Chapter 2
Escape from Atlanta
Nine Years Earlier – Charlie's Old World
Charlie looked at herself in the mirror and grimaced. She didn't want to wear a dress but Amanda thought it necessary to make the right impression at school tomorrow. Her first day in middle school.
Amanda was her neighbor, six years older than her, beautiful, rich, spoiled and about to start her last year of high school.
When Charlie had moved in with her uncle about six months ago, Amanda had taken it upon herself to be a sort of mentor in all 'feminine' things since her only other figure in her life was her uncle, who didn't have any idea what to do with a pre-teenage girl. Not that Charlie particularly liked the idea of being 'girly'. No, she was more interested in learning how to fight and hunt like her uncle. And for good reason, though she tried not to linger upon that.
Amanda, fortunately, didn't know why she had come to live with her uncle, nor anybody else in Macon, Georgia. As far as they all knew, both her parents were dead and if Charlie had been skittish, closed off and bruised when she first arrived, it had all been attributed to the recent loss of her parents and the bruises to the 'car accident' that had killed her parents, or, at least, that's what her uncle had told anyone who asked. Fortunately her mother's name had been left out of the press and Charlie herself had taken on her mother's surname so there was no one in her new town who had any idea what had really happened.
She had spent the last six months at home, grieving and trying to move on, with her uncle paying for a private tutor so that she would not be behind once she would start school once again and a martial arts instructor at her request. Charlie had also tried to convince her uncle to bring her hunting with him but he was adamant that she would need to learn how to use a weapon first. He probably wanted to see how committed she was to it.
In those six months she had little contact with anyone but her uncle and the people who worked for him, except for their neighbors. Amanda Parker was the doted-upon daughter of a rich couple who loved to flaunt their wealth and pretend to be more important than they were. Charlie didn't know why Amanda had taken such an invested interest in her but she figured it was the fact that Amanda loved projects and she liked the challenge to turn a tomboy into a pretty princess.
Charlie wasn't very keen on the idea at first but Amanda had explained things in a practical way that Charlie could accept. Amanda simply said that if you weren't popular in school, your life wouldn't be very pleasant and for someone who had lost her parents and had spent six months isolated from her peers, Charlie didn't need to make things more difficult for herself. Amanda also said that she had a lot of potential – being very pretty and blonde – and that all she needed to do was play her part and she would breeze through middle school and then high school while doing what she loved in her spare time. Basically, be like a doll while at school and then a tomboy at home.
It was all about appearances after all. Charlie only needed to be smart and take advantage of the situation. The fact that her uncle was rich was just a bonus.
So, step one, wear a pretty dress at school and in general, look pretty and fashionable. Step two, join the cheerleaders' team. That was a certain way to be accepted into the 'IN' crowd.
Charlie looked at herself one more time in the mirror, her blue dress fitting her lithe figure perfectly, her still developing curves making her look more mature than she was.
She looked...like a girl, a very pretty one at that. Maybe Amanda was right. It was all about playing a part. And if someone tried something that they shouldn't...well, she knew how to defend herself now. She will never be the scared, helpless child that she was, incapable to do anything to help her mother, unable to protect herself. Never again.
Present Day – Walking Dead's World
The voice on the radio kept speaking. "Hey, are two you alive in there?"
Rick and Charlie, sitting next to each other, exchanged a look and smiled before Rick grabbed the hand-radio to answer. "Hello? Hello?"
"There you are." The man on the radio – that Charlie knew was Glenn – said. "You had me wondering." "Where are you? Outside?" Rick asked. "Can you see me right now?"
"Yeah, I can see you. You're surrounded by walkers. That's the bad news."
"There's good news?" Rick asked hopefully.
"No." Glenn replied flatly. Charlie looked at Rick with a roll of her eyes. 'Very helpful' she mouthed to him. Rick grinned at her then returned his attention to the radio.
