Chapter Text
I'm fucking surrounded. Walkers are roaming around every corner and there's no sign of anyone.
I jab my knife into the head of a walker who started to get a little too close, wiping the rotting remains and blood on my hand onto the building behind me.
More start closing in on me, groaning and limping slowly. Tears well in my eyes as I realize this is probably where I'm gonna die. I continue to stab all of them in the head, trying my best to avoid getting bit.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see two people run past the herd.
"HEY, OVER THERE!" I shout at them
I see the figures stop for a moment and I take that moment to yell at them again.
"HELP! PLEASE" I'm on the verge of sobbing when I see them point their guns at the walkers that are circling me. The one with a sheriffs uniform shoots the ones on the outer layer, the one in the baseball cap stabbing them from behind and making his way into the inner layer. He finally reaches me and drags me out, shoving the remaining walkers to the ground to make sure we aren't bit.
He keeps his hold on my arm as we run towards an alley way a bit further down the street from where I was stuck. The Sheriff shoots some walkers in the way as we reach a ladder. We climb up until we reach a small platform to catch our breath.
Baseball hat guy looks at the Sheriff.
"Nice moves there Clint Eastwood. You the new sheriff, come riding in to clean up the town?" He says, panting between the words, tired from the running.
"It wasn't my intention." The older man responds, also catching his breath.
"Yeah, whatever. Yeehaw. You're still a dumbass." He rolls his eyes and turns to look at me.
"What the hell were you doing out there kid?" A look of confusion forms on his face.
I just shrug, not meeting his eyes. They may have saved my life but I still don't know these people.
The Sheriff turns to the younger man and holds out his hand.
"Rick, Thanks."
"Glenn. You're welcome."
Rick takes his turn to look at me and raises his eyebrow, silently asking me my name.
"Nova. Thanks, to both of you." I give a half assed smile, still not wanting to let my guard down just yet.
They nod at me before looking down and groaning as they see a walker starting to climb the ladder.
We look up and see a ladder that leads to the roof of the building.
"The Bright side, It'll be the fall that kills us," Glenn says, "Im a glass-half-full kinda guy." He shrugs and starts climbing. Rick let me go ahead of him, in case the walkers actually make it up the ladder this far.
Eventually we reach the top and start making our way across the tops on the buildings.
Rick looks at Glenn and points to the alleyway.
"You the one that barricaded the alley?" He asks
"Somebody did, guessing when the city started to get overrun. Whoever did it was thinking, not many geeks get through." Glenn responds as we start jogging across the building top.
I make a weird face at the name he calls the walkers. Eventually we reach a hatch in the roof.
"Back at the tank, why'd you stick your neck out for me?" Rick asks, holding the hatch door open for Glenn.
"Call it foolish, naive, hope, that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me." Glenn says as he tosses his bag down and gets on the ladder. "Guess I'm an ever bigger dumbass than you."
I chuckle at Glenns words as he starts climbing down. He smiles at me before his head disappears down the ladder. I follow him, Rick following behind me and closing the hatch.
We climb down into a a very destroyed room, an emergency exit door on the other side. We push through onto a stair case. Glenn pulls out a walkie talkie as we run.
"I'm back, got two guests. plus two geeks in the alley."
We reach the bottom of the stairs and quickly stop when we see the four walkers Glenn spoke of. A door across the way slams open and two people in some type of protective gear with baseball bats rush through and beat up two of the walkers. Glenn pulls us forward and we run towards the door. The two people follow us into the room and Rick is immediately held at gun point. The woman holding the gun glares at me.
"Son of a bitch, we ought to kill you." She says angrily, pointing her gun between the both of us.
"Just chill out, Andrea. Back off" One guy in the gear says.
"Ease up." The other woman in the group says.
"Ease up? your kidding me right? We're dead because if this stupid asshole." she says not putting her gun away.
"Andrea, I said back the hell off." The guy repeats. Andrea looks at us again, Glenn looking at us worriedly. "Well? Pull the trigger." Andrea finally back off and looks down.
"We're dead. All of us. Because of you." She said tearfully.
"I don't understand." Rick said looking around the group. One of the men grab his shoulder and takes him to a different room. Glenn gently grabs my shoulder and leads us to where they're going.
"Look, We came to the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving! You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing. Not shooting up the streets like is the O.K Corral." The man who grabbed Rick explained. He leads us into the front of the building, and I can now see it's a department store.
The other guy walks next to him. "Every geek for miles around heard you popping off rounds." he says angrily
"You just rang the dinner bell." Andrea says, looking at the doors to the store
"Get the picture now?" The man who is still holding onto Rick says.
Walkers growl loudly from outside. One starts hitting the glass door with a rock. We all freak out and step back.
"What the hell were you two doing out there anyways?" Andrea says.
