"You two alive in there?" the voice called out over the radio.

Rick raced over and picked it up, his voice frantic. "Hello? Hello?"

A sigh was heard on the other end as the voice responded with, "There you are, you had me wondering."

"Where are you? Outside? Can you see us right now?" Rick asked the guy.

"Yeah, I can see you," the voice answered. "You're surrounded by walkers. That's the bad news."

"There's good news?" Rick asked hopefully.

"No." The answer came quick.

"Listen," Rick said, "whoever you are, I don't mind telling you that we're a little concerned in here."

"Oh man," the voice said sounding oddly full of awe, "You should see from over here. You'd both be having a major freak out."

"Got any advice for us?" Rick asked.

I chewed my lip, hoping for something helpful that would get us out of this tank.

"Yeah, I'd say make a run for it," the guy answered back.

Rick and I exchanged a look. How were we going to get past all of them?

Rick exhaled deeply. "That's it? Make a run for it?"

"It's not as dumb as it sounds," the voice explained. "You have eyes on the outside here. There's only one geek still up on the tank, but the others have climbed down and joined the feeding frenzy where your horse went down. You with me so far?"

My stomach churned thinking about that poor horse.

"So far," Rick answered.

I snapped my thoughts back to the moment. We needed a plan and I needed to focus.

"Alright, the street on the other side of the tank is crowded, so if you both move now while they're distracted you stand a chance. Got ammo?"

"In that duffle bag I dropped out there. And guns. Can I get to it?" Rick asked the guy hopefully.

"Forget the bag," the voice said harshly, "It's not even an option now. What do you have on you?"

"Two berettas, fifteen rounds each," Rick answered him.

"Make them count," the guy advised. "Jump off the right side of the tank, keep going that direction. There's an alley up the street, maybe fifty yards. Be there."

"What's your name?" Rick suddenly asked.

"Have you even been listening?" the voice asked frantically, "You're both running out of time!"

"Let's go," I told Rick, grabbing him by the arm.

Rick nodded, his eyes spotting a small spade by the top hatch of the tank. He grabbed it and looked back at me. "I'll go first, take out the one on the tank. Keep close, no matter what."

I gave a quick nod and watched as he spun around and flung the hatch open. He hit the walker that immediately lunged at him, the spade smashing into its head twice before it went down. Rick quickly climbed up and pulled himself out. With a deep breath, I grabbed onto the top of the tank and heaved my body out through the hatch. The guy on the radio was right about being able to see how many walkers were around us—I was trying hard not to start panicking.

I followed Rick off the right side of the tank like the guy had advised, stumbling when my feet hit the pavement. I quickly rolled back up onto my feet to see Rick shoot three walkers in front of us in the head. They dropped quickly. We kept running forward and I jumped when something grabbed my arm. With a yelp I pointed my gun at the walker's face and pulled the trigger, blood splattering against my face and clothes. I raced after Rick who shot a few more walkers. Something came out of the alley to our right, and Rick raised his gun to shoot.

"No! Not dead!" the guy exclaimed in terror.

I immediately recognized the voice as the one that had been on the radio.

"Follow me!" He said before turning back around the way he must've come.

A few feet down the alley he began climbing a ladder up. Rick pushed me in front of him and I quickly began to climb up after the young man. Rick stood there taking out a few more of the walkers that were closing in on him in the alley.

"Rick!" I shouted.

"What are you doing?!" the young man shouted, appalled. "Hurry up and get up here!"

Rick holstered the gun and began climbing immediately.

I followed the young man onto a small ledge where he leaned over the side, trying to catch his breath. Exhausted, I did the same, watching as Rick ascended the final rung and pulled himself up with us.

"Nice moves, Clint Eastwood. You the new sheriff, come riding into town?" the young man asked Rick sarcastically, obviously not at all impressed with him.

"Wasn't my intention," Rick said as he tried to catch his breath.

"Yeah, whatever," the young guy said. "You're both still dumbasses."

I turned to the young man and held out my hand. "Isabell."

He eyed my hand for a second before shaking it. "Glenn."

"I'm Rick," Rick introduced himself, shaking Glenn's hand as well. "Thank you for helping us."

"You're welcome." Glenn glanced up and we followed his gaze. The ladder stretched up pretty high. "Least it'd be the fall that killed us."

I let out an amused snort and Glenn shot me a smile. Glenn started climbing and Rick once again had me follow, so he'd be behind me in case anything happened. It took us quite a few minutes to make it to the roof of the building, and I was sweating bullets at that point.

We raced across the top of the building to a hatch that Glenn quickly opened. He took his backpack off and dropped it down the hole, gesturing for me to do the same with my duffle. I hesitated a second before I took it off and tossed it down as well.

"Back at the tank, why'd you stick your neck out for us?" Rick asked the young man.

Glenn shot a look between the both of us before answering. "Call it hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, someone would do the same for me." He started climbing down the ladder into the blackness before he paused and looked up at us again. "Guess that makes me an even bigger dumbass than the both of you."

I laughed at that. I was starting to like this kid.

"You first," Rick said, gesturing to the ladder.

I looked down and could hardly see Glenn through the darkness now.

