November 26, 2010
~*~ RG ~*~
"Rise and shine, pretty boy."
Rick rolls over, taking a minute to remember his overnight visitor. She's got the little table folded down and a pair of the carryout boxes from the community center on it, along with what he hopes is coffee.
"Can't say I don't appreciate breakfast brought to me, but why?"
"It's a thank you for sharing your beer and recliner for the night."
The apartment isn't designed for a full two-person table, so the table actually folds down across the recliner and the other chair folds and stashes away. He fetches his own seat, while she digs in to the apple pancakes she brought.
"You're welcome." He concentrates on the coffee, needing to clear his head from staying awake until one a.m. The clock shows it's seven a.m.
"I know you usually do the early run with your team, but you were sleeping pretty soundly even when Shane knocked."
Well, that explains how she knows he likes apple pancakes.
"What did he have to say?"
"Just said they figured on starting on the addition by eight and Daryl's teams are checking on the status of the herd Terminus reported since there's no sign yet."
And Glenn's teams are out on a Walmart run to the east today, so that puts Abraham off property for a while, maybe all day. Hopefully that's a good thing.
"You busy today?" He doesn't have the first clue how her schedule at the garage runs.
"Nope. No vehicles to check over since no one went out yesterday. Always something to tinker with, but nothing scheduled." She takes a big drink of coffee. "You recruiting help?"
He shrugs. "If you want. Be a small-scale way to see if you want to work on something like that."
"What's this addition about?"
"Scout's place is a literal one room cabin she used on leave from the Marines. Not really a baby friendly place."
"So, they're having a baby too?"
He realizes something got missed in introductions. "Shane's the father of Lori's baby."
"On purpose?"
He chokes on his coffee laughing. "No." He explains the convoluted ties between the baby's four parents... and himself.
"I think I saw a plot like that on a telenovela or two. You really this cool about seeing your ex-wife moving on so soon?"
"At first, not so much. But I can't see it as my ex-wife moving on. I see it as my son's mother being happy and thriving."
"He's a curious kid. Picks up concepts well at the garage when he comes to Jim's classes."
"He'll be there today, on loan from his building crew duty. He'll probably teach me a thing or two, since I've been almost exclusively on run team."
She finishes off the last of her pancakes and looks thoughtful. "Might as well at least come see how it's done, if you think I'll be welcome."
Rick laughs and gathers up their empty food containers. "I promise you that very few building projects turn down extra hands around here "
"I'll take the trash and leave you to get dressed." She flips the table back upright and clips it in place. After he says he'll meet her at the community center in ten minutes tops, she leaves him alone in the apartment.
He scratches at his beard a minute, laughing softly to himself. Shane's going to think he had a wild night, and the irony is that the first time he did stay all night with a woman, sex wasn't involved at all.
Funny part is, it feels just as good as the nights with Sasha and Katherine did.
Sasha was just the once, the former firefighter fantastically energetic, but they both agreed it was fun but not really a second time fun.
There's been several nights with Katherine, but she's got kids to get back to each time and a firm rule against men in her place. But the casual, couple nights a week arrangement works well enough even if he knows she has no long-term interest in a man his age.
Maybe he's reached the point of actually wanting to date again, but a woman hours post breakup is probably not the best choice for that, so he pushes away the spark of interest and goes to get dressed.
~*~ MD ~*~
Merle takes position atop the Eldridge wall facing south. Daryl's teams had found the herd, which for the first time wasn't veering off to the northwest. They worked to thin the numbers from air rifle perches atop the modified buses, even split off close to seventy to follow them northwest and away from the property.
But that still leaves at least three hundred walkers headed toward Homestead. While Merle's put together teams atop the walls made from recycled and reinforced storage containers stacked two high, Scout's got six of her teams outside the walls.
The big military vehicles they collected are proving their worth, thinning the herd even as they lure them toward Homestead instead of away.
"Got them sighted," comes the walkie notice from the end of the fence line closest to the thicket. Carol's voice is strong and confident from her position. She's got one of the female Guardsmen with her along with Sophia and Beth. They'll do well.
