April 1
11:40 AM
House of the Future

Daryl swung his crossbow on his right shoulder. He zipped up his pack, which was resting on the bed, and swung it on his left shoulder.

"Be careful out there, Pookie," Carol told him as she walked over to him. She took him by the belt buckle and reached over slightly to the left to snap close a loose part of the sheath to one of his knives.

He looked down at her hands on his belt. "Thought ya were getting ready to give me a goodbye blow job for a second there."

Carol smiled. "I would, but then you'd have to unsnap your three sheaths and your holster and all these spare magazine pouches again."

"Ain't got to take 'em all off. Just these two." He patted a sheath and then a magazine pouch. "Be enough to get my pants to down."

She chuckled. "There's no time. They're waiting for you. Sorry, Pookie." She stroked him through his Wranglers, over his zipper, down and then up again.

"Fuuuck…" He groaned. "Can't tease me like that and not deliver, Miss Murphy." He tossed his bow on the bed and let his pack fall off his shoulder to the ground. He began unsnapping the sheath to his knife, which he tossed, knife still in it, on the bed, and then did the same with the magazine pouch.

There was something about the sound of her man unsnapping all his gear that made Carol tingle. The clanging of his belt buckle as he hurriedly undid it didn't help. "Oh, fine," she agreed and popped his top button loose on his pants and jerked the zipper down. She kissed him hard while she pushed his pants down just enough to free him and stroke him to full erection before sliding to her knees.

"That's a good girl, Miss Murphy," Daryl growled as he put a hand on the back of her head and gently urged her to take him a little more deeply. "A damn good girl."

12:10 PM
Front Gate
Fun Kingdom

"What took you so damn long?" Rick asked as Daryl rolled his motorcycle out of the open front gate toward the eighteen wheeler that was already running with Sasha in the driver's seat. Rosita was in the passenger's seat.

"Couldn't find my bolts," Daryl muttered.

The blowjob hadn't taken particularly long, he was so excited for it, but it seemed to have excited Carol, too, and then she'd insisted on a turn of her own. Daryl had ended up on his knees at the edge of the bed with her bare legs wrapped around his shoulders tasting her as she writhed in pleasure. It was a better send-off than he'd hoped for.

"You're in the lead," Rick told him as Daryl mounted his motorcycle.

Daryl nodded at the truck. "Is there room in that cab for you?"

Rick smirked. "I guess I'll just have to sandwich myself between two beautiful women."

"They both got men, ya know."

"I know. That's why I can enjoy it and joke about it. It's safe. Lori's less than two weeks in her grave. I'm not looking to jump in anyone's bed just yet."

"Mhm." Daryl kick started his motorcycle. "'Chonne ain't safe though, is she?" he asked over its roar.

Rick didn't answer. Instead, he strolled to the running truck, and soon they were on their way to Terminus.

1:25 PM
The Kingdom

"You look like something the cat drug in," Dianne called down from her perch on the Kingdom's fence as Gavin exited his pick-up truck and looked up at her, a hand on his hip just above the butt of his handgun.

"I'll take that as a compliment compared to what I looked like this morning before I showered and shaved. Are you going to let me in?"

"Hold your horses."

Dianne showed him into the Kingdom and shut the gate behind herself. She whistled to another guard to take her place on the fence and then said, "I'll show you where Frankie is. I imagine you're anxious to see her."

He was anxious, in more ways than one.

Dianne led him into the high school past the office and clinic and down a long hallway. Gavin glanced at the trophy case, where the words on the bottom stands of the sports trophies had been taped over with a sheet of paper containing new accolades and names. Dianne had a trophy for Best Archer. She saw him pausing and staring and said, "That was just something Ezekiel did to encourage his knights."

"Did it work?" Gavin asked skeptically.

Dianne shrugged. "It made Jerry happy when he got Best Axe Thrower." She led him on past the entrances to the boys' and girls' locker rooms. "The showers in the locker rooms work," she told him. "You get three a week, to ration water." She was talking as if she thought he was moving in permanently. "Sign up on the schedule." She patted a clipboard dangling from the wall. "The toilets work in there, too. They're the only toilets that work. Don't shit anywhere else."

"Yes, ma'am," Gavin replied. "You aren't delicate, are you?"

