Chapter 24: Petrified

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I was still shaking from Tony's advances as I crouched down behind the door with Glenn, Rick, and Herschel. I strained my ears to try and hear what was going on outside.

Glenn looked over at me. His arm had been resting by mine, and he had been able to feel me shivering despite the high temperature in the room. "You okay?" he whispered in a low voice.

I'd just been groped by a disgusting stranger and watched Rick kill two armed men in under ten seconds. There was no way I was one hundred percent okay. But I wasn't not okay. I nodded, and then slowly lifted my head to peak out the window before being dragged back down by Glenn.

"Are you trying to get your head blown off?" he hissed.

"There're three of them," I whispered. Rick looked at me and leaned his head back against the door, clearly trying to come up with a good plan. Then he made eye contact with me.

"Get your gun out," he whispered.

"We've got to get to the car," Glenn said in a hushed voice. "We could make a run for it—"

"No," I said, "they'll just follow us." I peeked again, annoyed when Rick grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. I looked over at him. "Why won't they leave?"

"Would you?" Glenn said.

"No," I hissed back, "but we can't stay here."

Rick, Glenn, and Herschel seemed to see that I had a point. "Okay," Rick said. "We make a break for the truck now and take our chances. Go!"

We all jumped up and prepared to run, but then gunshots filled the night and Rick cursed as we all immediately returned to out hiding spots. There was a sound of boots crunching gravel and people talking, and I turned to Rick. "They're coming," I whispered, and for the first time I could feel the fear creeping up on me. "What do we do?"

Rick looked like he was going to answer me, but then the floorboards creaked. They were on the porch. Someone pushed on the door, and as it gave Glenn quickly blocked the door from opening and I bit my lip in an effort to keep my terrified cry inside. "Hey, someone's pushing this shut. There's someone in there," a male voice said. There was a pause, and then the voice called out, "Hey! If there's someone in there, we don't want to cause any trouble! We're just looking for our friends, Dave and Tony." We stayed silent, and then the man called out again. "Look, if something happened to them, just tell us! We just need somewhere to stay tonight, there are corpses everywhere, we'd really appreciate not dying!"

Rick looked like he didn't want to say anything, but he had clearly weighed his options, and either way, the outlook wasn't good. "They drew on us!" he called out. "We didn't have a choice, they drew on us, and we fired back. We've all done things we wish we didn't have to do, so let's just chock this up to what it is, wrong place, wrong ti—"

The glass above us exploded as gunshots pierced the night, and I tried to cover my head with my arms for protection. Rick cursed and stood up, firing out of the now shattered window, yelling, "Get out of here! Go!"

We didn't need telling twice. Glenn grabbed my hand and pulled me farther into the bar. We jumped behind the bar, where we had been before, and crouched down. I took my gun out and pulled the slide back, making sure it was fully loaded, before I cocked it and extended it, ready to shoot at a moment's notice.

And then the gunshots stopped.

I peeked out from the bar, seeing Rick and Herschel still by the door. Rick had his gun out, and Herschel had managed to get his hands on a gun. "You know this isn't going to end well!" Rick yelled out, sweat beading on his forehead. "If you back off now, no one needs to get hurt!" Rick looked over in our direction and motioned for us to get the hell out of there.

I felt Glenn tap my shoulder, and I swung my head to look at him. He nudged his head towards the back door of the bar, and I immediately nodded. We stood up slowly, our guns still out, and slid quietly out the door.

A staircase leading down to a lower floor greeted us, and Glenn went first. As he descended, I held my gun out, ready to cover for him. It was dark and a little cold, but we managed to creep down the stairs silently and quickly. We seemed to be in a storage room or a basement, and there was clutter everywhere. When we reached the floor, we saw a door that led out of the bar and made a beeline for it.

But then the doorknob jiggled. Someone was trying to open it, and it was definitely not us.

I froze, but Glenn didn't. He fired directly through the window of the door and the glass exploded, and whoever was trying to get in stopped.

Rick's near frantic voice echoed behind us. "Glenn! Noah!"

"We're alright, we're!" I called back. I looked back at Glenn. "We need to see if you hit someone."

Glenn gulped and nodded, and we walked to the door and opened it. We pushed it open, staying indoors for cover, but no one was there. He had missed.

There was a scuffle behind me, and I whirled around, lifting my gun to see Herschel, holding his rifle. "Just me," he said. I lowered my gun, breathing hard. "Rick wants you to try for the car, Noah. If you can get to the car, you can pull it around back and we can get out of here."

"Try for the car?" I hissed, my heart racing in fear.

"Try, and succeed," Herschel said slowly and calmly. "Glenn and I will cover for you."

I tried to slow my erratic breathing, and then I nodded. "Okay," I breathed. "Okay, I can do that."

I lifted my gun, trying to ignore the shaking in my biceps, and stepped slightly out of the door. The night was cool and the stars and moon were abnormally bright, making my vision pretty clear. Once I deemed the path was clear, or at least clear as far as I could tell, I stepped out from the building and made a right down the back alley.

