So many reviews in one day! Thank you all I really really appreciate it so here is one more chapter today!
Thank you all again, you don't even know how happy your feedback makes me...and yes Daryl is a jackass -.-
thanks for reading!
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She keeps track of the days despite herself. She finds a calendar planner notebook in the office that has the following year in it and she's managed to pin point a rough estimate of the days. In the notes section she keeps a tally of the days since the attack on the prison.
She did, in fact, force herself to go into town immediately the day after...everything happened.
In between her legs still felt worse than when her old boyfriend had raped her but she made herself go anyways. She took her machete but no guns.
She wanted to find something else. Something better. Something like Michonne's sword or...someone's...crossbow. Something that she could use and reuse, something big and effective.
She makes it into the town and there are quite a few walkers. She takes them down angrily but almost happily. She needs the release. She relies on the walkers for this one favor.
Not far into the town she finds a car, and she searches around, looking for a tube she could use to siphon the fuel.
She heads inside a little mom and pop run automotive shop and kills the one walker residing in there. She gets a small rush from it and a greater rush when she finds the goldmine of cigarettes behind the counter. She packs them up in a backpack she finds in the store and then browses theough the aisles until she finds a tube and a screwdriver, and a big red, empty gas can, she takes them outside.
She kills a walker that has come to linger near the car and then she pops open the gas cap of the car and shoves the screwdriver through the protective screen inside the gas tank and sticks the tube down in it, sucks in like a straw and then gags, chokes on the taste of the gasoline before sticking the tube into an empty gas can she had retrieved from the store as well.
She throws up there on the side of the road.
She throws up gas and bile and tea and coffee and more bile and then she almost cries.
Even the memory of throwing up is painful.
She never thought she would miss how queasy being pregnant made her.
She never thought she would miss being pregnant.
She rubs at her still large, distended belly and stifles a sob when there is no kick in reply to her rubbing.
All of the fuel has been filtered out of the car then and she wipes at the few tears that have escaped her eyes and pulls the tube out of the gas can, screws the lid back on it. She checks her watch: 11:37 AM.
She begins jogging towards the road, her belly is still large and feels like it needs support but it no longer feels quite as heavy. It feels like there's not much in there anymore.
She tries not to think about it, she just puts an arm beneath her stomach and continues to jog until she's out of breath and she has a stitch in her side. By that time she's passed the sign that says LeGrange 2 miles and she knows she only has three left to go till she gets to her car. If that. She keeps speed walking with the gas can, until she feels a little light headed and then she stops to drink out of a water bottle from her backpack.
She glances behind her and far, far down the road she can see two walkers. They're not even nearly close enough to worry her though.
How you doin'? Annie says suddenly, emerging from the forest.
Lottie eyes her somewhat suspiciously.
"I'm fine. What the hell were you doing in there?"
Thought I could take a lesson from your piece of shit ex boyfriend and find us a squirrel to eat. Annie winks at her but Lottie just wrinkles her nose, looks away disgusted.
She's more repulsed by the thought of Daryl than the thought of eating a squirrel now.
She starts walking towards the car again and Annie walks along with her.
Might rain soon. She says and Lottie glances up at the sky. It does look rather stormy, clouds are beginning to blanket the sky, making the sky appear nearly silver in coloring.
"Good." Lottie mumbles. "We can collect some more water. And maybe Daryl and Beth will catch a cold and die." she adds fiercely.
Ooh, feisty. I like it when you're angry. You see reason. He was always doing this to you. I don't know what you ever saw in him.
"Neither do I." Lottie growls. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."
They walk in silence the rest of the way to the car and by the time they get there it's nearly 1 and the sky is completely covered in a quilt work of clouds.
Lottie pours the gas into the gas tank of the little prius and then starts up the car. She got a little over half a tank out of that. She's surprised. She sits in the car and stares at the fuel gauge for a while.
She could go back. Try to find Michonne. Rick. Carl.
Michonne.
