Instincts of Survival

You know that feeling you get in your stomach when something just isn't right? Like you know that someone's lying, or when there a really bad storm that's about to hit? That nauseating, intestines in knots, heart in your throat, sweaty palm, adrenaline pumping feeling; the feeling that makes you want to tuck tail, run and hide under a rock? People really should start listening to that feeling, that gut feeling. Trust your gut. Human instinct. Survival.

"I really don't like this," Jamie said from behind Rick on the saddle, looking over his shoulder as she leaned her head around the various guns that protruded from the bag over his shoulder. Her eyes looked over the large buildings of Atlanta, completely deserted by the looks of it. There wasn't a single sound from inside, it was a ghost town. A dead town.

"Neither do I," Rick said carefully, looking over the tall office buildings in the distance. "But we can't turn back now," he added on, looking at her own his shoulder. He could easily see the fear in her hazel eyes, the doubt. She had been expecting to have seen someone, anyone, by now.

"Are you sure? I think we can," she said, turning her eyes to look at him instead of the city. Rick turned forward once more before nudging the stallion forward again, having finally gotten the beast to stop running when he wanted him to. Jamie's hands tightened their grip on the sides of his shirt as the horse moved toward, her entire body tight and coiled like a wound up spring. She never once relaxed as they slowly made their way through the city, winding around the forgotten cars, passing buildings, railroads, and bridges.

Rick could hear Jamie's breathing speed up as they made their way deeper and deeper into the city, further away from a chance to turn back and escape. Her hands kept their death grip on his shirt, never releasing it for a moment of relaxed muscles and tendons. She kept her mind on the gun strapped to her back and the slightest of movements around them. Her eyes fell on the many types of military vehicles around them as they moved through a cluster of ruined helicopters, buses and cars. She looked over to a bus they were passing by, seeing a couple of dead passengers still inside.

Then they stood up.

"Rick," she hissed out, a moment before the horse jumped away from the bus, neighing loudly. Rick tried to calm the horse, stopping it from running in fear at the clear threat that was upon it and the two on its back.

"Don't worry, it's just a few," Rick assured, looking over to the two walkers that were stumbling off the bus after them. "Nothing we can't outrun." Jamie looked back to the walker that was closest to them, so tempted to shoot the damn thing but knowing that it would only draw more out of the woodwork. There were three walkers left behind by the time they got off that street, moving a large tank that held the body of a dead man being eaten by crows.

They both froze, however, when they heard the faint rumbling of helicopter blades. Rick spun from side to side, looking behind him and forward again, eyes on the sky, as he tried to locate the helicopter. Jamie placed a hand over her eyes, releasing Rick's shirt for the first time, to try and assist in finding the direction that the sound was coming from.

"There," she said, pointing to one of the tall office buildings that held the reflection of the helicopter. Rick squinted to see better, before spurring the horse forward to try and follow after the direction the helicopter was going in, trotting through the empty streets. Jamie's heart picked up in hope, realizing that there must still be some functioning military or government of some kind of there were helicopters in the sky. Rick moved to round the corner onto the adjacent street but came to a dead stop.

As did each of their hearts.

Walkers. Hundreds of walkers.

"Run!" Jamie yelled from behind Rick, pushing at him. He didn't hesitate to do so and quickly turned the horse around and spurred him on, letting him gallop back in the direction that they had come. The starved dead began to run and stumble after then, reaching for them in desperation for food. They moved far faster than any walkers Jamie had encountered in the past. These bastards were hungry. She was extremely positive that her heart actually stopped beating for several seconds in the time it had taken the horse to turn around.

More walkers began to appear from all directions, having heard their commotion and moving to find the source. Jamie's stomach was in knots again, her eyes darting around every which way to try and find an escape, any escape. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. She chanted in her head, lifted up her legs and looked around herself as more walkers crowded, Rick cursing as he tried to spin around and find a way out. The stallion reared up as walkers stood before it, preventing an escape.

The frantic movements of the horse shook off both Rick and Jamie, their bags falling to the ground as they landed hard on the pavement, bruising soft tissue and bones. The stallion neighed loudly as the walkers piled onto it, devouring it. Jamie ripped the hunting knife from the black canvas and metal sheath it was held in, pulling it before her and slashing at a walker that approached, gouging into its eye.

