Chapter 12: Jersey Shore
Carl inhaled deeply, savoring the smell of the ocean air.
The dull headache that woke him up should've been his first clue. Instead, he'd reached up to rub away at (what he thought were) crusted eyelashes, and ended up poking his exposed eye socket through the bandage. That pain got him stumbling out of bed in no time, all too aware that he wasn't in Heaven anymore.
A few hours later, he was standing on top of an enormous cargo ship, smelling seaweed and tasting salt on his lips.
The ship was docked at the end of a remarkably long pier, several miles off-shore. Carl was no expert, but even he could tell that it was a sloppy park job: a few containers had fallen from the main deck down to the pier, whose surface was tilted slightly, crushed under the weight of the massive vessel. There were walkers below them but they were still oblivious to their presence. The deck was too high and walkers, as a general rule, didn't look up.
They seemed to be of the "lurkers" variety, the kind that didn't roam randomly but was, for some reason, content to stand or lay around until something caught their attention. None of them looked particularly fresh; Carl wondered how long it had been for them, if they'd been standing around like that for months, or even years.
"I forgot how ugly they are." He heard Claire muttering from where she stood next to him, binoculars lifted to her face. She was looking at the long concrete road that led to the shore. "I count forty ghouls till the beach, including the ten directly below us. Most of them are spread pretty thin."
"I'm more worried about what comes after," Carl replied, pointing toward a wooded area beyond the shore.
"Can't tell, it's too dense." She put down the binoculars, holding them loosely in one hand. Sounding affronted, she added, "I still can't believe we're in New Jersey."
Carl snickered. "Cause everything else makes total sense, right?" he tapped her on the shoulder. "C'mon, let's go back inside, I heard there's an angel who might need our help counting soup cans."
Needless to say, Carl was having a strange morning.
Earlier, while they were regrouping (and Carl spent some time panicking before they managed to find Judith in the Captain's cabin, looking cuddly and sleepy and no worse for wear), Enid and Claire introduced the rest of their group to Castiel...who turned out to be a real person after all, one who had been held prison alongside them.
Also, Castiel was an angel. A real one. The girls were very insistent on that. Apparently, there'd been wings.
The man himself kept mostly quiet, looking slightly confused and a bit uncomfortable as the girls constantly interrupted one another recounting their experiences. The oddest thing was how easily Carl believed them. And by the look on the others' faces, they did too. The younger kids nodded sagely at the explanations, where Jake, Scott and Mikey just seemed awed and speechless (Carl looked like that too, he realized).
It wasn't that Castiel looked like an angel (however Carl pictured angels looking like). He was scruffy and tired-looking, and his clothes were full of holes (particularly at the back, because, maybe, possibly, wings?) No, it was just that, looking closely, there seemed to be something otherworldly about him.
Maybe it was the way he seemed familiar, even when Carl was sure he'd never seen him before. It might have been that his blue eyes didn't seem to blink as often as they should, or that he spoke so matter-of-factly about the supernatural creatures who'd kidnapped them with the intention of "eating their souls" (and Carl very definitely did not allow himself to think about Susan).
Maybe it was the way he'd ripped a locked solid iron gate off its hinges with his bare hands. Point was, Carl was adaptable.
Come noon, they'd turned the ship's navigation bridge into their temporary headquarters. It was a nice open space with plenty of windows and lots of colorful buttons that the younger kids had to constantly be reminded not to press. They spent some time looking for supplies, taking advantage of the ship's remaining backup power, and managed to find plenty of it, too.
Everything they've managed to scavenge from the lower decks was piled up at one corner: preserved food, water, spare clothing (although they couldn't find any that fit the younger kids), backpacks, toiletries and so on. They managed to scrounge up a few weapons as well: knives from the kitchen, a couple of axes and a crowbar that Jake instantly adopted. Mikey had appointed himself as their quartermaster, making lists of everything they had and everything they needed to look for on the outside.
Briefly, they discussed the idea of going through the water. Sadly, there were no ships around beside the enormous vessel (which they couldn't even begin to figure out how to sail) and the water seemed to be littered with debris and sad looking shipwrecks belonging to people who had had similar ideas in the past. Not to mention, as Carl reminded them, walkers floated. So walking it was. Or driving, if they got lucky (Castiel had also informed them, very apologetically, that he would've tried flying them all home if his wings hadn't been damaged).
Castiel didn't look up when they entered the navigation bridge, but he nodded once when Claire made her report on the number and state of the walkers outside. There had been an awkward air to him earlier, Carl realized, an odd gentleness. Not anymore. Now, Castiel looked razor-sharp in his focus, his expression grim.
He hadn't been counting soup cans. He and the rest of their little group (except for Judith and the other small children, who seemed to be playing an elaborate game of "throw the plastic cups as far as possible") were inspecting a large map, which they'd spread over a round bolted-down table. The bundle of maps was a lucky find; Castiel hadn't been able to tell them the name of the state they were in, but one look outside was all he needed to point out their exact location on the map (Sandy Hold, NJ, now circled in red).
"That's us," Enid was saying, half climbing over the table in order to draw a red circle around Alexandria. She pointed to another red circle farther north, "the twins," she pointed to another circle, crossing over to Pennsylvania, "and that's Annabelle. So far, everybody's not too far away."
