Welcome to chapter 6, don't forget to leave a review or favorite!
I opened my eyes, everything felt wet. I was underwater, more like I was being held underwater, in a tub perhaps? I couldn't breathe, my eyes searched around in the water. I saw a figure of a man, I could faintly hear him saying "Don't worry JJ, I'll clean you up." The water was red...why? Water filled my lungs, but I lived, this was the luxury of dreaming. My legs were flailing on their own, I couldn't stop them. I had an urge to come up, and see who the man was. I started lifting my head, –CRACK, my head came crashing down onto the tubs bottom, a rugged hand covering my face. I heard a scream echo through the room, it sounded like a child. The hand left my face as I heard what I would assume to be the man say "You lil' shit, get back 'ere!" while he ran away. I went to sit up.
Sitting up from my bed, I grabbed my chest, making sure I could breathe alright. I looked around the pen, by the color of the sky it seemed like it was dawn. I got out of my bed quietly, sitting at a table, nobody was awake yet, except for the walkers. The walkers are always awake, waiting to sink their teeth into –"What the fuck are you doin' up?" I jumped, turning around with my eyebrows raised, it was Troy.
"O-Oh, good morning, Troy! I woke up a lil' bit ago..." I held the back of my neck, smiling at the disgruntled man. My eyes wandered, noticing something in his hands, my clothes and a toolbox. "Oh, were ya bringin' them back? Thanks man." I got up, walking over to Troy, he pushed the clothes into my arms. He stared me in the eyes, "Get changed, you're gonna get to work since yer up early." Do I really have to strip in front of him again? Whatever. I took off my new pants, putting on my old clean ones, and threw on my hoodie over my new shirt. My hair was a mess from sleeping, I pulled a hair band from my arm, tying my hair up into a small ponytail.
Troy walked me out of the pen, "Listen up, golden boy, it's time you prove your worth. I need you to help secure the fence." We headed outside, the smell of walkers filled the air, nothing new. "Over here." is all he said as he walked up to what seemed to be a hole in the bottom of the fence. This should be easy, my step-dad was a carpenter, so I should be great at this...right? Troy interrupted my train of thoughts by saying "I'll be on lookout on the roof, call me if you have to." and walking away. I opened the toolbox, there was a saw, a hammer, a screw driver, and some nails. I searched around for something to patch the fence with, until I saw some planks on the ground behind me, when did these get here? These were way too long to just nail on, I had to saw them in half I guess. I knelt down with the saw, moving it back and forth onto the plank, sawing it in half. This wasn't too hard, I grabbed another plank, starting to saw it in half. Until something grabbed my foot.
I turned my head, a walker had managed to crawl half way through the hole and grabbed me. I pulled back my leg, causing the walker to get pulled along a tiny bit. It was flailing around, stuck in the hole, I caught my breath and watched it. Standing up, shaking harshly, lifted my leg and crashed it hard onto the walkers head. It grabbed my leg again, I didn't kill it in one stomp, I started to thrash my leg around, panicking. My leg was freed, in a state of panic I started stomping the head harder, tears forming in my eyes. It stopped flailing, it was dead...I tried catching my breath. Almost puking from all the blood it had created, it made me dizzy, I grabbed it by the arms and pulled it inside the fence. I had to patch this before another walker decides to stop by, I started to nail the planks to the fence, I heard footsteps.
Looking over I saw Bonnie walking up, two water bottles in her hands, "G'morning James, you holdin' up okay?" her gaze turned to the now fully dead walker on the ground next to me, "Oh, my god...". I looked up at her, still shaken. "Here, I'll finish this, you go help Jane in the greenhouse." she handed over a bottle of water, I nodded spurting out a quick "Thank you." grabbing the bottle and walking off. So, greenhouse, where would that be? I opened the door to the inside, bumping into whoever was trying to walk out, shit.
It was a guy I haven't met yet, he has a beard and glasses, "Hey, dude, Troy as just lookin' for you. I'll show you over." We walked through the building in silence until he spoke up, "I'm Wyatt by the way, you're James, right?" I watched him,smiling, "Yeah, nice to meet ya.". We arrived at a set of stairs, "Troy's up on the roof, I gotta get to work. See ya dude." Wyatt waved behind him as he walked off.
