With love and appreciation, Jody xx
[My apologies for the post, quick delete, & repost. I realized after posting I needed to rework some of the logistics of the apartment layout. Plus there were errors that my tired trigger-happy self hadn't initially caught.]
Steely blue eyes look the man square on, locking onto him; then the archer takes a single step backwards, stashing the gun in his back waistband. "Daryl," he mutters huskily.
The man nods. "Walter."
The first woman unshoulders her shotgun and yields the handgun holstered at her side. "Bonnie." She is short and wide hipped; her straight black hair is shorn close to her head except for a three inch strip of hair running lengthwise from her brow to the nape of her neck. The forearm handing over the weapons to Simon is tattooed and muscled, and the glint in her eyes conveys she is not a person easily duped or mislead.
The third woman, the quiet one, tall, lean, dark – she might be beautiful if she weren't so hollow, so shadowy and withdrawn – she makes no move to relinquish her weapons. Her gaze is ever watchful, but her almond eyes never settle on any one of them for longer than a moment, never long enough to be caught looking. Daryl watches her, quietly taking her in, but he does not hazard to step closer. He recognizes a battered thing when he sees one.
"Go ahead," Bonnie nods.
Beth too looks on, with large, clear, watchful eyes. Her face gathers in earnest dimples and she nods, like she might a startled horse. "I's al'right." Her pretty drawl is bright and out of place in the growing darkness. Stepping forward cautiously, Beth offers an encouraging smile. Her thin hand, ruddy from the cold, patient and undemanding, extends to the woman.
The woman studies Beth, studies Daryl and Simon. She must have agreed to this – before they stepped forward from the cover of the woods she must have agreed with trusting them, with making this offer of concession. Still, it is clear she does not wish to be parted from her gun. Daryl would bristle at that and lose his trust, if he did not recognize something deeply familiar in her.
When the revolver and semi-automatic pistol she carries are handed over, Beth palms one and tucks the other in her belt. "I'm Beth,' she says, risking a gentle smile.
The woman breathes, and exhales. Her dark eyes gauge and measure. "Hadeel."
There's a rustling sound to the east and in an instant Daryl's bow is up and raised and firing into the darkness. With a splattering squish the walker fifteen yards off stops short, crumples and falls. Nimbly Daryl reloads and nocks before his muscles once again relax.
"Simon," the teenager belatedly gives his name with the deadpan boyish delivery that forces Michael into Beth's mind.
Still a bit too tense for laughter, the others nod, mostly keeping their eyes on the eldest and grimmest of the three. Had they been watching for long in the woods, they no doubt would have seen demonstrations of the trio's abilities, but having done so, still they seem satisfied, if not impressed by this show of prowess.
"You got a camp?" Simon asks.
"No," the man called Walter answers.
"Considering you all're setting snares, we figured you might." The one called Bonnie doesn't seem to be asking anything in this, she speaks in facts. Beth, whose fingers are starting to tremble in the cold, and senses the onset of chattering teeth, steps in to make the invitation. "We been here three days." With a glance at Daryl, she nods her head toward town. "Com'on."
When Beth moves the other five shift slowly into motion to follow. The sun long since gone, the streets are black as they cross the highway and enter town. Daryl, just behind Beth in unsheathing her knife, removes his too, and treads carefully through the shadows. "We gonna regret leavin' ya'll y'r blades?" His whisper is rough, and low.
"I assure you—" Walters answers "—we know who the enemy is."
Beth swallows, and moves forward. Traversing in stealth formation, the six together take out thirteen walkers between the woods and their front door. The newcomers are efficient and tested. In short time the six make it to the brick building, at which point Daryl stops. "Stairs're rigged. One of you follow one of us." He shifts the rubble door blocks out of the way, then shifts himself for Beth to enter first. "You got this?" Sheathing her knife, Beth mounts the flight with ease; in no time she's at the landing, lighting a candle to light the way for the others. Hadeel follows, then Simon, then Walter, stepping over wires, alarms, cut out steps and concealed blades.
