Chapter 2, In The Beginning
Before Rick was released from the hospital, almost a week after he awoke, he was visited by a member of the Community Council.
"I came by because I heard you had recovered and I wanted to meet the last survivor of Virginia." Frank Costa spoke with an accent the indicated English wasn't his first language. "Tragic to lose Virginia. You all were working really hard to improve yourselves."
"You saw what happened," Rick asked puzzled.
"No, I'm not part of the Life Recovery Crew. The whole crew and Anne shared their testimony a few weeks ago about the herd, the explosion, and the last stand. Just terrible."
"I'd like to speak to the crew."
"Yes, I can make that happen. Rick, most of our community formed at the start of the disease, though we've recovered many lives over the years. The Recovered Lives like to get together Monday nights at the Library. I think it would be good for you to go. Meet people who've been through what you've been through."
Rick was released from the hospital into Anne's care. She showed him around the vibrant, anachronistic community as they walked. Only a few subtle changes from the world before tipped Rick off that this was still after the time of walkers. There were very few gas-powered cars in the community, some electric cars, many horses, golf carts and bicycles.
"Where does the electricity come from?"
"The community has an electricity plant. It's stable power, not gas hungry generators. With stable power, the community has almost everything from before. Manufacturing, farming, schools, even telephones."
"How did you know about this place?"
"I didn't. I had heard a rumor. But it wasn't until I called for someone to save you that I found out it was real and not a story."
"You kept this from us."
"No, I swear, Rick, I didn't know it was real."
"Where are we?"
"I don't really know." Anne grabbed Rick's arm and pulled him to the side to let foot traffic pass. "All that we knew in Virginia is dead, Rick. Your people, my people, Negan's people. All dead. You took me in when I lost everything. The least I could do was to try and keep you alive."
"Then where are we?"
"It doesn't matter. No world exists outside of this one."
Rick was still too weak to force the truth and the intentional misdirections were exhausting his patience. He fell silent and studied the surrounds as they slowly walked along the tree-lined streets. He looked for any clues of where they were, but all signs and markers seemed foreign and new. The people who passed them on the sidewalk seemed pulled out of the past. A couple walked by vigorously debating in a language he couldn't recognize. For several blocks, he heard mostly English but also other languages as well.
Anne now lived in an apartment on the 3rd floor of a low-rise apartment building. There was only one bedroom and Rick refused to take it for his convalescence, insisting to sleep on the couch. He ate his meals, changed his own bandages and sat in a chair by the window studying the rhythms of the life outside. No weapons on anyone. No uniformed patrols. He worked hard to sift through his own memories mining them for the truth.
The next day the Life Recovery Crew came to visit Rick. They each told the same story. The communities' fighters had rushed to the bridge to take out the herds and save Rick. The explosion wiped them all out. Herds dispursed grew bigger and overtook each community. Anne saw Alexandria fall when she was trying to get back to the community. Rick himself was near death when on a hope and a prayer, Anne found him, switched to each radio channel asking for "recovery." They heard and picked the two of them up and flew over the other communities looking for survivors. Rick tried to crack them for clues about their current location. Such as how long were they in the chopper or did they have to transfer to a truck. The crew would redirect by "suddenly remembering" another detail of a person they watched die or freshly reanimated. The personal details were correct, seemingly solidifying the veracity of their stories. Before leaving they all shook Rick's hand and congratulated him for pulling through.
The next day, Rick finally asked, "so how does this all work?"
"There is a governing council, they're elected. You met Frank, he's one. They hold government meetings every Wednesday. When you're feeling up to it, there is an Employment Board. There are wages and money of a sort, but so far I haven't really had to use any. They distribute basic rations and most supplies are free. I got a job at the secondary school." Anne's matter of fact tone was tinged with hope that Rick was coming around.
"What day is it?"
When Anne replied that it was Monday, Rick asked where the Library was. After some disagreement about Rick walking there on his own, Anne acquiesced. Rick found the Library but barely glanced at it before continuing on. He wanted to know how big this community was. He walked for several blocks before tiring out. He needs to build up his endurance. This placed seemed to be a town, maybe even a small city. He couldn't see where the walls even began.
Rick looked around and noticed people staring at him deeply startled by Rick's apparent lost behavior. Rick turned and headed back toward the library.
The Recovered Lives meeting looked like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Rows of folding chairs facing a small podium. People sitting spaces apart lost in their own thoughts. A few pairs of private conversations in the corners of the room. Rick sat at the end of a row. A middle-aged man with long gray-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail sitting in the middle of the row scooted over next to Rick and introduced himself. His name was Curtis and before the two men could learn more about each other the meeting was called to order. The meeting facilitator, Dan, asked all the attendees to introduce themselves. As everyone spoke Rick tried to gauge their demeanor. Some people exhibited Anne's enthusiasm and exuded gratitude for their "Recovered Life." Others were more reserved. Curtis was exuberant in his introduction which disappointed but didn't surprise Rick.
"I'm excited to see that we have a new face tonight. Please stand up and introduce yourself," Dan encouraged. Rick stood up said his name and that he'd been out of the hospital for a couple of days. Dan peppered Rick with questions about how he got to the hospital, his care at the hospital and his life the past couple days.
"Friends, can we all give Rick a round of applause for his Recovered Life." While the room filled with clapping Rick's skin crawled.
Dan's voice turned somber as he announced, "Rick, what we usually do next at this meeting is talk about the Lost Lives. For those of you that have been recovered, it can be hard to adjust to a peaceful community. Your community members have lived in peace so long that you may feel they cannot relate. So we take the time here to share about those Lost Lives. Rick, is there a Lost Life on your mind tonight?"
