This is unheard of for me publishing two chapters at once TRIGGER ALERT. They will be raiding a nursing home and putting many of the turned patients out of their misery. My feeling is that I would want someone to give me mercy if I ended up a brainless cannibalistic monster. There is definitely dark humor and plenty of cussing. Skya is like that though. Potty mouth most of the time. other notes. If an o2 tank is dropped it can become a rocket, we have to handle them carefully. They are heavy and have to be turned with a lever with just the right seal otherwise it will squeal until your ears hurt. If you stack them in a wheel chair you may flip the whole thing over because they can be tippy. Also disclaimer modern nurses carts are designed a lot better than these and Nurses have to be very vigilant about them, this is much easier than it would actually be for fiction sake. This nursing home was privately owned and operated and the locks were not run by electricity. Otherwise the girls would have been SOL
Cat toys for Corpses
Mountain Winds a tiny nursing home an hour north of the prison
Michonne.
We get out of the car after I pull around and back it up precariously to the exit. I gesture at Skya to remind her to be silent. She rolls her eyes at me and nods. She had described to me while we were waiting and watching that many nursing homes were set up in a "T" pattern with nurses' stations on both ends and the main nurses' station in the middle with med room to supply all of the nurses' carts. She stated that the hard thing might be finding the lever to pop the cart open.
I loosen my sword in my scabbard taking point gesturing with my free hand for her to remain behind. I sidle up to the building tapping on the window gently with my hand looking at Skya's face while listening. I watch her eyes narrow in concentration and she shakes her head as she hears nothing and gestures with her hand asking if I was ready to continue. She gathers some rocks putting them in her pockets. I raise my eyebrow questioning her and she motions with her hand as though throwing. Ah to use as distraction! I shrug and nod. Skya smiles gesturing with her chin that we should move forward again.
True to her word there are indeed two hallways with large rooms at each end which seem to be dining areas. We silently look in the window at the left side of the building with its dining lounge and I see that the door had been closed and barred from the hallway. Several corpses are bumbling around shambling aimlessly; while others are crawling away from upended wheelchairs their useless legs tailing behind. Skya scratches on the glass to draw them away from the hall side of the room she pulls a strip of cloth from her pocket tying the rock around one end and the other on the upper doorstop which causes it to hang like a pendulum. Then she sets it in motion first tapping the window with it to attract their attention. Great. A cat toy for the geriatric dead. I tap her on the shoulder after she is finished setting up her little distraction. We listen for any activity near the center of the building then we head to the right side of the building scoping out activity in the patients' rooms. I let Skya silently slide by me and continue up to the other lounge setting up a similar distraction, she nudges me on her way past as I cover with my katana and gun.
At the far end of the building closer to the car, she finds a door with a code lock and she tries several variation of codes, thankfully not run on electric but one the old fashioned button locks. I see her press several sequences huffing under her breath with frustration. Click. Open sesame. She flourishes the door open for me as I cover her. I slide my blade free and use the point to raise her firearm to a more useful position shaking my head and mumbling "dumbass" under my breath. She is indeed but doesn't seem as green as I would have predicted.
Skya stops in the hallway considering the inside as our eyes adjust to the midmorning light filtering through the dancing dust motes. It smells like an unearthed tomb in here. I can see corpses jumbled in our path, partially eaten immobile but not fully dead. I slip the point of my blade into their skulls as their decaying heads allow the intrusion finally quieting their aimlessly working jaws and wind milling arms. The hallways littered with papers, clothing and supplies as the loved ones tried to extract the patients or the workers tried to escape before disaster struck. I see wheelchairs tipped over some with an inhabitant some without. Gore painted the walls in a Van Gogh art show before dribbling into a trail down the hall, a siren call of carrion. I hear shifting movement and growls echoing down the hallway but thankfully . . .
"Gnarly" she says sotto voce, as I tap her on the shoulder putting my finger to my mouth as to say silence you dumb bitch. She shrugs in the low light and nods me forward still covering her. She looks behind the nurses' station, quietly digging in the drawers, no cart in sight.
