The Walker heard me attempt to struggle out of Shane's grip, making more sickening sounds and tuning to face our way. Shane noticed that it was onto us and in one very careful motion, he slipped his hand down the side of my leg and grabbed the holstered gun from the couch.
A ruffled grunt came from the same door that Shane entered in, following a familiar clink of plastic going against metal. I held in my breath in anticipation, then in fear.
"That's one ugly skank," Daryl said to himself, shooting the Walker in the forehead. He chuckled at the victory of his kill and walked to it; the sickening slurping noises of his bow being pulled out of fresh blood rang through the office.
"Wait here," Shane whispered, uncovering my mouth slowly to test if I'd scream. I reluctantly nodded my head as he slipped out from underneath me and retrieved my pants from the floor. He flung them at me as he made his way toward Daryl.
I propped myself up on my elbows before putting my pants on, peeking over the top of the couch at Shane. He looked like he was trying to sneak up on Daryl.
If you scare him you're dead, I thought, attempting to push my thoughts to Shane.
"Daryl," Shane cautiously spoke, letting the hand that carried the gun drop to his side, rendering himself not a threat. Daryl's head whipped around, scaring me half to death as I let my elbows fall. I definitely could not let him see me.
"What're you doing here?" Daryl asked, his slurred words making himself sound tired and bored.
"I, uh," Shane stuttered, trying to scrape up an excuse, "I heard there was some trouble."
"From who?" Daryl suspiciously asked, his voice becoming more pronounced as well as louder. He was closer than he was before.
I slipped my pants on as the boys kept talking, the effort I was exerting on attempting to be quiet overpowered my wanting to listen into their conversation.
"You haven't seen Ayden, have ya?" Daryl asked. I bit my lip until I could taste the sweet bitterness of blood.
An abrupt silence froze me in place; no doubt Daryl had heard something coming from this room.
"There a Walker in there?" Daryl asked, walking towards the room. My heart froze as still as my body was.
"No," Shane said, too casually. Like he didn't care if I was caught.
Think, I commanded to myself, think!
There was a separate door at the right side of the room, close to the fancy cherry wood desk, possibly connected to a private bathroom or storage closet. If I were to cross the room to get to this door, I would have to cross Daryl's eyesight, thus rendering the whole operation useless. Maybe I could pretend to be asleep on the couch? No, much too suspicious, especially with Shane nearby. I kinda already had a hunch that Daryl knew what was going on between us.
"Walker!" Shane shouted suddenly, making Daryl turn just as he entered the little office.
"You have a gun," he said, and taking the time that he was distracted as an opportunity, I made a run for it. "You can shoot, can't ya?"
"Gunshots are too loud," he replied, stepping back so Daryl could take care of it. He turned around as I reached the open door.
The last thing I saw before very quietly shutting the door was a victorious smile spread across Shane's face.
Okay, so I was half right about the room being some sort of storage space.
The only thing that I wasn't expecting about it is that it was the size of a freaking library, filled with paper, staplers, paper clips, pencils. Even in the back, there had to be half a dozen copy and fax machines.
It seemed as if the entire building used the same room to store extra supplies.
There were several dozen industrial-type metal shelves that sat in the middle of the room, holing said office supplies, blocking my view of the rest of the area. Which was pretty dangerous if someone else had your primary weapon and you stupidly left your knife at camp.
I cautiously walked toward the back of the room, checking in between the shelves for any signs of Walkers. A creaky floorboard stopped me in my tracks; I started frantically looking around for something to use as a weapon. I wondered if I shoved a paperclip far enough into a Walker's temple, would he die. Well, better than nothing, I guess.
I swerved down one of the makeshift isles, dodging the cardboard boxes of paper that scattered the floor and picked up a black stapler from one of the middle shelves. At least it was better than my paperclip plan.
I flipped the upper half open, checking to make sure there were no staples loaded in it. Since there was, I flicked them off of the spring and flipped it back closed. Except that I forgot my thumb was right on it, and there still was one stray staple in the stupid thing.
I ended up putting a staple through my thumb, and even though it didn't hurt, it scared the shit out of me.
"Aw, fuck!" I yelled, pulling the staple out of my thumb. The staple was still in my mouth as it registered to me that I actually did yell out loud, alerting the Walker of my position. I spit it out and got the stapler ready, aiming it toward the closest edge of the aisle. And I waited.
The creaking of the floorboard ceased as the pair of feet stopped in the aisle next to this one. Just as I was about to charge out of the aisle and into the next, a taller figure bumped into me, making me knock into the shelf, almost knocking it over.
I screamed and shoved the end of the stapler into the forehead of my opponent, knocking his balance off, tumbling him into one of the paper boxes. Before I could register who I hit, he tumbled into the box, sprawling the papers everywhere.
"Did you just staple my forehead?" Glenn yelled, pushing on the staple in the middle of his forehead. I gasped and looked around to the other aisle; what used to be a Walker now laid limply on the ground. Shane, his face bloody, stood over it.
"I'm sorry, Glenn," I said, suppressing a giggle. He winced and pulled the staple out, letting it fall to the ground before he patted my shoulder.
"It's okay," he sighed, "I would've hit you in the face with my baseball bat if you didn't get me first."
Shane walked out of the room with us both, and before I could ask him what (or who) popped him in the face, Daryl walked beside us, angry.
"Looks like you got bit by some snake, chinaman," Daryl muttered, looking at Shane with anger and at me with partial disgust.
"Staple," Glenn said, narrowing his eyes at Daryl, "and I'm Korean."
"Yeah," Daryl muttered, leading us out of the Walker-empty building and towards the train tracks.
"Wait, what about Merle? Where's T-Dog?" I asked, struggling to keep up with they boys' stride. The chest bump from Glenn must've twisted my ankle.
"T-Dog's in the van," Daryl muttered, and when he didn't mention anything about Merle, I assumed he wasn't found. My spirits fell.
The rest of the walk back, just like the walk to the building, was eerily quiet. The most anyone had done (mainly between Daryl and Shane) was giving glances of distrust and hatred. It didn't make the air around us very soothing.
As we rounded the gate fencing off the train tracks, a fist came out of nowhere and punched the fence. I looked at where everyone was staring at in disbelief, and well, it was what they weren't staring at.
The van was gone.