Crossing The Line Chapter Seven

The Element of Surprise

“Do you know it's been a week since you and I had some time to be truly alone?”

Michonne was leaning against a tree in the back yard of Hershel’s house when Rick came out carrying a mug of steaming coffee. She accepted the mug and then moved so Rick could slip in behind her. She breathed deep, realizing the coffee was brewed not instant, and took a sip. She sighed--it was good to have a cup of fresh coffee.

“It’s been eight days, technically. Not that I’m counting,” Michonne said, before snuggling back against Rick. The mug was nice and hot and it warmed her hands.

“Of course not.”

“Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you,” Michonne said softly. She and Rick looked at the sky. Without artificial light from the city it was easy to see the sky was dusted with glittering points of light.

“That sounded poetic.”

“It’s the words to a song I used to love. Yellow, by Coldplay,” Michonne explained. “I used to drive my roommate crazy with it.”

He rubbed her shoulders. The evening was nippy but he began to warm nicely with her pressed against him. He felt like he’d been neglecting her in the interest of earning his keep on the farm.

“Feel like fooling around?”

“If you do,” she said.

“I’d like to but honestly, I’m really tired.”

Michonne chuckled, set the mug down, and then turned enough to gaze up at him. “Me too.”

“Baby, I think age is creeping up on us,” Rick mused.

“I don’t mind as long as I’m growing old with you.”

Rick regarded her seriously. “Really?”

“Of course,” she answered, but she wondered if she was about to say something to scare him off. “Unless you don’t want--”

“No, I do. I just wasn’t sure how serious you were about this. About us. I mean…I’m gonna shut up before I totally screw this moment up.”

“You’re so cute when you stutter about your feelings,” Michonne joked, and kissed him on the cheek.

“I want you to marry me someday,” he said.

Now Michonne found herself staring at him. She loved Rick, and she knew he cared for her, but she hadn’t realized the depth of his feeling for her until now. He could be so closed off at times, and he, like a lot of men, wasn’t keen on sharing his feelings. Neither was she, to be honest, which explained why they were both so oblivious as to how deeply their feelings truly ran for one another.

“What?” he asked, feeling the pressure of her gaze.

“Yes,” she said, simply, which brought a smile to Rick’s face. “How do you think Carl will feel about it?”

“I think he’ll accept it. He loves you.”

“As crazy as Carl is about me, he may not be ready for you to have a new wife.”

“We’ll talk to him together. I know it'll be fine. I’m also gonna ask Hershel to officiate. I mean, legalities don’t mean anything anymore, only that we exchange vows in front of our friends and family.”

Michonne’s hand found its way to Rick’s crotch where she firmly massaged him. She felt him harden against her palm.

“You sure you don’t feel like fooling around? Cause this marriage proposal has me feeling frisky,” she said in a husky voice.

“I feel like it now,” said Rick. He stood up, took Michonne’s hand, and led her deeper into the privacy of the trees a few feet away.

*****

It wasn’t unusual for the Greene family to be awake long before dawn. Farm life often necessitated being up even before the rooster crowed. Beth, Maggie, Hershel, and Patricia were wide awake out of habit, while Rick and his group were awake mostly from the adrenaline in their veins.

“Have they decided who is going on this mission?” asked Beth.

“Everybody but you, Patricia, and Carl,” said Glenn. “I also don’t think Maggie is going.”

“Why ain’t I?” Maggie asked, coming in from the kitchen with an old percolator carafe full of hot, strong coffee. Not that anyone really needed it, but it would be good to have something hot on a cool morning.

“Ask Hershel,” Glenn said. “He and Rick are the ones making the decisions. I don’t have a say in the matter.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks,” Maggie said tightly. She wasn’t short with Glenn. She was short with her father who was still trying to baby her even though she was in her early thirties. “Where is he, by the way?”

“Daryl and Rick have him outside talking about something,” said Beth.

Maggie pushed through the screen door and found her father talking with Rick and Daryl on the front porch. They were looking at a man who was tied by the neck to the railing.

“Isn’t that the guy Shane shot and left in our front lawn?” Maggie said. “How is he up on his feet? He took a bullet to his chest!”

She got a proper look at her father’s face for the first time. She saw he looked pale and sick, even unsteady. His eyes were wet and red, though no tears fell.

“Daddy? What’s wrong?”

“This man is dead,” Hershel said quietly.

“He’s not dead, he’s just sick. You said so yourself.”

“If he’s not dead, how is he up on his feet with a gunshot wound to his chest?” said Hershel.

Rick and Daryl looked at Maggie with a mixture of sadness and pity.

“Well…I don’t know. You said--”

“I know what I said, Sweetheart. I was wrong,” Hershel admitted.

Maggie tried to take in what he was saying, but her mind refused to accept the evidence before her eyes. “He’s sick. One of the sick people must have come by and bit him and…”

“If he was just sick, could he survive this?” asked Daryl.

He took out his knife, approached the man, and began stabbing him over and over in the stomach.

