AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I do hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
111
Breakfast was coffee made in the stovetop camping percolator that had followed Daryl for years in place of a clunkier, more modern appliance. Now that he was settling somewhere with the intentions of staying for a while—and maybe for a very long while—he would drop by the secondhand shop in town to see if they had something decent that he could pick up to produce caffeine in the quantities that would be necessary to keep him going through the mass of repairs that awaited him.
Daryl used his coffee to wash down a packaged honeybun. It wasn't the breakfast of champions, but almost everything he'd bought had been instant since he hadn't taken too much time to examine what the house might have to offer as far as modern amenities, working appliances, and cooking utensils went.
Though the man who had built the house had been very wealthy, and though he'd built the house with state-of-the-art everything at the time of its construction, the house had been built quite some time ago. The bank had tried to update the place to sell it, including having it wired for electricity, and therefore some of it had been converted to something far more modern than what it had been when it had been first built before the turn of the century, but Daryl still needed to do a little exploration to see exactly what he had in the house, and what he needed to do to make it all that he wanted and needed it to be.
After scarfing his breakfast, Daryl wandered back to look at the portrait of the original owner and his wife. Touching it in the morning light that streamed through dirty windows, Daryl found it to be a canvas and not a print at all. It was a painting done so meticulously that he could practically see the figures in it breathing. He'd heard that the man had been a man of considerable wealth—and with money came power—but even being that rich, the painting had to have costed a pretty penny.
Still—the eyes of the woman looked so beautiful and so alive.
He recalled what he'd seen the night before—or what he'd believed he'd seen. She was beautiful and, no doubt, that was why she'd worked herself so quickly and so thoroughly into his subconscious mind.
"I can't look at this all the time," Daryl said. He wanted to take it down, but he didn't have a ladder. The hardware place in town was bound to have one, and a ladder was a worthwhile investment in a fixer-upper such as this one. Daryl would buy one while he was out acquiring the other things that he would need to knock down the cobwebs and make the place into a truly habitable home.
Before he left to make his purchases, Daryl wandered the halls in search of the woman he'd been sure that he'd seen the night before. Of course, she didn't appear. She hadn't been real. She'd merely been a figment of his overactive imagination. The only difference between him and the man who had owned the house only one night in the past was that Daryl hadn't run screaming from the apparitions his mind created—rather, he was foolishly seeking them out.
Daryl laughed at himself—at how ridiculous he was.
"Asshole," he muttered to himself. "She weren't real. She was just—indigestion and too damn many beers."
Still, Daryl properly disposed of his trash before he left.
111
The hardware store was pretty well-stocked and the prices were more than fair, in Daryl's opinion, especially considering it was a small town and most of the businesses—the hardware store included—were Mom-And-Pop places that had to charge a certain amount to earn a profit that could keep them in business.
The old man who ran the store, and who had identified himself also as the owner, helped Daryl to load up his purchases once they'd been rung up and paid for. Once everything was heaped into the back of Daryl's truck, the old man patted the side of the truck as though it were a horse.
"I'm certainly glad you came in today," he said. "It does look like you have an awful lot of home improvement on your mind."
Daryl, sensing that the old man was looking for someone to chew the fat with for a moment, and not hating a little pleasant company from time to time, lit a cigarette.
"I just bought a house and it needs a hell of a lot more'n just a little TLC," Daryl said with a laugh. "Bought the thing sight unseen. Still—wouldn't change my mind if I could go back. I needed this."
"This?"
"A place to really settle," Daryl said. "Somewhere to call home."
"Abnerton's a small town," the old man said. "But it's a nice place to call home. I've lived here my whole life. Born and raised."
The man's shirt identified him as "Hershel" and adding the name of the hardware store further identified him as Hershel Greene.
"I like it so far," Daryl said. "I've seen the grocery store, and I'm headin' to the secondhand place when I leave here."
Hershel Greene smiled.