"Not here. Bloody fucking hell" she slips into a closet nearby comes out with a stack of linens scooping a pillowcase off the top. Points to door number two and disappears nodding at me. I crouch behind the counter my muscles shaking as I peer over the edge keeping myself out of sight while Skya raids the closet. I hear subtle bumps and clicks as she moves supplies and fills her pillow case with whatever she thinks Hershel will find useful. The door pops open too hard bumping back against wall "THUD"
In the quiet of the abandoned nursing home it sounds as if a dog got its head stuck in a garbage can while digging for food. The door bumps loudly twice and all of the corpses rise to attention growling in unison. Fortunately many of them are stuck in wheelchairs some tied down with a sheet after the world popped open like a bloated corpse. Others are dragging themselves forward toward the racket the stupid green bitch made. She drops her bag full of stuff, rolling her neck pulling her hatchet and knife out ready to face some stinking corpses. The first one snarls at her and she raises her hatchet over her head bringing it down in a too hard arc burying it too far into the old lady's head. It gets stuck Skya nearly not getting it free before the next one is on top of her. I stab a little bent man through his eye as he collapses like a spent balloon. She turns to the corpse on her right abandoning her hatchet momentarily to deliver a strong uppercut burying the hilt of her dagger in the mushy lower jaw; simultaneously killing the brain as the motion drags him forward revealing the Swiss cheese of rotten buttocks as the useless hospital gown flaps apart. Skya smirks at me as she finally recovers both of her weapons wiping them on the hospital gown of her most recent "patient". She stands back up stretching her shoulders putting her weapons back in her belt pointing down the darker hallway. She caught my hand and mouthed "sorry". I just raised my eyebrow and trudged forward my sword raised and ready to back her up or alternately poke her in the ass if she does anymore stupid shit.
We walk down the hallway as quietly as we can readying ourselves for the horde of unhygienic cannibalistic grandparents. She pushes over wheelchairs as I note many of the corpses were tied to their chairs and I file this fact away to be horrified at later. Again too fucking noisy. I shush her but it's far too late for the inexperienced dumbass to grow a brain and the noise alerts the corpses trapped in nearby rooms as the thudding against the doors escalate. Fortunately the doors are heavy fireproof doors that the stupid corpses can't figure out how to open. I stab corpse after corpse as we make our way down to the next nurses' station, gore beginning to run down my blade like a river of congealed tar, the blackened goo coating the walls and my pants. My shoulders beginning to feel the burn as the sweat drips off my nose, washing the spatter of gore onto my shirt. Skya has a look of intense concentration on her face as she begins to get into a rhythm, hacking with her right slicing with her left, her duct tape covered sleeves adding protection if not mobility, surprisingly keeping up well with me, her long reach proving to be an asset. Together we put down seven more corpses, several immobilized by wheelchairs or dragging themselves but a few ambling around vacant as a beach in winter.
Skya
Well damn. We finally get to the nurses' station I'm just hoping they have a med room because if I can't find the key this is going to be fucking catastrophic. I find that it isn't as hard as I thought to put down people that could have been my patients in another life. They just don't remind me of people anymore and none of them would want to be cannibalistic corpses anyway. I hack and slice my way down the hallway kicking over wheelchairs, to immobilize them. I note that many are tied to their chairs by a sheet. Fairly immobile but still I don't need to lose a leg like Hershel from a corpse sneaking up on me and hamstringing me while I'm concentrating on improving my breaking and entering skills. I look for the nurses' cart and bingo it's there and so is the nurse. What isn't good is that it's in a corner with the nurse snarling at me from the floor where he was disemboweled, innards spread like grey burst noodles oozing out the most disagreeable of juices. The other point not in our favor is that this particular nurse would have been better suited to a career as a bouncer or as a professional wrestler.
As his hands grab at me uncoordinatedly I block his reach with my foot planted squarely on his closer arm, his hand scrabbling around my laces. His tag said RN. "Rob P. Carrey. My naughty little brain comes up with "Rob Apothecary" and I start to snort too loudly and shake with the gallows humor that is never too far away. I feel a poke in my butt and I jump back right into Michonne's freaking sword. Fuck. I just cut myself. So much for stealthy. I put my hand over the wound glare the evilest of wishes in her direction as I show her the red flower opening on my ass. And get back to the business of killing the man-mountain's brain. Thwack thwack goes my hatchet. Splatter replies his brain. I superimpose Michonne's face.
I mouth "fucking dumbass" at her and get down to business as I find the lever and pop the cart open. I pull oven my backpack and shove the wealth of creams and meds into it. I take it all not taking time to read each one. I even find a medicine reference book and grey's anatomy book in there too. I add batteries, blood pressure cuff and several scissors for dressings. It's a goldmine, and somehow I'm on Santa's nice list because if feels like Christmas for Hershel and me. And I got keys for everything now. I pull Michonne into the med room with me. And I'm breathing hard as my heart pounds like a drum erupting out of my ass.
"What the hell Michonne why did you stab me? Look at my ass I'm fucking bleeding because of you" I watch as she notes my freely bleeding rear end she shakes her braided head.
