10:05 PM
Atlanta
Dixon was still standing at that rail, looking through his night vision scope now. He was searching for lights, Daryl knew, but wherever this camp was, it must be blinds drawn at night. Daryl rolled over in his sleeping bag and put a hand on Carol's hip. "Hey," he whispered.
Her eyelids fluttered open. "What?" she murmured.
"Still go that baggie of pot?"
"Thought you said you didn't do that shit," she muttered sleepily.
"Not for me. Still got it?"
"It's in my pocket if you want to go fishing."
He slid his hand inside her back left pocket.
"Other one," she murmured.
He squeezed her ass, slid out his hand, and slid it in her other back pocket.
"I meant my side pocket."
"Know. Just wanted to squeeze this cheek, too." He did, and she chuckled. Then he moved his hand around to her side pocket and slipped it inside to fish the baggie out.
"Save some for me," she insisted before rolling over onto her side and going back to sleep.
Daryl got up and walked toward the rail. He'd taken his boots off and was just wearing socks. There was a hole in his big toe, and he could feel the rough, lightly cool cement of the balcony. He'd have to hit the aquarium gift shop for a new pair. "C'mon, kid. We're goin' in for a bit. Top floor ain't too fishy smellin'. And it's got that room with the jellyfish."
"What?" Dixon asked, lowering his rifle.
"Gonna have a smoke. For medicinal purposes." Daryl was hoping it would relax his nephew enough to sleep.
Looking curious, Dixon followed Daryl inside. By the glow of Daryl's flashlight lantern, they walked past the otter display – which was half inside and half on the balcony, across a slightly tilted ramp, and up into an open room with vertical, cylinder-shaped jelly fish tanks. The dead jelly fish floated like grayish pink and white, deflated plastic balloons inside, barely visible through the water's murky discoloration. It didn't stink as much here as in the other rooms. In fact, Daryl hardly noticed the stench at all. Then again, once one grew accustomed to walkers, a lot was tolerable.
"See?" he pointed up at the ceiling, from which glow-in-the-dark jellyfish decorations dangled. "Already psychedelic in here. Ain't even hardly gonna need this." He put down the flashlight lantern on a large, circular, carpeted seat in the middle of the room, beneath several of the glowing jelly fish decorations, and pulled out the baggie of weed.
"Is that pot?" Dixon asked.
"Yep." Daryl opened it, sniffed, put his finger inside, and put a little on his tongue before flicking it off. "Ain't quite stale yet, either. I got some paper we can roll it in." Sometimes he liked to make his own cigarettes from the loose tobacco at Fun Kingdom's tobacco shop, so he had rolling papers in his front shirt pocket.
"You want me to smoke pot?" Dixon asked.
"Ain't what I want, kid. 'S what you need right now."
Dixon laughed. "My mother would kill you if she knew you gave me pot."
"Well, good thing she ain't alive, then."
Dixon shook his head. "I've never done it."
Daryl was already rolling a joint. "First time for everything, kid."
Dixon gritted his teeth. "Except with Beth. If she's dead."
Daryl quickly lit up and handed him the joint. "Inhale."
It took a few puffs, but Dixon began to relax. They were soon lying shoulder to shoulder, sprawled out on their backs across the circular seat, their feet on the floor, gazing up at the jelly fish. Dixon passed him the joint. Daryl pretended to take a hit, but didn't really. He didn't like the stuff. He didn't like feeling not in control of himself. The one exception was when he was having sex with Carol. Losing control then - letting go of it all – losing everything to her - was beautiful.
Daryl passed back the joint. Dixon took another puff, coughed, and then laughed. The teenager lowered the joint between his fingers almost to the bench. "They're beautiful creatures, aren't they?" Dixon gazed up at the fake, glowing jellyfish. "So goddamn beautiful. Like Beth. She's so… Uncle Daryl, man. She's so beautiful. Just sweetness and light and smiles and blue eyes and golden sunsets and I just wanna…" He raised the hand holding the joint and waved it lamely toward the ceiling. "Touch her. I want to touch her."
Dixon stared at his hand for a moment before lowering it again and saying, "Beth likes it. Being touched. But she wasn't ready for sex. That's why I wasn't paying enough attention, you know. She told me after the tire went flat. That after we fixed it, we should just go back to Fun Kingdom. Go fishing together or something. Fish. Blub. Blub. Blub." He took another toke on the joint. "So I was pouting like a little fat-bottomed, diaper-bottomed…" he murmured. "You know what I'm talking about?"
