"Days Gone Bye"
The cars break screeched in protest as it came to a halt. Rick popped open the trunk before exiting, he scanned the area before him. "Rick, why are we stopping?" The man looked in the back seat to see the fifteen year old girl who spoke up.
"We need more gas or we aren't going to get very far." He closed the door, not waiting for her to say more before taking a red gas container and a yellow funnel. Rick walked past abandoned cars, stopping in his tracks when he say some corpses still inside, when they didn't move, he thought it safe enough to continue. As he reached the gas pumps, he groaned when he read a sign above saying 'NO GAS'. He started to walk back to his car when he heard shuffling noises, getting down on the ground, he saw bunny slippers followed by a hand picking up a beat up teddy bear. Jumping to his feet and nearly jogged around the back of a car, he reached out his arm towards a little girl. "Little girl?" The small body dressed in pink continued to shuffle along. "I'm a police officer,... Little girl, don't be afraid okay, little girl." His heart stopped for a second when the little girl turned, only for Rick to see her torn apart cheek. She was one of them. A growl came from her throat before she charged at him, forcing him to shoot.
The radio served as a background noise as Rick and his long-time partner and friend talked about thangs and stuff. The two dubbed as partners in crime since their time in high school. "What's the difference between men and women?" Rick asked Shane out of the blue, shoving a french fry into his mouth.
"That a joke?"
"No, I'm serious." Shane hummed to himself as he tried to think of an answer to Ricks question. Both of them munching on the fries here and there.
"I've never met a woman who knew how to turn off a light," Shane grinned at Rick who couldn't hold back a smile. "I swear to God. It's like I come home, house all lit up, apparently it's my job to walk through that house and turn off every light this chick left on."
"That so?" Rick murmured.
"Yeah, baby," Shane hummed, "Oh, reverend Shane is preaching to you." Rick couldn't stop himself from bursting out laughing, Shane joining him.
"So, how's things going with Lori?" Rick sighed heavily through his nose, trying to think of a way to avoid this.
"She's good", he began, "She's good with turning off lights, real good, it's me that forgets to sometimes." He was silent for a bit. "We had a bad night last night."
"Hey look man, I may have failed to amuse you with my sermon, but I tried, the least you can do is speak." Rick snorted.
"That's what she always says to me, Speak...Speak, You'd think that I was the most closed-mouth-son-of-bitch to ever hear her tell it."
"Do you express you thoughts, talking about how your feeling, you know, those sorts of things."
"Thing is," Rick took on a lost look. "Lately, when I try, everything I say just makes her impatient, as if she never wanted to hear after all. It's like she's pissed at me and I don't know why." Before Shane could say anything, the radio blared to life, the dispatcher calling for all backups close to the vicinity. The two immediately started cleaning up. Shane throwing the trash in the bin as Rick pulled out of the parking. As they arrived at the area, Rick popped the trunk letting Shane get the spikes out. Helping him put them down across the road before jumping back in and backing the squad car up to a safe distance from the area.
"Sounds like they chased those idiots up and down every back road we've got."
"Maybe we'll get on one of them video shows, y'know." A young officer spoke up. "Like "World's Craziest Police Chases', what do you think?"
"What I think Leon, is you need to stay focused and make sure you've got a round in the chamber and the safety off." Rick grumbled with an annoyed look.
Finally, the car approached, running over the spikes sending it skidding all over the road before tumbling off-road. "Holy shit." Shane swore. He moved along with the other cops, everyone with their guns drawn. Watching as one of the offenders crawled out of the car.
"GUN! GUN! GUN!" An officer shouted in warning when he say what was in the offenders grasp.
"Put the gun down!" Rick ordered the man, he didn't want to kill him. The offender shot first causing a firefight to break out, the man landed a hit on Rick. Rick fell with a yell that caught Shane's attention. An other man joined in and it took a while before both men were dead. Shane shouted Ricks name, running over to him. "I'm alright!"
"I saw you get tagged, that scared the hell out of me."
"Me too, the son of a bitch shot me! You believe that?"
"What, It catch you in the vest?"
"Yeah." No one noticed a third guy get out. "Shane, you do not tell Lori that happened, ever." Rick growled at him, not aware that the third offender was aiming for him. "You understand?" Rick let out a cry when he was shot, his shooter was quickly killed by Shane. Shane tried to keep him conscious but Rick couldn't stay awake.
Shane walked into the hospital room, his heart breaking seeing his best friend in such a state. "Hey bud, we're still here, we're still hanging in there." Rick continued to stare at the ceiling with almost dead eyes. Shane turned his attention to the vase of flowers in his hands. "Everyone pitched in on these, they wanted me to bring them down here, they send their love and they just, they hope you come back real soon." The room then fell in silence only to be broken by Ricks desperate gasps for air.
Rick looks around the room, 'was someone in here just now?'. His head was spinning and it took a while for his eyes to focus. He tried to remember what happened. He remembered getting shot, and a friend of his trying to keep his awake but for some reason, the persons face was blurred out. In all of his memories, all the people had no face and no name can to mind when he thought about them. There was also parts of his memory which were covered in darkness, completely forgotten. 'Why couldn't he remember people's names or faces?' His attention was turned to the dead flowers by his side. 'Didn't someone just put them there?' He reached out his hand to twist the petals, crumpling between his finger tips. Rick turned to see that the clocked had stopped, confused, he tried to stand only to lose his balance. "Nurse!" He cried out ignoring the burning pain in his throat. "Nurse! Help!" No one came. After regaining his sense of balance, he stumbled into the bathroom. Turning on the water and drinking as much as he could quickly. He then moved to the hallway, pushing one of the beds away from the door. The hallway looked as if a Tornado had passed by. When he arrived at the desk, nobody was their. He quickly grabbed the phone and put it to his ear, nothing. Who was he going to call?, another thing he couldn't remember, phone numbers. He began to search the desk for anything, when he found a pack of matches he lit one, letting it die out before he saw some double doors. When he looked through the glass panel, fear started to pump through out his body as he stared at the corpse or a woman, her stomach area missing, blood everywhere.
