Chapter 45
Carol, Daryl, Sasha, Glenn, and Hershel were talking in the library. "Patrick was fine yesterday. And he died overnight. Two people died that quick?" Carol said. "We're going to have to separate everyone who's been exposed." she said. "That's everyone in that cell block. All of us. Maybe more." Daryl said.
"We do know that this sickness can be lethal. We don't know how easily it spreads. Is there anyone else that's showing symptoms that we know of?" Hershel asked. "We can't just wait and see. There's children here. It's not just the illness, people die they become a threat." Carol said.
"What about Adrian?" Glenn asked. "Caleb checked her out a little while ago. Said she's a little malnourished and dehydrated but he thinks she'll be fine. Besides, whatever it is she has, I doubt it's the same thing. Patrick and Charlie died overnight. Adrian's been sick for a week now." Daryl said.
The counsel decided to move everyone who had been exposed to A block when they heard coughing coming from the hallway. Everyone went out into the hallway to see Tyreese and Karren, who was coughing. After telling Karren that she had to be separated from everyone she told them that someone else had been coughing as well. It was decided that until A block could be set up that Karren and David would stay in some empty cells in the tombs.
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When Adrian woke up a few hours later she was feeling just as tired as when she went to sleep. It also seemed like she had missed a lot in the few hours she was asleep. A block had been decided as the new quarantine area for anyone who was showing symptoms of the illness that had killed Patrick and Charlie.
While Daryl had been out burying the dead from D block part of the fence had started to give under the weight of the walkers, Rick had fed what was left of the pigs to the walkers in order to both get rid of the pigs and distract the walkers while the fence could be mended, but worst of all, Karren and David, who had been isolated to the tombs, had been killed and their bodies burned.
Adrian decided to go find Caleb so see if he had any idea what it was that she had come down with. She had been told she could find him in A block with all of the survivors from the attack in D block. She entered the secure cell block and found him checking on a man who looked to be dead.
"Is it the same thing that killed the others?" she asked him. Caleb looked up at Adrian, surprised to find her there. She looked just as pale as when he had seen her last. Then she turned her head and coughed. "You have it too." Caleb said. "The coughing just started but I heard that all sick people had to report to A block." she said.
"So now that I'm here, what am I supposed to do?" she asked. "Find a bunk. Everyone gets their own." he told her. "Aye aye, Captain." she said as she went in search of an empty cell.
Shortly after Caleb started showing signs of the sickness as well. Pale, sweating, and coughing. Shortly after that Sasha came in looking just as bad as everyone else.
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Then they received the bad news from Sasha. An emergency counsel meeting was called. Daryl had tried to find Adrian to check on her and let her know about the emergency meeting but he couldn't find her and didn't have time to search for her either.
"It's spread. Everyone who survived the attack in cell block D, Sasha, Caleb, and now others." Hershel said. Hershel, Glenn, Carol, and Daryl were sitting at the table while Michonne was leaning against a bookshelf.
"So what are we going to do?" Carol asked. "Well first things first, A block is isolation. We keep all of the sick people there like we tried to do with David and Karren." Hershel said. "What the hell we gonna do about that anyway?" Daryl asked referring to the murder of two of their own.
"Rick's gonna look into it. Try to build a timeline. In the mean time, what are we going to do to stop this?" Carol asked. "There is no stopping it. Once you get it you just have to ride it out." Hershel said. "But it just kills you." Michonne said. "The illness doesn't, the symptoms do. We need antibiotics." Hershel told them.
"We've been through every pharmacy nearby. And then some." Daryl said.
"That veterinary college at West Peachtree Tech, that may be one place people didn't think of to raid for medication. The drugs for the animals there are the same we need." Hershel told Daryl. "That's 50 miles. Too big a risk before. Ain't now. I'll take a group out. Best not to waste anymore time." Daryl said getting up.
