The Walking Dead: The World We Live In
Chapter 9: Sky Fall
"Hey Ken, you need some help setting that awning up?" Lee asked the commercial fisherman who seemed to have been struggling with the olive green awning.
Kenny looked up and wiped the sweat from his brow, "Nah, I've just about got it, but thanks though."
"Sure thing, pal," Lee said leaning back in the chair atop the RV.
It had been roughly two weeks since Lee had taken the kids to go spear fishing in the stream and the group has taken two trips over there since. They now had a decent storage of food and were able to be a little more generous with the rations. They were even able to allow a few snacks every once in a while.
Lee was just finishing his shift on watch duty up, he had about five more minutes sitting up there and then Larry would relieve him until midnight. At midnight Mark, who was healing up nicely and adjusting to their way of living, would take his first shift until six in the morning. They would cycle out four times in a twenty four hour period, each person would have a six hour watch duty and would be relieved by the next person. It was both simple and effective, it was also something everyone had agreed upon.
The former history professor had chalked down two walker sightings and one kill. The walkers were thinning out, probably due to the military bombings just before the federal government had officially collapsed a week ago. Lee couldn't imagine how it was in cities like in Atlanta or New York. The streets must have been infected, he figured this would be a good place to hide out until a cure was developed- if that was ever to happen.
Lee pulled the rifle out one last time as he saw Larry walking over to him. Lee did one last scan of the red and orange trees, he put the rifle down feeling the RV lean to one side as Larry hoisted himself up.
Lee had nothing to say to Larry who just forcefully pushed his way past Lee and sat down on the chair. Lee slid down the silver ladder and walked past Kenny who had finally set the awning up. Lee put his hands in his jeans pockets, which he finally got a new pair of thanks to Glenn, and walked over into Mark's room.
"Hey Lee," Mark casually greeted from his seat on his desk turned workbench.
He spun around in his black office chair, "I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of re finishing the wood on your rifle after I replaced the lenses on the scope."
"Thank you Mark," Lee said taking the gun from Mark's extended hands.
Mark held up his index finger, "But wait, there's more," he said imitating a cheesy commercial voice.
He pulled out Lee's brown backpack and pointed to a metal piece on the side, "Instead of using the strap you can use the clip I put on the side of the gun and just have it clipped to the side of your pack."
Lee smiled at Mark, "Thanks man, I really appreciate it."
Mark wiped his black frames glasses and shook his head, "No problem, anything I can do to help out."
Lee sat down on the edge of Mark's messy bed and drug his brown running shoes over the blue carpet, "You don't have to act like an outsider, Mark. You've earned your keep, here. And don't worry about Larry, he really is just an asshole."
Mark snickered slightly, "Thank you, Lee."
Lee patted Mark's shoulder as he gets up, "You need anything, you just let anyone of us know, alright?"
Mark nodded, "Sure."
Lee began to walk out of the room before Mark stopped him, "Hey Lee?"
"Yeah, buddy?" Lee asked stopping at the door frame.
"You know your girl is quite the artist? She drew a picture of me in a jet," Mark smiled showing Lee Clementine's picture.
Lee took hold of it and smiled at Clementine's artwork. It was a jet flying through the air with a smiling Mark inside the cockpit, the background was a blue sky, some clouds, and a large sun in the top right corner.
"Yeah, she drew a picture of her and I too, it never leaves my side," Lee smiled and taps his chest pocket as he gave Mark's picture back.
Lee pulled the picture out and showed it to Mark, who grinned, "You really do have the next Picasso with you."
Lee grinned and put the picture back in his chest pocket. He had dressed differently today, making use of the two changes of clothes Glenn gave everyone. Lee wore a short sleeved gray button up shirt accompanied by a long sleeved white shirt underneath and his jeans.
"Alright Mark, you take care okay?"
"Absolutely, you too Lee," Mark said with a friendly smile as he turned back around and got back to work.