Then he can see the big military truck trundling slowly off road. In the carefully rigged back, three shooters are felling walkers with a steady rhythm of air rifle shots. Another truck is to the west, doing the same.
He estimates around two hundred walkers still. Not every walker falls to a headshot from a pellet, so one of each wall team has a regular rifle. When he raises his Remington and fires, it's the signal for the rest to begin.
With new, noisy lures at the wall, the trucks do a U-turn to loop back and work the sides of the herd along with the four other trucks.
Between the eighteen shooters outside the walls and Merle's forty on the wall, it takes under an hour to destroy the threat.
Easy part is done. Now comes the clean-up, because while piling dead walkers in wooded areas away from water sources in towns away from them to allow them to finally decompose and return to the earth, no one wants that near Homestead. Whatever keeps them from rotting away while mobile seems to make them rot away twice as fast after their second death.
This many dead on the ground is all hands-on deck. He orders Carol's and Honey's wall teams to stay in place on watch, and the rest gear up to help load the two semi-trailers that are the least roadworthy. He's just glad they've got plenty of the disposable hazmat suits, because no one wants to decontaminate this many.
They're still careful. Scout's three teams in their heavy military gear flow across the field methodically giving each body on final "head shot" using two-tine hay forks.
Taking them down took less than an hour from the wall. Loading them up takes six hours. Daryl's teams return and act as escorts for the two semi drivers as they take them down to one of the landfills outside Atlanta.
~*~ EP ~*~
Eugene is grubby and tired. They don't stand watch after the decimation of the herd for the full six hours, switching out three hours in. He didn't really mind being conscripted by Honey for her team and neither of the two teenage girls she also snagged seem to care she spent the first ten minutes giving him instructions more than firing the sleek little Ruger.
But once she decided he had it down pat, she stretched out prone and decimated her targets. He finds the Marauder air rifle much less worrisome than the other firearms he's been exposed to, and he finds she was right about the .25 pellets doing the job on most of the walkers. Those that do manage to survive the pellets don't survive the sharpshooters.
As they make their way to grab showers before taking supper duty for the folks who just took the wall watch, he eyes her rifle.
"For security like today, where noise is less of an issue, would you use it more if there was more ammunition?"
"Sure. I know some shooters that loaded their own, but I never got that far into it. Supposed to be better and cheaper if you target shoot a lot. We do collect up gun powder and supplies, but no one's done anything with it yet. And we probably have more ammo than we'll use up since we use the air rifles so much, but it's not an infinite supply."
"Do you think anyone would object to setting up a shop? I am fully certain I can pull it off."
"Have you loaded ammo before?"
He shakes his head. "I have observed the process and was given enough instruction I would feel confident in trying. One of my co-workers was a fanatic about hunting and demonstrated for those of us who attended a holiday party at his house. I found it an interesting process from a scientific viewpoint."
She's mulling over what he said as they reach the space between their buildings. "I'm sure they'll be interested in giving it a try, if we have the right supplies. We can ask Shane tonight."
That's acceptable to him, so he hands her air rifle back to her as they part ways.
"Hey, Eugene?"
He pauses at his door and looks across to where she's got her own open.
"Remind me to get you something issued. Safer if you're armed at home at least in some way and you did damn good today."
She's smiling and doesn't wait for a reply before disappearing.
It's a heady feeling to be contributing in a way that isn't a lie.
~*~ MD ~*~
It's dark when the disposal teams return, sunset well before supper now and everyone cycles through the showers down near the gate.
He meets Daryl there and walks back, while others shuffle the buses over near the warehouses for morning unloading. The younger man is yawning.
"You could've skipped the pick-up run."
"Was right there. Didn't want today to be a total waste on gas."
Merle understands, since everyone has a sense of a deadline where heavy use of the vehicles is concerned. "Glenn's teams made two trips out and back to the Walmart."
"Was kinda wondering today if maybe we should go further out east and north, while we still can. Closer stuff could be hauled in by wagon if needed."
