Chapter 2
It rained for two days. It was a good and bad thing. Lots of rain meant lots of fresh waster for the water barrels outside, but it also meant that Adrian couldn't bring Carl back to camp. It had started out as a light rain but then it started to rain harder and harder until it was coming down so hard and loud that it was almost too loud to think.
Adrian always made sure that they had plenty of food in case they couldn't go out to hunt or go down to the creek to fish. There was only so much they could do stuck in the cabin, but luckily for them, Kale had found a few board games and a deck of cards in one of the bedroom closets. They played a few games of Go Fish and checkers before Kale challenged Adrian to chess. Carl didn't know how to play chess but he found it really funny every time Kale would either take one of Adrian's pieces or beat her. He really started to giggle when Adrian finally snapped after being beaten for the fourth time in a row and she tackled him to the floor. After a lot of cursing and promises to put something sharp in a very uncomfortable place from Adrian, she decided that she was done with chess and proposed they played a game of Monopoly. Soon after it was Kale who was curing when Adrian and Carl teamed up on him in the game. It was some time around mid-afternoon when they got board of playing games. There was a bookshelf in the living room and Adrian decided that she would read to them to pass the time.
Adrian took a few books from the shelf and walked back to the fireplace with a large smile on her face. "I get really scared when you smile like that." Kale said as he seen her smile. Adrian gave him a glare and kicked his foot as she walked by, which cause him tor curse some more, making Carl giggle.
"I am going to read to you one of the greatest books series ever written." Adrian said as she sat down by the lit fireplace and got comfortable. "What is it?" asked Carl. "The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings." she said, still smiling. "I've watched those." said Kale. "While the movies were very good, they did leave out some pretty big details." she said as she picked up The Hobbit. "I've never heard of them." said Carl, looking interested.
"Oh, my dear boy, you are going to learn, and love, today." Adrian said, looking into Carl's excited blue eyes.
Adrian read until Carl fell asleep.
TWD
It had stopped raining during the night. Adrian decided that even though it was muddy, that it was safe to bring Carl back to his camp. Kale said that he wanted to go along and Adrian agreed. It had been raining for two days and she had no clue how the terrain was, other than muddy, and she could use all the help she could get with Carl, especially if they ran into any zombies.
It was around lunch time when they were about a mile away. "The hunter is gone." Adrian said, breaking the silence. "How do you know?" Kale asked. Adrian pointed to the ground where there were large muddy tracks in the ground. "Those are fresh. That means we'll have time to get away without being tracked." she said. "That's Daryl. He's not very nice. His brother, Merle, isn't very nice either." Carl said. "Hmm." Adrian said, just to answer Carl's statement.
They were about forty yards from the quarry camp when Adrian broke the silence. "Kale, stay here. Watch our backs. I want to leave quick after he's back in the camp." she told the teen. She could tell by ticking in his jaw that he didn't like the idea of her going so close to the camp without him, but he also knew better than to argue with her. With a nod, Kale held his shotgun at the ready. Adrian walked closer to the camp with Carl until she could see their sound barrier that surrounded their camp in the woods. It wasn't anything more than some tin cans on a rope, but it was better than nothing.
Adrian put her hand on Carl's shoulder to get his attention. "Alright buddy, this is where we part ways. You have that knife I gave you?" she asked him. Carl nodded and pulled out the pocket knife she had given him that morning. Seeing the knife she nodded in approval. "Good boy. Now, you remember, you keep that on you all the time, just in case you ever get separated from the grown ups again." she told him, which he nodded at.
Adrian gave him a smile and lightly flicked the tip of his nose, to which he swatted at her hand and giggled. "Alright, off you go. Stay in the camp from now on and be sure to follow the rules your mom sets." Adrian told him. Carl nodded and walked over the rope and she could hear him yelling for his mom. Almost immediately she could hear yelling in the camp and decided that it was time to go.