"A baby?" Daryl asked.
"A baby!" Dixon exclaimed and laughed. "Yeah. I was pouting like a little baby while I was cranking off those tire lug nots. Lugs. Why do they call them lugs? What the hell is a lug?" Dixon turned his head. "Uncle Daryl, man, what's a lug?"
""S a lug."
"Oh yeah. Anyway, I wasn't paying attention to the road. Because I was ruminating. You know. Like a cow. That's where it comes from. From a cow chewing it's cud. That's ruminating. Did you know that?"
"Nah. Thought that was called…chewin'."
"It's ruminating. Cows ruminate. And I was ruminating over my misfortune. And Beth turned to talk to me before she got hit by that car from the nowhere vortex. She turned to talk to me instead of watching the road. Because she's sweet. Sweet as molasses. Sweeter than sugar. Sweeter than…a giant...glowing pixie stick. And she was feeling bad about backing out of the sex, and she just…Uncle Daryl….she just wanted me to reassure her, you know? That it didn't matter to me, that I loved her and I'd wait because I love her….but I wasn't looking at her when she talked, because I was ruminating…pouting like that big fat baby diaper baby…. wah-wah-wah….standing there thinking...woe is me. My girlfriend doesn't want to go all the way after all. But I've been so patient! And I've tried to be such a good boyfriend! And she said she wanted to! And it's been over five months! And wah…wah…wah…What an asshole!" He laughed. "I'm a complete 100% full-on asshole. Have you ever heard of such an asshole, Uncle Daryl?"
"Heard of worse. Known worse. Lot worse."
"Do jellyfish have hearts?" Dixon asked suddenly.
"Don't think so."
"They don't have brains either. Whoaaaaa! What kind of thing can live without a heart or a brain?"
"Walkers."
"They have hearts and brains," Dixon said. "They just don't work. Or do they?"
"Dunno."
"I love her. I love her, Uncle Daryl, I love her and the last thing I said to her was - it is what it is."
"It is what it is?" Daryl asked.
"She said, I'm sorry. I just can't quite yet. Not today. There's too much pressure on today. Are you okay if we wait a little more? And I should have said…I love you 'til the cows come home. I love you 'til the moon comes out. I love you 'til the sands of the sea do some…poetic shit that sands of the sea do. But I said…it is what it is."
"It is what it is," Daryl repeated.
"And then I started turning those lug nuts. What the fuck was that? It is what it is?"
"Ain't poetry," Daryl agreed.
Dixon lifted the joint and took another toke before handing it to Daryl. "No, it ain't."
"She knows. Knows you love 'er." Daryl handed the joint back.
"I would have pulled my head out of my ass by the time we got back to Fun Kingdom," Dixon insisted. "I would have. And I would have said the right thing to her, or at least tried to say the right thing. It just…it was right then. It was right then and I was processing."
"Got to process," Daryl agreed.
"Yeah. I was processing. And then that fucking Atlanta PD cop car comes blaring out of nowhere…" He hiccupped. Then he cried. Daryl was pretty sure the kid was crying. "I'm such a shit boyfriend, Uncle Daryl. What the hell's wrong with me?"
"Ain't nothing wrong with you." Daryl reached over, somewhat blindly, his hand slapping down on his nephew's stomach. He patted it. "Ain't a damn thing wrong with you. Not one damn thing at all."
Dixon dragged his sleeve across his eyes, dried them, and took one more hit from the joint. "So fucking beautiful," he murmured at the jelly fish. "Like glowing pixie sticks of hope."
10:30 PM
The Sanctuary
Gavin made another hint that he really needed to be getting to sleep. Jerry finally accepted it this time and stood from the couch where he'd ben guffawing at Police Academy. Dianne had been an easier houseguest.
"I still can't believe you have your own TV and DVD player," Jerry said as he switched them off. "Your digs are really nice."
"Yeah? Tell Frankie next time you see her." Not that Frankie hadn't seen his digs. They hadn't changed much since she'd been here. He'd fixed the wobbly leg on the table, and cleaned out all of Wade's shit, but that was it.
"You sure you don't want me to take the loveseat?" Jerry asked. "I don't want claim your bed."
"You wouldn't fit on this loveseat," Gavin assured him. Even Gavin didn't fit.
Jerry shrugged. "3 AM, right, guard duty out front?"
"Yep. And I've got floor watch. I already set the alarm clock."
