Author's Note: Here's the next one my four TWD AU prequels and the second chronologically (Michonne's will take place roughly around the same time while Glenn's begins place a couple weeks prior and Daryl's is a couple weeks after.) Will probably be updating this and the other two before I get around to launching Michonne's as I've got to make sure I get the details right with what is known of her backstory with what is presented in the show and the comics to as much of a degree as the two will comport with each other. I know this is an AU and will diverge in some respects but I'd like to try to include as much canon as possible with these. So far the Daryl one has been the more popular of these prequels so that is likely the one which I will update next. Again I'm kind of in the middle of a creative slump right now so bear with me as updates may be slow to come by.
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Chapter I
The day the world ended Lori Grimes and her son Carl went to see her husband Rick who was still unconscious in a coma in the little hospital on the far side of their small Kentucky town. Rick's partner Shane, who had been there when Rick had got shot, accompanied them. It wasn't so much a visit as it was a chance to say goodbye. While she lied to her son and told him Daddy was going to be alright she knew in her heart of hearts that he was already dead. There was no way a man in his condition could ride this out and there was no way they could protect him and care for him if they took him with them. The hospital had already been swamped with the dead coming up from the morgue and those coming in from town. The sheriff's department and the National Guard did a pretty decent job of holding down the place but they weren't going to hang around. This small town was simply not worth defending so pretty soon everyone with a gun would be bugging out. There were bigger problems for them to deal with elsewhere. The CDC had set up a relief center down in Atlanta where a lot of the people from around here were being evacuated to. It was also where Shane and the rest of the sheriff's deputies were off to. The theory was to concentrate the living all together in a safe space where they could pool their resources to protect each other from the dead. Atlanta was one of those such places and the nearest one to where Shane and the Grimes family resided. People really hadn't got it through their heads that it was other people that people had to be worried about, people who turned. I think they assumed everyone who was going to turn had already done so at this point. If they were wrong, even if just one person fell ill with the fever and turned in a close quarters environment pretty soon you would have a hearty swarm of those things feasting on a captive population.
Nonetheless that was the plan. The National Guard and local police forces had fortified area around the hospital while people went to get their sick relatives to bring with them to Atlanta. These would be among the last to go, the infirm, the young, the elderly along with those who thought they could ride it out in this small town. That is until the dead began swarming. The first outbreak was put down rather quickly by the living. The bodies were burned or bundled together out behind the loading docks at the very same hospital that Rick was in. However before complacency could set it the living learned that what they had stopped wasn't the last of it. The deceased in the morgue broke loose into the hospital and feasted for a time until they could be contained. Their victims also turned and slowly but surely the living were replaced by the dead. The time was running out before the dwindling manpower the crumbling US and State governments could provide the townsfolk would have to be relocated. So it was today, today was the day in which everyone that was going to ship out to Atlanta had to leave.
The sad truth was however that not everyone could be moved. Those people regrettably had to be left to die. If people were smart they would've put these terminal patients out of their misery with a well-placed bullet to the head but people were still people and hadn't yet grown so cold as the execute their own in cold blood out of fear of what they might become. To be fair it also hadn't set in exactly who would turn; it was still widely believed that one had to be bit before the process would take place and with most of the dead confined down to the morgue leaving only a sparse population of walkers roaming the streets it was assumed that the comatose and terminal would die peacefully before the next herd came wandering through from the next town over.
Rick Grimes was one of those who could not be moved. Formerly the sheriff around these parts as well as the partner and best friend of Shane he had been unresponsive ever since that fateful day which on a routine call he was shot in the abdomen. Though Rick could not hear her, his wife said her goodbyes with tears in her eyes making peace with the fact that this would be the last time she would get to see her husband. She tried to make this easier on Carl by keeping him away from the nasty truth of the situation.
"Carl honey, you saw that helicopter outside right?" Lori said crouching down in front of Carl after wiping her eyes with a tissue.
"Yes?" Carl replied.
"Once they get everybody out of here they're going to but your daddy on that helicopter and take him to Atlanta to meet us. You see it's too dangerous for him to ride on the roads with us. In the sky the walkers can't get him." Lori lied to her son.
This was hard enough on Carl as it was, he didn't need to know the truth about his father. This was yet another one of life's hard lessons Carl would have to experience in the world to come, but for now it could wait. They had to get to Atlanta, to safety before they could take a deep breath and truly come to grips with the measure of what they had lost.
Lori stood up and left a few flowers by Rick's bedside before taking Carl out of the room. As she went out, Shane went in. While Lori and Carl waited anxiously out in the hall Shane was the last one to say his goodbyes. He stammered at a loss for words, looking at Rick then clutching his mouth, then running his hand back through his hair. He then looked away and over at the wall. The clock on the wall read 2:17 PM and had not moved for some time now. It was frozen from the moment the power went out and the hospital's backup generators had kicked on.