"Listen, whoever you are, I don't mind telling you I'm a little concerned in here." "Oh man. You should see it from over here. You'd be having a major freak-out." "Got any advice for me?" Rick asked then, a little exasperated.
"Yeah, I'd say make a run for it."
Rick looked at her confused and Charlie shrugged back. "That's it? 'Make a run for it'?"
"My way's not as dumb as it sounds." Glenn explained. "You've got eyes on the outside here. There's one geek still up on the tank but the others have climbed down and joined the feeding frenzy where the horse went down. With me so far?"
Rick nodded. "So far."
"Okay, the street on the other side of the tank is less crowded. If you move now while they're distracted, you stand a chance. Got ammo?"
"In that duffel bag I dropped out there, and guns. Can I get to it?" Charlie shook her head at him while at the same time Glenn said "Forget the bag, okay? It's not an option. What do you have on you?"
"Hang on." Rick looked at her and Charlie showed the number six with her hands. Rick nodded before checking the pockets of the dead soldier. He found a Beretta strapped to his belt and a grenade in his pocket. He pocketed the grenade without telling Glenn about it.
"Yeah. Yeah. I've got a Beretta with one clip, fifteen rounds. Charlie has six rounds left."
"Make 'em count." Glenn answered. "Jump off the right side of the tank, keep going in that direction. There's an alley up the street, maybe 50 yards. Be there." Rick was about to put the hand-radio down but then remembered to ask "Hey, what's your name?"
"Have you been listening? You're running out of time." Rick shook his head to himself before answering "Right."
Charlie got up and took the knife with one hand, the gun with the other. She gave Rick the other knife, the one strapped to her ankle. Rick thanked her before asking "Ready?"
"Not really." Charlie replied. "But what the hell..."
Rick nodded at her before opening the top of the tank. He stabbed the walker on the head with a precise movement and helped her get out.
Once both of them were out they started running, shooting every walker that got too close to them. Soon Charlie finished her rounds and started to stab as many as she could while following Rick.
The two of them rounded an alley and came face to face with Glenn. Rick stopped just in time of hitting him. Glenn raised his hands and said "Whoa! Not dead!" Then with a hand he told them to follow him. "Come on! Come on! Back here! Come on! Come on!"
The three of them started to run down the alley before Glenn started climbing up a ladder. When he noticed she and Rick weren't doing the same, he turned around and asked "What are you doing?! Come on!" Rick and Charlie followed his lead and started climbing as well.
They stopped halfway up the roof, on the ladder, panting.
Glenn turned towards them and said to Rick. "Nice moves there, Clint Eastwood. You the new sheriff come riding in to clean up the town?"
"It wasn't my intention." Rick replied calmly. Charlie felt a little insulted at being left out but didn't say anything.
"Yeah, whatever. You're still a dumbass. Both of you." He said, turning towards her. "You don't come here and...wow...who are you?" Glenn blinked towards her, seeing her for the first time up close and wondering if she was real. She looked like one of the girls from playboy. Except for the fact that she was dressed like Sarah Connor.
Charlie raised her right eyebrow at him sarcastically while answering "Charlie." Glenn blushed in embarrassment at her look.
Rick noticed the silent exchange and grinned to himself. He couldn't blame the boy, Charlie was very attractive; it was impossible not to notice. "Rick." He said to move the attention away from Charlie. "Thanks."
The boy nodded at him, still a little red in the face.
"Yeah, thanks." Charlie said then.
"Glenn. You're welcome." Then, noticing the walkers coming, they started to climb again.
Glenn looked down and with a bright, fake smile said "The bright side: It'll be the fall that kills us. I'm a glass- half-full kind of guy." Charlie, climbing between Glenn and Rick, scoffed.
The three of them kept climbing in silence after that until they reached the roof.
"Are you the one that barricaded the alley?" Rick asked, once he had regained his breath.
"Somebody did... I guess when the city got overrun." Glenn replied. "Whoever did it was thinking not many geeks would get through."