I turned back to the steps, walking up, with a skip in my step. I felt good about today, even if it didn't start off well. I'm gonna finally meet this Jane chick, so that's something. I opened the door, I was on the roof now. I saw Troy near a tiny glass structure, I skipped over to him, "You okay, Troy?". He glared up at me, his usual annoyed glare painted his face. "Saw ya couldn't finish the fence, so you're up here." He pointed to the glass structure, guess that was the greenhouse. I just nodded, Bonnie already told me this, I was sort of confused though, I asked "So, what'm I doin' in there?" Troy rolled his eyes, "Pickin' berries, cutting dead branches. Easy shit." I gave a simple "Okay." and went to open the door. Before I did Troy grabbed my shoulder, "Yer gonna be alone for a while, so you better get used to be treated normally. No more pampered bullshit." I looked at him, confusion taking over, "Whaddya mean 'alone'?" Where were they going? "Carver, Bonnie, Tavia and me are goin' to get some members back. Shitheads you haven't met. We're leavin' in a bit, be back in a couple days though." he just walked off after that, he's probably talking about the old friends Carver was talking about. I shrugged it off, nothing I can do 'bout it, opening the greenhouse door.
Jane was cutting berries off one of the plants, she looked up at me, giving me this intimidating glare. I muttered out a "H-Hey there...name's James." before going to the other table of plants, picking up a pair of gardening shears. I started cutting the berries off carefully, this felt like it was going to be time consuming. "So...how long have ya been here?" I asked, turning my head to Jane. She stared at me, then went back to working on her plants. I looked at my plant, cutting off berries, taking off the occasional dead branch. "Not much of a talker, are ya?" She glared up at me, annoyed. I laughed nervously, "Hey, I didn't say that was a bad thing. I bet yer really nice when people get to know ya." The awkward small talk I was trying to create soon died out, leaving us to just finish our work.
It took us around 2 hours to cut all of the plants, I cut the last berry off my plant, same time as Jane. The door opened, a guy walked in, I think Reggie said his name is Mike? "Time to eat, you guys done in here?" We both nodded, heading down to the pen, as I walked down I waved to Wyatt, it was nice meeting new people. We got into the pen to see Reggie sitting at the fire, eating...canned green beans? Sounds good enough to me, I grabbed a bowl and sat down next to him. I started to scarf green beans into my mouth, they only tasted sort of weird, Mike sat down with us but Jane went to eat in the corner near her bed. Reggie spoke up, "Mike, I don't think I introduced you to James. He's the new guy."
Mike chuckled, "Yeah, I saw him finishing up with Troy earlier. You into that frou frou shit?" he scooped up more food into his mouth. Finishing up? 'Frou frou'? What the hell did any of that mean? "I- Uh...no?" I hope that was the right answer. I silently ate my green beans, listening to Mike and Reggie talk, I turned my head to look at Jane. She was curled up on her bed, just laying there. I started to yawn, it was time for me to turn in too, "I'm gonn' head to bed, g'night guys." I said as I headed up to my bed. Opening my diary to write as usual.
"Troy and the others left today, to look for some 'old members', He seemed more agitated today.
I met one of the guards, Wyatt. He was pretty cool, reminded me of Devin sorta.
I wonder if Bill's friends are a bunch of old white guys, maybe they were all golfing buddies.
Probably not. Well, I have a long couple days ahead, so I'll be heading in now."
I put the diary back in my bag, laying down on my stomach. I pulled my hood up, and drifted off into sleep.
5 Days Later
It's been a hard 5 days, we've been working on a new expansion, and lets just say it's been hard keeping walkers out. Mike nearly got bitten trying to help me cover up the windows, thank god I was around to help, not to brag or anything. Yesterday Wyatt managed to sneak in some playing cards into here, I'd ask Mike but he's tired. He's super cranky when he's tired. Reggie 'Wasn't in the mood' and, well, Jane is Jane. So now I'm up in my bed, tryin' to make a sweet ass card castle.
"We've got some familiar faces back with us tonight.
Now, I understand some of you are confused as to why we'd bring these people back when they left us as they did.
It might not come all at once...but time will heal these wounds...so be patient with them until it does...and take solace in knowing that they're here to help us make our home a better place.
All these feelings you have of anger...betrayal...hate...they're all valid.
No one needs to forget what they did...but we do have to find it in our hearts to forgive them.
As many of you already know...a large herd of lurkers gathers just south of us...we've kept an – "
Wait, what? Are these folks not good? Forgive them? What did they do? Oh man, these probably aren't old golfing buddies.