"I'm sorry buddy but I guess this is it. I don't think you're gonna get through this." Shane finally mustered up the sense to string a few words together. His eyes watered but he did not shed a tear.
"I promise you I'll take care of your boy for ya." Shane told the unconscious Rick.
"And Lori too. I promise you I'll protect them. I won't let the walkers get 'em." Shane pledged.
And with that Shane left the room and shut the door behind him. Upon leaving Shane wedged the door shut with a gurney hoping to slow the walkers from getting in. If Rick was going to die in there he should at least have the dignity to die in peace, not being gnawed upon down to the bone by those things. If he wasn't bit he wouldn't turn into one of them, at least that was the assumption up to this point, an assumption Shane was very much inclined to believe.
Shane consoled Lori silently for but a moment. Their minds were snapped into focus by a gunshot not far from them. There was no more time to linger; a fresh outbreak had just sprang out from an upstairs ward. Dozens of walkers had seized upon the remaining hospital staff evacuating the patients who had begun to turn and from there the situation snowballed out of control. Soldiers ran into the hospital as screaming nurses ran out. The sounds of the first shots within the halls attracted walkers from the outside to congregate and converge upon the hospital. Soon after gunfire erupted from outside as the National Guard attempted to hold back the gathering legion of walkers approaching the hospital while at the same time containing the burgeoning horde within.
Shane drew his service revolver and led the way. A soldier ahead of him peppered the walls with M4 fire taking out a lone female walker in the process. Shane noticed the chained up, boarded shut door leading to the morgue. "What if some unfortunate sap comes wandering in her looking for food or medical supplies after we're gone" he thought. He better leave some kind of warning. Shane picked up a can of black spray paint from a nearby janitors closet. The paint had previously been used to mark off operating rooms which were contaminated so the staff knew not to bring non-infected patients into those rooms. With the spray paint Shane painted a message on the morgue door and backed away for a second to admire his handiwork.
"Don't dead open inside?" Carl asked while musing at the curious placement of words Shane had painted on the door.
"Don't be a smart ass son. Folks'll know what it means." Shane replied
"They'll be fine. Let's go!" Lori urged them both to leave.
They ran out of the hospital and got into Shane's patrol car as the National Guard sent in a fresh squad of troops to suppress the outbreak in the hospital after the situation outside had been mostly pacified. Shane noticed that some of the troops had been infected as well lying dead or reanimated and wandering about the fortifications. Shane turned on his siren and made his way through a cluster of cars leaving the city. Seeing a gathering of walkers behind him he shut off the sirens inadvertently leaving the walkers to ravage those inside the cars he had just passed around. It was a cruel accident but there was no time to feel bad now. They pulled up to Rick and Lori's house. Lori and Carl got out and went to gather their things. A little bit of food and water but mostly those possessions of theirs that were deemed irreplaceable, photo albums, keepsakes and the like.
While he waited for Lori and Carl to pack up Shane chatted with a nearby neighbor, Morgan Jones who was out on the street with wife Jenny and his son Duane. Morgan had just finished dispatching a walker with a shovel to the head by the time Shane had pulled up and was now cleaning the implement with a rag.
"Ya'll about to head out to Atlanta? Best get to packing 'cause I got word the big guns are rolling out in a few hours." Shane said to Morgan.
"Nah, I think we do best to hold it down right here." Morgan replied.
"You sure? Atlanta's bound to be better off than this place once them walkers start coming in from down the ways looking for a fresh meal. From what I hear there will be security, medical care, food, clean water and other kids for your boy to hang with." Shane questioned Morgan's judgement.
"I'm sure. Big city sounds like a bad idea to me. More people, more of them to worry about when shit starts going down and you know it will. I think I best take my chances and try to ride it out here. I appreciate your concern though sir." Morgan replied.
"Suit yourself. We'll be waiting down in Atlanta if you change your mind." Shane responded.
"And. . . good luck." he added before Lori and Carl got into the patrol car.
"You too officer." Morgan said as they bid each other farewell.
"Is he going with us?" asked Carl as he got in and buckled up in the back seat.
"No don't be silly." Lori told Carl then glanced over to Morgan with a blank almost apologetic half-smile before getting into the passenger's seat.
With that Shane drove off leaving Morgan and his family to head back inside their house and begin preparations for when the next wave of the dead hit. Lori, Shane and Carl were now on the long road to Atlanta. It wasn't going to be a quick journey or an easy one. With all of the walkers now that had escaped containment and the wretched traffic conditions along the highways as people sought to go somewhere, anywhere safer than where they were, it would be an uphill battle. What awaited them in Atlanta they couldn't say for certain. They had been promised much and like always promises tend to fall short of delivering. It wasn't going to be no paradise but it just might be better than where they were now.