A United Front Chapter Four

He was on the run again and he hated it.

Daryl Dixon sat in the seat beside Andrea and watched small portions of the world become briefly illuminated in the beams of the headlights before passing by. Mostly it was just flashes of the back of Michonne’s Jeep with the rusty old license plate, a remnant from a world they would never see again, or the occasional leaves in the road as the first leaves began to fall. Up ahead, visible as two red distant red dots in the dark, was the RV that Beth rode in. He wished she was with him now, but he knew she needed time to be with her family.

“She’s fine,” Andrea said, reading his expression.

“I know,” he answered, not bothering to deny that Beth was at the center of this thoughts, among other things.

“So what’s got you down?”

“We’re running again. Not exactly what I wanted right now,” he said. “I’d hoped we’d be settled in for the winter.”

Andrea nodded. “Uh-huh. I thought we’d be there this winter, too, but I’m wasn’t looking forward to it. Winter last year in that house was hard.”

“How so?”

“We kept having to go out for firewood to keep warm and we kept attracting walkers. It’s a tough place to defend. If a big enough herd had come through we would have been helpless to keep them from tearing their way in to get at us.”

“You think this school that Sasha mentioned will be any better?”

Andrea heaved a sigh and shrugged. “I hope so, Daryl. I’m as tired of running as you are.”

*****

Up ahead, in the RV, Beth sat at the tiny table across from her father. She felt that kind of tired that could only follow an adrenaline rush. She gazed at her father, who stared out of the window at the impenetrable darkness. There were no streetlights anymore to give indication where they were traveling. There were no porch lights on to show that the world was populated with people making and raising families, paying the bills, and just living and loving until they grew old and died.

So much had changed in the year since she’d last seen her father. His hair was long and in a ponytail. He had a full beard and mustache. His eyes were the same, still capable of kindness, but they’d seen so much death, so much destruction, they’d hardened just a little. She reached out and touched his hand and he turned to her with a smile.

“Bethie,” he said, smiling at her with deep fondness. “My baby girl.”

“I missed you so much,” she said quietly.

“I missed you too. I went back to look for you,” he said. “I don’t want you to ever think I gave up on your for even a moment.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“What happened after we were separated?”

“Well, I was on the road for a few days. Then Andrea found me.”

He nodded. “She’s the pretty young blond woman?”

Beth smiled. “You old rascal.”

Hershel laughed. “I’m old, I’m not dead.”

She nodded and took his hand in both of hers. She could feel his pulse, steady and strong, in her palm. “God I missed you. I missed Maggie. The camp that we were in was a brutal one. The Governor, the man who ran the place…he allowed the men to rape women if they hadn’t been claimed by a man.”

Her father squeezed her hand. “Beth, what are you saying?”

“I wasn’t raped. I swear I wasn’t, Daddy. Daryl claimed me. He gave me his token so no other man could touch me.”

“That’s how that place was run? You were trapped in a place like that?”

She nodded. “It was a terrible place, but I was safe after Daryl took me in. He didn’t hurt me,” she said, not being entirely truthful. The first time he’d taken her had been rough. She’d been confused by how she could be so aroused and yet so disappointed at once. She knew he'd been rough because of the alcohol, but he'd never been rough with her again -- unless she asked for it rough. She’d sensed goodness in Daryl and he’d never given her reason to believe otherwise.

“Rick says he’s a good man.”

“He’s the best. Second only to you.”

“You truly love him?”

Beth nodded. “With all my heart.”

She pulled out the token she’d insisted on keeping. It had DD burned into the wood. Her father touched it with a frown to his face.

“It reminds me of how cruel this world can be. It also reminds me that there are good people left in it. I want to marry Daryl, Daddy. I want to take his name and have his children.”

He smiled wanly. “You’re too young yet to think like that, Bethie.”

“It’s not like this is a world where I’ll have all the time to do all those things when I'm older because I may never be older. I hate that I have to rush it, but I will. We could all be dead tomorrow. I may not have kids yet, but I intend to get married. I want your blessing.”

Daryl hadn’t done a whole lot to earn Hershel’s trust yet. He’d fought for their group, though, and Hershel had no doubt that in reality Daryl hadn’t fought so much for the group as a whole as he had for Beth’s safety. To Hershel, that made Daryl a man who deserved a chance.

Regardless of what he may come to think of Daryl Dixon, one thing was for sure: his baby girl loved him. If she wanted to get married and take the man’s name then Hershel wasn’t going to stand in her way. Her happiness meant more to him than traditions and ideals about age differences that no longer mattered.