"I'm in." Michonne said. "You haven't been exposed. Daryl has. If you get in a car with him you would be exposed too." Hershel told her. "He's already given me fleas." Michonne said. Hershel laughed. "I can lead the way. I know where everything's kept." Hershel told Daryl. Daryl looked at him a little uncomfortable.
"When we're out there, it's always the same. Sooner or later we gotta run." Daryl told Hershel. "I can draw you a map." Hershel told him. Hershel also suggested separating the most vulnerable people from the rest of the group until Daryl and the group returned from their run. Everyone agreed. As the counsel members started to scatter to do what they needed to do Hershel called out to Daryl.
"I've got something to tell you and you're not going to like it." Hershel said. "Alright." Daryl said a little wary. "It's Adrian." Hershel said. "I tried to find her earlier but couldn't. Is she okay?" Daryl asked. Hershel's silence to the question was too long for Daryl. "Hershel." Daryl said. "She's in quarantine. She checked herself into A block. She was already in there when Sasha went in to see Caleb." he told Daryl.
Daryl didn't like that news at all. "You can visit her if you want. You can't go inside A block but there's a place you can go if you want to see her before you leave." Hershel told him. "Yeah. I'll go check in on her first then get everything ready." Daryl said following Hershel out of the library.
Adrian was standing in front of the window when Daryl showed up. She was dressed in a pair of light blue ratty jeans, a red tank top, and her hair was braided down her back. Other than being dressed, she looked exactly the same as when Daryl had left her before the meeting. "So what, you just decided to put yourself in there without tellin' me? That's pretty shitty Adrian." Daryl said, frustrated that she was in there.
"It's where I belong Daryl. I'm sick. I was sick before the outbreak of this virus." she told him. "You don't belong in there. Whatever it is you got, it ain't what everybody else's got." he said as he started pacing. Adrian leaned over to grab the bar just under the window and gave a powerful cough. When she stood back up she looked Daryl in the eye, who had stopped pacing.
"I started coughing about an hour or so ago. Whatever I had before wasn't this but I have it now." she told him. His face didn't give away much but she could tell from his eyes that he was distraught. "Hey." she said walking up the the window and pressing her hand against the cool glass. Daryl copied her movement from his side of the glass.
"Me, Michonne, and Bob are going on a run for medicine. Hershel knows of a place about fifty miles away that will probably have what we need." Daryl told her. "I want you to listen to me." Adrian said, her tone forcing Daryl to look her in the eyes. "While you are out there, you don't worry about me. Getting distracted gets people killed." she told him.
When he said nothing, she gave him a look that scared pretty much everyone because it meant she was about to kill something. "I mean it, damn it. You don't give me a second thought while you're out there. Kale is out there. Luke showed up in here about fifteen minutes ago so I've got someone on both sides of the glass." she said.
"I'll be okay Daryl. I'm not even that bad right now. So when you go through those gates, you focus on your mission, which is to get the medicine and get back alive. You can worry about me when you come back through those gates with that medicine." she said. "Okay." Daryl told her. "Come back to me safe and alive." she told him. "You stay alive til I get back with the medicine." he told her.
She then took her hand off the glass, only to kiss her fingertips and press them against the glass where Daryl's hand was still pressed.
"I love you, Daryl Dixon." Adrian said to him. "You too." Daryl said before he took his hand off the glass and walked out the room leaving Adrian alone.
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Daryl was outside checking the oil of Zach's old car when Michonne walked up. Michonne went to get more oil when Daryl called her back. "I'm glad you're here." he told here. "Where else would I be?" she asked. "Runnin' off." he told her. "You know I wasn't just running off, right?" she asked. Daryl nodded but in a way that said he didn't believe her.
"I heard about Adrian being in quarantine with the others. I'm sorry to hear that. How long has she been sick?" Michonne asked. "She's been actin' weird all week. She just started coughing a little while ago though." Daryl told her. "She'll be okay. She's strong. She's made it through some really tough stuff before, a little flu ain't gonna be what takes someone like her out." Michonne said.