Lee slung the pack over his back and clipped the gun to it. It kept the gun sturdy as Lee walked and was easily accessible. The former professor jogged upstairs and to his room where Clementine was lying down on her bed putting something in a box, as she heard Lee open the door she quickly chucked it under her bed.
"Hey, Clem," Lee greeted walking to his bed and opening the night stand drawer and pulling out his revolver and an extra six bullets.
"You're leaving already?" Clementine asked.
"Yeah, but don't worry, Carley said she was going to stay with you until Glenn and I are back. And I promise you, two hours and I'm back, okay?" Lee promised sitting next to Clementine.
"Okay," she sighed and hugged Lee tightly, "Be careful, okay?"
"I'm always careful, Clem," Lee said tapping the bridge of her hat causing her to giggle.
"Okay, Lee," she said.
Glenn arrived at the doorway fully armed and ready to go, "You about ready, man?"
"Yeah, I'm ready. I'll be back soon, Clem," Lee said to the girl.
Lee followed Glenn to the stairs where Carley was coming up, "Oh hey, leaving so soon?" Carley asked.
"Yeah, are you sure you don't mind watching Clementine? Because I'm sure I can get Bud to-"
"No worries Lee, I don't mind at all," Carley said reassuring Lee.
"Okay, thanks. I won't be long, I promise," he said walking down the stairs with Glenn.
"You've got the list?" Lee asked Glenn as they got in the pizza delivery vehicle.
Bud opens the door for them as Glenn accelerates out of their camp and hands a wrinkled piece of paper to Lee. Lee snickers silently to himself looking at the rear view mirror and seeing foam dice flop around rapidly as Glenn speeds through the streets.
'Okay,' Lee thinks to himself, 'Canned food, water, 1/4 inch nails, brake fluid, and two cases of water.'
"Not too much today?" Lee asked putting the list in his pocket.
Glenn shook his head, "Nah, we've been doing pretty well for ourselves."
Lee nodded looking at the line trees whipping past them, "So how do you handle these Atlanta runs?" Lee asked turning to look at Glenn.
Glenn shrugged, "I just try to get in and out without much hassle, the walkers in the streets are packed so I try to keep to the rooftops."
"Where are we going, you know, exactly?" Lee asked.
"The Bank of America. I heard there was a camp over there, abandoned, of course. But it was where the military stragglers held out after the bombings. They're probably dead now and we can find most of what we need there and then go around to the auto shop about a block away," Glenn explained.
"So there's probably going to be more gear?"
"Yeah, probably a lot."
Nodding his head, Lee looked over the trees and saw several tips of skyscrapers sticking out. He never could have lived in the city, he felt life in the city was too fast for him. He was the type of person that liked to take his time, so he always stuck to the suburbs.
For the rest of the ride into Atlanta, Lee tried to relax and take a quick nap. As the dying sunlight washed over and soothingly warmed his body Glenn cut the ignition and shook him, "Hey Lee, wake up man, we're here," oh the nostalgia.
Lee groaned opening the car door and dragging his pack out of the car. He slipped the large brown pack over his back and shut the car door. The sun was receding rapidly now, it just barely shown through the quarantine fence ahead and the row of brick and concrete buildings.
Lee could see a river of walkers through the links of the fence moving down the street, luckily for them the walkers were going the opposite direction.
"Maybe we can make it to the auto shop before the bank, come on Lee," Glenn said over his shoulder and jogging down the length of the fence.
Lee jogged after the Korean-American until they reached a hole in the bottom of the fence. Past that whole was an alleyway littered with trash and two dumpsters. Glenn crouch walked through the whole and explained, "I made this the first time I came down here so that I would be away from the dead and also because it's a helluva lot easier than scaling it."
Lee grunted in understanding as he looked around the desolate streets filled with burnt out cars and charred bodies. Glenn jogged to the alleyway with Lee hot on his trail, "Hand me that ladder would you?" he asked pointing to the other side of the alley as he climbed to the top of the dumpster.