“Of course you have my blessing.”

Beth smiled happily and leaned across the table to kiss him and hug him. She sat back down, fiddled with the token, and then slipped it back into her shirt. It made her feel close to Daryl. It made her remember his hands on her body and she was anxious to find a place for them to call their own so she could be close to him again without fear of an attack.

*****

The school in question was a long, one story building with an entrance directly in the center. It read Berkshire Academy for Boys on the sign out front. Every window was dark. It looked like a crouching beast in the first rays of dawn.

The building looked old. It was made of hand-laid stone and the gate was cast iron and chained shut. Several walkers meandered in the overgrown yard and on the cobblestone road that led to the roundabout drive.

“Rich kids went here,” Daryl said.

Rick nodded. He saw, heartbreakingly, that a lot of the walkers were boys in uniforms, ranging in ages between fourteen and eighteen. A couple of the walkers looked like they had probably taught at the school.

“How many you count?”

“Six,” Daryl said. “That we can see.”

Rick organized teams. Dale had a set of bolt cutters that they used to open the gate. He, Daryl, Tyreese, Glenn, Michonne, and Maggie went in together. They each took a walker down and then broke into two separate groups. Rick, Daryl, and Maggie went left, while Tyreese, Glenn, and Michonne headed right. They would go around to the back and clear any walkers they found there.

“They’re wearing fucking nametags,” Daryl said.

Rick nodded in understanding. Knowing the name of the walker made it personal. All the kids had those stupid paper Hello, my name is stickers on their chests. Rick wondered if they’d put those on to be identified in some kind of rescue operation, to make sure the kids could be identified should their parents or friends of the family came looking for them. Whatever the reason, they all had names. They were suddenly people and not just dead things.

They were children.

The grounds would need cutting if they were going to set up residence here and try to farm. Rick thought about finding push mowers that would do the job quietly as he rounded the building. In the back he came up short. There were easily fifteen walkers in the back.

“You notice what I notice?” Rick asked. “They’re all wearing uniforms. That means the wall is probably secure and outsiders haven’t wandered in.”

Daryl nodded. “We’re gonna have to use the guns. That’ll be noisy.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Maggie said.

“Be ready to fall back if we get overrun,” Rick said, and then motioned to Tyreese to move forward.

The job was dangerous but it went fast. After taking half the walkers out from a distance with guns, they took out the others with their knives.

“I’m gonna check the wall. Y’all look in the windows. See if you see walkers in the classrooms.”

They nodded and Daryl noticed Maggie decided to come along with him to check the wall. “That guy Bethie’s with,” she said, nodding in Daryl’s direction. “He’s okay?”

Rick knew she was asking on behalf of her sister, Beth. “Yeah,” Rick nodded. “He’s very all right. He’d die to save Beth. He loves her.”

“Well, I’ll give him a chance, then,” she said, and continued on with him to the wall.

*****

They’d found the classrooms clear. The large bathroom in the center of the building, which had six stalls, had also been found clear. It wasn’t until they went to the double doors directly across from the main entrance, beside the bathroom, that they discovered the doors chained.

Inside, the room, whatever its use had been, was black as pitch, which meant there were no windows in it, but Rick pressed his face to the narrow glass viewport that a walker made itself known. It was a small one, no older than fourteen, his son’s age. He’d been slight in life, not having reached a growth spurt yet, or, perhaps he’d gotten as tall as he ever would at about five feet two inches. Either way, it bothered Rick to look into the filmy eyes of someone whose life had ended so young. Its mouth snapped hungrily, and Rick had to stomp down on any paternal instincts that arose in his chest. There was nothing he could do to help this boy.

Rick’s eyes wandered to the tag on the front of the boys crimson vest. The white shirt and gray tie under it had long ago been stained by the noisome fluids of decay, but the tags were still legible. Rick touched the glass and the boys hand reached out to claw at Rick’s palm from the other side. He didn’t fool himself into believing that the boy responded with any humanity left in his rotted, wasted mind.

“I’m sorry, Cristobal,” Rick said quietly.

Others had joined Cristobal at the doors to pound furiously on the other side.

“How many you think is in there?” Tyreese asked.

“No way of knowing. I think we can let a few out at a time,” he said. “Tyrese, you and Glenn keep the doors closed. Maggie, Sasha, be ready to help if too many press to get out and they can’t get the doors shut. Michonne, Daryl and I will cut down the ones that come out.”

They nodded their agreement and got ready to do the gruesome job. Rick made certain that when little Cristobal came through the door, he would be the one to take him down.

