Glenn was a spry, young Asian guy. Mid twenties and although his youthful looks showed signs of joy and playfulness, there were hints of sadness and sorrow in his eyes. He tried to keep a positive outlook on life but it was obvious that he'd been through the same hardships as everybody else. He wore a blue and white baseball shirt with a matching cap and some scraggy blue jeans, not the smartest of outfits but practical and besides, who was thinking of fashion at a time like this?
"Check out these shorts!" Apparently, Kitty was thinking about fashion at a time like this. The trio had come to find themselves in the clothing area of a department store. Ignoring her sister, Ivy continued to quiz Glenn.
"Are we safe here?" Glenn nodded, the look on his face showed he was certain. Almost.
"How long have you been here?"
"Just over night… we headed into town an-"
"We? " Ivy scanned the shop.
"Yeah, they're upstairs on the roof. It's easier to assess the…" He paused and looked towards the door where the faint sound of slamming and groaning was coming from. "…situation from up there!" Ivy's face lit up. Although there was a slim chance her parents were a part of Glenn's group, there were more survivors. Not everybody was gone. They weren't alone.
"Let's go!" Ivy said asking Glenn to lead the way. They set off, Ivy nudged Kat who was asking Blake for his opinions on a shirt she'd found. Watching as her sister headed towards a back door with Glenn, Kat stuffed a few more items of clothing under her arm and followed. Since nobody was alive anymore and money was deemed worthless, it wasn't stealing, right?
"So what's your story?" Glenn asked as they hopped up the dimly lit stairway.
"We were looking for…" Ivy paused, under any other circumstances, being so open and honest with a complete stranger would seem odd… then again he had just saved their lives. "…someone." Glenn cast a curious glance back at her and she continued. "We didn't find them. That's when those…things… showed up after us and so we ran… and now, we're stuck here too." As they climbed the last few stairways, they fell into silence, apart from the sound of heavy feet against the stone steps and their breathing getting heavier with each floor. Reaching a fire door, Glenn paused.
"Just to warn you, they're quite the bunch!" He said as his hand turned the doorknob. Pushing it open, the sunlight dazzled them and as their eyes adjusted to the light, the sound of muttering voices came to a stop. "I got them!" Glenn said as he stepped out onto the roof.
"Oh thank God!" An African-American female raced over to Glenn and patted him on the back. The relief in her voice was sweet and caring as if she was a motherly figure. Her eyes opened and fixed upon Ivy and the kids and they moved out into the sunlight.
"What were you thinking?" This woman's tone wasn't so friendly. A blonde haired woman ranted as she held a gun in her hand. As Ivy was trained to do, she instantly painted this female as a possible threat. "You've just led them straight to us!" She moaned, the anger growing inside her driven by fear.
"Hey Andrea, back off!" Another voice, this time, male. "I'm Morales." He said as he offered his hand to the attractive officer. She looked around at the group and then back to the Hispanic man in front of her. His filthy, unbuttoned shirt revealed straggles of chest hair beneath his vest that matched the messy stubble on his face.
"Ivy." She announced more for the benefit of everyone than for Morales private greeting. "This here is Kat and Blake!" She turned her head to her sister who was sneakily squashing her new garments into the rucksack. When Kitty realised all eyes were on her, she coyly stopped what she was doing and gave a smile and a nod. The lady who'd been with Glenn smiled back.
"I'm Jacqui; you already know Glenn I'm assuming, Morales, Andrea and T-Dog!" She said introducing the group, T-Dog; a bulky black man nodded sternly trying to act macho in front of the Latin beauty of Ivy.
"Or Theodore… Theo… whatever…T-Dog's cool!" He fumbled as she looked to him.
"Hey, cool rifle!" Blake had wandered from conversation and found a gun resting against an air vent.
"Get away from there!" Another man stepped out from behind a wall. He briskly walked over and picked up the rifle, rudely pushing Blake out of the way before returning to his corner where he was quietly watching the walkers down below.
