Late Summer/Early Fall, Year 1/2010
Dear God, I hope that we get lucky today. But at the same time, I hope that we don't, because having a mission is a good way to keep yourself going, and I don't know what our new mission would be if we find both the books today. Anyway, I'm praying for strength, because we'll probably be running into a lot of Dead-Ones today.
I pray for my safety and Merle's as well.
Amen.
"Wanna go through the Sanctuary or the classrooms?" I ask Merle as our truck meanders down a winding driveway through the woods. I smile when the church comes into view.
"Hell, I dunno."
"Please don't curse while we're in a church," I sigh. Merle scoffs at me and I ignore him. The church before me isn't particularly large, but it's big enough that it could contain a large amount of Dead-Ones. It probably will, too, if all of the broken down cars in the parking lot are any indication. It makes sense that people would flee to a church when things got bad.
The entrance to the Sanctuary is clearly the front entrance, featuring a large, ornate wooden door with a circular stained glass window above it. The roof peaks up into a large spire that's pretty typical of any kind of church.
Pretty, I think as I get out of the truck and start heading for the front entrance. It's small, but definitely pretty. It probably used to be a nice place.
I frown at the door and hear Merle's footsteps on the sidewalk behind me. I grip the big copper handles and pull lightly, only to be met with resistance. Of course it's locked.
I press my ear against the crack between the doors and knock. The thuds resound through the wood and I wait. A few moments pass before I hear a softer version of the signature moan that accompanies a Dead-One. A few more seconds and there's more. Something bangs on the door.
"At least a few in there," I say, backing away from the door. "They probably took refuge in there, but one of them was infected. Kind of sad."
I turn around and skirt past Merle, jump down the little flight of stairs and head around the right side of the church where the sidewalk extends down the side of a wall of stained glass, the path decorated by flower bushes. All of the flowers are dead now.
As I walk down the path I can see movement behind some of the stained glass. The Sanctuary must've had more people than I thought…
I shake my head and just keep walking. I glance behind me to make sure Merle's coming, which he is, and keep walking until I reach the canopied entrance to the rest of the church. This door is pretty standard of modern architecture, looks like glass, with some black metal surrounding it and making one line across the window and creating the weird curved handle. I pull on said handle, but like the front doors, this one doesn't budge.
I knock a few times on the door and wait. A few moments pass and then one Dead-One ambles up, spots me through the door, and immediately starts banging against it, pressing its face against the glass, trying its hardest to get a meal.
I sigh at the dead creature that used to be a woman as Merle walks up behind me. "I got 'er," he says. Confused, I watch as he lifts the crowbar he brought along, and before I can fully register what he's doing, he's thrown it against the glass, making a big crack, but not breaking it.
"Merle!" I exclaim. He ignores me and slams the crowbar forward again. This time the glass breaks, and the woman on the other side starts snarling and leaning through the broken door, impaling herself on the shards of glass left behind. Without ceremony, Merle drops the crowbar, grabs the knife out of his belt, and stabs the dead woman in the head. She slumps over the door frame and I cringe.
"Merle!" I exclaim again.
"Wha'?" he asks innocently, reaching through the broken glass to unlock the door.
"You can't just… break into churches!"
"Ain't tha' the whole reason we here?" Merle asks, looking at me indignantly.
My shoulders slump as I sigh again. "Whatever." At least we're not breaking into the Sanctuary, just the offices and classrooms. That has to count for something, right?
Merle drags the woman through the door and throws her to the side, then reaches through the now empty door-frame to unlock it. He throws it open and I step in first, looking down the hallway to my right tentatively. One hallway forward, one hallway to the right… the one forward branches off again…
"Looks clear…" I say, tentatively stepping inside. It looks clear, sure, but that woman couldn't have been the only person in this part of the building…
Merle steps in much more confidently than me, his crowbar at the ready in his hand. I put a hand over one of my knives and take a deep breath. Clearing a house is one thing, but this is a big building.
"Whatcha waitin' for?" Merle hisses.
I shrug and direct my feet along the hallway that runs straight from the door. The doors are all on the right side, which makes it easier to glance inside of them, and I spot a pile of what looks like Bibles before we're even halfway down the hallway.
I open the door and glance around the room, but there doesn't appear to be anything hiding in here. I glance behind me at Merle, who's leaning against the wall looking bored, before I enter the room and head straight for the stack of books. Like I thought, they're Bibles. I grab two and stuff them into my bag before moving on to the bookshelf with a few more selections, most of which are religious books of some kind. I grab the complete collection of Narnia because it's there, keep looking, and—Catechism! A few of them. I glance over the titles and pick the one I like best, shove it into my bag.