"Can bring it up at council. Got a meeting before supper." He's probably right. Fuel's limited, even of they've stored more than they'll probably use before its lifespan runs out. There are plans to grow biofuel crops, but no one wants to see them as a guarantee for longer trips.
The warehouses are full to bursting right now, with plenty of overflow stored in semi-trailers awaiting more permanent space. Most of it is food, although two of the big steel buildings are non-food products. There's years worth of food, even with their current population. They even traded a truckload of food within months of best by dates to Terminus for help with clearing military sites in Marietta.
But the thing they haven't tackled yet is the large distribution centers that people from those areas have noted. Oliver, the retired truck driver, was a wealth of information on where large-scale warehouses are located. Two are well within range, both grocery. With winter weather unpredictable, Daryl's suggest makes even more sense. The food stores from the Walmart distribution center and the Whole Foods one will make their current stock look like child's play if they stayed intact.
So far, their experience indicates that the larger the building, the less likely it is to be raided, especially with any sort of walker population round. It's a sad testament to just how few people are left anymore. Information stragglers into Terminus brought fits what Homestead's population reports, and Merle's near certain that Homestead is the largest community left in the state of Georgia now, hovering at two hundred souls. Terminus is just over sixty, and the asshole they haven't located yet is head of a similar sized place. His would be larger, maybe, if he wasn't gunning down groups randomly.
Like Scout and Shane, Merle will be far more settled once winter's past and they can make inroads into locating that bastard who sent killers after old folks.
~*~ CP ~*~
Carol only half listens as Hershel reads off the council notices midway through supper. Everyone's tired but strangely energetic. She thinks that being able to successfully take down such a large influx of walkers gives everyone a confidence boost. Granted, there was plenty of warning to be on the lookout for that herd, thanks to their neighbors to the south, but even the inside and outside wall patrols revealed nothing out of the ordinary around any of the properties.
One outside team found a stray pair of walkers, but after checking pockets, they weren't related to the herd that drifted up from the Atlanta area. Just the usual strays down from northern areas.
A lot of their northern safety is due to the two marshals. After they fought their way through Chattanooga, they blocked off the only two bridges left standing after the military evacuations brought a large part of the population north of the river before they blew up Highway 27 and its neighboring bridges. They were more successful in bombing there than Atlanta. They hadn't just used napalm there, and the south side of the river is a virtual wasteland of shattered buildings that Rachel described as looking like something out of a warzone.
Carol supposes that's exactly what it was, in the end. It didn't save them. Those refugee camps fell just like all the others.
The change in run schedules draws attention, and she smothers a laugh as table residents shift almost automatically for all the team leaders to cluster at a table.
Scout's loud "son of a bitch" followed by laughter ends with her high fiving Rosita at the next table.
Merle looks confused, but the rest of the team leaders are laughing and now Jim, Rosita, and all three adult Eldridges both are being drawn into some sort of a debate.
"Any idea what that's all about?" she asks.
He shrugs. "With mechanics drawn in? I'm guessing something about the fuel issue. Runs fall under your need-to-know. Could go have a listen."
It's still hard to remember sometime that she's entitled to join in on meetings like this, if she wants. Normally, Scout's so efficient in reporting to her that she doesn't have to.
So, she wanders down a table and looks at the rapidly scribbled notes taking place.
"A lot of excitement happening down here," she greets Daryl. He's not part of the chatter or notetaking, so she doesn't feel she's interrupting.
"Rosita just reminded Scout of a fuel source. Military uses jet fuel in all diesel applications overseas, so they only have to have one type of fuel," he explains.
"And will it last longer than the regular fuel?"
"From what I'm overhearing, yeah, because it's stored with additives and retested periodically to treat the fuel."
She thinks it over. "And there's that abandoned airbase, just sitting there." They cleared out munitions and other useful supplies, but no one really messed with the airfield itself. They don't even use the helicopter they have here, other than periodic maintenance checks and a couple of small flights from a property twenty miles away to keep it air worthy. It's too attention grabbing.
