June 15, 2011
Carol tightened her arms around Daryl as the motorcycle trailed after the stuffed-to-the-walls military truck. They were keeping their recently looted supplies safe behind ally walls, away from the Shirewilt raiders, until they could agree on an appropriate division.
Gavin had offered to let Carol ride in the cab of the truck with him, but she preferred the wind in her hair and the feel of her husband's legs and strong back as they flew over the Virginia highway, dodged around stray walkers and cars, and glided past the Mechanicsville exit toward wherever this so-called "Sanctuary" was located.
Dianne had left early in the morning in the sedan in which Jerry and Tina had driven to the battlefield. She was meeting with the Highwaymen and then going on to the Kingdom to recruit soldiers. Meanwhile, Jerry had taken Gavin's supply-stuffed pick-up truck and the attached trailer to Oceanside. He was being followed by a large pick-up belonging to a Shirewilt inhabitant, which was running on borrowed gas from the Alliance, since Shirewilt had none. The pick-up's cab, extended cab, and bed were packed with six women, five children, and one elderly man who would be sequestered in Oceanside until the fighting was over. Noah's mother and his brother Isaac were among the temporary refugees. Isaac had insisted on being allowed to remain to fight and avenge his younger brother, but his mother and Noah had eventually overcome his pleading. The boy was only eleven after all, and, as he had already proven upon greeting the Fun Kingdom contingent, not exactly the best shot.
Zach, Noah, Dixon, Tina, and six able-bodied Shirewilt fighters remained behind – armed with Mr. Harrison's recently discovered hidden guns – to rebuild a more permanent gate and to begin preparations for next week's battle. Tina wasn't in a position to fight, given her illness, but she insisted someone should be on hand to make lemonade for the laborers as they fortified and readied for battle and later to help treat any of the wounded. Carol wondered if she wasn't motivated to stay at least in part because of the three good-looking teenage boys who would be remaining in Shirewilt, at least two of whom were paying her a goodly amount of flattering attention, though Noah was far more subtle and bashful in his attentions than Zach. Poor Benjamin, Carol thought, whoever he was—he might soon be a memory.
Once they were past Fredericksburg, they exited the highway, and the path Gavin took was convoluted. There were a lot of minor roads involved, not to mention dirt one, and some stretches Carol wasn't sure were roads at all, but he seemed to know where he was going in order to avoid former population centers and packs of walkers. She'd thought of the D.C. metro area as being packed with people, but they passed plenty of abandoned horse farms and tobacco farms, and even a couple of wineries, before they rolled up to the gates of the Sanctuary and the military truck hissed to a stop. Gavin must have already contacted someone inside by walkie talkie, because the two guards standing on a platform at the top of the fence were at ease, and a blonde woman rolled the gates opens without question.
The first thing Carol noticed when they parked inside the gates behind the military truck was the rows and rows of corn in a dusty field beyond the old factory building. The first thing Daryl noticed, however, was the rows and rows of motorcycles. He dismounted and went straight toward them and began looking them over.
"I think you've already won my husband's over," Carol quipped to Gavin when he stepped out of the truck.
Gavin chuckled.
She nodded to the fields of corn. "Your people must really like corn." There seemed to be a lot more than was necessary to feed a camp of this size.
"It's just what we can manage to grow plenty of here," Gavin answered. "Our inventory manager calls it our comparative advantage. There are a lot of tools and equipment in the old factory, so we were able to get a gristmill and a distillery up and going here. We produce corn meal, corn flour, and ethanol, and then we trade with the rest of the communities for real food. Or we scavenge it. We do have a few gardens ourselves, but nothing like the Kingdom or Hilltop or Alexandria. We're also known for reloading ammunition. We do a good trade in bullets."
Daryl wandered back toward them now. "Looks like you got almost as many bikes as people."
"Well, let's just say we appropriated a few after the rebellion," Gavin told him. "Only about a dozen are in operation. The rest are on hand to scavenge for parts over time."
"You convertin' them for somethin'?" Daryl asked. "A couple of the engines looked worked on."
"To run on ethanol," Gavin said. "I was telling Carol we have a distillery here. We have three tankers of gas, but it will spoil in a year, even with fuel stabilizer, even if we don't run through it all. We need an alternative. We'll try to convert a truck or two as well, but bikes will be a lot cheaper to run. We can grow enough corn to run trucks often."
