Awaiting with bated breath, Lee, Christa and Carley glance at the doorway as Katjaa finally reappears. The sombre look on her face doesn't seem like a good sign.
"So… how is he?" Lee breaks the ice when nobody really knows what to say. He knows it's kind of a dumb thing to be asking given the circumstances, since they pretty much all can recognize that Mark's in a deep load of shit.
However, sometimes it's better to talk about these kinds of things than to just bury it under the rug.
Gently shutting the door behind her, Katjaa sighs deeply as she shuts her eyes for a brief moment. "Doesn't look too good, honestly," she admits, giving Lee a saddened glance. "The man's coming unhinged. That was at least a full pack of morphine that he had going through the blood stream, and for him to just force it down like that…"
Feeling a little bit out of place, Christa shuffles her feet awkwardly as she tries to think of something to say. Sure, she might not know this Mark person at all, having just gotten here and everything, but it wouldn't hurt to at least try and make a good first impression. Who knows what could happen should this group start questioning people's motives?
"Is there anything we can do for him?" she questions, having heard the commotion from downstairs. "I don't suppose using more drugs to counteract this would be a great idea, would it?"
Shaking her head, Katjaa rubs her arm in discomfort as she places the used needle onto one of the small side tables scattered throughout the house. The St. John's sure do have a lot of furniture. "Giving him more antibiotics will just couple with the addiction he's got. There's only one real thing we can do," she explains knowingly as Carley, Christa and Lee all nod in understanding.
They're going to have to have an intervention, and eventually cut him off of the medication.
"It should start the healing process, but…" Katjaa cuts herself off, "who knows what'll happen? Mark could come out of this perfectly fine, or go bouncing off the walls. Cutting him off too quickly might cause his body to go into shock, so we need to be especially careful here. Taking away small amounts would probably be the safer route to take. Baby steps, you know?"
"Is he… you know, up for visitors just yet?" Carley asks, frowning in slight disappointment when Katjaa shakes her head. "Alright, well I'll try and coax him out a little bit when he's more settled. In the meantime, we should probably all do something productive around the farm. And Lee… I think there's someone that you need to go talk to."
"Carley…"
"She's breaking, Lee. Lilly's one tough girl, but right now she needs support from someone; someone she trusts," Carley adds for emphasis, poking him in the arm as she starts to walk away with Christa in tow. "Come on, we'd better get downstairs before Danny starts to think we're all plotting behind their backs or something…"
Scoffing, Christa rolls her eyes as she heads down the stairs, her head nearly hitting the chandelier with how tall she is. "I'm seriously starting to reconsider our friendship here, Carley…"
"You love me and you know it!"
As Katjaa mentions how she's going to check in on her son, Lee bites his lip as his nerves are shot. He can't help but anxiously look out the window as he sees Lilly outside; slouched up against the barn with a dead look in her eyes. Clementine emotionlessly swings herself back and forth on the swing set as Lee sighs and rubs his tired eyes. He had never outright forgotten about Clem's parents, as that has been in the back of his mind the whole time.
But now he's got two people close to him with huge problems, and he's not entirely sure if he's going to be able to handle it.
This should be fun, Lee thinks to himself bitterly, shaking his head before walking as slowly as possible down the stairs.
"So… that's it? We're just gonna leave them all right here?" Omid questions with a hint of disturbance in his voice as he watches Kenny dump the bodies like a pile of dirt. He can hardly believe how calm the man seems while he's doing this, as if Kenny's had to do this sort of thing a million times beforehand.
Perhaps that assumption is correct.
"Ain't no way that I'm straying too far from the farm," Kenny replies with a grunt, heaving the last few stragglers as he motions for Omid to do his part. "Your turn, man. Come on now, just dump them and let's get out of here. These woods aren't safe with all of them bandits around."
"Then you saw them too, huh?" Omid concludes, scrunching up his nose at the disgusting smell of rotting limbs and flesh. Needing a little bit of help, Kenny takes one of the handles as they push the bodies out of the second wheelbarrow as a team. A nice, neat pile of corpses is created as Omid incessantly tries to wipe his hands off on his jeans. "Christa and I got chased off by them beforehand. Real scary shit, man," he shakes his head, getting the shivers as he turns his head away from the officially dead walkers. "We had a pretty good system going for a while; kept pretty safe for just the two of us out on our own. We even found this really sweet setup nearby… but that didn't even last a day before those assholes came and kicked us out…"
Not saying anything, and partly wishing that he could have at least five minutes of peaceful silence, Kenny picks up his wheelbarrow and turns on his heel back the way they came.