She sighs softly to herself. She really did like Michonne. She would go so far as to say she loved Michonne. She would have died for her. Maybe she should go back...
Not tonight. Not in the rain. Not without supplies. Not while you're still thinking about you know who.
"I'm only thinking about how much I hate him!" Lottie growls and Annie raises an eyebrow at her disbelievingly.
Love, if you were really thinking like that you wouldn't be thinking about him half as much as you are. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with me. You miss him on some level and its okay.
Lottie glares at the girl in the passenger seat bleakly.
"I just don't understand. I don't think I'll ever understand..." She says quietly. Letting her gaze drift down to her lap, to her bump.
"Why did he do this to me?... Why did he abandon me like this again...Why can't I be like Lori!? Why couldn't I have had my child and left the world feeling like I had done a great god damn thing while not having to ever see a single bad thing come to that child, why did it have to be like THIS!?" She sobs and slams her head against the steering wheel.
I don't know Lottie. Why did I have to die?
Sometimes life just doesn't go the way it should.
Lottie gasps and when she jerks her head up from the steering wheel, Annie is gone.
She sobs again and smacks at the steering wheel.
Fuck everyone. She needs NO ONE.
She puts the car into drive and heads back to her home. She drives straight to the garage and then has to get out of the car to lift the door manually. Once she's parked inside she locks up the car and recloses the garage.
On her way back inside the house she finds a golf club in a bag in the hall closet and she pulls one out, flips it around in her hand and then takes it with her outside. The noise of her car and fumbling around with the gates and garage has attracted a few walkers and she takes her anger out on them.
She's not afraid of them in the slightest anymore.
She's not afraid of dying.
She considers having lunch and when she does it's just tea and cigarettes beneath the peach tree.
She talks to her baby and rubs her stomach like she's still inside her, alive and well and listening to her mother's voice.. She lines small rocks in a heart on top of the dirt mound. She doesn't let herself cry.
After five cigarettes and two cups of tea she puts water in her backpack and takes the golf club and her machete and wanders back into the town, decides to explore some of the other houses.
Maybe she can clear the whole town, block it off. Make the whole thing hers somehow. How hard could it possibly be? There's a little hardware store. A sporting goods store. An animal care store with plenty of chicken wire. She could build fences. She could make it work. She checks her watch. 3:45 PM. She hmms. There's only enough time to clear one before sun down.
She decides to clear the hardware store first, enters quietly, with her golf club at the ready.
She takes down four walkers in the main store with ferocious intensity. She pretends they're Beth and Daryl in turn.
She opens up every door, searches every nook and cranny but cannot find any more of the disgusting cannobal things she hates to much.
After that, she looks for a hammer, nails and fence posts. She finds all three in two aisles right beside each other. She takes what she needs, a hammer, about ten fence posts and two boxes of nails. She heads over to the fencing aisle and finds a chicken wire like material that's much much stronger.
She packs everything but the chicken wire in her backpack and heads over to the front of the town. It's beginning to get dark and she's feeling sprinkles on her skin. She will have to continue this tomorrow. She abandons the supplies in a bush near the front of town, just off thr main road. She starts heading home and the sun is setting rapidly. There are more and more walkers emerging from the woods and she runs home. She sprints and she feels invigorated. The fat raindrops hit her skin and she can feel the cool breeze on her forehead, She holds out her arms as she runs, still holding the golf club in one. She can hear moans in the background, real or not, it doesn't matter. She feels wild, she feels untouchable and free. She runs until she gets home.
The growing number of dead walkers she has tied to the chain link fence surrounding her house is beginning to deter the still somewhat "living" walkers she has noticed.
It's a good thing. She might give it a shot when she builds the fence around town. If it deters them, it's worth a shot. Not like it's going to make it smell anymore than any other town full of walkers.
She smokes more on the balcony and then she falls asleep out there, in the rain. She likes the feel of it on her skin even if by late near midnight her skin begins to feel pretty numb, as numb as the rest of her, she supposes. She already felt numb, she thinks. When she looks down into the darkness of the yard, she can see Annie kneeling by her baby's grave.