Outside, Bonnie and Daryl take down another two walkers – Bonnie crossing out into the street to meet her target in its path. Making her return she steps onto the neck of Daryl's kill, tugs, and retrieves his fired bolt. "Better not t' have them piling up outside the door," she remarks, returning the bloody arrow to him. "Smoking gun, or what have you." Daryl grunts a sort of accordant nod. When he moves toward the door Bonnie moves in first. "I got it," she nods. "You'll be wanting to be the one to lock up."
Daryl's instinct is to grunt, but he pushes himself to something more: no longer is it just the three of them, at ease with each other in silence. This is the very moment of regrouping. This person, these three, they could be the difference between life and death for him, for Simon, for Beth. These newcomers could one day be family. Maybe. They took a chance to reach out. Daryl's fixed jaw opens some, "Th'nks." He again nods at her but she's already halfway up the stairs. With a final scan of the street beyond, Daryl steps inside and secures the solid door behind him. Two deadbolts and two double bolts, one into the floor, one into the door frame above. Once he finishes wrapping the 3/8 inch chain link around the door handle and the iron banister he slings the bow across his back and climbs to meet the others in the bedroom apartment.
In the dim Daryl passes through the still-open door to the apartment's entrance. He shuts it behind him and bolts and double bolts the door. The day before they'd cleaned out the hardware store's inventory of security blocks, installing them on the outer door, the apartment door, in the inner bedroom, and in the safe houses until they ran out. It'd taken time without a power drill, but he's satisfied they'll hold if tested. Later he'll push the credenza in front of the door, but this early in the night they'll still have reasons for reopening it. The front room is dark and unoccupied, through it he joins the others in the bedroom.
Lit by two candles and a battery lantern, precisely angled in the mirrors Beth had collected and arranged about the room to best amplify the light, the modest room is bright enough to see in. The light though does nothing to warm the cold, and the room that days earlier Daryl had thought might alone see them three through the stretch of the winter, now filled with six people measures considerably smaller.
"You c'n drop those," Daryl nods at their packs. One by one the heavy packs are unshouldered and shrugged off, dropping densely to the floor. Shoulders role and backs arch and stretch from the relief of the reprieve.
"Said we needed another room," Simon blithely observes. The addition of these three affirms the expanse of the small apartment will now be in full use – there's no hope of self-containment to one single compartment, and little purpose in trying. The defenses they've mounted will either be enough of they won't; one extra door cannot be relied upon to make the final difference.
Because no one yet has sat no one else in the room moves to sit or shift. They all six stand, separately recalling the old practice of building acquaintances.
"We've got food," Walter says, breaking the awkward silence. Simon, already furtively buoyant over the development of events, seems to gleam some at this. Aside from the willing surrender of weapons, and intervening in a moment of jeopardy, sharing food is the quickest path to alliance building. The sharp-eyed man kneels over his pack and proceeds to rummage through it, talking as he produces what he's after. "Canned – dry – packaged," he accounts one by one. Straightening some, he looks the shared bounty over, "Won't last, but we're in the black for the moment."
"We got lucky, a couple runs in a row." Unzipping her pack Bonnie produces a still respectably heaping bag of rice, followed by a glass jar of pasta sauce carefully wrapped in a wool blanket. "Wasn't sure it would make it," she observes. Now out come two cans of green beans, then handfuls of serving-size packages of oyster crackers. "Take your pick," she leans back on her heals, "there's plenty more for now."
Beth smiles, a bit primly, then in a beat gets to work. "We c'n sauté the beans with the meat, boil the rice – the remainder will be good in the morning…" Running their combined inventory through her head, Beth itemizes and plans "…Save the sauce for t'morrow, use some of the polenta; m'ybe we'll have a rabbit 'r something in the traps t' fry… Crumble the crackers for a crust an' fry the canned squash…"
The three new pairs of eyes look at her, amazed. "Was sure we'd outlived all the gourmets," Walter commends oddly, having no other response to give.