Lee handed the man the red ladder and Glenn placed it against the fire escape two stories above them, "This is the abandoned apartment building I use to get to the rooftops, from there we can get a better view of the walkers near our points of interest."
"Come on up," he called down as quietly as possible to Lee.
Lee boosted himself on top of the dumpster and climbed up the red ladder which he felt, always in the back of his mind, that it would collapse on him. Glenn pulled him up as Lee reached the top of the ladder, "Come on, let's keep going," Glenn said walking up the stairs of the fire escape.
Within four or so minutes they reached the fifteenth and final building of the beige bricked apartment building. Lee's thighs burned as he reached the fifteenth floor and there he finally realized why Glenn was so fit. The duo walked to the very edge of the roof, "Look over there,"
Lee pointed down the road where the walkers were clumping up at, "Is that a tank?"
Glenn nodded, "Yeah, I'm telling you, the military was serious about this. Of course, you know, until they were eradicated completely."
"You don't honestly think they're all gone do you?" Lee asked crossing his arms as a inquisitive look took form on his face.
Glenn shrugged, "I really don't know, but they sure as hell aren't here anymore. I mean, I guess I would have to say there are survivors that were military but you just never know."
"Yeah," Lee agreed dropping his arms to his sides, "So where is this hardware store of yours?"
Glenn pointed to the left of them far away down the street, which happened to be walker free. Maybe it would be safe for them after all. Lee stepped off of the very edge of the roof's two foot incline onto what he felt was more solid ground. He looked one last time at the tank and what appeared to be the remains of a horse on the ground near it and the agitated walkers. He shook his head with a sigh and followed Glenn hoping the poor bastard inside of the tank had made it.
"Hey, Lee. Hardware store is just up ahead," Glenn said from ahead of Lee on the rooftops.
Lee was pretty sure they were on the rooftop of an abandoned makeshift camp as there were old torn up sleeping bags and shattered bottles of booze littering a corner of the rather spotless rooftop. Lee quickened his pace to catch up with his friend who was standing on the edge of the flat rooftop, "You think you can make this descent or do you want to just go through the building?" Glenn asked pointing to the sturdy metal drainage pipe.
They were only five stories up now and Lee was confident in his physical abilities that he had slowly began to build up since the previous weeks, "Yeah, I've got it."
"You sure? I don't want you to fall," Glenn questioned worriedly again.
"Yes, Glenn. I'm good," Lee assured the man.
"Okay, let's go then." Glenn said going to sit on the edge of the building and positioning himself on the pipe.
Lee sat on the edge of the building and watched Glenn get down to the alleyway. Glenn motioned for Lee to climb down the pipe and meet up with him. Lee got onto the pipe and immediately found his entire body straining to hang on so he did the only thing he could think of, he let himself slide down. As he was almost down to street level he held a tight grip on the pipe and slowed himself down to a halt on street level.
"Hey, up there!" Glenn hissed to a couple of walkers stalking about the front entrance of the auto shop.
Several abandoned cars lined the litter strewn streets leading up to the auto shop. The two walkers ambled around, occasionally growling at a passing piece of paper or a plastic bag caught in the wind. One was facing towards Lee and Glenn, it had a stringy red beard and about six bullet holes in its red and black Falcons shirt. His buddy was walking through the line of cars as though it was a police officer checking the windows of cars for troublemakers.
"Alright, I'll get the one that's walking, you can have the easy part," Glenn said starting to sneak ahead before Lee grabbed his arm, "Oh no buddy boy, I haven't been on a run in a while, he's mine," Lee countered.
"Fine, old man, but don't come crying to me when he gets too tough for you," Glenn joked knowing full well Lee could take on two of them easily even on a bad day.
Lee scoffed standing up and walking casually in front if Glenn, "I just so happen to be thirty seven years young."
Glenn laughed jabbing the sitting walker through the forehead with his knife and then groaning in disgust as the blood spewed onto his hands, "You sound just like my grandmother!"