The blonde woman who had opened the gate wandered over now, and Gavin introduced them. "This is Laura. She's on the Sanctuary Council. Laura, this is Daryl and his wife Carol." Daryl looked secretly pleased at Gavin's mode of introduction. Carol had never been formally introduced to a stranger as his wife before, even though she most certainly was. "They're the leaders of that community in Georgia."
"Among the leaders," Carol corrected him.
Laura looked Daryl over with particular scrutiny. "He looks just like a Savior," she told Gavin. Then, with a slight smirk, "He looks more the part than you ever did."
"Yeah, well, I always preferred my pick-up truck to a motorcycle," Gavin replied. "You can't haul lumber and tools with a bike. Come on." He waved to Daryl and Carol. "I'll show you around and then show you to the radio."
They passed a clucking, stinking chicken coop, some children playing hopscotch carved out in the dirt, and then a long greenhouse tent before being led inside through a heavy, metal door. The Sanctuary was rather bleak, Carol thought, compared to the cheerful, colorful world of Fun Kingdom. It was unclear to her what the factory had once produced, but she smell the faint fumes of alcohol now, drifting in from a roped off area in the back where the ethanol distillery must be running.
Half of this part of the factory floor housed a living space scattered with tents, and the other half was scattered with tables—forming a bustling marketplace that reminded her of a crowded, dingy Mexican bizarre, except there didn't seem to be any haggling. Prices were posted clearly on whiteboards and chalkboards in "points," and there were was an accountant who sat a high desk with a ledger to which everyone kept going after making a purchase. The purchaser handed her slips of paper, and she made notations in her ledger, tore up the papers, and tossed them in a trashcan. The market sold everything from food, drinks, batteries, gas, and oil to clothes, ammunition, weapons, toys books and, it looked like—even—sex.
"You got prostitutes?" Daryl asked when they were out of earshot of one booth behind which stood two women in low-cut summer dresses. They weren't dressed like streetwalkers, by any stretch, but even a summer dress with sandals made a highly noticeable contrast in a world of cargo pants, canvas shirts, and thick combat boots. And the chalkboard on their table read, only subtly enough to fool a child: "Company – 4 points. Extended company – 8 points. Prophylactics – 2 points."
"I'm not a fan," Gavin replied, "but just before I left for the battlefield, the Council decided we have to pick our battles. So, as long as no one is being extorted or coerced, and they're paying in points instead of council votes, like Jose was promising to do, we'll turn a blind eye. Any coercion, though, any force, any political corruption…and there will be trial and punishment."
"I hope your infirmary has a lot of antibiotics," Carol murmured.
"It does," Gavin replied. "And we have an excellent doctor. Emmett Carson. Negan abducted him originally, but he agreed to stay on at the Sanctuary after the rebellion in exchange for a good salary in points and some monthly gas and ammunition for the Hilltop, which is where his brother, Dr. Harlan Carson lives and works."
Daryl craned his neck back to look at the women, more out of curiosity, Carol knew, than anything else, though she nevertheless wrapped an arm around his waist and teased, "I'm all the company you need, Pookie."
He turned forward again. "Hell, yer all the company I can handle, Miss Murphy." He draped an arm over her shoulder, hugged her in, and then let his arm drop again. "They get much business?" he asked.
"Not at those prices," Gavin said. "But at those prices, they don't need much business. And, truth be told, those two don't have much in the way of skills. I mean practical skills. I mean…" Gavin flushed slightly, "not that I have any first-hand knowledge of their other skills."
They went up a set of metal stairs to a metal, T-shaped balcony along which was a series of rooms. "These were factory offices," Gavin told them, "but my construction team and I converted them to living quarters for women, children, and married couples. And council members. We have the privilege of private rooms. But all of the single men camp on the factory floor."
"Where's your power come from?" Daryl asked.
"Gas generators, and its rationed. We have a lot of gasoline, a couple tankers in fact, but like I said, it'll spoil, even if we don't blow through it all in a year. My plan is to scavenge some solar panels, storage batteries, get a solar generator hooked up over the next year. We have an electrician and an engineer. I'm mildly optimistic we can make it happen."
