A/N: Carol's section may be too graphic, and has references that would be dubcon. Summary at the end if you want to skip it.
Traveling south took three days, partly because Beth wants more time training to defend herself, and Shane doesn't seem to disagree with the need. While he's kept their route deliberately away from any large town, in the small ones, they stop and clear at least one building. Beth learned over the past year and a half to never think they have enough supplies, and some, like medical supplies, are trickier than others. Just because they're planning to spend a lot of their time on a boat, doesn't mean they can't get hurt or sick.
Even today, they aren't actually at the gulf coast yet. The town Shane led them to is a river port, just a tiny place that had maybe three hundred residents before the outbreak. It lies in the fork of two rivers that converge and lead to a bay and then the Gulf of Mexico. There aren't any walkers here, but that's due to Shane's prior visit clearing them out. With the town surrounded by river and wildlife management areas, there just isn't much of a population for walkers to wander back in.
When they pull up at the marina where Shane anchored the boat, Beth is surprised to see so many small craft still bobbing in the water in their slips. "It looks like any pending weekend," she says softly.
Shane nods as he parks the bus close to one of the docks, this one not a covered one like the ones where most of the boats are. "I imagine some of the larger boats probably went out to sea when the outbreak started, either with their owners or someone appropriating one like I did."
He points toward the only large vessel docked in the area, and Beth's eyes widen. "That's what you were sailing?"
"Yeah. Needed to be something big enough for the open sea, but not too big for one person to handle. She's about the max size for a single sailor though, at least one like me that was having to relearn a lot of skills."
"What's her name?" Beth always found the names on boats fascinating, but most of that was from reading books as a kid.
"Iris." Shane opens the bus door and ushers the dogs out. They gear up like any other excursion, just in case, locking the bus behind them. The dogs seem to understand they can roam a bit and don't instantly follow.
Walking along the floating dock reminds Beth of just how different this will be to even the bus's ability to stay mobile. Because he's familiar with the boat, Shane steps on, checking the lock and looking relieved it doesn't seem to be tampered with. He ducks inside the cabin, returning quickly to look at Beth still on the dock.
"C'mon. You can check out the cabin while I check to make sure none of the exterior hatches or compartments have been tampered with." He holds out a hand, helping her step down from the dock onto one of the pair of little built in ladder scoops on the back of the boat that she's sure has some special name.
She steps up onto a sort of outdoor dining area and eyes the captain's seat. "Does it have engines, too?"
"Yeah. Get out somewhere with no wind, or if you need to outrun a storm, and those come in really handy."
"What about fuel? I remember they were having more and more trouble keeping good fuel, even diesel."
"Boat has a fuel polishing system that can help keep the water and microbes out. Someone paid a pretty penny for that to be installed, and it's worth it. Before we add any extra fuel, we'll test it. Bad diesel is pretty obvious. But most marinas have the off road type, and they're really careful to treat it because it's a huge income loss if they don't. Places with the underground tanks, if we're careful? Stuff could last five years."
Shane smiles at her reassuringly. "Even without the engines, we'd still have the sails. That's why a sailboat versus just one of those big motorized only yachts."
Nodding, Beth leaves her machete on the outdoor table, which is surrounded by nice cushions and steps through the door into the quaint little room. It reminds her of the bus, quite a bit. There's another table like the one outside, with a U-shaped galley that she explores, finding the dish drying rack under a panel. The sink has three separate faucets, which she figures she'll have to ask Shane about, but she doesn't test any of them in case there's some larger system Shane has to do something with first.
The two-burner propane stove is like the bus, with a covering for the burners to make them part of the counter when not in use, and there's a really nice sized fridge she hopes works. Stretching above the sink, she reaches to fiddle with the little window hatch, grinning when it swings open. She can see Shane outside, at the front of the boat, checking hatches like he said.
"Everything okay so far?" she asks, wondering just how many hatches there are. This boat has more hidey holes than the bus, for sure.
He looks up and smiles at her from where he's reaching into one compartment. "Yeah. Nothing seems touched." Pulling a large boot tray with a piece of astroturf in it, his smile widens to a grin. "Puppy potty?"
"Um, really?" Beth hasn't even considered the dogs needing to pee or poop on board.
"Biscuit used it, so hopefully the rest will. Everything fastens to a line, and you toss the tray and turf over and let the water wash it clean." Shane sets it on the deck, fastening the line somewhere she can't see. "Gonna start testing out the equipment, if you hear any noise."
Beth watches him walk around the side of the boat that the helm is on before continuing down into the space below deck. In both directions on the galley's side of the boat are small cabins, each with a tiny wet bathroom like the bus has, where the sink's faucet doubles as a shower wand. The cabin toward the front of the boat seems to be the one Shane used, since there's a few items of clothing in his size left in the tiny closet. The other cabin has an assortment of supplies in neatly labeled plastic bins with lids.
One of the deck hatches acts as an access and skylight, she thinks, climbing up on the bed to unlatch it. Popping it open, she feels a breeze off the river that makes her understand the appeal. Figuring the interior needs to air out a little, she leaves it open and opens the other windows, too.