Lee scoffed as the walker turned around and stumbled hungrily to Lee, growling loudly in the process. Lee grabbed it by the shoulders and threw it into the ground behind him before brutally bashing its head in with his shoes.
"Ugh, got that one," Lee said, the edges of his mouth curved downwards into the ground as the putrid smell of decaying skin and copper scented blood rose into his flared nostrils.
Glen walked around the cars looking around quickly to see if any other walkers had followed the noise of cracked skulls and low banter. Luckily for the fellow survivors, none had seen the need to take interest them and went about their business of stumbling about and growling angrily at any noise that dare invaded their range of hearing.
A tumbled over military jeep had been the first to enter the auto shop, it was crashed in its side on the far white tiled wall of the shop. It had also appeared to take several shelves with it leaving a mixture of radiator cleaner and oil on the floor leaving it a slick tripping hazard.
"I'll go look for the nails, see if you can find that brake fluid," Lee told Glenn who gave Lee a quick nod and moved to tread carefully through the chemical mixture on the scratched cement floor.
Lee blew air through his slightly closed, chapped lips as he could see in the dying, golden sunlight particles of dust and ash floating through the air. Lee checked first the counter and found several nice pairs of working gloves that he deposited in his brown pack. Slinging it over his broad shoulders and onto his back he walked over to the aisle where nails used to be sold.
Every shelf had collapsed on each other so for a few minutes Lee had to sift through several boxes of nails until he could find a small box of 1/4 inch nails and by that time Glenn was standing behind him shining his head torch over the small print red boxes.
"Alright, you found the break fluid?" Lee asked getting up and putting two boxes of nails in his pack.
"Yeah, I've got it. The bank should be about a ten minute walk from here. You ready to go?" Glenn asked as Lee readjusted the straps on his pack.
"Yeah, let's go," Lee nodded.
"So tell me a little bit more about that camp," Lee said putting his hands in his pockets as they took the skywalk on the twenty-eighth floor leading from the AT&T tower to the Bank of America Tower.
Glenn stopped and put his hands on the pane of glass that wasn't shattered looking down at the gaping hole in the Bank of America tower that spanned upwards about nine floors and was stretching inside the building almost halfway.
"There's not much to tell, really. Like I said it was just the guys from the military who took part in some of the bombings to try and eradicate the walkers. But, like we both know and experienced first hand, it didn't work. So they camped out here for a while, I even saw one of them scouting around one time. Now they're all gone," Glenn explained.
Lee nodded looking down at the large hole in the building that gave him a bad feeling about going inside. The way it looked to Lee, it seemed like it could collapse at any given time without warning. "So how do you know they're all gone?"
"I was going to go down and trade with them, or at least try to talk to them last week and I saw a group of walkers going inside. I waited around for about ten minutes and I heard gunfire, screaming, and then an explosion and it went silent. I haven't seen a walker around here since," Glenn said taking his hat off and wiping his growing bangs out of his eyes and slicked them back before putting the hat on again.
"Shit," was all that Lee could think to say.
"Yeah, they just- they just killed themselves like that. I don't want to die like that - I don't want to die at all, but if I have to, I won't go out like that," Glenn said more so to himself than to Lee.
"I understand, man," Lee said putting a hand on his shoulder and giving him a friendly, reassuring smile, "Now let's get going, shall we?"
Glenn nodded as the building shuddered once more "Lets get this done quick, I don't wanna be street pizza today."
Lee murmured a quick 'Yeah' as the duo moved on all the way to the fortieth floor where the camp was. Lee's thighs were really beginning to protest as he stopped outside of the fire escape door on the fortieth floor for a breather.
"Shit," Lee growled lowly.
"Hey, 'least it's good cardio," Glenn panted a few feet away from Lee.
"Let's just get this place searched," Lee instructed while sucking in a large quantity of air as though it would help his breathing troubles.
"I'll get whatever weapons they have, you go ahead and look for food and water," Glenn said heading down the right of the hallway where the blast radius was located.