He made his way down another hall, eyeing the walls that where covered in bullet holes and blood before stopping in front of more double doors. On them was written 'DON'T OPEN. DEAD OUTSIDE'. Chains and a solid block of wood where keeping the doors closed but as he came closer, something on the other side tried to open them. Sticking their through the crack, trying to reach him. Growling noises coming from the other side as well. Now more or less terrified, he made his way to the elevators but they didn't respond so he opened the door to the stairs. Now surrounded by complete darkness, he lit a match and descended the stairs. The light died two or three times before he made it to the exit. He opened the door to be bombarded by a horrendous smell. Making his way down another set of stairs he say that the place overrun by dead bodies, either covered or wrapped up in a once white sheet. As he made his way through the bodies, he counted that their was maybe more than 50 bodies.
Moving on, he made his way beside the road, coming to a park. As he grabbed the bike, the half body beside it began to move, he yelp and fell down, watching it as it tried to reaching. Growling at him, picking back up the bike, he peddled down the road and to a neighborhood that felt familiar. Stopping outside of house that he was drawn too, 'was this where he lived?' Rick dropped the bike and sat in the garden, thinking everything that had happened over. Lots of dead bodies, person torn apart still moving, loss of memories. He didn't notice someone coming up behind him, who ever it was, smacked him over the head with a shovel and all that Rick could make out was that the person was a child. "Carl?" Carl? Who's Carl? His head rolled to the side to watch as two men walked down the road but one of them took out a gun and shot the other in the head, Rick swallowed hard as the man came towards him. He heard the man and the kid who hut him talk but he couldn't make out what they were saying before falling unconscious.
Rick woke up strapped to a bed, he was going to test his bindings before he noticed the kid staring at him with a baseball bat in hand, the boy turned his head and Rick followed his gaze and found the man. The man turned around to see that he was awake. "Got that bandage changed for you." He washed his hands but didn't stop talking. "That's a very rare cut, what was it? The wound?"
"Gunshot."
"Gunshot." The man echoed. "What else? Anything."
"Gunshot ain't enough?" The man walked right up to Rick.
"Right, I ask and you answer, its common courtesy, right." He lowered himself closer to Ricks face. "Did you get bit?" Rick licked his lips.
"Bit?
"Bit, scratched, chewed, anything like that?"
"No I got shot, just shot far as I know." Rick looked right into the mans eyes, he could see the distrust in them. The man raised his hand to Ricks head but he flung his head away.
"Hey." He placed he hand on Ricks forehead before looking to the little boy. "Feels cooler that what it was, fever would have killed you by now."
"I don't think I have one."
"It be hard to miss." The man then pulled a knife out and pushed right in Ricks face. "Take a moment, look how sharp it is, you try anything and I 'll kill you and don't you think I wont." He then stood up and used the knife to cut off Ricks bindings. "Come on out when your able." He then left the room. Rick soon got up and walked out of the room to find the man in the dinning room, handing out plates to the kid. They both stopped to look at him before Rick went into the living room, the guy soon followed him. Rick went up to the windows that were covered and was about to look out. "Don't do that, they'll see the light, there more of them then usual, I should have never fired that gun today. Sound draws them and now there all in the street. Stupid for using a gun but it all happened so fast I didn't think." He then sat down at the table.
"You shot that man today." Rick said but the man just shrugged.
"Man?"
"It ain't no man." The boy spoke up.
"The hell was that out of your mouth just now?"
"It wasn't a man."
"You shot that man in the street, a man!"
"It wasn't a man, it was a walker." He then pointed to an extra chair. "Sit sown, before you fall down." He then began to serve the food and Rick quickly sat down.
"Daddy, blessing." The boy sayed to the man who the looked at Rick.
"Here." All three then joined hands and then the man said a prayer. Half way through the prayer he started to glare at Rick, then they began to eat. "Here, mister, do you even know what's goin' on?"
"I woke up today, in the hospital, came here and that's all I know." Rick loward his head and went back to eating.
"But, you know about the dead people right?"
"Yeah, I saw a lot of that, out in the loading docks, piled on the trucks."
"Naw, not the ones they put down, the ones they didn't, the walkers, like the one I shot today. Because he would have ripped into you, tried to eat you get some flesh at least." Rick looked at the guy as if he was crazy. "Oh, I guess this is the first your hearing it, I know how it must sound."
"They're out there now, in the street."
"Yeah." They man nodded furiosily. "They get more active after dark sometimes, maybe it's the cool air or hell, maybe it's just me firing that gun today. But we'll be fine, as long as we stay quiet. Probably wander off by morning. But listen, one thing I do know, don't you get bit, I saw your bandage and that's what we were afraid of, bites kill ya, the fever burns ya out. But then after a while you come back." The table then went silent.
"I've seen it happen" The boy said to Rick before they all continued to eat. After dinner, Rick went into the living room and sat on a make shift bed.
"Carl?"
"What?"
"Yo-you said his name today."
"To be truthful, I don't know why I said that."
"How not?" The man looked to Rick in confusion.
"We I woke up this morning, I couldn't remember the faces and names of people who I've met in the past and there are big chunks of my memory that are just ...gone." Rick stared at the floor.
"Were you married?"
"I don't know, I don't think I was..."