She wishes sorely she had thought of a name for her. It feels wrong to just call her the baby, her baby, the dead baby...
She can think of nothing. Nothing that would honor Annie without being Annie, nothing that would honor her mother without being her mother.
Eventually Annie makes her way over to her and tells her to just go for it, anything that comes to mind, and the first thing that does come to mind is "Nadine."
Nadine? Annie asks softly, curiously.
"If I remember correctly, it means hope or hopeful. I was hopeful for her. She was my hope... Nadine."
Nay-Dean. Annie tries it out and then nods with approval that Lottie doesn't need. That's it. That's her baby's name. She will make her a cross tomorrow. Busy day tomorrow. She heads back into her bedroom. Sleep is calling to her. Annie is already curled up in her bed waiting for her and Lottie slips beneath the comforter and falls asleep quickly listening to the rain. Not thinking at all of the man who abandoned her to hide in a trunk with another girl this night.
XX
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The next morning she uses gauze to wrap her messed up knee and then more gauze to wrap around the bottom of her belly to give it support and then she packs her backpack with water and crackers. She puts her machete in its holster on its side and then takes the golf club in hand and jogs down to where she was going to start building the fence. By 3 PM she has a decent fence gating off the entrance to the town, running behind the sides of most of the main stores at the town's entrance and a few of the large houses.
One of the stores is a sporting goods store and she decides she may as well go inside. There's no point in gating off a town and leaving it filled with zombies, that does nothing to help her.
She enters the sporting good store and immediately there are three on her ass. She takes them down with the golf club, smashing their skulls apart with anger and rage that boils up from her skin. She hits them far longer than she needs to without having any idea that somewhere the man who left her is doing the same thing.
She kills four more and then the store is clear and she's free to wander around. To her surprise there actually are a few guns left, although not the top picks she's sure. Two pump action shotguns and a heavy, silverish hand gun. She digs around and finds ammo for both and then to her surprise a few extra clips for her AK and her own much preferred handgun. She takes them all.
She has a decent arsenal now, not that she wants to use guns if she can avoid it.
She leaves the guns in her backpack on the floor and goes to explore the rest of the shop.
She finds a holster that will fit her handgun perfectly and support her slowly declining bump at the same time. It wraps around her waist like an exercise belt and the gun slides into a pocket in the middle.
She puts it on despite having left her handgun at home.
She continues to wander around the store looking for a better sort of weapon but instead she finds a large medical kit. She peeks inside it, finds a large collection of bandages, gauze, rubbing alcohol, aspirin, disinfectant, pain relieving spray, a sewing kit for sutures, a slew of various antibiotics, some of which she can tell are to be used for tetanus, rusty cuts, other things. It clearly belonged to someone in the medical field.
The bag is kind of big, kind of heavy but she takes it, puts it with her other bag and continues to paw through the store.
She wanders past soccer balls that make her think of Carl, wonder how he is, if he made it. She finds more baseball bats and golf clubs and she compares a few of them. She finds a moderately heavy aluminum baseball bat that's bright red and she goes to lay the golf club down with the rest of her things. She might want to hang onto this.
She keeps wandering throughout the store. She finds a setup in the back that used to hold swords, she's sure, but there aren't any left.
She finds a crossbow on the opposing wall and there are quite a few bolts left but she wants nothing to do with it.
If anything, she wants to destroy it.
She spies the employees only door and goes to it, taps it suspiciously. It's keypad encoded but she's willing to give it a try. She can hear movement behind the door, growling, shuffling. She tries at the door handle a few times, knowing full well its locked but sometimes these things will get the hint. She keeps playing with the handle until one of the things on the other side is playing with it back and then she kicks at the door to get it worked up. After a few minutes, it manages to pull the handle down far enough for her to swing it open. She gets to try out her bat.
