Heads Up: This story will include both new material and reworked material from another story that has been removed from the archives ("Where the Light Enters"). I am cannibalizing that old fanfic to write an original novel (stealing back my own OCs and some plotlines and scenes). Some of what I know I'm not going to be using of that old fanfic in the novel, I have re-worked and re-set into this fanfic.
This will primarily be a Caryl story. Shane and Andrea are a ship in it, but they aren't a focus. Other charters appearing will be Rick/Lori, T-Dog, Carl, Glenn, and Sophia.
The story assumes cannon through the end of Season 1 and then goes AU.
Daryl roared down the highway on Merle's old chopper. He always took the lead in the caravan these days because it was easiest for him to stop, swerve, and turn if they hit a herd or some other blockage. He was the early warning system that gave everyone else time to adjust. He'd suggested the arrangement after they lost Dale. As he glided down the mostly open highway, a warm summer wind whipping through the short strands of his hair, he mentally reviewed the timeline of the last several days.
It had been ten days since the CDC exploded. They escaped that death chamber by the skin of their teeth. They only got out because Carol happened to have a hand grenade in her purse. Daryl had heard of the mythical mother's purse, how its depths housed everything that could possibly be needed when it was needed – tissues for a runny nose, bandaids for a skinned knee, a brush for tangled hair, sanitizers for dirty hands, pens for doodling, a snack in times of hunger – but a hand grenade, well, that was a new one on him. He called it the mythical mother's purse because he'd never witnessed such a purse himself. All his mother's purse ever seemed to contain was cigarettes, a lighter, a flask, keys, and, on a really good day, $5 in cash.
It had been nine days since they'd returned to that nursing home to camp out for the night, only to find everyone slaughtered execution style. Andrea had made fun of him for using the word observant, like he was some kind of backwoods hick, which, well, he was, but that didn't mean he couldn't read. He guessed she was still depressed over her sister's death. Yeah, well, he'd had a sibling too, and he'd been a hell of a lot closer to Merle than a once-a-year road trip back from college. Maybe he and Merle didn't get each other little mermaid pendant necklaces for their birthdays, but that didn't mean he was just fine with Merle being gone. But he didn't make fun of people because of it. Well, except when they deserved it.
It had been eight days since Dale, who was driving the RV at the head of the caravan, had turned a blind bend in the road and suddenly run into a herd. Thank God Carol and the girl and Lori and Rick and Glenn had all been in the church van with T-Dog. Someone had stunk up the RV pretty awful – either by dropping some rotting food in some crevice somewhere or farting up a storm, and no one wanted to accompany Dale. Andrea had been in the jeep with Shane. Carl had been with Daryl in his pickup, with Merle's old chopper strapped to the bed. The boy had asked Daryl if he could ride shotgun with him. He'd taken a liking to Daryl for reasons Daryl did not understand. Lori, who always seemed smugly suspicious of him, had protested, but Rick had insisted she allow the boy.
The RV was surrounded almost instantly when it rounded that bend. Shane, who was next in line in the caravan, spun the jeep quickly around and hit the accelerator hard, almost running straight into Daryl's pick-up. Daryl swerved, jerked the steering wheel to make a 180, and smacked against several walkers in the process. T-Dog similarly escaped, knocking down a few more walkers like bowling pins when he made his sudden U-turn, and then running over more like speed bumps.
They'd had to leave that poor Henry-Fonda-hat-wearing bastard to be consumed. There was just no saving him. After that, Daryl took the lead on the motorcycle, and Rick drove Daryl's old beater pick-up truck after him, with Glenn riding shotgun. The women and children were ensconced safely in the van, while Shane took up the rear in his jeep. If anyone was getting picked off from in front, it might as well be the redneck asshole with no one to mourn him, and if anyone was getting picked off from behind, it might as well be the asshole cop who had fucked his best friend's wife. Not that Daryl was supposed to know about that, but, well, it had been kind of obvious to anyone who didn't have his head up his ass. Of course, most of the people at that quarry camp had indeed had their heads up their asses, "as far as they could fit them," as Merle would have said.
It had been seven days since they had momentarily lost Sophia. They'd stopped to siphon off some gas when a herd had started roaming their way, and they had to hide under cars to avoid them. Sophia fled some walkers over a guard rail and down into a creek, and Rick went after her. Then, in his infinite wisdom, he hid her in an alcove in the bank beneath the roots of a tree and just fucking left her there while he drew off a couple of walkers.
Two. Two fucking walkers.
He could have just stabbed those ugly bastards with a sharp, broken off tree branch or brained them to death with a rock. Hell, that's what Daryl would have done. Actually, Daryl would have shot them with his crossbow or stabbed them with one of his two hunting knives, because he didn't run around in a goddamn apocalypse with no weapon at all but a loud-ass revolver. But barring that, he would have found another way to kill them that didn't involve leaving an eleven-year-old girl alone under a tree. In fact, Rick did eventually brain one with a big rock. But only after he'd left Sophia a quarter mile behind. Alone.
The girl got scared of course, just sitting around waiting to be some walker's appetizer, backed into a corner, with nowhere to run but forward. So, she crawled out of that hole and tried to get back to her mama. But then there came another three walkers after her, so she'd had to turn around and scurry up the bank to flee them.
The kid had, as luck would have it, found a treehouse some other kids had built in the forest before everything went to shit. She climbed the wooden rungs nailed to the tree and hid out up there. The walker couldn't climb up after her.
After the herd passed on the highway, Daryl spent two hours tracking her. He found Sophia up that tree, terrified of the grasping walkers below. He killed them all and brought her back to her mother.
