Chapter 3: Hell On Earth and The Colour Pink

Thank you to those of you who review and continue to read. You're all awesome.

A/N: I was expecting to have introduced the rest of Rick's group by now, but this chapter gets out of the way the last bit of background information I feel is necessary, so I hope the story doesn't feel like its dragging too much. Next chapter all the others will be integrated and things should start to pick up from there. Also, I made an error on my quote at the beginning of Chapter 2, which I have now corrected.

Enjoy! ;)


"…So when the last and dreadful hour

This crumbling pageant shall devour,

The trumpet shall be heard on high,

The dead shall live, the living die,

And music shall untune the sky."

-John Dryden, The Major Works


Then...

Darkness long ago befell upon the crumbling city of Tallahassee but as the entire metropolitan area becomes a singular united inferno as the infected feed and chaos flourishes, an eerie orange glow that fades and grows as the fires flicker illuminates the sky. With the entire city set ablaze, the stars are erased, the moon rendered an obscured blip by towering columns of blackened smoke which seep into the very night itself – creating spots of abysmal darkness. The noxious stench of burning diesel fuel and charred flesh fills the stagnant warm air. With nowhere to go as thick black smoke clogs the atmosphere, the stench only magnifies in intensity – seeping in through every little crack, infecting the very air itself with the stench of death and destruction. Sirens blare, endlessly repeating their high-pitched wailing – an abandoned police cruiser with a broken windshield and copious amounts of drying blood obscuring the shield painted on the door. Screams come from all angles, screams of agony and screams of horror along with the desperate screaming pleas for help that are futile and pathetically hopeful at best – screams that will never be answered for the entire world has abandoned the very hope for salvation the screamers are longing for. Breaking glass as building erupt into massive balls of fire, spewing forth sharp shards that glitter in the orange glow. The crackling sound of burning material, the whooshing of the raging inferno, is the quietest thing amongst the cacophonous symphony booming, always nearing a crescendo but never quieting, eternally becoming louder and louder to the point where deafness would be a reprieve.

Where life ends and death begins is obscured with no clear line of what is and what is not. The living die and then when dead, they live again - the laws of the universe that were once so rigid have become flaccid, non-existant. Hell on Earth envisioned, witnessed; the apocalypse apparent.

A singular armoured Humvee crawls down the street, maneuvering around cars and driving over limp bodies on the ground like speed bumps. From the tall buildings lining the street, people still barley clutching onto life hurl themselves down onto the street, whether they are intentionally ending their lives or springing for the military Humvee in a thoughtless last bid for salvation unknown. They fall to the ground and splatter like insects under a newspaper, nearly flattened with brain matter and blood shooting out, painting the pavement. With her face pressed against the small window made of bullet proof glass, Charlaine watches Hell pass by, unable or unwilling to verbalize the atrocities once reserved for nightmares and movies.

The living dead swarm in hoards of massive numbers, storming down the streets every which way she looks like an invading army of cadavers united by their cannibalistic desires - the pounding of their shuffling feet silent in march, silent among the blaring noise of destruction.

Louisiana is startled as a comforting hand wraps around her shoulder but relieved when she glances down out of the corner of her eyes, finding that it is only Heath's massive dark hand which wrinkles her fatigues as he refuses to let go. When she looks up to Heath's chiseled face, a face that could have landed him on the cover of GQ in another life, she realizes with overwhelming clarity that he is not gripping tight her shoulder for her comfort, but rather he holds onto her for his own comfort. He probably would not admit it, even under torture, but Charlaine can tell that her friend is afraid - its solely in the way his blue eyes remain rigid, unblinking with a tense crinkling around his eyelids.

She wraps her own hand around his and gives him a small squeeze just to reinforce the comforting human connection, marveling at how small and pale her hand seems resting over his that seems the impossibly large hand of a giant.

They roll over a body, causing the Humvee's independent suspension to tilt the cabin – Heath's hand digging into her shoulder as he tries to not think about the speed bumps scattering the road as people.

