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Toby's Journal
I started this journal to keep track of my observations of the smartest man I know, Milton Mamet, who (I guess he's my father now?) is a very intelligent and patient man.
Today, on the third day of Carol and the Lieutenant being missing, Milton hunched over his research, the corpse of one of the most recent walkers on his work table in the corner of the infirmary.
It was only ten minutes ago that he was studying the stomach contents of the walker, hoping to find out where they originated from or why they came in such a wave, when he discovered the walker died due to a large amount of cyanide in her stomach.
Just now he went to haul another corpse in to investigate.
I have to admit I'm curious myself.
The lady looks like she would have been nice in her lifetime, maybe she was a school teacher, she looks like one.
Milton is very thorough. Beside the woman in plastic bags and specimen containers is a variety of samples he took from the corpse.
Cyanide smells like almonds, I've heard it said. Not sure if that's true, but I don't have the stomach to go over and see if I can smell it in the woman's stomach contents.
It's not fear, it's just that vomit does not appeal to me.
My question is, who would poison themselves? Was this a doomsday cult thing? Or was it someone tired of the world as it is? Who would survive this long and then kill themselves?
I have more questions than answers and I know Milton does too. I know he'll get to the bottom of this. He's very analytical when it comes to matters such as this.
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**Carol**
"…so from that day forward, I guess I always had a love of art."
Still on his lap, confessing everything, unable to think of a better way to escape the well, Carol was running out of words.
The Lieutenant had fallen silent about five hours ago and she thought, for a moment it was because of her, because she was rambling.
It was beginning to frighten her. Every time she glanced back at him he offered her a forced smile, but his brow was furrowed, worried.
"A love of Monet," he began slowly, finally breaking his silence with his deep, beautifully rich baritone. "Can certainly spark a love of art."
She frowned up at him.
"Lieutenant—"
"Grace has this….forbidden collection of things, pretty little shiny things under our mattress," the man began.
Carol blinked at him, turning so that she sat facing him, not thinking that she was straddling his thighs as she listened to him open up.
"It's…it's why I call her 'magpie'. I don't have the heart to tell her that her little collection digs into my back when I sleep next to her."
"I never knew that's why you called her magpie," Carol said. "Or why she blushes so much when you do. Why are you suddenly thinking about this?"
"Because I have a rock the size of Merle's blade fist poking me in the ass," the Cajun replied casually.
Carol snorted and managed to keep her laughter in, but not for long as the Lieutenant shifted uncomfortably. She tried to get off his legs but there wasn't much room on either side of him between their slop bucket and the walker bodies.
Reaching out, he held her on his lap gently and laughed.
"No, it's alright, think it's moved inside me now, give me a few minutes and my ass'll adjust."
Tsking at his ill humour, she slapped his shoulder. "What would Grace say when you get home and she finds out you have been sodomized by a rock?" She demanded, still laughing.
"I won't tell if you won't," he rocked a little to the left, nearer the walker bodies, taking her with him.
She rested her hands on his chest as he bumped them closer to the corpses, eyes on the hole above them as she could have sworn she heard something crunching in the leaves overhead.
He also had fallen silent, eyes moving upwards curiously, hand stilling on the mucky ground beside them, digging into the soft mud with a spluck.
There was a distinctive dragging sound and the rustling of leaves.
"Walker?" She asked.
"Uggie," he replied.
They both struggled to their feet, their legs stiff and sore from sitting for nearly a day.
Cringing at the popping of her knees, she grabbed for her knife and shouted up at the hole, "come on! Down here!"
Calmly checking his rifle, the Lieutenant kept his eyes on the hole above them, flickering back to his weapon.
There was no need for him to do so, he had done it thoroughly after the last time they took down a walker, but he did it anyways and Carol didn't miss how his brows furrowed, as though he were thinking of more than the upcoming kill.
"Down here!" She screamed louder. "Come on you…" she struggled for a name to call him, needing the cathartic release of screaming at something. The frustration and fear of being trapped inside a fucking hole was beginning to wear her down.
"Salud," the Lieutenant suggested, raising his rifle and taking aim.
"Salud!" She shrieked, even though she didn't have a clue what that meant.
A shadow wavered between the sunlight and them, casting over them shapes of black.
But there was a painful lack of snarling and Carol scowled up at the shade above them.
The Lieutenant fired and pushed her aside as a deer tumbled down into the well with them.
"Sorry, Bambi," the Lieutenant murmured as it hit hard before them, dead and still.
"Guess it'll do," Carol murmured, pulling the poor animal over on top of the walkers, adding to the height of them.
"Maybe this God of Grace's is finally giving us a hand up, yeah?" The Lieutenant teased, shouldering his rifle and climbing up onto the deer/walker pyramid.
"How does that work?" Carol asked, putting her knife away. "You're obviously not a Christian, but doesn't Grace ever—"
"I wouldn't say I'm not a Christian, ange," the Lieutenant said. "I just don't agree with organized religion. Man dictating to me what God's will is. Doesn't sit right."
"Or maybe it's because you like to sin and some of the commandments are pretty strict about that," she teased.
He bumped her up onto his shoulder in a manner that was playful, but rough and she squeaked.
"We are all sinner's in God's eyes," the man said, mocking the over dramatic tone of most televangelists. "Whether you want to repent or spend your days lolling in Satan's bed is up to you."
"Doesn't Grace ever get mad at you for that?" She asked, grunting as she struggled to stand upright on his shaking shoulders as he balanced precariously on the deer.
"Oh, all the time," the Lieutenant replied flippantly. "But sometimes the sex is better when she's fired up and irritated."
Carol smiled. "You two must have a healthy sex life."