Omid, feeling a little bit discouraged, follows suit as he quickly tries to catch up to him. "Don't you wanna know where we were before?"
"Not particularly, no," Kenny shrugs with a sigh. "But I'm sure you're bound to tell me anyways."
Taking that as acceptance, Omid grins as he recalls their amazing find. "This place was a fucking gold mine, dude. Not nearly as nice as the farm, mind you, but it was pretty damn close," he recalls, clearly feeling proud of his and Christa's accomplishment. "Most of the supplies were gone, but the place was practically a fortress! Seriously, it had two floors with loads of rooms, beds, couches outside, dumpsters to block off the entrances…"
Kenny's eye nearly twitches as Omid starts to ramble on; describing in almost word-for-word detail about where his group was holed up in before. The odds of something like this happening within the span of just a couple of days is almost too much for the ex-fisherman to take in, but he has to know the truth for himself.
Kenny needs to know for sure if their backup plan just got fucked over indefinitely.
"This place you and Christa were at," Kenny interrupts, turning to face Omid with a serious stare, "did it… did it have a big, old RV somewhere in the middle of the parking lot?"
"Yeah, though it looked more like a rust bucket from what we could see."
"Was there a sign out in front? A name? Broken lights?" Kenny probes as his suspicions start to become increasingly confirmed. If this is all true, then their group could be in some mighty hot water.
Mulling it over for a bit as Omid rubs his chin thoughtfully, he shrugs his shoulders in response. "Come to think of it, yeah, I think there was," Omid says curiously. "The name escapes me, though… Ugh, what was it called? The… Tram? The Trolley? The Train…?"
"Travelier?! Was is called the Travelier Motel?!" Kenny demands, shaking Omid's shoulders as he tries to get a straight answer out of him. When Omid snaps his fingers and nods his head, Kenny nearly slaps himself in the face with exasperation. "Jesus fucking Christ, Omid! That's where we were staying before! That's our home! Why didn't you same something earlier?!"
"I tried! You're not the easiest person to talk to, you know!" Omid defends, causing Kenny to groan in frustration.
Leaves rustle in the wind as Kenny tries to wrap his head around this sudden news. The motel? Taken over by bandits?! Even though they're currently at a much better and safer place than that motor inn could ever hope to be, it's still unnerving to know that their place was taken over so easily, and it's getting Kenny questioning whether or not they can really stick it out in Georgia over the long haul. What would've happened if they were all still there? Would something have happened to Katjaa? To Duck? Kenny would never be able to forgive himself if his own carelessness had somehow gotten them hurt or worse.
Hmm… maybe it's time to start thinking about alternatives in terms of where they want to go… The coast actually sounds like a plausible scenario. He'll have to take that up with Kat when he returns.
For now, though…
"Whoa, hey now, come on! Where are you going?!" Omid hollers, watching as Kenny ditches the wheelbarrow and heads in a completely different direction from where he assumed they were headed.
Twitching his bushy moustache around in annoyance, Kenny keeps his eyes peeled in determination as he holds his pistol out in front of him; as if he's trying to prepare for even the tiniest noise coming from the dried-up bushes surrounding them. "I reckon that we ought to pay these bastards a visit," he remarks, choosing to ignore the groan that Omid makes from behind him. "Move your ass, Omid! If what you're saying is true, then them bandits just fucked us all over big time! We've got some scouting to do!"
"Why the hell did I agree to come out here with you… stupid, stupid, stupid…" Omid mutters quietly as he too drops his wheelbarrow and tries to keep up. Hopefully the St. John's won't mind too much about missing their equipment.
Right now, there are more important matters to attend to.
