Hey everyone! Sorry it took me so long to post this! Life kinda has been getting in the way of my writing and editing, so it's taking me longer to post. It'll likely be that for the foreseeable future but hopefully it'll only take me no more than 10 days to post a chapter, ideally less.
Anna stared down the narrow shaft of her arrow, staring at the beautiful buck in front of her trying to line up a good shoot. Behind her stood Merle, quietly murmuring advice in her ear about where to aim and reminding her of how the weather will affect her shot.
Finally, she let her arrow loose and watched as it sailed through the air then thumped into the deer's ribs, where the heart was located. The buck managed to take three running steps forward but pitched forward on its third step. When the deer ceased moving, Anna looked back at Merle and grinned.
"That should keep us fed for almost a week!" Anna said proudly.
Near three months had passed since she'd met Merle and some how, they were still together. The first month, had been a very tense one with Merle's short temper coming to bear but he quickly came to realize that she was an equally angry ginger who was not shy of throwing a right hook. He had tried to intimidate her into seeing things his way but had failed, miserably. Once she'd gotten food and water in her, her personality shone through and Juno was always ready to tear his throat out, should Anna command. At first Merle seemed to bristle at her strong-willed behavior but now, he seemed to enjoy it…most of the time.
As they had originally planned, the two of them had gone to the northern part of Georgia, found a nice, secluded cabin and stayed there for six weeks. Merle had liked being there so much, he seemed like was planning on permanently but another, very hostile group came through and ran them out. It had been a nice stop, though, with a stone cabin on a low cliff, over looking a fast running river, standing above the almost everything but the trees like a castle on top of a hill.
"Lucky shot, Ford." Merle said thumping her on the back before moving around her towards the deer.
"Or maybe I'm just a natural!" Anna said, following after him with Juno hot on her heels.
Juno had chilled out about Merle over the last month, even seemed almost trust him a little. While she hadn't been overly aggressive with him, she didn't like him getting near Anna if she was asleep or being left a lone with him. Now Juno would approach him, tail wagging and Anna had even caught Merle giving Juno a vigorous tummy rub quietly talking baby talk to her.
Merle stopped in front of the buck then waved towards it. "Well, princess? You killed it, you skin it."
Anna slung the bow over her shoulder and knelt down in front of it. One of her many lessons from Merle was skinning animals but she'd yet to skin something quite so large. She pulled out her massive knife and started cutting into the flesh.
"Don't be so damn delicate!" Merle grumbled as he took the knife from her and started vigorously cutting into the buck.
Anna had to admit, Merle was kind of impressive. Despite lacking a hand, he could do most things just as well as she could with both her hands and sometimes even better. If he had a better disposition, she might actually start feeling attracted to the guy! But he was a little too coarse for her and tended to make her feel incompetent. He probably had been right, she should know more about surviving than she did and while she did know many things about survival, none of it seemed to apply to their present situation.
Satisfied that he had demonstrated skinning a deer effectively enough, he handed her back the knife and watched as she continued. After a moment, he let out a grunt that meant he approved, then moved around the clearing, picking up sticks and started making a fire.
By the time she was done, Anna had a nice stack of meat which she had neatly stacked on the buck's skin, that she picked up and carried it over to where Merle sat by the fire, taking a drag from his last remaining smoke. When he saw her approach, he snuffed it out, and put it his pocket to finish at a later time. He then held out a stick that he hard sharpened the end to a point, as she plunked the stack of meat between them. Anna took the stick then speared several chunks of venison onto the stick and held it over the fire. They had to too cook it all now, so it wouldn't go bad and as it was, some would likely spoil anyways with only two of them eating the venison.
"We'll be spoiled for the next week." Anna said after a while, smiling. "We'll have to eat larger than our normal portions just to finish it before it gets old!"
Merle just grunted in response which annoyed her a bit. Sometimes it felt like she was still on her own. Merle tend to not say much to her which seemed a little out character for him…or at least he gave the impression of someone who couldn't keep his yapper shut. Anna tried again.