"You have an alarm clock?" Jerry asked with a grin. "Old school." He lumbered through the open doorframe of the bedroom and shut the door while Gavin settled himself on the couch.
April 11
7:15 AM Atlanta
The pot had relaxed Dixon enough to sleep. Without it, Daryl thought he might have taken off in the middle of the night in pursuit of Beth. In the morning, though, he was anxious to go, despite a slight grogginess.
While the others packed up what food was left in the aquarium cafeteria and headed back to Fun Kingdom, Dixon and Daryl rode on bicycles to the bridge where Dixon had spied the van with the white cross. The teenager was way ahead of his uncle, and by the time Daryl got there and dropped the bike, Dixon had already climbed inside the back of the precariously positioned van, which hung partway over the bridge's rail. He'd searched the back of it thoroughly and was now climbing between the seats into the front.
Daryl glanced inside the van, which had been converted to an ambulance of sorts, with a gurney in the back. Then he looked cautiously at a pack of walkers making its way around the corner of the curved road leading up to the other side of the bridge. "Careful," he called into the open back of the van. "Ain't stable. And hurry. We got company comin'."
Daryl loaded and cocked his crossbow and aimed it toward the oncoming walkers as Dixon sat down in the front driver's seat of the van and lowered the sun visor to check the papers lodged behind it. Daryl looked back as the van creaked and shifted slightly forward. "Get out!" he called. "Ain't stable!"
Dixon ignored him and reached over to open the glove compartment. The van creaked again as Daryl let an arrow fly into the head of the nearest approaching walker. He frantically struggled to reload, swiveled his bow up, shot again, and then shouldered it to draw both his knives, one in each hand. "Gonna need some help out here!" he yelled.
"Grady Memorial!" Dixon yelled back. "I found a notepad and a pen with the name on it. They must be at Grady Memorial!"
Daryl glanced into the van as Dixon began to crawl back between the two seats. The van shifted and tilted forward by its nose. "Shit!" Daryl cursed as Dixon slammed back against the dashboard. The van tilted again, and Dixon, not having enough time to make it between the seats and past the gurney and all the way out the back of the van, simply sat himself down hard in the passenger's side and buckled up.
"Fuck!" Daryl cried as the van slid off the bridge with Dixon inside. He couldn't stop it. He couldn't even watch it to see what happened, because the first four walkers in the pack had broken ahead and were already upon him. He stabbed two at once, thrusting his arms outward in two directions, as he heard the van thudding on the street below and the glass cracking, splintering, and scattering. He jerked his knives out, pivoted, and stabbed two more walkers at once.
He looked back and saw the gaping hole in the ripped railing where the van had once lodged. He stepped forward to stare down at the street below, to see if his nephew was dead or alive. He couldn't tell, but the van was at least on its tires instead of its hood. By some miracle, it had landed upright.
The hissing of walkers turned him back again. There were six coming at him now, and they were close, far too close. He swiveled and dodged, and two kept lunging forward. They stumbled off the bridge, hitting the top of the van with a loud thud thud. Daryl stabbed two more, thrusting both knives into two squishy skulls at once, and as he jerked them out again, blood spewing to the ground, he thought for sure he was dead. There were too many of them, and only one of him.
He anticipated the nearest walker sinking its teeth into his arm, but instead its head snapped forward, and it collapsed on the bridge. Another walker near him went down suddenly, and then he strode forward to stab another one.
The pack kept coming toward him, but there were six more gunshots as more walkers fell, one by one. Then the figure who had shot them, an African-American teenage boy, was dry firing as the pack turned back in his direction.
Daryl swung his crossbow off his back and used his feet to load a bolt as the kid, rifle empty, began to run away. Daryl aimed and sent a bolt soaring through the back of the head of the walker closest to the fleeing teenager. As he was struggling to reload, the walkers began to drop, one by one, as someone opened fire, pointing upward, from the street below.
By the time he reloaded and shot, Daryl was taking down the second-to-last standing walker. Then the last walker dropped, joining the litter of decayed bodies across the bridge. The African-American teenager stopped running. He bent forward, hands on his knees, and panted, as Daryl walked toward him.
The teenager stood, his empty rifle on his shoulder, and walked to the rail of the bridge to look down at who had been shooting from below.
"Hands up!" came a voice from the street below. "Where I can see them!"
That was Dixon's voice, Daryl thought with relief. His nephew was alive. As the teenager on the bridge raised both his hands, Daryl let out a relieved laugh.