She abandons the golf club on the sporting goods floor and then goes to search the back rooms once she's pretty sure they're clear. She takes a lantern from the outdoor section with her. The world feels so silent. Her own breathing is too loud.
She finds boxes and boxes of things in the basement. Most of them are labeled and to her surprise she finds a great deal more guns. Semi automatics, more handguns like her own, more ammo for handguns. She wants to take the whole two boxes, honestly. She wonders if she can. She hmms to herself and slides the heavy boxes down from the great metal storage racks and lets them sit on the ground while she continues to check out the rest of the boxes down here.
To her surprise she does find swords. A few of them.
They are each packed into their own long cardboard boxes and she unwraps one to find a beautiful bright red sheath. She pulls the sword out of it it and the handle is also red. The sword is long, thick, heavier than her baseball bat. The label on the box tells her it's made of titanium alloy? She's not sure what it means. She sets it aside and opens another box.
The box claims "Stainless titanium alloy rainbow sword" she unwraps it and finds a black sheath, the price tag on the thing is nearly $500 and she raises an eyebrow at it before pulling the sword out of its home. She gasps. The thing is rainbow to say the very least. It reflects every little ray of light in the room coming from the lantern Lottie is using. It shines different colors in every direction. The thing looks like its made of crystal, rainbow crystal.
It's lighter and slightly shorter than the one in the red sheath had been. Its probably two inches shorter than Michonne's. She takes it, entranced, and sets it on top of the two boxes full of guns. She continues to paw through the boxes in the storage room and she finds more med kits that she doesn't really need at the moment and a lot of tennis rackets and basketballs. She eventually finds a whole rack devoted to shoes and when she looks down at her boots, dirty and tearing at the sides she decides now is as good a time as any.
She peeks inside any box that says hiking boots until she finds a pair of women's hiking boots that will reach halfway up her shin. She tries them on in her size and they fit and they're comfortable but she's annoyed that they don't come any longer than this.
She keeps peeking through the boxes but can't find anything better so she takes them and slings the sword over her shoulder by its sheath.
It takes her a while but she heaves the first box of guns up the stairs back into the staff break room. She listens closely through the door before she reopens it. She can hear shuffling, movement. She waits.
She doesn't hear any voices after a while and so she kicks at the door again and then she hears growling. She sighs in relief.
She far prefers those things to people.
She pulls the beautiful sword out of the sheath and then apologizes to it for what she's about to do with it and then she opens the door, kicks the box of guns in front of it so it won't auto close on her and then kicks the walker as far back as she can. Once its on the floor she approaches it and tries to slice off its head like Michonne used to do. The blade slckkkkks half way through the walkers head and its dead, it goes limp, dragging her sword deep embedded in his skull with it, she has to hold on to it awkwardly and then plant her new boot on the walkers chest and try to pry the sword back out.
It takes minutes of her tugging at the sword, eventually with her boot planted on the walker's face before it comes back out, spraying blood all over her and the walls of the store as it does so. She sighs and sits down. How does Michonne make it look so damn easy?
Annie is laughing at her and calling her a wimp and Lottie leans back on the box of guns and sighs.
"Make yourself useful and go find a wagon or something." She mutters and Annie raises an eyebrow at her.
We passed one on the way in, dummy.
Lottie sighs and heads to the front of the store, grabbing a water bottle out of her bag on the way there. Sure enough there are a bunch of boxed up "Little Red Wagon" sets at the front of the store and so she drags a box back and opens it, pulls the wagon out and loads it up with the two boxes first, then the duffel bag of medical equipment and then the backpack and she straps them all together with paracord.
She keeps her waterbottle in a little space in the front and her baseball bat rides in the other little opening in the front and her sword is slung over her shoulder. She wheels out her findings and trudges them back up to her house.
She gets the chance to practice with her sword five more times before she gets to her house and by the time she gets all the stuff inside her arm feels sore and there's a trail of dead walkers leading to her house, each with a slightly deeper slit across its head.