The nice, calm and sunny weather doesn't match Lilly's mood this afternoon, and the solitary peacefulness of the dairy does absolutely nothing to quell her aching mind. How can things appear so remarkable outside when on the inside she feels like nothing but a massive pile of shit? It's almost as if the entire world is judging her; mocking her by constantly reminding the woman that despite everything looking so relaxing and carefree, in reality it's anything but.
Her father is dead, and there's absolutely nothing Lilly can do about it. Just like that. Within a blink of an eye, the last thing she had has been violently taken away from her.
Lilly doesn't really know what the point is anymore. Of anything.
"…this seat taken?" Lee asks as he approaches, but Lilly doesn't answer as she continues to stare out in the distance absentmindedly. Knowing that he's dealing with a bit of a delicate situation here, Lee nods curtly and sits closer to the barn door; getting a whiff of all sorts of nasty fumes. With Maybelle now gone, this dairy's gonna have a tough time remaining as productive as it once was.
Food is going to especially become a bigger issue, seeing's how the cow was literally their only source of milk, butter and cheese for miles around. Lee's not so sure that deer hunting is really gonna last them that long.
"I know that it's… probably a terrible time for this," he admits, folding his hands together as he stares at the dirt, "but I figured you might want some company. I know how awful it must be for you right now, and – "
As Lilly gives him a stern look, Lee gulps before nodding his head in acceptance. Apparently she doesn't need to use words to communicate with him. Sometimes words are just puffs of hot air that dissipate in the atmosphere and are never heard from again. Sometimes talking is just a massive waste of time.
However, right now it's all that Lee Everett can offer.
"You've got every right to be pissed, Lilly. And I'm truly, truly sorry for what happened to you. Really, I am," he says sincerely. "Larry and I… we might not have gotten along that well, and as a matter of fact I think he wanted me as far away from the group as possible… but he honest to god cared deeply about you. We both know that. And if he were still here… he'd want you to keep going…"
"…why?" she questions, her throat dry and hoarse after having practically screamed her lungs apart earlier this morning. "You say that like it's so easy, Lee… That I can just put this behind me and move on. Move on to what? Another motor-inn? Another shit-box out in the woods where we can hide until the next of us gets bitten?"
"You don't have to forget him – take all the time you need to grieve," Lee tells her soothingly, knowing from experience what it's like to lose those that you care about. His parents and brother's deaths nearly had him in a chokehold. "And none of that's going to happen to us. Not if we work together and get through this thing. Larry would – "
"How did he die?" she quietly interrupts, looking him dead in the eyes for an explanation. "Just tell me… please… I need to know for sure. It'd… I deserve to know that much at least…"
Insides clenching, Lee struggles with his inner demons as he tries to give her an answer that won't destroy the already fragmented pieces that this group may have had before all of this. Lee hasn't spoken to Kenny at all since last night, and a part of him wants to bring the guy down to a watery grave and isolate the man even further. It's no better than he'd deserve, at least in Lee's mind, and it could be so easy to accomplish. Lilly already dislikes the old fisherman enough as it is, so it wouldn't take much more than a spark to tip that animosity over the edge. Although this would be much more than a spark – it'd be a god damn inferno of fiery rage.
But is that really what Lee wants? Would it be some kind of justice in telling her how Kenny shot her father in the head while Lee was trying to resuscitate him? What point would it serve other than to ruin the group even more than it's already becoming, especially during such a difficult period like this?
"…Larry got bitten on the leg," Lee answers solemnly, trying to keep his tone as smooth and neutral as possible. "He sacrificed himself so that the rest of us could get out of the barn. I'm so sorry, Lilly, but there was nothing any of us could've done. I… I had to put him down…"
After scanning his eyes for any trace of lying or deceit, Lilly sniffles a little bit before slowly nodding her head and wiping her eyes with her sleeve. She has no idea that Lee had just told her what she wanted to hear, given the circumstances.
Standing up, the woman breathes heavily through her nostrils as she places her hands on her hips; staring intently out at the horizon as she reaches a final decision. "I'm leaving," she announces, which startles Lee quite a bit as he widens his eyes in disbelief. Noticing his reaction, Lilly adjusts her statement as she slings her rifle over her shoulder. "I just… I just need some time alone, okay? A little bit of time to… to clear my head."
"Lilly, we need you here. All of us do."