She turned and met up with Kale. She could hear loud noise coming their way from the camp and decided it was time to get the hell out of dodge. "You go that way, leave as much disturbance as you can. You'll hit the creek in a few miles, walk in the water so they can't followyou any more. I'll do the same and meet you back at the cabin." she told him, hearing the people from the quarry camp getting closer. Kale nodded and headed off in the direction he was told.
Adrian had lost the men from the quarry camp about two miles back and was thankful for it. She hated running and she had been doing a lot of that in the last few weeks.
TWD
"Kale, if you don't stop being so damn twitchy, I'm going to shoot you." Adrian said. She understood, she did. It was dark out and they were walking through the woods. Adrian's big ground rule was to never be out in the woods after dark unless necessary. It had been about a week since they had brought Carl back to camp and in that time Adrian and Kale had seen more and more zombies roaming through the woods every day.
Adrian had decided that while it was stupid to leave the cabin, it was even more stupid to try and stay. The number of zombies they were having to kill every day was becoming alarming and they were getting closer and closer to the cabin before they could be spotted and killed. She and Kale had talked it out and decided that they needed to leave. Because of the number of zombies in the woods it was getting harder and harder to find fresh meat, so they needed to leave.
But Adrian had decided that they needed to warn the quarry camp about the zombies before they left. They were people in that camp that weren't cut out to kill these things and they should be warned at how many were getting so close. Kale was hesitant until she reminded him that there were children in that camp, including Carl. After the reminder he caved. And now they were walking through the dark, in the woods, where a zombie could jump out at them at any moment.
"I'm sorry, okay. I don't like being out here at night. There's been too many of those damn things lately to be out here this late." Kale whispered. "I understand that, but you being so twitchy is making me twitchy, and when I get twitchy while holding a damn rifle, I tend to start shooting at things that startle me. I'm fairly sure you don't want that happening again." she said, referring to the first time she had taken him hunting. Needless to say he had startled her by yelling out when he tripped over a tree root and was almost shot in the foot.
Kale had just opened his mouth to answer when they hear a loud feminine scream. And then the gun shots started. All they could hear was screaming and gun shots. Neither said anything as they started running. They were speechless when they exited the tree line that lead into the quarry camp. It was chaos. There were people and zombies everywhere. Some were running from the zombies as they screamed. Some were screaming because the zombies had gotten a hold of them and had started to eat them alive. People were yelling instructions to others as they shot at the zombies. Blood, red and black alike, was everywhere.
What snapped Adrian out of her stupor was a woman running past, a zombie a few steps behind her. It reached it's boney hands out to grab the woman when Adrian raised her rifle and shot it in the head just before it touched her. With it dead, she instructed Kale to stay close and charged into the camp to help kill the living dead. More often than not, the zombies that she and Kale killed had already grabbed their prey and were eating. It was about the time more gunfire sounded in the camp when Adrian seen something that made her stomach drop. A few feet in front of her was a girl, probably around Carl's age, with short blonde hair, clutching a stuffed bear as she cried and screamed for her mother.
There was a zombie creeping up on the girl that she didn't see. Adrian raised her rifle and shot it in the head. As it dropped to the ground, Adrian ran forward and grabbed the girl by the arm. The girl screamed in fright when Adrian grabbed her arm but stopped when she seen it wasn't a dead person grabbing her. "You stay behind me and between us until the shooting stops, do you understand?" Adrian yelled at the girl. The girl, clearly petrified, silently nodded and went willingly when Adrian pushed her behind her.
Adrian felt the girl grab onto the back of her dirty jeans and was satisfied that the girl wasn't going anywhere. Adrian and Kale slowly walked through the camp and killed any zombies they came across, the girl still firmly between them and safe from the dead. One last shot was heard throughout the camp and all was quiet. Adrian could hear people crying and looked around at the once thriving campsite. "Sophia!" Adrian heard a woman yell from somewhere. "Mommy!" the girl yelled back as she released Adrian's pants and took off running towards the woman's voice. "Wait! Be careful!" Adrian yelled as she grabbed at the girl, but she was a second too slow. The girl charged through the camp, running towards her mother's voice with Adrian and Kale right behind her. From what she could tell, all of the dead were actually dead this time, but you never knew. Sometimes those things were like a jack-in-the-box and just sprang from nowhere.