"Got 'em!" I call quietly, standing up. I glance around the room once more before heading back to the door, only to find that Merle's gone.
I knit my eyebrows together and look up and down the hall. "Merle?" I call, still quiet. Nothing moves. I step into the hallway. "Merle…"
I hear a moan before a Dead-One comes ambling around the corner from the left. It used to be a man, and its guts are hanging out of its stomach. I sigh resignedly and set down my bag, grab a knife, aim it—
It falls with a thud, and I sigh again. I really don't like having to kill things.
I pick my bag back up and head over to the Dead-One to get my knife. I wrench it out and wipe it on the poor man's pants, but don't tuck it back into my belt. I take a few steps forward and look around the corner, but there's nothing. "Merle?"
Still nothing.
I step to the side and open the broken glass door, take a few steps out, and look around. "Merle?" The truck is still in the parking lot. I can vaguely hear the Dead-Ones still pounding on the big wooden doors of the Church.
There's a loud thud to my right and I jump, but it's only one of the Dead-Ones in the Sanctuary, pounding on the stained glass.
I bite my lip and tap my foot on the sidewalk, starting to feel a bit nervous. A bit of paranoia is creeping up now, jumping around and making up the worst possible conclusions. Merle didn't leave, because the truck is still there. So where is he? I didn't hear yelling. Why didn't he tell me he was going somewhere?
I hear something move behind me and I spin around with my knife ready, only to breathe an immediate sigh of relief.
"Where were you?" I exclaim, lowering my knife. Merle raises his eyebrows at me but doesn't answer, just opens the door and starts walking down the sidewalk back to the truck. "Merle! Where did you go?"
"Ain't nona yer business."
"Seriously? That's a stupid excuse."
"Shut yer mouth."
"No."
Merle turns on his heel and looks back at me, an angry look on his face. He takes a step forward and sticks a finger in my face. "You ain't ta boss a' me, lil' girl," he growls.
"You don't scare me," I reply calmly, keeping eye contact. He doesn't answer and after a moment I add "That's why you act all grumpy—right? You're trying to scare me?"
Merle lets out a frustrated noise in the back of his throat that sounds kind of like a growl, and says "Now ya listen 'ere. We came 'ere so that you could get them stupid books, an' ya wouldn' be alive righ' now if it weren't fer me, so ya need ta start keepin' yer damn mouth shut when I tell ya to!"
"Don't talk to me like that," I reply, crossing my arms "And don't act like I'm a burden to you. We've been together for more than a week, and you haven't let out a peep about dropping me off somewhere, so—hey!"
I scramble to catch up as Merle turns on his heel and starts stalking away. Unfortunately, his legs are a quite a bit longer than mine, so I have to jog to catch up. "You can't just walk away when we're having a conversation!"
"'S over," Merle replies, not even looking at me "If ya wan' me ta leave ya here, fine. Ah will."
"That is not what I said!" I shout.
"Nope, s'what ah said."
"So you're really going to leave the only living person you've seen in a month!" I argue as we approach the parking lot "You can't just go at it alone!"
"Yeh said yerself that yer perfectly capable," Merle says, the last two words sounding more like mocking "Well so am ah."
"I know that I can take care of myself!" I exclaim "But taking care of yourself and being alone are two different things! I do not want to be alone! And you don't either!"
Merle stops and rounds on me again, points his finger in my face again, leans in closer again, still trying to intimidate me. Maybe the threat of being alone is looming over me, but it works just a little bit this time. "Girl, yeh don' know shit 'bout me!"
"I know that you dug up fifteen graves just to make sure that your brother was alive!" I snap "And I know that you could've left me in that house all those weeks ago but you didn't, because you're a good person, and good people need other people to keep them sane!"
Merle scoffs, steps back, and rolls his eyes. "The hell's wrong with ya?"
"What?" I ask "There's something wrong with me because I have faith in humanity?"
Merle's silent for a few moments, just staring at me, and then he shakes his head. "Tha's somethin' ya gotta get rid of," he pauses and adds "Le's go."
I smile. Maybe Merle doesn't have faith in people, but he's not abandoning me. "Alright, let's go," I say happily. "I'm sorry that I yelled at you."
He rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to say something—
—CRACK—
—THUD—
—and suddenly the moans of all the Dead-Ones who were banging on the Sanctuary door is about ten times louder.