"I'm not fit to lead anymore, Lee. We both know that," she admits softly but firmly, despite the group technically having decided on most things as a collective before. Lilly did act as a sort of voice for the hard decisions, however – the ones that nobody else really wanted to make. "And you guys can handle yourselves just fine. I'll be at Warner Robbins for a couple of days. There are some things that I need to look into…"
Standing up himself, Lee watches as the woman slowly starts to walk away down the path once again. It never seems as though Lilly can stand to be at the dairy for more than short periods at a time.
"Clem broke him, you know that?"
Turning around curiously with red-rimmed eyes, Lilly appears puzzled as she waits for a further explanation.
"She actually got on the level with him," Lee continues, grinning slightly over at the eight year old on the swings as he puts his hands in his coat pockets. "I couldn't believe it either, truth be told. Out of everyone here, I guess all it took was a kid to finally get him loose. Clem told me earlier how… how proud your dad was of you, Lilly. He always was."
Fixing herself up slightly as she glances over at the little squirt, Lilly doesn't really know how to respond to that. Not too many people have tried to really connect with the Cauls ever since they arrived in the group back at the drug store, which really hadn't surprised either of them.
But this? Seeing how much some of the people really care? It's… kind of sweet. It's a pretty nice feeling, if she's being completely honest.
Maybe she should try to connect with people more in that way as well. Just… not right now.
"Lee?" she calls back with an appreciative look. "…we're good. Okay?"
Nodding with a bit more relief than when he had come outside, Lee continues to stand there until Lilly disappears into the trees and out of his sight.
"God damn…" he sighs, glad to at least have that awkward conversation out of the way.
"…Mark?" Carley whispers inside of the guy's room, poking her head in as she sees that he's finally re-awoken. However, he has definitely seen better days in terms of looks – the wounds haven't completely healed yet, and more than likely the drugs are still swimming through his veins.
All in all, the guy really hasn't had a very good week.
"I thought you guys may have left without me," Mark jokes weakly, managing to pull off a small smile as Carley shuts the door closed behind her. "I'm guessing you heard about all that went down last night then, huh? What a mess that was… Larry and Ben…"
Nodding in confirmation, the ex-reporter slides a chair across the floor as she plops a squat close to his bed; feeling the man's forehead with the back of her hand as Mark jumps a little at the sudden change in temperature.
"No kidding," she agrees, feeling awful herself in fact. More so about Ben, however, since although she didn't exactly get to know him for very long, he seemed like a pretty innocent, if not a little clueless, young man with a lot of potential. Ben still had his entire life ahead of him. "But actually, I came up here to check on you. You gave us quite the scare earlier, you know that?"
Feeling uncomfortable, Mark dodges her gaze as he picks up his glasses and places them on; making the room a lot more visible than it was prior. This is a discussion that he really, really doesn't want to have.
"I'm fine, Carley. Really," he insists with a wave of his hand, "no need to worry about me."
"Mark, you practically downed an entire bag of morphine! That's not something we can just ignore here!"
Slightly irritated that she's telling it to him like it is, Mark tries not to get angry as he fluffs up his pillow. Carley's just trying to help, and he knows that, but what business is it of hers?! Why has everybody suddenly just taken an interest in what he's up to when he doesn't want people nosing around after him?! Why now, and why not back when he could actually contribute to the group?
The irony isn't lost on him, that's for sure.
"Look, I don't mean to bother you, but… I care about you, Mark. I don't want to see you like this," she exclaims softly, trying to wedge her way into his inner circle. "We all want you to get better, but you have to let me in. I can't help if you won't allow me to."
When all he does is stare at the sheets blankly, suckered in far too deep to want to stop now, Carley sighs as she realizes that this isn't just going to be a one-shot deal as she had hoped it would turn out to be. This is a delicate scenario that she's dealing with here, just as Katjaa said before. Perhaps taking it nice and slow is the best remedy she can ask for.
"…can I at least ask you something first? If you won't talk about this right now?" Carley persists, being used to badgering people after having spent a large amount of her time conducting television interviews in the past. "Kenny told me that you shot that bandit back when all of you were trying to hide. Why would you try something like that? Wouldn't it have been easier just to hide it out?"