"Back at the tank, why'd you stick your neck out for us?" Rick asked then.
Glenn shrugged. "Call it foolish, naive hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. Guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you."
Charlie smiled at him, finding him cute in a puppy sort of way. "Thanks, anyway. We own you one." Glenn blushed a little before turning around and starting climbing down another ladder.
Rick shook his head before smirking at Charlie, amused at Glenn's apparent crush on her.
Charlie glared at him. "Not a word."
Rick raised his hands. "I didn't say anything." He said before climbing down too. Charlie followed with a roll of her eyes.
They reached a courtyard outside of a shopping center. Glenn took a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and talked into it "I'm back. Got two guests plus four geeks in the alley." Charlie and Rick couldn't hear the answer on the other side. The three of them started walking towards a door covered by rolling shutters when two walkers blocked their way.
Before one of them could do anything, two men appeared from behind the shutters, with protective gear and baseball bats. They each went after one of the walkers and proceeded to bash their heads in with a bat. Charlie rolled her eyes once again at the unnecessary violence.
"Let's go!" Glenn ordered before starting running. Rick and Charlie followed him, making their way into the store. The two men – T-Dog and Morales if Charlie remembered correctly – followed them inside and closed the shutters once again.
Inside there were two more people – two women. One of them immediately pointed a gun against Rick's face. Andrea. "You son of a bitch. We ought to kill you." She screamed at him.
"Just chill out, Andrea. Back off." Morales said and Jacqui added, "come on, ease up."
"Ease up? You're kidding me, right? We're dead because of these stupid assholes." Andrea kept screaming in Rick's face.
Charlie, standing beside Rick, rolled her eyes at her before grabbing Andrea's wrist with one hand and twisting it until she dropped her gun. Charlie immediately grabbed it and pointed it at Andrea leisurely before saying "If you intend to point a gun at someone, you should make sure the safety is off first." She mocked her before handing her the gun back.
Andrea rubbed her wrist to sooth it and glared at her, humiliated, but she took back her gun. "We're dead... All of us... Because of you." She added then.
"We're not dead yet. And we won't be." Charlie replied coldly. Screaming and pointing guns at people was useless and pointless. What exactly was she hoping to gain by behaving that way?
"I don't understand." Rick added then.
"Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies." Morales explained. "You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving! You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing. Not shooting up the streets like it's the O.K. Corral."
"Every geek for miles around heard you popping off rounds." T-Dog added. "You just rang the dinner bell." Andrea said then.
"Get the picture now?" Morales asked rhetorically.
They heard growling from behind a glass-door and noticed walkers – a lot of them – were trying to get in. Fortunately there was another shutter in front of the glass door so that, even if they managed to break the glass, there was another metallic layer to stop them from entering the store.
Charlie noticed one of the walkers had a stone in hand and was hitting the glass with it repeatedly.
Andrea noticed too because she exclaimed "Oh, God!" before turning her head away, horrified. She turned her attention towards Rick and Charlie then. "What the hell were two you doing out there anyway?"
"Trying to flag the helicopter." Rick answered calmly.
"Helicopter?" T-Dog asked disbelievingly. "Man, that's crap. Ain't no damn helicopter."
"You were chasing a hallucination, imagining things. It happens." Jacqui added a little condescendingly.
"I saw it." Rick said. "We both did." He added, turning towards Charlie. Charlie nodded, agreeing with him.
The others didn't appear convinced but let the matter go.
"Hey, T-Dog, try that C.B. Can you contact the others?" Morales said then.
"Others?" Rick asked excitedly. "The refugee center?"
Jacqui snorted at that. "Yeah, the refugee center. They've got biscuits waiting at the oven for us."
T-Dog, that in the meantime was trying to contact the others at camp, shook his head. "Got no signal. Maybe the roof."
Just in that moment from above them, on the roof, they all heard the sound of gun firing.
