January 22, 2011
"The council will meet in an hour," Milton said, "and assuming they approve this agreement," he tapped the legal pad, "I'll have the soldiers load up your goods and take yours before you leave in the morning. Enjoy your stay at Woodbury, ladies."
Andrea walked Carol and Michonne out of Milton Mamet's office after the trade negotiations were complete and closed the door, leaving him to his paperwork. "You can have the second bedroom on the right upstairs," Andrea told Michonne.
"I thought I'd be on the couch," Michonne said. "I don't want to kick you out of your room."
Andrea smiled. "You won't be kicking me out of my room. I don't sleep in that room anymore."
"Sleeping with the boss now?" Michonne asked.
Andrea shrugged.
"That moved quickly," Carol observed.
"Not as quickly as you and Daryl. I still can't believe you're getting married."
"You'll be at the wedding?" Carol asked.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Andrea assured her.
Carol left Andrea and Michonne talking in the living room of Milton and Andrea's townhouse and went to find Daryl, who was meeting with Sherriff Chamber. She found him in an old lawyer's office – on top of which was the two-bedroom apartment where Tara lived with her girlfriend Alisha, her sister Lilly, and her niece Meghan. The sign outside still read Law Offices of in gold letters, but the name of the lawyer who once worked there had been covered up by a handwritten sign that read "Sheriff's Department."
Daryl was sitting across a desk from Tara. Carol came and stood beside Daryl's chair and tapped the arm. "Find out anything?"
"We're waiting for Deputy Grimes to check the CB logs," Tara told her.
As if on cue, Rick walked through the door and shut it behind himself. A space heater glowed red in the corner not far from where he leaned back against the wall, a hand resting on the butt of his revolver. "No one used that CB after Patrick that day. Not for another three hours."
"Well, he's not necessarily going to put his name on the log," Carol reasoned. "If he's got ill intentions."
"No," Rick agreed, "but I talked to Patrick, and he didn't see anyone come in after he got off the radio that day. Daryl said that man came on just a minute or two after Patrick signed off. There's no way he could have done that so quickly without Patrick seeing him come into the radio room."
"What did he sound like?" Tara asked.
"Not Southern," Daryl answered. "Kind of a generic accent. Like he's not from 'round here originally."
"Midwestern?" Rick asked. "That's pretty generic."
"Or east coast metropolitan," Tara suggested. "Like around D.C. You can't really place people from there."
"Deep voice?" Rick asked.
"Not deep, exactly," Daryl replied. "But a grown ass man. And smug. Sounded like a pig in shit."
Tara shook her head. "Well, I don't know what to say. Given what Rick just told me, I don't think it's possible that man was calling from Woodbury."
"But he knew her call sign," Carol said. "And that she played Dungeons and Dragons. And he said he was from Rome. From here."
"He could have been from Terminus," Tara suggested.
"And he was pretending to be from Rome?" Carol speculated. "To get her to talk? Or to hide his intentions? Or…what?"
"I don't know, but we're going for the monthly trade trip soon," Tara replied. "I'll investigate when I'm there."
"Maybe he was listening in from somewhere else completely," Rick suggested. "A camp we don't know about. That's why we talk in code, after all, in case anyone is listening in."
"What's the range of these radios?" Tara asked.
"Long," Rick told her. "Up to six hundred miles, ideally, but…usually you aren't going to get more than a couple hundred out of them."
"That could explain why he's never tried to call back," Carol said. "Or succeeded in calling back, anyway. Distance and interference."
"Well, like I said, I'll sniff around Terminus," Tara assured them. "In the meantime I'd just remind everyone to stick to the code, in case this guy is listening in." She pushed back her chair. "And now, if you'll forgive me, I have to go help my sister and niece move out of our apartment. She's gotten engaged to Paul. He's one of the soldiers in the Woodbury Army. I guess Alisha and I are going to have both bedrooms to ourselves now."
Rick took over Tara's desk, and Daryl and Carol strolled back toward Rick and Lori's townhouse where they would once again be staying in the nursery for the night. Sophia was already there with Carl. As they walked, they passed Joecyln, who asked, "Did Michonne come with you?" Carol told her she was at Andrea's, and Joecyln smiled and hurried in that direction. Then they passed Sasha and Bob cleaning rifles on a picnic table and laughing together. They paused to inquire after Sasha, and she said she was healed up.
"She even went on a run with us the day before yesterday," said Bob, smiling at Sasha.
"Find anything good?" Carol asked.
"We found the last of the Wolves and eliminated them," Sasha told her.
"Rosita got a minor cut from a knife," Bob said. "And Abraham bruised his knuckles. But, other than that…miraculously, no injuries."
"Thought y'all already found the last of the Wolves," Daryl said.
"We thought so, too," Bob replied. "But this time, we're sure of it."
"Yeah? And how can you be sure?" Daryl asked.
Bob and Sasha exchanged glances and then Sasha began to tell their story.
The Woodbury Army made it a point of looting food pantries or food drive collection boxes in churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples, because at the start of the apocalypse, people had mostly thought of smashing the windows of grocery stores. That's how they had found Patrick's group – in a small synagogue, down to their last month of food and last ten gallons of fresh water, after having lost three people on supply runs and three to the ordinary flu. They'd brought all four of the survivors back to Woodbury – Patrick, Rabbi Joshua Kaufman and his wife Amira, and a mechanic named Julio.
