Red River Blue
Chapter 38
"I have to go out there," Carl said, his voice growing higher with urgency towards the end of his statement. He wasn't pulling his hand from Wren's tight grasp yet, but he was pleading with his eyes for her to understand and let him go. He didn't want to leave her alone. He was going because he felt he had to go. "I'm a good shot. Better than most of them. I can help, I can fight." Wren nodded her head reluctantly. Instead of letting go, she pulled Carl's hand towards her, guiding it around her waist before she let go of it and wrapped her slim arms around his neck.
Since their first kiss in the adminstration building they had been kissing each other every day. They snuck into the cell near the kitchen that served as a food pantry to kiss. They kissed in the library. In the dark hallway that led outside into the woods. And earlier that morning they had kissed each other while they were reading comics in Wren's bunk. While the other kisses had been brief stolen moments, the one that happened that morning had been long and lingering. Carl had been able to taste the sugary sweet chocolate bar that Wren had been taking tiny little bites of. Letting the candy melt in her mouth to make it last longer. It was the kind of kiss that made Carl wonder why pressing his lips to the lips of another person made him feel funny in all the other parts of his body.
Thinking about the kiss again, Carl wrapped his arms around Wren's waist and crushed the girl against his chest. The added fear and desperation of the situation swirled together with his already overcharged hormones, leaving him feeling fiercely protective and more determined than ever to make sure nothing bad happened to the girl in his arms. His lips found hers. This time there was no tentative hesitation in his kiss. He pressed his lips down hard on Wren's, cupping the back of her head with his hand. When he pulled back Carl felt like the room was spinning around them and it took him a moment to gain his composure.
"Take this," he said, pulling his gun from the holster on his thigh and pressing the cold metal into Wren's hand. There were tears in her eyes that he was trying to pretend he didn't see.
"No," Wren argued, trying to push the gun back at him, "You need it if yer goin' out there." Carl shook his head, assuring her that he could get a rifle from one of the barrels outside. He didn't want to leave her alone inside at all and he wasn't going to leave her unarmed.
"Stay here," Carl told her, moving Wren inside the doorway of the cell where the other children were hiding. Wren's mother had hustled them into one cell together and told them to stay quiet before she took off runnning for the outside door. "Watch my sister for me and if anyone comes in here, blast the shit outta them." Wren nodded, glancing into the cell. Mika was holding Judith on her lap with two of the younger children crowded in on either side of her. Lizzie was pacing back and forth across the tiny space like one of the big cats they kept in cages at the zoo.
"But what if you don't come back?," Wren asked. The area of the prison they were in had not been hit as hard as the section that took a direct blast. But she could still smell the smoke and the gunpowder from where the man outside had fired on them with a much more powerful weapon than anything they had in their arsenol.
"I'm coming back," Carl assured her, "I promise." He remembered a movie he had seen once. The exact plot was hard to recall but he was sure of one thing. The young man in the film had been leaving to go to war. After a kiss, he had taken off the dog tags he wore around his neck and put them around the neck of the young woman he was eager to come back home to. Carl had given Wren his gun, but that didn't feel the same. It didn't feel like enough. But Carl didn't have dog tags like the man in the movie. He didn't really have anything that belonged to him besides the clothes on his back and the hat on his head. Carl's face lit up. He pulled the hat off his head and plunked it down on top of Wren's pigtail braids. "I'll be back for my hat," he announced.
Wren used one hand to keep the hat from falling off her head as she leaned forward and pressed one more kiss to Carl's lips. He kissed her back, just one quick smash of his lips against hers. Then he turned and ran for the outside door. As he disappeared, Wren heard the sound of gunfire coming from outside the building. The noise spooked her and she got a better grip on the gun in her hands.
"Those people are here to kill us," Lizzie announced. Wren spun to face the girl, still wiping the tears from her eyes. "We should all have guns," Lizzie added. Wren noticed the other kids were looking at her to see what she thought about Lizzie's sudden declaration. Wren swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly feeling dry. Lizzie was crazy. But that didn't mean she was wrong.
"My mom and Carol hid a box of extra guns and bullets in the kitchen," Wren said. Lizzie nodded and started towards the door, but Wren stuck her arm out to keep the other girl from leaving. "We should pack Judith's bag first in case we need to run for it." Lizzie glanced back at the baby like she couldn't care less, but then she shrugged and nodded her head. With the promise of getting a gun fresh on her mind, Lizzie was eager to agree with whatever plan would make that happen. She and Wren each yanked down empty bags from a shelf and began stuffing formula and cloth diapers inside.