"The tank!" Rick yelled, kicking at walkers that tried to claw after him. Jamie swung wide with her hunting knife, driving it into the temple of another walker before making a run for the opening, watching as Rick disappeared beneath to escape the crowds that were following him. She could see as they began to herd toward Rick, the sounds of gunshots going off as he tried to lessen the amount crawling after him.

One, two, three, four walkers dropped as Jamie slit throats, gouged into the soft tissue of their eyes and temples, heading toward the tank. She heard the sound of the bottom closing, knowing that Rick must have been inside. Jumping onto the top, she heard the top opening and Rick's head appear only a second before she leapt in, tackling him to the ground and dropping her knife all at the same time. The lid fell shut again with nothing else left to keep it open, a thundering boom echoing inside. Jamie rose back up and sealed it off, just in case.

She kept her hands tight on the lock, her chest heaving with her heart beating hard against her ribcage. Had she not known better, she would have thought that it was going to burst right through her sternum at the rate that it was pounding. She looked over when she heard Rick moving about, watching as he pulled the gun from a dead soldier beside him.

A scream tore from her throat when the soldier turned its head toward Rick. Rick turned to looked back when he heard her scream, seeing the open eyes of the once dead man, before raising it gun beneath its chin and firing. The resounding echo of the blast caused Jamie to grip her head in pain, her ears ringing louder than anything she had ever experienced before. She groaned in pain as her hands fell over her ears, her head falling to rest on the cold floor of the tank.

"Oh, God," she gasped out, barely able to hear her own voice. The ringing began to die down slowly, leaving her disoriented and gasping.

"Are you alright?" Rick asked desperately, reaching out for her. She didn't lift herself up right away, feeling his hands gripping at her arms and shoulders. "Are you bit? Did they hurt you?"

"No, I'm fine. My fucking head," she cussed, sitting up carefully. "What about you?"

"Same."

Jamie pulled herself up against the wall of the machine, resting on the cool surface. Her head still pounded, her heart still raced and her limbs were shaking more than someone would if they were freezing to death. She pulled the sniper rifle off her shoulder when it dug into her flesh, throwing it to the ground in anger. They were stuck.

"Now what?" she panted out, looking over to Rick. He was checking the bullets in the gun clip that he had gotten from the dead solder—well, now dead soldier.

Rick didn't reply, simplly resting his forehead on the gun in his hand. She watched him carefully, knowing exactly what was going through his head at the present moment. She opened her mouth to speak again when the familiar sound of static from a radio drew her attention, Rick looked over at the same time.

"Hey you," A young male voice called through the radio, surprising both adults and leaving them stunned into frozen silence. "Dumbass. Yea, you in the tank."

Jamie looked over to Rick slowly, left in a state of utter shock. Her eyes were wide and her jaw was slack, mirroring a look much the same as Rick. He slowly lowered the gun as he turned to look back at her as well. Neither of them moved as they tried to come to terms with what the fuck was happening, and if they had actually just gotten out of that shit alive. Who the hell had seen them? How did they know they were in the tank?

"Cozy in there?"

Jamie dove for the radio at the same time Rick tried to, the taller of them two colliding their head on the top of the roof when they tried. Jami fell to her side as she snatched the radio off its cradle, hitting the button and bringing it to her lips as she turned to face Rick, who was still trying to recover from the hit he took to his head.

"There are two dumbasses in here, technically," she said through the device, seeing Rick looked to her in near exasperation.

"There you are," The young voice sighed through, relieved, "You had me wondering. The guy under the tank lived?"

"Tanks have openings on the bottom," she answered back, wondering why the hell she was having a causal conversation when there is a chance she may be dead in the very near future if she and Rick didn't find a way out of that goddamn machine. "Where are you? Outside? Can you see us right now?" she asked, rolling onto her back when the ledge of metal began to dig against her hip bone.

"Yea, I can see you, you're surrounded by walkers. That's the bad news," he said through. It seems like he was whispering. Rick snatched the radio from her hand, the cord stretching to its limit as he pulled it to his face.

"There's good news?"

Short reply, "No."

"Listen," Rick started, "Whoever you are, I don't mind telling you, I'm a little concerned in here," Rick growled into the radio, looked around as they heard walkers clamouring around on top of the metal structure they were stuck in.

