Last one I'm posting for the night. For the most part I'm planning to follow the show's story line-for now at least.
Rick came to not long after the boy's father had used cables to tie his hands to the headboard of the bed he was now on. My hands were still tied with the zip ties and the young boy was nearby, a baseball bat held in his hands. I had sat quietly in a chair by Rick as the man had left the room for a few minutes. When he had come back, he was holding some medical supplies.
"We need to change those bandages," the man said. "How'd you get that wound?" he asked Rick.
"Gunshot," Rick answered, surveying his surroundings and notably relaxing when he saw me beside him.
The man nodded and took off the old bandage, throwing it into a nearby garbage. He poured some alcohol onto the wound to clean it before taping some gauze to his side. When he was finished with Rick, he got up and washed his hands in a bowl of water he'd brought in. He then turned to me.
"I need to look at your head," he told me. "Check on that bandage. What happened to you?"
My brow furrowed as I tried to remember what was written on my chart. "Car accident I think."
"You think?" the man asked skeptically.
Rick was eyeing me curiously now as well.
I hesitated a moment. "When I woke up…I couldn't remember anything. Not even my name. The medical chart in my room said I was in a car accident. That I had a concussion and had been in a coma. I don't remember anything though."
"Nothing at all?" the man asked in surprise.
I shook my head.
"Then it's a damn good thing my son didn't hit you with that shovel or he'd have scrambled your brains up even more."
I didn't know whether to laugh or not at that.
"Let's take a look."
I winced a little as he began unwrapping the gauze from my head. He made a grunt of what sounded like approval when he'd pulled it off.
"Looks mostly healed to me. Don't think you need another bandage. Wouldn't go knocking your head on anything, though."
I nodded quietly in response.
"Now did either of you get bit? Scratched?" the man asked us, glancing between the two of us.
Rick and I exchanged confused looks.
"By what, exactly?" I asked him. "You asked that earlier."
"Them things out there."
"No," both of us answered in reply.
The man reached out a hand towards Rick's forehead, and he flinched away instinctively.
"Hey, just checking," the man said calmly. Once he'd touched Rick's forehead he reached out to mine. He turned to his son and said, "Feels cool. No fever."
He paused for a moment before pulling a knife out of his pocket and flipping it open, pushing it into Rick's face. Rick flinched back from the man again.
"See this knife? How sharp it is? Try anything, and I will kill you with it."
He shot me a serious look as well before cutting Rick's hands loose and then turning to me. I chewed my lip uncomfortably as I watched him cut the zip ties from my wrists.
"Come on out when you're able," the man told us before leaving the room with his son.
When he had left the room, Rick turned to me.
"You okay? Didn't hurt you, did he?"
"No, I'm fine. How's your head?"
Rick reached up and felt a spot on the side of his head, wincing as he did so.
"There's a bump but I should be fine. You think we can trust them?" he asked me.
I stared at the doorway for a moment, contemplating his question.
"Yeah," I said after a moment. "They could have killed us by now. And he did check our injuries and change your bandage."
Rick nodded before sitting upright in the bed, clutching his head when he moved too fast.
"We should go out there, see if they can tell us what's been going on," Rick said, slowly getting to his feet.
I nodded in agreement and followed him out of the room. We found the man and his son in the dining room. It was lit solely by some candles and a lantern. They had set up some plates at the table—four spaces. Clearly he intended to feed us. I suddenly realized just how hungry I was.
"You know Fred and Cindy Drakes?" Rick asked the man as he wandered into the house. "They used to live here."
The man shook his head. "It was empty when we got here."
Rick wandered over to a window that had blankets covering it. He moved to peer outside but the man stopped him.
"Don't do that. They'll see the light. There's more of them out there than usual." He wandered back to the can of food he was heating up. "Should never have fired that gun earlier. Sound draws them. Now they're all over the street."
"You…you shot that man earlier," I pointed out, remembering.
"Man?" he asked, taking the heated can off the fire and looking at me. "That wasn't a man."
Rick suddenly seemed to remember the incident too. "You did. You shot him, out in the street, a man!"
"Friend, you need glasses. That was a walker." He gestured to the chairs next to him and his son. "Come on, sit down before you fall down." He started scooping beans from the can and putting them onto the plates.
Rick and I sat down, hungrily eyeing the food. Before we could inhale it though, the man's son stopped us.
"Dad, blessing."
We were instructed to hold hands at the table while the man spoke a quick blessing over the food. Once he had finished, we quickly began eating. I didn't know when the last time I'd eaten had even been so I felt ravenous, though I tried my best not to show it in my table manners.
