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Chapter Twenty-Five: Words
**Daryl**
"How bad are they?"
Daryl had been staring up at the blackening sky for a few minutes as Michonne siphoned some diesel from an overturned truck.
"What?" He demanded.
Fay shifted on his feet beside him. "The twisters you get here. How bad are they?"
"It's not the Midwest," Daryl said, still eyeing the sky. "We don't get big mothers or anything, but…I dunno, this heat, no storm to break it, could be bad enough if we're caught out here."
"Should we head for cover or…?"
"Nah, worst we might get by evening, some heavy winds and maybe finally a crack or two of lightening."
Michonne moved up beside him as Fay wandered off a ways to inspect the overturned truck, her eyes on the sky as well.
"We may not have bad twisters," she said. "But given the right conditions, anything's possible. Maybe we should head for home?"
"Quarry wouldn't be any better, Atlanta's closer, twister ain't never been there."
"We can't go into Atlanta without back-up," she argued.
"Well, one thing we can be sure of, it won't hit till the evening, so…we have some time. Pray for a good storm."
"I'm not the type."
"Fuck it, let's head onwards then, need more diesel than that." He began marching down the highway again, tugging the gas jug with him. He took only three steps, before the wind began to pick up, bringing with it a harder rain and Daryl stopped, searching the sky for signs of a funnel cloud.
He couldn't see anything, but the winds died as the rain began to pelt them hard.
"Better find some shelter!" Michonne shouted over the rain.
"Where?!" Fay shouted back. "Haven't passed a place in miles!"
This couldn't be a tornado, Daryl figured, they usually came in the evening and it was still the middle of the day, but the winds picked up again suddenly, gusting hard, blowing rain in his eyes.
"Come on!" Daryl ordered, spying a white building further down the road, just beyond a hill. "Let's keep moving!"
They picked up the pace, jogging through the rain and sporadic wind, heading towards the little white building just over the rise of the highway.
By the time they reached the peak of the hill, the wind was gusting hard, almost taking their breath away, the wind was plastering their clothes to their bodies, making it feel like they were swimming through quicksand instead of walking through the rain and the wind.
Reaching the little building, which turned out to be a Baptist roadside church, they circled it, hoping for a cellar and finding the door for one at the side.
Daryl kicked the lock in, putting a hole in the doors and struggled to get them open in the wind, ushering Michonne, then Fay inside, before ducking down and in himself and securing the doors behind him.
Down a flight of stairs, they found a door to their right and opened it, stepping into what looked like a nursery full of toys, paintings of children with Jesus and an old upright.
Shaking the rain off their clothing, they stripped down as much as they could to dry off better, hanging their clothes over the tiny table and chairs in the middle of the room.
In the near dark, Daryl listened to the winds howling outside the building and hoped to God it wasn't a freak twister.
Stripping his shirt off completely, Fay handed everyone a blanket as he began to dry himself with one of his own, purloined from a cabinet against the south wall.
Michonne draped hers over her head and cocooned herself in it completely.
Daryl scowled at the two of them, so easily stripped down when he had to wear his goddamned soaked shirt.
"Bourrasque," Fay murmured, moving carefully to a nearby narrow basement window and peering out.
"What?"
"Down on the bayou we had a thing called a bourrasque, it's ah…" he searched for the English word. "Squall? Heavy wind, rain, can push over an old building like a child's toy if it's strong enough."
As the wind continued to rage outside, the rain slamming into the church, Daryl eased his ass down on the lush, soft carpet of the kiddie area and shook the rain out of his hair with a hand.
Fay plunked his ass down at the piano, his blanket draped lightly over his bare shoulders.
As Michonne hopped onto the stool at Fay's side the Cajun began to idly plink away at the keys of the piano, as though testing the tune.
"So, we just wait it out?" She asked.
"You can go out in that if you want, I ain't drowning for diesel," Daryl griped.
Suddenly the Cajun began to play coherent music on the piano, idly moving his hands over the keys like some kind of idiot savant.
Daryl and Michonne exchanged a look.
"Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band," he began to sing over the sounds of the wind and rain. "Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man. Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand. And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand."
"Shut that shit up," Daryl snapped.
