Reciprocity

Summary: The story of how Merle Dixon and 12-year old Glenn Rhee become unlikely partners in the zombie apocalypse and of the difficult, dangerous people and situations they encounter. Glenn learns how to better survive in a cruel, unforgiving world while Merle learns how to care about someone other than himself.

I was reading over my old Walking Dead story, "The Answer to Some Things," and I remembered how much I enjoyed writing protective Merle with a soft spot for Glenn. So I thought to myself, "I want to do something like that again... How should I go about that?" And of course, what better way to put Merle into a position where he'd end up feeling protective toward Glenn than if Glenn were a young boy who really needed someone to be protective of him? So in this story, Glenn is in Atlanta as a 12-year old child. Merle is in Atlanta as the same age he was on the show. The other characters from the show haven't been met by either of them - except Merle has met Daryl, of course, but Daryl is not in this story - this is actually my first Walking Dead story without Daryl in it... The only characters from the show to make an appearance in this are Glenn and Merle. Daryl is mentioned, but he doesn't show up in here beyond Merle talking about him/thinking about him.

The first couple chapters include Glenn's family (not his family mentioned in the show - relatives I created,) because I need to explain how a twelve year old kid would ever survive in the zombie apocalypse long enough to meet Merle and also still not become Carl #2. So the first few chapters - and especially Chapter 1 - have a lot of backstory for Glenn to explain why he's in Atlanta and how he's made it this long. It kind of starts off as just Glenn's story and eventually turns into both Glenn and Merle's story...

If you read this and find yourself thinking, "Damn, Glenn is such a weak little whiner," remember that Glenn is 12 years old in this story and it takes place near the beginning of the apocalypse. He's not going to be a zombie-slaying master, and he isn't yet used to how horrible the world can be. I tried to keep him himself, but he's also twelve. He's still smart and kind and sometimes brave, but he's not going to be fearless and invincible. And I tried to keep Merle in character too, while making him sort of grow to care about Glenn. He's somewhat abusive sometimes, often offensive, and kind of a dick, but he's Merle... I figure these characters are so hugely different from each other, so forcing them to interact and work together is fun... and adding in that Glenn is a child makes it even more interesting. We didn't really see much of Merle around kids on the show... We know he and Glenn didn't get along, but my accidental Merle-Glenn friendship I wrote before was so charming to me... So I'm going for it again in a slightly different way.

It's kind of funny how much I love writing Merle's character. I'm not sure why I like him so much. Probably because Michael Rooker was awesome and the character was written so well on the show - maybe even better than any other character on there, in my opinion - I'm 100% certain I would hate him if he existed in real life, but he's so fun to write and I enjoy creating little pieces of his heart that are a little brighter and more caring than the rest. We know he has the potential to be kind and caring... so I'm gonna have little Glenn show up and see what happens...

As always - this is a Walking Dead story, so you shouldn't be surprised by this - but this story does contain a lot of violence, death, some very uncomfortable and/or traumatizing situations, swearing and other harsh language, and graphic descriptions of decaying corpses... (I imagine a Walking Dead fan wouldn't be shocked or offended by such things, as both the comics and the show have included all of this... but just be forewarned. I think I've kept it below what I'd consider the M rating, so I'm going with T...)

Anyway, without further delay, I bring you the actual story... Hope you like it:

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Chapter 1

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It had all started with bizarre, isolated cases of people doing really weird, really violent, insane stuff for seemingly no reason. The news quickly became obsessed with reporting on it because it was so unbelievable and gruesome. People talked about it at their places of work, at school, or even to strangers on the street, because it was insanely strange and unbelievable... Regardless of everyone's fascination with the events, no one seemed to make much of it rather than shrugging it off and chalking it up to random anomalies in an otherwise still-normal world.

The first incident Glenn heard about was an old man at a hospital trying to eat his doctor's face. The patient had been near death and had slowly gotten weaker and weaker until he lost consciousness and was seemingly dying... only to jump back up out of nowhere with renewed strength and viciously attack the doctor trying to save him. The man had bitten and clawed without remorse like a rabid animal. Some reporters even suggested that he had some kind of rabies that the doctors hadn't caught... But no theories about the story made complete sense.

