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Solace

Chapter 104

As Rick and Daryl progressed through the trees and thick undergrowth, they continued to eliminate Luc’s men one by one. There was still no sign of the bastard himself, but they were drawing near the main buildings and Rick had a gut feeling they’d find him there.

The familiar sound of tearing flesh and open-mouthed chewing caught their attention as they entered the open area in front of their final destination. A female walker gnawed on the short intestine of an unidentifiable man, but Rick recognized the woman – she was the one who had called out Lindsey when the pregnant woman’s name was drawn for that unfortunate run to the mainland.

While feeling sorry that the older woman had gone out this way, Rick watched Daryl remove his knife and put her out of her misery. With the walker silenced, a distant snarling was noticeable now, but for some reason they could not gauge where the sound was coming from. The two men moved further into the opening and lifted their eyes as they finally found the source.

Commanding General Kirkman hung from the unused flag pole that marked the courtyard in front of the clinic. His body jangled like a marionette on a string as his walker form strained at the warm food below. The sight brought Rick back to when they’d first entered Luc’s town – the entire street lined with bodies hanging from the power lines. His stomach twisted in disgust at the blatant disrespect that had come about the distinguished man.

“Ya want me to…?” Daryl asked and turned his rifle upward, squinting against the bright sun.

“Yeah,” Rick said as he briefly allowed a wave of sadness to wash over him.

With a well-aimed bullet, it was done. Kirkman’s body went limp and Rick walked toward the flag pole to cut him down.

“I’m out,” Daryl said and placed his rifle on the ground. He was in the process of switching to his crossbow when he added, “Hey, got a blood trail here,” and pointed to a continuous line of red droplets on the sandy ground.

“Okay, let’s see where it takes us, but first – give me a hand.”


Once again, Lindsey, Carl and Judith made it back to their bungalow and did not cross paths with a single soul, much to their surprise. Carl entered the house first, checking each room properly before allowing Lindsey to come inside. Sweat glinted on her brow as the time between contractions shortened and the pain intensified.

He helped her down the short hallway and over to her full-size bed. As she eased onto her side, he unsnapped the baby carrier on his back and brought Judith down to stand in a pack-n-play in one corner of the room. The toddler plopped onto her behind and started to play with the toys around her, allowing Carl to disappear into the bathroom. He came back with an armful of towels and a wet washcloth. He began wiping away the speckles of blood on Lindsey’s spent face and she gave him a weak smile.

“Thanks.”

Carl chewed on the corner of his lip and avoided her gaze as he said, “You’re not going to be thanking me in a minute.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, opening her eyes a little more.

He didn’t answer her and instead, pushed to his feet, going into the bathroom once more. He returned with another cold washcloth and placed it on her forehead.

“I’m going to find my dad.”

Lindsey’s breath caught and she tried to lever herself up, but another contraction gripped her. The pressure in her lower back was almost unbearable and she uttered a low moan. When the agony ceased, she looked at Carl with worried eyes.

“You can’t go back out there. Please, Carl, don’t go,” she begged.

“I’m sorry, but he needs to be here. If you haven’t noticed, this is exactly what happened to my mom, but now we don’t even have Maggie or Zoey – we’re completely alone and I’m in over my head. I’m really sorry, but this is how it is supposed to be – with my dad here next to you.”

Silent tears escaped from the blonde’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks at a slanted angle.

“Okay,” she said at last.

When he spun around to leave, she grabbed for his hand and held it as tightly as she could. When she spoke the words, she felt as if she were speaking them to her own son.

“I love you, Carl.”

The boy, looking more like a man that day, clasped her hand and said with a slight smile, “I love you, too.”

Rick and Daryl walked with careful steps and watchful eyes as the smears of blood led them to the clinic’s front doors. The two men traded a glance and then proceeded into the building. They both kept their footfalls light, following the trail until it stopped at a closed exam room door. Their heads snapped up when voices exploded from inside.

“Luc, you said you wouldn’t hurt her! It was the only thing I asked you to do for me!”

“Hey! That pregnant bitch needed to get it! It’s not my fault—”

The man didn’t get to finish. Rick experienced a surge of blinding anger and fear at the mention of his wife and kicked the door open. Luc and Hank reached for their guns, but Rick and Daryl knocked the weapons away, disarming the two men. Luc was sitting on the exam table in a slick patch of blood, which leaked from a serious stomach wound. Rick advanced on the monster and withdrew his Colt.

“Did you kill Lindsey? Because if you fucking did—” he raged through gritted teeth, pressing the cold barrel into Luc’s cheek.

“Rick, she’s fine – or she was the last time I saw her,” Hank said as Daryl kept the crossbow trained on him.

Rick didn’t remove his gun from Luc’s face but pointed a snarl at the other man.

