In the Mourning
Chapter 4
Disclaimer, I won nothing but Oli and Elizabeth Whitely. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter, I loved writing it!
I wiped away my tears and nodded at Rick, "Ready." I assured him. "You okay?" Glenn asked me, "Fine, never better." I snapped, I heard Jim telling them what happened as I put on my coat.
''Let's get the walker." I said putting on gloves and grabbing an axe. T-Dog and Rick grabbed a brain-dead walker and dragged it inside while Glenn covered them. "Alright, well let's cut him up." I said taking a swing at it's face. Jacqui and Morales followed my act.
Continually people kept hitting it until we knew it was enough. Glenn nearly threw up from the smell. Once we finished Jacqui took off her gloves and headed out. "I'll get everyone ready to leave, when you get to the garage honk twice and have the back of the trunk opened up." Jim followed her and kissed my forehead, "Be safe." I told him, he knew I wouldn't be able to handle another death. He wiped away the tear on my check and smiled. "I'll do my best dear."
Morales started packing all the body parts on us, he hung the intestines around Ricks neck and put muscles on Glenn and I. "No one has any cuts right?" He asked last minute, "They will know you're not one of them if you do." He finished, he waved and left quickly after Jacqui and Jim.
"This should be fun." I said a bit sorrowfully, but I knew that Oli would be proud If he saw what I was doing to help these people out. I took the machete from the floor and handed Rick the axe, Glenn had his crowbar in his hand, which was shaking. "Alright let's take a deep breath," I said, we all took a deep breathe then opened the door. "Remember, blend in." I said putting on a limp and a bit of a moan. They followed in.
Few walkers stopped to smell us, but each one that did made us walk faster. "They're catching to us, the rain is going to wash away our scent!" Glenn said beginning to panic. A walker waked by Rick right when the rain started, its screamed and raced towards him. Rick took his axe and crushed its skull, all eyes were on us now. We raced towards the fence that was about 50 meters away now, killing walkers along the way.
Once we all got over the fence we killed the walkers that were hopping the fence, "Glenn distract the walkers," Rick said breaking the window of a red car, "Go around the city the other way and meet us on the highway." He nodded and drove off with the siren blaring car. "Alright let's go, NOW." Rick said seeing walkers jumping over the fence. We hopped into the car and sped towards the mall. We honked twice once we reached the garage, the door flew open and I opened the back of the truck. People piled in and shouted, "GO! GO! GO!" Rick sped away as I closed the door and almost lost my balance.
They all looked so disturbed in the van, "What's wrong?" I asked, "I dropped the key, I dropped the damn key." T-dog said angrily. "What key?" I asked looking towards Andrea. "I cuffed Merle to the roof and T-Dog dropped the key." Rick answered.
The whole ride back was silent except for the sound of the alarm on Glenn's car, and the occasional direction as to where camp was by Morales. "It's good some one is having fun." Jim said letting me lean on his shoulder. "Yeah, well he is going to be attracting a lot of walkers in this direction." I added getting the attention of everyone's eyes.
We reached a small camp filled with a few people. I opened the back of the truck but crawled to sit in the front with Rick, we watched as families reunited with each other. "In a week, we can leave and look for your family." I stated, "You don't have to, it would be nice of you, but I don't expect you to." He said. I shook my head, "I have no family, I need a reason to live, and a way to find happiness is to give you happiness." He smiled, touched. "We should probably go and 'mingle'" I said laughing. When we stepped out I heard Glenn telling everyone about us.
We brought these new guys, they helped us escape, Rick, Elizabeth and Jim, come on out!" He yelled and then apologized when he saw that Jim was already out and was talking to a man named Dale who was his father-in-law. Rick stepped out and looked at a woman in disbelief, the child she was soothing ran to Rick, "DAD!" He yelled, I smiled, he had found his family. "CARL, LORI, Oh GOD, I thought you were dead!" He said crying and hugging his son. He picked up his son and embraced his wife as well who was still stunned. I walked over to Jim and Ed awkwardly feeling a little but out of place.
"Where is Merle?" Dale asked, "Tied up to a roof in Atlanta," Jim responded. "Daryl is not going to like that one bit." He said back. "Who is Daryl?" I asked. "A clone of Merle, except younger and in some way more polite." Ed explained. He seemed nice; he was like the old guy everyone liked because he was nice and respectful. "Joy." I said getting a laugh out of him.
The rest of the night was spent around the campfire, we talked about post-outbreak stories and made jokes and had a good time. But the whole time I couldn't help but think about Oliver, I missed him so much, I couldn't believe that he would just leave me like that.