The doctor had been bitten right on his cheek. The old man had even ripped off a chunk of skin, and didn't stop there. After a rough, violent hand-to-hand scuffle including lots of bites and scratches, the doctor had felt compelled to beat the old man's brains in with an oxygen tank. News reports told a story of the poor doctor trying to be gentle with his patient even after the violent bite, but not being able to subdue the man any other way than by beating him to death.

It was tragic, shocking, violent, gruesome, and all any reporter seemed interested in talking about for several days straight. The story of a kind doctor being forced to brutally beat an elderly patient who had gone crazy was exactly the kind of thing the general public seemed to love hearing about. From what the news report implied, the old guy was very near death at the time of the incident - he should have barely been strong enough to lift his head, let alone viciously attack someone. No one could understand why or even how he'd become so horribly violent out of nowhere. Most people decided it was probably some kind of adrenaline burst right before death. Or maybe he was hallucinating or his brain was malfunctioning. It was certainly odd, but it was only one weird incident. Nothing to freak out over...

Then after that, the doctor who had been attacked by the old man had gone missing, only to turn up in the news again a day or two later when he tried to attack someone's dog out in their yard. The dog's owner had confronted the doctor and had eventually resorted to shooting him in self defense. The story seemed to fizzle out of the news before it was ever properly explained, and people seemed to just forget about it.

Similar stories followed that one - of homeless people randomly attacking strangers, often seemingly trying to take bites out of them... Lots of self-defense shootings seemed to be coming up in the news. Sometimes the people who had been attacked would end up attacking someone else a few days later, almost as though whatever crazy the first person had possessed had rubbed off on them.

His parents had tried to keep Glenn from seeing any of the news reports. It seemed they didn't want him to be scared of whatever was happening, but he was twelve years old. He wasn't stupid, and he had internet access. He probably read and saw more about it than they did, if only because they tried so hard to keep it a secret and it made him all the more curious. He'd read all sorts of articles detailing events similar to that very first story about the old guy and the doctor. Lots of old people near death had attacked their caregivers, and lots of those caregivers had resorted to killing their patients in self defense. The internet was becoming crowded with conspiracy theories about what might be going on and hospital employees who felt like they had the inside scoop about all of this. All the kids at school were talking about it too, no matter how much their teachers told them to not worry about such adult matters.

It was strange, and kind of scary, but most of the adults seemed content to pretty much ignore it. Everyone seemed to think it wasn't such a big deal that random people all around the country were trying to eat each other alive every now and then. Glenn supposed it didn't happen often enough, or close enough to home for his parents to figure it would really matter for their family in particular. As long as it wasn't people in their community eating each other's faces, who cared?

That was a huge mistake it seemed most of the country, if not most of the world had made. The problem did affect them. It affected everyone. Nobody knew how significant it was until it had already spiraled way out of control. By the time people had their guards up and were willing to treat this strange disease as a real problem, it was too late. The situation went from somewhat concerning to completely apocalyptic so quickly. When it started, no one really cared enough to make it a big deal. When it escalated, it made itself a bigger deal than anyone was equipped to handle.

In Glenn's case, his family had made so much effort to pretend like nothing was wrong that when the apocalypse finally hit to the extent that society as he knew it began to crumble, he wasn't even home. He'd wanted to visit his fifteen year old cousin in Atlanta, and his parents had let him. Even with the incidents of people viciously attacking each other in an alarmingly cannibalistic way increasing every day, they still thought it was under control and that it wasn't their problem. They had let Glenn go... And then when the buses, trains, and plains had stopped taking passengers, when the internet and phone lines went down... he had no way back home. He couldn't even confirm that his family was okay or tell them that he was.

He'd spent the first weeks of society's downfall living with his uncle Henry and cousin Sam. In a way, the first couple weeks had been the scariest. Even though there were far more living people than dead at that point, the living were just as ruthless as the walking corpses, sometimes even more so.

