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If Rick
was honest he couldn’t have cared less about Christmas than he did at that
moment. He wasn’t in a Christmas state of mind. He was geared more toward
Valentine’s Day, and would rather have received a visit from Cupid than Santa.
Tara’s enthusiasm had awakened Judith who now cried, irritated at having been
roused from sleep. Rick picked her up.
“Have you
told Carl?” Michonne asked.
“No, just
you.”
“Don’t,”
Michonne said.
Rick was
curious now. “Why not?”
“I want
it to be a surprise. We can get everything together and tell him tomorrow
morning. Then he can help us decorate in the evening. We’ll trim the tree. He’ll
love it.”
Rick and
Tara nodded in agreement. “That’s a wonderful surprise,” said Rick.
“That’s
if they have any decorations here,” Tara said. “Think they’ll be in the attic?”
“We’ll
find out. You have Judith?”
Rick
nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got her.”
They went
down the hall to the TV room to find that Rambo
was playing instead of The Duchess.
“What
happened to the other movie?” Michonne asked.
Rosita
clucked her tongue and shot Abraham a suspicious glare. “The DVD wasn’t in the
case.”
“I told
you, I didn’t do anything to that damn movie!” Abraham said defensively.
Neither Rosita, Maggie, nor Sasha looked convinced. Glenn and Daryl smirked.
“I have
news,” Tara said excitedly. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.”
She was
alarmed when Maggie and Daryl shared a glance and then Maggie teared up.
“Okay,
not the reaction I was expecting…”
“Christmas
was Beth’s favorite holiday,” Maggie explained.
“Ty’s,
too,” Sasha said sadly.
“Carol
loved it as well,” Daryl added.
“Oh. I
guess you don’t want to see if there are decorations then,” Tara said.
Maggie
took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes. “No. That’s exactly what we should
do. Beth, Ty, and Carol wouldn’t want us to sulk. They’d want us to celebrate.”
Rick
settled in with Glenn, Abraham, and Daryl to watch the movie while the women
all filed out and headed upstairs to the attic entrance. The mood had shifted,
though, and Michonne felt sorry for her friends as they faced their first
Christmas without their loved ones. She’d long since adjusted to the holidays
coming and going and not celebrating them at all, much less grieving for lost loved ones in the process.
Once they
reached the attic they began rummaging through everything but came up short.
“How
weird,” Sasha said, bewildered. “They’ve got Valentine’s Day, Easter, even
Fourth of July stuff but nothing for Christmas.”
“Maybe it’s
in the basement? I mean, this place is pretty packed with junk,” Maggie
suggested.
“I didn’t
mean to interrupt, earlier,” Tara said with a mischievous grin on her face.
Maggie
and Sasha turned their gaze toward Michonne, curious.
“Inerrupt
what?” asked Sasha.
“Rick
rubbing Michonne’s leg, looking deeply into her eyes before she sighed and
almost moaned while he watched,” Tara reported.
“Ooooh!”
the other women said, laughing.
“Do tell!”
Maggie demanded, her smile real. It was worth the ribbing she’d have to take
just to see them all happy and smiling.
“It was
nothing,” Michonne said, blowing it off. “My ankle was still sore from when I
twisted it.”
“Uh-huh,”
Rosita said with open skepticism, making the other women laugh.
“You
should have seen her,” Tara said, pushing the ladder back up so they could
close off the attic.
“I’ll
bet,” said Sasha. “Rick’s a hottie.”
“You should
see him clean shaven,” said Maggie. “Hot doesn’t begin to describe it.”
“He
looked pretty damn yummy when it was trimmed,” Sasha said, remembering Rick as
he was when she first met him.
“Like
Daryl isn’t yummy?” Michonne said, trying to deflect.
“Oh, yes,
he’s yummy,” Sasha agreed. “But this isn’t about me and Daryl, it’s about you
and Rick. Please tell me you took advantage of sharing that room with him.”
“Rick and
I are just friends. And he’s sleeping in the twin bed to give Judy and me room.”
“You didn’t
get into the little bed?” Rosita asked, looking disappointed.
“I would
have gotten into the little bed with him, and I’m gay,” Tara said.
“You’re
just desperate,” Maggie teased, ruffling Tara’s hair.
“True,”
she agreed.
They went
into the basement and their mouths dropped open. Almost at once they rounded on
Tara, demanding why she didn’t tell them about the place.
“I was
going to. Eventually,” Tara said, looking dodgy.