Crossing to the other side of the boat, she finds this must be the captain's cabin. The bed is in a cabin under the helm, with a room in between connecting to a much larger bathroom. This one has an actual shower, and behind a panel, a washer/dryer combo machine. The connecting room appears to be both closet space and tiny office.
Beth pauses in front of the long mirror on the closet door, eyeing the rings on the chain around her neck. It's weird, seeing those and not her mother's cross, but they're more of a comfort somehow, because it represents much more of her family. She wishes she knew where her mother's necklace went, but it was lost somewhere in the horrible night after she was kidnapped. It could be anywhere in Atlanta, from the floorboard of that car to the scrambled path she ran through the city. Her mother will forgive her for losing it.
Her assumption that Shane wasn't using this cabin is confirmed by the supplies also left behind in the room. Since he walked when he left the Iris here, she guesses this is what was leftover from his time aboard. Using one of the cabins for storage would be really nice, because they really have a decent stockpile.
As Beth hears the boat's engines start up, she heads back up to join Shane, watching curiously. "Everything good?"
"So far. Fuel seems to be clear. Did you like any of the cabins?" Apparently, he's just listening to the engines because he turns to look at her with that intense focus he uses almost anytime he asks her opinion.
"I like the bathroom on this side. Doesn't it have another name on a boat, though?"
"The head, but there's no snobby sailors around to fuss if you want to call it a bathroom. Why don't you take that cabin then? We can use the third for storage, and I need to show you the hidey holes, like the one in the shower you like."
A yip from the dock announces all three puppies have grown bored of exploring and now object to being separated from Beth. "Do you think it's safe for them to come on board? Those lifejackets you found are still on the bus."
Shane nods. "Long as we aren't underway, we can fish them back out of the water pretty easily."
Bringing them on board means supervising the romping trio, but Shane seems amused rather than irritated that she's playing with them. The trampoline at the front of the boat fascinates all three, and Beth's a fan herself once she stretches out on it. Several nights of sleep disrupted by nightmares catches up to her, and she dozes off.
Shane isn't surprised when he finds Beth snoozing amidst a pile of also napping puppies. He'd raised the sails as part of checking over the boat, so she's actually shaded. Leaving them be, he looks for Biscuit and Muffin, finding them both still exploring. The big male loves sailing, so he hopes they're equally lucky with Muffin. The pups will adapt, he thinks.
Food concerns him more for the dogs than himself and Beth, because the dry kibble he loaded on board last year is no longer an option. They do have a lot of canned dog food, and he has no intention of taking the Iris out into the open sea for so long they can't get to land for hunting. Maybe his fishing luck will hold, too.
Since Beth appears to like the captain's cabin, he goes below deck to shift all the leftover supplies out of her way. They'll need to be careful of weight distribution, but everything should be fine. They'll stay tonight at dock and let the puppies and Muffin adjust a little. With that in mind, he starts making trips from the bus with a dolly, getting a large amount of supplies down to the dock where the boat is moored before Beth wakes.
She's a little sheepish about her two hour nap, but he's glad of it. The nightmares that have plagued her worry him a little about sleeping on the other side of the boat. Since the night they shared the bed the first time, he's left his spot in the table bed two out of three nights to calm her down. He'll just have to wait and see, but just offering to share a cabin certainly isn't appropriate.
"You wanna stand on the boat while I pass stuff over?" he asks. She agrees happily, so over the next two hours, they get supplies stacked haphazardly on the boat to be sorted later. Since both the interior saloon table and the outside table are covered with supplies, they take a break to feed the dogs and snag MREs for their own lunch.
"One thing we'll need to get is more plastic storage boxes with lids, since we have more supplies now due to the dogs than I had just for me. It keeps them from getting damaged if water gets inside anywhere, and sea air is corrosive to the cans. Marina store probably has some, since I doubt folks made a run on those."
She laughs softly. "So the labels and bins aren't you just being a neat freak."
That makes him laugh as well. "Nah. Although it is a habit I've trained myself into. We need to make sure we don't put a bunch of heavy items on the bed in that supply cabin. Engine access is under the beds in the stern cabins."
"Is that why you chose the other cabin? Are the engines loud?" Beth looks worried.
"Most of the time, you wouldn't sleep while the engines are running, but they aren't. I just liked the hatch in the forward cabin." Thinking on his original idea to stay just one night in port, he revises. "We'll take a few days to sort everything and see what gaps we have. Then we'll do a little puttering in the rivers before we hit open water. That okay?"
Beth nods easily, finishing her food. "That should help the dogs adjust, right?"
"It should. I'm going to check the marina store to see if I can find any lifeline netting. I used a tether for Biscuit before, but we would end up in a mess of tangled lines. The netting isn't perfect either, but the more measures to keep the little butterballs out of the water, the better."
Looking toward the pups playing under the saloon table, Beth nods. "We aren't in any rush, right? Where will we go once we do leave?"