Carol was grateful. She'd thrown herself at Daryl and hugged him until he'd said, "All right, already" and pulled her arms off his neck. He couldn't remember the last time a woman had hugged him. His mother, maybe, when he was little, before she passed out with her box wine on the end table and a cigarette in her mouth and brought the whole damn cabin down with her.
It hadn't felt bad, Carol's hug. It had just felt strange.
It had been six days since they'd arrived at Fort Benning, only to find it mostly cleared out. The soldiers had run off with the tanks and the armored cars and most of the guns and ammunition and MREs, though the group had managed to scavenge a handful of things, including some ammunition, survival supplies, eighty gallons of storage water in twenty-gallon drums, and two large cardboard boxes full of MREs. They stayed for two nights, feasting on the MREs. Andrea got some kind of "I'm going to be a badass" bug and asked Shane to teach her to target shoot with a rifle. She flirted with him shamelessly like she didn't know he was in the bag for Lori. Shane responded like he wasn't just trying to make Lori jealous. Daryl argued that they couldn't stay long in some place without a source of fresh water nearby, so they moved on.
It had been four days since they'd looted that pharmacy, and Lori had taken a pregnancy test and then tried to pass the baby off as Rick's. She'd succeeded. Or at least, Rick had pretended to believe it. But Daryl had a feeling this baby was going to be premature.
It had been three days since the jeep got a flat tire and Daryl had suggested, instead of changing it, just leave it. They had to conserve gas, and it wasn't like you could store much in the thing. Besides, Shane looked like an overgrown putz of a frat boy in a Barbie jeep. Shane had reluctantly joined Rick in Daryl's old pick-up truck, which now took up the rear of the caravan, with Daryl in front on the motorcycle, and everyone else in T-Dog's van.
It had been two days since Lori had asked Shane and Rick, "Do either of you have any kind of a plan? Where are we going? I can't be running from place to place eight months from now, when I'll be about to pop."
It had been one day since Carl had suggested they go to Fun Kingdom Amusement Park. Sophia enthusiastically seconded the motion, saying, "I've been there once! Two years ago. It was the only time we ever took a family vacation." Hey, at least she got one, Daryl thought. "It would make a great camp!"
Lori immediately shot the kids down, saying, "This is not fun time."
Carl protested, "But listen, Mom. Remember how it was temporarily closed when things started to go bad? Because of that woman who fell out of that roller coaster? So that means there won't have been any people in it."
"There will hardly be any walkers!" Sophia agreed.
"It's out in the middle of nowhere off the highway, way back in the trees," Carl continued, "so there will be plenty of forest for Daryl to hunt in. It's already got an iron fence all around it to keep out any walkers at night. It has that little fishing pond, where you can feed the ducks, and that lake by the Ferris wheel."
"It also has a freshwater creek that flows under the bridge that leads to the King Racer Coaster," Sophia added. "That stream goes through a tunnel under the fence to more fresh water somewhere I'd guess."
"And since they thought they were going to reopen soon," Carl said, "there's probably still lots of snacks in all those little stores throughout the park and maybe even canned food in the restaurants."
"And they had all those First Aid stations spread throughout the park," Sophia added, "so we'll have medicine and bandages and stuff."
Shane laughed. "It's actually a really good idea, kid." He reached out and ruffled Carl's hair, which caused Rick to frown slightly, as though he was irritated Shane hadn't let him compliment his son first.
"Yeah, it's a great idea, Carl," Rick agreed. "Good thinking. All in favor of checking out Fun Kingdom and seeing if we can make a decent camp there?"
Shane held up his hand. "I could seriously use some cotton candy."
Carl laughed, Shane smiled back at him, and Rick frowned slightly.
"And I could use a beer," T-Dog said. "I bet they have lots of cans and bottles of it. That place had that beer garden. At least, that's what they called it. There wasn't actually anything on tap. It was all cans and bottles. I used to take the kids from the church youth group there every year in the van."
"To the beer garden?" Glenn asked.
"No, to the amusement park! I just…" T-Dog shook his head back and forth "may have paused to imbibe while I left them to supervise themselves. The kids were junior high school age. They didn't need me breathing down their necks. They already had the youth pastor doing that."
"Well, I think it's a great idea," Carol said.
"I'm in," Glenn agreed.
"Long as I can leave and go hunt," Daryl said. "And maybe the place ain't been badly looted. People were hitting Walmarts at the start. Might not of thought of an amusement park in the middle of the woods."
"Andrea?" Rick asked.
Andrea shrugged. "It doesn't much matter to me where we choose to sit around and wait to die."
"Please," Lori told her. "I know you lost your sister. And Dale. But do you have to be so negative in front of the children?"
"I don't know. Do you have to be such a bitch in front of them?"
Rick's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open slightly. Shane suppressed a chuckle and looked away from the group so it wouldn't be noticed. Maybe he hadn't been trying to make Lori jealous with all that flirting with Andrea, Daryl thought. Maybe he was over Lori's bullshit.
Lori made that face of hers, where her eyes rolled, and her mouth opened halfway, and this sort of derisive fuck-you, breath-like laugh came out of her throat and nose. By then, Andrea was walking back to the van. "Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine!" Lori shouted after her.
Andrea raised a fist in the air and shouted, "Fun Kingdom or bust!"
And now? Now it had been about fives minutes since they'd seen the billboard that read "Just 55 miles to your fantasy of fun!" with a picture of the entryway castle to Fun Kingdom.
What a dumbass slogan, Daryl thought. And then he picked up a little speed, murmuring to himself, Fun Kingdom or bust.