Frowning slightly, Mark shakes his head in disagreement as it becomes his turn to dish out the serious stares. For once, the man's gonna have an actual say and an actual opinion.
He at least appreciates that Carley's giving him the opportunity.
"Those bandits – they were all wearing similar gang masks," he explains briskly, still reeling from his encounter with them. "I've met members of the bandit camps before. If you guys hadn't come along when you did, it would've been either them or the walkers that got me first. They were camped near where I was staying in beforehand."
"Well, where were you beforehand, exactly?"
"Oh right… forgot you were still at the motor-inn," he corrects himself, itching the back of his head as he shrugs his shoulders. "I was up at Warner Robbins – the air force base."
Blood pumps heavily through the two survivors' veins as their jog turns into a run upon Kenny's request, seeing as how they're getting really close to the motel now. The sun's slowly starting to go down, which means two things for Kenny and Omid – their significant others are gonna be pissed that they went so far without telling anyone, and they may end up having to find their way back in the dark of night.
Neither of those outcomes are particularly desirable, but it's a chance that at least one of them insists on taking.
"It's not every day that your house gets broken into," Kenny had remarked earlier, going over in his head what he plans on doing if the fuckers are still actually there.
While neither of them have any particular love or attachment to the place, especially not Omid, neither of them can deny that having the motor-inn would be a much better alternative to having everyone sleep out under the trees and unprotected. And with the RV still inside of that place, even though it's not fully operational just yet, it still gives all the more reason for their group to want the place back.
"Don't suppose you could just… walk up to them and… ask them nicely?" Omid questions, breathing heavily as they inch closer to their goal. "Maybe we could… bake them a bunch of cookies or something! Or maybe just go up to the front doors and say that this was all just a big misunderstanding!"
"I don't think these guys are the bargaining type," Kenny remarks with a sneer; brushing small tree branches away from his eyes as a few of them smack Omid right in the face. Their pace halts as the motel appears some one hundred feet away from the two of them. "Oh, you sons of bitches…"
Just as Omid had recalled, the Travelier motel is indeed operating under new management. The place has largely been trashed with garbage tossed around carelessly on the ground, the couch has been stained with what Kenny hopes is just beer, a bunch of the rooms have been ransacked, and all in all the place just looks like a complete shadow of its former self.
"What the fuck did they do to the RV?!" Kenny hisses quietly, pointing to the side as Omid squints his eyes and shrugs his shoulders.
"What's the big deal?" he quizzically asks. "It's just a little spray paint! It's not gonna kill you or anything."
"So you'd be okay travelling in an RV that's labeled Metalheads 4 Life?"
"I'd kind of prefer if they called it the Mystery Machine or something along those lines, but yeah! That works too!" Omid smirks, finding it amusing how worked up Kenny is getting about this. "We could be rock stars, man! Driving around, signing autographs and smashing up walkers' heads with our electric guitars! Who would ever fuck with someone like that?"
Staring at him for a moment in complete disbelief, Kenny narrows his gaze as he gets his feathers ruffled more by the second. How could one person possibly be so unfocused in the middle of all of this?!
"If we weren't trying not to get spotted by assholes with guns right now," he mentions as he rolls his eyes, "I'd probably smack you right upside the head. Let's just concentrate here, alright? I can only see two of 'em – one over by the couch, and one on the roof of the RV…"
Glancing ahead for himself, Omid nods a little wearily as he spots the man on the roof blowing out a puff of smoke from his cigarette. "Looks that way for now," he agrees, "but there were definitely more than two of them when Christa and I first saw them. There were a at least a dozen of them lined up outside. Maybe they're inside some of the rooms. So… what do you want to do?"
Taking a deep breath, Kenny considers his options. There's no way that he'd be able to get a decent shot off at the guy sitting on the couch, but the oblivious jackass on the roof is more than within firing range.
Shooting him from here might take one of them down and draw the rest of them away from the motor-inn to search for the source of the shooter, but on the flip side is that they could possibly be caught out in the open.
To kill, or not to kill – that is the question.
So what do you guys think? Should Kenny take the shot or no? Please leave a review and cast your vote into the fire – err, I mean put them in with your reviews! Thanks for reading, and sorry for the long wait :3