Twice as Far: A Week Later, Part 2.
It takes me five minutes to collect my things. I find my rifle lying on a shelf in the armoury, a thin layer of dust over its frame. Olivia's huffing and humming at me when I sign it out myself. Daryl managed to get our weapons back from the slaughterhouse before they burnt to smoke and ash... I don't take my beretta, though. I can't take it because it looks strange and reminds me of a time before I killed someone I knew. I take my victim's gun instead. Paula's handgun. It's bigger than my beretta 70— heavier —and it feels good in my hands. Too big to go in my old holster, I shove the new gun in the front of my jeans.
Convincing people takes less time than I thought. Maggie's in her office and just nods at me with a hazed look in her eye when I tell her that I'm going. Glenn seems uneasy, but I tell him that it's how I want it. And he tells me, "okay."
Glenn's been different since we got back last week. He's always checking in on me and making me food and saying things like 'take your time,' and 'no worries, man.'
I think I like it.
At least it feels better than how everyone else talks to me.
Abraham is waiting at the gate with Eugene, patience not being one of his virtues.
"I've seen a camel crap keys quicker than you get your damn stilettos on."
Rick's at the gate, too. His foot tapping up and down against the road, his arms folded disapprovingly.
"I'm going," I grumble at him before he can speak.
"I know."
So ready for an argument, I struggle to hold back on all the angry facial expressions that I practised on the walk over here.
Rick lets a sigh go.
"You were out of order back there," Rick tells me.
I stay quiet, not wanting to push what sparse luck I have left.
Rick keeps glaring at me until I realise what he's waiting for.
"Sorry, Sir," I say quickly and quietly.
Rick grinds his teeth audibly, then he nods.
"You're sure your ribs are feelin' okay?"
I nod.
"Stay safe, Rhys."
Carl's here as well.
"I'm—" I start.
"Don't say sorry," he tells me.
I nod again.
"Do you want me to come?"
I squint at him, the sun in my eyes. "I think I need to do it on my own... is that okay?"
"It is," he nods. Then he's hugging me. "Love you."
We leave at the same time that Rosita and Daryl do with Denise and Mikey. I'm pretty stunned when Rosita tells me Mikey's going with them. They're driving an old beat-up truck, its number plate rattling as it hangs to the bumper by a loose screw. We drive behind them, and I swear I can see Rosita staring at me out the rear window, but we turn off before them, and I lose sight of the truck past some trees, heading towards a small town in the direction of DC.
We're in a truck too, and the one Abraham picked out for us is a stick shift. He keeps swearing at it. The truck shuts up for a few seconds before spluttering again. Then Abe is swearing at it again.
"I think you need to stop disengaging it so soon," I call over the sound of grinding gears. The three of us stuffed into the front of the truck.
"What?" Abrahams yells back, glancing at me out the corner of his eye.
"The stick... you're disengaging it too soon. You need to—"
"I know how to manage wheels this size," Abraham barks over another splutter of black smoke coming out the exhaust. "What makes you think you can drive better?"
"Rick and Spencer have been teaching Mikey and me... Carl, too, since he's woken up."
"Well, young sir, I was driving a much more significant rig than this hunk of mule crap back when it was just me, Rosita, and Eugene."
"That wasn't a stick," Eugene murmurs.
"Excuse me!?" Abraham's back to barking, upset at his skills being questioned.
"I ain't taking up team with you or he... I'm just letting you know— that truck was an AM General M926... a heavy lady to handle. She sure as heck's handbasket did not operate on a stick shift."
"I know what model it was," Abraham growls.
I sink into my seat at this point, regretting speaking up.
"My point," Abraham scowls at us both. "It was a hell of a lot harder to drive that than this, so check yourselves and stop checking me."
-Mikey's POV-
After Rhys' group peels off down a different road behind them, Rosita pulls away from the window and slumps back into her seat, staring forward and making an impatient clicking sound with her mouth.
With the four squished shoulder to shoulder in the truck's cabin, Mikey can quite literally feel Daryl's fury towards the vehicle as it squeaks and churns at him as he attempts to change gears.
It does not seem to help when Denise tries giving him pointers.
"I've been driving stick since I was fifteen," Denise says when Daryl glares through his fringe at her. "Usually beat-up trucks like this." She pauses. "I mean before— you know... before I left home."