"Oh no. Is that Dixon?" Andrea asked rhetorically.
"What is that maniac doing?" Morales this time.
"Come on, let's go." Glenn said before running up the stairs, the others quickly following behind him.
Once on the roof, they all saw Merle Dixon shooting with a sniper rifle at the walkers down on the street.
"Hey, Dixon, are you crazy?!" T-Dog said angrily.
Merle laughed and ignored him, continuing shooting.
"Oh jeez." Andrea said, exasperated.
They all surrounded him, trying to make him see reason. Charlie and Rick stayed a little behind.
Merle turned to the group around him. "Hey! Y'all be more polite to a man with a gun! Huh? Ah! Only common sense."
"Man, you wasting bullets we ain't even got!" T-Dog tried to reason with him. Merle just laughed and kept shooting.
"And you're bringing even more of them down on our ass! Man, just chill." T-Dog continued, without results.
Merle turned towards him. "Hey! Bad enough I've got this taco-bender on my ass all day. Now I'm gonna take orders from you? I don't think so, bro. That'll be the day."
T-Dog glared at him, challenging him to continue that phrase. "'That'll be the day'? You got something you want to tell me?"
Morales tried to intervene between them, to avoid a fight. "Hey, T-Dog man, just leave it." "No." T-Dog replied, still glaring at Dixon.
"All right? It ain't worth it." Morales said to T-Dog before turning towards Merle. "Now Merle, just relax, okay? We've got enough trouble."
"You want to know the day?" Merle asked, ignoring Morales.
"Yeah." T-Dog replied, angry.
"I'll tell you the day, Mr. 'Yo.' It's the day I take orders from a nigger." "Mother..." T-Dog exclaimed before attacking Merle. The two started to fight.
Morales and Andrea screamed at them to stop but it didn't do any good. Merle gained the upper hand and started to beat T-Dog, ignoring the screaming of the people around him. When Merle had almost beaten T-Dog to a pulp and pointed a gun at his temple, Charlie decided that it was time for her to intervene since it seemed that nobody was about to do anything. She knew that Rick tried in the TV Show and got punched for his troubles but Charlie had a plan to avoid that.
While the others continued arguing around them, Charlie started to walk towards Merle. Rick grabbed her arm, stopping her. "What are you doing?"
"Trust me." She merely said in response before shrugging his hand off and continuing walking.
She smiled at Merle once she was close enough to him. He noticed her too and grinned at her a little creepily before leering openly at her breasts. Charlie tried not grimace in return and instead came closer still. The others had stopped arguing in the meantime and watched the scene curiously.
"It's Merle, right? I'm Charlie, nice to meet you." She smiled at him disarmingly. "Nice t' meet ya too, sugartits." He grinned at her.
Charlie stood in front of him and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the gun gently, before saying: "Though I do appreciate big, strong men with guns, I would like for you not to kill a man in front of me, so please, lower the gun."
Merle laughed at her but did as she asked him to. "As ya want blondie. About ya an' I go somewhere private later?"
Charlie smiled at him. "Sure." She said before, without warning, punching him under the chin. Merle went down like a sack of potatoes, hitting his head on the ground and falling unconscious. "When hell freezes over." She finished then.
The others had observed the scene transfixed but Rick was the first one to regain control of his senses. He immediately proceeded to handcuffed Merle's hand to a pipe, taking the gun from him and then slapping him on the face more than once until Merle regained consciousness.
"Who the hell are you, man?! And who was that blonde bitch that hit me?" Merle asked angrily once he noticed Rick in front of him.
"That's Charlie, she told you that I believe. And I'm Officer friendly." Rick replied sarcastically back at him. "Look here, Merle. Things are different now. There are no niggers anymore. No dumb-as-shit, inbred white- trash fools either. Only dark meat and white meat. There's us and the dead. We survive this by pulling together, not apart." He exclaimed but Merle ignored his words.
"Screw you, man."