"Not to mention air strips and raceways. They use jet fuel in race cars."
"And here you worried about fuel, Pookie," she teases. He makes a face at her but she wanders back down to Merle and relays to the information to her curious tablemates.
Hershel looks thoughtful. "Ready to expand your warehouses, Merle?"
Merle chuckles. "Gonna need more space if they keep on at this rate."
"Could we store off-site? Close by, but not actually on the property? It would let your team get ahead on fencing and building." Carol's itching to have a map in her hands, even though she's nearly got it memorized.
"What about the chicken houses? Cleaning them out would be a nasty job if the owners didn't set the birds free," Honey suggests, and her grimace shows she remembers just such a scenario on runs. "Eastons' place got caught between deliveries, so theirs would be clear, and they fenced their property after that coyote problem they started having last year."
"And hidden enough no one would really find it if they weren't looking for it."
"Can't back the semi-trailers in there though. Put some gravel down, unload pallets... could work at least to make it through the winter. Canned goods don't really need another Georgia summer on them. That'd give us time to build on one of the other properties. Four houses, twenty thousand square feet each... probably handle whatever at the two food centers that survived no electricity all summer. Otherwise, we're going to start ending up with a lot of pig food from the heat."
Carol can understand that. They taste test canned goods, just in case. It's not that the food's bad after Georgia's August heat cycle, but the taste is sometimes barely edible. Some of the really unrecoverable ones end up with the pigs or the dogs, so it doesn't go to waste either way. Retrieving as much as they can from the two distribution centers will put them in heated areas for the winter, since freezing's not really that great for canned goods either, and the glass jars would probably end up shattered on some items.
She pulls out her notebook and smiles as she begins to make notes, leaving a week for the fuel trips she knows they're going to want to do first, although one day is set aside for the school equipment run. Then the week after, those two distribution centers are theirs, should they have survived the world ending. The distribution trips might end up overnight ones, which is a different level of planning. She'll have to see what the first teams out there think.
These are the types of problems she likes to have.
~*~ DD ~*~
One of the stores they stopped on the disposal return gained him a lot of knowing smiles when they checked it was clear.
He hides away the rest of the contents of the backpack that Christopher dropped by the cabin, since that's for her birthday.
The honey-based lollipops he gathered are in twelve different flavors for her to try. These she can keep with her through the day, tucked away in pockets. Well, all but the coffee ones. Those he put away for later.
He leaves them in a basket on her side of the bed and goes to help her settle Abby to bed. She's reading to Abby and Carl, chapters of a book about living clay dragons that fascinates the young teenager as much as the girl. Jazz keeps sharing his vast collection with Abby.
They reach the end of a chapter and Abby exchanges a look with Carl. "Could we make clay dragons?" the girl asks.
Daryl looks to Lori. Carving wood and bone, he knows. Clay is not a medium he's ever worked with, unless you count Play-Doh, and he suspects Abby means something more durable.
She thinks it over and nods. "We have clay in the art supplies. We can try it tomorrow afternoon after Carl and I finish the laundry shift."
"Can I help?"
"You certainly can." Lori kisses her forehead. "Especially since your dad has a big run planned."
"I wish I could go on the speedway runs, at least one," Carl says.
Daryl understands the lure. Racing isn't likely to be a sport again at the level it was before, not with motorsports. He wonders idly if Lori would consider a moped for him. She didn't object to him driving the Polaris under Jazz's guidance, and part of his week involves checking on animals at the horse farm, usually paired with Beth.
"Let's see how they go before we decide anything," he cautions. The boy looks to his mother, who smiles in agreement, so he hugs her tightly before giving his goodnights to Abby and Daryl.
Abby demands her own goodnight hugs and kisses, snuggling down in the bottom bunk easily. He still marvels at the progress she's made from nearly mute back to the cheerful child he remembers. Lori leaves the room first, and Daryl raises a finger to indicate a secret to Abby before slipping two of the honey pops on her little nightstand.
"Mama has some?"