They rounded a group of tents to see a large group of people standing close to the RV and ,aside from a few women and children, all of them were armed and aiming their weapons in their direction. Adrian looked at the group and recognized everyone, with the exception of the man that Carl was hugging. All of the women and children were crying and all of the men looked at her and Kale with hard, suspicious faces.
"Who the hell are you and where'd you come from?" one of the men demanded. Adrian recognized him as the leader of the camp. She had seen him with Carl and Carl's mother a lot in the camp, and had even happened upon him and Carl's mother in the woods a few times. She had always assumed that he was Carl's father.
"We come in peace." Adrian said as she held her rifle in her right hand, barrel pointing towards the sky, and looked behind her to see Kale have his shotgun propped across his shoulders. She had just turned to answer the question when her name was shouted from within the group. "You guys are okay!" Carl said as he ran towards her at full speed. Adrian's eyes widened in alarm at how quickly Carl was running towards her and knew he wouldn't be able to stop quickly enough. "Kale." Adrian got out just before Carl ran into her. She tossed her rifle at Kale as she felt herself being tackled to the ground by the terrified boy.
Adrian wrapped her arms around Carl just as her back hit the ground and they landed with an grunt of surprise and pain. Carl was crying in her shoulder when Adrian heard the sound of a gun being cocked. Adrian looked over Carl's body to see at least three of the men from the quarry group had walked towards them with all of their guns pointed in her direction, while Kale had her rifle slung over his left shoulder and his shotgun aimed towards the men. Kale didn't seem to like that they had gotten so close, with all of their guns loaded and pointed her no less.
"It's okay. You're okay and so are we." Adrian said as she pet Carl's hair in a soothing motion. "What do you say you let me up and go back over to your mom. She's still scared too, you know, and she could use a strong boy like you to help her not be so scared." she told the crying boy gently. Carl sniffed and pushed himself off of her. Adrian stood up and helped him up as well. She gently wiped the tears from his dirty cheeks and gave him a small smile before she motioned for him to go back to his mother, who quickly wrapped him in her arms, giving her a confused look.
"Who the hell are you?" the man she didn't recognize demanded. "My name is Adrian and this is my friend, Kale. We were on our way here when we heard the screams and gunfire." she said, taking her rifle back from Kale. "And why were you coming here?" demanded the leader. "We came to warn you about the dead. We have a camp a few miles from here and have noticed that they seem to be leaving the city more and more. There's been more in the woods in the last few days than we've ever seen before. We were planning to pack up and leave our camp soon because animals are getting next to impossible to find now and there are just too many of those bastards around here. We knew there were a lot of people in this camp, especially the children, and decided to warn you so you could figure out what you wanted to do about it." she told them.
"You're the people who had Carl?" Carl's mother asked from behind the men. "Yes." Kale said. "What do you mean, "had Carl"?" asked the new man. "Carl disappeared for a few days about a week ago." the leader said. "Did you take my son?!" the new man demanded, stomping a few steps closer. Kale had never lowered his gun but Adrian brought her rifle halfway up in warning, which the man clearly seen, because he stopped moving.
"No. Carl got too far from camp and was being chased by the zombies. I found him in a tree with three of them surrounding the tree. I killed them and recognized him from this camp." she said. "You recognized him from this camp, what does that mean?" the new man asked. "You're the one that's been skulking around camp." said a gruff voice from her right. Adrian looked over at the voice and seen that the speaker was the hunter, the younger one.