"This world wasn't made for delicate women." Dianne pushed open the door to the gymnasium, led him around the edge of the basketball court –clear of two knights who were fencing with swords and of Ezekiel and Benjamin, who were jousting with staffs.

"I thought Benjamin wasn't going to be able to use that leg well after that gunshot," Gavin said.

"Well, he's not using it well. You can see he's mostly pivoting on one leg. He's got to learn to work around it. And it probably hurts like hell. But he's a got a massage scheduled later this afternoon with Frankie, so that'll help some. Your girlfriend is very popular." She led him all the way to the coach's office. The blinds had been pulled up all the way to the top of the window, so he could see Frankie was at work on Daniel, who was lying on his stomach on a massage table with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. He looked like he'd showered recently. Frankie was stretching his ankle. Gavin wondered peevishly how long he was going to need help with that damn sprain. Shouldn't it be healed by now?

Frankie spied him through the window, smiled, and slowly lowered Daniel's leg back down. Then she put a hand on the small of Daniel's bare back and bent down to say something to him before she hurried from the room, squealed, and threw her arms around Gavin. The tension in his stomach, which he'd been carrying all the way on the drive here, instantly unwound as she kissed him.

She pulled away. "You came earlier than you said you would!"

"I got away a little sooner than I expected."

"I've just got to finish up ten minutes on my client," Frankie told him. "And then I'm all yours for the next couple hours. And then I've got to work on Benjamin at 4:00, but that's all today." She turned to Dianne. "Can you show him where our apartment is?" And then to Gavin. "I'll meet you there in fifteen minutes." She kissed him again and then headed back into the office.

"I guess I'm the bellhop," said Dianne, waving a hand across the gym. "Right this way, sir."

Gavin chuckled and walked with her back out the gym, down the rest of the hall, and up a stairwell. "These are the bathrooms you don't shit in," Dianne said as they passed a boys' and girls' room in the hallway.

"You could put a sign up," he suggested. "No shitting."

"I tried putting up a no bullshitting sign on Ezekiel's throne and you see how well that worked."

He chuckled again. "You don't buy into the whole king routine?"

"It has its place and its uses. And I do get to ride a horse. I always wanted my own horse as a little girl. But I only ever got to ride one at summer camp. And spring break camp. And winter break camp."

"Your parents didn't like having you around?"

"Single mother. She worked a lot." She led him through an open doorway with a silver sign that said Teacher's Breakroom. "This is the kitchen for all upstairs lodgers."

He looked around at the counters, which housed a microwave, a coffee pot, a hot pot, a toaster oven, a George Foreman grill, and an electric gridle. There was a double sink in the middle of the counter at the far wall and a refrigerator with freezer in a cutout under some high cabinets.

"This room has electricity. Only some of the rooms do. Your apartment doesn't, but there's a rechargeable battery power pack in there for a space heater in winter and an electric fan in summer. You can use anything in here anytime you want. The sinks work. If you put anything in that fridge that belongs to you – you better label it. Otherwise, it's considered fair game. And Jerry will descend upon it like a flight of locusts."

"Duly noted."

"Dinners are communal in the cafeteria. Lunch and breakfast on your own. But Frankie will explain the rationing system to you I'm sure." Dianne led him on past a few more classrooms until she stopped before one and threw open the door. "And this is your place. Frankie's done it up nice."

"No keys?" Gavin asked as he stepped inside.

"People don't steal things here. Make yourself at home. I need to get back to work."

When she'd gone, Gavin shut the door and took a look around. There was a futon mattress in a low, wooden frame, but otherwise Frankie had used existing classroom furniture. There was a filing cabinet dresser, two student desks and chairs turned into a breakfast nook table (complete with a white tablecloth), a book case that had become a hutch, and two student desks as nightstands on either side of the bed, with battery-operated lamps atop them. There were fresh flowers in a vase on the kitchen table, curtains on the windows, and student artwork on the walls. He dropped his backpack beside the bed, sat down on it, and unlaced his boots. He pulled them off and lined them up near the student desk nightstand. Then he leaned forward with his arms on his knees, wondering how he was going to tell Frankie.

A few minutes later, she came through the door, smiling. His heart tumbled. She shut the door behind herself. "So, what's going on in the Sanctuary? What did you need to talk to me about in person?"

"Later," he said as he stood from be bed. "I missed you. Let's catch up first."

