The Other Side of This Life

There had been a change of plans for today, almost everyone was going out scavenging. Tara and Glenn were headed out to some locations Gabriel said he had already looked through, but they thought they should give it another shot. Daryl was also now accompanying Carol in a search for water from a nearby town. I still decided to go along with Rick to bring back as many supplies as possible. The church was in a fairly secluded spot in the woods, most of its attendees before all of this living on acres of land with only a single town nearby. The more supplies we could pull together today, the longer we could stay shielded in the woods with shelter.

We were just entering town now, Gabriel leading the way. I could tell even by the way he carried himself that he was scared of what lay ahead of us. He was reluctant to come along, but under no circumstances was Rick going to leave him alone with the group back at the church.

This town looked like nothing special. A typical area that we have passed through many times before that had clearly been raided by other groups. Our only saving grace was that we were prepared to enter the places where no other person would dare to. So far the streets remained silent, there were no alarms going off that even a small herd was nearby.

"Has Daryl talked to you yet?" I asked Rick as we trailed at the back of the pack. I kept my voice low, wanting this conversation to remain between the two of us.

"He told you? He thinks someone is watching us," Rick answered.

"I brought it up to him first. I've noticed it too," I claimed, pulling my gun closer to my chest.

"He said it was a feeling."

"It is," I agreed, "Daryl would know better than anyone, but I get it too. A twig snapping here and there and once you take notice it's dead silent again. That feeling of eyes constantly on your back, hovering." I looked up at him. "It sounds crazy but--"

"We'll keep an eye on it," he interjected.

"We don't need another problem," I admitted, my brows furrowing with worry.

"That's why we keep it between the three of us for now. No need to worry people when we don't know anything for sure yet," he stated.

"Don't you think it would be better for people to know? To be alert?" I asked.

"People worry, people do dumb things--"

"This was the food bank. It served the whole county. All the cans at my church were going to end up here." Gabriel cut off our conversation. We were here.

Gabriel stood back as we entered first. We easily snapped back into our old routine of clearing rooms. Rick swung open the door, Michonne catching it behind him. We walked down a tight hallway before entering a larger common area. Rick's body swung to the right, his gun pointed towards the open room. This space was brighter than the hallway, the natural light peeking through the blindless windows. All other doors leading to separate rooms had been closed off, leaving this space clear and safe.

The room looked pretty trashed, chairs and tables flipped over, racks of donated clothes dispersed across the room, and shelves knocked down from the walls. As we walked further in I spotted a clear gaping hole in the floorboards, at least two meters wide. As we approached Rick held his hand up for us to stop following so he could investigate. The sounds of the walker's gurgles coming from down below. Rick leaned over, taking a peek. He then waved us over.

As I neared the broken floorboards, the smell wafting from down below was horrendous. I choked as I lifted my tank top over my mouth and nose, trying to shield myself from it. I stared down at the dozen walkers Gabriel had spoken of earlier. All of them submerged in belly-deep water, pacing around aimlessly looking for food. From sitting in the water so long some of their skin had begun to decompose in the water while others began to bloat and swell to no end.

"If a swerve could puke, this is what it would smell like," Bob said, making my stomach churn. What was worse was that everything we needed sat on the racks down below with them.

"The water has been coming down that hole for a while," Michonne said, causing us to all look up at the two deteriorated holes in the ceiling. All the rainwater leaked through, damaging the floorboards until it collapsed and created a swimming pool in the basement.

"We can use the shelves to block them," Sasha suggested.

"Yeah, that's it," Rick agreed to the plan, "there's our way." Rick then stopped before climbing down on the first shelf. "Hey, I said you're coming with us," he called over to Gabriel.

I looked up at him, his breathing unsteady and his brows furrowed with fright. Although, he didn't fight Rick on it. Instead, he took a deep breath in and like he couldn't believe what he was about to do and followed us down.

My feet hit the water first before the rest of my body was submerged. The smell was even worse when you were walking around in it. The only thing stopping me from puking was the fear of blocking the walkers off with the shelves quick enough. Gabriel's body hit the water last, just as we were pulling the four shelves together in a line. The walkers quickly swarmed to us, the smell of human flesh hitting their senses for the first time in a while. They slammed their chest up against the other side of the metal shelving unit, thankfully their arms were not long enough to reach over at us.

As soon as we were blocked in we began taking them out one by one with our knives. Gabriel hid behind us against the wall as the walkers slowly sank underwater. I grunted as I threw my arm through the shelf, stabbing another walker through its skull. I turned my head with every motion to shield myself from the blood and its pungent smell. Although, what spewed from their body no longer looked like blood. Instead, it was a congealed grey liquid that poured out in a gew.

