Carolina in my mind

Chapter 45

"Hey, are you okay?"

Carolina looked up from the spot in the corner of the storage closet she wedged herself into, partially hidden by a large rolling industrial laundry basket. She attempted a half-hearted smile at first. Then she gave up and just shook her head. There was blood on her hands and forearms. It was splattered across the front of her scrubs. The metallic tang of it was all she could smell. And she still wasn't sure if she'd done the right thing. Her mind was racing with ways that she might have been able to save that poor woman rather than just putting her out of her misery.

Joan was only a side character. One whose name Carolina didn't even remember until Dawn started yelling it when they wheeled the woman in strapped to a gurney. Her purpose on the show was to confirm that Dawn was allowing her officers to rape the hospital workstaff. The women at Grady weren't being kept there to pay off some imaginary debt. They were glorified sex slaves that were never going to be let go. The guards hadn't tried anything with Carolina yet. But It was only a matter of time. Carolina could feel their eyes on her. She had no idea what they were planning. But whatever they were doing to poor Joan, the woman was willing to die rather than keep putting up with it. And that scared the shit out of her.

At least Carolina had been able to put the woman out of her misery before her arm was lopped off. She held up Joan's bitten arm and insisted that the infection had already spread too far for them to be able to stop it with an amputation. The good thing was that Dawn believed her bullshit. The bad part came when Dawn made Carolina put the woman down herself.

"I'm pretty fucking far from okay," Carolina admitted, leaning her head back against the wall as Noah lowered himself to the floor in front of her. She glanced at the young man, racking her brain for anything she could remember about him. Because all that was coming to mind was how he got ripped apart by walkers while Glenn watched from the other side of the glass divider. And thinking about that wasn't helping.

Noah smiled at her as he rummaged around in his pockets. When he found what he was looking for, he pulled a yellow lollipop out and offered it to Carolina. She reached out her hand, which was still shaking slightly, and took the treat. The plastic wrapper crinkled as she pulled it off. And she popped the lolly in her mouth on the side of her face that wasn't stitched up. It was sickly sweet. And the taste of it made her mouth fill with saliva. She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing with the effort.

"How long have you been here at Grady?," Carolina asked.

"About a year I think," Noah replied. Carolina's eyes widened. A year. She had no idea he'd lived in this awful place that long. He must have been here almost since the beginning of the outbreak.

"That's a long time. I bet you miss your family," Carolina said, pulling the lollipop out of her mouth to speak and then popping it back in again. Noah nodded, a flicker of melancholy twisting his features up. It only lasted for a moment before he reverted back to the friendly smile he was offering her before. He was good at masking his emotions. Carolina worked with enough teenagers to know that not all of them were capable of hiding their true feelings so well. And she wondered if that was a talent Noah learned in his home life before the turn. Or if he'd picked it up as a survivor skill since he arrived in this hellhole hospital.

Even though they were closeted up together in the large supply room, Carolina still lowered her voice, leaning forward and speaking just above a whisper. "There's got to be a way out of here," she said, raising her brow at Noah.

"There's ways out," Noah confirmed. "But it's dangerous out there. And they hunt down anyone that runs away. Look what just happened to Joan."

Carolina sucked on her lemon flavored lollipop and considered what Noah said. He was right. It wasn't getting out of the building that was the problem. It was getting out of Atlanta. The city was thick with the dead. They'd be fighting through the herd unarmed with no supplies. And being hunted at the same time. Carolina had no desire to find out what would happen if she became walker chow in this reality.

"My people are gonna be looking for me," Carolina whispered. "And my boyfriend will kick these rent-a-cops asses. If he's not in Atlanta, he will be soon. I just need to get out of here and find him."

Noah smiled again. But this time his expression was sincere. He almost looked ready to laugh. "What's his name?," Noah asked, "...your ass kicking boyfriend?"

"Daryl Dixon," Carolina whispered. Just the sound of his name was enough to make her feel slightly more secure. Daryl would come for her. Just like he came for Beth. All she had to do was hang on until then. At least she had the advantage of knowing that there was an eventual rescue coming, something Beth had not been aware of.

"Daryl Dixon?," Noah teased. "Sounds like a superhero. Like Bruce Banter or Clark Kent."

"Exactly," Carolina agreed, sending them both into a fit of near silent giggles. They whispered together for a little while longer, talking about their friends and families until they warmed up enough to each other to discuss possible escape options. Carolina hoped there might be another option besides the bedsheet ladder down the elevator shaft route. But Noah eventually convinced her that was the only way.

Building a ladder out of knotted bed sheets was easy. They had piles upon piles of cheap hospital grade bed sheets. So there was no chance of anyone noticing that a large stack of them was missing. But climbing down into the elevator shaft was going to be harder. They didn't want to get caught in the act. So they had to wait until none of the guards were around. This was easier for Noah than it was for Carolina since they were watching her more carefully.

Their other problem was the walkers at the bottom of the shaft. Even if they managed to scramble down without being caught by Dawn's guards, there was a whole pack of biters waiting for them at the bottom. And neither Carolina or Noah was eager to take them on with nothing but the measly sharpened chair legs they'd fashioned into weapons.