"So is it just gonna be me and you, like in the old days?" she asked him. "Me, you, and Bob. Feels like we could use another person though." Daryl told her. "Well who else isn't sick?" Michonne asked. "Not Rick. He wants to stay and help out here. Look after Carl and Little Ass Kicker. Kale is gonna stay to help out too and keep an eye on Adrian." Daryl told her. "So who else is left?" Michonne asked again.
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Daryl had managed to wrangle Tyreese into joining the group. Once everyone was ready and loaded, the four man team set out to the college. The drive there went as smoothly as could be expected, especially considering that the only thing closely considered traffic anymore were random car pile ups and the occassional walker.
Daryl started messing with the radio and told Michonne to grab a CD to help fill the silence. Only before she did, Daryl heard a very staticy voice over the radio. They listened to the voice for a few seconds, not really able to understand anything that was being said, but when Daryl looked back up at the road, he slammed right into a walker.
He started to swerve all over the road to avoid hitting any more walkers, only to slam on his break in front of the biggest herd of walkers any of them had ever seen. Easily thousands of walkers stood between them and the college they so desperately needed to get to.
Daryl threw the car into reverse to try to get around the walkers but he had hit so many while backing up that they jammed up the back end, which rendered the car useless. They couldn't just stay in the car because more walkers showed up by the second. Their only chance was the ditch the car and make a run for the woods.
Michonne got out on her side and instantly started cutting off the head of any walker that looked at her. Daryl jumped up through the sunroof and began making his way through the herd towards the woods as well. Bob finally got out of the car and started shooting any nearby walkers. Tyreese however waited too long to get out of the car.
But when he did he started hitting every single walker around him in the head with a hammer. By the time Michonne, Bob, and Daryl made it to the tree line, Tyreese was surrounded by walkers but still hitting every one around him. With no way to save him, the group ran into the woods.
They ran through the woods killing walkers until they came to a small clearing when Daryl told everyone to stop. Daryl reloaded his crossbow and pointed it towards the shaking leaves behind them. Two walkers came out of the trees but one was killed by Tyreese, who fell to his knees exhausted.
The other walker turned towards Tyreese, which Michonne killed while Daryl grabbed Tyreese and they all started running all over again.
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Adrian found Hershel in one of the cells making elderberry tea and wearing a rag over the bottom part of his face. He had tried to hand her the first cup but she had passed saying there were far sicker people than her who needed it. Hershel relented and gave her a cup of her own to take to the others.
The next time Adrian had seen Hershel he was with a fresh cup of tea and without his rag. "What happened to your rag? Shouldn't you still be covered?" she asked, flushed and panting a little. "An accident. I got blood on me so the rag is pointless now. I'm bringing this tea up to Glenn. That cup is yours and I dare you to argue with me." Hershel said as he started climbing the stairs.
Once Adrian and Hershel found Glenn, Adrian sat on the floor beside Glenn and started drinking the awful tea while Hershel gave Glenn his. "Ugh, this sucks." Glenn said "After everything we've been through, I'm getting taken out by a glorified cold." he told Hershel.
"Don't say things like that. Don't even think things like that. We've made it this far somehow, you can belive somehow. We've all got jobs to do. That one's yours." Hershel told Glenn. "And what's my job, Hershel?" Adrian asked, panting out a small laugh. "To stop being such a wiseass." he told her with a smile.
"Come on, Hershel. That's about all I got left going for me." she laughed.
"It could be worse." Adrian said as she finished off her tea. "How could it possibly be worse?" Glenn asked her. "You could have explosive diarrhea on top of your glorified cold. You know, the kind that really burns on it's way out. Imagine the smell in here then." Adrian said, laughing. "You are so disturbed." Glenn said as Hershel laughed.