"A whole basketful, so no need for you to share, Sunshine."
"She's gonna be real happy."
The gift earns him an extra kiss before he turns off her light and heads for his own room. Lori's perched on the bed with the basket, sorting through them with a bemused smile.
"I don't think I've ever eaten a honey lollipop before, much less a blueberry one."
"You'll have to let me know how tasty they are."
He's tugging his shirt off when he hears the rattle of a wrapper and grins. The actual surprise is on his return to bed, when she crooks a finger at him. The lollipop flavored kiss is now going to be his favorite way to share.
~*~ SW ~*~
Shane stands looking at the addition, which got a lot further underway than he expected with the herd finally appearing. They got all the framing up, so in addition to the foundation already there, he can really start to visualize it. He sees Scout eyeing him from the doorway with a wry smile and flicks off the floodlight to join her inside.
"You look sadder than I do about the place getting bigger."
"Maybe I was being down about not being able to lay in bed and watch you shower anymore."
"Suppose you'll just have to join me in the shower. At least the new one won't make us both have to worry about the showerhead being a concussion risk."
The end decision on the bathroom is that it's being yanked out and replaced, so they'll actually end up with a small bathtub/shower combo much like Daryl and Lori have. It also means they'll be relying on the public showers for a few days or even a week while it's replaced. He's counting himself lucky he'll only be doing tilework, since Merle already offered the plumbing work as part of teaching Sophia and Carl more about it.
"I suppose that is a perk." He teases her into a kiss and aims her back toward the bed. He's tired from a day spent lifting rotting walkers, and he's grateful for both the disposable hazmat suits and the sheets donated to the cause of lifting bodies so no one had to make extended contact with the walkers. But he's not so tired that he's not up for giving her a massage, because she's been favoring that damned left shoulder since they left the disposal site.
She's more than happy to shed clothes and stretch out. He reaches for the coconut oil that helps her scarred skin flex and begins to work it in across all her muscles, remembering the lessons she's given him on how to go about it.
"Tomorrow's the ultrasound," she says drowsily. "Isn't she like the size of a head of lettuce now?"
He laughs softly at the seemingly random thought when he honestly thought she was asleep.
"Yeah, that's what the book says. And that she can smile and open her eyes."
"Daryl says he can hear the heartbeat by ear now."
It might be the one real heartache about the pregnancy, missing things like that. He doesn't think Lori would say no, or Scout would care, but the casual day-to-day of the baby's development is something he and Scout are on the outside of in many ways. But there's only three more months before everyone can participate in the baby's care.
"Cricket says we gotta do infant CPR with her by Christmas." It's a refresher for him and new training for Scout.
She makes a sound he thinks would be laughter if she wasn't so tired and relaxed. "You know half that is so we can watch Christian overnight. She's hinting we can practice."
"Sounds like fun to me, although I don't think he's anything like I remember Carl being as a newborn. Hell, Carl wasn't that sweet even at nine months." Carl was an active kid who hated to sleep with all the passion and tantrums a baby could throw. Christian, on the other hand, regular takes naps on whoever's holding him in the middle of community meals. Part of him hopes a little that the new baby will aim more for that end of the spectrum.
"Cricket didn't like to sleep and neither did Honey. But Jazz, that kid was a pro at napping. Found him asleep half in, half out of his toy box once when he was two. Daryl found him asleep on the potty another time. He just got tired and slept wherever he was."
"That explains one of those pictures on the birthday video." He distinctly remembers a shot of tiny Jazz asleep inside the toy box, all the toys scattered outside except a stuffed Elmo doll. "And how he slept sitting up in the bus aisle on the way up here."
He directs her to roll over so he can work on her shoulders and back. She sprawls under him and loses track of the conversation in a series of sleepy, happy noises that make him smile.
Once she's fully asleep, he places a kiss between her shoulder blades and tugs the blankets over her. He's tired, but not quite sleepy, so he snags a book and settles beside her.
The fact that he spends as much time watching her sleep as reading is one that makes him really content.
