Aug. 26th - The Herd (BtVS/TWD/GG)
Title: The Herd
Author: 3am_moonlight
Rating: Gen.
Crossover: The Walking Dead & Gilmore Girls.
Timeline: Post-BtVS, Post-GG, and S01 for TWD
Characters: Buffy Summers, Faith Lehane, Rory Gilmore, misc TWD characters.
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse belongs to Joss Whedon. TWD & GG belong to someone who isn't me.
Summary: The walker herd attack the Quarry Camp.
Word Count: 2,025
Note: Follows ' Same Old Brand New You', and ' A Step In the Right Direction'.
Later, Buffy would wonder if her sudden feeling that something bad was about to happen, had anything to do with Jim, one of the camp's survivors, spending the day digging holes which looked suspiciously like open graves. Unfortunately, she'd decided not to ask him about it, and instead, she'd tried to get to know more of the survivors. Knowing the people she was now protecting would be helpful in the future as it gave her a starting point for how they would react to different situations, including if, or rather *when*, they were attacked. And sooner or later they would be; either by the living or by the dead. There was also the chance of animal attacks at some point.
Her questions, other than the obvious one to ask for their full name, or in a few cases repeat their name, was to ask what they'd done pre-apocalypse. What were their hobbies; did they have any particular skills? She'd also asked them how many had family within the camp; how many of the undead had they killed; how much did they know about fighting and how to kill? Did they know first aid or something more advanced? Did they know what to do with water they intended to drink or use in food if it didn't come from a sealed bottle? As people answered her questions she wrote them down in a notebook, making plenty of space so she could add information later.
When they had the time she and Faith would go through everything and try to work out a schedule so everyone could learn at the very least the basics of what they needed to know in order to survive in the new world. There would be complaints and refusals, so before they began they needed to get Rick on board since he seemed to be a natural choice as the new leader unless Buffy decided to take the position. Or perhaps they could share, it would certainly make it easier for both of them. More likely than not they would also need to convince Lori of the necessity to learn these things since she appeared to be the one most likely to object, loudly, and many of the others would follow her lead and see it as a good reason to refuse.
Too many people expected others to do the dirty work for them. They expected other people to hunt, to cook the food, and to gather water. They expected someone else to do the laundry and get them new clothes, and they expected others to fight both the living and the undead for them. Few people expected all of it, but too many didn't get that the world had ended and they needed to be useful to the group and not simply assume they'd get whatever they needed without doing their share.
The two Slayers would evaluate the members of the group, find out who had which skill set and then get them to teach everyone else. The two women would openly admit there were some things on that list they were bad or even terrible at, cooking came to mind, but most of it could be taught. This group also needed to learn that laundry wasn't exclusively the women's job, neither was cooking. Hunting could also be done by both genders. And no one should go anywhere alone, there was too big a risk that they'd run into a corpse or twenty. In other words, Daryl would no longer be hunting by himself.
Buffy had done the same thing with their previous group to ensure she knew what to teach them, which jobs they should do, and which jobs they shouldn't. All in all, it had come in handy, at least until they'd lost the group to human stupidity and the base urges of the walking dead. This time they needed to do better, they needed to make sure that this time they wouldn't lose everyone. Especially since there were children in this camp, unlike their last group. It gave her a different reason to do better this time.
&&&
In the distance, Buffy heard twigs break and the voice of Ed Peletier complain at someone he clearly thought was his wife. A quick look around the campfire confirmed that Carol and her daughter were still sitting on the other side of the fire eating their portion of the fish. The same survey also confirmed that the only ones not attending the dinner were Ed and Amy Harrison who had gone to the bathroom a few minutes earlier after much laughter when her sister had asked where she was going.
That meant there were either other humans at the camp, wild animals looking for food, or there was at least one walker outside the Peletier family's tent. Buffy quickly got up. "Everyone get a weapon, we have company and I don't think it's friendly."
In the direction of the tent, she heard a short 'oh' in shock, followed by the tell-tale groan of a walker and then the unmistakable sound of teeth biting into flesh. Over by the RV, the door opened and before Amy could say whatever she intended to say, Buffy quickly declared, "Get back inside, we're surrounded by walkers!"
Amy stared at her for a few seconds before a walker rounded the vehicle and she quickly retreated inside and locked the door behind her. Outside chaos broke out as the undead poured into the camp from nearly all around them, shambling towards the living looking for another meal. The three mothers in the camp grabbed their children in panic but none of them seemed to know what to do after that, and reflexively Buffy shooed them in the direction of the nearby cars and told them to get inside and lock the doors and get down low so the dead wouldn't focus on them. The same order was given to Rory and her little sister, and they quickly got into Rory's car along with Miranda Morales and her two children while Buffy covered them.