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Over the next few hours things in A Block started to go from bad to worse. Hershel's tea only helped so many people. Some were lucky, others not so much. The one's it didn't help were getting worse, and fast.
Adrian had started to get dizzy not long after she drank her tea and Hershel had ordered her to go rest in her cell. When she refused Hershel told her that she not only had the mutated flu but also still had whatever it was that she had before the flu hit, so she gave in and stumbled her way to her cell for a short rest.
She didn't know how long she had been asleep before she heard a commotion upstairs. She managed to drag herself up the stairs to see what was going on. Glenn and Sasha were holding a man down as Hershel tried to insert a tube down his throat, which didn't look easy since the man was struggling against Glenn and Sasha's hold. Adrian would have tried to help if she thought she could also fit in the cell. And in her current state, she was pretty sure the struggling man was stronger than she was at the moment.
Once Hershel got the tube down the mans' throat Glenn and Sasha started coughing from their effort to help Hershel, which was when he ordered them all to drink more of the tea he had brought up. "Some council meeting, huh?" Hershel asked them, trying to lighten the mood. "We're two members short." Sasha said as she took a drink of tea. "At this point I've missed so many meetings, I'm pretty sure my member status has been revoked." Adrian chuckled as she started to feel weak and leaned against the outside of the cell door.
"Of course you're still a member." Hershel said as he looked back at Adrian to see how she looked. "How you doing, Adrian?" Hershel asked her. "That nap did nothing but make me feel worse. Hopefully I look better than I feel." she told him. "Well, you look like shit." Glenn told her as he passed her a cup of tea. "What every woman wants to hear, Glenn. How did you manage to charm Maggie into loving you with talk like that?" Adrian laughed as she took the cup from him.
"Well, I think we should make some new rules before we get back." Hershel told them. "I hereby declare we have Spaghetti Tuesdays every Wednesday. First we have to find some spaghetti." Hershel said making Adrian choke on her tea in an attempt to not spit it out. Sasha and Glenn, however, didn't seem to appreciate his joke.
Glenn accompanied Hershel on his rounds around the cell block after Sasha said she would take over for Hershel. As Adrian finished her tea she noticed Glenn and Hershel stop in one of the cells. Glenn went for his knife but Hershel stopped him. He left for a second and returned with a gurney.
Adrian pulled herself up off the floor and slowly walked down the stairs before walking up to Hershel and Glenn. "But what if I'm gone?" she heard Glenn ask. "Shut up and help me get him on this." Hershel said. "What's going on?" Adrian asked them. "We need to get him outta here without causing a panic. We're gonna take him to another room and do what needs to be done." Hershel told her.
"What can I do to help?" she asked as she grabbed onto one of the door bars for support. Hershel felt her face before giving her a look. "You save your energy. You're burning up as it is and if you push yourself too much you'll only make yourself worse. If you want to help, you do small, easy tasks. Am I understood?" Hershel demanded quietly.
Adrian wanted to fight against the order, just out of sheer habit mostly, but nodded her head in understanding.
A while later later Hershel went to go meet with Maggie. Glenn had said he would meet her but changed his mind at the last minute, not wanting her to see him in such a state and worry more than she already was. Hershel walked out of the room and Adrian decided to talk with Maggie a minute.
When she walked up to the window she seen Maggie looking at the old execution table that was in the room. "Hey Maggie." Adrian said to her. It jerked Maggie back to reality. "Adrian. I didn't know you were in there." Maggie told her. "What can I say, I heard there was a party in here. Needless to say, somebody lied to me." Adrian laughed, which sounded terrible to her own ears.
"How is everyone out there? Carl? Beth? Ass Kicker?" Adrian asked her in an attempt to help distract her and because she was curious about the kids. "They're all doing good. They're all isolated on the other side of the prison. Rick and Carol left on a run to find whatever they could to help til Daryl and the others got back with the medicine." Maggie told her.