"My wife and I own that, too," Hershel said. "Her name's Jo. Tell her Hershel sent you and she'll make sure you get a good deal. Tell her you're new to town, and I said she oughta help you get set up."
Daryl smiled.
"Thanks," he said. "But I don't want to take advantage."
"New blood in Abnerton is desperately needed," Hershel said with a laugh. "What'd you say your name was?"
"Daryl Dixon," Daryl said.
"Hershel Greene," Hershel clarified, offering a hand out to Daryl to shake in a friendly manner now that they'd moved from strictly doing business to something a little more neighborly.
"You own the hardware and the secondhand place?" Daryl asked, already knowing the answer.
Hershel hummed and nodded.
"In a place like this, it's not uncommon to wear a lot of hats. That's especially true if you've lived here forever. What do you do, son?"
"Handyman," Daryl said. "Jack of all trades, really. I'm a professional wearer of a lot of hats. I can do some mechanical work. Some electricity. Construction. You name it, really. I'm really good at picking things up. The most I ever have to do is spend a couple weeks working with someone doing something, and then I kind of pick it up."
"That's a good skill to have," Hershel said.
"It's always done pretty well for me," Daryl said. "I've got a decent amount of savings to live off for a bit—work on my house. But I was thinkin' of doing handyman work as soon as I got settled. Put out some flyers and try to pick up some work here or there to keep food on the table and the lights on. Is there much need for that kind of thing around here?"
"In Abnerton, there's a big need for any kind of tradesman," Hershel said. "So—someone who can do it all? I imagine that you'll be able to stir up as much business as you'd ever want. If you want to make up some flyers, I'll be happy to put some up in the hardware, and Jo would put some up, too."
"Thanks," Daryl said.
"It'll be good business for me, too," Hershel said with a conspiratorial wink. Daryl laughed to himself and nodded. Of course, if he were hired to do a decent amount of home repair, he'd have to get his supplies somewhere—and Greene's Hardware looked like the most likely place to do his shopping. "Most of the houses in town are historic. Old. And the houses out of town, too."
"I noticed that," Daryl said.
The town of Abnerton was beautiful, really. Daryl had passed through there many years before, and the sleepy little Southern town had stuck with him. The vague memory of the feeling that the town had given him was partly what had driven him to buy the house he'd bought. The outskirts—and most of Abnerton was outskirts—were made up of old farms and old farmhouses. There were barns and sprawling stretches of land with crops in various stages of growth. The downtown area was mostly made up of old houses and buildings with side streets lined by large trees hanging heavy with wisteria and heaps of Spanish moss. The little business district, stretching out from the downtown area but not yet reaching the sprawling farmlands, offered a bit more breathing space than the tight downtown streets, and it offered everything a body needed to survive—especially if they weren't willing to drive the forty-five minutes to an hour that it would take to get to a bigger town with a great deal more to offer.
Daryl's house was downtown, though it still boasted a decent sized lot given that it had been owned, originally, by someone who could afford to own a chunk of downtown Abnerton. The lot wasn't big enough, though, to really break it up, Daryl supposed. Otherwise, the bank would have done that when the house had failed to move so often in the past.
"You said you bought a house around here?" Hershel asked. Daryl hummed and nodded.
"Over on Magnolia," Daryl said. "Big old house. They say it's haunted," he added with a laugh.
"The Peletier house?" Hershel asked, his expression changing slightly.
Daryl shrugged his shoulders.
"Seems that might've been a name I've heard," Daryl said. "I've heard a couple different pieces of stories from different people I've talked to. Something about the man's wife died and he skipped town. I heard she was murdered by the checkout lady at the grocery store."
"They say he cut her head off with an ax," Hershel said. "Other times they say he only beat her to death. I think one thing that nobody has ever denied was that the woman was murdered. Sure—there are some people in town who would like to play it down, and all, and they might skip over the murder and just say she died. They feel like it does some damage to their property values, and it certainly hasn't helped that house sell and stay maintained through the years, but the Peletier woman was murdered."
"You remember it?" Daryl asked.