"I didn't ask you to back up into me. Besides I thought you were going to pull more of the noisy horseshit like you did down the hallway. What the hell were you laughing at anyway?" She cocks her head at me regarding me as a hawk would a mouse narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms.
"Hey I didn't open your veins making you smell like a blood borne buffet for the withered carnivorous blue-haired corpses out there" I'm pulling a package of gauze and tape open handing it to her roughly as I tug down my pants setting aside my hatchet and knife.
"Skya?" Michonne asks "You have the whitest ass I've seen in a while and I think you're glowing in the dark" She smiles her teeth very white contrasting her dark skin.
"Fuck off. You still stabbed me you idiot. Just tear some gauze off here is a pair of scissors, rip some tape off. Cloth tape is easy. Then tape the top so the blood doesn't come through. Damn that fucking hurts "I hiss through my teeth as she dresses my wound as I steady myself on all fours my naked butt shining like the stereotypical moon. My breathing slowing as the pressure slows down the bleeding and the throbbing of my pin cushioned ass.
"Gimme your damn bag. Watch out for me again. I shove the bag full of dressings and tape, nasal cannulas and I find a butt load of protein shakes. "Holy shit Michonne we need a wheelchair for this". She walks to the door putting down a walker corpse that was waiting, tipping a fatter one out of her wheelchair stabbing her through her soft head.
"Here it is, load up" Michonne growls pushing the chair toward me scanning the gloomy hallway for movement"
5 minutes later we are careening down the hall with two backpacks, one wheelchair full of health shakes and another wheelchair full of oxygen tanks ready to load up the car.
I screech to a halt. As we reach the end of the hallway a small group of corpses saunter out from the end of the corridor. I look around trying to find the source of the rest of the corpses having already put down the ones we encountered on the way up the hallway. I can't stop fast enough because of the weight of the chair full of oxygen tanks.
Moving to the side of the wheelchair as it careens ahead of me I pitch forward over the chair fighting to prevent the w/c from capsizing bellowing "Shiiiiit" and landing full force on my left wrist as the tanks begin to fall on the floor, feeling something tear loose deep inside my elbow. Oxygen tanks have been known to take a wall out on occasion, a dropped oxygen tank if it hits the wrong way and discharges can become a missile. The fire of pain percolates up my forearm from my outer elbow and I hiss through my teeth as I sit amid the wreckage of strewn oxygen tanks the corpses ambling over to me because I'm no doubt smelling like bloody steak tartar.
I begin to crawl to my feet, pulling a tank up into my armpit; luckily its' key is attached. I open it right into the face of the first corpse to reach me as and I roll it away from me in the wheelchair as it splits the relative silence with an earsplitting shriek on its way down the hallway the corpses becoming distracted.
"That's right butt muncher have some fresh fucking air "I finally have removed my hatchet from its place in my belt. And bury it with all my frustration to the hilt in his skull as I crawl unsteadily to my feet, pain making me slower than I usually am. I follow that up with a spin to my left and kicking the corpse away again burying my hatchet into his face. Now I know why Merle swears at the corpses as he kills them through the fence. It helps a lot with the pain.
"Come-on you dirty old man, you would make a maggot blow chunks you miserable old fucker" as I poke a deep hole into his brain. I love my hatchets. I slow to a stop as the pain starts making me sick and I'm unable to lift my left hand and wrist. Michonne comes up behind me breaking into my fugue.
"Skya" she calls quietly putting her hands on my shoulders, gently squeezing me, her dredlocks dusting my shoulders "Just stop. I got the rest, I got em. It's time to go".
I shake my head to clear my mind from my intense corpse killing focus, noting the gore dripping from my body and hair, the sharp pain in my wrist and elbow.
I watch as she tips a corpse out of a different wheelchair, so we can still carry these oxygen tanks back to the prison.
I keep a look out as she begins to load the oxygen tanks into the wheelchair. I turn my head to make sure no other surprises are lurking in our direction. I hear the increased noise behind the closed doors of the rooms, being that the metal of the oxygen tanks striking the floor during my graceful parabola to the ground was not so much of a quiet event. I make sure I have a viable tank key and gauge. I nod when she gets them all loaded again.
"Shit girl I've never seen anything like that tank right in his face" Michonne regards me, quirking a smile in my direction
"Just the inspiration of pure desperation. Still, I hate to waste a tank like that though" I smirked as I admitted "That and I hate to lose"
We finally roll by the first nurses' station to pick up the pillowcases and I realize that I see the cart tucked away in a corner that we didn't earlier see . " .wait" let me get the meds out of this one too. I look around the desk making sure there are no remaining ill timed surprises. I uneventfully find the lever and pop open and raid the cart, finding another huge assortment of meds, nursing tape, sterile dressings. I tuck my injured wrist into my waistband and fill two more pillowcases and stack them on top of Michonne's wheelchair.