"I can see you make a habit of missing the point." Rick said back, always calmly.
"Yeah? Well, screw you twice."
"Ought to be polite to a man with a gun." Rick said, cocking Merle's gun. "Only common sense."
Merle appeared a little scared for the first time since the whole thing started. "You wouldn't. You're a cop."
"All I am anymore is a man looking for his wife and son. Anybody that gets in the way of that is gonna lose. I'll give you a moment to think about that." He said, kneeling in front of Merle with a serious, almost scary expression on his face. Charlie looked at him and felt a shiver going down her spine. He looked incredibly sexy in that moment. Then she berated herself for thinking that of a married man. It wasn't right.
Rick then noticed the white powder on his nose – cocaine – and said sarcastically "Got some on your nose there."
"What are you gonna do? Arrest me?" Merle laughed but Rick ignored him. He instead started searching in his pockets before finding a small bag of cocaine. He immediately threw it over the roof, ignoring Merle's protests in the background.
"Hey! What are you doing? Man, that was my stuff! Hey! If I get loose, you'd better pray... Yeah, you hear me, you pig?! You hear me?!"
Rick turned around again, impassive. "Yeah, your voice carries."
"You're not Atlanta P.D. Where you from? Both of you." Morales asked curiously and then he turned towards Charlie completely bewildered "And how did you learn to do that?" He asked, miming the punch she had given Dixon.
"Ten years of martial arts." Charlie replied simply. The others all nodded, looking impressed. Rick grinned at her before answering Morales' question. "Up the road a ways."
"Well, officer friendly from up the road a ways, lady ninja, welcome to the big city." Morales said.
Charlie raised her eyebrow, amused. "Lady ninja? Really?"
Morales shrugged but didn't answer.
Then they all went to look at the situation under them, at all the walkers still on the street. They still needed to find a way to get out of there.
"My God, it's like Times Square down there." Andrea commented.
"How's that signal?" Morales asked T-Dog.
"Like Dixon's brain... Weak." T-Dog replied and Merle glared at him but they all ignored him.
"Keep trying." Morales said, but Andrea – always the unhelpful one – protested "Why? There's nothing they can do. Not a damn thing."
Morales ignored Andrea and turned towards Rick and Charlie, explaining. "Got some people outside the city is all. There's no refugee center. That's a pipe dream."
"Then she's right." Rick said, referring to Andrea. "We're on our own. It's up to us to find a way out."
Merle snorted from behind them. "Good luck with that. These streets ain't safe in this part of town from what I hear." Then he focused his attention on Andrea. "Ain't that right, sugar tits? Hey, honeybunch, what say you get me out of these cuffs, we go off somewhere and bump some uglies? Gonna die anyway."
Andrea looked disgustedly back at him. "I'd rather."
"And you, blonde hottie?" He said to Charlie. "I'll forgive ya punching me for a mouth service." Rick glared at Merle, clenching his fists in a effort not to punch him.
Charlie smiled at him, completely unimpressed. "I'd rather fuck a walker. Thanks for the offer though." Merle laughed, amused at her spirit. Rick grinned at Charlie, calm once again.
"The streets ain't safe. Now there's an understatement." Morales said, bringing the attention back to more important matters.
Rick turned to look at him. "What about under the streets? The sewers?"
"Oh man." Morales said to himself before turning to Glenn. "Hey, Glenn, check the alley. You see any manhole covers?"
Glenn checked but he only saw more walkers. "No, must be all out on the street where the geeks are."
"Maybe not." Jacqui intervened. "Old building like this built in the '20s... Big structures often had drainage tunnels into the sewers in case of flooding down in the subbasements."
"How do you know that?" Glenn asked her.
"It's my job... was. I worked in the city zoning office."
Glenn nodded before the group headed down to the basement and reached a sewer entrance. "This is it? Are you sure?" Morales asked then.
