his eyes. He'd told her not to speak. Still, it was good, nevertheless, to get confirmation of his thoughts.
"What the hell is that?" Glenn whispered.
Rick turned to the young man to see he'd pulled his large, high-powered, torch-style flashlight out of his rucksack and was beaming it into the darkness. Only what they had been seeing, or really not seeing, wasn't just the dense blackness of the dark.
Illuminated by the strong beam of light, Rick could actually make out a vibrating mass moving slowly in the darkness. It was bodies, hundreds of them, huddled together as if against a bitter cold, heads hung downward, as if they were deactivated automatons. Mamet and the voice on his radio were right, the rain confused them, rendered them, for the most part, inert. This would only be to his group's advantage for a few minutes longer.
"Jesus, Mary an' Joseph," Carol exclaimed just as one of the things in the dark looked up suddenly, directly into the beam.
"Shut it off, numbnuts," Daryl said and Glenn obeyed, a second too late.
The creature hissed and headed straight for them, followed by ten or twenty more that seemed to "activate" at the same moment.
"Geezus!" Rick exclaimed still clutching his walkie in a vice grip. "Run for the plane!"
"You rang?" The voice on the radio said then. "Listen Rick, you won't make your plane. But we're in the B building. Second from your right, about 50 yards in front of you. Run faster than you're going right now and you just might make it."
They broke into an all out sprint. Carol faltered a step, slipping no doubt in all the slick oil she'd been previously standing in.
"C'mon!" Daryl shouted at Carol, turning to shoot wildly at the things following.
In the last 50 feet, a hail of bullets rained down from above them mowing down the first wave of things closest to them. Rick looked up and saw two figures firing from the top of the building. A small unobtrusive door opened in the side of the building then.
"Here!" A woman's voice called from the distance.
They headed in that direction, Glenn reaching the door first. He and the woman turned then and laid down additional suppressive fire for them. Daryl grabbed Carol by the arm and pulled her the rest of the way. Rick made sure he was last in. Just barely shooting one in the face and shutting the door before the horde was on them.
They all stood doubled over, gasping for air in the darkened, narrow hallway.
"Thank you," Rick said finally when he could speak.
"Yeah, thanks," Glenn echoed breathlessly in the dark.
"No problem," She replied.
"Rick?" Michonne's voice came through the radio again.
"We made it." He answered simply.
"Congratulations! Well done," The voice cut in.
"What is this dude's deal, huh?" Daryl said with irritation. Rick knew he didn't know Daryl all that well yet but he was still fairly certain Dixon planned to deck this guy the minute they met.
"That's just Jesus. Don't pay him any attention. He's just like that."
"Jesus, really?" Carol remarked incredulously, still clutching her chest and gasping.
"That his real name?" Rick asked.
"Nah, it's Rovia, Paul. They just used to call him Jesus 'cuz he saves. He's our resident expert sniper, the eye in the sky. He's our heavy arms instructor here on base. He can shoot you a royal flush from well over 2000 yards away."
"Jesus," Glenn uttered on an exhale.
"Exactly," The woman concurred. "We wouldn't still be alive if it weren't for him."
She continued leading them down the hall and further into the building. "Watch your step, it was a bloodbath in here."
Through the dark, the group followed, navigating a maze of bodies strewn everywhere. This had clearly been an administrative building. The offices, walls and cubicles were now splattered with blood as bodies lay across desks and chairs. Some lay across the floor in piles.
"It took us hours to clear this building but we got it. It's connected by a sky bridge to the hospital wing, so we have to keep the lights dim and the sound to a minimum, 'cuz Zeke is in full residence over there," She whispered stepping carefully over another body.
"Zeke?" Rick asked. Jesus had used that word too.
"You know, Z for zombies, Zeke," She explained like it was obvious.
"So you know what they are?" Glenn asked hopefully.
"I mean, I've seen Night of the Living Dead, so, um yeah. I didn't need a refresher course if that's what you're asking."
Rick shook his head at Glenn. It wouldn't be that easy.
"Okay so, we broke open all the vending machines in there, if you're hungry or anything, feel free," She said as if playing hostess and pointing to what obviously was once a break room.
Daryl hopped over two bodies blocking the doorway and retrieved a bag of chips and a soda from the machines.
Carol pointed her flashlight right in his face.
"What?" He said blinking and shielding his eyes. "Maybe ya'll ain't hungry but I haven't eaten in twelve hours."
Rick shrugged, releasing his rifle to swing at his side. "Hand me a bag."
"Yeah, that a Diet Pepsi?" Carol added, putting her sidearm back in the holster.
"I'll take Doritos if they're any in there," Glenn said at the same time.
"Uh-huh, that's what I thought. Get 'em yourself." Daryl said but still handed his soda to Carol as he stepped back out of the pantry.
