July 16, 2010
When Quinn and Glenn return, they are greeted with enthusiasm, because the cargo van is full to bursting with camping gear strapped on top, along with the bag Rick dropped in Atlanta.
"I'm guessing y'all didn't do all this on foot?" Rick asks as Glenn unstraps the top load. He takes one end of the bag, knowing it's damned heavy, helping the younger man drop it to the ground.
"Nah. We scouted everything on foot, but when it was mostly clear, we saw that the loading bay door was still open and loaded what we needed from there. Decided it was faster and safer that way after yesterday, plus I didn't really want to see Quinn have to go through another sprint like that if we got in trouble."
Rick glances over to where the woman in question is greeting her kids. It seems like a ritual, that they check out she is okay, one that even Sophia is taking part in. "Everything go smoothly then?"
"Yeah. Even stopping for the guns was pretty easy, other than lifting that heavy bag up on the roof. Had to kill a straggler before we got the straps in place, but that was it." Glenn grins and reaches into the car, grabbing something off the seat. "Thought you might appreciate this though."
Laughing, Rick plops his hat on his head. "Didn't think I'd see this again. Thanks."
"Figured you needed it to match the weirdo gun," Glenn teases. "Not the only present we got for you though. They gave us your size based off your uniform, so we packed a duffel up just for you. You may have enough spare underwear for a month though."
"Might want to share that out with the rest of camp then."
"Don't worry. We packed two more duffels with nothing but underwear and socks, one for the ladies, one for the guys." At Rick's surprised expression, Glenn only laughs. "Hey, we were in a department store with a good supply of bags. We figured clean socks and underwear are about as necessary as food and medicine."
"Can't argue much with you there." Rick realizes he's keeping Glenn cooped up at the SUV, and the kid's got to be tired. Others are unloading the supplies along some method they already seem to have down pat, so he feels a bit surplus aside from his bag.
He shoulders it and lets Glenn be drawn into banter with one of the ladies exclaiming over the fact that they brought back a large quantity of toilet paper and brings the bag over to where Shane is talking to Quinn.
He's a little surprised to realize she's giving him an update on the state of things in the city. The weird vibe he got off the general camp towards the Dixons, as well as his own encounters with Merle and Daryl, made him think Glenn would be the one questioned.
But then again, he was just thinking of Glenn as a kid, so he can see where his partner would maybe prefer the assessment of someone their own age. As a paramedic, Quinn's first responder training would have her far more observant than the average civilian.
"I think it's time to start giving serious thought of getting out of the camp," Quinn is saying, voice pitched so that the others bustling around won't overhear. "The city's got more supplies, but we're having to go further in and risk more to get them. And winter's not so far away that we don't need to be thinking about it."
"I'm not objecting. You know I've wanted to go for Fort Benning, but everyone's afraid to get back out on the road with no confirmed destination."
They both look at Rick as he approaches. Shane's smile is welcoming. Quinn just looks really tired.
"What about the CDC? Anyone tried going by there?"
Quinn shakes her head. "Too far out from here to waste the gas on a wild goose chase. Even if they're still standing, protocol isn't going to let them do much to help. Call me a conspiracy nut if you want, but world ending plague? CDC's the first place I'd have locked down even if I had to watch the whole state fall around it. Bombing Atlanta proves the government's not out to help the average citizens, if there even is any government anymore."
"So what do you suggest?"
"Well, Shane's idea about Benning's worth exploring. If Benning fell or is locked up tight, it's at least an area of the state with some options. There's West Point Lake, although that's more campgrounds, but one of those peninsulas out in the water..." She drifts off in thought.
"What kind of peninsulas?" Shane asks. He looks intrigued, and Rick can just imagine how his partner's mind is formatting a strategy.
"This place I know... it'd be perfect. Real perfect." Quinn's expression goes from quiet to animated so quickly that Rick can't help but smile in response. "West Point Lake's Corps of Engineers, so their campgrounds are really basic stuff, no cabins or anything. But they lease property... there's a massive Scout camp on one, but that would be too big for us and it's mostly intended for tents anyway."
She taps her chin, thinking it over. "But one of the little peninsulas is this Unitarian retreat place. They run summer camps, corporate retreats, whatever. My job does this team building thing there once a year because the boss is involved with the project somehow through his church. And it would be perfect.