"Oh, man, you should see from over here. You'd be having a major freak out," the man said through the radio, sounding deeply unsettled. Jamie snatched the radio from Rick's hand, glaring at the device as she pressed the button down.

"That doesn't help us, you little shit!" she nearly yelled out before Rick took the radio back from her, scolding her with a look before he quickly pressed the button down again.

"Got any advice for us?"

"Yea, I'd say make a run for it."

"You've got to be kidding me," Jamie groaned out as she fell back against the floor of the tank again, her hands rising up to wipe at the sweat that completely covered her face and left her hair to stick to her skin. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine that she was not stuck in an air tight container with cannibalistic dead people walking around and on top of said container. She felt like scratching her own face off, truth be told.

"That's it?" Rick asked into the radio, "Make a run for it?"

"Might not be as dumb as it sounds!" the guy defended quickly, "You got eyes out here. There's one geek still up on the tank, but the others have jumped down and joined the feeding frenzy where the horse went down." Jamie felt a lurch of nausea at the thought of the poor animal, a jolt of confusion as well when he said 'geek' instead of walker. She hadn't heard that term before. "You with me so far?"

"So far," Rick confirmed.

"Okay, the street on the other side of the tank is less crowded. If you move now while they're distracted, you stand a better chance. Got ammo?"

"It's all in the bag," Jamie groaned from on the ground.

"In that duffle bag that I dropped on the ground out there, and guns. Can I get to it?"

"Forget the bag! It's not an option, what do you have on you?"

"Hang on," Rick said as he quickly dropped the radio and moved to the run that he had collected from the soldier. Jamie pulled her sniper rifle back toward herself again, checking to see that it was still fully loaded from when she and ricked and ditched the cruiser. He moved over to the other side and checked the soldier for any more ammo that he may have had, but found none. Jamie pretended not to see when he paused to look at a grenade that had been on the top shelf.

"Nothing?" she asked desperately, drawing him back to attention. Rick moved over to the radio again, snatching it from the floor quickly.

"I got a Beretta with one clip, fifteen rounds."

"Make 'em count, jump off the right side of the tank, keep going in that direction. There's an alley in the street maybe…fifty yards. Be there." Rick paused as he looked over at Jamie, seeing that her body was still tense, but the new found hope had set the determination into her shoulders again. She still looked as petrified as a deer caught in the headlights, but she was doing her best to push it down. Blood was covering the white shirt he had found for her and was smudged on her face from when she had wiped at the sweat. Walker blood. She looked deadly, out of control.

"Hey, what's your name?" Rick asked through the radio quickly.

"Have you been listening, you're running out of time!"

"He's right," Jamie said as she pulled the sniper strap onto one shoulder, just encase she needed to use it. "We need to get moving." Collecting her bloodied hunting knife from the floor, she poised herself in a crouched stance as Rick got himself ready to pop the top of the tank and make a run for it. He shared one last quick look with Jamie before he hit the switch to open the top and stood, rising from the tank quickly.

OMG, who saw that episode last night? Holy hell, that did not just happen!? I won't say what in case anyone didn't see it yet, and if that's the case, you NEED to watch it!

Anyway, I've got this out as soon as I could and the next one's on its way as well. Chapter 5, yay!

Chapter 5 – Freedom of Imprisonment

A loud rumble of thunder echoed over the city, covering all sound for a moment. A distant crack was faintly heard before a small chunk of the stone on the ledge a few feet from Rick blew off. The group jumped and looked around, even Merle looked momentarily at a loss.

"What the fuck?" T-Dog yelled as he looked around. Rick spun around to face the buildings surrounding them, examining the rooftops. There was only one other person he knew of in the city that had a sniper rifle. Rushing over to the gun that he had taken from Merle, he quickly adjusted the scope before beginning to scan over the roofs of the buildings. Abound a block down from where they were, sitting on the top of a twelve story shopping center, was Jamie.

"She's alive," Rick breathed in relief, getting looks from the others.

"The woman that was with you in the tank?" Glenn asked immediately, pushing away from where he had been leaning to look where Rick had just been aiming the gun. Rick held the scope up to his eye again to look toward Jamie. She was holding her gun with one hand and tapping the side of her jaw with the other. Rick adjusted his gun to one hand and made a cut throat motion with the other. He hadn't been bitten. He watched as she pointed to herself before repeating his action. She hadn't either.