"I really scoped this place out the other times I was here." Glenn answered. "It's the only thing in the building that goes down. But I've never gone down it. Who'd want to, right?" At everyone's looks on him, he huffed. "Oh. Great."
"We'll be right behind you." Andrea offered.
"No, you won't. Not you." Glenn said immediately and Charlie almost smirked at Andrea's indignant look. Andrea was really starting to get on her nerves.
"Why not me? Think I can't?"
Glenn looked hesitant at her hostile look. "I wasn't..." He seemed at a loss for words. "Speak your mind." Rick encouraged.
"Look, until now I always came here by myself..." Glenn tried to explain. "In and out, grab a few things... No problem. The first time I bring a group... Everything goes to hell. No offense. If you want me to go down this gnarly hole, fine... But only if we do it my way. It's tight down there. If I run into something and have to get out quick, I don't want you all jammed up behind me getting me killed. I'll take one person... Not you either." He said to Rick. "Nor Charlie either. Rick, you've got Merle's gun and I've seen you shoot. I'd feel better if you were out in that store watching those doors, covering our ass. And Charlie, you have a bow, so you should watch the doors too. And Andrea, you've got the only other gun, so you should go with them." Then he turned towards Morales. "You be my wingman. Jacqui stays here. Something happens, yell down to us, get us back up here in a hurry." T-Dog was assigned to watch Dixon. Glenn finished and they all nodded at him.
"Okay, everybody knows their jobs." Rick said. Glenn started descending down the ladder, followed by Morales.
Rick, Charlie and Andrea went downstairs.
They started to look around themselves while trying to ignore the walkers banging on the doors. "Sorry for the gun in your face." Andrea apologized to Rick.
"People do things when they're afraid." Rick replied, always the peacemaker.
"Sorry for being a bitch." Charlie added. "Though I'm not sorry I took the gun out of your hands." Andrea nodded at her then added. "It wasn't entirely unjustified, what I did. You did get us into this."
Rick nodded. "If I get us out, would that make up for it?"
"No, but it'd be a start." Andrea smiled at him.
Rick smiled back and said, "Like Charlie told you, next time you should take the safety off or it won't shoot otherwise."
Andrea looked sheepish.
"Is that your gun?" Rick asked her.
"It was a gift. Why?" Andrea asked, a little defensive. Charlie had the sudden urge to tell her that if she wanted to use a gun, she needed to learn how to use it first but she kept silent.
"Little red dot means it's ready to fire." He took the gun from her hands and showed it to her before handing it back to her. "You may have occasion to use it." He finished.
Andrea nodded, pacified. "Good to know."
Rick nodded before moving around until he was standing next to Charlie, away from Andrea's earshot now.
"You should have been a politician, not a cop." Charlie teased him. "With the speeches and your capacity to calm people down with a few words. Very impressive."
Rick laughed then said, "And you should learn to use diplomacy once in a while."
Charlie smirked at him. "What can I say? I'm a passionate woman." Then realizing that what she said could be read in another way, she blushed but didn't look away from him. Rick looked at her for a few long seconds before clearing his throat and looking away, appearing a little embarrassed.
Charlie ignored the awkward moment and kept looking around as a way to pass the time, walking away from him.
A few minutes later Andrea's "Oh!" caught the attention of the other two room occupants.
They noticed she was looking at some jewelry. Rick came closer to her while Charlie kept looking warily at the glass doors which looked on the verge of shattering.
"See something you like?" Charlie heard Rick asking Andrea.
"Not me, but I know someone who would... My sister." Andrea replied. "She's still such a kid in some ways. Unicorns, dragons... She's into all that stuff. But mermaids... They rule. She loves mermaids."
"Why not take it?"
Andrea grinned. "There's a cop staring at me." Rick chuckled.
"Would it be considered looting?" Andrea asked, a little more seriously now. "I don't think those rules apply anymore. Do you?"
