A/N In the gift-giving spirit of the season (and because I am desperately missing our friends during this winter break!), I am posting an extra chapter this week. Thank you for sticking with me so far. I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend! And enjoy…
Chapter Seventeen
Rick's heart and his belly crash into each other when he can't see their car beyond the wall of walkers drifting toward the large glass doors of the Campbellton high school. "Shit! The gunfire at the windows must've drawn them around from the back."
A distant drone of buzzing groans floats up the corridor from the chemistry wing as the walkers feed on the two guys that were left for dead. In the opposite direction, to the right of the lobby, a bright light shines hopeful on a large painting of the American flag, hung proudly at the end of the hall next to a set of double doors with a sign that says Gymnasium. A thrum of voices trail behind the glowing beam, their words distorted as the syllables bounce off the linoleum of the hallway running up the north side of the building. Whether words of challenge or mutterings of indifference, their presence alone is bothersome all the same.
"We got more company," Daryl says, swinging his bow to the right as Rick shifts his own position to face the living threat.
The sheriff quickly scans the length of the passage and sees an opened door ahead on the right, tucked into the shadows across from a staircase leading down to a basement level. "In here," he says low, but sharply. "Come on Nik."
Nikki follows close to his knee as Rick hurries toward the room. Moving his left arm just enough, but still painfully high, to grab the thin flashlight from his breast pocket, he breaches the doorway as Daryl guards his back, crossbow poised with deadly aim to protect his leader.
Rick sweeps the light across an expansive room filled with rows of wide tables and large bookcases around a central administrative desk. A scattering of dried up leaves lie in dehydrated curls beneath several stark potted plants that had once thrived to embellish the room. A sizeable stain forebodingly darkens the carpet in front of the desk where students would have stood to check out their library books.
Seeing nothing looming in the shadows beyond the dead plants and one overturned chair, Rick switches off the flashlight and steps further into the room as the voices of the three men get louder. Though they are still talking fairly low, he can make out their words as Daryl crosses the threshold behind him.
"How the hell are we gonna get out of here, Chuck. They've surrounded the fucking place!"
"We wait them out. A noise will lure them in one direction eventually and we'll make a run for it. For now, Eddie, let's just worry about those two assholes with the dog."
"And those deadheads back there. Don't forget about them," the first voice replies.
"This is a fucking nightmare," another voice claims dispiritedly and Rick agrees with this third individual, who he recognizes as the voice of the brother who was killed. From his timbre and tone, a mental image of a young Leonardo DiCaprio pops into his head.
"Take it easy, guys. We'll be fine in here for the night."
As the shaft of light turns the corner and bounces inward toward the lobby, Daryl takes a furtive step into the hall and releases a lethal arrow into the dark figure directly behind the base of the beam.
The flashlight crashes to the floor to spin a chaotic arc against the dark walls, turning the corridor into a grim disco as the man staggers a painful dance. Falling to his knees, he clutches the arrow that steals his breath and relinquishes his life with one long drawn-out wheeze.
Moving quickly, Rick follows Daryl toward the two figures standing behind the fallen man. When the flashlight comes to rest with its face aimed directly at the mirrored wall on the back of the stairwell, the hallway brightens significantly and the sheriff sees the ominous glint of two knife blades swiftly raised in defense.
Clenching his jaw, Rick hooks his finger into the ring on top of the fire extinguisher and pulls the safety pin free. He lifts the canister with his strong right arm and holds the nozzle out as far as he can manage with his left hand, sucking cold air through his teeth as he aims the hose up at the stunned faces gazing back at him. He squeezes the handle and watches a thick stream of misty white flood the face of the taller man on the left.
At the edge of his quickly blurring vision, he faintly registers Daryl lunging forward and burying his knife into the tall man's ribcage, left exposed in the effort to protect his face. Sweeping the extinguisher to the right, Rick sends another burst of chemicals toward the shorter man, catching the side of his youthful, hairless cheek as Nikki races headlong to sink his teeth into a tender calf.
A burning howl escapes the young man's throat and ricochets off the tiled floor as his leg is pulled out from under him. The husky drags his prey across the linoleum until a heavy boot lands hard on his snout, causing Rick to flinch himself. When Nikki opens his jaw with a sharp whine, 'Leonardo' scrambles to his feet, wiping the side of his saturated face with a forearm while his other hand grips a jagged knife. With an angry sneer aimed at the dog, the knife is lifted in retaliation.
"No!" Rick swings the heavy extinguisher back and brings it forward with the force of a clean-up hitter aiming for the fences for a ninth inning grand slam. The bottom of the canister hits its mark with a sickening thud against the guy's ear, hurtling him down the wide staircase in a streak of flailing arms and legs. He hits the landing with a jolt, his stocky form splayed in all directions as his head lies at an unnatural angle against a broad shoulder.
Rick falls to the floor with the momentum of the blow, and the near blinding dizziness in his skull, as Daryl struggles for control of a weapon behind him.
Rolling to his back, he stares at the shadows on the ceiling and watches them swim together and then separate, like amoebas reshaping themselves beneath the lens of a microscope. He closes his eyes to steady his brain and listens abstractedly to the grunts of Daryl's scuffle as a warm wet tongue licks his face.