The easy plinking turned hard and fast. "Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, down the bayou. Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou. My Yvonne, the sweetest one, me oh, my oh. Son of a gun, we'll have big fun on the bayou."
"I'm trying to listen to the storm, asshole!" Daryl growled.
The piano turned soft and light again, the Cajun playing In The Sweet By and By off the sheet music in front of him, background noise to the outside squall.
"I didn't know you were so talented, Lieutenant," Michonne said.
"You don't come away from the bayou without learning some kind of musical instrument, cher," he said. "There's a land that is fairer than day, and by faith we can see it afar; for the Father waits over the way to prepare us a dwelling place there."
"In the sweet by and by," Michonne picked up softly with a smile, "we shall meet on that beautiful shore. In the sweet by and by, we shall meet—" She broke off as something heavy hit the wall of the church overhead and everyone stood up.
Making their way carefully towards the back wall, the three of them pressed against it as more things skittered and thumped against the church.
"See?" Daryl growled. "God had enough of your damned caterwauling."
"He just doesn't like to be upstaged," Fay shot back as something heavy cracked into the church.
The floor above their heads actually sagged and bowed in the corner by the stairs and the three of them pressed further back against the wall in fear of the whole place collapsing.
"Maybe you should take that back," Michonne suggested calmly.
"Never," Fay stated.
There was another heavy thump and the floor sagged some more, this time the door they had come in through got smashed inwards under the weight of the collapsing floor above it.
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**Carol**
"We should get moving," she suggested, eyeing Merle and Cash who were standing together, peeking up the skirt of a mannequin to settle the bet whether or not she had drawers on.
"Fine by me," Merle said. "This trip fizzled out fast."
"Grace and I are going to change before we head out," she added. "I think this habit idea was silly of me."
"I seemed like a solid idea at the time, honey," Grace assured her.
"But I'm eating my words now," Carol said with a smile. "It's so hot, I don't know how you cope."
"We learn to adjust," Grace said. "They are good for modesty."
"And flying," Cash added. "In this wind you'd sail clear to the Arctic in them."
"I'll go get our change of clothes, Carol," Grace offered, gripping Cash's wrist as he went to lift the mannequin's skirt again. "Behave yourself."
"She's smooth as a river stone down there, anyways," he argued.
Carol moved to the window for the fifth time since being in the shop and watched Grace struggle with the wind in order to get to their truck.
"Maybe I should go help her," Merle said. "That wind isn't pretty today."
"She could blow away," Cash repeated with a grin, moving to stand beside Carol with his hands in his pockets. "Ooh, hold that skirt down, girl," he suggested to Grace through the glass.
As Merle opened the dress shop door, a huge gust of wind came up and knocked him flat, the door actually snapping off the hinges and flying off down the rain slicked street.
Outside, Grace held on tightly to the tailgate of the truck to avoid being blown off her feet, her veil tearing off and flying away into the rain.
"Jesus," Cash muttered. "That wind. Is it a twister?"
"Get away from the window," Carol ordered moving to the door to help Merle up. "Get behind the counter," she added.
Cash ignored her, moving to help Merle up as well. They pulled him off the sidewalk and into the shop as the wind really picked up.
"Grace!" Carol shouted into the fury.
Inside the shop dresses were blown off the walls as a bench from the town park slammed through the window.
Hanging onto the doorframe, Carol tried to risk the wind to get to Grace who was having a hell of a time clutching to the end of the truck, but she knew she couldn't get outside without flying off herself.
Grace was just there, out of reach and before Carol could duck back into the shop to look for something to toss out to her, something came up on the wind and slammed hard into Grace, knocking her loose from the back of the truck, carrying her off down the street head over ass.
Carol's blood froze, when she realized it was a body, a form of someone, a walker that came in on the wind and knocked Grace loose.
And they were both tumbling in a freefall down the street, carried on the heavy wind.
"Oh Jesus, no," Carol uttered.
"Was that a walker?" Merle demanded, still stunned from being knocked down with the wind. "What the fuck was that?"
Only Cash reacted, leaping out into the wind and allowing it to half carry him, half skittering on his own feet down the street after Grace.
Everything disappeared in the grey mists of the heavy rain and Carol didn't know what to do, her hand fell to her stomach protectively and for a moment she felt cowardly for not having done more.
"Come on," Merle shouted over the wind. "Get behind the counter!"