"Do you miss your brother?" She asked to which Merle just shrugged as he tossed Juno some raw meat. "Seriously, man! Say something!"
"Pfft, most people can't wait for me to shut up." Merle said then laughed as he continued to gaze at the fire. "What you expect me to say, Ford? Y' want me to share my deepest darkest secrets? We ain't got nothing in common but the need to survive."
"You don't know that! You don't know nothing about me and you sure as hell haven't shared anything about yourself…except that you have a brother and used to have a drug problem!"
"What you want to tell you? About how my old beat the tar outta me, my brother and my momma. Or how my momma had a drinking problem and blacked out in bed while smoking and burnt the house down with her in it? Or maybe tell about my mile long list of infractions and arrests? Or maybe you wanna hear about my more recent sins, all the people I killed, some of who didn't deserve to die?" Merle snarled, finally looking at her.
"I wasn't expecting your life story, Merle!" Anna growled back. "Just make conversation! Things you like, things you find funny! Hell, the things you don't like! I don't care! I just want something to fill the silence!"
"I like hunting! That make you happy?" Merle growled as he lifted the meat from the flame then stuck the meat in a grocery bag. "My little brother used to hate it when we were kids, he always had a soft spot for animals, but he had to learn if he didn't want to starve."
Anna sobered up, suddenly realizing that the things he had just said, were kind of tragic, but Merle was the type to hate pity. "What's your brothers name?" Anna decided to just act like things were normal.
Merle sighed, annoyed as he put more meat on his stick then reached over and snatched her stick and lifted it out of the fire. "Pay attention, girl! Yer burning our food!" Merle scolded.
Anna smiled at him sheepishly. "Sorry." She said then blew on the meat to cool it down.
Merle was quiet again for a moment, watching the fire then straightened his back. "Daryl." Merle said confusing Anna. "My brother, his name is Daryl. You have brother too, don't ya?" Merle asked, shocking Anna a bit. This was the first time he'd enquired about anything other than if she was hungry.
"Yeah, an older brother. Abraham." Anna said nodding as she pulled the meat off of her stick than added more and held it over the flame once more.
"You think he's still alive?" Merle asked, shocking Anna once more.
Anna sighed. "I hope so. I'm sure the accent is a give away but I'm from Texas and that's where my brother and his family was when it all went down. My brother was in the military too, the Army, but he's since retired. He's tough though, like you, knew a lot more about things like hunting."
"You a military brat or somethin'?" Merle asked.
Anna chuckled. "Yeah, I even went to a military school which sucked balls. I wish I went to a regular school but kids in the military school understood the moving thing better than normal kids. It's kinda ironic that Abe and I both joined the military. We were never close with our father, and we both hated moving constantly."
"My old man is the reason my brother an' I are so messed up." Merle said, looking over at Anna. "Fer the longest time, I thought every family was like ours, just behind closed doors, that everyone was two faced and would stab you in the back when they got the chance, that the only people you could trust was blood…now I'm not so sure."
"What changed your mind?" Anna asked, happy that he was finally talking to her.
"As much as I hate that prick Rick, he's stayed loyal to Daryl and Daryl is very loyal to him. Many of their group members have had a chance to stab each other in the back to advance their own cause, but they opt to help one another instead. The only person I've gone outta my way to help, is my brother…and I guess you now." Merle shrugged as he looked back at the flame then lifted his meat from the flame.
"Well I ain't the backstabbing sort, either." Anna said removing her meat from the flame as well.
Merle scoffed, "I'm all you got."
Anna laughed. "That might be true…for now. Even if we do join a group or let people join us, I don't intend on stabbing you in the back. I owe you, you saved my life."
"Damn straight you owe me!" Merle said loudly but he was smirking slightly. "Now shut yer yapper and let's eat."
111
Anna cursed under her breath as she wiped the sweat from her forehead as she followed Merle through the under growth. The car they had been driving when they'd met was long gone and then two other vehicles had too come and gone. Their first vehicle had gotten them to northern Georgia and the surrounding area, but Merle had somehow managed to blow a pin threw the transmission case, leaving them without a vehicle.