Behind her, Shane and Dale were shooting at the corpses with a rifle; Morales and Jim were using baseball bats to hit them in the head, and the rest were either screaming or hiding behind the men with the weapons. Didn't anyone pay attention to her earlier?
"Ladies! Get your knives or bats and aim for their head! You need to be proactive and stop depending on someone else to save you!" While she'd been talking she'd used the Scythe to cut the head off of three walkers who had been aiming for her due to her yelling over all the noise. "If you can't or won't fight either get inside a car or get up on the RV or get up somewhere else where they can't reach you. But whatever you do, stop screaming! It only attracts more of them."
Behind her, she heard the sound of running footsteps, which thankfully included Faith's, and she thanked all that was good for proper backup. The four-five men with her would also be helpful in this, hopefully. When they finally reached the Quarry Camp they had already been shooting for a while and she heard the familiar soft swish of her sister Slayers sword through the air.
"Need some help, B?" Faith's grim smile met her when she turned to the left and she simply nodded. There was no need for words between the two of them when they were fighting. They had long since perfected their synchronized Slaying and with that simple nod, they moved further into the fray. While keeping each other in their peripheral view they systematically worked their way across the camp, cutting the top off of every walker's head in their reach before continuing. Along the way, they checked into the cars for the living and under and around the cars for the undead.
Around them, Rick, Shane, Dale, Glenn, T-Dog, and a man she assumed was Merle Dixon were all shooting at the undead with either guns or rifles. The newcomer seemed to match the description Jacqui had given of Merle at any rate. She'd described him as 'entitled white trash in his early fifties'. Not that it mattered at that point, but it was strange what went through her head in the middle of a fight that didn't really relate to what she was doing.
The fight seemed to go on for hours, but in reality, it was most likely somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes. The herd had been large and widely spread out, and it had also included nearly 20 stragglers who had shambled their way into the camp in the last ten minutes.
When all was said and done there were more than 80 completely dead walkers lying strewn around the camp. That's when the difficult part began; they had to go from body to body and check if it was properly deceased or if it needed to have its brain destroyed, and they also needed to see if it was someone from their camp or one of the herd.
They paired up, one who knew all of the people who had been in the camp before the herd arrived and could tell them apart from the newly arrived walkers, and one person to be on the lookout in case more of them arrived or got back up again suddenly. It wasn't a perfect solution, but they needed to do it now so they wouldn't get a nasty surprise later and lose even more people. Thankfully, both Rick and Shane agreed and they set to work, working their way through all of the bodies while separating them into two piles; one for their own to be buried later and a second for the walkers to be burned. Or rather the deceased camp members were laid out in a row, side by side, while the dead walkers were in several piles further away.
Only the children managed to get some sleep that night, as all the adults were anxiously waiting for the pretend protection the daylight would give them. The illusion was a strong one, and one even Buffy and Faith subscribed to after spending more than a decade fighting vampires and knowing there had been genuine protection from that sort of undead in the rising sun. Unfortunately, there was no protection against the walking dead, except for strong walls to keep them out and something sharp or blunt to destroy their brain with.
When morning finally came and the fires had already been burning for several hours, they buried their dead in the holes Jim had spent digging the day before. After a quick cleaning and an even quicker breakfast, they had settled into the cars and simply began driving away from Atlanta and towards the CDC.
Buffy joined Rory and Gigi in Rory's car along with Carol and her daughter Sophia. Faith took Buffy's car and was joined by T-Dog, Daryl, and Jacqui. Dale drove the RV with Glenn in the front seat and the Harrison sisters and Jim in the back. Merle rode his motorcycle. The Grimes family had a car of their own, and Shane drove a Jeep with the rest.
The four members of the Morales family; Morales himself, his wife Miranda, and their children Eliza and Louis, chose to take their chances and try and find members of their remaining family in a nearby town.
It was a heavy loss for the camp; more than thirteen people had been killed and when the Morales family had chosen to leaves as well, it had cut the group nearly in half. On one hand, it meant they were much fewer people against the walkers, but on the other hand it meant fewer people to feed and fewer people who needed protection against the walkers and other, hostile survivors.
It wasn't a good way to think about it, but it was true. The herd attacking the camp also meant that many of them had seen the two Slayers fight and now they were suddenly much more interested in learning to defend themselves.
