Chapter Twenty Seven: Salvation
Salvation: preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss.
Day 64
Twenty one minutes after their death sentence, Daisy remained exactly where she had been when the clock turned over to declare them to be nine minutes from death. Daisy's heart beat heavily in her chest as the stark red clock ticked over to nine minutes, she slumped back in her chair and shivered—not because of the coldness that filled the room but because of the dread that was steadily rising in her chest. It felt as though a heavy rock had taken up residence in her stomach.
Her gaze drifted over to where Shane and Daryl were striking against the door to the outside with their respective weapons, they just clinked against the door's hard surface and left nought but a scratch. With another shiver, Daisy came back to herself to hear Jenner questioning Amy about her recently deceased sister—Amy had tears steadily falling along her nose and clinging to the end. Amy swiped a hand over her nose and shook her head, she curled her arms around her legs and leant her head against her knees, covering her free ear with a shaking hand.
"Leave her alone, Doctor Doom." Daisy snapped, clutching at her backpack that sat by her feet with nervous fingers. She took in a deep, calming breath as the group fell into silence.
"Can't make a dent." Shane informed Rick, breathing heavily from the desperate exercise.
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher." Jenner informed them matter-of-factly, Daisy wanted to punch him in his smug face, resultant broken fingers from improper technique be damned.
"Well your head ain't!" Daryl seemed to hear her thoughts and came at Jenner with his axe raised, thankfully the others stopped him before the axe could land true.
"You want this." Jenner said to Rick after they had calmed once more, "You said so last night, you said it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead."
Daisy's eyes widened, "That's cold." She whispered to Merle beside her, sharing a concerned glance with him, her words were disparagingly loud in the silence.
"What, you really said that?" Shane asked, voice hard and unforgiving, "After all your big talk?"
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?"
"There is no hope." Jenner interjected himself into the conversation once more, Daisy was really getting sick of this guy, "There never was."
"There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, but somebody somewhere—"
"Everybody is gone!" Jenner chuckled incredulously, eyes hardened, "This is what kills us—our...extinction event!"
"This isn't right!" Carol sobbed, "You can't just keep us here!"
"One tiny moment—a millisecond! No pain..."
"My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this!"
Daisy kicked her foot at the floor and her chair slid back a few feet until she hit a half-wall, "This is complete bullshit," She suddenly interjected loudly, Jenner turned his smug face towards her, "Open the door, you dickwad—haven't you ever heard of consent?! You keep that door open, you're killing us! Cold blooded, goddamn murder...I'll tell you what, if any of our group is similarly suicidal, they can choose to die all they want." She stood, "But I sure as shit don't want to die...and...I'm not gonna let you kill that innocent little girl and little boy, or their parents...or the rest of these sorry sacks. We came all this way, now we're gonna die for nothing? Because you said so, some Doctor who survived two months then suddenly decided to quit? We want...a goddamn choice."
Daisy gritted her teeth and stood tall, looking expectantly at Jenner who looked suddenly so tired. He sank down into a chair and sighed through his nose.
"I don't get why you people can't just see—"
"No, open the door. Or," Daisy glanced to the side, seeing the clock tick down to four and a half, "Or I'll let Merle shoot your dick off!" Jenner scoffed and rolled his eyes, "No! You'll be dead in five minutes anyway, sure! But wouldn't you rather spend those last five minutes intact?" She widened her eyes threateningly, the desperation creeping into her voice. Merle chuckled behind her, nodding his head in agreement.
Jenner sighed again and glanced between the equally desperate faces of the group, then his gaze landed on the tear-stained, terrified faces of Sophia and Carl. He narrowed his eyes and then rolled them skyward, testily leaning forward to type a quick command into his keyboard.
"Whoa, thank God." Daisy muttered as the door locking them in slid open, she snapped up her backpack and brought it around her shoulders.
"Go...topside's locked down, can't open 'em...you're welcome to try." Jenner called after them.
Daisy did not look back, rushing after the group as they left their presupposed final resting place behind, Jenner remaining there. They all swarmed into the entrance to the building, the doors to the outside all irrevocably closed. T-Dog and Glenn hurried ahead, trying to open the doors, while Shane began trying to smash open the window with his axe. Daisy stood still, unsure of what to do besides stare out of the wide windows at the blue sky outside. She hadn't been sure that she would ever see the sky again, and now she was here. If they couldn't find a way to get the doors open or to break the windows, this would be her final sight. A loud shot filled the air as Shane tried to shoot the windows, she cringed at the noise and then at the lack of a crashing sound as the glass stayed strong. Daisy returned her attention to the sky outside and stared for an age at that endless blue expanse, white clouds hung in the air like they were scattered haphazardly over the ceiling of the world.
A shout brought her out of her melancholy considerations, Merle's hand grabbed her elbow and pulled her sharply away from the windows. Daisy winced at the harsh pain that shot up her arm but allowed herself to be pulled down to the ground behind a set of stairs. She ducked her head into her chest just as a resounding explosion sounded, the smash of glass followed it.
Her ears rang but she shot up happily as she saw the window had been broken, she bounded towards their way out with the group, jumping out onto the grass below and landing in a crouch. Merle's hand grabbed at her arm once more and she ran with him after the others, running towards their procession of cars. She slammed against the side of the truck with the inertia of her run, scrambling to open the door and clamber in, Daryl behind her and Merle entering through the driver's side.