The gears keep grinding, and the truck won't stop stalling. Daryl's staying silent. Rosita stares out the window to the neighbourhood we're driving through. It reminds Mikey of where he grew up a little. Neat rows of white decked houses and orderly flowers that grow in bursting arrays of colour. Only this neighbourhood's houses are dirty and decaying, and their flower beds are either trampled or overgrown.
But he can still see what it was.
"My big brother taught me," Denise says to Mikey out of the blue.
"Taught you to drive?" he asks.
She nods. "Just like yours taught you."
"Rick taught me, too," Mikey says.
Daryl glances at Denise, and she repeats what she said to him.
"My brother taught me, so I just know."
They pull away from the lifeless housing and onto a quieter road that leads downhill, with grassy knolls on either side. There's a fallen tree blocking the road ahead.
Rosita points to it. "Daryl."
"Yep," he sighs.
The car grinds to a stop a few feet away, parked on a train track crossing. The road ahead isn't visible past the green leaves of the freshly dropped tree.
"Stay here," Daryl grumbles, pointing a threatening finger at Denise and Mikey before he and Rosita step out of the car, slamming their doors behind them.
The two left behind watch quietly— holding their breaths as Daryl scans the tree line with his shotgun raised.
His crossbow still has yet to be replaced since being stolen by some survivors that ambushed him before the horde attacked Alexandria.
Denise keeps glancing over her shoulder like she's scared the car seats might try to bite her if she stops paying it attention. Mikey thinks then that she might be the only person alive less used to this world than him.
"Was your brother funny?" Mikey asks her.
She gives him a look, leaning back a little at the odd question.
"I just— I think you're pretty funny," Mikey tells her. "Wondered if you got it from your brother."
She smiles, still nervous in her eyes.
"He wasn't," she tells him. "He was brave, and he made me feel safe... but he wasn't exactly funny."
"Do you miss him?"
"Constantly," Denise smiles. "He's probably the only person that made me feel that way— really safe."
"Same with my brother, I think," he tells her.
"Spencer?"
"No," Mikey shakes his head. "Aiden."
"Are you brave because he was brave?" Denise asks, flipping his own question on him in a very therapist kind of way.
"No... I'm not brave."
Denise smirks. "Well, then I'm not funny."
"What was his name?" Mikey asks.
Denise smiles at him. "Dennis."
Mikey gives her a funny look.
"Yeah," she sighs, obviously unamused by it. "Our parents came up with it on one of their benders... Hilarious, right?"
Mikey looks back out of the window and watches Rosita kill a walker trapped beneath the fallen tree, taking a plastic bag from a backpack it's wearing.
"Why'd you come out here?" he asks, not shifting his eyes. "If you're so scared of the dead, I mean."
Denise is looking at Daryl like she's answering Mikey's question.
Rosita yanks the passenger door open.
Denise jumps with a yip, making Mikey jump too by proximity.
"Come on, it's clear," Rosita tells them.
The two both clamber out the same door. Mikey looks up at the sky to light spits of rain patting against his pale cheeks.
"What'd you find?" Denise looks at the bag Rosita got, clearly taking note of how much it's rattling.
"Bottles of booze." She holds up the bag to more clatters of glass. "Any takers?"
Mikey thinks about the last time he was drunk and starts to feel ill.
"No thanks," Denise declines, fumbling with her map and machete.
"For later," Rosita laughs. "I'm not bringing these to the pantry."
"I'm good," Denise shakes her head. "They were kind of my parents' thing. Which is why they aren't mine."
"Same here," Mikey nods. "But they're Spencer's thing."
"Truck ain't making it past this tree," Daryl says, breaking up the conversation and tossing Rosita her bag from the back of the truck. "Come on, let's walk."
"Hold up," Denise calls as she stares at her map, finally freeing up her hands when she realises she should holster the machete. "Looks like a straight shot if we follow the tracks."
"No," Daryl grimaces. "No tracks. We'll take the road."
Rosita holds up a hand in gesture. "That's twice as far."
"Go whichever way you like," Daryl growls, his long hair getting damp as the rain starts to pick up and thunder crackles overhead. "I ain't taking no tracks."
With that Daryl disappears around the tree with his shotgun and orange backpack.
Denise follows him.