Hershel Greene laughed.
"I'm not that old," he said, shaking his head. "That was a long time before my time. But—my grandfather remembered it. Talked about it. Back then, the people of Abnerton still wore a lot of hats. He was young, but got a pretty quick start as a veterinarian for large breeds—stock animals, mostly. It so happened that he dappled in medical care for people when it was difficult for the town to come by fully trained doctors. He was one of the ones that went out to the house the night that it happened. The man was named Edward Peletier. He was gone by the time they got there. Neighbors heard the screaming. My grandfather said it took them some time to report it because there was a lot of screaming that came from that house—they weren't the happiest married couple that there ever was, from what my grandfather told—but something never sat right with them that night, so they sent for someone to check things out. My grandfather said her name was Carol. She was dead when they got there. There was nothing to be done for her, then, though he did say it was a shame. Every Halloween they do the ghost walk through town. They tell stories outside the Peletier house, but they never get too close."
"Your grandfather was there?" Daryl asked. Hershel nodded his head. "So, wouldn't he know if she was—if her head was cut off or if he beat her to death?"
"My grandfather had a flair for drama," Hershel said, laughing to himself. "And he was a fine storyteller. He also liked to drink a little, especially in the evenings, and that changed his stories. He told it several ways. I suspect, by the time he died, not even he remembered the exact truth. It didn't matter, though. The gist of it remained the same."
"You believe it's haunted, though?" Daryl asked.
"Oh—I don't know," Hershel said. "I tend to believe that when a body's dead, the soul crosses over. Goes home. And I tend to believe that it stays there. There's a whole gray area about that, though, and I'm willing to admit that I don't know it all. It certainly is local legend, though, that the ghost of Carol Peletier was never really able to rest."
"But nobody's ever actually seen her or anything like that…?" Daryl asked.
"Oh—I don't know. You know how it is. A small town like Abnerton, everyone's got their stories and such. Still—if you're really interested in the whole thing, there's probably one person in town who believes it more than anyone, and who's collected the most information on it that there probably is anywhere; the town museum included."
"Who's that?" Daryl asked, trying to act far more nonchalant and less interested than he really felt.
"A woman by the name of Lenora Hoffstedder," Hershel said. "She's a complete nut. Sells palm readings, fortune tellings, potions, and any other manner of superstitious trinkets and mess out of her trailer just outside of town—picking up passing vacation traffic when she can, you see. She calls herself Madame Lenora to those people. She frequents Jo's place, though. If you ask Jo about her, I'm sure she could tell you a bit more. All the other silliness aside, the Peletier murder has always been a great interest of hers. She's probably got some things she could share with you that might interest you now that you're fixing up the house."
Daryl knew that ghosts and hauntings were nothing more than superstitious mess, and he certainly knew that the woman he'd thought he'd seen the night before had been nothing more than the stirrings of his overactive mind, but his heart still beat fast in his chest to think of knowing a bit more about her. He told himself the interest was, as Hershel had said, only there because he now owned the house.
"Yeah—thanks," Daryl said brightly.
"Sure thing," Hershel said. "I'm happy you're fixing the place up. It's a beautiful old house."
"It really is," Daryl said.
"It's got a lot of potential," Hershel commented.
"It really does."
"And it's good to have new blood in town. It'll be good to have a handyman around to help people out around here. You get me those flyers when you're ready, and I'll get them up for you. And when you get to Jo's place, don't forget to tell her I sent you."
Daryl smiled at him.
"I'll be sure to do that," Daryl said. "All of it. Thanks for all your help. I'm sure I'll be seeing you around."
"If you're fixing up the Peletier house," Hershel teased, "I'm sure I'll be seeing you very soon."
Daryl laughed and got in his truck. He waved at the old man before he headed off in search of a coffee pot, a few other homey touches, and some information about a Lenora Hoffstedder, who just might be able to tell Daryl a little more about the murder of Carol Peletier and her unhappy ghost.
Not that he believed in ghosts, of course.