While the entire city was in a collective panic, Uncle Henry had taken his son and nephew to the grocery store to stock up on supplies in hopes that they could just wait this whole thing out in their apartment. Everyone else in Atlanta had of course decided to do the same thing. The store had been packed with greedy, desperate people trying to gather as many provisions as possible, at any cost. Women and children were being shoved to the side. Anyone who was smaller than someone else didn't have much chance to walk out of the store with what they'd come for. People were pushing and shoving and threatening each other. There were loud, angry verbal fights over bottles of water. One man had blood running out of his nose and a bag of canned food hugged tightly against his chest as he elbowed his way out of the store, shoving Glenn particularly hard when the boy had accidentally stood in his way. Someone had violently snatched a couple cans of vegetables right out of Sam's hands. A younger lady actually shoved an old man to the ground and stole his cart full of food. Everyone had been in there only for themselves and their families. They didn't care if they had to hurt those smaller, weaker, or just more polite than them.

That day, the three of them had barely managed to collect enough food to last them a week before the people around them got too violent for Henry to want to risk staying any longer. They'd left the store with a couple bags of food and water and quite a few bruises. Sam had even been elbowed in the face by someone - hopefully not on purpose, and had a split lip when they returned home. Needless to day, Henry didn't allow Glenn and Sam to come with him to gather supplies after that.

Once they were safely home, he made it a point to tell them to never let the state of the world turn them into monsters like it had to the people in the store. "No matter what happens, don't let this world change you into that," he had said. "You're both caring, kind, generous young men. I know I don't have to tell you this, but there is never an excuse to treat another human being as less important than yourself. This world belongs to everyone, not just the strong."

Glenn certainly felt like that made sense, not that he presently had the opportunity to be anything but generous. Being a twelve year old boy, and a rather small one at that, he wasn't really in the position to forcefully shove people out of his way or take their things. Even if he could though, he didn't think he'd want to. The way the greedy people in the store had behaved was unattractive. They got what they wanted, but at the cost of hurting others. He couldn't see how they could possibly feel good about themselves after that...

One day, when the living crowds had died down and the dead had all but taken over the city, Uncle Henry had gone out for supplies and had never returned. Sam and Glenn waited a full two days before going out on their own, even though they knew Henry didn't want them to. They searched all the stores Henry usually frequented. They never did find him, living, dead, or undead.

Glenn didn't know for sure what he wanted to hope had happened to his uncle. Would it be better if he got eaten alive? Or better if he had gotten tired of the responsibility of his son and nephew and just left? Thinking about the man abandoning them broke his heart, but thinking about him being torn violently apart broke it worse. A big part of him knew his uncle wasn't the sort of man who would abandon them, but he still wanted to wish for that when he considered what the alternative was. Glenn hoped Henry was alright, wherever he was, but he had a pretty good feeling he was never going to see the man again. He was almost definitely dead. He would have come back if he weren't.

Glenn and Sam spent the next weeks fending for themselves, which really wasn't so hard now that most of the living had either fled or become a part of the shuffling mass of walking dead. The living corpses were scary, and Glenn knew every single one of them wanted him dead, but in a way, they were a safer bet than going out among the usual population of Atlanta. At least with the dead, Glenn knew what he was up against. Every single one of the slow, dead-eyed cannibals wanted one thing, and went about it in a very simple, straight-forward way. If he encountered one of the dead, he knew it would slowly come after him and do whatever it could to eat him alive. With the humans who were still alive, he didn't know what to expect. Which ones were still decent even without laws to force them to be? Which ones might share their water with two young teenagers in need, and which ones would see two young teenagers in need and know overpowering them would be easy and decide to rob them or maybe even kill them? At this point, it was scarier to find a living person than a dead one. The living had secret plans, ulterior motives, selfish and cruel desires. The dead were honest.

Now that almost everyone in the town was dead, Glenn knew exactly what to expect, and sort of felt like he was adapting to it pretty well. He was faster than the dead, smaller than most of them... He could squeeze into places they couldn't follow. He outran them all the time. It wasn't really that hard. Sam had even acknowledged that Glenn was better at sneaking around than he was and let Glenn make himself useful - something Uncle Henry wouldn't have allowed.

He and Sam had found some walkie talkies left behind by the military and had been using them when they needed to scavenge for supplies. While sticking together seemed like a smart idea, they figured staying separated by a small distance was a better idea. That way they could create distractions if need be. If one of them got surrounded, the other could try to lure the walking corpses away. They'd never both be trapped in the same place. It seemed safer.

"You run down there and collect as much stuff as you can," Sam instructed as he handed Glenn the back pack Glenn always used for these trips. "If too many of them catch up to you, just call me on the walkie. I'll distract them."