"Well, I'm a gentleman, ange, and a gentleman never tells, but yeah, we do."
She laughed.
"Sometimes I think she likes to be good and angry for bed," the man went on.
"Well, it must be a requirement with you," she said. "To be good and angry for sex. Seems like you live to irritate people."
"Excuse me?" The man demanded, giving her a bump up as she reached for the lip of grass that edged the hole.
She almost snagged it, collapsing hard against the stone as she hit his shoulders hard.
He grunted in pain, but managed to keep her upright, large, strong hands wrapping around her ankles.
"My Mamere used to say 'boy, you are skating on ice so thin only Jesus could traverse it'," the Lieutenant went on. "Grace likes to say 'keep going down that path, Fayette and you'll wind up with a split lip'. She's somehow a little less eloquent than ol' granny, but my girl is a hell of a spitfire."
"I know."
"Fly, petit ange!" The Lieutenant exclaimed as he bumped her just as she jumped a little and it gave her that added height that she needed. Hooking her hands up and over the edge, she clawed at the earth and managed to half drag herself up.
"Oh, angel!" The Lieutenant exclaimed. "Très bien!"
She struggled, her ass and legs refusing to get their act together as she flailed wildly, desperate to escape.
Finally she managed to hook a leg up onto the edge and she rolled over and out, flopping onto her back in the leaves and staring up at the sky through the dead winter trees.
Scrambling to her feet, she blinked against the bright light and returned to the hole to peer down at the trapped Cajun. "I'll go find a rope, has to be a farm around here somewhere if there's a well."
Peering up at her, the Lieutenant shielded his eyes and said, "I always liked you, angel. Don't leave me now."
She beamed impishly. "We'll see."
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She rushed, going through the outbuildings of the farm, looking for something, anything to haul the Lieutenant up with. All Carol wanted to do was get him out and get home to Daryl and her baby.
Finding a chain, she turned from the shop building and stepped outside, finding a walker shuffling towards her from across the yard.
Dropping the chain, she stepped back into the shop and grabbed a pitchfork, heading for the creature to put it down. She had just stabbed the thing, when she heard voices coming from around the house.
Dragging the walker behind the shop with her, she cautiously peeked around the corner of the worn wood building as three people stepped into sight. Two of them arguing, the one pulling up the rear looking around nervously.
They weren't familiar faces at all, so she remained in her spot, burying herself deep into the leaves beside the walker corpse and waiting for the people to go.
"Sounds like someone's wife got bored with serving men beer and doing their laundry," the woman said. "It's suspicious."
"We'll never find them if that's the case," the mulleted man bringing up the rear said.
"We ain't looking for them," the man with the flame red hair declared. "Fuck them. We're looking for something that runs."
"I'm just saying, she probably ran off with that man," the woman went on. "They're probably in some house somewhere having mad sex on every available surface. God I want that."
"Nothing," the red head growled as he checked the shop. "Don't people drive diesels in this fucking canned soup country?"
The three of them looked about in every outbuilding, before heading back the way they came.
Carol remained quiet and still, tempted to go after them to see who they were, but reminded of the Lieutenant festering in the well with a couple of walkers and a dead deer.
Quietly she emerged from the leaves and grabbed the chain, heading into the woods to get the Lieutenant. The sooner she got him, the sooner they could get home to their families.
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Skittering in the leaves, kicking some down the hole, she peered in.
"Lieutenant? Are you still alive down there?"
He was sitting in the muck where he always sat, hands folded in his lap, eyes on his boots.
"Still here," he said.
"Did you think I left you?" She asked, gently lowering the chain so as not to knock him in the face with it.
"I know you wouldn't have left me, ange," he replied.
"I love the level of trust you place in me," she said, standing up and checking on the tree she secured her end of the chain to. "Considering I thought about just filling in that hole."
He chuckled and soon the chain was jangling as he began up it.
As the Cajun reached the top, she beamed happily at him, wincing at how dirty and ragged he looked in the sunlight.
"Grace is going to be so upset at the state of you," she said.
He paused and reached back for the chain that was still dangling down the hole.
"Leave it," she said. "Let's get—"
He grunted and heaved at the chain, pulling hard. "Naw, dinner, ange."
Eventually he hauled up the deer and huffed as it lay before them. "Not bad, eh? Dinner and an escape."
She smiled warily. "I saw some people in the nearby farm."
"Strangers?" He asked, kneeling down to field dress the deer.
"Yes."
"They look dangerous?"
"Not really, well, there was this big red head, but I think you could give him a run for his money if we run into them again."
The Lieutenant smiled. "Ginger, eh? Nah, they're scrappy fighters them."
"There was another man with a mullet but—"
"Oh, I could take a mullet-head." The Lieutenant assured her.
She smiled, but her mind was still on the strangers in their territory. Were they dangerous? Were they the ones who were leaving these walkers to roam about?
"Think the red head is…or was in the military. He looked it."
The Lieutenant's hands slowed in skinning the deer. "Military man…did the others—"
"He looked like the only military personal among them."
"Alright, we have company then." He stood up with the half skinned deer. "Best get home fast then, yeah?"
She nodded. "I think so."
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Brazen Hussy - I felt like Daryl needed two drums and a cymbal crash after that devil remark...
Yazzy x - Yeah, I swear I research some of the most weird assed things for this fic...I'm probably on a list somewhere for most of the wound and medical things.
vickih - Did you just call Delgado Dora the Explorer's cousins name? ...
Merle's Right Hand - One order of more sassy Daryl coming right up, darling!
Ciao Bella - I live to give palpitations. ^_^
Surplus Imagination - Truer words have never been said about Ruth...
itsi3 - Ahhhhh...