The basement
had been finished with oak flooring. A desk sat in the corner with a small lamp
and a notebook computer, a Mac. There was a pool table by the opposite wall
with pool sticks lined up neatly on the wall. A full bar was across from it.
There was also a Ping-Pong table, and a foosball table in the room. Finally
there was an unopened door.
“Probably
in there,” said Maggie.
“Wait,”
Michonne said, going to the wall and taking down a pool stick to use as a
weapon. “It’s dangerous to get careless.”
Maggie nodded
and they allowed Michonne to lead the way to the door. Cautiously she opened it
up and flipped on the light, ready for anything that might lunge at them. There
weren’t any walkers inside but she was shocked at what she found.
“Go get
the guys,” she said.
…
“I’ve never seen so much toilet paper in my
whole life and I had a Sam’s Club membership,” Tara said, looking at the almost
ridiculous supply room. The house was a huge one, and the basement had been
designed to encompass the entirety of the house, and then some, making an underground
bunker that had been stuffed with supplies that could last a group three times
their size for a lifetime.
“Nick
said that the man who owned this place was a guy who’d planned for the end of
the world,” Daryl said, walking in with them and looking around. There were
rows of shelves stuffed with supplies. There was soap, toilet paper, toothpaste,
toothbrushes, and paper towels, even maxi pads and razors. There were also food
items like beans, tins of flour and cornmeal that had been vacuum packed, and
freezers that had been stuffed with things like cans of frozen juices, vacuum
sealed vegetables, and fruits of all kinds. Just about anything they needed
they had and it was packed to last years, including clothes and heavy winter
gear and feed for the animals.
“Look.
Says armory,” said Glenn.
They
headed to the door on the left of the room, half way down, and tested the
doorknob. It was unlocked. Abraham reached in and switched on the light before
throwing the door open, ready for something to attack. Instead they found the
room empty of walkers or humans, but stuffed with other things.
“Look
away ladies,” Abraham said, walking into the room with a look of rapture on his
face. “I’m about to get hard.”
Guns
lined the walls to the left and right. Automatic weapons, semi-automatic
pistols, revolvers, shotguns, and compound bows. The opposite wall was lined with
swords, daggers, and wicked looking knives and axes. Under the guns that hung
on the walls were stacks of ammunition matching the weapons.
“Grenades…”Abraham
said, caressing a crate that was stuffed full of them. He looked so happy he
could cry.
Daryl had
made a beeline for the opposite wall with Michonne right behind him to look at
the swords and knives.
In the
center of the room was a table set up with stations. “Look,” said Rick. “Molds
and equipment to manufacture ammunition.”
“Gunpowder,”
said Tara. “Loads of it.”
“This
room is a potential bomb,” Maggie said worriedly.
“Not if
the temperature and humidity is maintained. This place was setup smart,” said
Abraham. He gently set a grenade down and called everyone’s attention.
“What are
you thinking, Baby?” Rosita asked, holding a Glock in hand.
“I’m
thinking we’re gonna have to get smart about guarding this place. We’ve had it
hard on the run since this whole thing started. Now we’ve found a goldmine in
supplies and a secure location, but we don’t have numbers. Somebody gets a mind
to try to take this place we could defend it but it wouldn’t be easy.”
“If
people knew of this place they would have attacked already,” said Daryl.
“Maybe,
maybe not. We can’t take the chance,” said Rick. “We can’t afford to get too
comfortable. If you have something good there’s always somebody who wants to take
it from you. We’ve all learned that lesson the hard way, haven’t we?”
They
nodded silently in agreement. There was a part of Rick who still wanted to go
to DC just to satisfy his curiosity but now he knew the chances of the others
agreeing to leave this place vulnerable for takeover by another group was slim
to none. He didn’t blame them.
“All this
stuff didn’t help Nick’s group in the end. We’ve got to be careful, vigilant,”
said Rick. “We can make it here. We never have to leave here if we’re smart
about it.”
Glenn
sighed. “I volunteer for first duty watch tonight.”
“I’ll go
too,” said Daryl.
“Can’t we
just enjoy Christmas?” Tara asked, looking disappointed.
Rick and
Abraham shared a look. Finally Rick nodded.
“Yeah. We
can do that. After, though, we get serious about protecting this place.”
They left
the armory and returned to the finished part of the basement. In a large
cabinet they found the Christmas decorations.
“Bingo,”
said Tara happily. “All we need now is a tree.”
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