The Wolves
Daryl and Morgan had found the medicine they needed and then some. Both of their packs and the saddle bags on the bike were packed full. Hoping to get home before dark, they headed back towards Alexandria as soon as they had everything of value packed up. But they were losing the light, so they hid the motorcycle behind a dumpster and climbed a small metal ladder on the side of what used to be a k-mart. Leaning back on their full backpacks, the men ate the dried travelling food they brought with them and chatted a little back and forth. They talked mostly about Jessica, since she was what they had in common. And Daryl told a few funny stories about stupid things RickyJo and Jessica had dragged him into doing. Morgan thought about asking Daryl about the situation he seemed to be in with Jessica's cousin, but then decided it was really none of his business. Before long, both men were asleep.
Jon forced the man in the red poncho down onto his knees while Jared cussed and swore. Someone had sprung their trap, and then escaped. And most of their wolf army was dead. And not reanimated type dead, but shot through the head with an arrow dead. And that family had gotten away from them in the woods. Overall it was a shitty day. And Derek was not going to be impressed. Jon pulled at the crotch of his pants again. When he woke up, his balls had been sore as fuck, like someone kicked him where it counts. And he had a feeling he knew who did it. It was that nigger loving skank. She should have been honored that a real man was still willing to share her bed. Instead she had knocked them out and taken off with that fucking coon that hit them with a stick like a big pussy. Well, those fuckers didn't know they were in wolf territory. Sooner or later, they would find them. And then it was going to be payback time.
After the food they took from the last place had run out, Derek found this warehouse. The food trucks had all been full. Some of it had been bullshit moldy bread, but some good stuff had been in there too. But the best part was that anyone passing by would see the food trucks and come in looking. It had not taken long to figure out the place served as the perfect trap. They caught people in that parked car almost once a week. And they had marked and added each one of them to the army of the dead they kept inside the trucks. Jared would have liked to stay and live in the warehouse a while, but of course Derek wouldn't hear of it. We are wolves and wolves sleep in the wild. They sleep in fucking dens, you moron, Jared thought. But he was smarter than to say that out loud. Derek was their leader. And even if he was a prick sometimes, he kept them alive. If he had been there this morning, that red haired bitch wouldn't have gotten away. And now he would be fucking her against a tree, instead of rubbing his sore balls.
Jon pressed the button to make the lights blink inside the trailers. What was left of the undead wolf army scrambled back inside them. "Got a lot of mess to clean up before Derek gets here," Jon commented, looking at the man they were holding hostage.
"Go on and do him then," Jared said. They didn't have time for this shit. Jon slashed the man's throat and dropped him on the ground to bleed out. Then they opened the gates and started clearing the dead bodies away and out of sight. They were about half way done when Derek showed up. He still had the daughter of the woman they had tied to that tree a few days before with him. She was naked except for shoes on her feet and her head was starting to heal up from where he marked her. At night they tied her up, but during the day, he had been leading her around on a leash. Once in a while Derek would like to keep one of his victims alive for a few days to play with them, but he usually got bored by now. And this girl was a teenager, sixteen at least. Usually Derek liked his pets younger than that. Jared guessed that Derek was keeping this one because she looked a little like his sister, or what she might have looked like when she was younger. Whatever the reason, Jared didn't mind. Derek was sharing his bed everynight with his new pet, which meant Dani was fair game. Dani wouldn't fight her brother, but she would fight the rest of them on occasion, which made it more fun to fuck her. And what was really screwed up about that was Jared swore that bitch got off on that shit too. A few different times when he had been fucking her, he swore he felt her come. Maybe she was only fighting them to make her brother think she didn't like it, but it was hard to say. Sometimes Jared wondered which of the two of them was crazier.
Derek looked around, his disapproval clear from the look on his face. Dani was watching to see what he was going to do to them men. Then she spotted something near the wheels of one of the trailers that caught her eye. it was a backpack. She picked it up and started digging through it. Most of it was just the usual garbage that people on the road kept on them. Half a bottle of water, some applesauce, an extra pair of socks. Then she found the pictures. There were pictures of high metal walls, pretty houses in a row. And then the last one was of some people sitting on a porch. Two women were sitting on the bottom step holding babies. And on the step above them were two men who were leaning in to pose for the picture. Both the women had scars on their faces and one had a lot of tattoos. Derek walked over and snatched the pictures out of her hands.
"Where did you get these," he asked. Danni held up the backpack and pointed to the wheel of the trailer. Derek took the pictures, looking at each one for a long time. He stopped again on the picture of the people on the porch. He looked hard at the women with the long scar across each cheek. She was no sheep like the rest of the people in the photograph. The scars on the woman's face fascinated him. It was like she was a member if his pack and someone had already marked her so he would know it. The baby she was holding brought another thought to the front of his mind. It was something that had been brewing in there for quite some time. Dani was worthless to him. She would never give him any children. And the pack could not carry on without pups. At first he had thought maybe he was the source of the problem, but he had started letting the rest of the pack fuck her about six months ago and she still wasn't pregnant. He had thought he might keep his new pet around and try to see if anything might happen with her. But the girl was annoying. All she did was cry and shake and she was a burden on the pack. He didn't need a pet. What he needed was an equal. A woman strong enough to lead the pack with him. And as he looked the picture over, rubbing his thumb across it and leaving a greasy smudge, he knew he had found what he had been looking for.
