9 CDC gone, Trouble at the Greene’s, Road Trip

Chapter 9: CDC gone, Trouble at the Greene's, Road Trip

(Previously...)

Fully Automatic Air Conditioned: 27,000 BTUs, Kitchen Table Configuration: sit 6 people Bench Seats, Oven: w4/Burners, Refrigerator Size: Lg-Size, Electric / Propane, Toilet: Porcelain, full Shower, plastic glass door, Driver, and passenger seats: swivel, power adjustable, leather Bucket seats, all electrical with power conversion from watts to amps.

It was almost exactly like the one I saw that day, that I wanted to collect. But I needed to focus right now. As I had parked my small Winnebago next to it, I told Carol and the girls to stay inside until I cleared the area. And after killing a few dozen walkers in 20 minutes, I let them out to play, under the supervision of Carol as I went searching for the parts I needed to fix the RV...

Which wasn't hard to find, there was 6 of these RV's in the park and I took everything, just in case. And what I mean everything, I took the while RV into my inventory. Well, before taking off the parts that I needed of course. I wish sometimes that I had an inventory that dismantled stuff when I needed them, but this is fine. It makes me work for it at least.

Took me a 3 hours until I was done fixing the RV, to run I mean. I made sure the ladies were fine every hour on the hour, and also made my rounds killing walkers as they neared us. In total it was almost night fall when I started to pack up my tools, I couldn't see anymore and did not want to attract attention with having bright lights outside at night, lighting the heavens and telling people we're here.

So, I went to rest in my old Winn. Took a shower, ate, and went to sleep. The girls were already on the bed asleep as soon as I stepped out from my shower. When morning came I did the usual, wash my face, brush my teeth, make breakfast, then continued on with making a few modifications on the new RV I just acquired. As I was about to step out, Carol and the two munchkins were just entering the kitchen to eat.

"There's food on the table and your coffee as well. I'll be clearing the area then continuing to fix the RV if you all need me." As I got a sluggish nod from Carol, I left to clear our surrounding's, and after that, the retrofitting the RV began. It was the same routing for the following three or four days, when I got called in by Carol as I was under the RV. "Jack!! The Greene's wanted to know if you knew a Lady by the name of Carely?"

I dragged myself out from under the RV, "Who?" I asked. "Carley." She asked again as I saw holding the satellite phone that was inside the Winnebago. "Yeah, that was one of the people I met at that pharmacy I stopped to help a couple of days ago. I told you about them, didn't I?" I walked up to her and asked her for the phone, "hello. This is Jack, who are asking about and why?"

It was Maggie on the line that was asking, "hey Jack! I just wanted to ask because Six people just drove up to our place and told us that you sent them here. My dad wanted to know if they are good people before letting them stay." "Ohh, yeah. Their a fine bunch, very protective, just be cautious of the other two with them, I don't know them. I have only met Carley, Lily, Larry, and Clementine the small girl."

I told her all I know of the ones I met, I'm pretty sure she'll cautious of the others, but I was curious who the other two were. "Who's the other two, if you don't mind asking?" "Give me a second." As she asked I could hear her... Who are you two? Hmmhm... ok thanks. Then came back on the line, "One older man, look to be in his mid-30's named Lee, and a young girl, maybe 12 or 13, Tracey, they said."

"Okay, I know the Lee guy, a good decent guy, the girl I don't know. Ohh, be on the lookout for some survivors in a small convoy. I heard a large explosion coming from Atlanta a night ago. I'm pretty sure they are heading in your direction and also be aware that there's a large herd of those walkers I told you about heading in the same direction. Be careful out there Greene and take care."

I said as I was trying to warn then what was coming. "We will, take care of yourselves and tell Olivia hi for me." As I hung up the call and got back to work on the RV. I wanted it to be done by tomorrow if all possible. Which it was, I upgraded the turbo charger, the fuel tank capacity to 100-gal to each tank, upgrade the chassis to hold a heavier load.