When they had decided to continue their journey north, it had taken them almost a week to find a vehicle that would start and continue to drive. The two that they had found were beat up junkers that really didn't get them all that far. Now, they travelled by foot and the weather had turn from warm, to scorching hot but despite the heat, they continued to plod through the woods.
Surprisingly, with each passing day, Anna and Merle seemed to be getting closer and closer. Anna no longer felt like an invalid, doing just as much hunting…when there was food to be found, and gathering as Merle. Considering how scant things seemed to be at the moment, they were fortunate that it was just the two of them. If they'd been in a larger group, there was no way they'd be able to support themselves. Anna grabbed her water bottle from the hook on her hip, then cursed when she realized that it was empty.
"We need more water." Anna said as she put the bottle back on its clip.
Merle stopped and held out his bottle which barely had more then a sip left in it. "Here." He said as he looked back at her.
Anna held her hands up and shook her head. "Yer a bigger guy, you need it more."
"I ain't the one thirsty." Merle said then grabbed the collar of her shirt and shoved down the front then turned away before Anna could react.
Anna laughed as she pulled the bottle out of her shirt then gave Merle a playful boot in the rear. "Ass."
Merle smirked crookedly as he looked over his shoulder at her. "I can't win. I be a prick and I get called an ass. Give the last of my water and I still get called an ass. What's the point in bein' nice?"
"It's all in the presentation, Merle." Anna said, grinning as Merle walked backwards, facing her. "Giving me your water was in fact nice but shoving it down a woman's shirt, well that may be considered sexual harassment."
"You can't blame a guy for wanting to get a little tit action. It's been forever since I've gotten laid!" Merle said then grinned and turned around as Anna rolled her eyes. "You know yer a bit of a hypocrite."
"What'd you mean?" Anna asked trotting a few steps to walk beside Merle.
"You've been houndin' me to tell you all about my past groups, my past life but you ain't hardly told me a thing about you. I just know that you were in the Navy SEALs as a K-9 handler, that you grew up in Texas and that you had an old brother named Abraham."
Anna rolled her eyes. "That's because you haven't asked."
"Fine, I'm asking."
"You'll have to be more specific as to what you wanna know."
Merle was quiet a moment as he thought then looked over at Anna. "Tell me about the place you were livin' at before we met, it was a base right?"
"Yeah, just off the coast." Anna confirmed. "It was safe…until the end. Had a tall, electrified fence all around the fifty acres of land, we had our own fuel tankards, an independent power network, security camera's and more than enough weaponry to defend our borders. But…" Anna sighed and rubbed her head.
"But what?" Merle asked, eyeing her carefully.
"It was a dictatorship. There was this guy, Commander Grainer, he was the dictator. A Dictator that had a thing for me." Anna sighed, she really didn't want to talk about him, but Merle had shared some really personal things. "Before everything went down, him and I had a…thing while we were both on tour."
"Ain't that against the rules?" Merle asked cocking an eyebrow.
"It most certainly is." Anna confirmed.
"Huh, didn't take you for the breaking the rules kind of person." Merle said smiling.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Anna asked glaring at Merle. "Do you think I'm up tight?"
Merle laughed as he walked under a tree, put his back to the truck and slid to the ground. Anna was overheating and thirsty, so she didn't object and sat down beside him.
"Yeah I kinda do." Merle said unapologetically.
Anna gave him a hard elbow to the ribs but smiled. "Anyways. I broke it off with him before we even got back from Afghanistan, a woman dating her superior office tends to get you dishonorably discharged, if caught. After shit hit the fan, well he was the highest ranking officer still alive and being that everyone was military, that made him the leader. When he decided that we were a thing again, if I wanted to stay on the base, I had to go along with it."
"He forced you to be with him?" Merle asked, sounding slightly surprised.
Anna sighed. "Yeah, but I got it easy. I got three square meals, didn't have to do any hard labor…although I did some anyways. Others weren't so lucky. People had food withheld if they did something Grainer didn't like or got kicked out and by the end, he started killing people."
"Why didn't you leave?" Merle asked. "You ain't the sort too take shit from people."