"Supply dictates the diet," Simon intercedes and clarifies. "Ingenuity only goes so far; y'need a larder t' back it up."
Wheeling out some from the wall a small stainless steel chef cart they'd moved in the day before, Daryl drops the two stiffened squirrels down, grunting. "Had our fair share 'f nuthin'."
Bonnie nods, "Isn't that the truth." Her expression shadows momentarily, "…Never knew what hunger was…"
Daryl removes his knife, still stained from the kills in the street, and holds it over a lit candle, first one side, then the other, until he's satisfied it's clean enough for food, then he's cutting into squirrels, deftly skinning them with great tugs of seasoned skill.
Noting their looks of inquiry as they peek about, Simon takes it up to acclimate the others. "We've been using mostly this one room. Saves on light, helps with heat; there's the extra door between us an' them." He watches Daryl carve, "Prob'ly should move this part into the outer room."
"What do you use to cook?"
"First night built a fire in a galvanized bucket. Yesterday we brought in a kettle grill. Got a little charcoal, an' we c'n use wood after that." Simon pulls the lighter from his back pocket, and sparks it needlessly. "At the moment, grill's in the bathroom – close 'nough to help heat the room some, removed to try 'n keep this room from fillin' with smoke. Should start feeling it soon." While Beth had waited with a light at the top of the landing for the others to mount the stairs, he'd gone along and lit the grill, mounding the coals in a bottomless coffee canister to help them ignite faster. "Right now th' flue we attached shoots through the sealed window, triple filtered to cut th' smell of smoke on the street – as much as we're able. It works; well 'nough. But with you all here," Simon looks around, "we'll prob'ly move it out there." The towheaded teen nods at the outer room. "We c'n cut out the hole in the wall like we talked about."
"Make the heating trickier," grunts Daryl. In one conversation they've more than doubled their living space.
Walter processes all this, duly impressed. "You all been here how long?"
"This's th' end of our third day." Cracking his neck, first left ways then right ways, almost as if John were in the room with them, Simon keeps up with the role of spokesperson he seems to have taken on as both Beth and Daryl work briskly at prepping the meal.
"It's this room and the outer room?" Bonnie asks, piecing the apartment's full floor plan together in her head.
"Uh… yeah. Living room, 'r whatever, with th' open galley kitchen." He glances at Daryl, who's dropping entrails into a can, then at the room's outer door. "Wasn't worth our expanding into the extra space." He glances back over his shoulder at his inductees, "Like he said, trickier to heat, and one less door between us an' the outside."
Bonnie tugs at her earlobe, a habit she's not quite conscious of. "What are you doing for water?"
"Yeah," Simon admittedly nods, moving into the attached room to check the coals, "haven't got that mastered yet."
Beth looks up from the rice she's carefully rationing. "We're carrying it in, little by little. Some bottled, most from toilet tanks. We're working on a plan more viable." When she reaches for the first can of beans Walter already has it, prying it open with his knife, which he too first swiped in and out of the candle's flame. "Thanks." She smiles, not yet warmly, but not unkindly.
Walter shrugs and carves harder into the aluminum. "If we're together –" he punctuates with a nod, indicating he means a group, a unit "– there's no need for thanks. Groups work together: Help each other, survive together." From the cart where he carves the meat, Daryl looks over his shoulder at him, his expression unreadable. Stoically he watches… It's not overt distrust, but earned his trust they have not. Not yet.
Faint smoke filters in from behind the closed bathroom door, signaling Simon's successful lighting of the grill. In want of some activity Bonnie moves in to help where she can, providing her own light as she goes. Still silent, Daryl scoops up the cubed meat and carries it cradled in his hands to Beth's pan where he dumps it in. Standing there behind her, methodically wiping his bloody hands on his red rag, Daryl looks Walter over. "How long you been on the road?" The sound of his rough and tempered voice warms Beth, even in the cold of the room. When Daryl speaks she feels him close; hearing his voice, no matter the words, there's a connection there – something living and enduring, that strengthens and fortifies her. And nearly always leaves her flushed.
