The Good Life - Chapter Five

A/N: If it seems too good to be true...it isn't. Not in this case. I'm giving it all to them because they deserve it. Plus, this stuff will come in handy later.

...

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.”