MarionArnold - Thank you for your kind review. You know for as much as everybody else seems to hate Merle, I can't bring myself to completely loathe the man. I think there's a small, wee, tiny amount of decency in him that maybe he could dig out.
littleshell - Thanks. I hope that was a good 'interesting' and not the bad kind. ^_^
Amanda - Thank you for your review. I hope this update is soon enough for you.
NoSpillBlood - If you say it's great I'll believe you. Cajun's are delightful people. Fascinating culture, really.
Violeta27 - Who are you? Where do I know you from? Ehe. Thanks for the review. I was quite nervous about this one. Love.
I wasn't going to update so soon, but since you've all been very kind in reviewing, here's a quick update.
Chapter Two: Un Transport
**The Lieutenant**
Dinner was quiet.
It usually was.
But tonight everyone seemed on edge.
Maybe the sisters were a lot more attuned to what was going on outside their walls then he assumed.
At his side Little Missy chewed thoughtfully on the rabbit he had caught in the dying rays of the sun, eating it like a prim little lady, swallowing before speaking.
"I bet it's going to rain tomorrow." She chirped softly.
Around the table the nuns all eyed her quietly.
Little Missy blinked. "It smells like rain."
Nudging her with his elbow gently, the Lieutenant tapped on the edge of her plate with his fork, telling her to stop talking and eat. He wasn't good with kids, but he did know the wee boo was getting thinner by the day and he didn't like the looks of the dark circles under her eyes.
She picked at her food, taking another bite.
He supposed it was cold to be so commanding with her, the girl must have been through hell, but he couldn't bring himself to dote on her entirely like Father O'Rourke or Old Missy would. He wasn't there to be their friend, he was there to keep them safe. The last good of humanity was his to protect and he'd do it until his dying breath.
Downing the last of his meal, he finished his water and stood up, heading for the infirmary to relieve Father O'Rourke of watch over the men, so that the good padre could get his own meal down his gullet.
Passing Sister Joan on the wall, armed with a rifle, he nodded at her and she returned it quietly.
The sisters had protested to carrying weapons, the best he could get was for them to at least hold one while on watch, patrolling the high wall for the uggies.
There had only been a few sightings, nothing traumatic yet, but it didn't mean he was going to let them be as blissfully oblivious to uggies as they had been when he arrived.
At least they saw the walking dead as abominations against God and had no hesitation to fire on them. That was one thing that worked out fine for everyone. If they could convince themselves that the uggies were unholy, then they had no issue taking them out. What he wasn't comfortable with, was Father O'Rourke's insistence on going out after every kill to give the uggie it's last rites. But the man was a bull when it came to things like that. So, the Lieutenant would find himself watching the holy man's six while he administered a small prayer for the creature's soul.
That didn't make the sister's crackerjack shots with a rifle. Half of them didn't even hold the gun properly even after all his instructing, but Sister Joan was one of the better ones, which was why he rotated it so that she took night watch for the first half, when the night was darker.
It was getting colder out the past few weeks. It was cold, cold. And the Lieutenant didn't like it. He had thought spring had finally arrived, that the ground was warming enough that things would sprout. If it snowed again, he would lose his mind. He barely survived the winter.
Georgia was warm, sure, but he was from the devil's armpit in Louisiana and as such he ran cold anywhere North of the bayou and while his current position in Georgia wasn't much further north, it was still north enough. Cold was something foreign to him and he didn't much care for it. It seemed unnatural.
Stepping into the warm infirmary, he jerked his thumb at the door, letting Father O'Rourke know he was being tagged out.
The padre stood, closed his bible and hurried out eager to get some food into him, leaving the Lieutenant alone with the two strange men.
Easing onto a chair, he propped it up on the back two legs and leaned against the wall, pulling out his own ragged book from one of his many flak-jacket pockets to read over the dim light of the candle.
He didn't usually read, but being that he was always un transport, he felt reading calmed him enough to focus on remaining still. He tried cleaning his weapons while 'at rest' but he found it just made him edgier.
Putting his boots up on the bed nearest him that contained the petit cabri, the Lieutenant idly read about a young man named Pi stranded in a lifeboat. He could honestly give a good goddamned about the man, but that fucking tiger was damned interesting.
"Merle," the petit cabri mumbled.
Startled, the Lieutenant dropped his feet onto the floor and leaned over the man.
There was no movement, nor any further sounds from him and after a cautious few minutes, the Lieutenant quirked a brow and put his boots back up on the bed, returning to his book. Still, his eyes kept wandering to the smaller fellow on the cot at his side.
He was one of those types of men whose age was hard to pin down, anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five he'd wager. But it was a wide span. He looked tough as nails though, arms built for carrying the weight of that crossbow of his. Arms built for fighting, for physically whooping ass with those scarred fists of his.
The Lieutenant was sure that had the apocalypse never come, had the man been cleaner and shaven, he would have thought him to be one of those pretty boy types. But the scars evident on the man's chest and arms, the old scars, were older than the end of the world. The man probably wasn't any sort of model or actor or anything like that. He was probably just some backwoods Georgian hick who had more balls than brains.
Glancing across the petit cabri, he eyed the other man.