"Do you have running water?" Carol asked.
"Yes, from a reservoir outside the gates, which is refilled by rainwater, fed by pumps run by generator, but we have to ration the water, too, in case of drought, and we do boil the water to be safe before drinking. There are two locker rooms downstairs with four showers the factory workers used to use to decontaminate, and a few of the offices had showers too."
"Fuck would an office have showers for?" Daryl asked.
"Some of the bosses slept here, I guess. I know it's not much to look at, but Dianne would tell you it's much nicer than it was a few months ago. And it's a safe home, for a lot of people. There's order here now, without brutality. That might not sound like much -"
"—But it is," Carol interrupted him. "It's a lofty goal in this world."
Gavin nodded. "You understand."
"We've worked at build something, too."
Gavin showed them to the radio room where there was a worker "on duty," reading a book, and just letting the static run. "Sandra," Gavin said in a tone tinged with annoyance, "you're supposed to switch through the channels to see what you can catch."
"I was. I do. I switch after every two pages."
"Help these two try to reach Fu – Egypt." He turned his attention to Carol. "I've got a Council meeting to get to. Sandra here will try to get you patched through to your camp. It's hit or miss, that far away. I'll catch up with you later." He handed her the keys to his apartment and explained they'd be staying there tonight before moving onto Alexandria in the morning to meet Aaron. "You can have my bedroom."
"We don't want to kick you out of house and home," Carol insisted.
"My living room couch is comfortable. I've slept there before. But it's not big enough for two. You might want to change the sheets, though. There should be clean ones in the closet." Gavin vanished down the hallway.
Daryl and Carol did manage to get through to Fun Kingdom after an hour. It was Carl Grimes who answered. He'd come in from work with Rick in the gardens to grab some water. Sophia was at work with the horses, he said. And though they regretted they couldn't talk directly to their daughter, they managed to communicate to Carl that they were safe and would be about a week longer than predicted, without revealing any locations or plans, in case the banished Savior's crew was listening in. Sophia would be informed so she didn't worry, or at least didn't worry any more than usual.
They settled their things into Gavin's apartment next. As Carol was changing the sheets on the bed, Daryl rifled through the cabinets and countertop in the tiny kitchen/living room. Carol came out of the bedroom and leaned back against the wall near the two-person kitchen table. "Pookie," she said. "We're guests here."
"Just seeing what he's got. Lots of whiskey." He pointed to a high cabinet with several bottles. "Think he's a drunk?"
"That's not at all the impression I get. I like Gavin."
Daryl frowned slightly. "Well don't like him too much."
Carol chuckled. "I think he'll make a good ally. Given what he had to deal with here, from the stories we've heard, and from what Woodbury experienced at the hands of that Savior Simon? I think he's probably done better than can be expected. He's the sort of man we want on our side. Disciplined. Calm. Fair. Smart."
Daryl grunted. "Can't be too smart." He pointed to the stack of DVD cases on top of the small TV/DVD player combo. "He's got all the Police Academy movies."
"What's wrong with Police Academy?" Carol asked with a teasing smile. "I love the Police Academy movies."
"Pffft. Like hell you do."
"You don't know me."
"Keep tellin' yourself that." He threw himself down on the couch, back against an arm, and one leg stretched out and another on the floor. "So, what the hell are we s'posed to do here until we leave for this Alexandria place in the morning?"
"We could earn our keep for the night. Volunteer to help in the gardens or something."
"Think maybe I'll volunteer to help converting one of those bikes. Wanna see how it's done. Might need to convert mine one day."
"Well, you do that, Pookie." Carol strolled over, leaned down, and kissed him. "I'm going to go see if I can learn more about this place. And maybe make friends. Because someday, we might need to trade for ethanol."
"Wheel's are always turnin' in that head of yours, Miss Murphy."
Carol pulled her shirt tail down to better conceal her handgun, shifted her knife to a more comfortable position, and put a hand on the doorknob. She turned back a moment. "No visiting the company table while I'm gone."
"Can guess what extended company is," Daryl muttered. "Just wonder what regular company is."
"Well, if you're good, I'll show you later tonight." Carol winked and slipped through the door.