Chapter Twelve: Reunion
Reunion: an instance of two or more people coming together again after a period of separation.
Day 60
"Hey, you alive in there?"
Upon hearing the voice from the radio, Daisy and Rick looked at each other with wide, startled eyes. Suddenly, they both scrambled towards where the voice had come from, Daisy wincing in sympathy as she heard Rick bash his head on the low roof.
"Hello? Hello?" Rick had picked up the radio and was asking after the unnamed man with a quiet, frantic tone.
"There you are. You had me wondering." The voice sighed.
"Where are you? Outside? 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 disbelievingly.
"No." The voice was short, Daisy gave a wry smile.
"Listen, whoever you are, I don't mind telling you we're a little concerned in here."
"Oh, man. You should see it from over here, you'd be having a major freak-out." The voice noted, Daisy gave a half-glare at the radio, not exactly thrilled with their saviour.
"Got any advice for me?" Rick tried.
"Yeah, I'd say make a run for it." Daisy and Rick shared a tense glance.
"That's it, 'make a run for it'."
"My way's not as dumb as it sounds. 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. You with me so far?"
"So far."
"Okay, the street on the other side of the tank is less crowded. Of you move now while they're distracted, you and your friend stand a chance. You got ammo?"
"In that duffel bag I dropped out there, and guns. Can I get to it?"
"Forget the bag, okay? It's not an option. What do you have on you?"
"Hang on." Rick dropped the radio and scrambled for the gun he had pilfered from the dead soldier, checking the rounds. He dropped the gun back on the floor and went back to the dead body, rifling around its vest. After a beat, he came back with a grenade in hand.
"Whoa, shit." Daisy managed, flinching away from the explosive-prone weapon. Rick shot her an amused smirk, put the grenade in his pocket, and picked the radio back up, bringing it to his face.
"I gotta Beretta with one clip, 15 rounds."
"And a big-ass knife." Daisy mumbled from where she sat, rummaging through her backpack until said knife was discovered and raised into the air in triumph. She gave a small smile to Rick as he reiterated what she said into the radio.
"Okay, good. The rounds, make 'em count." Came their reply. "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."
"Hey, what's your name?"
"Have you been listening? You're running out of time." The radio uttered with incredulity. Daisy huffed a laugh, the guy was beginning to grow on her.
"Right." Rick mumbled, turning around where he sat. He found a shovel hanging on the wall and took it in hand, gun ready in the other. Daisy beside him readied her knife in steady hands. They shared a look and he nodded, quickly moving up and out of the tank, pushing the hatch open.
Rick pulled himself out of the tank, Daisy close behind him, and they both dropped down to the road beside the tank. Daisy, thankfully, stuck the landing, while Rick was left to land in a roll, pained shout escaping him.
"Shit!" Daisy exclaimed, and quickly pulled Rick up to run towards the alley that the voice had specified.
Sharp shots rang out one by one as Rick put down multiple walkers. Daisy looked to her side to see a walker ambling towards her, she swung downwards with her blade, and a sharp crack sounded as it fixed itself in the walker's skull. Her foot came up and she kicked the walker away from her, and the knife slid out of its new home.
Daisy gave a grunt and followed the quickly moving Rick to where she could see a man beckoning through the fenced entrance of the alleyway. In another quick slice, Daisy downed a second of the dead, and winced as dark blood splattered over her chest.
"Whoa! Not dead! Come on, come on!" Daisy heard the new voice shout as Rick pointed his gun at the possible threat ahead of her. She rushed and quickly entered the alley after them, Rick turning to shoot past her at the few that made it through the gate.
Halfway through the alley, the three stopped and the man from the radio began to climb a ladder up the side of the building, Rick shooting the approaching walkers until he had no rounds left. Daisy nodded her head at the ladder for Rick to go first, and raised her knife to slice at the nearest walker.
"What are you doing, come on!" Daisy heard the kid scream from high up the ladder, Rick quickly followed him.
A walker fell to the ground with a groan, Daisy landed her knife in the next and grunted as she pulled her weapon back out of its cracked skull. Looking up, Daisy saw that Rick was high enough that she could begin to climb, so she grabbed the rungs and scaled the ladder with a whimper at the scratching fingers of the walkers on her legs.
Daisy halted with a grunt as one of the walkers managed to grab hold of her ankle, she looked down with narrowed eyes and kicked the offender in its snarling face. After hearing a satisfying crunch, the fingers slipped from her ankle and Daisy scrambled further up the ladder, reaching the platform halfway up the building in a short minute.
Rick leant down and gave her a hand, pulling her up to stand next to him and the new kid. Daisy leaned against the railing, slumping with a relieved sigh, all three of them panting in exhaustion. Her hand came up to tousle her wild hair and she glanced at their saviour. She paused and her head tilted in recognition.
"Glenn?!" Daisy looked at him in amazed disbelief, "Pizza guy Glenn, what the fuck?"
"Holy shit, Daisy!" Glenn looked back at her with wide eyes, recognition clear. "You're the other dumbass?"