Jim and I both slept by the campfire, which was put out by a man named Shane who was Ricks old sheriff partner. I watched the stars and woke up to a not so peaceful event. I heard screaming coming from the woods, it was the scream of Carl, I raced to go see what was happening, I picked Carl up and saw a walker feasting on a deer. I walked back towards camp and saw Lori along the way; I gave her Carl and picked up a big wooden stick. Rick, T-Dog and Dale followed all carrying silent weapons. We bashed the walker until we though he was dead; he remained up right so I kicked his face as hard as I could, decapitating him. They all looked at me in awe, "I took karate before all this shit happened."
A tall man walked out of the forest, he wore a green shirt that was somewhat sweat stained, just like everyone else, there were no more cloth departments anymore. He was a dirty blond, and his hair was rugged, somewhat sexy, I scolded myself from thinking that and I looked down.
"God damn it, Fucking walkers!" He shouted angrily, "I been tracking that damn deer for miles." He said as he kicked the walker's lifeless body. "Fucking hours of work down the fucking drain!" He said looking me up and down discretely. "Do you think I could still cook it? If I just cut around this area?" he asked looking towards Dale.
"I wouldn't risk it." I said, instantly regretting it, "Who the hell are you?" He snapped. "Elizabeth Whitely, just got here." I said standing tall, I wouldn't let him intimidate me. He moved towards me. "So you're saying that I spent basically 12 hours tracking down this deer for nothing?" He asked. I shrugged apologetically. I scratched my hair and pulled it down from my ponytail, my chocolate brown hair was wavy and messy now. "Do you have anything else to eat?" T-Dog asked. "I got some squirrels." Daryl said pulling all the arrows out of the deer and walking towards camp.
"Merle, where you at brother? I got us some squirrel to cook!" He said sounding a bit exited. "Merle isn't here." Shane said to Daryl, he looked like he was expecting the worst. "Where the hell is he?" He asked angry, "I chained him up to the roof, he was a danger to us all, we lost the key and so we left him there." Rick said. Daryl ran to throw a punch but was quickly taken down by Shane. "Calm the hell down, we didn't leave him to be eaten alive, we chained the door shut and I'm going back to get my guns and find a way to get your brother, so calm down." Rick explained, Shane released Daryl when he calmed.
"Who the fuck does that to a man?" He questioned grabbing his bow and arrow, "When are we leaving?" He added. "We can leave now, you me and hopefully Glenn." Rick said looking towards Glenn. Glenn nodded, "In and out." He said. "I'm going too, I want to see Oli for myself." I said.
"Look girl, if you're boyfriend is there, leave him, we don't need you to slow us down." Daryl said quickly. "He is my brother actually, and he was sick, he made me leave him, so I'm going back to get him now." I said looking at Jim who seemed a bit unsure, but knowing he wouldn't convince me not to go he smiled.
"Well then, lets go." Daryl said.
The next few hours went by slow, we went to the outskirts of the city and walked from there. We got the mall safely like Glenn promised; we rushed up to the roof killing five walkers silently along the way. "NO, No NOOO!" Shouted Daryl when he saw that his brother's hand was on the floor. His hand, and no body. I looked down to the streets and saw walkers glancing up. I wrapped my arms around Daryl shushing him, I calmed him down and he wept. I expected him to push me away but he actually let me hug him.
He calmly collected himself and stood up, "I swear to God, someone is going to pay if he is a walker. " Back to his old self he went in look of his brother with the guys, I made it down to my brothers level, I raced to his room without them, the first bad sign was that his door was torn open. I peered inside only to see Oli, I hoped he wasn't a walker, "Oli baby, is that you?" I said, he turned around and I gasped, his stomach was torn open, his eyes torn out and his jaw ripped off halfway. I shut up door quickly and held it closed. I heard motion behind me and I jumped when I saw Daryl, Glenn and Rick coming.
"I told you he wasn't dead," Daryl said to Rick, "Merle is one tough, son of a bitch!" Glenn looked at me questioningly; I shook my head, "kill him, I- I- Cant." I stuttered trying to breath and not cry. I walked away from the door as calmly as I could and then broke down. I promised Oliver not to let him become one of those things, I made a promise. I fell to my knees, "I promised, I'm so sorry, I-I- I- promised, please f-f-f-forgive me, I'm sorry!" I said taking breaths in between words; it was so hard to breathe when I cried so hard. Some one came up and hugged me from behind pushing the hair out of my face right as I passed out. But not soon enough for me to not hear the thud, Olli's least favourite part was hearing the sick thud that came once the walkers died.