It would hold up to 2,000 more pounds capacity. Upgraded the satellite dish, added 8 solar panels, changed, and upgraded the rims from aluminum to Titanium wheels with wider and thicker radial tires. The sides of the RV, I added two layers of Titanium siding that would protect the people on the inside by med-sized caliber rounds.

Almost all exits and entrances are electronic door locked and password protected, to include the windows. When someone on the inside hits the panic button, the whole RV goes into lock-down mode, that means the door lock, windows close, tire shutters fall to cover the wheels and tires, and a thin Titanium covering combs over the engine, and front windshield to protect it as well.

I'd say it's a mobile tank, with no weapons attached... yet. Well, that was fun, took a lot of me, and I had help as well. I taught Carol some of the things I was doing so that if she ever found Hershelf stranded somewhere out ther alone, she knew how to garner a car or pickup to get back. I also taught her shooting, how to kill walkers, the easy way, and how to hunt for food in the wilderness.

I didn't just waste my time solely on the RV, I spent time with Olivia, taught Carol about the outdoors, and baked a cake for the two munchkins, celebrating Sophia's B-day, which was two days ago. And let me tell you, her face lit up like the fourth of July. She had never been given a birthday party and she was all tears and smiles all day.

I also got her a few presents that she loved, a small assortment of barbie dolls I found, and a sling shot kit, to protect Hershelf. Don't worry, I was teaching her how to use it when I was teaching Carol and Oliva. Well, now that the RV was done, it was time to unpack the old and into the new, and that would be a whole day's event, for now it's time to rest and relax and watch a movie. Why because... IT. WAS. MOVIE. NIGHT.

It was a great night, we all watched The Goonies, what a classic. After that, I slept early so I could check our map and drive to the next location. I know we're going to Senioa but stops we were going to make and what route to take. While I was in the kitchen making our breakfast, toast, eggs, and sausage, breakfast of champions. I heard the phone ring, and I knew something was up.

--3 days ago--

--October 6, 2010, back at the quarry--

--Daryl's POV--

The previous night after that walker attack, which killed many of their own people and leaving many devastated of what had happened. The survivors burning the Walkers that attacked, though Glenn had insisted they should bury their dead. Daryl had lost patience with the whole stinking lot of them. Sitting around moaning when all these bodies were just waiting to come back. Hadn't they figured that out yet?

He'd picked up the axe to end any chance of that before it could start happening, thinking someone else would join him once they saw what needed to be done. But no one did, he was on his own like always, the only practical one in the whole bunch. 'He'd was better off if he left them all behind. They were all going to die anyway, just like the people had last night.'

He thought to himself as he started stabbing the dead to make sure they stayed dead. The blonde girl, Andrea, hovered over her sister like it was before, like you could take time to mourn your dead or be destroyed by the loss. Look at him his brother was probably dead somewhere out there in Atlanta, walking around with only one hand, and he was here working, taking care of things for them.

He saw Andrea, who was cradling her sister Amy in her arms nearby, unwilling to let anyone near her body after she was forced to end her sister by giving her mercy and shooting her in the head. As he kept going, though, T-Dog and Glenn started to following his lead, as they picked up and moving the bodies once he'd made sure they were dead for good.

They piled them up together and then lit it on the fire. 'At least that was something', he thought, though he didn't look at them as he moved off to find another body to take care of because he knew they weren't the only ones. The stink of the burning dead hovered over the area, and Daryl was worried that that the smell and smoke would draw more of them, or maybe keep them away.

'Was there enough left in their minds to know that others of their kind existed? Ah, hell, who gave a damn what they thought, or whether they thought.' He said to himself as he plunged his axe into another dead head, feeling it split open beneath the blow. Dale commiserates, explaining that since his wife's death, "you girls were the first people that I cared anything for."

Andrea then tells Dale she felt guilty for missing so many of Amy's birthdays back then and broke down crying again. "I'm sorry for not ever being there," Andrea says as she wept, kneeling next to a now dead Amy. She tells Amy that she's here now and loves her. As Daryl saw all this, he just shook his head at the way these people were acting.