He opens his eyes after a minute - or an hour - and sees the blurry bulk of Nikki standing protectively at his shoulder with a deep growl aimed toward the lobby. Rick turns his head slowly, ignoring the nausea in his belly and the pain in his shoulder, to see Daryl pull an arrow out of the eye of one walker and quickly shove it into the snarling mouth of another. Lifting his right shoulder off the floor in an effort to raise himself up, he sees Daryl take a knife from his belt as two more walkers shuffle toward him, fresh blood dripping down their ragged chins. That was Leonardo's brother is the last disjointed thought floating buoyantly through Rick's muddled brain as he gives up any hope of helping Daryl. Relaxing his shoulder, he closes his eyes and wades comfortably back into the quiet darkness nestled inside the furthermost corner of his mind, where Erin is waiting to hold him.
Exhausted, Daryl sets the plastic crate on the floor and collapses into the fairly comfortable chair that he'd taken from behind the teacher's desk in a classroom down the hall. Reaching down to the crate, he rifles through the stash of items he'd gotten out of a vending machine and picks out a bag of potato chips and a bottle of warm blue Gatorade. Opening the bottle, he takes a sip and turns in his seat. He leans to the left and the smooth casters glide the chair a few inches closer to the narrow cot he had brought upstairs from the nurse's office.
Through the large windows of the second story stairwell, the descending sun casts an orange glow on the pale cheeks of the man lying on the cot. Daryl places his palm against Rick's forehead and breathes a sigh of relief at the coolness beneath his fingers. No fever. No infection. Rick had muttered a few incoherent words when Daryl had carried him upstairs and re-bandaged his wounds, but his partner had never really woken up.
He watches the steady rise and fall of his friend's chest and mentally retraces the steps he had taken to secure the inside of the school, hoping that he hasn't missed something.
He recalls finishing off all three men with an arrow to the brain to prevent them from coming back to do more harm, and then taking care of the four walkers that wandered in from the chemistry wing. After carrying Rick into the library and leaving him behind closed doors with Nikki to watch over him, he'd gone out to clear the rest of the school.
Going back to the chemistry wing, he'd found two walkers bent over a grisly pile of blood and gore outside the room he and Rick had escaped from. Feasting with hands and mouths, visceral instinct had brutally washed away any civilized etiquette.
He'd found another pair of wanderers in the cafeteria and a solitary female that was trapped inside the nurse's office. He'd closed the doors of every room that he passed, double checking all the exits leading in and out of the school, and made his way upstairs to find one guy left to haunt the second floor on a solo mission.
With a quick look out over the back fields to see a good sized swarm still drifting about, he returned to the nurse's office to collect the cot for Rick.
Not wanting to use the flashlight and its precious batteries any more than necessary, he decided to take advantage of the large windows that invite the sun to shine upon one of the staircases that overlook the parking lot.
He set up the cot on the second level against the wall directly across from the stairs, hoping that a full moon will keep the deepest shadows at bay when night claims its rightful place.
Now, as the dying sun creates an ocean of long shadows at the throngs of shuffling feet lumbering about the parking lot, Daryl re-checks the assortment of first aid supplies that he had gathered from the nurse's office downstairs, and waits for Rick to wake up.
The elongated leaves of the weeping willow sway gently in the soft breeze just above the bank of the small lake. A fusion of red, purple and orange paint the sky to create a spectacular canvas as the sun dips behind the treetops. The family of ducks floats smoothly across the water, leaving a wake of shimmering rusty gold hues on its surface.
Lying with his legs stretched out and his head in her lap as she leans comfortably against the base of the large rock, Rick pulls Erin's hand to his lips, kisses her palm and then returns it to lay warm against his chest. Her other hand threads through his dark wavy hair, grazing his scalp in rotating circles that make him hum softly; completely and utterly content.
Wearing black jeans and a white tee shirt, he crosses his bare feet and tilts his head to look up at her. Her eyes gleam brilliantly in the reflection of her dark green sleeveless top and the silky grass beneath the faded blue jeans that brush softly against his neck. She looks down to meet his gaze for just a moment before raising her chin to the sunset again.
"Isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?" she says softly.
Without taking his eyes off of her face he answers, "It's a distant second."
She looks down and smiles at him warmly as he strokes the back of her hand lying against his steadily beating heart. He sees her eyes lose some of their light as her expression turns melancholy. "When are you coming home?"
"Soon. I've just got to take care of some things first."
"Please hurry, Rick. I miss you."
"I miss you too, honey. I'll be back as soon as I can." He sits up and turns to face her, laying his palm on her cheek as he meets her tender gaze. "I love you with all my heart, Erin. You know that, right?"
She nods slowly, a tearful smile burnishing her somber expression.
"And you love me, right?" he asks, emotion tightening his throat as he swallows.
She nods again and a bead of moisture glistens at the corner of her eye. "More than anything," she says softly, tilting her cheek into his palm.
"And a love like this is stronger than anything. You found me when I was lost in a coma, right?"
She nods brightly, sniffling softly as her green eyes dance. "My hand stung like hell when I smacked your face."
He smiles and turns his lips into the hand that she places on his jaw. "And I found you at the quarry."
"Yeah," she replies, her voice barely above a whisper as a cool breeze stirs the long grass at the edge of the lake.
"We are always going to find each other. This time isn't any different. I'll be back in the morning, please know that."
"You promise?"
"With all my heart, yes. Nothing is gonna stop me from getting back to you. I will always come back to you, sweetheart. Promise you'll wait for me."
"I'll wait for you."
"That's my girl." He leans against the solid stone at his back and pulls her into his arms. "Sleep now, honey. You still need to rest."
"Stay with me," she says into the white tee shirt covering his chest.
"I'm right here, baby." Tightening his hold on her, he presses his lips to her hair as the sky bleeds into deeper shades of violet and the tiniest little duckling races to catch up to his family.