"And are either of them back yet?" she asked. "No. It's just me right now." Maggie told her. "Adrian, how is Glenn? I mean really?" Maggie asked her, pleading that she tell her the truth. "He's not the healthiest of us in here but there are others far worse than he is. He's hanging in there, Maggie. We all are. We're doing what we can in here to keep ourselves and everyone else alive until the others get back with the medicine." Adrian told her.
"You don't look so good." Maggie told her. "Well, I've looked worse in the last year, if I do say so myself." Adrian laughed, only to be cut off with a hacking cough. "Adrian." she heard Hershel say from the doorway. "You need to rest now." he told her. Adrian turned back to Maggie with a weak smile on her face. "You heard the doctor. I've been ordered back to bed." Adrian said.
Adrian started to walk away when she turned back to Maggie. "Maggie." she said making the younger woman look at her. "We'll take care of each other in here. Like your dad says, we've all got jobs to do. Right now, our jobs are in here. Your's is out there. You do your jobs, we'll do ours." Adrian told her before she turned and left the room.
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A few hours later Adrian stumbled out of her cell and was helping Hershel close all the cell doors after he had checked on everyone. They were closing doors on the bottom floor when one of the patients stumbled out of his room coughing. He walked into the door of another cell before he fell to the floor. Adrian walked over to Hershel as he turned the man over after he had finished choking on his own blood.
The man was dead, no doubt. Hershel quietly grabbed his knife before Adrian quietly called his name. He looked up at her to see she wasn't looking at him, but around the cell block. Hershel did the same to see many of the patients looking down at them. "Everyone, get back in your cells." he told them as Sasha walked out of her room and brought the gurney over to where the body was. "Lets get him on this." she told Hershel.
"Alright. You heard him, everybody back in your cells. Close your doors. I know it's disturbing to see, how this virus takes us. But we can't loose hope, or else we have no chance of beating this bastard and getting out of here. Now, doctors orders are to get to bed and rest as much as you can. Go!" Adrian told them all with her sandpaper rough voice.
Sasha and Hershel managed to get the man on the gurney. Sasha spent whatever energy she had helping getting the man on the gurney. Hershel order Sasha back to her bed to rest before he pushed the body away. Adrian helped Sasha to her cell before she followed after Hershel. She saw him standing over the body with his knife but he kept hesitating.
Finally he covered the mans head before he took a deep breath and quickly jabbed the knife into the head. "I could have done that for you." Adrian said from the doorway. Hershel looked up, surprised to see her there. "All you had to do was ask and I could've done what needed to be done." she said to him.
"Hershel." they heard from the other side of the glass. They turned to see it was Rick. Hershel turned back to Adrian. "Go and rest Adrian. Close the rest of the doors for me and get as much rest as possible." he told her before he turned to talk to Rick.
Adrian jerked awake when she heard the first gunshot. After the jog of sleep and sickness somewhat passed was when she heard the growling she had become so accustomed to over the last year. Walkers were in the cell block.
Adrian grabbed her knife from under her pillow and got out of bed as quickly as she could manage. She seen one walker eating on a man holding a gun, another walker crawling around the outside of a cell not far from Hershel and one of the patients crawling around on the floor by the stairs. Just as Adrian was about to leave her cell to help any way she could she started coughing terribly.
Adrian looked up just in time to see one of the walkers stumbling towards her and managed to close her door in time to block the walker from getting in. She knew Hershel was out there alone and she walked to help but she was no use to anyone if she died of a walker bite first. Adrian managed to make it to her bed during her coughing fit and collapsed onto her bed in exhaustion.
Adrian heard more gunfire after she had collapsed onto her bed but couldn't find the strength to get back up. Adrian heard everything go quiet as she passed out. She didn't hear Maggie and Hershel talking upstairs after they got Glenn stabilized.
They thought it was all over. What they didn't know was that while they were attending to Glenn, Adrian had stopped breathing.