“Stop it! Oh, God, you’ve killed him!”

“Then why ain’t he dropped? Why is he still comin’ after me?” asked Daryl.

Maggie stared at the man. He continued growling and snapping and reaching for Daryl, who stayed just out of his reach.

“But Daddy…if these people are dead and not sick then Sean and Annette…”

“I know,” said Hershel. This time tears did fall. He wiped them away and took a shaky breath. “I know.”

Maggie looked back inside, where she saw Beth and Glenn loading clips with bullets. Beth was smiling at Glenn, talking, with no idea that her mother was dead.

“What do we tell Beth?”

“We don’t tell her anything until this thing with Shane is over,” Hershel said.

He went into the house, as did Rick, leaving Maggie and Daryl alone.

“Michonne stabbed one of those, what did you call them? Walkers? She stabbed one in the head the day she found me in the pharmacy. Is that the only way to kill them?”

Daryl nodded. “You gotta damage the brain.”

He brought his knife down on the man’s head. He fell to the ground and didn’t get up again. Daryl wiped the blade clean and then sheathed it. He came to Maggie, stopping one step down so they were eye-to-eye.

“I’m sorry.”

“You tried to tell me. You all tried to tell me but I didn’t want to believe.”

Maggie took a deep breath when Daryl wrapped his arms around her. She hugged him back and looked into his eyes. “I was all set to be angry that Daddy didn’t want me to come with you all. I’m a good shot. I’d be useful.”

“I don’t want you to come along either,” Daryl confessed. “I don’t want you in danger. Besides, your sister and the others will need a good shot to look out for them while we’re gone.”

“I don’t want you to go but I know you have to,” she said, and smoothed his hair away from his forehead. “I really like you, Daryl Dixon. Be careful 'cause I want you to come back.”

“I will.”

Inside, Hershel watched Maggie kiss Daryl and he looked to Michonne. “When did that start?”

Michonne shrugged and then lied. “I don’t know. You upset by it?”

“Maggie’s old enough to make up her own mind about who she dates but I don’t know Daryl. Also, I don’t know the Korean boy, and my baby girl has her eyes set on him.” Hershel heaved a sigh. “I sometimes wish my little girls would manage to stay my little girls.”

“I can personally vouch for Daryl and Glenn,” Michonne told him. “Both are good, honorable men.”

“That’s good to know but I’ll have to make those decisions for myself,” said Hershel.

Michonne nodded. “Understood.”

Rick made certain Maggie, Beth, Patricia, and Carl were armed before they took their guns and piled into the bed of Hershel’s truck. They waved goodbye to Maggie and the others and then sped off into the predawn darkness.

*****

The element of surprise wasn’t just on Rick’s side as he drove the truck at high speed into Shane’s camp, it was also on Shane’s. He wasn’t there. None of them were there.

“What the hell?” Daryl asked as he jumped down from the truck and searched the area. There were tents and dead campfires, pots, pans, and clothes strewn around, but there wasn’t a soul in sight that Glenn, and Hershel had seen just the day before.

“Could they be in the trees, waiting to pick us off?” asked Dale.

“Wouldn’t they be firing on us now?” asked Andrea. “They’re gone.”

“You know Shane but he knows you, too,” said Carol. “He must have known you’d search him out and come for him. He took his people and left.”

“No, no, no…”

Rick boldly went to the door of the school and opened it. Almost at once a walker rushed out, her chest savaged with gunshot wounds. Rick kicked her back inside and slammed the door shut. Other walkers crowded the door, pounding, drooling, trying to get out at Rick.

“I recognize her,” said Glenn, startling Rick by appearing unexpectedly at his side. “I saw her the day before. She can’t be more then fifteen years old.”

“Oh, God,” Carol said. Rick looked to where she pointed. In the window of the school was a child walker, no more than seven years of age. He’d been a little boy, one of the kids Rick had seen chasing a ball the day before.

“What happened here?” asked Hershel. “My God, did that man kill all of these people?” asked Hershel.

“He couldn’t have,” said Daryl. “Not kids and girls. He would kill them.”

“There was a time I would have sworn Shane couldn’t rape a woman either. Now there’s nothing I’d put past him. Unless he’s in there with the others then I wager he’s behind this.”

“There’s one of his bodyguards,” said Hershel, pointing to one of the burly men that was trying to break through the door.

“We can’t leave them in there. They’re a threat,” Michonne said. “Innocent people can get hurt if they manage to escape.”

“We let them out a few at a time,” Rick said.

Michonne readied her sword. “You and Glenn let them out. I’ll cut them down. Carol, Andrea, if any get past me, you shoot them.”

Rick and Glenn manned the doors, allowing a few out at a time. None of them got past Michonne, not a shot was fired.

Shane wasn’t among the walkers that Michonne had to cut down. That could mean only one thing: He’d murdered these people and now he was out there on the loose.

*****

Shane Walsh lay staring up at the stars, thinking about the blood he’d spilled the night before. He’d stood outside the room Bill and Warren used for their poker games, listening in on their conversation. It was a storage room for supplies, which were running dangerously low. They’d spoken in low voices, but with the door cracked Shane could still hear their conversation.

