Everything just got so bad so fast. First my grandfather, then Jess what if... no I can't think about that right now. I look over at my uncle, he's has his arm on the door and he's thinking. I put my head down and I felt a tear come to my eye. I turn my head to the window hoping he wouldn't see.

"Ya cryin?" I don't look. I just pull my blanket tighter around me. Conceal, don't feel. Best advice I was ever given. "Alice?"

"I can't..." I stop. If I talk, I might cry. Just the thought of losing my uncle... no stop!

"Alice. Talk to me." He's talking in that special voice. That voice I can't ignore.

"It's just the thoughts." I muttered.

"What thoughts?"

"losing." That's all I say.

"Ya ain't. I got you."

"No. I'm scared of losing you. And if Daddy is still alive." I hear him sigh.

"Ya ain't gonna lose me. I told ya that."

"I know but..."

"Baby girl, I got ya, stop worrying."

"But what about—"

"Merle is one tough son-a-bitch. Trust me darlin' your daddy gonna be just fine."

"Promise?"

"I promise baby girl." He ruffles my hair and it makes me smile.

I reach over and turn on the radio.

"...be afraid of the terror by, nor of the arrow that flies by day! Repent, repent and be the bow of salvation."

My uncle reached over and turned the radio off.

"Enough of that shit."

I looked over at my uncle and shook my head at him.

"And you yell at me for swearing." I muttered.

"Watch it." He warned and I shut my mouth for the rest of the trip.

We arrived at the town my dad is in and we had to park in a back ally. Uncky sent Blake to find more supplies.

"Place is lousy with eaters. Something's got them bowed up."

My uncle placed his hand on my shoulder and we walked down a narrow ally. There is graffiti on the walls. We walked to the back parking lot to see a bunch of cars parked. I didn't see anyone around so I looked around at the cars and started going through them, gathering what I can.

I found a knife. Good something to defend myself with. I also found some ammo that may come in handy. I watch as a walker comes up behind me. I pushed it and stabbed it in the dead. I walk back over to my uncle and he is knifing one in the head.

"What is it this time?" I hear him mutter. I look up at him as we walk threw a gate. I shut it, in case more of them come. "Where are you, Merle?" There is another parking lot, and across it the lot, is a door and it's open. "Be quiet." He tells me and I nod in responds.

As we walk through the door and we walk down the hall way. "What have we got in here...?" He mutters at me and I shrug. There is a bunch of walkers by the counter and I look at my uncle and he sees to.

"All right buddy. It's okay. We're gonna get through this." I hear a woman say. I listen closely, to see where it's coming from. "Hey, a little help over here?" I rush to where the eaters are at the counter. I chuckled at how it looked as if they are trying to order food. They're four of them, good number. I take 2 my uncle takes two. I knifed one and my uncle did the same. They turned to me. I knifed one but the other one grabbed me.

I tried to stab it myself but my uncle got it for me. The walker feel on top of me and it smelled so bad. I pushed it off and stood up. "You never get used to the smell." I muttered. He walked around to find the door open and a table blocking the way. We jumped over the table to talk to the woman.

She's pretty her brown hair pulled into a ponytail and there is a guy on the ground, his shoulder is bleeding. "Thanks. From both of us." She said with a sigh.

"He bit?" Me and Uncky said together.

"Huh-uh. Gunshot. Some crazy asshole is sniping at us and car alarms. I dragged Noah in here. They followed."

"Who's 'us?' You two?"

"Gotta whole team out there... Or did. We scavenge supplies for the local survivor camps."

"There're survivor camps?"

"Um. Yeah? The military supplies some of them with weapons, meds... there's a big one at the Cherokee Hill Sawmill. We were doing pretty well, until that psycho sniper showed up and bought a whole mob of bitters down on top of us. We got split up, pinned down... killed... I need to get my people together. One of my runners, Mia, is held up in the theater across the street. Help her out, and I'll make it worth your while." She points down at a bag full of supplies. "I'll trade you one of those. Lot of goodies in there, Hillbilly. Tell her scout sent you."

"I'll think about it." Is all my Uncle says.

"I wouldn't do it. Sounds too good to be true." I say to him as we run across the street to the movie theater.

"Why ya say that?"

"I can read people."

"Good to know." He walk into the back room and found a bag. "Looks like one Scout had. Mia?" We look in the bag together. "Ain't much in it."

"At least you don't have to do the trade. That bag is what you were gonna get." I mutter with a sly smile. We head through a door to see a woman looking at us. She screamed something like Don't shoot me and she ran.

"Mia! Wait!" I run after her and my uncle runs after me.

"Hey!"

We run up the stairs and open the door to see a woman standing there.

"Get away from me you asshole."

"I ain't the asshole you're worried about."

"Who ARE you then?"

"I'm a different one." We hear a gun shot. "See? Not me. Uh, Scout asked us to come look in on ya."

"You know, Scout? She sent you?"

"Yeah. She's across the street. In that dinner."

"Oh, Thank God. I thought the shooter... every time I put my head out, he's all over me. I lost all my gear, so I'm pretty much trapped. The theater is locked up tight since they started loading corpses in there. Exits is blocked, and there's a bunch of them. There's a half-ladder down. Clear the way and i can get out, and back to scout."

"Let's do it. I gotta get to police station to get my brother, anyways. Alice, you wait here with Mia."

"The police station? But that's where the killer is set up! You think your brother is even alive?"

"Yeah. I've got my suspicions."

I snort when my uncle says that and I wait with Mia.

