Just a short oneshot about how Glenn and T-Dog met at the start of the apocalypse. As I may have mentioned before, I am particularly interested in how this whole thing started, and how it affected individuals. I love how Fear the Walking Dead will give us more insight on how it all started.
Anyway, this one centers around Glenn, our favorite Chinese (Korean!) survivor.
My shift had just ended when it all started.
I had come home a little after eleven from yet another crappy day at work, and didn't think my life could get any more boring at this point. While I hung my jacket over the kitchen counter and tossed my keys in the drawer I heard my roommate mutter against the TV.
"You do realize they can't hear ya, right?" I had mocked him, shaking my head. With a swift move I opened the fridge, only to find out it was empty, aside from some empty milk cartons. A sigh escaped me.
"Really, dude?"
A little annoyed I closed the fridge again and turned to my roommate Mitch.
"Yo, Mitch, why didn't you –" Suddenly the man hushed me, looking distraught. The flashy images shown on TV got my attention too, now. I saw corpses, lots of corpses, covered in sheets, and more stuff that seemed to come right out of a war zone.
"This shit's insane, man. They've been broadcasting this for hours now." Mitch his voice was shaky, and I read some kind of fear in his eyes. The subtitles of the TV showed the same message, over and over.
Infection has reached stage four. All residents of Atlanta are urged to seek refuge at Atlanta's refugee center.
Stage four? What did that mean?
Of course, the past few days there had been rumors about some sort of infection surfacing, which said to kill a person within a few hours after getting infected. No one seemed to know what exactly it was or how it spread so quickly, but to be honest, I hadn't given it much thought. Every now and then there were broadcasts about infections, and after a few days it would always die down and life would continue.
But not now.
"You think we should head there? Like, right now?" Mitch's dark brown eyes almost begged me for an answer, but I just shrugged and eyed the clock. It was half pas eleven now. I'd much rather sleep in my own bed tonight. There was always tomorrow.
"Let's just wait until tomorrow. You're not feeling any different than usual, right?" The man shook his head. "Neither do I. To be honest, I worked a long shift today, I'm tired man. If the news still urges us to go there tomorrow, we'll go, but for now the only place I'll be going is my bed." I concluded, trying to crack a smile, but Mitch still looked doubtful.
"Well, okay. I guess you're right."
It had taken a long time before I had fallen asleep, but it must have happened, because I awoke from a nightmare at ten in the morning. With a knot in my stomach I sat up in my bed, the sunlight blinding me. I put on a jeans and my shirt from last night and knocked on Mitch's door, but no answer came. Another firm knock followed.
"Mitch? Did you see today's broadcast? Any news?"
Still no reply.
I frowned, and set course to the living room. Maybe he was eating breakfast on the couch. He had a habit of doing that, in front of the TV.
But when I entered the living room and adjacent kitchen, there was no one to be found. I tried turning on the TV and called Mitch' name a few times more, but all I heard was deafening silence. Our apartment was on the tenth floor of a flat located in one of the lesser suburbs from Atlanta, and usually it wasn't this quiet.
What the hell was going on? Had Mitch left without me?
I went back to my room to grab my backpack and jacket and then I got my keys out of the kitchen drawer and opened the front door. Several front doors were standing open, but no one answered my calls. Had they all left their home in such a hurry? And why hadn't Mitch woken me up?
The knot in my stomach grew larger when I took the stairs down. The elevator was out of order, too, so I had to take the stairs to exit the building. In front of the main entrance sat an older woman, crying and praying frantically in Spanish.
"Ma'am? Excuse me, could you tell me what's going on?" She looked at me, with eyes as big as plates, and continued speaking in a language I could not understand. This was no use.
On guard I crossed the street, which was awfully quiet. Much too quiet. Why weren't there kids outside, playing? Had they all left for that refugee center the news mentioned yesterday, the one at the center of Atlanta? Maybe it would be a good idea if I went there as well. Maybe I'd encounter Mitch there, or any of my other friends. In my hurry I had forgotten my cell phone.
But then I had turned the corner of the street.
There was a man, crouching down over another. I couldn't see clearly what was happening, but the person on the ground seemed injured.
"Hey!" I shouted in their direction. "Are you okay? Do you need any help? What happened?" I started jogging in their direction, but then the man had risen from the ground, and what I saw had made me stumble over my own feet, falling down.