'Church people,' he thought. Folks like the Grimes were church folk, folks who thought more about how things looked than how they were, folks who let little kids get beaten by their fathers and did nothing about it because their little boys weren't clean enough and proper and well-behaved. Folks who let men like that woman beater Ed guy, who scares their wives and daughters and don't say nothing.

Now that was one person who did deserved to be Walker meat, and he wasn't sorry to see him gone, except that he figured it was too late for the wife and the daughter to make something of themselves now. Since they died way before all this happened. It made him sick, all of them sitting around weeping over a few more dead people, like there weren't already enough dead people to cry about.

Meanwhile they'd left Merle to die on a rooftop out there because he wasn't a nice enough person to them, hypocrites all of them. He told them so, too. "You reap what you sow." His exact words. They didn't like that any, but he wasn't wrong. Lori's husband wanted to find the CDC, to see if there was a cure. Something in Daryl that still believed in the world as it had been before thought that sounded like a good idea … but he kept silent.

So what did it matter where he went or how they guided their travels? He'd stick by himself as usual anyways. When he went around the back of the RV, where the body they'd been trying to avoid thinking about all day lay in the sun. Daryl was standing over Ed's dead body when a few others approached. He swung with all his might trying to get a little satisfaction that he couldn't help Carol and Sophia before.

And it felt good to kill this guy at least once. So he pried the axe out of his head with difficulty and struck it again, and again. Not entirely aware that people were watching him destroy Ed's head and the reason behind the guys anger. Daryl took the axe back from Ed's head and walked away. His back was straighter than before, taller than he'd ever been as he walked back to his tent and let the others handle Ed's body.

He turned back to the work at hand, putting Ed out of his mind. When Jim was revealed to have been bitten, and the sickness associated with infection was worsening. Rick suggested to the group to go to the CDC for help. Shane thought it was netter to go to the Army base in Fort Benning, he thought it was safer, but it was 125 miles away.

While sweeping the forest for any remaining roamers, Shane tries to convince Rick to change his mind but failed. "I've gotta do what's best for my family," Rick told Shane which got his jealousy flaring. "If it was your family you'd feel differently." Which enraged him further. As he stormed off to search the woods on his own.

Soon after while they were in the woods, Shane had aimed his shotgun at the unknowing back of Rick but doesn't pull the trigger because Dale was watching him. Rick didn't see Shane's actions after their argument, but Dale had been watching the entire spectacle. "Jesus," he muttered to himself as he already knew that Shane was going be trouble from then on.

Later, as the group huddled on their next move, Shane announced that was going to support Rick's plan of heading to the CDC. During the meeting though, Morales says that his family will not be joining the group, as they will be heading off in a different direction to join their other family outside of Atlanta in the opposite direction.

As everyone goes their separate ways, en route to the CDC, Dales RV breaks down and Jim who had been sick in the RV was getting worse. He was in agony and had asks Rick and the others to leave him behind. "I want to be with my family, I don't want to live anymore without them." He started talking about his late wife and children, which made the group pity the man. The group reluctantly leaves him beneath by a tree as they kept moving.

Meanwhile in the CDC, in a laboratory underground, a disheveled scientist Dr. Edwin Jenner performs experiments on a tissue sample designated as 'TS-19'. As he hadn't slept for a few nights, he accidentally spills corrosive fluids on a sample he was working on, and that initiating a decontamination sequence in the room and that destroys the samples, upsetting the Dr.

Meanwhile, Rick's convoy of vehicles approached the CDC as it was in shambles with the only thing around were dead bodies all over the place. As the group approached the door to the CDC, walkers had started to converge on them, and Rick was yelling into a camera above the doors to the building because he saw it move. Which indicated that someone was in the building, he then tries to appease to the person inside's sensibilities to let them in.

Jenner watches the group since they approached via a security monitoring camera from the outside. After hearing Rick's pleading, he pities them and agrees to allow the survivors entrée into the building, provided they submit to blood tests and it was mandatory. After letting them in he takes the blood sample he asked of them and then led them to the kitchens to allow them to eat, for a few have not eaten in days.

