The Kingdom
6:00 PM
Daryl didn't like this King Ezekiel Richard-Burton-wannabe. The man was a pretentious ass. He talked weird, and he was flirting with Carol, goddamnit, his wife, acting all regal and shit over the banquet table. That's what the poser called it, too, "the banquet table," but it was nothing but a goddamn cafeteria table in a high school cafeteria, and some of this food they were eating was probably cafeteria food, too, it tasted bland enough—this applesauce in a little plastic snack cup and this damn juice box he was supposed to sip like some kind of kid. And Carol was laughing, too, as if the king was funny, which he was, but in the laugh-at- him, not the laugh-with-him kind of way. And now the man was quoting poetry! The fucktard was quoting poetry. And Carol knew where he was quoting it from because she just finished the line.
Carol had her eyebrows raised half the time they were touring this place after they arrived, and she suppressed plenty of disbelieving laughs. But it's as if she's starting to like it now. She did like the choir of kids singing underneath the gazebo. Who the fuck has time to teach kids to sing in a choir? They ought to be learning the four Rs-Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic and Ripping the head off a walker.
And there is no way on earth Daryl is buying this legend that the king once had a goddamn tiger as a pet. Supposedly Ezekiel was a zookeeper and he tamed the thing at the start, and it died in the rebellion against the Saviors while protecting him. People have made that shit up, Daryl's sure, probably because the high school's team was The Tigers. No one domesticates a goddamn tiger.
"Well, if you and Siegfried here are gonna keep yappin' 'bout poetry," Daryl told Carol, "I'm gonna go have a smoke."
"I'll find you later," Carol replied.
Daryl hrmphed and scraped back his chair. He couldn't wait to go home at the first crack of dawn in the morning, see his little girl, be on his own turf, in a Kingdom where no one pretended to be a knight or a king or to tame tigers. Well, except the kids. That was fine for the kids. They could pretend to their hearts' content.
But he had to get used to the fact that Carol liked meeting knew people. She had been such a mouse in the quarry camp, so timid, so hesitant about so much that it was strange for him to see what a social butterfly she actually was. He didn't hate it. Hell, she was gorgeous when her eyes twinkled and she smiled and she was having a good time meeting people. And he was glad to see her enjoying herself in a world where those moments could be too far and few between. He just didn't like fluttering his wings himself.
That's why he was irritated when Dixon and Zach joined him the gazebo ten minutes later, where he was leaned back against the rail and smoking his second cigarette. Dixon alone he wouldn't have minded, but Zach starts talking right away. "So what do you think of this place? Is it crazy or what?"
"Don't get me started," Daryl muttered.
"I kind of like it though," Zach continued. "It reminds me of the Ohio Renaissance Fair my parents once took me to."
"The military truck is all packed up," Dixon said. "Ready to go at sunrise. I'm driving," he insisted to Zach. "You're shotgun."
"Uh…about that," Zach said. "I'm not going to be riding shotgun. Carol can do that."
"Well you sure as shit ain't riding bitch on my bike," Daryl told him.
"I'm going to stay here. In Virginia," Zach explained. "I'm going to serve as the go-between for the Kingdom and Shirewilt, since I know Noah. King Ezekiel agreed to it. I'll probably stay in the Kingdom two weeks, Shirewilt two weeks, back and forth for trade and to share information. They'll teach me to ride a horse here, so when the gas spoils…I can keep doing it."
"This wouldn't have anything to do with Tina, would it?" Dixon asked.
"Well, she does want to join me on the trade trips, but I think that's because she's crushing pretty hard on Noah," Zach said. "I just feel like I'd be more useful in these two communities than I am at Fun Kingdom. You have so many soldiers, so many good shots. Shirewilt doesn't. It needs more trained shooters, and I can help with that. I used to be the captain of my rifle team in college. I helped train a lot of guys. And, Tina aside, my prospects of ever having a family in Virginia are a lot better than in Georgia. More communities, more people."
"Family?" Daryl asked, surprised the frat boy was thinking of such things.
"Yeah, I mean, I want one someday. A wife. Kids."