"Trying to flag down the helicopter." Rick answers. Everyone looks at him weirdly, telling him there was no helicopter. He looks at them angrily and tells them it was the truth. The rest of the group looks at me, asking me the same question.
I just stare at them and then look away, refusing to answer. They get the hint and turn to someone else in the group. One if them asks the guy "T Dog" if he was able to contact the others.
Rick asks if the 'others' are from the refugee center. I guess he hasn't heard there isn't one anymore. The black haired woman makes a sarcastic joke about it before we all decide to run up to the roof to get a better signal for the radio.
We suddenly hear a loud gunshot from the roof.
"Oh no, is that Dixon?" Andrea complains before we run to the roof to stop whoever Dixon is.
The man ends up being some yeehaw racist piece of shit. Him and T Dog get in a fight, and points a gun at us. He looks at me weird, probably wondering where the hell I came from. Thankfully before anything else goes wrong, Rick hits him with the back of his gun and handcuffs him too a pipe on the roof.
Merle asks Rick who he is and he responds by telling him he's 'Officer Friendly'. They talk, Rick telling him that we all need to work together. I find out that he's looking for his wife and son. I don't point out that's there's a high chance they're already dead.
The man whose name I learned to be Morales, follows Rick as he goes too look over the city. I over hear their conversation.
"You're not Atlanta P.D. Where are you from?" He asks Rick
"Up the road a ways." He vaguely answers.
"Well Officer Friendly from up the road a ways, Welcome to the big city." He turns and looks at me. "Where are you from kid?"
Due to the fact Morales was one of the people very against Andrea shooting me and Rick, I decide to actually acknowledge his question this time."
"Valdosta." I answer simply.
"You mean other side of the state Valdosta?" He says confused. I nod, looking awkwardly away suddenly feeling everyone's eyes on me. He shrugs and goes back to talking to Rick. I hear Merle say "weird kid" raising his eyebrow and glaring at me. I feel someone's hand on my shoulder and I'm tugged into the groove between someone's arm and shoulder. I look behind me and realize it's Glenn. He glares at Merle before looking down and smiling at me. I smile back at him look down at my shoes.
I hear the rest of the group talking about the signal of the walkie talkie again. Apparently the group has some more people outside the city. Merle makes some gross sex joke to Andrea and tries to get her to let him out of the handcuffs. Me and Glenn just roll our eyes as we sit on the small bridge on the roof.
Rick and Morales talk about how to get out of here when Rick says something about going through the sewers. Morales's eyes light up and he tells us to look down the alley and see if there's any man hole covers.
We race over and peer down the alley. I ran a little too excitedly and almost fell over the ledge. Glenn grabs my shoulder and makes sure I'm steady before jokingly rolling his eyes. We look back down and search before going back. He shakes his head at Morales when we get back to the group.
"No, must all be out in the street where the geeks are."
"Maybe not, old buildings like this built in the 20's, big structures often had drainage tunnels into the sewers in case of flooding, down in the subbasements." Jacqui said
"How do you know that?" Glenn asked.
"It's my job- was. I worked in the city zoning office." She replied. Well that's useful.
We all made our way into the basement, our flashlights all pointing down into a hole with a ladder going down into a pit of darkness.
"Is this it? Are you sure?" Morales asked Glenn. He nods and explains he had scoped it out other times he was there and it was the only thing in the building that went down.
He tells us he's only taking Morales as he feels safer with Andrea and Rick being in the front on the building as they have the only guns. Me and Jacqui are staying up here in case something happens and we need to warn them or help them.
I look nervously at Glenn, already mildly attached to the guy. He looks at me and puts his hand on my shoulder.
"I'm gonna be fine, ok? You be careful." He nods at me and I nod back. As he climbs down, Rick pats my back in a comforting manner and makes his way to the front of the store with Andrea.
---
Eventually Glenn and Morales come back up, looking disappointed. Suddenly we hear a crash come from the front. We all run in there and see the walkers have made their way through the first layer of the doors.
"What did you find down there?" Rick asks, pointing his gun at the doors just in case.
"Not a way out." Morales says.
"Well we need to find one, and soon." Andrea says.
We make our way back up to the roof and Rick uses someone's binoculars to scope out a possible way to get out of here. He looks back at us and hands Morales the binoculars. He tells us there's construction site with trucks that always have keys on hand.
We head downstairs, Rick apparently having come up with a plan. He grabs gloves and some other supplies. Glenn and Andrea watch the door as Rick and Morales grab one of the walkers they attacked earlier in the alley. They race back inside and Rick puts on some gear. He grabs an ax and is about to dismember the walker before stopping. He searches the man's pockets and pulls out a wallet.
"Wayne Dunlap." He says, as he reads off different info about the man. He says the year he was born and how much money he had in his wallet when he died. He had a picture of a girl in there. He tells us he was a regular guy like the rest of us. Rick says he's gonna tell his family about Wayne if he ever find them. I really doubt it.