There was a loud thudding in her chest as she tried to calm her breathing, leaning back against the seat in relief at her being alive, slumping down with Merle and Daryl to get away from the window. Not before too long, a deafening roar filled her ears and she gasped as she felt the residual heat wash over her. Daisy and the Dixon brothers poked their head up to see the smouldering wreck that was once the CDC, the flames consumed the area where the building had been and a billowing cloud of grey smoke filled the air.
They sat in silence for a moment, Daisy staring in awe at the fire. Merle twisted the key in the ignition and the truck stuttered to a start, following the other cars that had begun to peel away from the curb. Daisy's head spun as they turned to drive back the way they had come, feeling spectacularly pissed at the fact that they had essentially had their time wasted by Jenner.
Day 66
Daisy was travelling once again between the Dixon brothers—she could confidently say that her nose had lost the ability to detect the rankest of smells due to overexposure, but she would rather think of that as a blessing. The three were in the same run-down, blue truck, luckily they did not have to give it up as the group brought their procession of cars down to a measly three, and they were on their way to Fort Benning. Daisy was...not exactly supportive of this decision, believing that it likely had either succumbed to walkers or was in imminent threat of succumbing to walkers, but she was not the leader of their humble group.
The truck came to a spluttering stop, the RV and station wagon already stopped on the road before them. Daisy looked past Merle at the softly swaying, yellowed grass and weeds that littered the ground by the road.
"What's goin' on?" Daisy mumbled around a tired yawn, an entire day of car travel would do that to a person.
"Looks like a traffic jam up ahead." Merle tapped his fingers against the steering wheel impatiently.
"Traffic jam?" Daisy asked with confusion, "Isn't everyone dead? Who is there left to make a traffic jam?"
Merle shot her a look and rolled his eyes, "People left their cars, 'fore they became walkers."
Daisy hummed and nodded her head, ahead of them the RV and station wagon began to ease forward, they weaved through several abandoned cars before coming to a stop once again. They could see the others piling out of their cars, so Merle, Daryl and Daisy followed suit.
Arms stretching high above her, Daisy did a few lunges to stretch her legs out.
"Ain't no time for aerobics, girly!" Merle chuckled, ruffling her hair as he passed her. Daisy straightened up and tried to smack his hand away, but he was too far ahead. She wrinkled her nose as she tried to arrange her unruly curls into some semblance of neatness.
Daryl passed her, shooting her an awkward look. Daisy looked after him in confusion, that kid is wild, she chuckled to herself as she bounded after him and Merle, joining the makeshift circle the group had formed by the RV. There was a low whistling sound, Daisy peered over Glenn's shoulder to see a small cloud of white smoke rising from the hood of the RV: the apparent reason they had stopped.
"Problem, Dale?"
"Just a small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no hope of—" Dale cut himself off as he turned to watch Daryl rummaging through the open back of a nearby car, it was a veritable hoard of supplies, "Okay, that was dumb."
"If you can't find a radiator hose here..."
"I can siphon more fuel from these cars for a start." T-Dog started forward, Daisy crinkled her nose at the memory of her trying and failing to siphon fuel; surprisingly, gas did not taste pleasant.
Daisy shuffled forward next to Daryl and peered into the back of the car, she pulled out a lone VCR tape and tilted her head in confusion—not knowing exactly who would need The Grinch in an apocalyptic scenario, or how they would find a VCR player. Looking further under the junk, she saw the elusive VCR and nodded her head thoughtfully. With a disbelieving smile, she backed away from the strange car and ventured further to find a more bountiful vehicle.
"This is a graveyard," She heard Lori protest behind her, and managed to stop her eye-roll, "I don't know how I feel about this."
Daisy turned her head a fraction, and called back, "If we don't gather some of these supplies, we will most likely become additions to this 'graveyard.'" She chuckled to herself as she eased open the back door of a small blue Prius.
Shuffling into the back seat on her knees, Daisy immediately spotted a neon yellow backpack on the floor behind the back seat, "Score!" She exclaimed as she unzipped it to find it full of packets of ramen, a tiny bottle of Sriracha sauce snuggled on top. Daisy dropped the backpack on the ground by the car and continued to search—she surfaced a battered copy of X-Force volume 3 issue 17, a pair of sturdy, leather work-boots, two Butterfingers candy bars and a David Bowie cassette tape à la Ziggy Stardust.
Her bounty piled in her arms, she dropped out of the car and stuffed it into the yellow backpack, pocketing the cassette tape for the truck, then journeyed on to the next car. Before Daisy could jimmy open the door of the truck she had picked, a hushed shout caught her attention.
She turned her head to see Rick gesturing for them to get down, upon looking further she saw the reason—dozens of walkers were ambling up the highway right toward them. Daisy's eyes widened and she immediately dropped to her knees—wincing slightly at the sound of the knees of her jeans ripping—laid down and then rolled under the truck. She bumped into something, restraining a shout she twisted around to see a wide pair of eyes staring back. Calming immediately, Daisy flung an arm around Sophia and huddled down under the truck.
A low growling moan filled the air and Daisy shushed Sophia as a small whimper escaped her. Looking to the side, Daisy saw the feet of a dozen walkers pass by, she rested her head on the hard ground and mentally groaned, great, I was getting really worried that things would be safe and calm after this morning's debacle. Daisy rolled her eyes heavenward and tightened her grip on Sophia's arm.