There was a nice story written in the lines and scars of the other man's face as well. The broken nose, the perpetual sneer that twisted his upper lip, the general mean look of the man, he looked like an ex-football fool or some kind of psychotic marine hell bent on setting the world on fire. Hell, both men had that look, the type of look that meant they'd survive the end of the world if only to kick Satan in the balls when he came to claim paradise.
The looks of the two men both comforted and concerned the Lieutenant. If and when they woke, if they came in peace there would be two more helpful hands to help him protect the sisters, if they came with blood and savagery on their minds, they would be a force to have to put down.
The thought came to him suddenly, that maybe he should have left well enough alone. That maybe these two men would resent the help.
He wasn't sure if it was just him eyeing the two men, or if it was a particular flare of the candlelight that suddenly struck them, but he noticed a resemblance then in the shape of the two men's faces, around the jaws and ears, and came to the conclusion that they could very well be related. Brothers, maybe. But with the smaller man being so hard to pin an age on, they could have been father and son for all he knew.
No, he'd say brothers. There was something in his gut that told him 'brothers' was the right answer.
"Carol," the little one mumbled suddenly. His voice so soft and broken, that the Lieutenant nearly missed it.
Taking a look at the petit cabri's clenched hands the Lieutenant struggled to find evidence that he was married. No ring, not even a tan line.
Carol was a sister, maybe?
Whoever she was, she was dead and gone. Nothing survived outside the walls of the convent for long.
..-~-..
..-~-..
The Lieutenant stayed close to the convent for the next couple of days. Worried that when the men came around they'd hulk out and tear the place apart, the women with it and he'd come back to a massacre scene.
So he sat himself down outside in the cold spring air, trying to force himself to adjust to it, and cleaned weapons. There weren't many, but the one's he scrounged out of farmhouses down the hill and across the highway were enough for them. He thanked God that every good farmer in Georgia was packing heat, otherwise he would have run out of .22 ammo months ago. His M40A1 sat in the spartan room the sisters had given him, useless. Marie had run out of .308 ammo months back and he was now using some hick's .22 rifle with his good scope duct taped to it. It was the best he could do.
Shit Creek was now a very real place and it was a very real possibility that he could find himself up it one day without that ordnance.
Out of fondness for the shitty .22 he had named her like he had named his issued rifle, but it wasn't a graceful Marie or even Salt (like his combat knife), no the .22 got the name Graveyard Dirt, his last defense against the bad gris-gris that was floating around the world currently. His Mamere would have approved.
Finishing his work, he hauled his ass towards the infirmary, worried about Sister Mary Claire alone with the men while Father O'Rourke gave morning mass to the others.
If it were up to the Lieutenant he'd have abolished morning mass out of necessity to more important things, but Father O'Rourke had made one thing clear to him upon joining them, God would always come before man's needs on the hallowed ground and while the Lieutenant respected that, he also wished that the Father would have at least cut back on the religious masses. They had one every morning during peak daylight hours.
Inside the infirmary, Sister Mary Claire was giving the bigger man a sponge bath, gently holding his stump arm and wiping the grime off it.
She glanced over her shoulder nervously at his approach.
"They looked like they hadn't had a good bath in months," she explained softly.
"Are you trying to give me a hint?" He teased.
She smiled. "Maybe a little."
"Oh ye yi," he replied, playfully scolding her. "Possede."
Still when the laughter died, he gave himself a covert sniff, just to be sure he didn't offend that badly. End of the world didn't breed time to bath often, but he tried to keep his smell respectable for the ladies.
"The little one's got scars," she went on gently, "all over his body."
"Don't we all?" He asked, turning his eyes on the petit cabri on the cot. Carefully, he moved to cover the man up, not so sure he'd want his scars on display if he had as many as the little one had.
The Lieutenant and everyone kept referring to the man as 'little' he wasn't small by any means, but next to the other one, he was little. Then again, if they were going by height, the larger one was smaller than the Lieutenant, but in all fairness to the grande beede, the Lieutenant was six-four and towered over a lot of men.
Studying the two men carefully, the Lieutenant noted that the larger one wasn't – in fact – taller than the smaller one. They both looked about equal in height. The grande beede, just seemed bigger all around. Maybe it was just how he was.
"You be careful wiping them down, yeah?" He ordered. "They come to life and get you in a choke hold, that could be it for you, cher. I'll bring you some clean clothes for them in a bit."
..-~-..
..-~-..
He was in front of the church, sitting on the steps eyeing the convent grounds, watching Sister Gertrude as she talked to one of her many beloved pet cats. The elderly sister was the oldest one among them, still spry as ever, but he often worried about her. She'd get blue every time one of her damned cats took off over the wall and never returned.
It was happening more and more recently and as much as he tried to tell her to keep them indoors, she insisted they run free 'as God intended'.
Sister Mary Claire high-tailing it out of the infirmary, shouting her fool head off had him jumping to his feet.
Seemed someone finally came to.
Showtime or showdown, he wasn't sure, but he'd finally get to figuring some things out.
The Cajun Dialect
Un Transport - Unable to sit still. Restless.
Gris-Gris - A spell or charm (usually bad) placed upon someone.
Mamere - Grandmother
Possede - A bad, mischievous person, often a kid (literally means possessed).