"Why didn't you? Your boss wasn't exactly a gem, either." Anna countered.
"I was usin' the Governor to find my brother. You didn't have that reason."
"May not have been trying to find my brother but there were families there, families of my fellow soldiers that I knew and cared for, I wanted to look out for them." Anna put her head back as she took a tiny sip from the bottle, she then poured a small amount in her hand for Juno to lap up and handed the bottle to Merle. Instead of protesting, Merle finished off what remained of water.
"C'mon Ford, we ain't gonna find water or food sittin' on our asses." Merle said as he stood up, then offered her his hand. Anna took it then let him pull her to her feet.
They continued through the woods, only finding a single puddle to fill one bottle with water but at least it was water. As the sun started sliding towards early evening, they came across a path that lead to an old barn, breaking from the trees just as someone retreated into the trees on the other side, making Juno growl quietly. Merle stopped and stared at the spot where the man had disappeared into the woods as Anna walked to a flattened spot of grass and knelt down beside it.
"Looks like he stopped to take a smoke break." Anna said as she held up a cigarette butt which Juno smelt with interest.
Merle didn't even look her way or acknowledge her before taking off in the direction that they had seen the man disappear into the bush. Frowning, Anna hurried after him, going as quietly as she could and stopped right behind Merle as he stopped at the edge of a road, still within the cover of the trees. In front of them, stood a large group of people, debating what they needed to do next. Anna suddenly got tunnel vision as she stared at the back of a red head with a crew haircut and when the head turned, her body moved on its own. Merle hissed at her to stop but she couldn't, as she broke through the trees.
"Abe!" Anna exclaimed as she stepped from the shadows of the trees into the blistering sun, instantly greeted by ten guns pointed at her head, making Juno snarl viciously.
Abraham barrelled through the group, shoving guns down as he went. "Annabelle!" He called, tears starting as he ran towards her.
Anna commanded Juno to stand down then turned and wrapped her arms tightly around her brothers' neck and pressed her face into her sweaty neck, as he scooped her up and twirled her around. As Anna continued to hug her brother, she heard Abraham's friends raise their guns once more as Merle finally stepped onto the road.
"Merle?" Several voices said at once, most sounding less then pleased.
"What the hell ya'll doin' way out here?" Merle asked as Anna let go of her brother's neck and looked behind her. "What happened to the prison?"
"Your former employer returned with a tank and a new group of friends." A woman with dreadlocks sneered, she obviously detested Merle. "Cut Hershel's head off."
"This ain't you, is it?" A man that had to be Merle's younger brother asked as he stepped forward and held out a sheet of paper to Merle."
Merle took the paper and looked at it. "Tch, nope. It ain't us. You think I'd do somethin' like this?"
"And who are you?" A Latino woman with a dark set of messy pigtails asked with considerable hostility.
"Easy Rosita." Abraham said frowning. "This is my little sister and apparently her NSW."
Her expression moved from hostile to shocked. "You have a sister?"
"While I'm usually all for family reunions, we really need to focus on this." The Asian man said, indicating several bottles on the road.
"Glenn's right, if this isn't from these two, where did it come from?" Asked another man asked.
Abraham stepped back and stared into the shadows of the trees, obviously looking for a threat but he never took his hand off her back.
"What's the dilemma?" Anna asked as she looked up at Abraham.
"We were just walking along the road when we came across that water. We don't know where it came from and it hasn't been sitting there long." Another dark haired woman said with a short ponytail.
"Sounds like yer bein' watched." Merle said, looking at the note once more.
"Can yer dog smell out poisons?" Abraham asked pointing to Juno.
Anna shook her head. "She's trained to smell out people and munitions, not that sort of thing. If ya'll hadn't gotten your mitts all over the bottles, she could track down the person who put the water there."
"You wouldn't happen to have water?" A young boy asked, who couldn't be older than fifteen.
Anna unclipped her bottle of water and handed it to boy. "Sorry sunshine, that's all we got."
"What about food?" The kid asked hopefully as he bounced an approximately one year old baby.