Walter uses the tip of his knife to pop open the sawed lid from the second can of beans. "We lost a place, maybe a month back."
Both Beth and Daryl look. "'Lost', t' people? Those sorts you mentioned?" Daryl's gnarled voice treads with reticence. Without meaning to, both Beth's and Daryl's glances venture towards the quiet one, the ghost woman. Hadeel.
"No." The man shakes his head, sharing nothing more.
"Walkers?" Daryl questions.
Walter snorts. "Can't quite get used to that one."
Daryl's lip sort of curls into an unintentional contest, "Whudda'ya call 'em?"
"'The dead', mostly. We've heard 'biters', 'corpses'. One man we knew called them 'rotters', another 'ghosts.'"
"Ain't ghosts," Daryl scoffs darkly.
"No," the man agrees. "They are not."
Ghosts they know. Ghosts they all know. Not as lethal as the dead, but more formidable to be rid of. A strike to the skull, and a biting clawing creature's brought down; the hauntings of the past have no such undoing. Ghosts are the traces of the life once lived with people now gone. Broken pieces of conversations, smiles, touches, shared triumphs and losses. Names are ghosts now, as are voices. The things a person could not have done any differently – the fallings short of intervening, of rescue. All these things linger, follow, shadow. Those still breathing exist alive amongst it; alive amidst the dead risen, and the fallen living.
If anybody had cared to, this might have been the moment in which they spoke together of losses – family that's been killed, friends forever gone – but no one does. Those stories, shared too openly, shared too often, cease to bear the weight they should, and leave the tellers none the better for the telling. This far in, loss is a given. There are easier, more precise, less invasive means for building foundations and familiarity. A loss of a person never known cannot be fittingly felt, and traipsing out the deaths of others, without context, without knowing purpose, is just not done. Memories, now past invaluable, needs be protected against bankruptcy and banality.
They talk instead of food. Of the weather. Of the road and the condition of their boots and of their coats. They talk about their weapons. The distinct scent of the grill infuses the air as Walter mends the strappings on his pack and Daryl wipes clean the metal prepping surface. He dumps the animal remains in a pail he disposes of in the outer hall while Beth rations oil into the skillet. She adds two pinches of salt, a sprinkling of cracked pepper, and two generous shakes of onion powder. As she works she senses silent eyes on her, following her hands, but Beth does not look up; she lets the woman be, and proceeds with the jobs before her, the jobs she can do. She can prepare this dinner.
In some time more their noses fill with the sizzling aroma of cooking meat. The rice takes longer, much longer than the rest of the meal, as first the coals had to ignite and burn, the water allowed to boil, then the rice to cook. Simon stirs the meat and green beans, then, as filler, to spread the meal out across the six of them, he elects to mix in some of the chestnuts they'd roasted the night before, and then a third of a can of cannellini beans. When he's satisfied, he serves the meat and veggies in six equal parts for them to eat while the rice continues to cook.
For the first time since their meeting the group sits, three on the floor, one in the room's single chair, and Simon on the bed, where he can easily rise to tend the coals and the cooking rice. Daryl alone remains standing. Beth imagines this has something to do with the newcomers. Daryl, she knows, though so well defined by action, is a creature of comfort, when it can be come by. Much like a dog, when not on alert, Daryl sprawls his battle-ready body any place it pleases him. Now he leans against a wall, shoveling his food, making quiet observations.
"It's good," Walter nods, swallowing his first bite. "Thank you."
People eat, chew, swallow. "A lot of it's yours," Beth points out, her fork nearing her lips.
"We never—" Walter stirs his food around some "—bother much with seasoning, and all. Haven't planned a meal in ages."
"It helps," Simon says before swallowing another bite. "Morale, dignity…" He swallows. "Distraction."
"'Helps,'" the man nods. He takes another bite. "It certainly does."