Rick shook his head and sat down. Dan opened the question up to the rest of the group. A third of the group shared about a person they knew who they cared about and lost to walkers, or murder, famine, or suicide. Rick could feel Carl sitting beside him.
Then, Dan's voice brightened, "Through loss, you have been recovered." Dan's head nodded in silent agreement with his own statement as he looked at people across the room and smiled. "Ok, time for peace! Who wants to get advice from the group? Anyone have a success story? Anyone struggling?"
Several people shared about adjusting to "life in peace." One shared a success story of remembering to do laundry and the group clapped. Then Dan turned to Rick again, "Rick, what advise do you want from these fellow Recovered Lives?"
Rick wanted nothing more than to storm out of whatever therapy cult was happening in this room, but if he wanted information, then he needed to play along. "I'm ready to look for a job."
"That's terrific, Rick. Who has advice for Rick about taking on responsibility in community?"
Curtis spoke first and turned to Rick, "I don't have advice but just to say, I'd love for you to work with me, Rick. I need help and I would love to help you settle into this life in peace."
Rick rubbed his thumb across the pads of his two fingertips and nodded a quick confirmation to the cultist Curtis so all the other eyes would stop looking at him in anticipation. When the meeting adjourned Curtis gave Rick his contact information and told him to contact him when he was ready. Rick took another meandering route back to Anne's apartment. He had so many fighting thoughts in his head. The loudest were the alarms of how weak and withholding this community was and susceptible to fall at the first herd. The most painful thought was his inability to shake the Lost Lives part of the evening. To conjure up even a flash of her hopeful face the last time they were together felt like Rick was dying. Rick had ghosts that stayed with him, but it was his lost family that all these strangers swore were dead that haunted him. He could feel the way she put her hand in his to tell him it would all be ok. That couldn't be the last time. And finally, the most nagging question, what did he have to do to go home, even if it was to just bury his dead?
"Rick!" Curtis beamed when Rick showed up the next morning at a small nondescript warehouse. "You really are eager to start giving back!"
"I don't know how I can be of use to you, but I can't sit in that living room another day."
"Well come on, come on, living in peace doesn't mean sitting still." Curtis turned and walked quickly toward the warehouse, Rick trailed behind.
"So Rick, what we do here is infrastructure. Electrical lines, circuits, transistors, repeaters, semiconductors. You know, the fun stuff. I've got the people to build or repair all that stuff and I and a few others can maintain it. What I need is someone to install and uninstall it. It can be a pretty dangerous job, up high on a ladder, underground in utility rooms. It's not a desk job and without good ol' capitalism I cannot keep someone in the job. Anne shared about how heroic you were and I thought you'd be a great fit."
Rick made a motion to settle his left hand on his hip. Curtis caught Rick's confused physical response to something missing.
"Did you wear a tactical belt?"
"A gun holster."
"Well, I've got the next best thing." Curtis walked around the corner and came back with an electrician's belt.
Rick looked at Curtis deeply perplexed. "Curtis, I don't know the first thing about electrical infrastructure and you're just going to trust a brand new stranger with this?"
Curtis looked at Rick with that shit-eating enthusiastic grin, "Are you saying I should be concerned?"
Present-day
BANG. BANG. The billy club knocked twice on Rick's cell door. Dinner. Rick pulled himself out of his memories and he walked over to receive his plastic tray of food.
He looked at the peanut butter sandwich made of day-old bread that sat on his dinner tray. He thought about how his daughter hated the tough, chewy crust of sorghum bread and how he would cut it off for her. Rick pulled the hard crust edges off the sourdough sandwich until the crust formed a long sticky, crunchy strip. Rick slowly feed the strip of sandwich crust into his mouth, careful not to chew. When the solid food got to the gag reflex he wretched it out of his mouth. He took a deep breath, focused and tried again.
Since Curtis had the repair knowledge and Rick the guts to scale heights, the two had to work as a pair which Rick detested. Curtis was the poster boy for living a Recovered Life. He smiled at everyone and made small talk. When people would make tone-deaf comments about him earning his recovery, Curtis would thank them for the compliment. Then they would turn to Rick and tell him how good it was he was working with Curtis.
Anne had also integrated headlong into the community teaching art at the secondary school. He was surrounded and suffocated by goodwill and secrets.
Worse still, the next Recovered Lives meeting was Curtis's 2-year anniversary "in peace." Apparently, when you have an anniversary, the meeting becomes a celebration of your Recovered Life. So there were speeches in his honor and Curtis was invited to recall any and all Lost Lives he wished. To Rick's surprise, though, Curtis's list of Lost Lives was quite long and each recollection stirring. Like the week prior, Rick fought hard to not to conjure up his daughter's giggles or the way his love knew exactly what to say. We're the ones who live.
Rick did not return to the apartment for hours after the meeting that night. He could not stand being in this community without knowing what happened to his family. But he still hadn't found the borders. No wall, or fence. No clear traffic or gates that lead in or out.
The next morning Rick's sleep deprivation weakened his ability to filter and withhold what he was thinking.
"Curtis, your Lost Lives, do you know they are all dead or do you think you know?"
For a long moment, the usually gregarious Curtis did not respond.
"I know what it's like out there. And I know what happened to the people I was with at the grocery store where I was recovered." Curtis paused for a long time as if he felt trepidation to continue. "But, I think I know what happened to the rest."
Rick's breath hitched at the truth. He exhaled slowly and continued.
"Did you have family out there, Curtis?"
Curtis look out straight ahead. Everything about his posture was pretending this conversation wasn't happening. "I think I did."
Rick turned toward Curtis to face him directly, Curtis did the same. They asked each other with their eyes what couldn't be asked.
"Yes, Rick." Curtis contorted his face into its usual enthusiastic, Recovered Life brightness and smiled.