Glenn nodded. "Stay up here unless I say otherwise," he advised. At the moment, he and his cousin were up on a fire escape that led down from their apartment window. The street was mostly clear of the dead, so it seemed like it would be an easy journey to the store and back, but he wanted Sam to stay up high, safe and with good visibility. Unless there was an emergency, Sam wouldn't need to risk a thing today. Only Glenn would.

"You sure you don't want me to go?" Sam asked with a furrowed brow. He knew Glenn was faster, but he clearly didn't feel great about allowing his younger cousin to take this risk time after time.

"I'm good at this, Sam." Glenn put his hand on his cousin's shoulder and offered him a small smile. "Uncle Henry always said he wanted us not to be selfish. I can be helpful, so I should be."

"You're a good kid, Glenn." Sam smiled back. "Remember to be careful, and call if you need help. I'll let you know if I see any big groups headed your way. And be quick, but above all else be careful. Careful first, quick second."

Glenn nodded and climbed down the ladder. It would be getting dark relatively soon, so he knew he needed to hurry, but these runs never took longer than twenty minutes. He was confident he and Sam would be right back up in their apartment snacking on whatever goodies Glenn found in less than a half hour. "I'll be right back." He grinned up at his cousin and turned toward the street.

Quickly, Glenn made his way down the deserted road and toward the usual store they had gotten into the habit of raiding. It was a smaller store that never was very busy before the apocalypse. He didn't think a lot of people remembered that it even existed, so when the world turned into chaos, it was practically skipped over by looters. It didn't have everything, but it had what Glenn and Sam needed. Glenn could fill up his bag and they'd be good to go for another week or so.

As he neared the store, he noticed a few of the dead, which he and Sam had started to call 'geeks' stumbling down the road in the distance. Glenn couldn't tell if they had seen him or not. They were still far enough away that it didn't matter. If he was quick enough, he'd be gone before they ever reached the store.

Glenn ducked into the shop and made his way toward the back, where he knew bottled water was kept. He found a package of 24 bottles, which he'd opened the last time he was here, and stuffed six bottles into the bottom of his back pack. He couldn't afford to fill the whole thing up with water, and planned to grab a couple gallon jugs as well. They were easier to carry than the giant cases of bottles.

Next, he grabbed a gallon of water in each hand and headed for the canned food, collecting a couple packages of ramen noodles along the way. He set the jugs down and looked through the cans, selecting the ones he knew were his and Sam's favorites. Once he'd filled the bag almost completely with cans, he peaked over the shelves toward the front door to make sure he was still alone before heading for the snack aisle. If there was one good thing about the apocalypse, it was that no one was around to make sure he didn't eat too many cookies and chips, and there were entire stores full of them, all for free.

Glenn stuffed a package of cookies into the top of the backpack, crushing the corners of it a bit so that he could zip the bag. He bit his lip as he looked down the isle at the chips. He really didn't have room for them in the bag, and his hands were going to be full with the gallon jugs of water. Maybe it would be worthwhile to have Sam come with him next time, if only so they could get a second bag stuffed full with junk food. It seemed a foolish thing to risk their lives for though...

Glenn flinched as the walkie talkie hanging from his belt made a squelching noise followed by Sam's voice. "-coming down the road." The beginning of whatever Sam was trying to tell him seemed to be cut off. They didn't use the walkie talkies that much. Sam always started talking a couple seconds before remembering to press down the button.

Pressing down the button on his own walkie, Glenn asked, "Say that again?"

"There's about twelve geeks headed your way. Should I try to lure them away?" Sam's voice asked.

Glenn shook his head before responding. "Can I take the back way? I don't want you coming down unless you have to. Is the alley clear?"

The walkie talkie squelched again. "-just gonna try to distract them. Just wait there for a second. I'll take care of 'em," Sam's voice told him.

"Sam, wait." Glenn pulled the straps of the backpack securely up on his shoulders and held tightly onto his walkie talkie. "Is the back way clear? I can just take the alley."

There was no response.

"Sam?" Glenn spoke into the walkie talkie, waited for a response, and then pressed the button again. "Are you there?"

When his cousin still didn't answer, Glenn sighed, grabbed up his jugs of water, and quickly made his way toward the store's front. He stepped out the front door in time to see the geeks he'd seen a distance away earlier were pretty close by now. Turning the other way - back toward the fire escape that led to their apartment, Glenn saw Sam waving his arms and jumping up and down a bit, all while yelling to gain the attention of the hungry dead.