"Solar power, wood heat, organic farm. They've got one big dining hall, a small lodge, a couple of family cabins, bunkhouses... and the entry point to their part of the peninsula isn't any wider than here to the quarry lake."
Despite the fact that he really does want to try the CDC, Rick can't help but think the property sounds like exactly what they'd need. "Wouldn't a place like that have people there? Staff at least, even if they weren't hosting any guests?"
"Maybe. But if it's the folks that were there before, I can't see that they wouldn't allow folks to stay. And honestly, their permanent staff isn't that big either. I wouldn't count on them having stayed. They evacuated the areas by the state line to Columbus.
"You weren't awake for just how bad the death tolls were from the flu. They would have cancelled any youth camps they had planned. Government was pretty solid on shutting down things like that."
She shudders and Shane looks uneasy too. Rick wonders just how many nightmares he missed out on.
"Doesn't that lake dam up the Chattahoochee?" Shane asks. "You think the dam's still working?"
"Depends on what sort of shape they left it in. So if flooding happened in Atlanta like last year, yeah, we'd need to keep an eye on water levels. But we'd be above the dam, so if it does fail, and it eventually will, the worst case scenario is that our little peninsula ends up a hill among a bunch of dry land with a river nearby."
Rick and Shane exchange looks. It does sound like a viable backup if Fort Benning isn't what Shane hopes it'll be. "Walkers can't swim, Rick," Shane says, mulling it over.
"Back in just a minute." Quinn dashes off, returning with a medical kit and digging in the pocket. She pulls out a tablet and grins. "I keep a charge on this because I've got some medical e-texts on it. Doesn't take long on a solar charger and if I'm not using it, battery holds up pretty well powered off. But more importantly, it has the paperwork from my last work retreat."
She leads them to a table, sitting the tablet down now that it's powered on so they can all three look. They're getting a lot of curious looks now, having a seemingly useless electronic device out, but no one's approaching yet.
Quinn opens her email and quickly finds what she is looking for. She opens the PDF and scrolls through the brochure to the camp map, pointing out each feature as she goes.
"You drive through the farm to get to the actual retreat. It's fenced there on either side of the farm area to keep wildlife out, and their own critters in. They free range chickens and other poultry. They also have goats, sheep, and rabbits. If none of the staff stayed, I don't know if any of the animals would still be there, but protected like they are, I'd imagine the poultry would be fine, at least.
"The road leads into a big loop. On this side is the office and a staff house that the maintenance guy lived in. Then there's the three bunkhouses that are set up for when they run summer youth camps. Sleeps eight plus a counselor's room. Next is a bunch of cabins that are really more like duplexes. Each side has a pair of twin beds and the world's tiniest bathroom.
"And when I say tiniest, I mean it. Sneeze and you'd knock yourself out on the showerhead if you're over six foot. There's twelve of those. These two odd looking buildings out at the point are the mini-lodges. Four bedrooms with double beds in each and two shared bathrooms. The actual lodge is ten rooms on the second floor, all with twin beds."
She pauses to let them take it in. Rick sees the potential, but it's Shane that does the math. "We could house a hundred people or more, without changing a thing," he says.
"Yeah. And the fact that it's a group dining hall helps with supplies and meals."
Rick notices some of the buildings on the map. He sees blacksmith, kilnworks, weavers, pottery, and other locations he associates with a childhood visit to Williamsburg. "This place was one of those back to basics retreats, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, sorta, but modernized, thus the solar power and that all the cabins are heated with more modern systems than just fireplaces for wood heat. The brochures don't even begin to explain how nice this'll work if the place is still standing and available."
"Why didn't you mention it before?" Shane asks.
"It's a long trip on a maybe to a fairly rural area. Some might think the mountains would be a better option or even the Gulf Coast. There are a lot of lodges and even a couple of state parks that would probably work well for our purposes. If I was just going to pick a place without knowing its current status, I'd go north."
She sighs. "But if we want to check out Benning anyway, it'll be right there. And if it's not an option, might still be time to head north since that part of the state should be less congested with abandoned cars and walkers both."
Rick waits for Shane to think it over, watching as his partner takes the tablet and looks over the information in more detail. "You said there's a Scout camp nearby too? They'd have staff buildings, dining hall... if Benning's gone, and this one too, that's an idea. We can sleep in the dining hall if we have to."
