Chapter 6.

City of the Dead.

Rick.

When the road was empty, it seemed to go on forever.

Rick took in the miniscule details. It was almost surreal, the way the grass in the ditches was starting to overgrow, the way the wildflowers were still blooming. Sometimes they passed evidence of what had gone wrong – bodies rotting on the pavement, swathed in blankets of flies, abandoned vehicles with messages written across the sides – but they never saw any other people. If he pretended the cars were just travelers out of luck, and the bodies were just misshapen deer, he could tell himself he was not afraid, that he believed everything would turn out alright.

But as they came down off the mountain, walkers roved the fields, the roads, the rivers, filling the empty spaces with their unsteady gait. Rick drove slowly past them, both minimalizing the noise the car made and letting himself look long and hard into the enemy. So, this was it. In the daylight, in groups of two or three, they seemed so innocuous.

Glenn was uncharacteristically quiet beside him, sitting pensive with his fist balled up under his chin. When walkers passed close to his window, he stared at them, too, frowning. He was usually high energy, babbling on about nothing in particular. He spent most of his time alone, roving the mountains and scavenging from nearby cabins and suburbs. Rick saw through him. He was desperate to prove his worth to the group because he was younger and smaller than Rick and Shane, but not quite a child anymore.

He had come to Rick the day before, wanting to venture back to Atlanta on his own, to see what had become of it. He thought he could take a car and do some quick looting in the neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city, maybe do some scouting to see if the military had taken back control.

Rick liked the idea, but he wanted to be there, as well. He wanted to see it with his own eyes.

"Hot today," Glenn said at last, breaking the silence.

Rick nodded. "Mhm."

"So… are you from around here?"

Rick smiled. He had to admit, he liked the kid. "Yeah. We live in King County, not far from here. What about you?"

"Atlanta – well, I used to, I guess. But my parents live in Florida."

Glenn was quiet for a while, and then,

"I'm supposed to be in college right now. I moved up here to go to GSU. Mom wanted me to study mathematics because of some dumb high test score I got five years ago, and Dad wanted me to be a doctor like my great aunt Susan. It turns out, I suck at both of those things."

He twiddled his thumbs, staring out the front window, "I never told them I dropped out. I was thinking about that when this all went down. I would have been on campus. If they came looking for me, they would start in the wrong place."

Rick was quiet.

"I know it sounds stupid, that they would be here looking for me, but that was just what came to mind." Glenn sighed. "I had all these stupid thoughts that night… like how disappointed they would be – which is a dumb thing to think about when crazy people are trying to eat you."

"How did you end up on the highway?"

Glenn took a few breaths, maybe preparing what he wanted to say,

"I was in the city. It was first thing in the morning. I delivered pizzas for this place on Edgewood, sort of close to Cabbagetown if you-" He paused, frowning, "I mean, it doesn't really matter. I was on my bike – like a bicycle, not a motorcycle – and I heard someone screaming."

He took on a haunted look, his eyes cutting to his own window, hiding his face from Rick, "I went to see what was going on."

He was quiet again, thinking, his brow furrowing,

"When I got there, she was already dead. Or mostly… there. One of those… a walker was biting into her neck, just right into her like she was… and then another one was coming out of a building behind them – I guess it heard the screaming. I called 911 but it wouldn't go through, so I just rode away, as fast as I could. I tried to go home, but it was like, as soon as the sun rose, these things were just… there. Everywhere I went there were people running out of their houses and cars driving like crazy and just… walkers… just, everywhere."

He shuddered, swallowing, and glanced at Rick before he went on,

"I wanted to help them, but I didn't know how. I couldn't do anything."

"You did something. You got yourself out of there."

Glenn cleared his throat, "I hid out in the pizza shop for a while. My boss didn't come in – no one did. Some people showed up and took the money out of the register. Eventually, I just knew I had to leave. I rode to the highway, but as soon as I hit the city limits some guy opened his car doo and knocked me off my bike. He took it. I ended up walking for hours. It was night when I was far enough away to feel like I had really gotten away, you know? But then the bombs started and there were people screaming again, this time in the dark. I ran again."

"And you ran into us."

"Yeah. I thought you were gonna shoot me. I could've been shot, or eaten alive, and all I was thinking was, 'there's no way Mom is gonna find me out here.'"

Rick laughed, and Glenn laughed, but the sounds died away after a moment.

Glenn spoke again, his tone darker, his eyes cast down to his lap, "It was crazy when I left, but maybe those bombs did something. Maybe they got the city under control and they have some sort of shelter set up there. We could all go."

Rick doubted it. He shrugged.

Glenn watched him quietly, and then said, "When we were in the barn, back when it first started, you said we could really be alone in this, but it never really sank in, you know? No police, no firefighters, no military, no government. Just a bunch of people out in the woods. I don't want to believe that. I really don't."

It was a daunting thought, and though it had been on the edge of his mind for the whole week, he had been keeping it carefully at bay. He did not want to imagine a world like that.

He only said, "We should have a better idea of what we're dealing with when we see the city."