"Over here! Come on!" Sam yelled out to them as he herded them away.

Glenn grimaced and turned back toward the three geeks heading toward him in the other direction. He supposed Sam was right. If his cousin didn't lead away the larger group, Glenn really would have been surrounded.

"Glenn!" Sam yelled to him from quite a way down the street. "Get to the stairs. I'll run around the block and meet you there!"

Frowning, Glenn did as his cousin asked, somewhat slowly making his way down the street. If he moved too fast, the geeks Sam was trying to lead away might turn back and go after him. If he moved too slow, the geeks behind him would catch up. He just needed to move fast enough to outrun the ones following him without drawing in the attention of the ones Sam was luring away.

His arms and shoulders ached as he made his way down the street. The jugs were heavy and the backpack full of canned food was heavier. Glenn felt a cold feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach as he neared the escape ladder. He didn't like this plan. What if Sam didn't make it back? He'd already lost his uncle. If he lost his cousin too, he was going to be completely alone...

He placed one of the gallon jugs on the ground and climbed one-handed up the ladder. One of the geeks that had been following him was only about fifteen feet away by now. He wasn't going to be able to go back for the other jug...

As soon as he was safely up the fire escape, Glenn pressed down the button on the walkie talkie. "Sam, one of them followed me. It's at the bottom of the ladder," he told his cousin as he stared down at the walking corpse growling back at him as it scowled back with milky eyes. How was Sam going to get up the ladder with that there? "What should I do?" he asked in a nervous, breathless voice.

"Just stay put," Sam' voice instructed through the walkie talkie's speaker. "I'll kill it."

Glenn stared with wide eyes down at the undead man clawing at the ladder and looking up at him with pale, glazed-over eyes, one of which had blood oozing from its socket. Neither him nor Sam had ever killed one of them before. They'd seen other people do it. They'd seen Uncle Henry have to resort to killing a few. Did Sam really know how to do something like that? They often carried small knives with them just in case, but had never actually used them to kill the geeks. Getting close enough to kill them was so dangerous. Outrunning the monsters was always a safer alternative.

"I can go inside and find a different fire escape and lure it away," Glenn suggested into the walkie talkie.

"No, Glenn. We don't know who or what is in the other apartments," Sam's voice insisted. He sounded somewhat out of breath from running around the block. "Just stay where you are."

Glenn shook his head and silently decided to do this his way, regardless of what his cousin said. If Sam was willing to lead twelve of them away for Glenn, Glenn could lead one away for Sam.

He left his backpack and water on the fire escape and climbed into their apartment's window. Slowly and carefully, he made his way down the hall. So far, they hadn't heard anything on their floor. There was no indication that anyone else still lived there. The space was dimly lit only by sunlight coming through a few windows at the end of the hall and was eerily quiet. He made his way to an apartment that would have a window on a different side of the building than the one he'd just come from in his own apartment.

Fortunately, whoever had lived here had kept the front door unlocked. Glenn made his way inside and lifted the window which led to another fire escape. He climbed out and peered down toward the corner.

"Hey, geek!" he yelled, hoping the one at the bottom of their own fire escape would hear him and move out of Sam's way. "Over here!"

"Glenn?" The walkie talkie on his belt immediately squelched. "What are you doing?"

"I'm luring it away so you can get up," Glenn told him before screaming out to the zombie again. "Over here! Heeeyy!" It didn't take long for the dead thing to make its way around the corner and start shuffling toward him. Glenn smiled. "You're all clear," he said into the walkie talkie. He watched the geek for a few moments, making sure it was a fair distance from the fire escape Sam would be using. Then he turned back toward the window to the stranger's apartment.

Just before he climbed back inside, however, he noticed something moving around in there.

Glenn grimaced and narrowed his eyes as he stared into the dark room. By the time his eyes had adjusted, he saw that the thing moving around in there was another geek, and it had noticed him too.

With a gasp, Glenn stepped back, colliding with the rail of the fire escape and nearly tripping himself. Thinking quickly, he reached forward and slammed the window shut in time to stop the geek from climbing out after him. Unfortunately, now he was trapped between two of them. This fire escape didn't go up or down to any other apartment. His way out was down onto the street, where a hungry corpse was waiting, or through the window, where another one was.