"Huh." Daryl hadn't seen this coming – Zach, wanting to help out, Zach, wanting to start a family someday.
"Beth's going to be pretty disappointed when I come home without either you or Noah," Dixon said. "Noah she was expecting to stay, at least."
"Well I'll be down to visit in a couple weeks," Zach said. "I told Aaron I'd get him at Alexandria, make a stop off at Shirewilt, and then take him down to see his niece, or his dead husband's niece, or whatever Mika is to him."
"He better not try to take her back with him!" Dixon exclaimed.
"Carol ain't gonna let that happen," Daryl assured him. Neither would Sophia. Or Luke.
"We can only stay two days," Zach said. "Aaron's on the council in Alexandria, and that's a two-day trip each way as is. Three if we add a night at Shirewilt going down. He said he can't be gone more than a week. But I'll bring you more of your share of the gas from the tanker when I come."
Daryl saw Carol walking alone their way and stubbed out the last of the cigarette beneath his boot, walked down the gazebo stairs, and fell in step beside her. "Done laughing at the king's stupid literary allusions?"
"You sound a little jealous," Carol said with a slight smile.
"Pfft. Ain't jealous of that poser. But I think he was flirtin' with you."
"You think? I think he's just generally charming."
"Hell's charmin' 'bout him?"
Carol chuckled. "You know it's good for me to get to know the people here. We may need them one day. I wish we'd gotten to see Alexandria and the Hilltop, too. Maybe some other vacation."
"Vacation?" Daryl asked skeptically.
"It's kind of felt like one, hasn't it? I mean…except for rescuing our new friends from that herd, and the battle preparations at Shirewilt. And the battle. And all the general shooting and killing."
Daryl laughed. "Yeah, 'cept those few little blips."
"I'm serious, though. It does kind of feel like a vacation. And I like it. We've been getting to meet new people, see knew places…" She bumped his shoulder with hers, "have a lot of wild sex."
Daryl smiled. "Sex has been damn good."
"So you'll take me on vacation again someday?"
"Yeah. Someday." He slung his arm around her shoulders. "Where we goin' now?"
"The school theater. They show movies on Thursday nights. On an old projector reel. With popcorn."
"Hell, we show movies two nights a week in the House of the Future."
She slid an arm around his waist. "It's not a competition, Pookie. Just enjoy your wife's company for an evening."
Daryl hugged her in and then let his arm slacken again. "Enjoy yer company every evenin'. No matter what we're doing."
He enjoyed her company more, though, when the stupid movie was over. It was some version of Romeo and Juliet, but with that wimpy blond kid from Titanic, and they were driving cars and shooting guns but still talking like it was the 16th century. It was jarringly anachronistic, like the Kingdom itself. But then they went to bed in the classroom they'd been assigned for the night and made playful love on an air mattress that had thoroughly deflated by the time they were finished.
June 24
Daryl enjoyed his wife's company again the next morning, when she was curled around him on his bike, her arms wrapped around his waist and her slender, toned legs pressed against his as they flew down the highway ahead of the military truck, crossing the state line from Virginia into North Carolina, and then again into South Carolina, bound for Georgia, for Fun Kingdom – for home.
8:30 PM
Petite Aviation Museum,
South Carolina
Northern Virginia to Fun Kingdom was a trip that could have been made in a day in the old world, in eleven hours of power-through driving, but with all the stops to clear blockages and detours around wandering packs of walkers, it was sunset by the time they made it near the South Carolina/Georgia border. They stopped for the night in a town called Petite, population 19,822, according to the sign on the road. They chose the Petite Aviation Museum as the scene of their camp because they could pull the military truck into a fenced-in yard that also housed airplanes.
The place was deserted, except for a few walkers bumbling outside the fence, which they killed before entering. They had to use bolt cutters to get through the chain on the fence before pulling in and parking the truck between two airplanes. They chained the fence again, this time wrapping and tying the now broken chain, just to keep any walkers out.
"Do you think these planes actually run?" Dixon asked as they walked, weapons out and backpacks on their backs, toward the museum building.