TWD
If she would have been forced to recount the events of the battle, River didn't think she would be able to. The beginning of it was the most clear in her mind. She had never been a very good shot. So instead of trying to shoot people, she was helping the people that were too old or too sick onto the large school bus they planned to use to flee the area. River was half dragging half walking one old woman, a former woodbury resident, out to the bus when she heard a pop. Either someone had shot that old woman on purpose, or she had been caught in the crossfire. The woman's blood splattered the front of River's shirt and splashed down her thigh. River let the old woman slump to the ground. She was still holding pressure on the wound when the woman reanimated and tried to bite her. From that point on the rest of what happened was a blur.
The fog was thick around them, making it impossible to see more than a few feet away. They stood in a roughly formed circle, facing out. Killing one walker after another after another. The walkers just kept coming. River shot them with her gun until she ran out of bullets and the gun started making a hollow clicking noise. Since she didn't shoot at anyone during the battle, River had more bullets left than the rest the small group of people she had somehow ended up fleeing the prison with. But now even she was out. Shoving the gun into the back of her shorts, River pulled a hunting knife from the sheath at her waist. The knife was Merle's and holding it in her hand made her breath hitch in her chest before she regained control of her emotions. She would find her family. But first she had to survive this moment. River reminded herself that she couldn't find her husband or her girls if she was dead.
"We should boil that water first," Sasha scolded. Now that the fog had lifted and the small herd of walkers was dead, River was kneeling down in front of a small creek, lifting handful after handful of the clear running water up to her mouth with her cupped hands. She was wearing a pair of cutoff denim shorts that were frayed at the edges. As she bent down low to drink from the stream, the shorts left her thighs and most of the underside of her ass exposed. Sasha glanced at Bob. He had a huge smile on his face despite the still weeping wound on his shoulder. But instead of looking aroused by the skimpy attire of the woman in front of him, he seemed instead to be rather amused by the entire situation.
"I been drinkin' from cricks my whole life," River announced, reaching down for another handful of water, "and it ain't killed me yet." Sasha might be good with a gun. But she wasn't fooling anyone. She was a city girl. Prissy and afraid of a little bit of unboiled water. River had seen her big bear of a brother scream like a little girl over a tiny little racer snake some of the kids found in the garden. It had taken every ounce of self control she had not to laugh her ass off at him. River had never seen a grown man act afraid of a snake like that before. Merle and Daryl used to catch copperheads by their tails and swing them against the trunks of trees to kill them.
"At least it's not stagnant water," Maggie added. Like River she was far too thirsty to wait. And boiling water was going to take more time than she wanted to spend. She needed to find Glenn and she needed to find him now. She didn't have time to waste.
With her rabid thirst finally quenched, River lifted one more handful of water and splashed it onto her neck, trying to scrub away some of the blood that had dried on her skin. She repeated this process a few times while Maggie knelt down next to her and got herself a drink. River took a moment to observe the other woman.
River didn't like Maggie. The two women might have been from the same state but as far as River was concerned Maggie was from a different planet. She had grown up privileged. Maybe not silver spoon in the mouth privileged, but her family had lived in a big house and had enough money to send Maggie to a private college. River could hear it in her voice when Maggie spoke. They didn't even have the same accent. But none of these things were the reason River disliked the woman kneeling next to her.
The reason River avoided Maggie was because of the way Maggie looked at her. Maggie was not only a bit of a snob, but she was a self-righteous little bitch to boot. And River hated the way Maggie turned her nose up at her and her girls. Like she felt sorry for them. Even as she ate the food that River's husband and brother-in-law had been responsible for bringing in, Maggie still looked at the whole lot of them like they weren't good enough to sit at the same table as her. River usually did her best to ignore the woman. Until now. She needed Maggie's help. So ignoring her was no longer an option.
"We should check my camper first," River announced, pulling a hankercheif from her back pocket and wiping her face with it before she tied it around her neck, leaving the loose end pointing down towards her cleavage. "Then we can try and follow the bus."
Maggie took one more sip of water before she sat back with her butt in the dirt. She stared at River and River stared back at her. River's tone had made it obvious that she wasn't any more happy about teaming up with Maggie than Maggie was about becoming her new partner. But they both needed to find their familes. And neither of them could do it alone.
"I'd rather look for the bus first," Maggie complained.
"Yeah. Well my camper's closer and there's a whole mess of emergency supplies inside," River countered. Maggie nodded and pulled herself up from the ground. She offered River a hand up but River ignored the gesture and chose to boost herself up from the soft dirt of the creekbed without assistance. Leaning forward, River brushed the dirt off her knees and thighs, trying not to look at the old woman's dried blood all over the front of her shirt.
Without waiting for permission from Sasha, the two women started off into the woods, walking back in the general direction of the prison. Sasha tried to call after them. The prison was swarming with walkers. That was the last direction they ought to be going. Bob shrugged the one shoulder that he could move without causing himself pain. Then to Sasha's absolute horror he started off after the two lunatics, turning back once to smile his signature overly happy grin at her.
"Come on Sasha," he called back, "its not like we have anything else better to do."