"If you call climbing trees to spy on the camp, then yes, that was me." she said. "If you knew where he was supposed to be, why didn't you just bring him right back?" Carl's mom yelled. "Because when I found him it was too close to dark. Everyone knows you don't go out at night because the zombies are more active. So I decided to bring him back to our camp, let him eat and get some rest and then I was going to bring him back in the morning but it started raining. Notice how quickly he showed back up after the rain stopped." Adrian said to her, raising her eyebrow at the woman. No one could deny that Carl did show up rather quickly after the rain had stopped.
The new man lower his gun, his face much less harsh. "Thank you for protecting Carl and sending him back. My name is Rick Grimes. Carl's father." he said, finally introducing himself. "This is Shane" he said pointing to the leader "and that's Lori, my wife and Carl's mom." he said pointing to the woman holding Carl. "Pleasure." she said in response.
Everyone lowered their weapons and looked around the graveyard that was once a very lively camp. "We can stay and help, if you'd like. We came to warn you about these guys, but now that it's all over, the least we can do is help." Adrian offered to Rick. "That would be very helpful, thank you." he said before he walked towards Lori and Carl.
TWD
The quarry group decided to build a big fire towards the back of the RV where all of the zombies would be burned and all camp members were to be stabbed in the head, just to be safe, and laid out in a row to be buried up on a hill close by. There wasn't much talking during the gruesome work.
It was a few hours after sunrise when Adrian decided to stop for a short water break by the tree line. She seemed to be the only woman helping with the clean up, not that it bothered her. She could see Kale helping one of the men drag one of the dead camp members towards the row of people that were to be buried later. After Kale went off to find another body to drag to it's designated spot, fire or buried, Adrian let her eyes wonder over the rest of the camp.
Glenn, who looked to be of Asian decent, and T-Dog, a larger, dark skinned man, were manning the fire where the zombies were being burned. Shane, Lori, Carol, a woman with short grey hair, who also turned out to be the mother of the girl she had saved the night before, Dale, the older man who was usually on watch on top of the RV, and Daryl, the hunter, were all crowded around the main fire pit of the camp were all talking.
The topic seemed what to about the dead girl laying in the shade of the RV. She heard the girl called Amy. She was a pretty blonde girl that she had seen around camp a lot when she watched the camp. Her sister, Andrea, had sat beside her all night, mourning the sudden loss of her sister. But Andrea hadn't stabbed the girl in the head to keep her from changing, and wouldn't let anyone else do what needed to be done either. The debate was whether to force the issue with Andrea or not.
From what she could see of the conversation, Daryl was all for taking the choice out of Andrea's hands, while Lori wanted to let the woman be. Rick seemed to be on the fence about it. It became clear when Daryl was done with the conversation because he turned away from the small group and proceeded to slam the pick axe he was carrying into the heads of the dead.
Adrian hadn't thought much of him the first few times she seen him from the tree tops. He had an attitude, anyone could see it, and he seemed be angry about any and everything he did. Except for when he was in the woods, alone. He seemed to almost be at peace there. She could tell just from that that he was much more comfortable in the woods, in the silence, than he was around people and noise.
She hadn't thought him attractive when she first seem him, but the more she watched, the more attractive he became to her. He wasn't classically handsome, or even drop dead gorgeous. He had a more of a ruggedly handsome look to him. It had caught her a little off guard, the first time she had caught herself thinking of him as handsome. The world as they knew it had ended, and the little things they used to worry about seem so inconsequential now.
Who cared if they didn't have enough money for the things they needed? Money was useless. The dirt beneath their feet had more use than money now. Who cared how they looked when they walked outside and other people seen them? If you were lucky enough to be alive, who gave a damn what they looked like. Long gone were the days of perfect hair and flawless make-up. So finding someone attractive while you watched both them and the people they lived with seem should have been as high on the list as money and make-up, but it didn't stop her from thinking it.