"Psh, well I wouldn't necessarily call myself that…" Daisy defended herself.
"Wait, you two know each other?" Rick drawled, looking between the two with confusion. Glenn gave an enthusiastic nod.
"Yeah! We were together when this all went down!" Glenn gave an amazed smile at the coincidence of their meeting again. "Daisy and her friends ordered a pizza, I delivered it…they let me stay in their room for shelter from the rabid man-eating monsters…" He trailed off.
"My friends!" Daisy exclaimed, hit by realisation that he had been with them when the groups had been separated, and looked at him with wide eyes. "Kat, Nina?" She asked with worried hopefulness. Glenn paused, looking away with a wince. "They're gone." Daisy surmised in a flat tone, brow furrowing in disappointment.
"No!" Glenn exclaimed. "I mean, Nina was…scratched by a walker when we first escaped the city…when we, split up with you. She got infected, and…But, Kat! She's back at camp!" He looked at her with his face twisted in a wince, torn between excitement for Kat's survival and sorrow at Nina's death. Daisy took a deep, steadying breath and gave a firm nod, accepting the harshness of this new world for what it was and focusing on the good.
"That's great, Glenn. We'll, get outta here and…I'll see Kat again! Thank you." Daisy gave him a soft smile, glad for even this small miracle. He gave a modest scoff behind a smile, and beckoned them both to follow him further up the ladder.
Once on the rooftop of the building, the three stood looking over at the walkers below, Rick and Daisy grateful to Glenn for not leaving them to that fate. Rick and Glenn introduced themselves to each other, and Rick voiced the gratitude that Daisy shared. Conventions surpassed, they began to travel along the rooftops of the Atlantan buildings, Glenn leading the two newcomers towards the store that his group had apparently holed up in. Jogging up to a hatch in the roof of their destination, Glenn pulled it open but was stopped by Rick who questioned him.
"Back at the tank, why'd you stick your neck out for us?" Glenn paused and looked down, dropping his backpack down the hole, and then lowering himself down after it. A few steps down the ladder into the building, he looked up at Rick with consideration.
"Call it foolish, naïve hope…but if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. Guess I'm an even bigger dumbass then you." Glenn said, Daisy smirked at his honesty. Rick looked up from Glenn and caught Daisy's eye, both simultaneously agreeing that Glenn's reasoning was sound.
One more reluctant ladder later, Glenn, Rick and Daisy darted through an office space and out of the building, then down a twisting staircase into another alley, Glenn notifying his group on his radio that they had company. They reached the bottom of the stairway and were halted by the lazy groans of two walkers, both turning towards the living with renewed hunger.
Just as the dead were limping towards them, a door into the adjacent building opened to reveal two people, faces unseen due to the protective masks covering them, black sports gear protecting their bodies. Both had baseball bats, and two successive hits later, the walkers were down and were beaten again and again by the people until the alley was silent of groaning. Rick and Daisy followed Glenn, who had run past his two friends and into the building that they had emerged from.
"Morales! Let's go!" The two walker-beaters followed them and closed the door behind them.
"Son of a bitch! We oughta kill you!" Daisy startled back against a wall of boxes as a blonde woman pushed Rick into the wall and pointed a gun in his face.
"Just chill out Andrea. Back off." One of the men tried to calm her.
"Come one, ease up."
"Ease up? You're kidding me, right?" Andrea looked at her group with incredulity, "We're dead because of this stupid asshole."
"Andrea, I said back the hell off."
There were a few silent seconds, Daisy shared a wary glance with Rick from across the room, whom Andrea was still pointing her gun at.
"Or, pull the trigger." Daisy's eyes widened, but she let out a breath when the man had correctly called her bluff. Andrea had backed off and put down her gun, shaking her head as her face scrunched up in panic.
"We're dead. All of us. Because of you." Andrea said matter-of-factly, Daisy looked at her with concern.
"I don't understand." Rick looked around at them, confused. Daisy took a hesitant step forward.
"Look, Andrea, was it?" Daisy raised her hands as if to calm her. "We didn't know there was a horde of walkers just around the corner…we panicked. All Rick had was his gun, he had to fire off some shots." Andrea scoffed, shaking her head. "No, he had to, to protect himself, and to protect me. Now, we apologise! In hindsight…not the best idea." Daisy looked expectantly at Rick, who gave a short nod, brow furrowed in sincerity at the hostile Andrea.
"We got your group into this mess…brought the walkers closer. We'll find a way to draw them away." Rick proposed, nodding around at the group, receiving some positive responses back. Andrea remained stone-faced, but began to back off. With the confrontation considered finished, Morales led the group further into the building.
They walked through short hallways until they reached the front of the store. Outside the windowed doors, walkers were gathered, moaning and hitting at the glass, which was beginning to splinter at the torment.
"You two rang the goddamn dinner bell…" Andrea said testily, hackles beginning to raise once more. There were sharp cracking sounds as the windows broke further, not caving just yet. It was abundantly clear that they were not safe, that a plan had to come about soon, or they were all dead.