In the end, their chance for escape came upon them without warning. Dawn's guards brought a badly injured man in from outside the hospital. And Dr. Edwards was unable to resuscitate him. Dawn was usually nonchalant about the fate of any new potential indentured servants. But for whatever reason, she got quite worked up over this particular man. She ordered Noah and Carolina to take his body away. And instead of coming with them to supervise, she stayed to continue her argument with Dr. Edwards.

"This is it," Carolina hissed across the gurney as she and Noah pushed it down the dimly lit hallway. There was no one around. And once they tossed the unnamed man's fresh corpse down the elevator shaft, it would hopefully serve as enough of a distraction to the dead that she and Noah would be able to slip past them without attracting attention.

Carolina's hands were shaking as she jerked as hard as she could on the long knotted rope, tightening the large knot that would secure the rope and keep it from slipping as they climbed down. She made Noah go first. He was lighter than her. And she felt protective over him in the same way she did over her students when she was still a teacher. She wouldn't have felt right climbing down and leaving him behind her waiting. Carolina leaned over the large square opening. There was a stream of light coming in from the ground level. But it wasn't enough to light the rest of the darkened elevator shaft. She squinted her eyes, trying to get a glimpse of how Noah was faring on his way down. If he was making any noise, she couldn't hear it over the disgusting sounds of the dead devouring the fresh body they'd tossed down before they lowered the rope.

After what seemed like forever, Carolina heard Noah whistle up to her. And then she heard him yelp in pain. She didn't wait to ask him what happened. Carolina grabbed the sheet ladder and started picking her way down as fast as she could. Her arms and thighs were burning before she even got halfway down. And by the time she reached the pile of dead corpses at the bottom, her muscles were shaking with an uncomfortable combination of adrenaline and exhaustion.

"Are you okay?," she asked, reaching for Noah's hand and letting him help her climb over the stinking mass of corpses. The live corpses were still gathered around the dead man they tossed down ahead of them. "It sounded like you got hurt."

Noah nodded. "I had a rock in my shoe," he admitted. Carolina glared at the young man, half irritated and half amused that he frightened her over something so insignificant. But before she could scold him, her eyes went wide. There were voices coming from the top of the elevator shaft. They'd been caught.

"Oh shit," Carolina cursed as she grabbed Noah's hand. She wasn't sure where the exit was. But she headed in the direction the light was coming from, hoping that was the way out. When they reached it, it wasn't the door she was hoping for but a large broken out window. They climbed through one at a time, being as careful as they could not to cut themselves up on the pointed shards of glass that were littered around the opening. Carolina could hear the raised voices of the hospital guards. She wasn't sure where they were coming from. But they were close enough that she urged Noah to start running while she was still climbing out onto the pavement.

Carolina spotted the guards as she scrambled to her feet. She screamed at Noah. "Go! DON'T STOP!" And though she tried her best, the guards wrestled her to the ground before she even got halfway across the fenced lot. She watched as Noah wriggled his skinny body out through a break in the fence. He paused for a moment, glancing back towards her like he wished he could do something to help her. But the little sharpened stick in his hand was useless against the three armed men that captured her. One of them pulled out his gun and took a shot at the young man. It pinged off the metal fence. But that was enough to get Noah moving. And as the guards hauled Carolina to her feet, she smiled when she saw Noah disappear out of sight.

Carolina could vaguely remember Beth being caught by the guards in a very similar escape attempt. And from what she could recall, the punishment for her discretion was getting smacked around a little by Dawn. Given that the woman was significantly smaller than her and a dumb bitch to boot, Carolina wasn't really worried. It wasn't until the men that caught her pulled her into an abandoned office somewhere in the hospital's lower level and shut the door that she started getting scared. When the last one to enter locked the door behind him, Carolina realized these men had no intention of taking her upstairs and letting Dawn deal with her.

Out of the three, the only one she recognized for sure was the man that should have been attacked by Joan's reanimated corpse. But since Joan didn't reanimate, now he was here, involved in whatever these men were about to do to her. This wasn't good. Carolina didn't recognize the other two men. They were both white and one of them had a shaved head. He might be one of the guards Rick and the others captured and used as hostages on the show but she wasn't sure. They all sort of looked the same in their uniforms.

"You know what the punishment for running away is?," the man with the shaved head asked, stepping forward. He caught her under the chin with his knuckle, forcing her to make eye contact with him. Then he trailed his fingertip down from there, running it down the center of her chest until he got to the waistline of her hospital issue scrub pants. Carolina jerked away from his touch. But her thighs were pressed up against one of the large wooden desks in the room. And her wrists were still cuffed behind her back. There wasn't a lot she could do to defend herself. The guard that touched her glanced back at his companion, giving the other man a nasty smirk. "Get that big sledgehammer we used to put the fence up. She won't try this again if she can't walk."

"What!?," Carolina exclaimed. "You can't do that! Have you all lost your fucking minds?" If she couldn't walk, she was dead whether Daryl came for her or not. Broken legs would take months to heal. And that's if they healed right at all. She'd be better off dead.

"Hold on," the bald man said, stopping his companion from opening the door. "I guess we can overlook what happened just this one time," he drawled. Moving back into her personal space, he placed one hand on her hip. Carolina felt the bile rising into her throat as he slid the other hand up her shirt to cup her breast. "But if we do you a favor," he said, his voice laced with innuendo, "... you'd have to be willing to do one for us."