Two days ago, the army went to the mosque in search of a halal food pantry Rosita had found advertised in an old Sunday flyer floating about Woodbury's cafe. They found six Wolves attacking and massacring the camp of twelve people. The army killed all but one of the Wolves, but by then it was too late for most of the camp. The only survivors were a little orphan girl named Molly – the Wolves had been trying to abduct her into the pack to raise her up as one of their own – and Dr. Caleb Subramanian, "but we just call him Dr. S," Sasha said. "The Wolf we kept alive...Abraham…interviewed…him."
"Interviewed?" Daryl asked. "That how he bruised his knuckles?"
Sasha nodded. The Wolf, she said, started begging for his life. He swore he had never wanted to be a part of the pack, that he was just trying to survive. He begged the army to take him into their camp and told them that the Wolves were planning to migrate soon, to move north to Richmond, Virginia, and that they would no longer be a threat.
"Wolves don't migrate except to follow prey animals," Daryl said.
"Yeah, well, I think they decided the prey animals around here are a little to tough for their taste," Sasha replied.
Abraham, Sasha told them, promised the Wolf that the Army would show him mercy and take him into their camp if he led them back to his own camp, his real camp, not the two temporary ones the army had previously come across.
The Wolf did.
"They had a den," Bob said. "An actual den."
The Wolves' den was located in Case Cave in Cloudland State Park. Before the collapse, people used to go repelling into that cave, though the Wolves used the steel emergency ladder to get in and out. The Woodbury Army, however, wasn't risking going down one at a time on that ladder. They got equipment from the park rental store and repelled down all at once, except for the two soldiers covering up top. Sasha was one of those covering because her leg was not yet quite strong enough for repelling.
Once down in the cavern, the Army lit up that cave with torches and flashlights, and when the Wolves came running at them with bared teeth and knives and machetes, they took every last one of them out. Abraham and Rosita led the army on to clear all three miles of the cave. They killed twenty-two Wolves total.
"We didn't leave one alive," Bob said, "except a baby. It had been laid in a nest of some kind in a crook in the cavern. We took the cub. About six months old."
"We don't even know if it was one of theirs or one they stole to raise up," Sasha said.
"And the Wolf that led you back?" Daryl asked. "The one Abraham said he'd take in?"
"Abraham shot him," Sasha answered. "We couldn't take the chance he'd start slitting people's throats in their sleep."
Daryl nodded.
"Well, if you found the den," Carol said, "I think we can finally rest easy that they're gone. And if they were headed to Richmond, Virginia, you've just spared any camps there."
Carol and Daryl walked on. They had to step quickly off the sidewalk when they reached Rosita's townhouse because she was chucking a suitcase out the window. The suitcase hit the sidewalk and burst open, scattering men's clothes.
Abraham was standing at the bottom of the three stairs, hands out, looking up at her, miffed. "Calm your tits!" Abraham yelled up. "You said we could still be friends!"
"We can be friends!" Rosita shouted back. "We just can't be roommates anymore! Find someplace else to sleep, asshole!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I made that crack about musical beds just because you hopped from Alex's bed to Oscar's bed."
"It's not your business anymore whose bed I hop to or from!" Rosita shouted back. "I think maybe you're just pissed off I figured out you aren't the last man on earth. Now you can get the rest of your shit tomorrow!" Rosita slammed the window shut.
Abraham sighed and began collecting the clothes, shoving them back in the suitcase. He lifted it, tucked it under his arm to keep it closed, and asked Daryl and Carol, "What are you looking at?"
January 23, 2011
When they returned from Woodbury the next day, Sophia opened the door of the House of the Future and gasped. "Puppies!" she cried and ran toward the bear skin rug where Daisy lay nursing five little black and brown pups.
"Don't touch them!" Hershel warned. "They were just born last night." He was sitting in the armchair reading the Bible. "Go wash your hands first. Then wait for them to be finished nursing. Then only one or two minutes, tops."
Sophia ran for the bathroom and the water wooshed on.
"Where's Max?" Carol asked.
"Out with Dixon. He's trying to train him to sniff out rabbit burrows, I believe. And Max will be staying in Beth and Patricia room for the next fifteen days. Just until Daisy's less protective of her pups."
"Aren't they adorable?" Carol asked Daryl. "Babies are so adorable."
"Wrinkly little fuckers," Daryl replied and strolled on to the bedroom, swinging his crossbow from off his shoulder.
January 25, 2011
Carol was packing the leftovers from dinner, Glenn was doing the dishes, and Daryl was playing Dungeons and Dragons with Dixon, Sophia, Mika, and Luke (who only half understood the game) in the living room when the CB crackled. "This is the Sheriff of Nottingham. Come in."
Carol closed the fridge, went over and picked up the CB, and asked Tara, "Find out anything from Paris? Over." That was their code name for Terminus.
"No evidence they used the radio at all that day," Tara replied. "I think we're talking about an outsider listening in. Be especially cautious with your use of the radio from now on. Our council voted that it can't be used as a telephone anymore. No chatting. Official business only. Sorry. Over and out."
"No!" Sophia cried from the living room. "I can't talk to Carl or Patrick at all anymore?"
"Still seem 'em twice a month," Daryl reassured her. He pointed to the dice before her. "Your roll."
Sophia sighed heavily, scooped up her dice, and rattled them angrily in her hands.