"You think he's gonna find his brother?" Mia asked me.

"Yeah. We're gonna find him." I look out the window to see my uncle moving a cart and he waves for use to come down. I start to climb down but I missed my footing and slipped off the ladder.

"God damn it." I mutter. My vision was blurry for a second before it became clear again. I felt my head and I felt something warm and wet. I looked at my hand and saw blood. I stood up and saw my uncle standing over me.

"Shit, you alright?" He says offering me a hand. I take it and pull myself off.

"I've been through worse." I mutter. We run out the door and across the street to see a door and we can use that as a ramp to get over the fence. "Uncle Daryl..." I say pointing at the door. He see it too. About four eaters are lined up at the door.

"Be quiet." He tells me sneaking up behind one and taking it out. He takes out the other two. I take out the last one and open the door before shutting it behind us.

"Merle! DIXON!" Daryl yells. I look around at all the dead people.

"DAD!" I yell out. He looks down at me. We enter a room and it full of cubical, like the ones the wrench used to work at. She was a phone sells person or something like that. She got fired for being rude to clients.

"Where's the king of the monsters?"

"I'm looking at him." I say and he playfully nudges me.

"Come on, Merle. Where are you hiding at?" We walked to what I think are holding cells. "Merle, in his natural habitat. Merle... oh man. You crazy son of a bitch... where did you get off to from here?" We looked at all the blood and I looked at my uncle.

"I wanna hear this story behind this." My uncle shook his head. "What?"

"Nothin'." We open a metal door and found a staircase. "Think we found your Dad." He says while walking up the stairs. "My brother, the crazy psycho shooter." I follow him up the stairs and we come to the roof exit. We were about to open it when I heard my dad's voice. My uncle pushed me away from the door.

"Oh no! Sneaking up are we? No, no, no. You're never gonna take me back there!"

"Dad it's—"

"Aw, come on Merle it's us! Merle!"

"WHAT'S LOWER THAN IMPERSONATING A MAN'S LONG-LOST BABY BROTHER AND DAUGHTER? You're just trying to gain false entry?! That's what you're doing."

"Damnit, Merle. I'm just going to leave you here."

"Keep your pants on sweetheart. I locked this place down pretty good..." He opened the door and grabbed both me and my Uncle Daryl and pretty much threw us before shutting the door.

"Missed you too." I said while catching my balance.

"Them people locked me up for days in the dark with all of them abominations! But look'ee who's just a LITLE BIT too smart for them!"

"Dad..."

"Bro you're stir-fried from the sun, and the booze and whatever else you been into."

"I DO feel a little warm, now that you mention it. I sprang myself, see? Established my little snipers nest right here. And then I commenced sending those soldiers packing. I rang the alarms calling in the abomination."

I looked at my father wide.

"Those aren't soldiers down there! Just some scavengers trying to help people out. They don't even know who you are." Thank you Uncle Daryl.

"There're in UNIFORM, ain't they?! And they came to take me back to the HOLE! I'm not going anywhere but JAKES's and that's where you're gonna take me! Come on!" My dad nearly fell but me and Daryl was lucky to catch him.

"Let's go, ya ape. I gotta lug your thick ass across town. Man, you must be running over a hundred and six!" My uncle said pulling him up.

"My chair!"

"Yeah, it'll be here when we come back." Daryl grabbed my dad's arm and started dragging him back to the jeep. Once inside, my dad takes the front seat. I reach in the bag next to me and got a bottle of water from it.

"Here, drink this." I said handing him the bottle.

"Thanks, Darlin'." He says back to me.

He takes the water from me and Lay back in the seat. Mia didn't come with us and Blake never made it back either. I sat with my head looking out the window. I see walking along the highway. It made me sad not seeing animals like we always did.

"Where are we going?" I asked. "Lady talked about the Sawmill, but the hospital..."

"Hospital is the better bet." My uncle says to me.

"Merle... Man. I gotta tell you something. Something happened bro."

"I got it. Full bore. Flesh eating apocalypse."

"Yeah. Yeah. But... we were up at jess' camp house when the... when the eaters came down on us. We never heard anything about 'em. They tore us up. Jess, Alice and me we were the only ones to get out."

"Where's the old man?"

"He was at the camp house too. He didn't make it, bro."

"He's dead?! The old man's DEAD?! You let the abominations get him?! Did he turn INTO one?! Did you let THAT happen, too?!"

"No. I... we gave him mercy."

"What'd he say? ...What did he SAY?!

"He said... uh... he said, 'Tell merle I'm proud of him.' Merle?"

"Hmmm..." I heard him sniffle. My dad is... crying? "What did he really say?"

My uncle fell silent. The rest of the trip was silent. I placed my head on the seat and closed my eyes as I drifted off to sleep.

Everything was normal. I was back home at the trailer house with my father. I was in my room, must be doing some homework or what not. I heard a knock at my door. I opened the door, my father, came busting into my room. Though he wasn't my daddy anymore. He grabbed my arm and I screamed no one came to help me. He bit into my arm I kept screaming for him to stop but he wouldn't, he was on top of me and I was on the floor. He dug his teeth into my neck.

I woke up in sweat and I saw my daddy in the front seat arguing with my uncle. He wasn't an eater, good. I sighed and laid back down. I couldn't help but smile at knowing my daddy was okay and somewhat back to his normal self.

"We ain't stoppin'."

"Damnit, Merle you needs meds. Shit, rest up. I'm stopping."

"Yeah whatever. But we gotta get to Jakes."

I roll my eyes at how childish he sounds but smile anyways.