Hello everyone thanks for stopping by :)

Guest reviewers!

Wdfan ch5: Curious and observant is precisely what I was aiming for. Carl is young and his character is developing, his ability to learn will shape him throughout the story.

Wdfan ch6: The short answer is no. I thought it was rather ridiculous that the show seemed to have a two black character limit. In fact I will be adding black characters of my own. Nearly half of Georgia's population during the civil war was black and I will be doing what I can to represent that in this story.

Guest: I thought what was put on the show was very moving and well acted. That being said I wanted to have Duane's death actuallt shown in my story rather than just talked about. I'm glad you liked it :). And Morgan might be alive you'll just have to wait and find out.

Hope you all enjoy the chapter!

Rick scrambled back away from the door. Thud! Thud! Thud! The walkers began to throw their weight against it trying to break in. Rick looked around, his lantern and the moonlight his only way of seeing. The walkers continued to bang against the door. Rick made his decision and ran for the stairs. He stopped at the second floor and picked up his colt where Morgan had dropped it. It had only five shots left and Morgan had the rest of his ammo. Rick stuck the gun in his pocket and made his way up the stairs again. The building was only four stories high and not one of the giant six or seven story ones. Rick wanted to get higher though, he wanted to get to the roof. Forcing open the first door on the third floor Rick made his way to one of the windows. He slid the pane open and poked his head out. He looked down and realized that he had never been this high in a building. Turning around he looked up to the edge of the roof. It was in reach. Tossing his Springfield and hat on top of the roof Rick climbed up after them.

Rick looked around again. The view from the roof was rather incredible even in the dim light. He walked to the front of the building and looked down. There were still walkers banging on the door but a bunch of them had taken to eating the mules who had apparently been unable to move when the dead arrived. Chances were they were asleep where it happened. They may have even been dead already. In any case Rick decided that the walkers were unable to climb and that he wasn't going to find anywhere safer while the sun was down. He sat down tiredly and wondered where Morgan was. If he was even still alive. And where were Carl and Lori? How would he find them? While he sat there thinking Rick's eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep.

A shot echoed through the air. Rick awoke with a start and automatically reached for his rifle. He ran to the corner of the building in the direction of the sound. Nearly two blocks down Rick saw a group of five people standing on an empty wagon. There were no animals in sight. Rick figured they must have been cut loose or the wagon had been there before the people were. They were far away but Rick could make out that only one of them had a gun. A short man with long blonde hair was holding a pistol. Without the group there Rick would have been willing to try and hit one of the walkers but with them there on the wagon he couldn't safely fire without fear of hitting one of the living. Instead Rick surveyed the ground below him. The walkers were still blocking his exit out the door. He would have to think of something else. Rick looked down the other street. Nearly two hundred yards down the street was a church with a bell in it's steeple. Rick smiled. He lifted his rifle and looked down the sights. It was going to be a tough shot. He primed the rifle, cocked it and aimed it again. Rick took several deep breaths and then lowered the rifle again. He needed to get the barrel on something solid. Half cocking the weapon so he wouldn't shoot it on accident Rick lay down on his stomach and steadied the gun on the edge of the of the building. He checked his primer to make sure it was still there and aimed. He fired; and missed. Rick muttered a curse under his breath and turned over onto his back as reached for his cartridge bag. Reloading a weapon on the ground was more difficult than doing it standing up. The powder had to be poured down the barrel while it was nearly horizontal. Rick had practice though, and in twenty seconds the ball was packed tightly against the powder at the bottom of the barrel. Spinning back over he capped the rifle again and cocked it. This time he spent a solid minute lining his shot up. Finally he pulled the trigger. A second after he did the bell rang. Ding Dong! Ding Dong! Rick jumped up and looked down the other street. The group of people were still on the wagon. Not two seconds later the walkers turned away and began to move down the street toward him. Rick looked down at the walkers guarding his door and they too were moving. Rick ran for the open window.