"It'll be alright," Rick assured me.

I held in a breath and dropped myself down the ladder, moving slow in the dark, rung after rung. Rick followed after, closing the hatch behind him. It was dark until I neared the bottom, a small amount of light illuminating the ground. I was so grateful when I finally reached the bottom and picked up my duffle bag, tossing the strap over my shoulder again. Once Rick made it down, Glenn led us through an exit in the building that led us back outside.

Suddenly Glenn was talking into his radio. "I'm back," he said, "Got a couple guests. Plus four geeks in the alley."

We paused near the bottom of the fire escape stairs we had been running down. Four walkers were ambling about until they caught sight of us. They started making their way towards us, but a set of doors opened and two people covered in what looked like riot gear came out with baseball bats. They smashed in the heads of the two walkers standing directly in front of us, and Glenn raced past.

"Let's go!" he called back, causing Rick and I to pick up our pace after him.

The two people in riot gear followed us into the building and closed the door behind us. The moment Rick and I were inside though, a blonde woman had me by the shirt and shoved me into a stack of boxes, a gun trained right on my face. My hands went up instinctively.

"Son of a bitch, we ought to kill you!" the woman yelled.

"Just chill out, Andrea. Back off," said one of the people who was now removing the riot gear.

"Ease up, Andrea," a female voice somewhere behind me said.

I looked to Rick for help, but Andrea spoke again before he had a chance to.

"Ease up? We're dead because of these stupid assholes!"

"Andrea!" the guy who had spoken up a moment before exclaimed. "I said back the hell off!"

A moment of silence and tension filled the air as the woman continued to hold the gun on me. Her eyes were filling up with tears before she slowly lowered her gun. I let out the breath I had been holding and Rick came to my side, placing a protective hand on my shoulder.

"We're dead. All of us," the woman said, looking right at us. "Because of both of you."

"I don't understand," I said at a loss for words.

The man who had spoken up came over and gently grabbed my elbow guiding me through the room.

"We came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving. You know what the key to surviving is? Sneaking in and out, tip toeing, not shooting up the street like it's the O.K. Corral."

I realized we were in a department store as the man led me to the front where the glass windows and doors were and my jaw dropped.

"You just rang their god damn dinner bell."

I now understood what they meant as Rick and I exchanged worried glances. The walkers outside were pounding on the glass, and the outer door was actually shattering, small cracks starting to form that I could see from where we were. I knew it wouldn't hold too much longer.

"What in the hell were you both doing out there anyway?" Andrea asked.

"Trying to flag a helicopter," Rick answered.

"Helicopter?" A different man than the one who'd been talking before asked. "Man that's crap, there ain't no damn helicopter."

"It must have been a hallucination," Andrea said.

"I saw it," Rick said sharply.

"I did too," I added.

"Hey T-Dog," the man from before spoke up, "try the CB. Can you contact the others?"

"You mean the refugee camp?" Rick asked curiously.

"Yeah," the woman beside Andrea said, her voice sarcastic. "The refugee centers got biscuits waiting in the oven for us."

"Got no signal," T-Dog announced. "Maybe on the roof?"

I jumped at each gunshot that was suddenly above us.

Andrea looked about ready to have a heart attack. "Oh no, is that Dixon?"

"Come on," T-Dog said before turning around and leading us out of the room.

I heard a few more gunshots as we climbed our way up towards the roof. My hands were shaking on the railings with every step I took.

The first man I didn't know the name of immediately began shouting at the other, older gentleman on the roof. He had a rifle and was picking off a few of the walkers from his vantage point.

"Hey," the man said turning to face us, his southern drawl very pronounced, "you ought 'ta be more polite to a man with a gun!"

I watched as he jumped off the ledge he had been standing on and took a few steps towards us. He spotted Rick and I but his attention was drawn back to the man called T-Dog.

"Man you're wasting bullets we don't even got!" T-Dog shot at him furiously.

A fight began to unfold between T-Dog and the man with the gun and I glanced over to Glenn, who just raised his hands as if there was nothing for us to do. My mouth opened when I heard the man with the gun drop a really offensive name to T-Dog, causing him to go in for a punch, but the man hit T-Dog in the face with the back end of his rifle and T-Dog went down. Rick suddenly jumped into action and before I knew what I was doing, I was following after him.

"Guys, no!" Glenn shouted, racing after us.

Rick ran forward and punched the man in the face, but he recovered quickly and swung a punch that landed in Rick's jaw, causing him to stumble back. Furious, I lunged at the older man, not even sure what I was doing. I reached out, managing to land a punch in his gut. He emitted a grunt before swinging back his arm, Andrea screaming for him to stop somewhere in the background, and landed his fist upside my head.

I felt cement under my hands suddenly. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized I was on the ground, but I couldn't see. Everything was blindingly white. There was a buzz of voices around me but I couldn't make out what any of them were saying. I thought I felt a few pairs of hands trying to sit me upright, but I couldn't make out what was going on. My head was in more pain than when I'd woken up in the hospital. And then the white started fading to black. I thought I heard someone call my name somewhere. It sounded really far away.

And then there was nothing.