"We should stick together," she tells Rosita as she beats her way past the tree branches.
Mikey watches as Rosita holds her head for a second before straightening her ponytail and zipping up her jacket. She takes the track. Mikey quickly follows after her.
-Rhys' POV-
We've broken down.
Abraham curses over the engine for a little while, muttering about how he can fix it. But after a couple of minutes, we end up just going on foot, the town only a few miles out.
The stench of death is hot and overwhelming when we arrive. The streets are quiet like most other towns are now. Eugene leads us down identical-looking ally after identical-looking ally, eventually reaching one where he makes a satisfied 'hmm' noise. Thunder starts to rumble, and rain has begun to slip from pocketed clouds. Abraham's staring at Eugene as we walk down the alley.
"I see you've tied back your Tennessee waterfall there," Abe finally says to Eugene.
Eugene touches his hair, once mullet, now ponytail.
To be honest, I hadn't noticed.
"I won't lie. I liked it. I may very well miss it," Eugene says. "The feeling of the billowy curtain catching the breeze some days was straight-up bliss. But brass tacks— the hair doesn't make the man, the man makes the man."
"You've been taking up guard duty, too," I point out. "Getting Rosita to teach you how to fight."
"All that," Abraham nods at me, "and he's changing up the hairstyle... not to mention swigging some swagger with the ladies... spittin' game—"
"You don't spit game," Eugene interrupts, "you are game."
"Man seems to be changing," Abraham nods again, ruffling raindrops out his flat top. "Makes me curious what that's about."
Abraham stops. We stop too. He raises a bushy orange eyebrow in Eugene's direction, waiting for an answer.
"It's simple, really," Eugene shrugs. "As with any RPG— tabletop, electronic, or otherwise —the key to survival is allowing oneself to be shaped by the assigned environment. In doing so, a broad range of capabilities are acquired, allowing one to flip the script and use said capabilities to shape said environment for maximum longevity."
Abraham understands every word. I guess he's spent enough time with Eugene. I suppose I have, too, since I'm not lost either.
Eugene clarifies anyway. "I'm saying I'm in the process of said stage two. I've changed, adapted. I'm a survivor."
Thunder rumbles in the distance. Abraham nods a final time, not looking convinced by Eugene's speech. "Keep telling yourself that."
He keeps walking, and I follow. Eugene takes the insult too literally and repeats the last part again.
Eugene stays a little behind us, perhaps not catching up to prove his words.
Abraham asks me something.
"What about you, young sir?"
"Me?"
Abraham smirks down at me. I fold my arms into my chest, feeling assessed.
"Are you a survivor?" he asks.
I think about that. Not sure if it's a question I can answer.
"I guess. I'm alive— others aren't."
Abraham nods, not commenting.
"Why?" I frown at him, changing my folded arms to hugging myself, the rain turning my skin cold.
"Last time we traded tales, you were running from something. Pissed at yourself for killing and not letting it hang too heavy," Abraham pauses. "I know you took down a hostile back at that slaughterhouse."
"I did."
Abraham rubs his chin with a look of confusion on his face like he's lost in what he's trying to say.
I wait.
He finds his point.
"You were running before. Back when you killed that asshole at the train-track steakhouse. You ran from the people you were holdin' nearest and dearest." He shrugs. "You doin' that again?"
"No," I answer a little too quickly. I roll my eyes at the sceptical look Abraham shoots my way. "It's not the same as it was then."
"Why's that?" he asks.
"Because," I sigh, "back then was back then... and I was right back then... right to run. I was scared of what Carl would think of me... I told him as much. I told him that I was scared he'd feel differently about me if he knew I was a killer. The night before we left for the satellite station Carl said he wasn't sure if I enjoyed killing. So yeah, I was right back then."
"Do you?" Abraham sniffles rainwater from his moustache. "Enjoy killing."
I glare at him.
"What?" he shrugs. "I enjoy it. At least, I'm good at it."
"Well, I don't."
"Guys!"
Eugene's call stops us. We turn to see him standing at a door in the lengthy alley we've been patrolling.
He grins at us. "This is it."
A/N
Kinda find it funny that Rhys is travelling with his old kind-of-therapist, while Mikey's travelling with a literal therapist.
Gonna drop the next time's for this arc, just cos it's all kind of one thing.
:)