A few minutes later, the young woman led them upstairs to the executive suites of the building. Made up of four large offices and an expansive foyer, the space made sense as their base. With only five rooms to monitor and protect this space would be easier to defend than the maze of offices and cubicles downstairs. The room was completely empty though.
"Where are your people?" Rick asked looking around.
"What people? Jesus told you. We lost almost everyone in the initial wave and then the rest trying to prepare to refuel your plane and clear this building. It's just us now."
"You and the two folks on the roof?" Glenn said, not hiding his amazement or disappointment.
The woman nodded. "And now you guys, I guess."
Rick watched Daryl move around the room quietly checking the doors and windows. He stopped at the window overlooking the runway. Peering through the shades he'd cracked with his fingers, he looked down on what Rick assumed was a growing herd, intently.
"By the way, who are you? All we knew was we got a message from on high that there was a VIP flight coming through and we needed to refuel you." She asked then, pulling Rick back to the conversation.
"I'm Captain Rick Grimes, that's Lt. Peletier, Carol. PFC Rhee, Glenn and Lance Corporal Daryl Dixon," Rick said going around the room.
The young woman, who he could now see through the dim auxiliary lights that shone from the corners on this floor, was a very comely latina with a stern face, nodded at each of them in turn.
"If you don't mind terribly I'm gonna skip the salute, Captain. I'm Staff Sergeant Rosita Espinosa, upstairs is Sergeant First Class Sasha Williams and Chief Warrant Officer Rovia, like I mentioned before."
"You rang?" A voice coming through the door behind them asked.
Reflexively, they all spun and trained their guns on the source. The man at the door threw his hands up in surrender. Even with guns in his face, he smiled winsomely, his huge blue eyes taking them all in at once.
"Whoa! At ease. I'm on your team, AKA I'm alive. I think we can agree there isn't any reason to alter that fact."
They all lowered their weapons quickly, except for Daryl, who glared.
"Speak for yourself. I think a bullet in that mouth of yours might be'n improvement." Daryl said harshly.
Rick tutted him quietly, gesturing for Daryl to lower his weapon as well. He complied reluctantly, moving away from them and back to the window in irritation.
"Already made more fans, Mr. Rovia. I told you not to mess with them," Sgt. Williams said moving out of the stairwell past Jesus.
"Jesus, Sasha, this is Rick, Carol, Glenn and over there, that's Daryl," Espinosa introduced.
As the ranking officer of the three in her group, Sasha reached across and shook each of their hands in introduction. She had the strongest grip Rick had every felt from a woman in his life.
"You, the lovely lady on the radio that finally convinced our boy here to make a move?" Jesus asked Carol. "Smart thinking."
"Rick," Daryl called to him softly from his spot at the window.
"No," Carol answered hesitantly.
"Oh no?" Jesus asked casually, moving out of the doorway of the stairwell to rest his large "Light 50" sniper's rifle on the receptionist's desk near her. "Where's she then? I liked her voice."
"Rick," Daryl whispered again impatiently.
Rick was starting to agree with Daryl that this guy's attitude could be well-improved by some buckshot in his ass. The smugness that "Jesus" exuded was getting on Rick's very last nerve.
"She's on the plane that you just told us isn't gonna get off the ground," Rick answered reluctantly. Despite the overwhelming desire to deck him, Rick couldn't see any other compelling reason to keep Jesus or his compatriots in the dark any longer.
"Well, that's just unfortunate then," Jesus said with a sigh.
"Why?" Rick watched as he and Sgt. Williams exchanged a concerned glance.
"Yo Rick, get your ass over here, man!" Daryl said forcefully, speaking as loudly as he dared.
Startled, Rick strode quickly to Daryl's position at the window and looked out where he was pointing. As promised, the rain had almost entirely subsided and the tarmac was thick with creatures. Hundreds of them. They blocked the entire front of the building and he could see distantly their sheer numbers torpedoed any serious plan to get back to the plane right now.
"...'Cuz, she's gonna be trapped in that tin bird for the foreseeable future," Jesus informed them as if he was breaking bad news.
Rick could feel the bristles of aggravation and impatience traveling up the back of his neck. In a minute, Jesus wasn't just going to have to worry about Daryl.
He was just one more smart-ass remark from Rick beating the everl—
"What the fuck?" Daryl exclaimed suddenly.
Rick wrenched the blinds aside and pulled up the window to look out with his palms on the sill. The bristles turned instantly into a chill running down his spine as Rick saw light flood the cockpit and cabin compartments on their plane as it turned on and the two front propellers slowly began to spin.
"What the hell are they doing?" Sasha asked coming up behind Daryl and echoing Rick's thoughts exactly.