Not just from the food the first decent meal in days by the way, but also for the solid walls and the solid earth that kept them safe from the walkers above. Far from the nightmare going on outside from the living dead eating the living, the people thanked the man in charge for letting them in as they ate a full meal. The group feasted on food and drank wine and luxuriated in hot showers.

Doctor Jenner who's always the quiet man, by the loss of his colleagues and his wife recently and by the CDC's inability to stop what had happened to the world. Certain to himself he knew he was knowledgeable, but he just couldn't face the failure in finding the cure for this disease, failing his wife in the process. He soon left the kitchen leaving the visitors to their own devices.

Daryl who was watching all this, was trying to get along with these a**holes. He really was trying but failing miserably. But he still came along with them and try to find answers at the CDC. This crazy road trip he mentioned before was a bad idea because it sounded like it made sense at the beginning to come here but seeing all this... it just didn't. If these people didn't know what was what, maybe nobody would ever.

Daryl drank with them, but kept caution close, liquor had never been his alley, it would only make him feel better for so long before he became that a**hole he once was. Yeah, it was funny looking how Shane and Rick clashed for leadership of the group, Daryl knew about Shane and Lori, they all did. Everyone but Rick was clueless of what was going on between the two.

Couldn't blame the wife for not owning up to what she'd been doing, but if she didn't, Shane's jealousy was going to cause a lot of problems in the group, and she knew it too. Maybe it already has, as the dinner ended in silence, and everyone gave various looks to each other as they went off to their own room. And Dr. Jenner seeing all this unfold through a security camera.

Afterward, Andrea and the group lament the fall of civilization to each other as Dale attempts to comfort Andrea in her loss. Which leave a few people saddened and soon separate for the night. Later, Shane who had too much to drink, drunkenly confronts Lori in the recreation room, professing his love to her and insisting he didn't lie about Rick being dead.

Him being drunk and out of control, Shane tries to force himself on Lori, who is scratched on his face and neck to stop him from raping her. Shane realizing what he just tried to do was horrified by his own behavior, which makes him flee into the hallways, leaving a shaken and afraid Lori behind. The next morning, Dr. Jenner shows the group brain scans of several test subjects including Test Subject 19.

--October 7, 2010--

His own wife who had been infected during the outbreak, she who told Jenner to allowed Hershelf to be recorded as the infection took hold of her body and died. He admits he does not know what the disease is or how to treat it. Also, he also told them that he had lost contact with any other facilities. Worse yet, the CDC's generators are running out of fuel, and when they are empty, the building will self-destruct as per a decontamination protocol.

Though at first he tried to convince them to stay and op out peacefully, Dr. Jenner agrees to let them flee before the self-destruct was activated. Jacqui, one of the survivors terrified of ending up like Amy or Jim, opts to stay behind Jenner. They are seen holding hands with each other before a fiery explosion destroys the entire facility, and Rick and his fellow survivors caravan away from the smoldering rubble, destination unknown.

Hours later the caravan of survivors find themselves on the highway blocked by too many abandoned cars and very little room to maneuver around them. Just then the radiator hose on Dale's RV bursts and now they're stranded with a dead vehicle in tow. The group decides to make a scavenging stop and see if they could find a suitable hose for the old RV, as well as get fuel and other needed supplies from the abandoned vehicles.

After a while during their search, a large herd of walkers approached from behind the RV, and everyone is made to hid under the abandoned vehicles. Dale is stuck atop his RV, Andrea is stuck inside the RV, while the others hide underneath the cars. After all the commotion ended, and the walkers moved on, Rick takes Carl his son to marveling at the beauty that is the forest.

Soon after they spotted a stag deer in the forest, which makes Carl approach said deer with him knowing that there was a hunter aiming for it. Carl is soon critically wounded by said hunter's gunshot. Rick runs to his son and seek help, having Carl in his arms. Then Otis the hunter who just shot at the deer, tells Rick that there is a farm not far away and it had a doctor in it to help.