"We ain't got none of that." Merle growled. "Git yer own."
"Merle don't be a prick." The man Anna assumed to be Daryl, said.
"In the months since I've met Merle, I've learned that Merle's a natural prick but he's telling the truth, we ate the last of our food this morning." Anna said earning chuckles from a couple of the group and a faint smirk from his brother.
Suddenly the sky darkened, and everyone looked up as the sky rumbled. When Anna looked first turned her face upwards a couple rain drops of rain splattered on her face but as she continued to look up, it was as if someone had turned the tap all of the way open as it began to pour. It felt amazing after the intense heat and humidity that had plagued them for the past week, and everyone just stood there, some with their faces turned up. The two women who'd questioned her, laughed as they laid down on the pavement while others opened their mouths to get much needed hydration as Abraham wrapped his big arms around her and hugged her tightly. Anna stared sadly at the group, finally noticing the absence of Ellen and her two nieces, that could only mean one thing.
"Everyone." The curly haired man called. "Get out the bags, get out anything to catch this rain!"
Several people snapped out of their revere and hurried to uncap bottles and pulled out anything that would hold water. After another couple of minutes, another peel of the thunder rumbled across the sky as the clouds continued to darken, this one much louder than the last. When the thunder continued to escalate in volume, everyone stopped to stare at the clouds.
"Let's keeping moving." The curly haired man called over the noise, obviously the one in charge.
"There's a barn." Daryl said over the thunder, just barely loud enough for Anna to hear.
"Where?"
Daryl waved at the group to follow him as they quickly gathered up their bottles, then they all trudged after him as he headed into the bush. Merle walked beside his brother as Anna walked besides hers, as they continued through the trees as the storm continued to intensify. When the barn came into view Daryl dropped back as the curly haired man took the lead, with Anna, Abraham and Merle following behind them.
When they reached the door, the leader cautiously opened the door, gun raised as he slowly stepped inside. The Glenn guy followed closely behind him followed by Daryl, Abraham, Anna and Merle, all with their weapons raised as they slowly cleared the room while the rest of the group waited outside in the pouring ran. When the coast was clear the leader waved the rest of the group inside and they closed the doors.
It had taken then them only eight minutes or less to get to the barn, but they may as well have jumped into a lake and swam to the barn for how wet they had become. Daryl and Glenn busied themselves building a fire as the rest of the group studied their new companions.
"I'm Michonne." The woman with dreads introduced herself as she eyed Anna. "We already know Merle…or at least most of us do. You're Annabelle?"
"Please call me Anna." Anna answered, smirking slightly. "But yeah, I'm Abraham's younger sister."
"How'd you two get separated?" A young dark-haired woman asked. "I'm Tara, by the way."
"We weren't anywhere near each other, when things went down." Anna explained. "While we're both from Texas, I'd been stationed at a Navy base on the coast of Georgia while Abe was back home."
"You were in Georgia?" Michonne asked, surprised.
"That's where we met." Merle said his eyes steely as he stared at Michonne. "Shortly after we…parted ways, I found her on the road, fightin' off some walkers. Nearly ran 'er over."
"He saved my life, quite honestly." Anna said.
"You were livin' on base, is that where you still were?" Abraham asked as the others started to lose interest and sat tiredly down around the small flame that Daryl and the Glenn had managed to bring to life. The barn was small, so they could hear most of their conversation anyway.
"Yeah, up until four, maybe five months ago. I don't know what happened, but the dead somehow got in. It must've happened in the night by the time I had awakened, it was already gone. That jackass Grainer didn't raise the alarm like he should have, left us all to die."
Abraham's face darkened but he said nothing. He knew about her past relationship with him and he had been very against it. Him abandoning his post, only confirmed his feels on the man. The leader held his hand out, suddenly deciding that she was alright.
"I'm Rick Grimes, that's my son Carl and my daughter Judith." Rick said as he shook her hand then introduced the rest of the group.
When the introduction where made, everyone split off into little groups or as individuals, Merle walking off with his brother to have a quiet conversation and Anna and Abraham doing the same in another corner of the barn. Once they were somewhat alone, Abraham gave her another hug, even tighter hug.