"One more thing," Glenn says, after he looked at Wayne's License. "He was an organ donor." After those words, Rick slams the axe down, dismembering the walkers body. Everybody groans at the smell, most turning away or praying.
Grossed out 'Oh God's and gagging noises fill the room as Rick tells us not to get any on our skin or in our eyes. We start picking up the guts and blood and smearing it all over Glenn and Rick. I almost puke after a couple trips back to them and the body. Glenn does puke. Rick takes off a glove and tosses the key to Merles handcuffs to T Dog. He grabs the axe and cuts up more of the walker. We groan but finally they're covered enough to not be noticed by the walkers. Hopefully.
They walk outside and the rest of us run back to the roof, using the binoculars to see where they are. Suddenly there's thunder and the sky starts to get grey. We try to ignore it as we take turns looking at the two in the street and T Dog tries the radio again.
Then it's raining.
Fuck.
Rick and Glenn try to remain calm until a walker runs right at them. Rick hits it with his axe and they both start running towards the construction sight. I see them hop the fence and grab some keys and get in the truck right as a walker makes it over the fence and tries to get them. Then the fence falls. They back the truck up and drive out the back of the site.
"They're leaving us!"
"No No No come back!"
The group is confused and on the verge of tears as we watch them drive away. I'm shocked for a moment. I can't believe they're leaving us. They cant be, right?
"Those roll up doors on the front of the store. Meet us there and be ready." I hear Glenn say through the walkie talkie. I sigh in relief as we all grab our stuff and run downstairs. We make it to the loading dock, T Dog nowhere to be seen. Andrea, Jacqui, and Morales get ready with the chain for the door as I stand by the door and look out for T Dog. Eventually we hear a loud alarm going off outside. It quickly goes farther away. Then there's a sound of a car backing up and a bang on the door. T Dog rushes through the door and the rest open the roll up doors. Ricks there, holding out a hand for our stuff and we all hand it too him and we all get in as walkers run in from the front of the store. Morales quickly closes the door and we all catch our breath. I look around and see no Merle, but it's not really a loss. He was a dick. T Dog tells us he accidentally dropped the key down a drain before he could unlock the cuffs.
"Wait where's Glenn?" Andrea asks. Before she can get an answer, a red car with the same alarm that we heard earlier drives by with him screaming happily out the window. With me in the passenger seat, I wave excitedly at him. He waves back and signals Rick to stop as he also slows down. He motions at me to get in the car so I push open the door of the truck and race over to Glenns loud ass car. Rick rolls his eyes in a joking way and starts the truck up again.
"You guys make it out okay?" He asks when I'm in the car and buckled. I nod as he starts the car up again, speeding up to try and catch up to Rick and the others.
"Can I ask you a question Nova?" He says after a few minutes. I nod as I knew he was gonna ask me some sooner or later.
"Where is your family? Or anyone you could be in a group with? Why were you out there all alone? You know that's dangerous right? Your like 12. That's not safe." He says, kinda word vomiting in a worried manner.
"Okay first of all, I'm not 12... I'm 13. And second of all, yes I know it's dangerous out there dumbass." I roll my eyes when he says 'language' I take a deep breath before deciding to tell him at least a little bit if why I'm out here alone.
"And for the other questions... I don't know where my family is. Well, I suspect my dad and my siblings are back home but I lost my mom after we reached Atlanta. She was supposed to go alone and my dad was to watch me and my siblings. I snuck out and hid in the truck my mom took to get here. After a while she noticed I was there and yelled at me for a bit but accepted that it was a waste of gas to turn back now to bring me home." I looked out the window, avoiding Glenns probably pitying stare.
"When we got here, we were attacked by walkers. She told me to go and look for help while she fought some off but I ended up getting surrounded anyways. That's when you guys found me." I said, smiling a little bit. "But it's okay, I don't miss her that much. She was kind of a bad mom, to me at least. She loved the twins a lot more than me. I could tell." I blinked away tears thinking of the way my parents treated me compared to my siblings, or even before they came along. Glenn just frowned and looked at the road but patted my shoulder, the only way he could think of to comfort me at the time.
I smiled at the gesture and went back to looking out the window.
"Well, maybe after we meet up with our group we could go back and look for her. Or we could go find the rest of your family if you want." He said shrugging as he speeds up and passes the truck.
"If I didn't want to do either of those... do you think I could stay in your group?" I asked nervously. Thinking about seeing my parents again scared me. They weren't the worst in the world but I don't think they need anyone else to take care of. The twins were the highest priority.
"I mean, I'm sure the rest of the group wouldn't mind. I don't think they'd let a kid fend for themself, especially in a time like this." He smiles and I smile back
Maybe I can find a family here.