*****

The room turned out to be the entrance to the gymnasium. After the thirty walkers, all of them students with the exception of three, were killed and hauled from the building to be burned later that evening, Daryl caught up with Beth and chose a room for them to take over. The classrooms were full of desks that would have to be moved out, but for now they set up their bedrolls on the floor.

“Rick wants me to help out with kitchen inventory,” Daryl said.

“Rick can wait a second. I’ve barely spoken ten words to you since I found my family. I miss you,” she said, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “What do you think of them?”

“I like them. They seem nice enough.”

“I think they like you too.”

Daryl snorted. “They think I’m too old for you. They’re right.”

“No they’re not,” Beth said, without hesitation. “They’ll get used to the age gap. We did.”

She smiled up at him, looking so young and innocent, and God knew she was sweet to her core. He couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out what she saw in him, or why she loved him, but she did. She did, and that was all Daryl cared about.

He brushed his lips against hers lightly. She tried to deepen the kiss but he pulled back. “I’ve really got to get to work. We’ll have time for this later.”

“Yes, we will. Make love to me tonight.”

He nodded and kissed her softly before she begrudgingly let him go.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too,” he answered.

They’d been saying it for a while but it never got old to either one of them.

Daryl found Rick, Tyreese, and Dale in the kitchen, which was just off the gymnasium. The dining hall, which was in back of the gymnasium, had been set up with tables that could hold four students per table. Rick estimated that a hundred students at a time could sit down to eat.

“Oh, my God,” Dale said, as he emerged from the walk in pantry.

“What?” Rick asked in alarm.

Dale motioned at it and said, “You gotta see it to believe it.”

Rick shoved past him. He was in no mood from drama and he hoped Dale wasn’t prone to such behavior usually. Daryl followed, as did Tyrese. Rick soon understood the look of wide-eyed disbelief on Dale’s face. The pantry looked as though it had been fully stocked with canned and dry goods before the Turn. Every shelf was laden with food. Green beans, corn, tuna, and a variety of other vegetables lined the shelves, in addition to gigantic containers of peanut butter, and other containers of jelly. There were huge bags of beans of varying type also stored, as well as fruits. There were huge bags of sugar, salt, pepper, spices, flour, cornmeal, as well as canisters of oats and grits. There had been potatoes that had rotted long ago. They’d clear that mess out later.

“This will last us all winter if we’re careful,” Tyreese pointed out.

“I know.”

“It’s dark and cool in here,” Daryl said. “Smell those rotten potatoes. God, I can imagine what the freezer is going to be like. Rotten meat, eggs, spoilt milk and butter...”

Rick heaved a sigh. “Yeah, you're right, but we gotta look.”

****

Andrea, with Glenn, Sasha, and Dale as a guard, went to the river and brought back fish to be their meat for dinner. The school had several full tanks of propane that would operate the stoves and Maggie, it turned out, was a good cook, as were Beth and Carol. They went to work in the kitchen, and when dinner came round they sat down to a good meal actually seasoned with spices and salt and peppered to taste. It was the best meal Rick had eaten, literally, in years. They even had chocolate cake for dessert. They were all giddy with their find and Rick allowed them the night to enjoy it.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow,” he said. “So, for tonight, go to the rooms you’ve selected to get some rest. I need three people to volunteer for guard duty.”

Tyreese, Dale, and Andrea all volunteered. Rick wasn’t surprised Daryl didn’t considering Beth all but dragged him away from the dining room. He had a pretty good idea what they were heading off to do, and he thought of Michonne, wishing he could do the same.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“I know you put my stuff in your room, but you should keep that room with Michonne. I want my own room.”

“I don’t know, son,” Rick said. “We don’t really know this place that well.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m old enough to have my own room. I’ll board my window up in the morning. I’ll be safe,” he insisted.

Things were going so well between them that Rick didn’t want to risk a fight. He gave in and nodded. “Okay, but you hear anything suspicious you come get me.”

“Promise.”

“I’ve had a lucky find,” said Hershel, entering the dining room. “The shower room. They’re well stocked with soap. I tried the water. It’s functional.”

“How is that?” asked Maggie.

“This school has a water tower and a pumping system. I’m guessing they drew water from the river rather than the city and filtered it themselves. The filtration system won’t work, of course, but if we can find a way to manually operate the pump we can have running water. Unfortunately it’ll be cold, but a cold shower is better than no shower.”

“We’ll work on that tomorrow,” Rick said, and then headed out to begin his watch. The school had a lot of potential. He just hoped he and his group could make a stand in it when the fight with the living inevitably came their way.



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