In that moment the walker with the stone was finally able to break the glass doors. The walkers started walking at one towards the shutters, pushing to get in. Rick moved in front of the shutters, preparing to shoot. Charlie did the same with her bow.
Just then, Glenn and Morales joined them.
"What did you find down there?" Rick immediately asked them. Morales shook his head. "Not a way out."
Andrea sighed. "We need to find a way... And soon."
They went up to the roof and observed the view around them once again. Rick spotted a construction site close to their location. He pointed it to the others and said, "that construction site, those trucks... They always keep keys on hand."
Morales shook his head. "You'll never make it past the walkers." "You got me out of that tank." Rick said towards Glenn.
Glenn nodded. "Yeah, but they were feeding. They were distracted."
Rick nodded before asking. "Can we distract them again?"
"Right. Listen to him. He's onto something. A diversion, like on 'Hogan's Heroes.'" Merle commented from the background but everybody ignored him.
"I may have an idea about that." Charlie intervened, to save time. Everybody turned to her.
"What idea?" Rick asked her.
"Okay, so you know that walkers are attracted to sound, right? What you maybe don't know is that they also are attracted to us because of how we smell. Like food for us, that it smells good. In the same way, the walkers smells us and they think 'food, yummy'." She said, a little uncomfortable. The others laughed a little at the description. "So, what we need to do is to find a way to smell like them, so that we can walk around them without them noticing us."
Rick smiled at her and asked her. "And how do you think we should do that?" Charlie grimaced. "I don't think you're gonna like this."
A few minutes later T-Dog and Morales, once again dressed in protective gears, got ready to go outside to catch a walker.
"If bad ideas were an Olympic event, this would take the gold." Glenn said.
"He's right. Just stop, okay? Take some time to think this through." Morales protested but Rick shook his head.
"How much time?" Rick said. "They already got through one set of doors, that glass won't hold forever. Charlie's idea is the only one we have and it's a good one." The others nodded, not exactly convinced but too desperate to protest further.
Once the dead walker was brought inside, Rick grabbed a fire axe, dressed in trench coat like Charlie and Glenn.
Rick was preparing to start chopping but he stopped at the last moment, kneeling next to the walker and searching his pockets. He pulled out a wallet and said, "Wayne Dunlap. Georgia license. Born in 1979. He had $28 in his pocket when he died... And a picture of a pretty girl. "With love, from Rachel." He used to be like us... Worrying about bills or the rent or the Super Bowl. If I ever find my family, I'm gonna tell them about Wayne." Glenn looked too at the wallet and added. "One more thing... He was an organ donor."
Charlie had the sudden urge to laugh at the irony but kept silent, figuring it was not exactly the time to laugh hysterically. It was probably just the whole situation catching up to her.
After a moment of silence, Rick finally started to hack away the walker. The smell coming from the corpse and the whole image of guts out of the body grossed everyone out and they started to gag. Charlie tried to breathe with her mouth so not vomit.
Rick gave the axe to Morales, telling him to keep chopping.
"I am so gonna hurl." Glenn protested, looking green.
"Later." Rick simply said. "Everybody got gloves? Don't get any on your skin or in your eyes."
Charlie prepared herself, continuing breathing slowly and deeply with her mouth. She tried not to look directly at the gore that was being plastered on her covered chest.
Glenn seemed to be the one who was faring worse. "Oh God! Oh jeez. Oh, this is bad. This is really bad."
"Think about something else... Puppies and kittens." Rick tried but then added with a grimace. "Dead puppies and kittens."
"Seriously Rick, what the fuck?" Charlie protested at the image while Glenn directly vomited.
"That is just evil. What is wrong with you?" Andrea protested but she appeared to fighting laughter. "I'm sorry." Rick said but he was laughing.
"You suck." Glenn replied, looking a little better.
"Do we smell like them?" Rick asked them.
"Oh yeah." Andrea said before handing the gun to Glenn. "Just in case."
