The Walking Dead: A New Day Gone Bye
Chapter 13 – Two Edged Stick
As they sprinted at a light pace, the rescue team's eyes were fixed on the pharmacy Everett's Prescriptions. The weather was still bleak, a grey blanket involving the globe. The single sight of the store his family owned made Lee nauseous and the best he could do was focus on the task at hand. The landscape was free of walkers for the moment; leaving the desolated and crumbled buildings, the wrecked cars melting into fallen electricity poles, gliding fliers and leaflets to be the sole inhabitants of Atlanta.
Reaching the door, Mark and Rick stood each by one of its sides. Lee and Glenn hunkered onto an offensive stance, in case a flood of zombies stormed them. Daryl immediately loaded an arrow onto his crossbow, and proceeded to raise it in the air with his firm muscles and revolving the door handle.
They took a peek inside, waiting for their eyes to get used to the darkness inside. The pharmacy hadn't changed much. The already looted shelves only ported things that had no longer use – shampoos, deodorants and perfumes -, the scene was vacant, lacking any type of life except for two female walkers storming around in the middle of the room. One of them wore a torn night robe, its griminess matched her filthy blond hair. The other one was older; her face scarred with both wounds from her time as a lurker and with wriggles.
"Ugly ass bitch." Daryl mumbled, when he shot an agile arrow into the blonde walker.
Its body collapsed on the floor heavy as a meat bag, just as the old lady noticed the living beings. Mark ran inside, broke one of its knees with a just kick along, crackling with a satisfying sound, and then stomped the zombie's head, splashing brains like a stomped watermelon and its skull flat as an empty tire.
"Clear. Where is he?" Mark asked, wiping his bloodied boot on the tile floor.
"Up there." Lee indicated, pointing his finger at the door on the side of the box-shaped drug store.
"Then come on! Merle might be stuck up there too." Daryl ordered, dashing towards the door.
He burst through the entrance, entering the massive and obscure stairway. He began pacing on top of the stairs that resembled spiraling piano keys, towards the roof. The rest of the group followed in a hurry, in the order of Lee, Mark, Rick and Glenn. All of them were now extremely anxious, anything could be waiting for them up there. The only sound in the echoing tower-like stairwell was their automatic footsteps and their heavy breathing.
"Jesus H Christ." Kenny grumbled, looking at the beaten up Ed and Carol who was sobbing for a lost cause.
"Shane really hit him hard…" Doug sadly commented, with an awkward face. In the same moment, Lori departed to parts unknown. "Should we like…help him?"
"To be honest…I think we should leave his sorry ass out here." Larry sighed, placing his hands on his hips.
"It's definitely what he deserves." Jacqui voiced in a cold tone, accompanied by a barren face.
"Larry, Jacqui, that's not right." Katjaa scolded with a judgmental tone. "I'll apply some bandages and disinfectant on him. But I'm gonna need help to drag him back to his tent."
"I'll help you." Allen came forward with a step, raising his hand. "Donna, take the kids inside. Kenny, Jim, Doug, I'm gonna need a lotta help to carry him."
The four enlisted men approached Ed, and each one of them grabbed a limb, Doug having more difficulty due to his scrawny muscles. They tried to lift him, but Carol was clinging onto his shirt.
"Carol, let them take him." Morales soothed, putting his Hispanic hand on her shoulder. "He'll be better inside his tent."
Reluctantly, Carol let go of him, and Jacqui, Andrea and Amy consoled her, as the men hauled Ed back to his tent and Katjaa followed them closely.
Daryl tackled the roof's metal door with his shoulder like a NFL player. The group of four were all stunned by the sudden difference of light, and they all gazed around them to try and discover T-Dog's fate.
They spotted a black man slumped against the pipe.
"T-Dog! T-Dog!" Mark worriedly called out.
"Ssh! You're gonna bring attention to us." Glenn adverted.
Lee jogged towards T-Dog, leaping over the three steps of stairs and another pipe in the way. Approaching the body, he saw the person intended. But he didn't show any signs of life, was drowning in sweat and he saw a pool of blood erupting from his wrist, that seemed to be half cut. What was more surprising was when he saw three cadavers of walkers surrounding them, but all of them were dead. Not undead, dead dead.
"T-Dog!" Lee said as he kneeled near the man and shook his shoulder. At first there wasn't no reaction. Lee gripped his armpits and pulled him upwards, to put him in a sitting position.
His eyes opened in a thin gap.
"L-Lee?" He asked, in a low, dry and hoarse voice.
"Yeah…yeah, it's me." Lee confirmed, as he glanced back at the group. "He's dehydrated beyond oblivion. Anyone got any water?!"
"No! We didn't bring anything." Rick told him, squatting near T-Dog.