Quinn looks at Rick expectantly. He's not entirely sure how his opinion got to be so important so fast in her eyes, considering yesterday she was willing to shoot him, but he realizes she has children to protect just like he does. And he's the only one of them who wanted to go in the opposite direction.
His indecision apparently brings most of the others to find out what they're discussing, Lori among them. So while Quinn and Shane explain to their new audience the concerns about walkers leaving the city and why they think heading west is a good idea, Rick watches the reactions of those he knows will be deciding factors.
Dale, Glenn, and T-Dog are easy yeses, he thinks. Jacqui and Morales are asking interested questions, and from what he's seeing Jim will follow Jacqui's lead. The holdouts are Andrea and Lori.
"So why aren't you trying to convince us?" Lori asks Rick. "You must have an alternate plan."
To give her credit, she does know him well. "Was seeing what everyone thought. I was wanting to check out the CDC."
"Why can't we do both?" Dale asks.
"Because it's a lot of gas to waste if the CDC is locked down or gone," Jacqui answers, surprising Rick.
At his questioning look, she shrugs. "I lived in Atlanta. The CDC was maybe an hour's drive from here, before, but now? You're talking about driving through a bunch of areas that were heavily populated before. Depending on how jammed up the roads are, it could take days, not hours, and it's a place that isn't likely to be allowed to let untrained civilians in anyway. It's also in the complete opposite direction of where these two are recommending we go."
Shane looks in agreement with Jacqui. "I know heading towards Fort Benning is heading toward one of the biggest population centers, but we don't have to take the whole group that far. Find a safe camp a ways out and then scout it."
"Anyone even familiar with that part of the state other than that Columbus is on the Alabama border?" muses T-Dog. "Other than Quinn going to that lake?"
"I am," Morales offers, glancing toward Miranda and receiving a nod. "I was stationed at Benning, years back. We were talking about returning home to our family in Birmingham. Columbus would be out of the way, but safer than us traveling directly from Atlanta to Birmingham alone. It would at least get us to the border, and if Benning survived, more information before we travel onward. But I am mostly familiar with the interstate."
"We have a road atlas." Quinn darts off, returning to the discussion with a giant Rand McNally spiral-bound atlas. She quickly flips it open to Georgia, showing there is a network of smaller state highways possible.
"What do we do if Benning and these other two camp places don't work out?" Lori asks. "It's a long way to travel with no guarantee."
"Head north," Shane says, taking up Quinn's suggestion from before. "Look for a place in the western part of the state, but aim for the mountains if we can't."
"We can try the state parks." Quinn points where there are a few, embellished with hand drawn stars. "Harper was doing the Junior Ranger thing, so there's even a booklet and everything in the car that was in there when we evacuated. Several have cabins or cottages and most are isolated enough from the cities to be safer, like Red Top Mountain up by Lake Allatoona."
"That would work for us," Morales says. He gives Rick a very serious look. "I don't think Benning is going to be running. I think we'll find that Columbus was bombed much like Atlanta. It's why we've hesitated to travel to Birmingham."
"You really think we're that much on our own?" Andrea asks. She looks apprehensive when several people answer affirmatively and sighs. "Then if Dale's going, Amy and I will opt for the Benning idea. At least if we know a military installation that size is gone or not, it gives us a better idea of the bigger picture."
"Rick?" Lori asks. She's sensed the way the decision is heading. Rick takes her hand and squeezes reassuringly.
He really wants the information he knows the CDC is bound to have, but leading all these people into a once highly populated area of a city that was bombed isn't really a viable option. Sending a smaller group might be, but that leaves the most defenseless sitting in tents with the potential for walkers to be migrating.
"Let's try Benning. If the CDC manages a solution, they'll surely be looking for survivors," he says at last.
Shane's apprehensive look vanishes and his partner looks relieved that Rick trusted his suggestion. He ignores that niggling apprehension that something's not quite right. Shane has never been a man to hesitate about convincing Rick of anything.
When everyone else chimes in to say they'll go, it leaves Rick, Shane, Glenn, and Quinn to start planning. A trip like this will take resources, but Rick feels a sense of relief that they do have a goal in mind.
A/N: This is the last Rick POV chapter... not sure if his POV will return, but we'll see. :)