"If we make it back, be ready." Rick said, ready to go. T-Dog called him back just before he, Charlie and Glenn were about to go out.
"What about Merle Dixon?" he asked. Rick tossed him the key for the handcuffs.
Charlie didn't know if she was supposed to warn him or not. In the end she decided to tell him, "just get him out of those cuffs as soon as you can, okay? We can't leave him there. And don't drop the key."
T-Dog nodded at her. Charlie didn't feel very reassured but she didn't know what else to do.
Once outside, the three of them started to slowly walk past the walkers, careful of every movement and every walker that got too close to them. Some looked at them seemingly a little suspiciously but kept scuffling on.
The three of them crawled under the bus Charlie and Rick saw when they first entered the town. On the other side a horde of walkers awaited them.
They continued to shuffle through the crowd without any walkers noticing that they were alive.
"It's gonna work. I can't believe it." Glenn whispered exicitedly. Charlie smiled at him but she was tense. In the TV show they made it, even with the rain. She hoped they were lucky as well now that she was there because she didn't want to get eaten.
"Don't draw attention." Rick whispered back.
In just that moment a few drops of rain started to fall. Charlie kept walking, breathing deeply to calm her nerves.
The three of them kept walking, trying not to panic. They noticed the rain was starting to wash off the guts. Fortunately they weren't really far from the construction site. The walkers near them were starting to get more aggressive, obviously smelling them.
"The smell's washing off. Isn't it? Is it washing off?" Glenn whispered, sounding panicked.
"No, it's not." Rick tried to reassure him but noticing the walkers around them more and more interested in them, he amended. "Well, maybe."
When one of them started to charge at them, Rick proceeded to crush his skull with an axe. Charlie did the same with a knife to the one next to her who was too close.
"Run!" Rick ordered. The three of them started to run down the street while killing the walkers who got too close to them. Rick with the axe, Glenn with a crowbar and Charlie with her knife.
They finally reached the fence, throwing their weapons over it before climbing over it before the walkers were able to get them. They immediately got rid of their treachcoats before Glenn searcherd for the keys to the truck. Rick pulled Merle's pistol and killed more walkers with it, Charlie helping him with her knife.
Glenn finally found the keys to the truck and threw them to Rick.
The three of them entered the truck just as some walkers started climbing over the fence and running after them. One of them reached the truck and tapped on the window on Glenn's side.
"Go go go go!" The three sped away before the walkers could catch up, Charlie sitting in the middle. "Oh my God. Oh my God. They're all over the place." Glenn exclaimed, panicked.
Rick nodded. "You need to draw them away. Those roll-up doors at the front of the store... That area? That's what I need cleared. Raise your friends. Tell them to get down there and be ready."
Glenn looked at Rick like he was crazy. "And I'm drawing the geeks away how? I... I missed that part." Rick smiled. "Noise."
Rick parked next to a red sports car, getting out of the trunk and smashing the window. Immediately the car alarm started to blare. Rick hotwired the car until the engine started. He got out and Glenn took his place. Rick returned to the trunk where Charlie remained, looking at the scene from out the window in the passenger seat.
Glenn drove the sports car towards the store and Rick followed in the truck.
Glenn lured the walkers around the store closer to his car before driving away, the walkers following. Once the outside of the store was clear, Rick drove in reverse in front of the store door.
Charlie left her seat and opened the back of the truck, inciting the other survivors to get in. As soon as everyone was finally in – T-Dog the last one in – they closed the door and Rick took off once again.
Only when they were almost out of the city Charlie realized Merle's absence. "Where's Merle?" She asked, already knowing the answer.
T-Dog looked at her contrite. "I dropped the damn key."
"Shit." Charlie cursed then turned around, looking at the road, feeling guilty and dejected.
"Where's Glenn?" Andrea asked, moving the attention away from the fact that they left Merle on the roof.
Just in that moment they heard the sound of Glenn's car alarm reverberating down the highway. At least someone was having fun.