“You and I both know she’s not fine! NONE OF THIS IS FINE!

Hank closed his eyes and dropped his shoulders on a sigh.

“I want some answers,” Rick said to the former New Canaan resident. “I already know about your group passing through Luc’s town, that you got here a week after us, and how you’ve been sneaking around like the coward that you are. Now, tell me something I don’t know.”

“When I met Luc, he was gonna kill me, but was curious as to where I was going. When I told him about New Canaan, he offered me a deal instead: If I got him on the island, I’d have a seat next to him and everything I’d ever need – food, water, shelter, a woman in my bed…”

“You already had that here with no cost and good people – why risk it for this…barbarian? What good is his word?”

“I’d made a deal and Luc seemed good for it. New Canaan had promise, Rick, but you were barely holding it together. And Zoey…she was the only person I cared about here.” He rubbed his weary face and pointed a regretful look at Rick, which the former deputy didn’t give two shits about.

“Well, I was aimin’ for his old lady,” Luc began, referring to Lindsey, “but that little bitch got in the way. Got what was comin’ to her if you ask me. Think I got your boy, though,” he said to Rick with a sneer.

Hank lunged at the injured man, breaking Rick and Daryl out of their angered state of shock.

“And yer gonna get what’s been comin’ since the day you two assholes crossed paths…” Daryl announced, raising the front of his crossbow. With a sharp snap, one of his bolts lodged itself in Hank’s back. The man fell against the counter as he weakly grasped at the object protruding from his chest. Sliding to the floor, he let out a shuddering cough. Flecks of blood dotted his lips, and with one final wheeze, he died.

After releasing a satisfied grunt, Daryl unsnapped his knife, jabbed it through the dead man’s ear, and then retrieved his bolt.

“Well, that was fucked up,” Luc said. “And you call me a barbarian.”

Rick focused his dangerous gaze onto the poor excuse for life that had murdered Louis, Zoey, Abraham, Bill – indirectly, and so many others. Not to mention, he’d tried to kill Carl, Lindsey and their unborn child.

“You haven’t seen nothin’,” Rick said, his lips curling back in vengeance.

He yanked Luc off of the exam table and the man shouted in pain. Rick forced Luc to his knees and looked down at him as white-hot anger blurred his vision. Without another word, he reached across his torso and unsheathed the red-handled machete at his hip. After raising it up, he brought it down with as much force as he could possibly muster. He repeated that until whatever was left of Luc resembled nothing of the waste of space he’d been moments before.

About a minute passed and Daryl laid a hand on Rick’s heaving shoulder, making the crimson-covered man flinch. With dark, haunted eyes, they acknowledged that he had just gone a lot further than either of them could have anticipated.

“You good?” the hunter asked, holding out a towel from the clinic’s supplies.

Rick accepted it with a curt nod. He dabbed at the blood near his eyes and attempted to wipe off his stained hands.

Daryl moved to the doorway and glanced down the empty corridor.

“We gotta find Lindsey and Carl and Lil’ Asskicker. If Luc was right about ‘em comin’ this way, then where are they?”

“I’m hoping they turned around,” Rick said and took a deep breath as his adrenaline came crashing down. His hands shook as he rubbed them with the soft cloth.

After tossing the towel aside, he adjusted the M4 on his back and leaned over to pick up Hank and Luc’s guns. As he reached for the second one, his hand paused in mid-air. Slowly, he moved to touch the Glock’s marred grip and knew immediately that it was Lindsey’s – he’d seen it enough times to know. Picking it up now, he held the weight of it in both hands, wondering if she’d even want it back once she found out that it had killed Abraham and probably many other innocent people.

But I’ll let her decide that, he thought as he tucked the weapon into the band of his dark jeans.

They were about to leave the room in search of his family, but he stopped just inside the doorway.

“Should we leave the room like this?” he asked, looking around with a frown.

“Ya mean like, yer worried ‘bout a lady or some kid walkin’ in here?”

Rick nodded – the room was a fucking mess.

Inspired by a distant memory, he felt like he was coming full circle as he ran his fingertips through the expanding puddle of blood on the floor and touched the exam room door’s wooden surface. With a few quick swipes, he wrote: DON’T OPEN, DEAD INSIDE.

After Carl had gone to find his dad, Lindsey took a few minutes between contractions to get herself as comfortable as possible. Slowly, she adjusted the pillows and spread a couple towels across the white comforter. It would probably be destroyed by the end of the birth anyway, but she thought it would be more sanitary to start out this way. Luckily, she’d chosen to wear a dress that day so the only thing she needed to remove was her underwear, which she threw into a clothesbasket by the bed.

Another contraction started to build and she returned to her original position on her side. Tendrils of pain stemmed out from her stomach and hips, making her thighs shake with endless tremors. She squeezed her eyes shut and cried out as she clutched the pillow beneath her head.