First Lieutenant Kevin, a baby-faced giant of six feet and four inches who is built sturdy and muscular as a tank, drives the armored Humvee down Monroe Street, his calloused hands wrapped around the steering wheel a stark white as his brown eyes stare beyond the window to the road, deeply glazed over like glass in refusal to completely recognize the horror before them. Next to Kevin sits David, the youngest of their battalion at 19-years-old, a blonde haired boy from northern Alabama. David is the epitome of a good 'ol boy, a doe-eyed boy who is highly driven by an internal call of duty. Once the captain of his high school's football team, he turned down a promising career in college football and undoubtedly the NFL because he felt it was his moral obligation and sole responsibility as a capable man to join the Marines the day he graduated. He keeps a tight hold on a fully-automatic assault rifle, ready to shoot in a seconds' notice, with his chin bowed to his chest in silent prayer.

The four of them are all that remains of their once great unit, depleted and deprived but somehow remaining strong as ever in their united defiance against succuming to the world's woes.

They slowly make their way down the street, cautiously traversing the main street of Hell itself all in the name of rescuing their Lieutenant Colonel's daughter – his last request before he succumbed to the fever… his last request before Charlaine put a bullet through his head.

"How far away are we?" Charlaine asks.

"Two minutes out." Kevin says, robotically. As they drive by a corner market completely engulfed by flames, the city-wide glow breeches the darkened auto and catches on the silver double bars pinned to her lapel in such a way that she is again startled. Achieving the rank of Captain at twenty-four was not easy but it was earned and even during the Apocalypse her heart swells with pride for a brief moment before she realizes that with the world all but null, her rank is absolutely meaningless.

The rest of the ride is filled with the blaring noises from outside and the calm clicking of weapons being checked and loaded inside the Humvee. No one dares speak, not even a squeak. Each has seen their share of death, seen humanity at its absolute worst, but in the past week the things they have seen make the taste of words sour, too heavy and unsavory on their tongues.

As the Humvee rolls up to the elementary school where Col. Jack's daughter has hidden herself, David leads them in a group prayer for safety and swiftness. Praying to a God she doesn't believe in, Charlaine can only think of one thing the entire time David begs a higher being for protection.

Where is God in all of this?

Just like the world has abandoned hope while only a stupid few cling to the prospect of salvation, apparently God has also abandoned the world and all its inhabitants. But just who said 'fuck it' first? Us or him?

The four pour out from the Humvee in no more than ten seconds, weapons raised and senses heightened as adrenaline takes control of their bodies, pulling them along like a puppet master. Hollywood will have you believe that when the adrenaline starts coursing through your veins, time slows down - but that is the exact opposite of the truth. Time speeds up and things happen in a matter of milliseconds - you solely react the instant something happens, without so much as a single thought.

A narrow band of dead have followed the Humvee, grasping for the loud vehicle and its occupants with broken, bloodied finger - snapping their drooling jaws, thrashing around their bloated tongues that spill from their blackened mouths. Kevin and Charlaine head the front, while Heath and David walk backwards, every angle covered – each of the four firing away at the quickly growing crowd of walkers closing in on the elementary school. The gunfire does not halt for a single second.

This is not to be an easy task. The school that set up as an emergency shelter was declared overrun a day ago – but Col. Jack's daughter, Emily, is as smart as her father was and has locked herself on the roof for protection, calling out for her father with the walkie-talkie he had given her when she and her mother came to the school. Smart on her part, but unfortunately, that means Charlaine's unit now has to work its way through three floors of walker infested space and then back down again.

Organized and operating as a single being of shared mind, the Marine unit of four storms the elementary school and shows Hell how things are done as they efficiently wipe the living dead from their path to the roof. They go through clip after clip of ammunition, discarding the used empty cartridges on the floor for favour of time and only ever reloading one-at-a-time.

Bodies pile up all around them as they swiftly maneuver through the darkened building, not a single running corpse escaping from their crosshairs. An efficient killing machine, the four make it through the building in three minutes flat without incident.

As Kevin bangs against the roof door for Emily to open it, Charlaine glances over at David – pondering her religious belief system as his prayer has apparently shielded them from harm despite the massive crowd of zombies they had to shoot their way through.

The heavy steel door painted an ungodly green colour that reminds Charlaine of the vomit scene from the Exorcist squeaks open. There, in the doorway – half obscured by shadows and half ignited by the inferno that is Tallahasse, Emily looks directly up into the two-tone eyes of Charlaine. The little girl's eyes are wide with long black eyelashes and a dark, dark brown – just like her fathers in the most haunting of ways that sends a chill up Lou's spine.