As he made his way down the stairs Rick unsheathed his bayonet and fitted it onto the end of his Springfield. Taking out his colt he capped each of the five nipples he could fire. He didn't bother to reload his rifle; if there were too many walkers for him to take down with his pistol and bayonet then a single shot from a rifle nearly five feet long wasn't going to help. When Rick got to the door he stopped and listened. Nothing was banging on the door so he opened it and looked outside. The walkers in front of the door were gone but the larger group that was surrounding the wagon down the street was making it's way toward him. Rick ran across the street and took an alley between two, two story buildings. When he reached the next street over he slowed down to a jog and turned right in the direction he saw the group of people. Rick had been to Atlanta several times in his life but he had never been around it long enough to know it well. The city was always growing and always changing. Back in Glen-cove and Newman you were lucky to see a building that was two stories high. Here the buildings were at least two stories high, three and four stories high were common and even six and seven story buildings could be seen from most parts of the city. It gave Rick the feeling that he was in a walled maze. He didn't particularly like it.

Rick hung another right as he reached the end of the block. He could see the wagon, now empty of people, sitting at the intersection of the next street. As he neared it Rick slowed to a walk and looked up and down both streets for any sign of where they went. He couldn't see any. Suddenly Rick heard the raspy breathing of walkers behind him and he spun around. Two had appeared from alley and more were following them. Rick cursed and started to run again. More appeared in front of him. Rick drew his pistol and shot the one closest to him. Then cocking and firing in rapid succession he shot the next four as they closed in on him. Rick holstered his empty pistol and grabbed his rifle in both hands and prepared to be swarmed.

"Hey dumbass!" Rick jumped and looked to his right. The doorway of the building next to him was open and in it stood a young light skinned Asian holding it. "Yeah you in the cowboy hat Mr.! Get over here!" Rick lowered his rifle and ran toward the door. The Asian man swung it shut once he passed the threshold and Rick came face to face with a colt pistol.

"Just how stupid are you?" demanded a female voice. At that moment Rick realized that the short blonde man he had seen earlier was actually a woman. A rather attractive woman in fact who was wearing tight fitting trousers. Rick couldn't help but stare at them even with the pistol in his face. Lori had worn pants on occasion when she helped him on the farm but she was the only woman he had ever seen dressed like that. Until now.

"Andrea! What are you doing?" The Asian kid demanded.

"This fucker just got us back into the mess we just go out of!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Rick demanded.

"You can't just go poppin' off rounds like that in the middle of a city!" Andrea said furiously. "You just brought ALL those walkers back on top of us and now we're screwed." As if to emphasize her point the walkers began to bang on the door outside.

"Andrea let him go!" the Asian told her. Andrea didn't listen.

"I was the one who rang that bell so the walkers would leave you." Rick said angrily, "So how about you lower that weapon and thank me instead of threatening me." For a moment it looked like the blonde was going to shoot him anyway but after several deep breaths she lowered the weapon. "Thank you." Rick said.

"It was you who rang the bell?" A thin man with a beard and a bowler hat stepped forward.

"Yeah." Rick told him, "I was stuck in a building a few blocks down and saw you. Saw the bell and shot it."

"Thanks." the man told him. He held out his hand, "My name's Jimmy."

"Rick." Rick took the hand, "You're welcome." He turned to the Asian, "What's your name?"

"Glenn."

Rick shook his hand, "Thank you for getting me in here Glenn." he looked around, "There were five of you. Where are the other two?"

"Theodore and Jacqui are on the roof." Glenn told him, "We were up there scouting for supplies when we saw you running by. We came down here to let you in."

Rick nodded, "You got a good view up there?"

"Yeah. Six story building tallest around for at least six blocks."

"Good. Let's get up there and see if we can find ourselves way out of this."

The building, much like the one Morgan had lived in, was full of rooms and hallways. The only difference was the stairs were bigger, the hallways were wider and everything was a little fancier. Rick figured this was probably a hotel as apposed to an apartment building. When they got to the top floor Rick discovered that both Theodore and Jacqui were black. This group was turning out to be full of everybody. Theodore was a rather large man with a clean shaven head and Jacqui was slight with tight curly hair. She was wearing pants as opposed to the tight fitting trousers Andrea had. They weren't quite as distracting.

"Is this the dude who shot up the street?" Theodore asked.

"Theo, Jacqui this is Rick." said Glenn, "He's the guy who rang that bell and saved our asses."

"Oh. Well in that case, thank you."

"You're welcome." Rick told him. "How's it looking down there?"

"Walkers have got us surrounded." Theo told him. "We got more coming too."

Rick took a look over the corner of the building. Sure enough there walkers stretched up and down the street and the alleyway. Most of them were around the door pushing and shoving trying to get through. "They're like this on all sides of the building?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"You guys got a place we can go if we get out of here?"