She was suddenly aware of the squeak of their screen door opening and heavy footsteps on the living room’s wooden floor. Her heart flipped inside of her chest at the thought of it being Rick, but something didn’t seem right – it didn’t sound like him.

Erring on the side of caution, she eased her unsteady legs off of the mattress and picked up her knife on the nightstand. She then snuck across the room and held her breath as she waited by the doorway.
Rick and Daryl only traveled about a hundred yards from the clinic before coming across another fallen comrade – Pete. His body lay in the middle of the dirt path and his gun was nowhere in sight – probably stolen by one of Luc’s men. Bullet holes peppered his chest and head, which answered how he’d died and why he didn’t reanimate.

Rick lifted his head on a sigh and spotted another body up ahead. He stepped around Pete to investigate, but knew who it was before he even got there. The young woman’s black hair was matted with dark red gore and he hesitated to turn her over.

“That Zoey?” Daryl asked in a low voice from next to him.

He nodded and then allowed his gaze to wander around, inspecting their surroundings for any sign of his son or Lindsey. The area to their right seemed disturbed with broken twigs and scuffs in the dirt. He noticed a few leaves with dark smudges and reached over to touch one. When he pulled his hand away, blood shone on his fingertips.

“I think Luc was right about hitting Carl…” he whispered, hating to even speak the words.

“Or maybe it wasn’t him,” Daryl replied.

Rick glanced at the hunter. He appreciated the man’s effort to lift his spirits, but to know that the injured person could be Lindsey – or even Judith – did not help him feel better in the least bit.

“We gotta find them.”

Daryl walked a few steps ahead and gestured to a partial bloody shoeprint.

“Whoever it was went this way…”

“Well, then, let’s go,” Rick said as anxiety tightened in his chest and wore his patience thin.

They took off toward the dining pavilion, keeping their weapons ready for any immediate threat. All was quiet though as the two men emerged by the picnic tables and stopped to find out why.

Numerous bodies littered the ground, along with shell casings and dark pools of blood. The sharp aroma of gunpowder and copper hung in the air. Rick lowered his gun as he looked upon the faces of those who had trusted him to keep them safe – a man who had given them hope in a hopeless time.

He’d failed them.

The thought sat like a brick in his stomach and constricted around his aching heart. He should have done more to prevent this – they should have been ready. Instead, he given these people a false illusion of safety and made them sitting ducks.

Daryl nudged the boot of a young man lying in an unnatural position. Rivers of dried blood had formed on the dead man’s chin, signaling some kind of internal damage.

“It’s Zach…that kid from Carl’s class,” Daryl said.

Rick remembered the troublemaker, but he hadn’t deserved this.

The sudden crack of a gunshot startled Rick and Daryl, making their heads swivel to the nearest trail opening. One of Luc’s men was standing there, but quickly fell forward, revealing the boy behind him.

“Carl!” Rick shouted and ran toward his son.

Carl holstered his gun and stepped over the dead man to hug his dad. After a quick embrace, Rick touched the boy’s bloody arm.

“Did Luc do this?” he asked, his blue eyes flashing with anger.

“I don’t know who Luc is, but if you mean some asshole with a scar, then yeah. It’s just a graze, though. I’m okay.”

As Daryl removed the bandana from his back pocket and tied it around Carl’s arm, Rick asked, “Where are Lindsey and Judith?”

Carl’s gaze darkened and his features became taut, making Rick fear that something bad had happened to them.

“Lindsey’s having the baby. I left Judith with her so I could find you.” When his dad’s eyes widened, he was quick to add, “It was just like Mom! I couldn’t go through that again!”

“Where?” Rick asked, ignoring the boy’s explanation – even though he understood. “Where did you leave them?”

“At our house!”

Rick didn’t waste another second and took off at a full sprint on the path toward their bungalow, with Carl and Daryl trailing behind.

Notes

Comments

@Corall
Aw thank you so much!! :D

bluecrush611 bluecrush611
5/18/16

I just finished reading this story :) and its the most amazing story ever :D

Corall Corall
5/17/16

@Kandy
No worries. I actually used Paint, haha. I just figured out what size the banner needed to be (by trial and error) and then cut the image down until it fit.

bluecrush611 bluecrush611
4/13/16

@bluecrush611

Also, Another Annoying Question. Where did you make that Banner of Lauren And Andrew? I need to get a good Banner place thingy and i need advice xD

Mother Dick Mother Dick
4/12/16

@Walker Witch
Thank you so much for the kind words and for following along!

@eventualprocrastination
Thanks for all of your comments! I actually just published a book, so that's the direction I'm taking for now, but who knows. Maybe I'll post something here and there. :)

bluecrush611 bluecrush611
4/10/16