"Don't matter," Daryl said. "Ain't no one got any jet fuel to run 'em by now. Military used all that trying to bomb the world clean."
Carol reached out and touched a propeller as they passed a World War I plane.
They cased the building, Dixon and Carol with the lights on their rifle scopes turned on and Daryl holding a flashlight. They went all the way around the building and banged on three separate sets of windows and waited, but there was never any sign of life. The doors were all locked, so they busted and crawled through a window.
The museum was small. All of the intact airplanes were outside in the yard. Only parts of planes, aviation uniforms, model airplanes, photographs, and other odds and ends were on display inside the museum. Beams of light swept over the wooden floors, over glass encased exhibits, and into bathrooms. They did find one walker, in an office, which was locked from the inside. Someone had been working while the museum was closed and had died in there. The walker threw itself against the window opening on the museum when they approached, hungrily gnashing its jaws. "Just leave it," Daryl murmured. "Ain't gettin' out."
"But there might be stuff in there worth looting," Carol suggested.
"What? 'S just a single office."
"There's a supply closet. It could have a lot of batteries. Coffee grounds."
"Stale coffee grounds," Daryl muttered. "Have to break the glass gettin' in, might get bit doin' it. Ain't worth it."
"Oh, fine," Carol conceded. "I guess I just like shopping."
"Like shopping?" Daryl asked. "Can go shopping in the gift shop in the mornin'. When there's sunlight to see what you're buyin'."
They settled in for the night, ate food from their packs, set up a watch shift, and took turns sleeping.
June 25
7:30 AM
The museum was small enough that it didn't have a café, but it did have vending machines. After busting the machines open in the morning, Daryl took some crates that were turned over before displays to allow small children to climb up and see the exhibits and filled them with apple juice bottles, sodas, water bottles, and snacks. He didn't bother with most of the candy—it was melted and deformed and they still had so much of that in Fun Kingdom anyway—but he took all the trail mix, the potato sticks (that was a vegetable, right?), granola bars, and Pop Tarts. (Those were healthy, yeah? They had fruit.)
He left Dixon to finish the packing and found Carol in the little gift shop, with three large plastic bags full of stuff. She'd picked out shirts for Sophia, Mika, Lizzie, and several other kids, as well as a tiny onesie for Judith, which she insisted on showing him. It had a cute little baby plane on the front and the name of the museum. She'd also gotten Carl and Duane a model plane kit to build together and Mika and Luke an aviation coloring book. For Patrick, there was a book on the design mechanics of planes—he seemed to like to read anything engineering related.
"Whatchya get me?" Daryl asked.
"This," teased Carol and placed a pilot's cap on his head.
He chuffed and swept it off.
"I did get us all some aviation gloves, though," she said. "They'll be good for when we're clearing walkers. They're thick and fire resistant. Provide a good grip on weapons, too."
"Always thinkin', Miss Murphy. Always thinkin'." Daryl pulled on a pair of gloves, just to try them out, and decided they'd be good for riding, too. He was wearing them when he started his motorcycle.
When they crossed into Georgia twenty minutes later, the road was wet and slick, and a light patter of rain pelted them. As they got closer to Fun Kingdom, the rain faded into a thin mist and then nothing at all, and the sun came out, stronger and stronger. But they also saw more evidence of a heavy storm—toppled trees, blown-off sections of roof, debris littering the roadway, smoke from fires set by lightening strikes. Some brutal force of nature had swept through here while they were gone.
With increasing nervousness, Daryl picked up speed and pushed on toward Fun Kingdom. He could sense the same nervousness in the way Carol's grip on him tightened, in the rumble of the military truck pushing forward behind him.
When they got to Fun Kingdom, smoke rose in the distance from several places within the amusement park. The parking lot was littered with branches and leaves blown free from trees, bits of roof tile from the parking booths, and the bodies of numerous slain walkers. Hundreds of spent brass casings scattered the pavement where the walkers had been gunned down to clear a path. Six different small packs of still-living creatures crouched down on the asphalt where they feasted on the bodies of dead humans.