"What's his problem?" Asked Kitty as she swung the bulging backpack over her shoulder. Andrea rolled her eyes.
"That's Dixon, Merle Dixon…not the friendliest of people, so try to keep your distance." She warned before brushing her blonde locks from her face and planting the gun into the back of her jeans. T-Dog snarled and spat on the floor whispering to himself.
"Redneck bastard." Clearly, Theo and Dixon didn't get on too well.
"Hey, I'm sorry about how I acted… I guess we're all just a little wired lately." Andrea apologised, scratching the back of her head.
"Don't worry about it, I get it!" Ivy said in a forgiving manner. Looking around at the mismatched group she could tell they weren't the type of people who would've grouped together before the outbreak and as she wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist, she asked. "So, what's the deal here?" Glenn stepped forward.
"We're here for supplies. Our group has set up camp just outside of Atlanta. Once the city became so overrun, we decided it was time to go somewhere a little less populated. Back at camp they're broadcasting a message over the radios to let any other survivors know there's a refuge there." Ivy suddenly thought back to her car radio.
"I'm not so sure it's working properly." She announced to confused faces and wrinkled foreheads. "I scanned the waves in my vehicle but didn't hear any civilian messages."
"Something's probably interfering with it; we thought it was just our portable which was broken." Jacqui sighed as she listened to the discussion carefully.
"Well, like I said we've come back into the city for supplies and kind of got ourselves holed up in this store, our truck is down the street but with all those geeks outside we'd never make it." Glenn straightened his cap to hide his embarrassment.
"For now." Morales sounded a lot more confident. "We're going to get out of here. We are. Even if we have to walk out through the back and leave the van. Glenn knows all the shortcuts and secret passages around the city, he'll get us out." Ivy raised her eyebrows and looked to Glenn who blushed and scratched his arm.
"I'm a pizza delivery boy…well, used to be! We use the alleys to cut down delivery time." He looked to Morales. "We'd never make it out of the city on foot though."
"Fine, but if anyone can find a way back to the truck, it's you." Morales smiled to the young Asian. Ivy nodded and turned fully to Glenn.
"So, what's the plan?" She asked. As Glenn pursed his lips to answer, Merle appeared from around the corner and butted in.
"We wait!" With his rifle held over his shoulder he noticed Ivy's glare, she'd worked him out already and wanted to keep their confrontations as short and easy as possible. "You see, Princess, you've brought all them walkers right to our doors, so until they go and find something else to play with, we're going to have to bunk down here for a while. The front door's a complete no-go and the alley is currently crawling with them." Although the group obviously didn't like him, they did agree with him, until the horde below scattered, they were stuck. Merle walked across the rooftop, everybody else perfectly still except their eyes following him, waiting for his next move. They couldn't and didn't trust him.
"What do we have here?" As he reached Kat, he slithered around her and ran his grubby fingers through her hair a perverted grin spread across his mouth. The fear in Katharine's eyes was emphasised with disgust.
"Leave her alone!" Ivy cocked her gun and aimed straight at him. Merle put his arms up and mocked her.
"Don't worry Taco Belle," He sniped in a racist play on words. "I was only saying 'Hello'." He grinned back at Kat. "I'll introduce myself properly later." He winked before disappearing once again behind the wall. A wave of nausea swept over Kitty, the smell of stagnant sweat mixed with who knows what else still lingered around her, Merle made her skin crawl. Blake offered a hug to calm her nerves as Ivy started after the redneck.
"Don't!" Jacqui moved to block Ivy's path. "He's not worth it." She said, turning her head to reveal a bruised cheekbone. This only enraged Ivy further, how dare this scummy excuse for a man hit a woman. If it wasn't for the pleading look in Jacqui's eyes she'd have gone round there and fixed a bullet in Merle's chest right now. With a huff, she turned back to her sister and holstered her gun.