Author: 3am_moonlight
Rating: Gen.
Crossover: The Walking Dead & Gilmore Girls.
Timeline: Post-BtVS, Post-GG, and S01 for TWD
Characters: Buffy Summers, Faith Lehane, Rory Gilmore, misc TWD characters.
Disclaimer: The Buffyverse belongs to Joss Whedon. TWD & GG belong to someone who isn't me.
Summary: The walker herd attack the Quarry Camp.
Word Count: 2,025
Note: Follows ' Same Old Brand New You', and ' A Step In the Right Direction'.
Later, Buffy would wonder if her sudden feeling that something bad was about to happen, had anything to do with Jim, one of the camp's survivors, spending the day digging holes which looked suspiciously like open graves. Unfortunately, she'd decided not to ask him about it, and instead, she'd tried to get to know more of the survivors. Knowing the people she was now protecting would be helpful in the future as it gave her a starting point for how they would react to different situations, including if, or rather *when*, they were attacked. And sooner or later they would be; either by the living or by the dead. There was also the chance of animal attacks at some point.
Her questions, other than the obvious one to ask for their full name, or in a few cases repeat their name, was to ask what they'd done pre-apocalypse. What were their hobbies; did they have any particular skills? She'd also asked them how many had family within the camp; how many of the undead had they killed; how much did they know about fighting and how to kill? Did they know first aid or something more advanced? Did they know what to do with water they intended to drink or use in food if it didn't come from a sealed bottle? As people answered her questions she wrote them down in a notebook, making plenty of space so she could add information later.
When they had the time she and Faith would go through everything and try to work out a schedule so everyone could learn at the very least the basics of what they needed to know in order to survive in the new world. There would be complaints and refusals, so before they began they needed to get Rick on board since he seemed to be a natural choice as the new leader unless Buffy decided to take the position. Or perhaps they could share, it would certainly make it easier for both of them. More likely than not they would also need to convince Lori of the necessity to learn these things since she appeared to be the one most likely to object, loudly, and many of the others would follow her lead and see it as a good reason to refuse.
Too many people expected others to do the dirty work for them. They expected other people to hunt, to cook the food, and to gather water. They expected someone else to do the laundry and get them new clothes, and they expected others to fight both the living and the undead for them. Few people expected all of it, but too many didn't get that the world had ended and they needed to be useful to the group and not simply assume they'd get whatever they needed without doing their share.
The two Slayers would evaluate the members of the group, find out who had which skill set and then get them to teach everyone else. The two women would openly admit there were some things on that list they were bad or even terrible at, cooking came to mind, but most of it could be taught. This group also needed to learn that laundry wasn't exclusively the women's job, neither was cooking. Hunting could also be done by both genders. And no one should go anywhere alone, there was too big a risk that they'd run into a corpse or twenty. In other words, Daryl would no longer be hunting by himself.
Buffy had done the same thing with their previous group to ensure she knew what to teach them, which jobs they should do, and which jobs they shouldn't. All in all, it had come in handy, at least until they'd lost the group to human stupidity and the base urges of the walking dead. This time they needed to do better, they needed to make sure that this time they wouldn't lose everyone. Especially since there were children in this camp, unlike their last group. It gave her a different reason to do better this time.
&&&
In the distance, Buffy heard twigs break and the voice of Ed Peletier complain at someone he clearly thought was his wife. A quick look around the campfire confirmed that Carol and her daughter were still sitting on the other side of the fire eating their portion of the fish. The same survey also confirmed that the only ones not attending the dinner were Ed and Amy Harrison who had gone to the bathroom a few minutes earlier after much laughter when her sister had asked where she was going.
That meant there were either other humans at the camp, wild animals looking for food, or there was at least one walker outside the Peletier family's tent. Buffy quickly got up. "Everyone get a weapon, we have company and I don't think it's friendly."
In the direction of the tent, she heard a short 'oh' in shock, followed by the tell-tale groan of a walker and then the unmistakable sound of teeth biting into flesh. Over by the RV, the door opened and before Amy could say whatever she intended to say, Buffy quickly declared, "Get back inside, we're surrounded by walkers!"
Amy stared at her for a few seconds before a walker rounded the vehicle and she quickly retreated inside and locked the door behind her. Outside chaos broke out as the undead poured into the camp from nearly all around them, shambling towards the living looking for another meal. The three mothers in the camp grabbed their children in panic but none of them seemed to know what to do after that, and reflexively Buffy shooed them in the direction of the nearby cars and told them to get inside and lock the doors and get down low so the dead wouldn't focus on them. The same order was given to Rory and her little sister, and they quickly got into Rory's car along with Miranda Morales and her two children while Buffy covered them.