Lee, on the other hand, headed down the left side of the hallway. He passed crooked golden name plates on the thick oak wood doors and scattered pieces of official documents. He entered a large, open workspace occupied by desks pushed to one side and tents neatly arranged in the middle.
Lee decided to check every single tent thoroughly. His first few tens he found nothing special aside from a Kevlar vest and an extra blanket. The next tent he checked probably belonged to the guy who put himself in charge of this fine establishment because he had a large box of canned food.
Lee celebrated in his head as he pulled out the box that was rather weighty. 'Okay, let's see,' Lee thought, 'Several cans of beans, peas, corn, tomatoes, peaches, and chili.' Now he just needed to round up all of the bottles of water he saw scattered around in the forest camouflaged tents and his end of the job would be finished.
Lee stuffed the cans in his pack as he could hear Glenn cheering from down the hall. Loud, quick, and echoing footsteps radiated through the hallway until Glenn showed up at the door with two M4's, one in each hand.
"Look at me, I'm Rambo!" he yelled in glee.
"Quiet down a bit, man. You never know if there's walkers or not around," Lee cautioned while he put his backpack on a plastic table that had a map of Georgia, a map of Atlanta, and a compass.
"Don't worry about them, like I said I haven't seen a walker around here since that explosion last week.
Lee rolled his dark brown eyes, "How much ammunition does it have?"
Glenn opened his pack and Lee saw several ziplock bags of ammunition, "They were fuckin' loaded, dude," Glenn said zipping the bag up.
"Holy hell, that should last us a while!" Lee exclaimed.
Glenn nodded his head ecstatically, "Yeah, man! Give me five!" Glenn shouted putting his hand up as the building shuddered again.
Lee gave him a high five, "Look we've really got to head out now, this building is acting like it wants to fall right on too of us."
"Yeah, I agree, we can go back down to the sky-" Glenn was cut off as the building violently shook.
Lee and Glenn staggered at the sudden movement, "Shit! Run!" Lee yelled as adrenaline pulsated through his veins waking his sense of danger again.
Glenn took off towards the hallway as a loud crack was heard from far below. The door swung open as the building tilted backwards to the AT&T tower. The sound of shattering glass bounced off of the walls of the bank. The incline was too steep for Lee but he could just barely make it, he held onto the doorknob that suspended him over the wall glass below him that would lead him down to a quick death.
Glenn was holding into the other side of the door frame, "Pull yourself up! Shit!" he strained.
The most sickening noise Lee could of heard was made clear through the hallway ahead as a desk with wheel came rolling out of the other room down the hallway towards Lee and Glenn.
'This is it,' Lee thinks, 'This is how I'm going to die.' he thinks as the desk rolls faster towards the two.
Time seems to slow down as Glenn is desperately trying to pull himself up and Lee is holding onto the door handle.
'NO. I will NOT die here. I have Clementine to protect, I have my brother. I will not die like this!' But it was too late, as Lee pulled himself up with newfound strength the desk had already struck.
Glenn was by the side of the desk immediately losing his grip and falling down onto the glass directly below them. Lee was hit square in the face, pain shot through his body as he lost his grip and fell onto the glass, this time shattering it.
Glenn fell directly downwards as he lacked momentum but Lee's momentum carried him and the desk through to the side of the AT&T tower. Before everything went black Lee saw the Bank of America leaning on the AT&T tower and he could heard the shattering of glass and the sound of wood being forcefully dismembered.
AN:
Hey guys once again! I really hope you guys enjoyed that chapter! I tried to double the length of it because I will be unable to post any new chapters until Sunday because I will be going on vacation until then. But luckily I'll be able to write and store more of the chapters during the vacation! Once again I just want to thank you guys for the support of this story and I also want to apologize if this story is not to your expectations. I'm trying to do the best that I can with this story and make it as good as I can, maybe not the best but hopefully one of the greats! Anyway, I'll see you guys on Sunday!