At a very apparent nine years old, the girl orphaned by the apocalypse is a four-foot twig with wild jet-black hair sticking to her sweaty face like a giant spider is resting atop her skull.

"Where's my Dad?" Emily directly asks of Charlaine, her high-pitched voice squeaking with fright.

Charlaine doesn't have the heart to tell the young girl who watched her mother get devoured that her father is also dead, "He's back at the base waiting for you." Charlaine lies effortlessly.

Emily continues to stare at her with brown eyes paralyzed wide by debilitating fear, making her look like a sickly doll – making Charlaine fear that her lie is apparent.

"C'mon, we need to go!" Kevin says forcibly. Emily does not turn and look at him, but rather she rushes through the door and wraps her body around Charlaine's lower half, her head barley coming up to Charlaine's navel.

Caught off-guard by the innocent action of the child, Charlaine cautiously sooths a hand over Emily's head, hoping that it brings her some sort of relief from the atrocious.

"C'mon!" Kevin says again, beginning to retreat back down the stairs.

"Stay behind me." Charlaine says, waving an authoritative finger in the heart-shaped face of Emily. She nods, releasing Charlaine from her hold save for a tiny hand she keeps wrapped around her belt.

They begin their swift descent down the stairs, easily avoiding the mutilated and partially devoured corpses haphazardly strewn across the steps – some still reaching up and out as if retaining their quest for flesh even after their second death has rendered them limp.

When their pace quickens and Charlaine feels a tugging on her belt that tells her they are moving far too fast for such a young child to keep pace, she slings her assault rifle over her shoulder and scoops Emily up in her arms, holding her close to her chest and whispering gentle demands not to look at the piles of cadavers surrounding them. Kevin, David and Heath lead while Charlaine, slightly lagged as she cradles eighty pounds, follows from behind. Gunfire bursts block out the sounds of the apocalypse coming in through broken windows, echoing throughout the school and ringing aloud in their ears long after the bombardment of bullets quiets.

Bursting through the wide-open front doors of the school, the team freezes on the steps as they bear witness to a collection of walkers so vast it seems a swelling sea of corpses rises like a tidal wave in front of them, about to crash upon their position.

Their Humvee is nearly engulfed by the dead, rocking back and forth like a ship caught in a storm as the living dead bump into it.

Charlaine lowers Emily to the floor, needing the use of her hands to lay down gunfire as her three fellow Marines do. Picking up her gun with one hand, she pushes Emily behind her with the other – placing her small body directly behind her, using her own body as a shield for the young girl. It is an action that is purely instinctual, something Louisiana had no prior thought about doing. Even though she was never one who particularly cared for children, this sudden influx of maternal care that roots itself deep into her mind does not even register to Charlaine. The one thing that does blatantly hiccup her mental process, however, is the quiet pleading from Emily that echoes in her mind like the bursting gunfire did only moments ago.

"I don't want to die." Emily cries, so heartbreakingly sorrowful that Charlaine catches herself off guard with her own reply.

"I will never let anything happen to you." She says, meaning ever single word with all the sincerity she has to offer.

"Promise?" Emily cries, having to shout over the glorious blaze of automatic rifle firing that rains bullets upon the rising sea of dead.

"I promise."

The dead are rising faster than they can shoot – so staggering in quantity that for a moment Charlaine believes this is the end.

In all her twenty-four years of life, never once has Charlaine broken a promise and God himself be damned to this Hellish reality if she's going to start now.

She puts her rifle on the ground and rips the satchel attached to her back free, tearing into the pack with lightning speed, thus quickly brandishing four grenades that represent the four remaining hand-held explosives in her units collective possession.

She twists her torso, bending down slightly so she is more eye level with Emily, "Stay here." She begins to run away but stops mid-step. What it is that Charlaine plans on doing is the very epitome of reckless, a suicide objective if ever she has thought of one.

Pulling the Captains pin from her lapel, she places it in the small palm of Emily, "Hold onto this for me."

Louisiana does not have an answer for herself as to why she passes down the most treasured object in her possession, she just does.

Silently, Emily closes her hand, encapsulating Charlaine's pin and watches, partially mystified but mostly still plagued by fright, as Charlaine runs directly for the army of walkers.

"CHARLAINE!" David calls after her, trying to get her to stop.

"CEASE FIRE!" In unison with David, Kevin orders – trying to prevent his reckless comrade from being shot by friendly fire.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Heath shouts. Emily tugs on David's pant leg, opening her palm to show him the pin - instantly causing the blood to drain from his face as he realizes Lou is not planning on coming back.