Behind her, Shane and Dale were shooting at the corpses with a rifle; Morales and Jim were using baseball bats to hit them in the head, and the rest were either screaming or hiding behind the men with the weapons. Didn't anyone pay attention to her earlier?
"Ladies! Get your knives or bats and aim for their head! You need to be proactive and stop depending on someone else to save you!" While she'd been talking she'd used the Scythe to cut the head off of three walkers who had been aiming for her due to her yelling over all the noise. "If you can't or won't fight either get inside a car or get up on the RV or get up somewhere else where they can't reach you. But whatever you do, stop screaming! It only attracts more of them."
Behind her, she heard the sound of running footsteps, which thankfully included Faith's, and she thanked all that was good for proper backup. The four-five men with her would also be helpful in this, hopefully. When they finally reached the Quarry Camp they had already been shooting for a while and she heard the familiar soft swish of her sister Slayers sword through the air.
"Need some help, B?" Faith's grim smile met her when she turned to the left and she simply nodded. There was no need for words between the two of them when they were fighting. They had long since perfected their synchronized Slaying and with that simple nod, they moved further into the fray. While keeping each other in their peripheral view they systematically worked their way across the camp, cutting the top off of every walker's head in their reach before continuing. Along the way, they checked into the cars for the living and under and around the cars for the undead.
Around them, Rick, Shane, Dale, Glenn, T-Dog, and a man she assumed was Merle Dixon were all shooting at the undead with either guns or rifles. The newcomer seemed to match the description Jacqui had given of Merle at any rate. She'd described him as 'entitled white trash in his early fifties'. Not that it mattered at that point, but it was strange what went through her head in the middle of a fight that didn't really relate to what she was doing.
The fight seemed to go on for hours, but in reality, it was most likely somewhere between 30 and 40 minutes. The herd had been large and widely spread out, and it had also included nearly 20 stragglers who had shambled their way into the camp in the last ten minutes.
When all was said and done there were more than 80 completely dead walkers lying strewn around the camp. That's when the difficult part began; they had to go from body to body and check if it was properly deceased or if it needed to have its brain destroyed, and they also needed to see if it was someone from their camp or one of the herd.
They paired up, one who knew all of the people who had been in the camp before the herd arrived and could tell them apart from the newly arrived walkers, and one person to be on the lookout in case more of them arrived or got back up again suddenly. It wasn't a perfect solution, but they needed to do it now so they wouldn't get a nasty surprise later and lose even more people. Thankfully, both Rick and Shane agreed and they set to work, working their way through all of the bodies while separating them into two piles; one for their own to be buried later and a second for the walkers to be burned. Or rather the deceased camp members were laid out in a row, side by side, while the dead walkers were in several piles further away.
Only the children managed to get some sleep that night, as all the adults were anxiously waiting for the pretend protection the daylight would give them. The illusion was a strong one, and one even Buffy and Faith subscribed to after spending more than a decade fighting vampires and knowing there had been genuine protection from that sort of undead in the rising sun. Unfortunately, there was no protection against the walking dead, except for strong walls to keep them out and something sharp or blunt to destroy their brain with.
When morning finally came and the fires had already been burning for several hours, they buried their dead in the holes Jim had spent digging the day before. After a quick cleaning and an even quicker breakfast, they had settled into the cars and simply began driving away from Atlanta and towards the CDC.
Buffy joined Rory and Gigi in Rory's car along with Carol and her daughter Sophia. Faith took Buffy's car and was joined by T-Dog, Daryl, and Jacqui. Dale drove the RV with Glenn in the front seat and the Harrison sisters and Jim in the back. Merle rode his motorcycle. The Grimes family had a car of their own, and Shane drove a Jeep with the rest.
The four members of the Morales family; Morales himself, his wife Miranda, and their children Eliza and Louis, chose to take their chances and try and find members of their remaining family in a nearby town.
It was a heavy loss for the camp; more than thirteen people had been killed and when the Morales family had chosen to leaves as well, it had cut the group nearly in half. On one hand, it meant they were much fewer people against the walkers, but on the other hand it meant fewer people to feed and fewer people who needed protection against the walkers and other, hostile survivors.
It wasn't a good way to think about it, but it was true. The herd attacking the camp also meant that many of them had seen the two Slayers fight and now they were suddenly much more interested in learning to defend themselves.