There was only a sliver of dusk left by the time they reached the dock they had sailed past earlier.
"Is that even safe? It looks like it's gonna break the moment we step on it." Jack asked aloud with worry when he saw the state of the dock. A couple of planks are missing and several planks are barely hanging before they fall into the water.
The only fortunate thing about this dock is that there's no boats docked or floating aimlessly in the area.
The dock groaned under Michael's boot the moment he stepped onto it, testing his weight before committing the rest of himself.
"Yeah, that's not filling me with confidence," Jack muttered from the boat.
"It'll hold." Michael took another step, deliberately, trying to get a feel if the wood can bear his weight. "Though it's a little slippery."
They tied off on the one cleat that still looked solid, giving the boat enough slack to ride the current without grinding its hull against the pilings. Rosita cut the engines, and the quiet that followed felt heavier than it should have, the kind of silence that made every small sound after it, water lapping, wood settling, wind moving through dead reeds along the bank — sounds louder than they should be, and the silence around them made it all the creepier
"No lights," Michael said, before anyone reached for a flashlight. "Not until we know what's actually out here. Let's not attract any unwanted attention towards us."
Nobody argued. They unloaded only what they needed for the night, leaving the rest secured below decks, and while Jack and Rosita were busy at the dock. Michael took Michonne with him and headed towards a nearby house. They made a short sweep of the place and as thoroughly as possible to make sure there are no hidden dangers inside.
The crew settled inside for the night and Michael split the watch into two shifts. He took the first with Jack. Rosita and Michonne would take the second.
Michonne didn't say much about it, just nodded and took the first blanket she was handed before settling a few feet off, at the corner of the living room. She did not even hesitate and quickly went to sleep.
Rosita on the other hand slept on the sofa.
The two headed towards the second floor where it would give them a better vantage view in their surroundings.
"She does not really talk a lot huh?" Jack asked once she was out of easy earshot.
"Since the day she showed up." Michael sat with his back against a fallen log, rifle across his knees. "She keeps to herself, but she's reliable. That's why I brought her with us."
"Yeah. I saw." Jack settled in beside him, breath fogging in the cold. "She's really good with that sword of hers, and it seems we've got one thing in common since I also don't feel like talking much either."
Michael raised an eyebrow when he saw the expression on his face when looking at Michonne. "Why? Don't tell me you actually like her?"
Jack flinched and huffed something close to a laugh, but he didn't say anything in response.
For a while neither of them said anything else. The surrounding nature around them ticked and creaked with its own noises, and somewhere off in the dark, something large moved through brush and then went still again. Michael and Jack just quietly stared into the darkness.
"You said something back at the hardware store," Michael said eventually. "About living nomadic for a while. Before all this."
Jack didn't answer right away. He grabbed a cigarette and placed it between his lips, but did not light it. "Yeah. All of us were. It wasn't easy, but it was the safest way to survive amidst this chaos around us."
"Hmm.. I also lived by myself for a month inside a forest before Daryl found me. It was a little lonely, but it was a peaceful life since I didn't need to worry about anyone except me."
"Mm." Jack exhaled slowly, watching his breath curl away into the dark. "I grew up moving a lot. Never really had a place that was ours for longer than a year, maybe two. My old man had a habit of leaving debts behind faster than he could pay them off, so I would leave with him with no warning and no goodbyes to anybody." He shrugged like it cost him nothing to say, though the flatness in his voice said otherwise. "I eventually joined the marines after high school and left him."
"Damn, that's rough."
"Yeah." A small, humorless smile. "It sucks, and I barely have any friends I was still in contact with back then. From time to time, I still wonder if they are still somewhere out there, living."
Michael just quietly listened and did not say anything. He'd learned enough to know when a door had opened a crack and when it hadn't opened any further than that.
"What about you?" Jack asked. "Everybody's got a before. Even you."
"Long story."
"We got time."
Michael almost smiled at that. He wanted to, but he does not even know where to start.
"Maybe some other night."
Jack didn't press it, and the silence that followed wasn't an uncomfortable one.
It was the familiar groan of walkers that broke the silence. Guttural and close, from somewhere along the tree line to their left. Michael got up from the chair and crouched down behind the balcony.
"One, two..at least ten walkers." he said, low.
Jack also stood up with a rifle in hand and crouched down beside Michael. When he did that, more walkers walked out from the darkness behind the initial ten walkers and slowly occupied the entire street and marched down following the road.
"There's at least fifty down there. We didn't even hear anything until they got here. Did they finally figure out how to shut up?" Jack said, his body slightly tensing up.
Though Jack's words came out sounding humorous, his voice remained serious.
Michael also wondered since a walker herd whether big or small made loud noises proportional to their number and a small herd of at least fifty should have been making a lot of noise before they even got to their location.
'What the heck is happening? Are they mutating in large numbers or is there someone controlling them?' Michael thought as he properly eyed the passing herd. Unfortunately, the moon was missing tonight out of all nights and Michael failed to see any unusual walkers among them.
"Is there a small possibility that there's a mutant among those?" Jack whispered to Michael.
Michael shook his head. "I don't know. Let's just ignore them."
Below them, Michonne was actually up and watching the herd passing by behind the slit of the curtain.
Only when they had gone far did she let out a sigh of relief.
"Are they gone?"
Michonne slightly flinched when she heard Rosita's voice. She was also woken up by the noise outside.
"Yeah."
"That's good. I thought we would have trouble tonight. Go back to sleep. It's gonna be a long day tomorrow."