"Man…man…they were…they…were so many…" He said, before he was forced to cough abruptly twice. Rick pulled out a pair of bolt-cutters he had borrowed from Dale and encased their blades around the cuffs.
"You seen Merle?!" Daryl inquired, regarding each corner of the roof but not seeing his brother.
"You mean that…that redneck, racist, hick motherfucka?" T-Dog teased. "No. I ain't seen his skinny…ass."
"Don't you talk about him that way!" Daryl menaced as he prepared to punch T-Dog, but Glenn intervened.
"C'mon, now's not the time." Glenn communicated with a certain dread, putting a friendly hand on his chest.
"Don't touch me, Chinese kid!" Daryl spat, slapping his palm away.
"I'm Korean." Glenn stated.
"Whatever." He hissed, twirling around and gazing at the landscape of a destroyed monopole.
"What happened to your hand?!" Glenn demanded with concern. The hand that chained Theodore to the pipe was half-severed, with blood gushing out and a rusty hacksaw on the ground.
"I…I tried to…tried to cut my hand…didn't work…I…had to…take out the walkers. Tough, but…" He explained, with a feeble smile. "I wasted every…single…son of a bitch."
"Don't worry. We're gonna get you back to camp." Rick reassured him, in a swift motion breaking apart the handcuffs.
"What about Merle?!" Daryl quizzed with impatience and frustration.
"If we don't find him on the way, we're going back without him!" Rick affirmed with disgust for that man known as Merle Dixon. "If you won't come with us, you're welcome to stay behind and search for him."
Mark and Lee wrapped T-Dog's arms around their necks, and then stood up to carry him. The group headed towards the door, wanting to get back as fast as possible.
"Where the fuck is our van?!" Daryl yelled.
After a fifteen minute jog – which tired everyone out and T-Dog seemed to be blacked out -, the group had reached their vehicle. At least, where they'd left it. They all stood, dumbstruck, looking at the empty space their truck once occupied.
"We left it right there! Right freaking there!" Mark declared, facepalming himself.
"Who could've taken it?" Glenn enquired into the air.
"Merle." Lee guessed in a hard and severe manner.
Daryl lowered his head as he was struck by sudden realization. "Merle's gonna be takin' vengeance back on the camp."
"What the hell do you mean by that?" Mark questioned him, his voice exhibiting that he was becoming a nervous wreck.
"Camp's gonna be attacked." Rick elucidated. "We gotta hurry!"
. . .
The interior of Ed's tent, which contained him, Carol, Sophia and Carol, wasn't a pretty sight. Ed laid on a mattress, boiling with anger on the inside and passive-aggressive on the outside. His right eye was swallowed and the area around the pupil was red, his temple and cheeks were mottled with yellow and purple bruises.
Katjaa tried to apply a bandage on him, but Ed whacked the hand away. "Geez, Ed, stay still!"
"Stop, woman! I'm fine!" Ed shouted. As he opened his mouth, a putrid breath reeking of alcohol and cigarettes penetrated the women's nostrils.
"Ed, sweetie, let her…" Carol essayed to convince him.
"No! Shut up! I didn't ask you anything." Ed hollered at her.
"Whatever. Bye, Ed." Katjaa concluded with a sigh, before he crawled out of the tent and zipping the tent closed behind her.
Carol exhaled. "Why don't you come out with everybody?"
"Hell with them people." Ed dissed in a muffled whisper. "Wouldn't piss on them if their heads were on fire."
Sophia got up and headed towards the exit, but Ed gripped her wrist. "Hey." Sophia spun around with an expression of fear stamped on her. "Why don't you stay here? Keep daddy company."
Carol gaped at Sophia and then glared at her husband. "Ed, she wants to join in." Carol tugged Sophia's sleeve toward the exit. "C'mon."
"Fine! To hell with both of you!" He hissed, reclining on his cot with sore bones. "Ain't no need to be bothering me no more for the rest of the night!"
It had been perhaps a couple hours ever since Ed's family had left him, he could note it from the obscurity outside. Ed was effervescing with ager, fury, and he swore to himself that when he was better the first thing he would do was take a swig of whiskey, break Shane's face and punch Carol in the face. Perhaps slap Sophia too.
Then, he heard some rustle outside. Motherfuckin' cunt, I told them to leave me the fuck alone! "Hey!" He screamed. "Get the fuck outta here! I don't wanna be disturbed."
But the noise persisted, until he spotted the person's shadow outside the tent. "I told you…leave me the fuck alone!"
Ed wriggled his way towards the door, and unzipped it. Fatal mistake. When he recognized who it was, it was too late. The female zombie standing outside, took advantage of Ed who was too dazzled to do anything, and lunged at him. She started distributing bites all over the crying Ed, slowly devouring him.