The town in the pictures is where they wanted to go. But the problem now was, they didn't know where it was. They had hiked back to their campsite in the woods and stayed there, letting Derek think on how he was going to go about finding the town. He was bored with his pet, so he gave her to Jared and his other wolves, which at least provided him some entertainment for the evening. But he couldn't stop thinking about the girl with the tattoos and the scars on her face. Dani saw him looking at the pictures again and tried to sit down next to him. He shoved her away. When she didn't go he backhanded her hard across the mouth, splitting her lip. She wiped her mouth and went to sit on the opposite side of the campfire. The guys were busy with Derek's pet so even they weren't paying her any attention. What they even wanted with that stupid little pig she didn't know. The girl didn't even try to fight back, she just cried like a silly little ninny. They were going to fuck her no matter what, but she could at least make them work for it.
The next morning, Derek woke up with an idea. It had come to him in his sleep, as all of his good ideas did. They would head downtown and climb the highest building. Then they would wait for night. A town that size with that many people would be seen easily at night. They often found camps of people this way, by looking for their campfires at night, so why not a whole town.
"Gear up," Derek told his pack, "we are heading for town." The men wondered why, but knew better than to ask.
"What about this one," Jared asked, gesturing to the naked girl in his sleeping bag with him. Derek shrugged and walked away from camp to do his morning business. That meant Jared could keep her or kill her, his decision. He decided to keep her for now. She had been fucked six ways from Sunday the night before, but she was still fresher than Dani. In fact, he was sporting some good ass morning wood and thinking he might get a few more miles out of her before they left.
When Derek got back, the girl was dressed in Jared's extra pair of clothes and he had her on her knees, holding her by the hair and pumping in and out of her mouth. Guess she's coming with us, Derek thought. It was just as well. When they found this town and he got his prize, he had no intention on sharing her out, so they might as well hang on to this girl for the rest of the pack to amuse themselves with.
It took forever to get anywhere walking on foot. But that was the only way Derek liked to travel. It would take the whole day to get into town, and thats if they didn't make any extra stops along the way, which they were going to have to since they were out of food again. The first two places had been a bust. Three cans of soup and some stale crackers were discovered in a gas station. Jared kept a close eye on the girl. Don't try to run or I will have to put the leash back on you. While leading a woman around on a leash could be fun, he didn't like the marks it was leaving on the girl's neck. She was pretty and he wanted her to stay that way. Her skin was already all marked up from the bug bites she got while Derek had been walking her around naked. Thats why Jared had given her his clothes.
It was getting near dark and they were only about half way to their destination. Around the corner of the main street is where they saw the herd. Most of the uglies would have seen them anyway, but the girl got scared and screamed. There was no choice now except to run.
"The big K-mart," Derek yelled," half a mile back. We can hide in there." The men followed him, Jared grabbing ahold of the girl's arm and pulling her along. They got inside, through a back employee door, but the herd was right behind them. Derek and Jon pushed some heavy boxes against the door. Then Derek turned to the girl and slapped her so hard he knocked her to the ground. Then he kicked her in the stomach. "You stupid fucking bitch." What the hell was she thinking, screaming like that.
They quickly combed over the rest of the store, making sure it wasn't full of walkers, and checking for another exit. Every door they could find was already swarmed by walkers. They were stuck in here. And worse than that, there wasn't any food in the damn place, or water either. This store had been cleared several months before by the very people they were searching for, though the wolves had no way of knowing that.
"We are going to sit tight for the night," Derek said, "if they don't clear out by morning, we will decide what to do then." They moved to spread out and find some things that would make sleeping more comfortable. Dani started getting a meal together. Before he could move out, Derek stopped Jared. "You want to keep her," Derek said, "better teach her how to fucking behave." Jared nodded. He wouldn't have said anything, but he was sure Derek was going to kill the girl after what she did earlier. Now it seemed he had permission to keep her. Something had gotten into Derek, he had been acting weird since he found those pictures. Sleeping alone, which he never did, and now giving Jared permission to keep a woman he wanted. It made Jared's skin crawl. Derek was even scarier when he was being nice than when he was killing people.
Jared got what he wanted from the camping section. Most of it was pretty cleaned out, but he found a pad and a fresh sleeping bag. Then he took the girl over to where the women's clothes were. He gave her a little shove in the right direction but she just stood there looking at him.
"Them clothes are mine," he said, pointing to the ones the girl had on, "I want them back." She stared at him with the same blank look. "Get 'urself some clothes that fit, you stupid girl," he added, giving her a shove and a kick in the ass to get her started. The girl took a few steps, then stopped and stood staring at the racks of clothes like she didn't know what to do. Finally she walked over and grabbed some underwear and a bra. Then she took a pair of jeans a tank top and a shirt. Turning back to Jared, she stood holding the items, waiting to see what he wanted her to do. "Well get dressed," he told her. Watching as she undressed, he thought about how she was his now. He wondered how she would feel about that, then decided he didn't care.
