Winter Pt 1

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Rick Grimes pulled the collar of his coat up against a frigid breeze and searched the yard for any sign of weakness. He knew he would find nothing amiss but habit wouldn’t let him walk past without at least a cursory glance for a breach in the fences. As he turned away to head for the main entrance he saw an older gentleman, a Woodbury survivor, waving a piece of paper and trotting his way.

Geoffrey Barry was a nice enough man if not a bit of a hopeless geek. He’d been an engineer with an abiding love of science and mechanics before the world went to shit. He could also come off as a little condescending because of his intellect and that earned him the cold shoulder from most of the others. Rick never paid attention to Geoff’s impatience with those he deemed too dull-witted to understand him. The man had solved, after all, their sewage problems, and that had earned Rick’s respect and tolerance.

“Good thing I caught you, Sheriff,” Geoff said breathlessly. He, like the Woodbury survivors, insisted on giving him some kind of title. They’d called Phillip Blake the Governor. Now they called him Sheriff regardless of how many times he told them to call him Rick. He eventually just gave up.

“What have you got there, Geoff?”

“I was down in the new infirmary, helping Dr. Stevens and Hershel set up their equipment, when I lucked upon all of this!”

He showed Rick a list of equipment. Rick couldn’t quite put together what kind of machine the parts would make. Impatiently Geoff supplied the answer. “I can make a turbine! It’ll be primitive, and operated by manpower, but it would work. We have some other parts from Woodbury that I can use to make high powered capacitors -- you know, big batteries -- that will store the energy to be used at night, for instance. I think we have enough parts that volunteers could take turns moving the turbine, these huge wheels here,” he said, illustrating what looked like wagon wheels on the paper, “and that would charge the batteries enough to run for about twenty hours out of every day.”

Rick was impressed and nodded. “This is a great idea, Geoff, but there’s only one problem: we have generators we can’t use because the noise will attract walkers. How much noise would this make?”

“If we put it in a room beside the infirmary it won’t be audible outside at all. We could cook inside, we could use the freezers to store meat that the hunters bring home.”

He looked proud and rightfully so. Rick clapped him on the shoulder. “Use all the help you need. Just remember to be patient with people who don’t catch on as quick as you can.”

Geoff nodded and then headed off, scribbling on his paper with the stump of pencil he normally kept tucked behind one ear, passing right by Daryl Dixon without noticing him in the slightest.

“What’s got his panties in a twist?” Daryl asked.

“He’s not upset, he’s happy,” Rick said, starting back toward the prison with Daryl. He explained Geoff’s idea and Daryl nodded approval.

“If the egghead actually does it he’s right, we’ll have meat year round, not just in the dead of winter. Listen, you sure you don’t want me to come along on this run? You’re going out further than you ever have before.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine. We’ll keep moving. At the first sign of trouble we’ll turn back.”

Rick stopped in front of the truck and watched Glenn, Karen, and a young man named Pete connect a trailer to the hitch. The bed of the truck was roomy but they didn’t want to have to make multiple trips away from the relative safety of the prison. They would pack everything they could into the truck and the trailer and make whatever they retrieved last as long as possible.

“I can’t believe I ever complained about have to make a run to the store after seven o’clock,” Maggie reminisced. She loaded two five gallon cans of gas into the bed of the truck and secured them with a bungee.

“It would be heaven to have a shopping mall, wouldn’t it?” said Karen.

“We’ve got them. They’re just overrun by zombies who want to eat you alive,” Carl commented.

Daryl looked at Rick, about to make the same argument he’d made the first time he’d heard Carl was going on this run. Rick preempted him with “My decision stands.”

Daryl nodded once. “You’re the boss.”

“You think I can’t take care of myself?” Carl said, a little aggressively. He’d been getting attitude about everything since the Woodbury survivors joined them at the prison.

Daryl took it in stride and held up his hands. “Never said you couldn’t, big man. Never said you couldn’t.”

“Carl!”

Ricks eyes were drawn to Maggie’s younger sister, Beth Greene. She was only two years older than Carl but she may as well have had a decade on him as far as maturity went. Carl would soon turn thirteen, Beth would be fifteen in two days. Rick suspected that a lot of Carl’s attitude had a lot to do with wishing to impress Beth since she was one of the few girls close to his own age. He crossed the yard and accepted something from Beth before kissing her lightly on the lips.

“When did that start?” Rick wondered.

“You think that’s something? You should’ve seen what I broke up a couple of days ago,” Daryl said.

Rick whipped around to face Daryl. “You didn’t say anything?”

“They weren’t full on, Rick. It was harmless enough, just a couple of kids kissin’. I figured it was his business just as long as they didn’t go too far.”

“You see them doing anything serious I want to know. The last thing we need is a pregnant girl whose still a child herself.”

Daryl nodded and started off toward the prison entrance. Rick noticed the lingering look he cast in Karen’s direction and wondered what their situation was. He didn’t make it a point to put a finger in everybody’s pie but he didn’t want Carol to get hurt. She was a good woman and she’d suffered enough already with the loss of her daughter.

After Michonne arrived Rick ordered everyone into the van. “Maggie, you drive. Michonne and Karen will sit up front with you. The boys and I will ride in back.”

Glenn tossed Maggie the keys to the truck as she joked, “If we run into danger you want the girls to get it first, huh?”

“Ladies first,” Rick came back. “Just because society has gone to hell doesn’t mean women’s lib needs to take a step backward.”

Michonne caught his eye with a smirk. He watched her climb into the truck, allowing his eyes to wander lower where her khaki trousers pulled at her full, wonderfully round bottom. She had, Rick thought, been catching his eye a lot lately. He tried not to feel guilty about it when he considered his wife Lori had only been dead five months.

Rick climbed into the back and ignored Carl’s resentful glare. Apparently his son had a habit of watching him watching Michonne, and it was clear he didn’t like what he saw in his father’s eyes.

The gates were pulled open and Maggie drove through, taking them from the safety of home and numbers and out into the rotted nightmare the world had become. Every time he left those gates he prayed he’d return. One of these days, he thought, as he watched the naked winter trees zoom past the grimy back window of the truck, he would leave and never come back. He’d end up in the belly of some walker. Death itself didn’t scare Rick so much as the idea of leaving his boy without either of his parents. Rick reached out to touch his son’s hand. 
Carl pulled away.




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