Chapter Two: What Lies Ahead (pt2)
Her instincts were screaming at her to move. To be silent. Marie quietly moved to the back. She closed the partition between the front and the living space before shutting the blinds on the singular window on the sliding back door. Maybe she was overreacting. Something inside of her said that she really wasn't. That feeling was only validated when she spotted movement through the blacked-out window not covered by the curtain. Marie placed the backpack, and recurve bow on the couch before pulling the quiver over her head and carefully setting it down with the rest of her stuff.
Adrenaline was pumping through her veins as one of the walkers stumbled a little and bumped into the side door before moving. She thanked every deity that came to mind that Merle had clipped the alarms of the van when they'd first settled into the quarry.
With trembling fingers, Marie quietly unfastened Iolani from his car seat and cradled him in her arms. Iolani barely fidgeted, one eye sleepily peering up before closing once more, as he got comfortable against her chest and sucked on his pacifier in a content manner. Marie tiptoed over the duffle bag on the floor and into the bedroom where her girls were still snoring peacefully... and would hopefully continue to do so until this nightmare was over. Still, her nerves were shot as every once in a while the van rocked to the side when another biter stumbled into the vehicle.
Minutes -long ones that felt like they'd each lasted centuries- had gone by and still there continued to be bodies pressing against her Sprinter... suddenly the van finally stopped rocking. Marie gently laid Iolani down in his Moses basket before carefully moving into her kitchen. Her hands were still trembling from a combination of fear and adrenaline as she subtly peered through the curtain and out of the tinted window from a side angle.
She couldn't see any more walkers, at least not from this side of the van. Feeling a bit more bold, Marie peered out of the window at a new angle that allowed her to view the direction the giant horde of walkers had been heading towards. Marie couldn't see the huge group of biters at the moment, though she did spy two straggling geeks making up the rear of the... crowd.
There weren't any screams coming from the group, so she could only assume that everyone had taken cover in the maze of abandoned cars. God, she just hoped that Glenn was alright. The Dixon brothers could definitely take care of themselves, and though a part of her worried for them, Glenn was her only remaining family member left. Marie wouldn't be able to handle living in this new world without him in it.
Shit! What about the kids? Miranda had corralled her children back inside their RV earlier after they spotted the husk of a dead man behind the wheel of a truck, but Lori and Carol had allowed their kids -Sophia and Carl had been trapped in a much smaller vehicle and hadn't had much space to move unlike the Morales kids- to roam through the abandoned cars with them for supplies. Marie's stomach was beginning to hurt from all of the stress. She breathed in and out shakily. There was no reason to get ahead of herself right now. There was nothing to indicate that anyone had gotten hurt-
Maybe it was because Marie was paying attention, straining her ears really, for it... but was that a tiny shriek? Marie grabbed her bow and arrows and jumped into the front seat before opening the passenger door as quietly as she could.
There it was again!
A high-pitched cry of terror.
Oh, god.
She recognized that voice.
It was Sophia.
Her heart began pounding furiously behind her ribcage. Marie quickly cocked an arrow in her bow as she spotted the issue. One of the straggling geeks had noticed Sophia hiding under a car and was trying to reach out for her. The other geek, attracted by Sophia's distressed whimpers, was slowly ambling around the other side of the truck.
Not on her fucking watch.
Marie carefully aimed before releasing the arrow, it soared through the air before piercing the skull of the biter closest to reaching Sophia. The body dropped. The preteen had completely crawled out from underneath the truck now and was going under the guard on the side of the road before sliding down out of Marie's vision. The original geek that had spotted her hot on Sophia's heels. Marie grabbed another arrow as she started sprinting over to the guardrail.
Rick had beaten her to the rail as he hopped over it, tripped and began rolling down the steep hill. Fuck, she'd lost sight of Sophia! Quiet scuffling feet made Marie look to her right, an arrow nocked threateningly only to lower it when she realized that it was just Merle.
"Which way?" he barked quietly, one hand clutching onto a long knife tightly. Marie pointed in the direction that she'd seen Rick and Sophia run through. "Git ta th' kids. I got this," the man grunted as he hopped over the rail and started running.
Suddenly Marie was surrounded by the majority of the group as Carol sobbed brokenly, "There's a walker after ma baby!" Lori tried to pull the distressed woman into a hug, but Carol was inconsolable.
"M-Merle and Rick went after her, Carol." Marie stated in a strong voice, "They'll bring her back." Glenn pulled her into a hug. Marie shuddered as she wrapped her arms around her big brother, "You scared the shit out of me." she whispered.
His grip tightened, "Yeah, well so did you, when you started running around in the open and shot down that walker." before adding in a softer tone, "Good job."
A wet snort escaped from her lips, but before she could respond Daryl came running up to them with a distressed expression on his face and fresh blood on his hands. "Need ya Marie. T-Dog cut 'imself on broken car parts. 'S a purtty big gash."
Marie raced after him, Glenn hot on her heels while the majority of the group stayed behind as Shane started taking role-call. T-Dog was sweaty and pale as he tried to apply pressure to the large oozing wound going down his entire forearm, though the tourniquet Daryl had made with his belt tied around his upper arm helped stem off the worst of it.
"Glenn grab me one of the first aid kits." Marie commanded as she kneeled down beside the African American, "Hey T-Dog, you really hurt yourself, huh?"
A pained chuckle escaped from his lips, "D- Ah, Don't remind me."
She shot him an apologetic look as she took a look at the wound. Glenn practically threw himself on the floor next to her with two of the first aid kits they'd made up. "Glenn thread a needle and then sterilize it." Marie commanded without looking at him as she quickly unzipped one and pulled on some gloves before taking out the rubbing alcohol and pouring some on her gloved hands so that they would be sterilized.
