Chapter 4

Lori was tired and really thinking about just turning in for the night. To leave everything else for the next day when a mean looking and slightly overweight man started to move the tent that a woman and her daughter had set had set up close to the middle of the camp away from the others. Lori couldn't be sure but by the proximity of the three and the way mother and daughter slightly flinched whenever the man spoke they were probably his wife and daughter… and he an abusive asshole.

Now Lori couldn't be SURE about what was going on, but while the brunette watched the whole situation she had a bad taste in her mouth, the body language alone was pretty telling. She also remembered how she had seen this asshole grab his wife when she had wanted to get out of the car on the highway; at that time Lori had been too upset to recognize the warnings but with hindsight…
Frowning Lori nudged Shane slightly when she noticed the deputy sheriff coming to a standstill beside her right side and pointed the scene out to him, in hopes that he would interfere. Now Lori wasn't a coward per se, she just was a lot more careful around guys that were bigger and heavier than her; additionally she had a son to think of, though she did feel guilty for sending an already exhausted Shane into that kind of situation. But maybe he could do something about the poor woman's situation. Rick's partner had never had a lot of patience for wife beaters after all. Taking a look around she noticed that she wasn't the only one who had seen the interaction of that family, but nobody else was doing something… Lori felt disgusted and self loathing, yeah that was about right. Even when things had been normal a few months back nobody would have done anything substantial, not even… or especially herself. Because while she had been raised to be a good, nice girl, Lori was well aware of her character faults. She was a self centered bitch; the brunette was quick at raising her voice and releasing her anger. She also had a penchant of verbally attacking where it hurt the most, finding emotional weak points wasn't that hard for her. Lori had also no problem to put those she was close to above anybody else and at times she wasn't beneath using dirty tricks and nasty rumors to get what she wanted… well, it wasn't as if being nice would help her in this darker reality anyway.

Coming out of her retrospective thoughts Lori watched while Shane walked over to the family and took the husband to the side by his arm. By the looks of Shane's tensed arm muscles, it was quite the hard grip. He bodily moved the suspected wife beater a few steps away from his family before whispering something in his ear. Lori couldn't hear what Shane was telling him but in the end the tent stayed were the timid mother-daughter duo had arranged it.

Good, Lori though with grim satisfaction.

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After all tents were set up Lori reckoned that it was as good a time as any to start networking and so she cleared her throat and asked into the round, "Hey, does anybody of you know how to build a low fire so that we don't attract attention of those things?"

This received more than a few enthusiastic murmurs and smiles.

Asking for help and offering up good ideas would endear her to the others, of that Lori was sure. The brunette Grimes was now more than thankful that she had read all those books about the human nature that her neighbor had recommended. Lori hoped that Sarah had gotten away with her kids, the hobby psychologist from across the street had always been a lot more fun than the other housewives on their street. The two of them had made a habit of analyzing the people that either walked by when they were sitting on Sarah's front porch or in the downtown café they had frequented at least once a week and one memorable kid free afternoon with two pitchers full of Sangria, their deductions had become more and more fantastical with each hour gone by. Lori had even considered signing up for a few physiology courses in evening school after Sarah had given her one particularly interesting book about the human group mentality.

Coming out of her thoughts Lori noticed that Dale and some of the college kids volunteered to build a fire while Shane had returned to the Jeep to unload his bags. Some of the other group members helpfully collected small branches, twigs and dry leaves from around the clearing, it was getting dark at a rapid pace and everybody understood that if they wanted a fire they would have to make it now, nobody wanted to stumble around in the dark to look for fire wood. Predictably the men that had volunteered started to argue about the best way to pile the sticks and flammables up, Lori felt like face palming. At least some of the others brought stones to surround the fire place, that was close to the middle of the camp.

Whatever that group of men were doing it didn't seem to be going to well because the annoyed red neck from before came storming over once more and removed the wood before he started to stack it in a complete other way, Lori had to suppress a snort at the dumbfounded expressions. Carl who had wandered around a bit in the new camp now walked closer and watched fascinated while the blonde man had the wood piled up in record time and was now setting it on fire with the help of his zippo and some dry leaves. Dale and one of the college kids that had lingered around while the blonde worked, watched him slightly miffed. The redneck seemed to take offense to that and opened his mouth most likely to say something rude when Carl sat down beside him and started to ask him some questions concerning the fire, Lori grinned inwardly her son was diffusing the situation without even realizing it. Now normally Lori would have not allowed Carl in the vicinity of a stranger she knew less than half a day, especially a redneck but she was standing only a few feet away surrounded by a group of people that would most certainly take offense to anything bad the redneck would do to Carl.