"We have a wagon and horses outside of town on Foster Street." said Glenn, "We get there and we can get back to our camp."

"You have a camp?" Rick asked.

"Whoa we got to pick up supplies first!" Jimmy put in, "That's what we're here for."

"No." said Glenn.

"What the hell so you mean 'no' Chinaman?" Jimmy demanded angrily.

"Look I've always picked up supplies on my own until today. In and out no fuss. The first time a bunch of people come with me we get trapped. We should leave today and I'll come back by myself to get what we need."

"Look if you think we can just dictate what we do you have another thing coming!" Jimmy declared.

"This is NOT the time to be arguing about this shit!" said Rick, "It seems to me that whoever's at fault this particular supply run has gone to crap. Let's get out of here and you guys can discuss who will go on the next one once we've gotten back to your camp." he turned to Theodore, "Is there a back door in this place?"

"Yeah. It's got walkers all over it though." Theodore told him

"As many as there are at the front door?"

"Not since you came in."

"Alright." Rick looked at Andrea. She hadn't spoken since she had taken her gun out of his face. "Do you have ammo for that thing with you?"

"Yeah." She said defiantly.

"44. caliber right?"

"That's right."

"Can you lend me six rounds?" Andrea glared at him, "Look I'm out of ammo and if we break out of this place it might be nice to have another loaded pistol don't you think?"

"Fine." the blonde reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a leather pouch. She removed six paper cartridges and handed them to Rick.

"Thank you." he said and started to load his empty cylinder. As soon as he was finished Andrea handed him six caps. "I got an idea." Rick told everyone as he primed his weapon. "I take it Andrea is the only one who has a gun?"

"That's correct." said Jimmy.

"Alright, Andrea you and I will go to the second floor and take positions in the back corners of the building. We break the windows and fire shots simultaneously to draw the walkers away from the back door. Once they're all at the corner we start moving toward the front of the building room to room. When they're all at the front of the hotel we head down to the first floor and take the back exit." Rick looked at Glenn, "You say you normally come here by yourself?"

"Yeah." said the younger man.

"If we clear out the back entrance can you lead us out to the wagon?"

"Yes."

"Good. Jacqui," he looked at the black woman in question who had not so much as spoken since he arrived, "You stay with Andrea. Glenn you're with me. If anything goes wrong and we need to communicate with each other you two will be the ones we send. Jimmy and Theodore you'll be one the first floor at the back door ready to run. Got it?"

"Wait." said Andrea, "You said we need to fire at the same time?"

"Yeah. It doesn't need to be perfect but if we have too much time between our shots the walkers might change direction and chase the wrong sound."

"Well how do we do that?"

"Good question. I'll be firing my rifle. I can get a shot off every fifteen seconds. So you wait till you hear my shot then fire. Every six shots I'll stop and wait for you to load. You fire the first one and then I lead for the next five shots. Rinse and repeat."

"Alright. Sounds good."

"Anybody else have any questions?" Nobody said anything. "Then let's go."

So what did you all think? Rick spent a lot of time by himself this chapter. What did you think of his thought process? Realistic? Interesting? Let me know what you thought.

A note about Glenn. At this point in American history there were no Koreans living in the states. There was a rather strict government in Korea at the time and I guess we hadn't bothered to force them to open up like we did with Japan. There was however, a fair amount of Chinese and Filipino people living in the U.S. along with a few Japanese here and there. To keep Glenn both historically and show accurate I've decided to make him a Chinese man with Korean heritage. His parents lived in China before moving to America but some of his ancestors were Korean. As a result Glenn looks exactly as he does in the show but he will think of himself as Chinese. I mention this because he will be referred to as "Chinaman" several times throughout the story and while he will be offended by it he won't be correcting his country of origin like he does in the show.

Another thing I want to point out is a historical inaccuracy that is in this story. People in the 1800s did not speak the same way we do today. They certainly didn't use curse-words with the same flippancy. The use of the word "Fuck" was basically unheard of and anti-blasphemy laws were still around so taking the Lord's name in vain would have been worse than the F-bomb is today. That being said I imagine the characters' dialogue in today's 'language' and therefore will be using it when I write the story. If you want to you can think of it as a translation. Even if the characters wouldn't actually use the words I write they would say something else that would mean the exact same thing and I'm simply translating it to "modern day speak." You can think about it that way if you want to but really I just can't imagine Rick or anyone else talking any different than they do in the show so...