Rick and Shane follows Otis, who had accidentally shot Carl and reach the Greene farm. In which Carl is attended to by an old man named Hershel Greene the head of the family. After inspection of the injury, the bullet buried in Carl's chest has shattered into six fragments. Hershel tells Rick that he needs a blood transfusion, which his father gives willingly.

After Hershel withdraws one fragment from the boy, he then concludes that he'll needs special surgical supplies to remove the other five. He yells out to Maggie, "could you call Jack and see if he could bring those supplies he had offered before. And make sure to tell him that is very important and to please hurry with what he asked for." Which makes Maggie nod her head and takes out the satellite phone Jack gave them before.

--Back to the now--

--October 10, 2010--

I heard a frantic Maggie on the line, "Hello!! Ohhh, Jack thank god you picked up. We need your help. We just received a bunch of people you warned us about and one of their group was shot by Otis, while on a hunt. We need medical supplies and I know you have them, like a lot. Is there any way you can come to the farm and drop the medicine off. Jack are you still there?"

I didn't want to head back too soon, but I did tell them if they ever needed help to call, "fine!! We're not that far out, I'll be there in an hour or so. See you soon." Not wanting to talk anymore I hung up the phone. "Carol, I'm gonna make a quick stop at the Greene farm. Do you wanna come too?" She peeked out of the bathroom and said, "yeah, sure. We using Bertha, or Gwen?"

Bertha was the RV's name the girls named it, and Gwen was the old Winnebago, Olivia named. "Be warned, seems that your old group made contact with the Greene's. Apparently Otis shot a young boy named Carl while he was hunting. Now who in their right mind would take a young boy into the woods and get themselves shot. Whoever it was must be an idiot or didn't care about the boy."

Then that was when Sophia and Olivia came out. They both sat at the table to eat, while Sophia was getting her food she said, "Carl is not all there, Mr. Jack. He thinks everything is a game and his mother lets him do whatever he likes. I tried playing with him at the quarry, but all he wanted to do was go into the woods and explore. Those woods were dangerous, and he would always say that it was fine, that he knew what he was doing."

Then I looked at Carol, to see what she thought, "well, if we go, I'll stay in the RV, there's nothing there for me. They all treated me like I was the plague, and Sophia as a waste child. I know my Sophie, she is smart for her age, and didn't like her playing with the immature boys that were there. So, sometimes I would make up stuff, just to keep her at a distance from them."

She didn't care if I went or not, as long as she didn't step out she was fine. "Okay, so, after breakfast we go and help them out. So, who wants pancakes? I put out two stacks of Blueberry and Chocolate pancakes for the girls. "Yay" The girls threw their arms in the air to celebrate. And we had a fun breakfast, as I could see both Olivia and Sophia with happy smiles on their faces.

Didn't take us long to make our way back to the farm. Maggie was already waiting for us as I drove in. As soon as I stopped, she had made her way to the door, "I let her in and the medical equipment I had was waiting for her in the hallway. "Thank you. You're a life saver, help me take these in, please." And I did, but when I was about to enter the home, a scruffy black-haired man stopped me.

"Who the hell are you? What are doing here?" I didn't even answer, I kicked the idiot in his chest, and he fell unconscious a few feet away from the door to the Greene home. "I don't answer morons, who think this is their house. Now anyone else got a problem?" I looked around as Maggie came behind me. "Just leave him be, Jack. My father needs this stuff, come on let's go."

I nodded at her as I followed her to one of the rooms where Hershel was operating on a child. "Jack's here, dad. And he brought what you needed. Where do you want it?" Hershel looked up and pointed at his right side. "Bring it here. Jack you're a life saver." Then he saw me behind Maggie. "Hey Jack, thanks for coming back. We needed this stuff and with this the boy will make it."

I nodded at him then said, "you might have a new patient out there. Some idiot tried to stop me from entering your house and it didn't go well for him. He's probably still unconscious on your porch." Then Maggie spoke out, "Yeah, that Shane fellow thinks it's his farm and we have to follow his rules. We told him and his group many times this ain't there home and they need to behave, but that Shane won't listen."

(To be Continued...)