"I've been thinkin' 'bout you non-stop since things went down." Abraham said as he leaned against the wall beside her. "I hoped you'd survived but…I…I didn't know. Truthfully, after Ellen…I couldn't handle the thought that you might be dead. Shit, I shoulda tried to go to your base."
Anna shook her head. "I ain't. I'm a big girl, I can look after myself." Anna bit her lip, she knew it was going to hurt him to ask the question on her mind, but she had to know. "What…what happened to Ellen…and the girls?"
Abraham scratched the side of his head with both hands as he looked down. "The walkers got her…them. They…they saw me kill a man, a man who tried to steal everything we had. She left with the girls as I was getting rid of the body…they didn't even make it to the car."
Anna's heart broke, she loved all three of them. Ellen had lived in the last city Abraham and Anna's family had moved too with their father and had been in Abraham's graduating class. They had fallen in love and had married straight out of high school. When the girls had been born, Abraham couldn't have been more pleased with himself and Anna had been very proud of her brother, also. Those girls were like her own daughters and she tried to be at every family event that she could go too.
"I'm sorry, Abe." Anna said with so much emotion that Juno let out a low pitiful whine.
"I…I just about let those walkers kill me right then, when I found them, but then Eugene showed up all pitiful and helpless, claiming to have the cure. It gave me reason to go on."
Anna raised her eyebrows. "A cure?"
Abe snorted derisively. "As it turns out, he was full of shit. He lied so that I would save his sorry ass but he's the reason we're out here, heading for Washington, hoping there's some civilization left. I guess I should be thankful to him for getting my sister back."
Anna nodded, "That's why Merle and I were heading that way also, figured that since my base lasted so long that maybe one in Washington might do even better."
Abe sighed. "Maybe."
"How long have you been with these people?" Anna asked as they slowly sunk to the ground.
"This whole group? About a month but it's been longer with some of the others. About six months with Rosita and eight with Eugene. I had a different group before but one by one, they died off. Ran into Glenn and Tara originally. They had just been separated from their group, which had been attacked by another group, then accidently met the rest by being lured into a trap set by a group of cannibals."
"Cannibals?" Anna asked in surprise.
Abraham chuckled. "Yeah, I'll tell you more about it another day, but we got away and we've been slowly making our way North."
"Merle and I haven't had that exciting of a time. We did have this place for a while, we were only planning on staying at temporarily, but Merle started getting cozy. Then this group found us and ran us out. Other than that, we haven't had a lot of encounters with other people, but we've stayed pretty deep in the woods." Anna opened her mouth to say more but frowned when she noticed Merle and Daryl pressing their backs to the barn door as it bounced, seemingly in the wind.
Abraham looked over to where she'd been staring as she got up and rushed over. He was hot on her heels as she slammed her shoulder into the door on the other side of Merle and put her weight into it as Abraham shoved his sizable mass against the other side of Daryl. Suddenly, one by one, the others appeared and put their weight into the door, everyone doing their best to keep those massive doors shut. At first Anna thought it had been the ever intensifying storm that had been blowing the doors open but realized that it was walkers on the other side, trying to push their way in.
The storm suddenly reached a climax, the thunder booming louder than before, the wind rattling the building, replacing the banging of walker hands with a near constant push of wind and rain, drenching those closest to the door. It sounded like a hurricane was just outside their door and Anna wondered if in fact, a tornado had landed nearby and considering the cracking sounds she was now hearing, she was probably not far off.
For what must have been an hour, they pressed themselves against the doors but eventually the wind and rain did stop and they all stumbled away from the door, exhausted and sunk to the ground, laying on their sides, Anna being fortunate to have a fluffy pillow and drifted off to sleep.
So, I didn't do my little authors note the last chapter like I normally do, kinda forgot. By the time I realized it, I'd already posted it and thought, "Aw screw it." So yes, this is a request I'm doing for one of my readers and hopefully I haven't let anyone down. Again, I'll try to get chapters out as quickly as possible! I hope you enjoyed!
-Shockra