After the sunset was starting to emerge, the group was gathered around a fire, sharing a good meal. Morales had gloated about his new invention: a wall of rocks around the fireplace to keep the flames high but invisible to walkers.
"Seriously, Dale, thank God you have all this cooking equipment." Kenny praised, chewing a chunk of meat. "I don't know how we'd cook without it."
"I never leave home without my stuff. Never know when something might be useful out on the open road." Dale clarified with a smile.
"That reminds me, it's been like two weeks since we've been survivin' together, but I still don't know a damned thing about you folks." Kenny gave a speech. "Like you Dale. You just travelled?"
"Pretty much." Dale disclosed, as everybody heard cautiously. "I was a salesman for forty years, spent my days behind a desk and a phone. Eventually, I retired, and my wife and I bought a camper and went out to see America. We'd been on the road for two years when everything started. We were at a campsite about eighty miles south from here, coming back from Florida. The news hit us late, we didn't know a darn thing about what was happening. My wife…she never left that campsite."
"Oh my God, Dale…I'm so sorry…" Katjaa sorrowfully mourned.
Dale sighed and gazed at the grass. "After I buried her, I headed towards Atlanta. Had a couple of cousins there and they said it was the safest place nearby. Of course, when I got there the place had already been blocked off and the army was still trying to fight the hordes on the inside. I ended up here. On the way to Atlanta I found Andrea and Amy broke down, out of gas. I gave them a ride."
"Andrea was driving me back to college." Amy interrupted. "Classes were starting in a few days. I was a physical education major…a junior. As far away as I have lived, I just should've flown back but we always enjoyed our bonding trips."
"I was a clerk at a law firm." Andrea expounded. "That job is one of the few things I don't miss."
"Mechanic." Was the singled word that escaped Jim's mouth.
"I was a shoe salesman." Allen spoke, Billy being his lap and Ben on Donna's lap, although the survivors couldn't tell the difference. "I ran a store in the mall. It wasn't anything special but it paid the bills…well, most of them anyway. We lived up in Gainesville, it's about fifty miles from here. Just like everyone else here, we came into Atlanta a little late."
"Glenn, Dale, and the girls already had set up camp when we got here." Donna participated in the conversation. "Our car broke down the way and we walked here…piece of junk never worked."
The group stared at Shane, who was curled eating his meal quietly. "Y'all know me." Shane grunted in a grumpy voice. "Small town cop, friend of Rick."
"Well, I...I worked as an IT technician." Doug confessed, scratching his hair. "I did a lot of tech stuff there. If you guys gave me a TV remote, I could probably interact with any TV out there. A few months back, I came here to live with my uncle. When everything starting going down, I met Carley along the way, and we hiked all the way here." Doug swallowed a hunk of food. "Sure miss my robots…"
"Yeah. Before, I was a reporter." Carley talked loudly, setting her vacant plate on the floor next to her.
"Y'know, I think I saw you on TV once." Amy observed with a narrowed, curious eyebrow.
"Maybe." Carley chuckled, before continuing. "Anyways, I actually saw a buncha war-zones before. I went all over, voyaging where ever the latest news called me. One day, me and my production crew were covering the Cherry Blossom Festival. That's when shit hit the fan. I…I saw my boss get eaten in front of me. She was an asshole, but…you know. I would've been zombie chow if it weren't for Doug who came to the rescue."
Doug blushed. "C'mon. It was nothing."
"Me and my dad actually lived in Atlanta." Lilly told the group, creating murmurs and awes. "My dad has his heart condition, and I lived across the street in case he had a crisis. I worked at Robin Air Force Base. It wasn't all action-packed as you all might think. It was actually pretty monotonous. Me and my dad had just bought pills for him when everything went to chaos. The military was harboring people then, but we called bullshit on it, and decided to hide in the country side instead. I don't regret it. After a couple days we stumbled across this place."
"I worked in the city's zoning department." Jacqui disclosed. "When the walkers came, me and my two brothers met and we got the hell out of Atlanta. It was easy to orient, I know every inch of that darned city. My two brothers got…" Jacqui cleared her throat. "They got…mauled in front of me. I was holed up when Glenn found me on one of his scavenging runs and escorted be back here."
"When all of it started, it was actually just an ordinary day." Morales revealed, swallowing his food before starting his backstory. "I worked as a civil construction employee. Miranda stayed at home. We were having dinner after my kids, Louis and Eliza, got home. We started hearing gunshots and moaning and stuff. When I figured out what was happening, we immediately hoped in the station wagon and drove into the woods. I found this place when there weren't even tents set up."