Swallowing, Glenn stared through the glass at the dead man who stared back at him as it growled and slammed its hands hungrily against the glass. Glenn could hear the window threatening to break with each additional thudding impact.

Gripping his knife in a shaking hand, Glenn put as much distance between himself and the window as he could. He wasn't ready to make his first geek kill. He wasn't confident that he could do it without getting himself bitten. He knew destroying their brains stopped them, but to get close enough to do that with just a knife was going to be very difficult.

"Glenn, where are you?" Sam's voice asked through the walkie talkie.

Still staring at the window and gripping his knife securely, Glenn grabbed the walkie with his other hand and answered. "I'm down the hall on the fire escape of an apartment with an east-facing window... It was like three doors down, I think... I'm kinda cornered... There's a geek in there! I-" He hesitated, inhaling and exhaling slowly. "I'm going to try to kill it, Sam."

Sam didn't respond.

Glenn watched as the dead hands continued slamming up against the window. Small, yet terrifying cracking sounds accompanied them as blackened blood smudged the window in the shape of hand prints. He pouted as he squeezed the handle of his knife and backed himself up against the railing. His throat felt dry and he was actually shaking. He really didn't want to do this.

All at once, the geek managed to break the window in a pretty significant way. A huge chunk of glass fell out as the dead thing clawed its hands through the new opening. It didn't even care that the edges of the broken window were slicing into its skin.

Glenn whimpered and backed himself up further. He wanted to look away from the disgusting scene before him, but he couldn't afford to. He tightened his grip around his knife and breathed in a shaking breath before quickly lunging forward and swinging at the corpse.

He managed to stab it right through its jaw, which, unfortunately, wasn't exactly where he was aiming. The corpse made a frustrated growling sound and retracted its head for just long enough to make Glenn lose his grip on his knife. Now it was stuck in the side of the geek's face and Glenn had no defense at all.

Looking down at the ground, Glenn saw the other zombie down at the bottom of the ladder, reaching its dead hands up and clawing at the bars. The few other geeks who had been following him back closer to the store had caught up and made Glenn's potential escape down the ladder an even more improbable long shot. He looked back toward the window and tried to back himself further against the railing as the corpse clawed its bloody arms out toward him.

Glenn cautiously reached for his knife only to have the corpse snap its teeth at his hand. He quickly drew back and let out a small, terrified whimper. He should have listened to Sam. His cousin probably could have killed the one at the bottom of the ladder more easily. Glenn just didn't want to make Sam do everything. He wanted to be helpful.

Quick, almost painful breaths rose and fell in Glenn's chest as he pressed his back against the railing and contemplated climbing down the ladder and just trying to shove the geeks down there back enough to make a run for it. It didn't seem there was any way out of this. The one struggling to pull itself out the window was getting slowly closer and closer. Glenn was going to run out of space between the two threats eventually.

"Sam," Glenn whispered into the walkie talkie as he held it in trembling hands. "I'm trapped..." He didn't want to ask his cousin to help, because if he tried to do this for Glenn, he might just get himself killed too, but he was so scared and knew he had no chance of getting out of this on his own. Sam didn't answer. "Sam?" Glenn squeaked in a small voice. What if his cousin hadn't made it back? Maybe the geeks he'd been luring away swarmed him...

Whimpering, Glenn pressed himself further against the railing, sliding down to a sitting position as he cowered down away from the clawing, decaying arms that were getting closer and closer as the corpse struggled to pull itself over the window's ledge. Glenn was all alone, and had no way to defend himself against this. He had gotten too confident, and now it was going to cost him his life.

Feeling he had no way out, Glenn squeezed his eyes shut and let out a small, pathetic sob. If he was going to be torn apart and eaten alive, he at least didn't want to witness it happening. Curling himself into a small ball, Glenn hid his face, held his breath, and waited for his painful demise.

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Random Story Trivia Chapter 1:
Before editing, this story was originally 54,825 words long and included 15 chapters. After editing, it is nearly twice as long, with 26 chapters and a over 100,000 words... So get ready... I'll try to update fairly often, but I do have other things going on in my life (and am finishing up publishing two other stories here) so try to remain patient.