She smokes and drinks tea until she's down to her last cigarette and then she sighs, knowing she'll have to go back down there.
You could use the exercise. Annie says pointedly, poking at her belly.
Lottie glares at her. Its day 4. She had her baby on Day 1 of being completely alone.
She doesn't want to talk to Annie about how long it will take for her belly to go down realistically. Another two weeks at least, even though it looks like its getting somewhat smaller already.
She packs her backpack with a single water bottle. She reloads her handgun and puts it in her new holster and then slings her sword over her back pack. Her machete is still in the holster on her side.
She makes herself jog back down into the town and then she jogs another block or two away from the main stores she had raided earlier that day until she finds a liquor store. When she opens the door a bell tied to the top rings and three walkers come at her instantly. She punches the first one through the skull with the new sword and it works fabulously. She tries again to cut off the second one's skull and it gets stuck, leaving her vulnerable to the third. She pulls out her machete and finishes it off with that instead.
She wedges her sword out of the second one's head irritably, she wipes it off on the walker's shirt and then sticks it back in its sheath, feeling annoyed.
She wanders around to the cashier's side of the counter and finds plenty of packs of cigarettes. She fills her backpack with six packs of her favorite and then wanders around the store. There are some snack chips and cookies and cakes and things left. Nothing good for her. She's about to leave when the tall bottle of Grey Goose Vodka, still in one of the freezers catches her eye.
"Why the fuck not?" She mumbles to herself and takes it, stows it in her backpack. Annie is grinning at her from the doorway and they jog the mile and a half back to her house together.
That night, although she doesn't know it as she lays on the balcony, a few stray raindrops hitting her forehead every now and then as she chain smokes and drinks vodka straight from the bottle. Two other survivors she knows are also drunk. And "bonding".
'How nice it would be to have another person to share this with, just to talk to.' Lottie thinks and Annie appears on the balcony, lies down and steals the bottle from her. Lottie grins, feeling buzzed.
Do you still miss him?
Lottie frowns, glares at her friend.
"I fucking hate him." She says through her teeth and Annie laughs.
That's not what I asked.
Lottie grins at that. "If I do miss him. And I'm not admitting I do. I have no idea why. Life is like that sometimes. Like missing my dad after he died. Like missing Tom after I got away from him, even after all that he did to me. I don't understand what makes a person miss a person. I don't understand why I feel like I miss everyone, even those who have done me so much wrong, dealt me so much pain. I understand even less why those people never miss me in return...Am I so awful, Annie? Am I so pointless, so boring, so useless? Why has no one ever missed me?... Why has no one ever loved me..." She mumbles out and steals the bottle back from Annie, taking a few burning gulps and lighting another cigarette. Annie watches her looking sad.
Lottie passes the bottle back and Annie takes it gratefully.
I missed you. I still miss you when you're not around. I'm so sorry, Lottie. No one deserves...this... She says quietly looking down from the balcony at the little heart of rocks on top of the mound where Lottie's baby rests.
Lottie gets up at that, cigarette still lit, still in her mouth and wobbles into her bedroom from the balcony, Annie stands up and follows her. She digs through some of the drawers at her desk before checking her side for the machete and then she goes downstairs, out the back door and stands, staring at the tree her daughter is buried beneath. She drags off her cigarette and then chucks it into the wet grass somewhere and then carves Nadine into the tree as deep and carefully as her drunk hands will allow. Then she sits down and stares at it.
After a few minutes she stands back up and carves in smaller, messier letters beneath the name: My beautiful daughter, she was only here long enough to see how ugly the world is.
She feels like crying after that so she lets Annie lead her back into the house, back up the steps and she steals the comforter from her bed, wraps it around her and heads back out to the balcony where she drinks and smokes and stares at the tree.
Maybe she still misses him but her hate for him is growing more than anything else.
And him? He's so wrapped up in the girl he chose over his baby that he's not even thinking about her in this moment. He's not even thinking about Lottie or Nadine or what might have happened, what could have so easily happened.