"Well, you guys know me." Kenny conveyed with his bulky voice, him being the last remaining story-teller. "I'm your typical man from Florida. I fished for a living. Mackerel, snapper, you name it. One time, I had an octopus that was sick and I took it to the vet. There I met Katjaa. She fixed up the octopus back to its healthiest state. My family and I visited Kat's sister who lived in Memphis, and we were getting back home when everything went to shit. Were lucky as hell to find this place."
There was a long silence after his tale, in which the only noises were the crisps of the fire and the cricket's chant.
"Well…" Amy broke the ice, as he rose on her feet whilst her knee bones cracked. "I gotta go pee."
Amy brushed past all of the used plastic plates and the people, as she ambled towards the RV. "Anyone need anything while I'm at -"
Without warning, a walker appeared from behind the RV, devastating the calm ambience of the night. This one was entirely bald, wore a sleeveless t-shirt and striped pants. He lurked from behind Amy, and embraced its claws around her arms. He opened his jaws out wide, and bit Amy viciously on her shoulder. She let out an alarming and deafening scream, before the walker tossed his head backwards and ripped off a huge chunk of her flesh, so big that the bone was nearly showing.
"AMY, NO!" Andrea shouted, as she dived onto her feet and sprinted towards her sister.
The next second, chaos instilled itself among the survivors. In the horizon, they could see the lingering shadows of an imminent horde, dragging themselves towards them. Allen and Donna clutched their kids in their arms to protect them. Jim was the first who pulled out a wrench and bashed in the head of the closest lurker.
"Watch out! Incoming!" Jim alerted the camp.
Morales bowed with his chest and picked up a baseball bat from the ground. He then walked towards the frontlines of the battle and collided his weapon with a male biter's cranium. The head was separated from its spinal cord, causing its head to fly a few feet away like Morales had made a homerun.
Lilly gasped when she spotted a zombie creeping its way towards her father. Her brain ran a mile, and the only solution she saw was to grasp the knife she had utilized to eat and faced the undead being. She stabbed in the head, and was surprised how easy it was to penetrate its rotten noggin. It was soft as a banana.
"Katjaa! Get Duck somewhere safe!" Kenny ordered to his wife.
"Andrea!" Dale called out.
Seeing that Andrea and Amy were in trouble, Dale arranged his rifle for shooting, and ran towards the nearly twin girls as fast as his old skeleton could take him.
"She…she…she" Andrea stuttered, kneeled over the fountain of gore that was now her sister.
Dale scooted by her side and covered the hole of the wound with his massive hands. But it didn't take him long to realize that Amy's life had already vanished away. "She's gone Andrea." Dale asserted in a sad tone. He slid his hand around her neck and let her cry into his shoulder.
"Fuck!" Jim shouted as a walker managed to drape its dead fingers around his elbow.
But out of nowhere, a saving bullet slashed the air and went through the zombie's skull. Its inanimate corpse collapsed on the floor, and its blood was splattered on Jim's shirt. He barely had time to breathe before he acknowledged Lee's group coming to save the day.
Kenny, who was so distracted with Lee's arrival, didn't even notice the sneaky zombie that was about to ambush his wife and son. "Thank God they're here!"
"KENNY!"
Kenny spun around in pure fear, when he felt a goose bump and sensed his whole body frozen. He saw his wife and kid, both pinned down to the floor by a walker wearing a highschool jacket.
"No!" Kenny hollered, as he dashed towards his family. Although somewhere deep in his mind, he knew he would arrive too late.
However, a gunshot erupted through the air, piercing the zombie's skull and throwing its dead body to the side.
"My God Kat! You okay?!" Kenny asked as he helped his family up. The two people didn't respond; too scared and with an enormous lump in their throat.
Lee appeared, his Glock 17's barrel smoking. "Get your family somewhere safe, Kenny!"
"My God, Lee…thank you so much." He thanked, latching onto his family with a hug. "I'll never forget this."
Lee watched as Kenny departed with his family to someplace safe. He turned around, to see if there was someone else in need of aid, and what he saw would change him forever.
To his left, Doug was being pushed by walker towards a tree. His hands were gripping the walker's face, essaying to keep its teeth distant from Doug's face. His girly screams and arm shaking showed that he wasn't going to hold much longer.
To Lee's right, Carley had fallen. She was being clenched by the ankle by the dead palm of a walker, and she was trying to crawl towards a gun, that was posited just a few centimeters away from her fingers.
Lee rose his gun in front of him. It was the time to make a choice. This decisive moment would be based on whether he aimed to the left or to the right.
[SAVE DOUG] or [SAVE CARLEY]
A/N: Decision time! Who will survive? You decide! Well guys, the next chapter will be the end of this arc. I await eagerly for your decision and I'll see y'all in the next chapter.