Charlaine pulls the pins from the grenades as she runs, discarding the circular metal pins by throwing them over her shoulder. She hurls the grenades forth into the crowd, but sadly not fast enough to prevent three walkers from getting the jump on her. They just came from nowhere – she never even saw them until she feels a horrible burning pain in her wrist that radiates all the way down her spine.

Crying out in pain as a jaw digs into her wrist, she agonizingly wrenches her arm free while fighting off another walker – a bloody police officer with a bullet hole torn through one fleshy cheek and half his lower jaw dangling by a single ligament – by kicking him so hard in the knee she hears the sturdy joint snap just before his leg bends backwards and he tumbles to the ground. A bullet whizzes past her ear and takes out the walker that had bitten her wrist – blowing out the back of his skull, splattering bone and brain into the smokey atmosphere. As the fallen police officer gums around her boot clad foot, she is able to get the KA-BAR knife attached to her belt free. She flips the knife around in her hand, gaining a better hold on it just as the third walker, a young boy no older than Emily, that had ambushed her bites into her thigh, sharp adolescent canines easily tearing through her fatigues - piercing her flesh, but unable to tear out the chunk like you would a bite from an apple.

Gritting her teeth against the immense pain that bombards her nervous system, Charlaine brings the knife down with as much force as she can, driving the massive blade directly through the crown of the young boys skull just as all four grenades explode simultaneously. So close to the explosion, she is thrown down onto her back, her head crashing against the pavement with a dull crack of bone when the pressure wave expands out. Just before a warm blackness envelops her consciousness, soothing enough to quell the excruciating pain in her wrist and thigh, she hears the far away cry of a girl over the apocalyptic symphony of the burning city. And as she begins to fade away, she prays to a God she doesn't believe in, she prays even though she isn't quite sure how to do so silently, she prays to live.

She prays to be allowed to protect Emily.

She prays for this to not be the end.


Now...

Storming in through the massive front doors of the prison, still fuming after verbally exploding on the newcomers, Charlaine begins to let loose the fury contained within – shouting off rhetorical insults to no one at all. However, she is instantly silenced as her brown and blue eyes notice the small figure sitting in the corner of the foyer.

Wearing a sleeveless dress yellow as the sun, black-haired Emily sits cross-legged in the corner with a colouring book in front of her and a pack of Crayola crayons spread out on the floor beside her - a silver double-barred pin stuck in the cloth of her yellow dress just above and to the left of where her heart is. Emily looks over at Charlaine with her wide, doll-esque brown eyes that see straight through a persons skin and into their very soul, boring into Louisiana's inner person with not hatred or fear, but rather with devotion.

Caught in the gaze of those large brown eyes, Charlaine feels a deep calm wash over her - a silent reminder bursts through her blinding rage that came from nowhere, a reminder that even in the apocalypse some innocence remains untouched by the evil which prevails just beyond the prison gates.

Charlaine sighs, feeling remorseful about her anger, but more importantly feeling remorseful that she just said such vicious words in the presence of Emily - something she tries not to do.

"Sorry." Charlaine says sincerely, apologizing for violating Emily's ears with such nasty words that a child should not know.

Emily smiles the most beautiful smile Charlaine has ever seen, "You owe me a lot of M&Ms." For every time Charlaine is caught cussing by Emily, she owes her M&M's – varying in quantity that correlates to how 'bad' the particular word is. One for ass. Three for shit. Five for fuck.

Emily's smile is perpetually contagious and Charlaine quickly becomes infected. Bearing her own toothy grin, "A whole bag?" she asks.

Emily shakes her head adamantly, "Two." She holds up two fingers to visualize her point.

Charlaine rolls her eyes with faux-irritation, "Fine. Two it is."

She then walks over to the young girl and sits on the cold linoleum floor with her, wrapping a protective and loving arm around Emily's small shoulders. After placing a small kiss on the top of Emily's head, Charlaine rests her chin there and peers down to watch Emily colour in a picture of Cinderella – giving the classic Disney princess bright pink hair and a dress to match.

Wholly content with her life in this instant, Charlaine completely forgets why she was even mad to begin with – such is the effect being with Emily normally has on her. There is something inexplicable about the young child that actually changes Lou, and changes her for the better. Around the girl, Lou strives to be better, to be someone Emily can love and be proud of. All she can guess is that this is what it must feel like to be a parent.