"The Zanna are not skilled teleporters," Castiel explained. "Even using borrowed power, traveling with companions is a massive energy drain."
"Looks like ours is the last stop," said Carl, studying at the innocent little circle around Alexandria. Across the table, Mikey let out a sardonic yay. Carl snorted, then asked, "what about Oliver and Daliah? Did you get something out of them?" Earlier, the two children had tried to explain in their own way (and in Daliah's case, her own language), but it was clear they didn't really know where their camps were.
Castiel shook his head, then added contemplatively, "I could take a look for myself."
"Cas!" Claire berated before the rest of them could ask what he meant, "you're supposed to take it easy."
"It is a very small thing. I won't have to tap into my reserves at all."
Once he explained to them what he was going to do and had their consent (Daliah looking afraid, Oliver mostly curious), he touched their foreheads, one after another. Daliah, the little foreign girl, turned out to have the closest camp, a hotel southwest of Sandy Hold that her entire extended family had lived in. Then he checked Oliver, and whatever he saw there seemed to make him angry. Castiel didn't say much except that Oliver wasn't going back to his original camp.
The little boy didn't seem very bothered by that. "I wanna go with Claire!" he declared, clinging to her waist.
"I've nowhere specific to get back to, actually. It was only me and my mom before, and you know, she's dead, so..." Claire reached down to pat Oliver's messy hair. "I'll take care of you, buddy." Then she asked, "Cas, what about you? Where do you want to go?"
"Oh, my family is looking for me," Castiel told them, "I will join them when you are all safely returned home."
"Your… angel family?" wondered Carl.
Castiel shook his head. "My human family. Sam," he said, then added with a soft smile, "and Dean." He looked at Claire, expression turning worried. "You've met them once before. Claire, I assumed that… what I mean is… " he sighed. "I promised your father that I would keep you safe."
"Don't talk about him," Claire said sharply, but she looked more sad than angry. After letting out a long breath, she added, "yes, I'll stick around. Both of us, okay?" She squeezed Oliver closer to her.
Castiel nodded.
"Then okay, Cas."
Jake, who didn't have much patience for other people's sob stories, cut the tension. "So, we drop Daliah off, cross the interstate into Pennsylvania for Anna, and then continue down south." He traced the general path along the map with his finger. "Problem is, where to cross the '95? It's totally blocked in both directions, not to mention the shit-ton of roamers we're going to find."
Castiel frowned down at the map again, sounding troubled. "They do tend to herd. It will be difficult to protect you if we come across large groups."
"Do you know what they are?" Carl suddenly asked, surprised at himself for not raising the question sooner. Walkers had been a fact of life for years.
Castiel's head tilted. "Animated corpses. Colloquially they are referred to as zombies, but…" he seemed puzzled. "I believe most don't like that term?"
Carl had to grin at that old debate. "We call them walkers."
"We used ghouls," supplied Claire.
"Zack," said Daliah softly, surprising Carl who didn't realize she could understand them.
"Thrillers," said Jake. Everyone turned to look at him. His brother particularly looked skeptical. "Fine, not really."
"Stop trying to make thrillers happen," Scott said, rolling his eyes. "It's just corny."
"Demons." That was Annabelle's shy voice.
"No," said Castiel, shaking his head. "This plague is not demonic in nature. Those," his head moved to indicate the outside, where the walkers roamed, "are just bodies fuelled by adrenaline and hunger…" he trailed off. Eventually, he added, "there's nothing inherently evil about them, they just are."
Carl insisted, "but where did they come from?"
"I don't know," Castiel replied simply. "I can see the spread of the disease in the air. In all of you. It carries no trace of Heaven nor Hell. And yet..." Castiel looked at them sadly, "it didn't come naturally." A long, somber silence followed his words.
Jake hooted suddenly, startling even Castiel. "I knew it! Bioengineering," he sneered, then slapped his scowling brother's back. "I won the bet, jerkface."
Castiel looked fondly at the brothers' antics. Then he said, "We should leave as soon as we can. I suppose that the safest option is to secure a vehicle. I'll see what I can find nearby."
"I'll come with you," Claire said immediately.
"No," Castiel replied.
"Do you even know how to jumpstart a car?" Claire countered. "Or how to drive one, for that matter?"
"I've seen it done," Castiel said earnestly.
"We should all come with you," said Enid. Jake and Scott nodded in agreement. Mikey just looked queasy.
"The plan is to scout ahead," Castiel argued.
"I'll go," Carl said. "Claire, you really should stay. You're injured, and you haven't fought walkers in months."
"You're injured, dumbass." Claire snapped.
"I've had time to heal and train. Your limp is a bigger problem than my eye."
Castiel sighed. "Enough. We have a long journey ahead, you'll have plenty of opportunities to prove yourselves. One of you may join me - the rest should stay behind to prepare for the road."
He then gave them a pleased smile. "Now, as to who - I've been informed that there is a traditional approach to solving such conflicts. Normally, it would take just two participants, but I believe you could take turns…"
A few rounds of Rock-Paper-Scissors later declared Carl as the winner.