My focus went onto Reggie, he was pacing back and forth. Mike and Jane didn't seem to care, it was late and they were probably tired to be honest. The door lifted up, Troy, Bonnie, and Tavia walked in with 6 people. I waved to Troy and Bonnie, of course Troy didn't wave. Bonnie did at least. Deciding to humor myself I wrote down my down my first impressions of the people who walked in.
"There was a pregnant lady, at least I think she's pregnant, sure as hell not going to ask.
Another lady too, I think she's Indian, looks like a soccer mom.
And then a little girl, had a cool hat, she looks pretty young. Maybe 10? 12? Dunno.
Next to her was another girl, she looked older than the other girl, early teens I guess. Ah man, I miss those days.
Some older guy was standing around, looked familiar. Had a nice beard and stache combo goin.
The last person was some guy, had a halo hat on. I never got to play that, looked cool. He's pretty good looking for being in this shit for years. Just sayin though, nothing wrong with complimenting another guy."
Oh shit, the last guy was coming over, I closed my diary and put it in my bag. Nervously sitting there, the guy crawled into the bunk bed below me. I heard him sigh, poor guy sounded sad, I decided to peek over to take a look at him. He must've felt me watching at him because he opened his eyes, staring up at me confused. "Uh– Hey there, I'm James...What's yer name?" damn, this was embarrassing, the guy caught me staring at him. "I'm Nick..." he closed his eyes again, rolling over.
"So, um...h-how are ya..?" I knew this was a stupid question, he clearly wasn't okay, he clenched his jaw and furrowed his eyebrows. He was visibly annoyed, I could hear one of the little girls talking to Mike.
"Will you please talk to me?" the tinier girl said, I started to laugh softly. I yelled over to the girl, "Yer not gonn' get nothin' from Mike when he's tired, darlin'." that's when she started to walk over, she looked skeptically at me. Maybe she didn't trust me, hell I wouldn't trust me. Children are so fragile and easy to hurt on accident, god let's not think of that now,...I gulped, getting down from my bunk and standing in front of the girl. "Hello lil' lady, what happens to be yer name?" I held my hand out, "I'm Clementine." she returned my handshake, with a firm grip.
"Ooh, strong grip ya got there, Clementine, my daddy always said strong grip means a strong person. I'm James." I smiled, I missed my dad. My step dad. Clementine pulled her hand away and looked at me, "Um...thanks?" She turned her head back to the people that walked in with her, then back to me, "Want to come meet the rest of us?" her face had a genuine smile, it was pretty heart warming. "Sure thing, darlin'." we started to walk over to the others, I was so so nervous but I had a skip in my step.
The pregnant lady turned towards me, her face scrunching up "Who's this?". My eyes widened, oh man, Reggie didn't tell them about me? "I-I'm James, n-nice to meet y'all." my eyes wandered to the older man with the hat, he really did look familiar. The door to the pen suddenly lifted up, causing me to jump a bit, in walked Troy and yet another man I didn't know. The older girl yelled, "Dad!", and went running for the man, hugging him.
Troy watched the two hug, his eyes seemed to soften for a moment but soon going back to their stern gaze, he started to speak "All right,go the fuck to sleep. I'm shootin' the first one of y'all I see up wanderin' around before sun-up." I tried to walk towards Troy, "Wait, Tr–" I was cut off by him yelling, "Everybody get to bed!" and slamming down the door. I sighed, heading to my bunk like everybody else.
I took my diary back out, writing about my two newest acquaintances.
"Clementine, looks like a strong little girl. Reminds me of Farah...
Nick, seems like a sad guy, not very talkative. Then again I did ask shit questions.
I'll try to get to know the others tomorrow, hopefully I get to work with Wy in the morning. Goodnight."
I turned over onto my stomach, drifting off into sleep. Trying not to let thoughts get to me, hoping I wouldn't have another dream of a man drowning me. That was messed up. Slowly the darkness took me, letting me rest.
So sorry for the over 2 week wait on this!I had grades closing for the middle of the semester so I worked really hard on that for the past weeks, but now I'm done with that, and back with writing! I tried to make it up to you by making the longest chapter yet, hopefully you all forgive me ;-; I'll start working on Chapter 7 once I wake up! Thank you all for waiting so long!
Also, a reminder to follow all-our-flaws on tumblr! If you have questions for the story go there and ask! ;)