"You two don't know what's going on, do you?" the man asked us between bites.
"We both just woke up in the hospital today," Rick told him.
"You know about the dead people though, right?"
"Yeah, piled up out on loading trucks and outside the hospital," Rick answered.
"No, no," the man interrupted. "Not the ones they put down. The ones they didn't. The walkers."
My skin crawled at that name he kept using and I remembered that reanimated corpse in the park.
"That thing you shot?" I piped up.
The man nodded. "If I hadn't done that he'd have tried to eat you. Taken your flesh off with his teeth. Maybe turned you. I guess if this is the first you're hearing of it, I know how it must sound."
"Those things, in the street? They're out there right now?" I asked, panic welling up in my chest.
"Yeah," the man said. "They get more active after dark sometimes, too."
I tried to swallow the lump forming in my throat.
"Long as we stay quiet they'll probably wander off by morning," the man told us. "One thing I do know," he said, setting his spoon down and turning to look us both seriously in the eye. "Don't you get bit. I saw your bandages and that's what we were afraid of. Bites kill you. The fever burns you out. But then after a while…you come back."
"Seen it happen," the young boy said from across the table, catching Rick and mine's attention.
A tension filled the air before the man picked up his spoon again and began eating. The boy didn't say anymore on the matter though and I was starting to suspect who it might have been that he saw turn into one of those walkers.
We finished our meal in silence after. I helped the man clean up the dishes while his son grabbed Rick and I some blankets.
"We'll sleep in this room," the man told us as he led us into the living room
A mattress was already on the floor with some pillows and I assumed that's where he and his son had been sleeping. Gratefully I accepted the blanket and lied on the couch Rick offered to me. He sat down in front of it, deep in thought. The young boy curled up into the blankets on the mattress, his dad soon joining him, before the boy drifted off to sleep. I wished I could fall asleep like him, but after learning the things I had today, and seeing the things I had, I just couldn't bring myself to close my eyes.
"You called out a name earlier," the man spoke up. "Carl. He your son?"
Rick broke out of his thoughts and looked over at the man. "Yeah. He's just a little younger."
"He with his mom?"
Rick paused a moment before responding, "I hope so."
"That gunshot. How'd you get it? You a bank robber?"
Rick grinned a little. "Yeah, that's me, deadliest dillinger." He let out a chuckle before shaking his head. "Sheriff's deputy."
"Ahh," the man said in understanding.
A car alarm suddenly went off and the boy jolted upright.
"Hey," his dad said soothingly, "Just a car alarm. One of them must have bumped into it."
"You sure?" I asked warily.
"Happened once before," the man answered. "Went off for a few minutes. Get the light Dwayne."
His son reached over and turned the lantern off. I followed his lead and turned off the one beside me, leaving us in near dark, though some light snuck past the blankets covering the windows. I watched the two men peer out the window to see what was going on.
"I think we're okay."
"Is that noise going to bring more of them?" Rick asked him.
"Nothing we can do about it now," he answered. "Just have to wait them out til morning."
I watched as Dwayne headed to the window and peered out too. Curious despite the fear threatening to take over, I joined them at the window. There were walkers everywhere and a car down the street was indeed the cause of the noise, its headlights flashing on and off as well.
I heard Dwayne suck in a sudden breath.
"She's here," he said.
"Don't look," his father told him, trying to push him away from the window.
I wasn't sure who they were looking at, but I had a feeling it must have been his mother, the one he had watched turn.
He rushed from the window and threw himself on the mattress, sobbing loudly. His dad followed after him and I felt my heart sink at the sight.
"Shh, come on now, keep quiet," he urged his son.
His sobs didn't stop, though he cried more softly into the pillow his dad had placed in front of him.
When Rick finally sat down again the man spoke up.
"She died in that bed in the other room. She turned and I should…I should have put her down but I just didn't have it in me."
I began to feel that empty part of me again, the part that realized I had no one. I felt bad for the man, but at the same time I felt a little jealous. He had his son still. He had someone. So did Rick. I knew it was a selfish thought, and part of me kept saying how lucky I should feel that I had no one to look for, considering the circumstances, but I felt…empty. Just a shell of a person. I didn't know what my past was. I didn't know who my family or friends were. I didn't know anything about myself, and I wasn't sure I ever would.
Frustrated I sunk into the couch and remained quiet, listening to the boy's sobbing slowly come to a halt as time went on. He must have eventually cried himself to sleep. The entire night I stayed awake, unable to shake the feeling that the walkers on the street would find us if I let my guard down.