And then I heard a shot and a bullet wiz by my ear, and I tumbled to the ground behind a dumpster. I sat there, frozen in fear, my breathing uneven. There was another shot, and then I heard someone hit the ground a ways behind me, and I felt a wave a relief when I could tell it wasn't Glenn or Herschel by the sound of their moans.

I heard Glenn curse and then the sound of footsteps, and then I could hear Rick's worried voice amid the cries of pain coming from whoever had been shot. "What happened?"

"He fired," I heard Herschel say, sounding concerned. "He must've hit Noah." There was a pause, and I wanted to call out to them, to tell them I was fine, but my voice was stuck in my throat. I kept hearing the bullet go right by my ear, a centimeter from killing me. "She's behind the dumpster. Doesn't look like she's moving."

Immediately I heard a door creak open, and someone was walking cautiously toward me. I heard Rick's voice cut through. "You hit?" he whispered as loudly as he could in my direction. When I didn't answer, I heard him come closer. "Noah, are you hit?"

I saw his face, finally. He was across the alley, staying flush against the wall, holding two guns, one in each hand, ready to fire. I pulled my knees to my chest and shook my head, shaking and trying to control my breathing. "No," I said softly.

Rick looked over his shoulder and to his left and right, and then he crossed the alley and crouched down behind the dumpster with me. "It's alright," he said tensely, clearly stuck in the middle of trying to be comforting and trying to keep us alive. "The car's right there. We're almost home, Noah, okay?" I nodded, finally getting my breathing in check, clutching my gun tightly in my hand. "You good?" he asked.

"Yeah," I replied, my voice coming out almost in a gasp, "I'm good."

"Alright," Rick said, looking out from behind the dumpster. "Let's go."

At the same time, we got up from our spots and started moving forward, guns extended, and then gunfire descended upon us again. Rick shoved me back down behind the dumpster and got back beside me, searching for the shooter. I saw him first. "He's on top of the pharmacy, Rick," I whispered.

He looked up, and sure enough, a young man looking no older than early twenties was standing on top of the roof of the nearby building. There was squealing tires, and then a truck pulled out in front of the pharmacy. "Hey, we gotta get out of here!" the driver yelled up. "Corpses are everywhere!"

"What am I supposed to do?" the kid yelled down.

"Jump!" the driver yelled.

The kid nodded and made his way to the side of the building, and then he leapt.

And missed.

I couldn't see him hit the ground, but I could hear his agonized shrieks from where we were. Rick closed his eyes. "God, he didn't make it," I breathed.

The driver revved his engine and I heard the boy who had jumped scream, "No, don't leave me, please!"

The driver yelled back, "I'm sorry, I gotta go!" and then he peeled out of there, leaving the others behind.

The boy was screaming, clearly in a lot of pain, and Rick cursed. "Go get Herschel and Glenn, and then tell them to meet me by the kid," he said shortly. "Then you go to the car, get in, and drive over to us. This place is about to be flooded with walkers."

There was no time to debate, so I just nodded and ran over to Herschel and Glenn, who still had their guns outstretched. "Guys!" I said in my loudest whisper, "Rick needs you over by the pharmacy."

The yells of the man Herschel had shot grew louder, and as I looked over at him I saw in horror that a group of walkers had descended upon him, tearing his flesh and staining their grotesque faces with his blood. I couldn't watch, but Herschel looked horrified. I was going to say something, but Glenn but a hand on Herschel's shoulder. "We have to go," he said. Herschel turned to look at Glenn, nodded, and they turned to leave with me.

We made our way to the truck, and Herschel looked around. "Where's Rick?"

"He went across the street," I said.

"Well we sure as hell can't leave without him. C'mon, Glenn," Herschel said, and they hurried across the street. The boy's screams echoed in my ear, but I tried to block them out. I had bigger issues on my hands.

The herd of walkers heading in our direction being the key one.

I pulled my gun out and shot at the closest three, and then I turned my head over my shoulder. "Guys," I yelled across the street. "Walkers are closing in!"

When I heard no response, I cursed and jumped into the driver's seat of the truck, grabbing the keys that were still in the ignition and making the engine roar to life. Quickly, I executed a sharp turn and drove around to the pharmacy just in time to see Rick yank a boy's leg off of the sharp, pointed tip of a gate. I flinched at his screams, but I trusted in the fact that Rick knew what he was doing.

Before I could do anything, the back door of the car was being opened and Rick and Glenn were dumping the kid in the backseat. Glenn and Herschel jumped in the back with the now unconscious kid and Rick slid in the front seat just as the walkers descended upon the town. "Let's get out of here," he said.

I didn't need to be told twice.

Thank you for reading, you guys! Thanks for all of your reviews, I'm loving them! Stay tuned, more to come soon! ~ Lacey :)

PS: How good does Season 5 look?! I'm getting more and more pumped for October 12th!