Considering that prior to saving her late Colonel's daughter she didn't even like children, Charlaine could never have imagined in her wildest dreams pre-apocalypse that she would find herself loving a little girl as much as she does; she never could have imagined what it truly means to be a parent – to have unconditional love for someone that is reciprocated so effortlessly.

Yet here she sits, in the massive entry room of a super-max prison, with her arms wrapped around Emily, thinking Damn. My daughter really loves the colour pink.


When Heath and the newcomers come in through the front doors, Charlaine instantly stands up – an apology to the group already worked through in her mind. Greatly calmed down, she realizes how unwarranted her verbal assault was and more importantly, she realizes that it made her look like a huge ass. She may have immense trouble getting along with people, always has, but given the conditions of Earth, she has been trying to work on her interpersonal skills. After all, in a world where you're outnumbered a hundred-to-one by the dead, you can't really afford to have enemies.

"New people!" Emily exclaims, bursting with an excited gap-toothed grin. A social butterfly, Emily is always ecstatic whenever someone new shows up at the prison.

"Hey, Em, why don't you go find Dianne and see if she'll give you an advance on those M&M's I owe you." Charlaine suggests, preferring to talk to the newcomers without Emily present.

Emily nods, picking up on the fact that what Charlaine is saying is more of a direct request instead of a suggestion like her tone misled. After picking up her colouring book and crayons, she waves goodbye to the group in the entry room and then takes off running down the hall in search of Dianne. Charlaine follows Emily with her eyes, watching until she takes a corner and disappears from sight before switching her attention to the group as a whole.

"I'm sorry for the way I acted out there, I made a huge ass out of myself. I think the heat was just getting to me and you," she looks directly at Shane, "just had the misfortune of catching me at a really bad time. I mean you no bad will and I hope ya'll will forgive me for acting the way I did." The sincerity with which she speaks is not lost on the group.

Shane's eyes flicker to the floor for a moment barely long enough to count, "That's all right. I think we can all understand that fuses tend to run a little short in this heat." He accepts the apology but something in his voice is lacking, something that Charlaine can't quite put her finger on because while it sounded sincere, it just wasn't all there.

"Was that your daughter?" Rick asks, partially curious because of how young Louisiana is – true, if she was Emily's biological mother that would mean she gave birth at the very young age of fifteen.

For the sake of ease, Charlaine considers saying yes but ultimately decides against it, "No, her Dad was in our unit and after he died, I just kinda… fell in love with her." Lou finishes with this soft smile on her round face, this Mona Lisa sort of smile that brightens her entire apperance.

"I've got a son myself, back at the camp with my wife. His name's Carl." Rick says, wearing his own small smile. Lou recieves confirmation that the swelling pride that makes her smile whenever she thinks of Emily is a "parent thing".

"There's more of you?" She inquires, surprised because never has she come across a large group of other survivors before – it has always just been a few here and a few there, small groups of three or four - or even less, like Michonne who came to the prison all by her lonesome... well, if you don't count the dead as people, that is.

Shane nods, "Yeah, we got five more waiting for us about four miles north of here - Rick and I are gearin' up to go get them."

Louisiana is quiet for a second, thinking. "I can give you boys a ride if you like." She offers, extending a friendly hand in part to make reparations.

Rick opens his mouth, about to say something that Lou has the foresight to know as a polite 'no', so she decides to interject another key piece of information.

"We got an armored Humvee parked out back that's fun as shit to ride in, not to mention its completely walker proof. It's the best way to travel through these parts since the walkers started leavin' the cities." Walkers never used to be much of a concern this far in the wood, but during the past month while out hunting in the woods or traveling to the nearest town twenty miles away for supplies, it is commonplace to run into at least a few walkers. It has no longer become a question of if you're going to run into a walker, but a question of when. Closer and closer they migrate towards the isolated prison as the food supply begins to dwindle.

Never has Louisiana met someone, pre or post apocalypse, who passes on the opportunity to ride in a tricked-out Humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on the roof and it seems today is not the day that is going to change, for after Rick and Shane share a brief look in which they seem to hold the exact same sort of telepathic conversation Lou and Heath do, "That'd be greatly appreciated." says Rick.


Please review