Shane just smiles and points to a laminated atlas he brought out of the little office. "Wherever you want to go."
Carol gets out of the bed, slips back into her discarded scrubs, and steps to the open bathroom door. Gorman is hunched naked over the toilet, vomiting violently. It had taken a little longer than expected for the poison and drugs she laced into his food to take hold, but the results are rather spectacular.
The other two corrupt male cops got off a little easier. They'll just never wake. But Gorman, and by extension Dawn Lerner? Both deserve to suffer.
"What did you do to me?" he rasps out, and Carol crouches down to smile grimly at him.
"Oh, just a little extra seasoning to your supper. Edwards is pretty careless with his medication cabinet key." Carol's training with Hershel paid off there, and she's pretty sure that the combination Gorman was given wouldn't respond to anything Edwards could do. Not that the weasel of a doctor would intervene. He's a coward, and once Lerner goes down, he'll bow to whoever assumes leadership.
Using his own handcuffs, she cuffs his arms around the toilet pipe. It's doubtful he could yank the industrial plumbing loose, not as weak as he's getting, but she wants him to suffer for what he's caused the women here. If he hasn't died and turned by the time she's back, she'll finish off him then.
Checking in on his two partners in crime reveals both men are sleeping soundly. They aren't responsive, but the tranquilizer dose was almost enough to be immediately fatal anyway. Ending Karen and David's suffering had been a stupid gamble, more of a mercy killing than really aiming to prevent anything. But it still felt wrong.
Putting a scalpel blade into these men's brains is easy compared to that. She maneuvers them one at a time into a wheelchair, taking them to the elevator shaft and tipping the bodies inside. As she turns from watching where O'Donnell's body disappeared to see Joan staring at her, wide eyed.
"You killed them?" she asks Carol, sounding much younger than she is. The other woman had been planning an escape like Noah's, but Carol convinced her to wait. She hadn't believed that Carol could distract Gorman from her until the first time the man sent her away as Carol slipped to her knees in front of him.
"Alvarado and O'Donnell. Gorman's suffering a bit."
Joan's expression firms up. "Good. What about Dawn?"
"I need to signal my people that they can come in." She suspects that the other officers will overlook what she did to the men, but they may not agree that Dawn is more guilty than any of the three for allowing it.
"I can do that. O'Donnell was supposed to be on duty near the roof access point. What do I do?"
Carol passes her a flashlight after demonstrating the signal she arranged with Daryl. They'll come to a certain door leading to the parking garage, and it's already understaffed by Alvarado's mysterious illness earlier. Tanaka is a pushover, so he'll be easy to distract on his own, especially by Joan, who he makes puppy eyes at all the time.
Going back to Gorman, Carol stares at the man, now splattered with his own vomit but alive. He tries to scramble away from her as she shows him the bloody scalpel. "Traitorous bitch," he mutters.
She just gives him another smile, avoiding the weak kick to catch his leg and pin the other. It leaves him twisted against the toilet, legs spread. It's a fitting position, she thinks, even as she slashes the scalpel into the femoral artery. Blood spreads beneath him, pooling around him on the once pristine white tile floor.
Holding his gaze until the life fades makes up for all the ways she distracted him over the past few days, using his own proclivities against him. He might have been smarter than Ed, but just like she advised Andrea about the Governor, men are extremely stupid once they're fucking a woman. If the blonde had just had the balls to kill her own monster, so many lives would have been saved.
But Carol's been sloppy herself. She didn't find Lamson's housekeeper fast enough, and the girl escaped. When Lamson and Shepherd returned empty handed with sickened expressions, she hadn't needed their words to confirm the girl ran into walkers. The sergeant had been kind when Carol approached him later, looking mournful as he confirmed the girl was a singer and letting Carol search the collection of seized personal belongings to see if she could find anything that belonged to Beth. Finding the antique cross on the leather cord nearly gutted Carol, even more than watching Hershel die.
Beth never took that necklace off, and it's distinctive, passed down at least two generations in her mother's family. The chain broke during the winter traveling, and Daryl replaced it with the sturdier leather cord. Retrieving it from its hiding spot sewn inside her shirt, Carol wraps the cord around her wrist like a bracelet even as she watches Gorman change from still and dead to snapping and angry undead.
Running to Dawn is the easiest acting she's ever done, and the woman's stupidly reckless to not consider an old housewife a threat. The lieutenant charges into Gorman's bathroom, only becoming wary when she sees the handcuffs. Shoving her into the range of those eager teeth is easy, especially when the cop cracks her head on the toilet, stunning her.
Gorman is as vicious in death as life, and hauling the half conscious woman into range gives Carol a dark thrill. The woman who allowed the culture that led to her Beth dying dies the same way as the girl Carol failed to protect. Putting them both down permanently, she uncuffs Gorman and goes to find her people and finish what she started here.
A/N: If you skipped Carol's section, she killed each of the dirty cops, including Dawn, but mistakenly believes that Beth died in an escape attempt.
Time jumps will start next chapter.