"Okay let's get the hell out of here. I don't think we can fit anymore and I don't think I can drive like this; not today anyway. I might have fucked up my arm when I fell." I hold the door open with my ass as she scoots the laden wheelchairs through and up to the car. I show her how to secure the tanks in the trunk. Packing linens around them to prevent them from shifting. I throw the bags of meds gently into the back seat followed by the massive amounts of hygiene supplies and bandages. Michonne packs box after box of the nutrition shakes into the bottom of the car followed by the tubing and IV bags with needles. To my mind an unimaginable gold mine. We gently close the car doors and we pile into our respective seats sighing in relief as we prepare for the hour long trip back to the prison. We will no doubt have to explain ourselves to Rick and Merle; who also will be pissed off at the two of us going it alone with little planning relying on my knowledge of nursing homes and Michonne's aptitude for stealth and Ninja skills.
She sighs as she gets settled for the drive back stretching her shoulders rolling her head, channeling feline energy, regarding me silently but thoughtfully. "Hum. Not bad Skya, Not bad. I think we can pair up again. You've more to you than I thought. I loved how you used the oxygen tank to herd the dumbass walkers. You have a brain rattling around in there. She flashed a rare but stunning smile for once reaching to her eyes.
"Louise"
I looked at her questioningly not understanding, she regarded me with a mischievous glint.
"I'm Louise your Thelma. And Im sorry I stabbed you in the ass. If I were in that movie I wouldn't total such a sweet car and I would do more than stab the hunk in the ass".
I can't believe she has such a dry sense of humor so much like mine. "I wouldn't have put up with that idiotic abusive husband If I were Thelma. I would have driven to Canada and been less of a scatterbrain. Humm maybe we need a different movie that one doesn't seem to fit." I regard her out of the corner of my eye.
"We could rewrite it and make it our own. Make Louise a Badass kendo artist lawyer and Thelma a smart-ass axe throwing therapist who will pin you to the wall if you try to take the easy way out. We would screw all the hotties. Kick ass and sleep in on Saturday". Michonne chuckles deeply pleased with her take on the movie.
"Ooh I know practical magic. I liked that one even better than Thelma and Louise". I start humming the theme song. One of my all time favorite movies. "They Kill the demon; beat a love spell with a nicer love spell. Drink margaritas, have lots of sex, dance naked, garden. Live in Massachusetts. Have a huge Halloween party on Samhain, what's not to love? They can still be Ninja Lawyers and axe wielding smart ass therapists"
Michonne just repeats that throaty laugh of hers smiling at me as my lids grew heavy, the pain in my arm and butt making me drowsy. The next thing I knew Merle and Daryl were opening the gates for us. Merle coming to my side of the car with a thunderous expression but worry glimmering from his eyes.
"What the hell girl. Dumb shit ya coulda got yerself killed. Whoa. Ya got enough loot to fill a whale's asshole" Merle snarled at both of us thrusting his square jaw forward contentiously
I woke half way up and and stretched raising my left hand just noticing the massive swelling in the knuckles and wrist, I reach through the window with my right to pat his graying beard and caressed his cheek thinking Shit that swelled up fast.
"Merle you're so sweet you're worried. Really I am okay. Im just tired. Look at all the supplies we found" I saw the red coloration flooding his pale pasty skin a sure sign of him experiencing anger or protectiveness probably even he doesn't know (or wanting to admit) which
"Damn Freckles what ya done gone and did to yerself. Hey Michonne what y'all doing with her out there she ain't ready. Ya let her get hurt. Wha the HELL"!
I stop kidding him and lower my voice. "Stop it Merle. I was out there with two kids by myself for nearly a year before I met you with only a city girl's knowledge and my ability to learn quickly. Yet I survived and was able to learn A LOT on my own. Don't make the mistake in thinking that just because I've never lived in the wild that I'm helpless on a run. Yes I hurt my arm, but it wasn't Michonne's fault, blame the oxygen tank. I already sparred with it and it won" I then flipped over and went back to sleep.
Michonne's shoulders shaking was the last thing I saw before I passed back out followed by Merles frustrated grumble "Y'all a pair of smartasses, you deserve each other! Hell come get me when she wakes. She looks worse than a dog that just puked and ate it."