"I should have gone with Glenn," I yelled as I stabbed through the eye of another melting walker.

The sound of a crack and an object splashing down into the water caused all of our heads to snap to the right. Gabriel had somehow managed to swim over past our barrier, trying to climb the broken stairs back to the main floor. An older woman was hot on his heels as he swam to the wall.

"We have to get Gabriel," Rick ordered.

"What happened?" Bob yelled.

"I don't know. We'll push down the shelves on the ones in front of us. We'll fight through and Scar will grab him." He explained.

I was the closest to him. I gritted my teeth in frustration before swimming over to him upon hearing their shelf hit the water. The walker closed in, walking through the water, but not fast enough before I could swim over. Gabriel clung to the wall helplessly. He closed his eyes, waiting to die, not making any attempt at all to save himself. I grabbed onto the back of the walker's shoulders, throwing her to the left before sinking my knife into the side of her skull.

Gabriel sunk into the water crying. I helped him back to his feet, pitying him. It never failed to shock me how people like this had managed to make it in this world this far. That same feeling arises, that even though we were all living through the same nightmare, everyone experiences it differently.

"Bob!" Sasha screamed, causing my body to snap back around. I only saw the faint glimpse of Bob's orange shirt before he was yanked underwater. We all rushed over to him when he popped back up from underwater, both his hands latched onto the arms of a walker. They tossed and turned back and forth, water pouring out of the walker's mouth as it screeched. No one could get an angle on its head. Bob threw it forward, impaling its torso on a metal bar. Sasha then came barreling down on its head with a basket, hitting it a few times over before its head caved in.

"You okay? Bob, you okay?" she heaved, looking him up and down.

"I'm fine now," he exhaled, placing a soft kiss on her lips.

-------

We all huddled around the common table, most of us sat in the aisle or laying on the pews enjoying our meals and wine. Other than the scare both Gabriel and Bob gave us, the rest of the trip was successful, bringing back more food and supplies than we've had in a long time. Everyone had made it back safely by nightfall, all gathering items that would be useful in the future. Now we only enjoyed ourselves for the night. Our stomachs were full and our minds a little blurry from the communion wine Gabriel so graciously offered.

I laid on one of the pews with my head on Daryl's knee, picking at some bread after finishing my bowl of stew. Rick sat by my feet, his back against the pew while he played with Judith. Everyone was off in their own conversations, joking and laughing. It has been so long since we've felt this way.

"Did you have a good day?" I asked Daryl, my eyes fluttering up at him.

He looked down at me, chuckling, "Yeah, I did," he kept it short as usual, "You?" he asked.

I took another sip from my wine bottle, "I went swimming," I smiled. My eyes then glanced down, watching my brother sit with Rosita across from me. For the first time ever I saw a laugh come out of her as my brother told a story. "They'd be good together," I said, swinging back another gulp. The wine then spilt down the side of my cheek from being on my back.

Daryl laughed, "Ight, I think you've had enough of this," he said, grabbing the bottle from my hands.

"Awe man, Mr. Dixon is back--"

"I'd like to propose a toast," Abraham called out loudly, slowly quieting everyone in the room down. I sat up, wanting to see him as he spoke. "I look around this room… and I see survivors. Each and every one of you has earned that title. To the survivors." He raised his glass to cheers.

"Survivors! Cheers!" Tara called out.

There was a chorus of woos and claps from everyone.

"Is that all you want to be?" Abraham then asked his cheerful tone dropping. "Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat? 'Cause, you could do that. I mean, you got the strength. You got the skill. The thing is, for you people, what you can do, that's just surrender. Now, we get Eugene to Washington. He will make the dead die and the living will have this world again. And that is not a bad takeaway for a little road trip." He carried on. "Eugen, what's in DC?"

We all brought our attention to Eugine. "Infrastructure constructed to withstand pandemics even of this fubar magnitude. That means food, fuel, refuge. Restart," Eugine explained.

"However this plays out, however long it takes for the restart button to kick in, you can be safe there. Safer than you've been since this whole thing started. Come with us," Abraham pleaded his case. "Save the world for that little one," he looked down at Judith, "Save it for yourselves. Save it for the people out there… who don't got nothing left to do except survive."

Rick chuckled as Judith cooed, the first of any of us to make any noise at all. "What was that?" he asked her, his voice calm and playful. Other people chuckled along. "I think she knows what I'm about to say. She's in. If she's in, I'm in. We're in." Rick answered, a smile on his face as he nodded his head.

There was another chorus of claps as people agreed with the decision. We were all riding the high of today and now with a future planned ahead of us. Although the road coming may be a long one, we at least had right now to live for. And there wasn't anyone that could take that away from us.