He pulled over before they made it into the city, taking a small exit into a neighborhood and parking on a basketball court. Rick had not seen a walker in the last mile or so, but he was on edge. He had his hand flat over his gun as they exited the car.

Rick beheld the city beyond, a massive parking garage a few blocks ahead of them, buildings rising up toward the sky, and smoke swirling in the wind. A neighborhood sprawled out to the east, deserted, and to the west, over the highway, an industrial center lay quiet and still. It was not the city he knew. Rick circled the car, looking back and forth, uncertain and anxious about their surroundings. He felt exposed out here.

"Come on," Glenn murmured, carrying an axe on his shoulder. He was barely strong enough to swing it, but it seemed to make him feel safer.

Rick followed him across an overgrown lawn and onto a road dotted with potholes. It was sectioned off on both sides by high chain-link fences topped with barbed wire, with the occasional break for foot traffic. Glenn seemed to know where he was going. He took a left through a break in the fence and down a crooked sidewalk – it led them to an alley beside a grocery store. Rick started to feel uneasy as they circled the building. There were a few cars in the parking lot, crooked or crashed, and one parked on the sidewalk by the doors.

"Might be people here," Rick warned, grabbing Glenn by the shoulder to stop him from walking right up to the storefront. "We should take it slow."

He took the lead, holstering his gun, but keeping his hand over it. The store had glass windows, and each time they passed a set, the men looked inside. Rick saw aisles of food, swarms of flies, and blood smeared on the ground. By the time they reached the doors, which were barred shut from the outside, he was sure there were no living people inside.

Glenn put his hand on the bar that had been shoved through the door handles, "Do you think…?"

"Go on. I'll cover you."

Rick stepped back, drew his gun, and waited, while Glenn slipped the bar out and eased one of the doors open. Both of them waited, listening, watching, but nothing happened.

It was empty. Rick patrolled the aisles, his heart hammering, while Glenn scoured the store and shoved cans and dried foods into his backpack. When his was full, they switched. Rick tried his damndest to get into the pharmacy in the back, but the metal cage had been pulled down and the door was firmly locked.

"We can come back later, if we know this is locked up tight," he whispered to Glenn. "Right now, we should focus on food."

"I think I packed as much as we can carry, plus the duffel," Glenn said.

Rick looked regretfully at the things they would have to leave behind, then said, "Eat your fill."

It was well past noon when they left the grocery store, full and weighed down with a meal. Glenn pointed out the parking garage, "We can get a good vantage from there."

Rick began to feel queasy on their journey to the garage. Where were all the people? Where were all the walkers? Each abandoned street piled on his worry. Could they have all been evacuated? Rescued? Was there really a shelter nearby?

His questions were answered when they entered the garage. Rick led the way across the first level, to the side overlooking the city. He put both hands on the wall, steadying himself, as the sounds of the dead overshadowed everything.

Glenn stood beside him, a look of horror slowly spreading across his face, "Where are they?"

"Must be just on the other side of that building, or inside it," Rick said, pointing out the office building that backed up to the garage. "We should get to the top."

It was a grueling climb, too hot, too humid. Rick was drenched in sweat by the time they made it to the sixth floor. He let his pack drop off his back and wiped his face on his shirt, his eyes stinging, his lungs burning. It had been a while since he'd had to push his body like this.

When he could breathe again, he joined Glenn at the railing, leaning over to look down at a small section of Atlanta. He found the source of the groaning.

Rick had never seen anything like it in his life. There had to be thousands of them, maybe tens of thousands, mulling around, lurching, groaning, without a purpose. And the smell, which had slowly been building as they got closer, was now dizzying – rotting flesh, baking in the sun. Rick put his hand over his mouth to keep from gagging.

"How can this happen?" Glenn said to himself, his hands moving from his head, to his mouth, to his head again. "What is going on?"

Rick never could have imagined such devastation and seeing it with his own eyes rocked his world. He felt unsteady. He felt that reality had been snatched away from him. He wavered, gripping the bar for support, his knees buckling.

All those people.

But there were people back at the quarry – living people – who needed him. Rick took a deep breath, took in the sight, the smell, and stepped away.

"Come on. We need to get this food back to the others."

Glenn looked at him like he was insane, motioning to the monstrous crowd below, "What…?"

"Hey, I need you to focus. I need you, okay?" Rick grabbed him, dragging him away from the edge, away from that terrible scene. "Can you do this?" When the kid gave him an uncertain stare, Rick said, "Glenn, I can't have you falling apart on me."

Glenn stammered for a moment, but then seemed to steel himself, hauling his bag back onto his shoulders. He was trembling, head to toe, but he was a strong kid.

On the way back, Rick let the thoughts race through his mind at last. He was right before, when he said they might be alone. If a city as big as Atlanta could fall, what chance did they stand? He hid his fear behind a scowl, tried to project as much strength as he could for Glenn, but the odds seemed stacked against them.

He spared one last glance for the city as they departed, saying, "It belongs to the dead now," as they left it behind.