Something bloody was sticking out of the corners of his mouth, covering his whole lower face in blood and gore. To my horror I realized it were intestines, and I let out a horrified gasp. What in the world…?
The man had his faint eyes on me, and increased his pace as he came towards me. The grunting sounds he made were in no way human. I didn't know how fast to get on my feet again and to get away from this… Thing. I didn't know what it was, but I did know I didn't want to have it anywhere near me.
I ran and ran, until my legs gave out. I had no idea where I even was. Luckily, as a pizza delivery boy, the city of Atlanta was mapped in my mind, and it didn't take me long to find out where I was. I wasn't that far from the center. I started to process my thoughts, quickly thinking of what to do next. I knew some short-cuts to where the refugee center was located, it was worth to give it a try.
Carefully I threw another look in the street before entering the alley that would lead me to the place I needed to be. I noticed more of these things - I had deduced they were infected people - coming up. They were easy to recognize, covered in blood and faint eyes, all grunting, some more than others. Men, women, young or old, whatever this infection was, it had changed them into something unreal. If I didn't know any better I'd say they resembled zombies, but that was ridiculous, right? It made me crack up a little, but then I remembered the seriousness of the situation again.
I deftly moved through the alleys, avoiding any infected person and coming closer to the center of Atlanta. The closer I came, the louder the sounds of gunshots became. It made me a little nervous. Had this been a good idea?
After exiting the final alley I ended up in what seemed to be a war zone. I saw members of the SWAT team, shooting at the infected that were coming up to them. My breath ragged in my throat. They were shooting at people. Infected and uninfected people.
It wasn't hard to tell the difference between them. The infected were as I had encountered them; bloody and grunting, but most importantly, the shots did not stop them, whereas the uninfected fell right to the ground, screaming. I could not believe what I was witnessing from where I was standing. Would they just shoot anyone, infected or not, just to be sure? Would that mean they would shoot me, too?
I didn't have long to think about that, because suddenly something grabbed me from behind, knocking me down and falling on top of me. The overwhelming smell of death entered my nose as the creature started clacking its teeth at me. Its eyes just seemed dead. This was no longer human. Suddenly that zombie theory didn't seem so ridiculous anymore.
The sickening drool of the creature dripped on my face, making me gag. With all my power I tried to push it off me, but it was no use, it was too heavy. A little sour I wished to myself I had visited the gym more often.
My thoughts got interrupted by a gunshot, and the creature stopped moving, hitting its head against mine. A stab of pain shot through my forehead, but at the same time I let out a sigh of relief. That was close.
"Come on, boy! Get up! We haven't got all day! Hurry up!" I managed to push the dead creature off of me and still a little dizzy I turned around to face the person addressing me. It was a bulky but rather short African-American man.
"Follow me!" He hissed, while he started running towards a parked van. I took one last glance at the dead creature on the ground before I started following. I still had no idea what was going on, apart from the fact this man had just saved my butt.
He motioned me to get in the van, while he took place behind the steering wheel. We quickly drove off, with the sound of gunshots and desperate screams still piercing my ears long after we had exited the city.
"Hey… Thanks for saving me back there," I finally spoke to the man next to me. "I'm Glenn."
"Couldn't leave you behind," he responded, his eyes focused on the road. "Theodore Douglas, but everyone calls me T-Dog."
"Do you have any idea what's going on? Why is the army shooting people?" The disbelief echoed in my voice.
"People?" T-Dog let out a scoff. "These ain't people no more, my friend."
I stared out the window. "Yeah… I guess I figured as much. But if they're not people anymore, then what are they?"
The man shot me a quick glance before focusing on the road again. "They're dead, man. Undead, to be precise. Walking dead."
In the reflection of the car window I saw my own shocked face. Undead… It made sense, in a weird way. The thing that had attacked me had the physical appearance of a human, but certainly that was the only human aspect about it. For some reason that infection turned humans into brainless freaks.
"So… Undead, hm." I said after a long silence. T-Dog didn't respond.
I looked over my shoulder, at the disappearing city of Atlanta behind us. Yesterday I had been a plain pizza delivery boy, living in a crappy apartment in a poor neighborhood. Today everything was different. Life would never be the same again.
For so long I had wished my boring life would become more exciting, and I guess now I knew the meaning of the phrase 'be careful what you wish for'. Well, life definitely was about to get less boring now.
The pizza delivery days were over.
I enjoyed writing this oneshot... Maybe I'll do more of them. Should I? Any requests?