"Well, I'm starving…" T-Dog tried to break the tension. "Hey, kid, do you want come grab some snacks with me?" Blake looked to Ivy as if waiting for permission before following T-Dog back through the door. With a department store this size, the food court must be loaded. He'd soon find out it had been raided in the evacuation and the snacks Theo mentioned were any scraps left behind.
Back on the roof, Ivy and Kat had found a place to hide their backpack and were involved in general chit chat about the walkers and where they'd come from, everybody seemed as clueless as each other. Still, Ivy looked up at the blue sky and appreciated the company they'd found. There were even a few giggles as Morales suggested some outrageous opinions on the matter. After about twenty minutes, the door opened and Blake and T-Dog walked through carrying armfuls of 'Twinkie' boxes and water bottles, Blake had even found himself a baseball cap on their venture downstairs.
"They've hit the jackpot!" Andrea chuckled as she caught a roll T-Dog had thrown to her. The group settled down to enjoy the sweet taste of the Twinkies and washed it down with the cool, refreshing water. If it wasn't for the army of undead in the streets below it would have been a perfect picture of a group of friends enjoying the weather and feasting on sweets and laughter. Until Dixon returned.
"Didn't your momma ever teach you to share?" The group turned to his silhouette.
"Didn't your momma teach you not to touch other peoples' stuff?" Ivy spat back at him as she noticed Kitty's backpack in his hand. He moved around so the others could see him without the sunlight blinding them.
"Looks like somebody's holding out on us!" He said as he threw the bag into the middle of the group, water bottles, biscuits, bread and other various snacks rolled out. Everybody's eyes widened. Ivy just stood there and kept her eyes on Merle, Katharine scurried to return the food back to the bag, helped by Blake.
"You think we were hiding that food?" She snuffed a laugh. "Go ahead, take it." As she offered it to him, Kat and Blake stopped and looked at her, was she just going to give away their stock? "Or you could just buck up and realise that you're standing on top of a store which just presented us with the keys to 'Unlock the Magic!" Ivy quoted the Twinkie tagline and to ridicule Merle even further, she tossed him one of the delicious treats. With a snort, he crushed the delicacy in his fist and stomped away as he grumbled curse words under his breath. As they watched him retreat from Ivy's tongue lashing, the rest of the group all sniggered and quietly cheered, still aware that he could clearly hear them from his dark little corner.
"Looks like Dixon's met his match!" Andrea applauded before high fiving Ivy. They all continued their private celebrations until their stomachs were so full of watered down sponge and cream they could explode and as the sun began to hide behind the taller surrounding buildings, they shared stories and tales of their lives before the walkers appeared.
With the sun now replaced by the moonlight, the heat was also replaced by a fresh chill and so they decided to retire for the night and headed indoors to find a cosy place to sleep. After all this was a department store with plenty of opportunities to snuggle into a nice display bed, huge bean bag or even a giant soft teddy. With the day they'd had, they'd be sure to sleep tonight, ready for what tomorrow would bring. Merle stayed on the roof, acting as lookout although everybody knew the only person he'd selfishly look out for was himself. Yet as Ivy pulled a duvet over herself and Kat and Blake had opted for the inflatable sofas, they felt a sense of security and hope with these new 'friends'. Turning in her bed, Andrea smiled and looked out of a window at the stars in the sky, each one giving her the same wish, to see her sister again. T-Dog and Morales had decided to stay up a while longer and had found a deck of cards to teach Glenn how to play Poker with and Jacqui was already snoring as she hugged a toy tiger.
With the relaxed calmness inside, Merle looked out over the edge of the roof and in the shadows below, the horde of zombies was still stubbornly banging against the store's shutters. Sparking up a cigarette, the moonlight bouncing off his lighter, he inhaled the toxins and thought about his life before the outbreak and how it was now. By the time he'd finished his cig, the moon was high in the sky and as he exhaled an evil thought formed in his mind. Flicking the cigarette stub over the side of the building he cast an evil smirk as he headed for the door.
With everybody now soundly asleep, they had no idea Merle's wicked plan was about to be put into motion as the door to the roof closed firmly behind him.