Dale and the college kid still looked annoyed but kept their mouths shut to watch the interaction between the unlikely pair. While the redneck wasn't what you would call child appropriate he still answered Carl's questions in easy to understand sentences and didn't snap at him outright. Lori relaxed and recalculated once again. The man was not only useful outdoors, but he also seemed to make an effort concerning kids, or at least he wasn't outright hostile to them. The more she saw, the more it became clear to her that while he was rough around the edges and probably socially awkward as hell he had certain standards and apparently a lot of pride… which was not a bad thing in her opinion, with a bit nudging that pride could be manipulated to help the whole group.

The brunette mother tilted her head before her lips twitched, now to test him.

The blonde redneck finished with starting the fire and was on his way to his tent when he was intercepted by Lori who held up a can of beans out as thanks for his help. As a reaction the man just snorted and lightly shoved the can back into Lori's direction and out of his way. Shane who had seen the whole thing but apparently couldn't tell why looked like he wanted to get up where he was sitting and give Daryl a piece of his mind though relaxed when Lori just smiled amused and shook her head. Oh she was definitely right about the pride thing. Men.

After the fire was in full swing Lori raised her voice once more, "I don't know about you but I think we should pool our resources, it looks like some of you didn't pack enough from one thing or the other. I'm sure if we share we can make our supplies last longer."

Agreeing murmurs could be heard all over the camp.

"That would be great. Because the broadcast said that food would be available we didn't pack so much." one of the college kids stated, "I'm Tom Sullivan by the way and these are Marc Miller and Ethan Sanchez, we are from Clayton State University."

"I'm Lori Grimes and this is my son Carl and the partner of my husband, Shane Walsh." Lori introduced herself.

Tom smiled at her and she returned his smile, Lori couldn't be sure in this light but she thought he had brown hair and light colored eyes with some freckles on his nose and a light skin tone. He was a cute kid, he looked like she thought Carl would look some day. His friends Marc and Ethan were slightly darker than him and probably from Hispanic or Cuban background. They had both brown eyes and hair and pearly teeth. All three of them looked like they were into sports and broke the hearts of college girls left and right.

"Oh that's a good idea with the food. We will bring ours too." A bubbly blonde said from Lori's left before she vanished in direction of her car.

A sigh and a small laugh turned Lori completely around, a tall brunette stood behind her, "I'm sorry she is always like this, our little airhead. My name is Ella and the blonde is Cassie. We are also college students but we are from Mercer University."

Lori just smiled as an answer and nodded in Ella's direction before she too turned around to go to their tent and get some cans but mostly the leftovers from the perishable foods. When the brunette returned to the fire somebody had already spread a tarp on the ground and people were stacking their food on it. In no time they had more than enough to feed all of them for the night and the next day.

"Hhm, looks like we have a lot of things that will spoil in the heat without a fridge around, we should probably use that at first." Lori commented absentmindedly after most of the camp was gathered around the fire.

It was just common sense but the brunette knew that voicing such thoughts and comments helped with establishing yourself as sensible and smart person in a group, someone that was listened too and not just followed. Though she shouldn't do it too often or the goodwill could easily turn into annoyance.

Somebody smart had also brought along camping cooking gear and the women around her made fast work at preparing the food before setting the pot with the broth over the fire. A second pot was used to heat up and roast some of the canned vegetables and the last of the fresh carrots somebody had packed. While Lori was preoccupied with organizing them and helping with the preparation of the food, Shane occupied Carl a bit before dinner and then talked to some of the men about security around the camp. Lori was listening with half an ear while Shane agreed to share night watch with Dale and another man, she wasn't very happy about that, Shane had really looked exhausted only a few minutes ago, she could only hope that he would sleep in tomorrow.

A slight smell of meat penetrated the air during the preparation of dinner. One look over to the redneck's fire confirmed Lori's thoughts about him being resourceful; the man had caught two small animals and was now roasting them over the fire.
When the food of the rest of the camp was ready, most of it some form of vegetable and some left over cold cuts, Lori sent Carl over to the redneck with a plate of vegetables, predominantly beans to not offend his delicate sensibilities, she would bet all her china on the fact that he looked at anything green with suspicion first.

Out of the corner of her eyes Lori watched interested while the older male reluctantly accepted the plate from Carl. Said boy kept standing beside the redneck and watched fascinated at the animals roasting over the fire before he returned to her side. Lori was pretty sure that the rough looking man had only accepted the food because Carl had brought it over. That small weakness for children could probably be also exploited in the near future, though Lori would still keep an eye on their interactions, she was relatively sure that the redneck was NOT a pedophile but… this was her son, better be on the safe side.

When everybody was finished with dinner the group put their plates into two water filled vats to be washed tomorrow. It was quite clear that everybody was exhausted both mentally and physically from the last few days and didn't want to deal with the work or additional conversation. So after eating most of them went to bed relatively quickly. The only exceptions were Dale, Shane and another family father, who were watching over the camp for the night.