He had short sandy blonde hair and pale blue eyes. He looked to be about as tall as Kale, close to the six foot mark, but she couldn't be completely sure. His skin was golden tan, whether is was his natural color or from the sun, she wasn't sure, and he had a decent amount of muscle on him. She had to check herself a time or two for drool as she watched him swing his pick axe. Watching him perform arm porn as he did just a disgusting job shouldn't have turned her on, even a little, but she caught herself fanning herself a few times as she watched him. She watched him as he slammed his pick axe into the head of one of the zombies, which was grabbed by Glenn and T-Dog and brought to the fire, before he put hi pick axe down and grabbed the arm of one of their dead with a man who had introduced himself as Morales.
Daryl and Morales dragged the man towards the pile of zombies that had yet to be burned when Glenn stopped them. Glenn had asked them something and whatever Daryl's response was upset the poor guy. "We don't burn them! We bury them!" Glenn suddenly shouted. Daryl and Morales hesitated for a moment before they dragged the man over to were their dead lay.
"Man, y'all left my brother for dead! You had this comin'!" Daryl shouted at no one in particular as he walked away. Adrian seen him heading in her direction, which she could only take to mean he had business in her direction. It turned out that his tent was directly across from where she was taking her water break. Daryl looked at Adrian and found his pale blue eyes clash with a pair a bright green ones, which seemed to make him uncomfortable. "What the hell you lookin' at?" he said rudely as he brought the jug to his lips, taking big gulps of water. He watched as the woman slowly looked him up and down. As she continued to look at him silence, he got his first good look at her.
She was on the short side, no bigger than five and a half feet. She had red-orange hair that she a twisted into some kind of bun on the top of her head. Her skin was tan, from the sun was his assumption since every ginger he ever laid eyes on was pale as a glass of milk. She wore a black tank top and dark blue skinny jeans, which were tucked into a pair of tan combat boots that came up to her calves. His eyes were going back to her face when he noticed a black leather cord wrapped around her neck and tucked into her shirt.
He was still looking at the leather cord when he seen her arm pass his view. It wasn't her arm that caught his attention, but what was on her arm that caught his eyes as she brought her water bottle to her lips. A long pink scar that ran the length of her right forearm. It was as he was looking at the scar that her voice caught his attention.
"I'm looking at an angry redneck with and attitude problem and likes to play the blame game." she said, no real emotion in her voice.
"What'd you say?" he demanded, angry blue eyes glaring into unimpressed green eyes. "You're angry because you're brother got left in Atlanta, I understand that, and that's totally on the people that left him there. But you went back for him the next day and he wasn't there, and that's on him. So instead of blaming the entire camp, saying that they all deserved to die because you're brother was too stupid to stay put, maybe you should be blaming you're brother for leaving." she said, her eyes never leaving his.
Adrian seen his nostrils flare in anger before he stomped in her direction. He stopped when he got in her face. Well, by the time he stopped she was face to chest with him. She tilted her head up and locked her green eyes onto his angry blue ones. "I dare you to say that again." he growled at her in a low menacing voice. Adrian refused to admit that his tone of voice sent a small thrill through her body.
"Let me ask you something. If it had been reversed, and you had been the one handcuffed to a roof in Atlanta, would you have stayed? Do you believe your brother would have went back for you, no matter the cost?" she asked him. It was clear by the expression on his face that her question had caught him off guard because he lost some of the anger in his face, and that amount of anger was replaced with confusion.
"Of course. Dixon's stick together no matter what. Merle would burn all of Atlanta down to get me back." Daryl answered.
"Hmm." was Adrian's answer.
"What?" he demanded more from confusion than anger.
"You said you would've stayed put because you believe that your brother would go to get you back no matter what, but Merle ran before he had even been there for a full day. Seems to me that you have more faith in him than he has in you." Adrian said. She pushed away from the tree she was leaning against and walked around the silent hunter, heading towards Kale who was dragging a zombie towards the large fire.