She grabbed the sterile prep solution made out of iodine and poured it around the skin of the wound, she ignored T-Dog's hiss as she began rubbing it in with a new clean sponge. Glenn had left the simple suture kit open on top of the kit, she quickly sanitized the needle driver and forceps she would be using.
"Here." Glenn passed her the now threaded needle. She carefully grabbed the needle about two-thirds of the way up and locked the driver in before holding the driver the way Hana had shown her years ago when Marie had first shown an interest in learning first aid.
"This is not going to be pleasant," Marie warned the older man before gently lifting the skin on one side of the gash with the forceps before piercing his skin with the suture needle at a ninety-degree angle and supinating her wrist to drive the needle through.
T-Dog let out a muffled groan of pain... but if Marie started focusing on the man's discomfort and pain she'd probably psych herself out and wouldn't be able to finish suturing the wound… so she forced herself to ignore it.
Once the tip of the needle poked out of the middle of the wound she used her forceps to grab the skin on the opposite side of the wound and pull it a little closer, she continued the supinating motion until the curved needle exited the skin on the opposite side. She unlocked the needle driver so that she could momentarily let it go so that she would bring the driver to the point of the needle, it needed to come out in the same way that it had gone in, so continuing with the supinating motion she brought the needle out and pulled all the excess suture out until only a tiny tail remained.
Marie unlocked the driver once more before pressing the driver along the length of the wound between the short and long tail of the suture. She wrapped the long end around the needle driver twice before opening the mouth of the driver and grabbing the tip of the short end and pulling the two threads in opposite directions until the wound closed. Now Marie needed to make sure that the first stitch wouldn't open again by repeating the process, except this time she only wrapped the long end of the suture once around the needle driver before pulling the short and long-tail in opposite directions. She repeated it one more time before mentally declaring the first stitch done and cutting off the long tail attached to the needle.
The first uninterrupted stitch was done...
Now she would have to continue the process until the entire gash on T-Dog's arm was closed... "One down." she mumbled, a quick look to the side revealed the piercing gazes from both her brother and Daryl -both of them seemingly mesmerized with the process, even if Glenn looked more disgusted than fascinated like Daryl- she eyed them with exasperation, "Can one of you go check on the kids?"
Both of them flushed and looked away in unison. Marie rolled her eyes as she locked the driver on the needle again and prepared to start a new stitch.
"I-I'll go check on them. Were they still sleeping the last time you were there?" Glenn asked.
"Yup." she confirmed, "They're all on the bed."
Scuffling feet let her know that Glenn had moved away. Daryl turned his back as he kept watch, probably not wanting to leave while Marie was too focused on suturing to watch her own back.
T-Dog grunted as she pulled the needle through both flaps of skin and began the careful task of tying the wound closed. This time her fingers hadn't stumbled as much. Maybe if Marie pretended she was simply sewing or mending clothes she wouldn't hesitate so much to pierce the skin?
Then again the groans and small flinches from the wounded made it difficult to play pretend.
Words 1912
(Updates after two months of suspicious silence.
She liiiiiiiiiiiiiives~
Hey everyone! So, obviously, my goal to update every two weeks failed immediately. Who could have seen that coming? *All of my sisters*
I've been pretty busy... I had to finish up with finals, deal with some more college bullshit [that still isn't resolved, but I'm not going to stop emailing/calling those bastards until they respond], I found a new job at a daycare much closer to my house [which is nice and the kids are super CUTE], get over a bout of pneumonia, my dog got a urinary infection that caused me huge amounts of stress, and I had some family visiting until yesterday. LOL. Plus I'm looking for some writing internships that I can do online and working on a blog where I can start publishing some of my original work. SO, yeah. I've been a little swamped.
Anyway... someone requested that I post up some pictures of the interior of Marie's sprinter van, so I did. You can find it on A03 in the notes of chapter 2 of "Geeks, Rednecks and Koreans... OH, My!" So it's up there if you guys want to check that out and physically *see* the van.
I also added the link for my Pinterest board of this fic in the series notes on A03 but it's also up in my profile here on FF. Net. However, viewers' discretion is advised when it comes to the board since there could be some spoilers for future chapters up there. I use the board as a reference for myself, so it's not censored [and never will be, LOL]... but there are a lot of cute pics up there of Marie and the kids [even young Merle & Daryl] plus some cool stuff that I've mentioned about the sprinter van, etc.
I hope you all enjoyed the update! Who else called Merle running after Sophia?
Happy Reading!
P.S. You guys are so awesome! Thank you so much for all the comments and warm welcome back!)
Daryl: *Oh no... T-Dog's bleeding out*
Daryl: *runs to Marie... and Glenn*
Daryl: T-Dog is bleeding out
Marie/Glenn: W H A T!
*but also... Marie immediately takes charge*
Marie: *intently focused on not messing up T-Dog's stitches*
Glenn: *God this is so gross but I can't look away*
Daryl: *basks in AWE, Marie can do anything- she's amazing*
Marie: *notices her audience and glares*
Marie: What're you looking at?
Glenn: Nothing! *OhGodLookAtAllThatBlood SheBetterWashHerHands SoGROSS*
Daryl: *blushes*
But ALSO...
Marie: *concerned parent*
Marie: Who's watching the kids?
Glenn: ...
Daryl: ...
Marie: *eyebrow of disappointment*
Glenn: Me! Right now! *RunsFromTheBlood&Tension*
Marie: That's what I thought.
Daryl: *staying to guard Marie's back*
Marie: *blushes*
Marie: *that's kinda sweet of him*