"I missed you, too." She sauntered over, gave him a kiss, and slipped her fingers into the top of his pants behind his silver belt buckle. "What kind of catching up did you have in mind?"

"Uh…well…"

Frankie smiled. "I think I can guess."

2:45 PM
Terminus

"Not a guard in sight," Rick muttered as he handed the binoculars to Daryl.

Daryl surveyed the parking lot of the train station, the roof, the courtyard, and the train cars by the tracks. "Must of lost a lot of people if they can't spare a guard."

"Or keep a man on the radio." Rosita lowered her rifle. She'd been looking through the scope.

"Maybe they're still just too sick," Sasha suggested.

"Well, let's check it out," Rick said. "See if we can help. We all had it. We're all immune now. We can play nurse for a day or two until whoever is going to pull out pulls out of it."

They made their way out of the woods and to the front chain link fence. The gate was locked with a heavy, rusty iron chain and the fence was topped with barbwire. Daryl took a pair of wire cutters from his backpack. "I've got it," Sasha said. "I was a firefighter. I'm used to climbing."

She scaled the fence and, holding on with one hand near the top, extended a hand for the wire cutters. Daryl stood on tiptoes to stretch it up to her. While Rosita watched the forest behind, and Daryl and Rick the parking lot in front, Sasha cut a section of the barbwire free. She handed the cutters back to Daryl, slid back down the fence, and then pulled on a heavy work glove so she could brush the cut pieces aside before they all scaled the fence and landed one by one on the other side.

Cautiously, weapons poised, they swept the parking lot as they jogged toward the courtyard. Clothes swung from a clothesline strung between a building and a tree. They looked like they had dried and then been rained upon and dried again. The vegetable gardens in the courtyard did not appear to have been weeded in three or more days, but they were crowded with spring vegetables that looked ripe for the picking.

Rosita was at the rabbit hutch now. There were two cages on either side of a little wooden house with ramps leading in and out of it and caging on the open doorway to it. "You think they got the disease?" she asked.

Daryl came to stand beside her and looked at the cages. Six, lethargic, crusty-eyed rabbits had moved as far away from the seven dead ones as possible. Dry, hard fecal pellets littered the cage. "Nah. Looks like dehydration. Ain't no one refilled their water in a while." He shouldered his bow, took out one of the empty water bottles, and went to the outdoor hose to see if it worked. It did. He filled the bottle full and returned it to the hutch. Two rabbits immediately began fighting over it. Sasha took and filled the second bottle on the cage on the other side of the little wooden house in between, while Rick removed the dead rabbits from the cage and threw them in an empty metal trashcan.

They made their way to the back door of the train station, not saying a word to each other, all aware that whatever they were about to see, it was going to be bad. Sasha, Rick, and Rosita all leveled their rifles at the door. Rick nodded to Daryl, who jerked the unlocked door open.

Rosita swept inside first, to the left, then Rick to the right, while Sasha pushed straight ahead. Daryl heard the loud echoing pop of three gunshots before he heard the hissing and growling. He burst through the door behind them and launched a bolt straight into the skull of a lunging walker.

Daryl dropped his crossbow – there was no time to reload – and drew a knife in each of his two hands to stab, leave the blade behind in the walker, and swirl and stab again. This time he had time to jerk his knife back out. He took three steps forward and stabbed again.

Meanwhile, Rosita was now using the bayonet on her rifle to stab at the oncoming creatures, while Rick and Sasha had both shouldered their rifles and drawn knives. The four of them made their way through the open train station, walking around stained mattresses on the floor onto which people had coughed up blood. They cleared inside tents, killing every walker they could find, until over two dozen bodies lay strewn across the cement floor of the bottom story of the station.

They cleared the bathrooms next, the snack stands, the bookstand, the ticket office, and a couple of closets, hearts racing and blood splattering their clothes.

They converged together again in the middle of the station, all breathing a little hard, Sasha tilting her head as though to get water out of her ears. They must be ringing from the initial starteld gunshots.

"Must have happened fast," Daryl muttered. "Ain't no one done a damn thing to keep anyone from turnin'."

"You think there are more of them upstairs?" Rick asked.

"What?" Sasha asked, and he repeated himself.

"Let's head up." Daryl led the way to the stairwell.