Numbly, Carol allowed Merle to manhandle her right behind the counter, tucking her down safely and covering her with his body against the crap the wind was blowing around the shop.
She slipped her two hands over her stomach protectively and bowed her head against the fury of the storm.
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**Little Missy**
"No! I'm not coming down!"
"Annie," Mr. Mamet tried to coax her down from the mezzanine where she had climbed to escape everything. "Come on, just…come down."
"No!"
It had been nearly midday and neither one of her adoptive parents had come back and Annie was beginning to feel that familiar fear of being left behind creep into her blood, seizing her muscles.
Her first instinct was to climb high and kick at anyone who came to claim her down from where she perched with her legs thrust between the balustrade of the overhang, hands clinging tightly to the top of it, little face poking out between as well, looking down at those gathered below her on the church floor.
"Annie, this is not the time," Mr. Rick shouted up at her. "You have to come down now!"
Her little shoe fell off and nearly smacked Beth in the head.
"You can't make me!" Annie screamed, shrieked at everyone below. "Leave me alone!"
"Annie, they'll be back, come on down, please?" Mary Agnes said.
"No!" She screamed loud and long.
Everyone was gone, her Uncle Daryl and Merle, Carol, her mommy and daddy, everyone. Even Mrs. Douglas and St. James were gone, and they both listened to her.
No one was coming back. They left her like her daddy did, they just left her behind.
"Annie?" Rick tried again.
"Shut up!" She wailed and kicked her other shoe at him.
He ducked it and looked up at her with a lowered brow. "Annie, we have more important things to worry about right now, come down."
Spying Herschel coming into the church, Annie stuck her hand out to him and shouted, "Herschel! Herschel! They left me!"
The old man hobbled over to stand under her, reaching up as high as he could to graze her fingertips with his.
"You don't want to stay up there all day, do you, pumpkin?" He asked her.
She sobbed and shook her head.
"Do you want me to come up there?" He asked.
"No." She lied stubbornly.
"I'm going to come up, okay?"
"No," she protested, sobbing harder. She didn't know why she didn't want him coming up to be with her, she just didn't.
As he moved for the stairs, she screamed and scrambled to get up from the balustrade, backing up against a tall angel statue that stood behind her.
"No!" She screamed and began climbing the statue, trying to scramble up to sit on the top of his shoulder, trying to get higher and away from everyone.
"Annie," Rick warned her. "Don't get up there. You have to calm down!"
Herschel stopped climbing the stairs and backed off, but it was too late, Annie was climbing high on the seven foot tall statue, clinging hard to its head to avoid falling forward off the mezzanine or backwards out the stained glass window, but the statue wobbled on its base and before anyone below could react, Annie was screaming, falling backwards through the stained glass, the angel statue falling out after her.
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DarylDixon'sLover - Indeed.
Merle's Right Hand - Mother Nature is the ultimate bitch. She loves kicking a man in the ball's when he's down.
Yazzy x - I love Michonne, but like Glenn, I can't work them in often enough. Maybe when I'm done this series I'll write a Glenncentric fic that stars Michonne. ^_^
Fairies Masquerade - I hope that image of Cash and Merle with flowers in their hair sticks with you for the rest of your life. ^_^
Lilone1776 - I agree with you. If both stopped being so miserable, I think Merle/Cash could be a serious bromance.
vickih - I'm not Christian either, but there is a sort of beautiful poetry to the bible and the psalms in particular, isn't there?
Brazen Hussy - Thank you, my dear! I was utterly shocked, but couldn't be more grateful. ^_^
Surplus Imagination - Are you from Georgia? I only ask, because when I was doing research, I found out that Atlanta is on the top ten list for tornado prone places in the US. I've never been, so I was merely going on research. I have heard conflicting stories about the types of twisters they get down there, with scientists and meteorologists saying they get them and people who live there saying they don't. I wasn't sure. I'm inclined to take your word for it. Maybe it's a case of right place and the wrong time? ^_^
itsi3 - We don't get many twisters up North here either, we had one a few years back that happened at night, which I'm told is rare. And it was a frightening thing.
Guest (who I'm assuming is Happy Blue Ink who forgot to sign in) - Dude, sign in. Don't be lazy. ^_^