“He’s unstable,” Warren said. “I can see it.”

“Yeah, but he had a point about George not being in charge if he couldn’t fight for it. The guy was a creep.”

“Yeah, and so is Shane. I mean, did you hear what he said? He wants to go to this guy’s farm, kill the old man and take the women. You know what men who want to treat women like property do with them? That’s why you and I didn’t go on the rape raids with Dave, Nick, and Leon. We ain’t like that.”

“What makes you think Shane is?”

“The way he talks about that Michonne woman. Like she’s a dog he owns or something. He got kicked out of his old camp for a reason, Bill. I thought he was all right until he started talking about going in there and murdering everyone. I mean, think about it, Bill. He comes in here and after only two weeks with us he kills our leader and then expects absolute loyalty from us? He expects us to go off and throw our lives away on a suicide mission so he can kidnap some chick he’s hot for? Fuck that shit.”

“So what are we gonna do? We kick him out he’ll just come back at us.”

“I can take him,” Warren said.

“And then what?”

“I take over. You can take charge with me. We’ll move on from here and forget that Hershel fella and the man that’s dating the woman Shane’s got a hard-on for. Let them and their people live in peace. I’d bet my left nut they’d leave us alone if they didn’t see us as a threat. We’ll be doing them a favor if we off Shane,” Warren reasoned.

Shane’s blood boiled. Once again in his life people he should have been able to trust had turned against him. Lori had chosen to stay with Rick rather than be with him. Michonne had come along and, like Lori before her, she’d chosen Rick over him. Now these assholes had turned on him and plotted his death.

Shane lost it. He truly lost complete control over himself. He’d kicked the door open and stormed in. Warren was faster than he looked. He managed to pull a knife from his boot and jam it into Shane’s side. Shane put a bullet in the man’s chest, then put one in Bill’s before leaving them both to die and turn.

That should have been the end of it but Shane couldn’t stop. The rage he was in was the worst he’d ever experienced in his life, and he’d known a few in his time. He’d walked out of the abandoned school and began shooting. Every face was that of a traitor, in his mind. He didn’t trust a single one of them not to plot against him and try to kill him in his sleep. After all, George had sent one assassin in the night, and he’d just overheard Bill and Warren plotting to kill him and take over, so why should he trust these people not to do the same?

The children had to die, too. Their mothers were dead. There was no one to care for them. He would allow them all to turn. That way he hadn’t fully killed all of them. After that, he’d hung up part of a dead carcass inside the building to lure them in before shutting the door behind them.

He was alone again. When it came right down to it, all Shane wanted was to be loved. All he wanted was to have someone in his life that he could trust. Was that really too much to ask for? It seemed so, since the Fates deemed him unworthy of it.

Shane saw himself as a strong man. He was beating this world. Couldn’t Michonne fucking see that? He was stronger than anyone he met, anyone he knew, especially Rick. He was the better choice, yet time and again women went for Rick over him. Hell, even this new group had plotted to betray him in favor of Rick, and they’d never even met the motherfucker.

He wasn’t going to stand for it. Not anymore. To hell with Michonne. He finished sewing up his wound, cleaned it with rubbing alcohol, rubbed some antibiotic ointment on it, and then bandaged it. All the while he saw Michonne’s face in his mind. To hell with that bitch. If she wanted Rick, she could have Rick. She could also die with him. He was going to gather an army of his own. He would, someday, return to face Rick. When he did, he was going to kill everyone on that farm. No one would walk away.

*****

 Two Weeks Later.

Michonne heard retching in the bathroom and she knew she would find Carol inside.

Hershel had invited Rick and the rest of his group to live in the house until they could finish fixing up the neighboring farm for his group. Nights were cold in mid-November, and the farm house Rick and the others hoped to move into needed work on the grounds and in the house. Besides, Rick wanted to remain close to Hershel’s property should trouble start up, while Daryl and Glenn wanted to remain to be with Maggie and Beth.

“Carol?”

Michonne opened the door while Carol finished retching into the toilet. She flushed and then sat back, leaning against the bathtub. She was pale and shaky.

“I’m okay. I’m just stressed.”

“I don’t think this is just stress, Carol. I don’t think you do either.”

Tears spilled down Carol’s face. She shook her head. “I’m not.”

Michonne scavenged under the sink and pulled out the box she’d asked Daryl to get on his trip to town two weeks previously. She handed it to Carol, who closed her eyes and shook her head.

“I’m not, Michonne.”

“Have you peed this morning?”

Carol shook her head no.

“Now is the perfect time.”

“Stay.”

Michonne nodded and opened the box and sat on the edge of the tub. Carol took the stick Michonne handed her and before squatting over the toilet and peeing on it. They waited the required time and then Carol, with shaking hands, looked down at the display. Michonne knew the answer by her reaction alone.

“Oh, God no. I’m pregnant!”



Next Chapter