"Derek said I could keep ya," he told her. The girl looked at him questioningly. "Can't be screaming like that when you see the uglies," he told her. The girl nodded. All the time she had been with them, Jared had not heard her say one word. Now she bit her lip and looked at him.
"I was scared," she said. Jared nodded. He had been scared too, but you couldn't just go screaming your head off. Jared took his clothes back from the girl and shoved them into his bag. Then he took the girl by the arm and headed over to get something to eat before it was gone.
The next morning, their situation had not improved. In fact, it had gotten worse. Now the food and water was gone, and more uglies were outside, huge crowds of them at every door and window they could see out of. Sometimes, herds like this would move on. But when they started crowding in like they knew there was food inside, they usually wouldn't go anywhere until they got fed. Checking all the doors, Derek picked the one that looked like it might be their best bet for getting away.
"Get your knives and guns out," he said, "we are going to have to fight our way out." Most of the men started gearing up, getting their knives and small hatchets, whatever they used for close combat fighting. Jared took his extra knife out of his bag and handed it to the girl. She stared at it for a minute and then took it, gripping the handle so thight that her knuckles turned white.
"Stay close to me," Jared told her. The girl was trying to decide whether to stab him now, or look for a chance to run once they got outside. But then another idea started brewing in the back of her head. It was one she didn't like, it was such a bad idea that it made her sick to think about it. She was thinking about staying. This man was disgusting, and he had forced himself on her again the night before. But when another one of the men had tried grabbing at her, he had knocked him on his ass. And he did seem willing to protect her from the dead. What would she do on her own, she couldn't go back to her family these men had killed them all. And if she did get away, there was a good chance she might be picked up by another group just as bad as this one. Or not be picked up, and be stuck alone out there with no gun and no food and no water.
Everyone was ready to go. But one man did not look impressed with Derek's plan. His name was also Jon, but since they already had a Jon, everyone called him by his last name, which was Farmer. He was leaning against the glass, trying to look outside and see how many uglies were out there. He had gone along with Derek until now, but this was a terrible plan. They were never going to be able to get through a herd this big and come out alive. Derek was pulling the straps of his backpack tight. He nodded to the men, who nodded back at him.
"We are never going to make it," Farmer whined loudly. "There are too many of them out there," he insisted, "we should stay here and wait for them to clear out some more. Derek watched the man. Not only was he contradicting Derek's orders, he was acting like a total coward. Even the new girl was gripping a knife, ready to follow them out the door. Derek looked at Jared, nodding his head slightly towards the man, who was now on the brink of total panic. Jared nodded back. He knew what Derek wanted.
Morgan took another sip of his water and looked over the side of the building again. When they had gone to sleep, there had been maybe three of four walkers down in the parking lot. Now the entire building was swarmed. Where did they all come from? He and Daryl had been quiet, so he knew they had not attracted this many boogies. They had not even made a fire last night. Daryl woke up and noticed Morgan was looking over the side of the building. The man looked concerned. Daryl scratched at his head and took a look over the side.
"Sonofabitch," he remarked, "where the fuck did they all come from? They had enough travelling food and water for a few days, so they were not in immediate danger, but both of them really wanted to go home. Morgan was missing Jessica and didn't want her to worry, or worse yet, come looking for him. And Daryl wanted to get back. He had some time to think about what RickyJo told him before he left. The pregnancy thing had blown his mind a little at first. But now he was warming up to the idea. He wondered if his brother knew yet, and how much he knew. Knowing RickyJo, he probably knew everything already. Keeping secrets from Merle was never her strong suit.
"Lets check around the other side," Morgan suggested, "Or maybe we can throw something off that side, draw some of them away from the ladder?" Daryl nodded and they headed over to the front of the building. Morgan tipped his head to the side, like he was listening. "Hear that?," he asked, "sounds like someone screaming." Daryl leaned over and listened closely. He didn't have to wait long. The doors flung outward and a screaming man was hurled into the herd. Then the doors shut behind him. The man had no chance at all. He was being bitten and ripped at by a herd so large there was a chance he might be crushed to death instead of being ripped apart. Daryl and Morgan exchanged glances. Well at least they knew why the herd was here, there were people inside on the ground floor of the building.
A few minutes later, there were gunshots coming from the other side of the building. Daryl and Morgan rushed to look and saw a small group fighting their way through the walkers that were still milling around on that side. It looked like two women and five men. Morgan recognized two of them as the men that had tried to attack him and Jessica in the woods two days before.
"I hate to say it," Daryl said, "but maybe we should use this chance to get away ourselves." Morgan nodded. The men were heading from the side of the store, the bike was parked out back. And since the dead were feeding, it would be much easier to get away. They headed for the ladder, Morgan going first, and taking the dead that remained down with his walkind stick. Then they ran for the bike and climbed on. Daryl fired it up and they headed for home. He would have rather not driven by the other group of men, but that was the clearest way out. A few of them stopped and stared as the two men whipped by on the bike, but Derek smiled. They didn't need to go downtown and climb a bulinging now, he thought as he watched the men disappear down the road. He knew exactly which way he wanted to go.