I was walking up and down the street of the big city when I was wondering where all the walkers were. The street was quiet, too quiet. I went a little further and saw over a thousand walkers in one particular area, it was like they were waiting. I was so surprised by the numbers of walkers that I failed to notice the lingering one walking in front of me. When I turned around I got ambushed by said walker, I got a little scared during that moment, that was the first time that I ever got pinned to the ground by a walker, but I knew it wouldn't be the last.

I couldn't reach my sword, but I was more concerned with getting the undead fucker off of me. I was about to accept my fate when I realized I still had I knife on me; reaching in the sheath on my belt loop I took out the knife and stuck it the walkers neck. Then I pushed it off of me, and then I stabbed it repeatedly in the eye. I know, over kill, but come on, if anyone was so close to death, wouldn't you try to make sure the thing that almost ended you was dead?

I stood up, thanking God, or whoever called the shots in the plays of life, got my sword from the ground and moved back to my original position. I got a hell of a lot of walker blood and guts on me during that confrontation. I didn't give it two thoughts until I was about to cross the street and a group of six walkers came limping by. I was about to go on about, slicing each one of them, but they just kept stumbling by. That's when I realized, walkers knew it was their prey by smell. If I smelled like them I could just as easily walk by them.

I took that into consideration and just kept walking but never putting my sword back into its sheath. I kept walking until I saw something that could hold some supplies of some sort or even people; I walked over to a building that I immediately identified as a department store. If I was in that situation I would go first.

When I walked in I could see that people have all ready ransacked the building. But there was a good chance that they didn't find what I was looking for. I walked up the fleet of stairs that someone was obviously going after. After going up the fleet of stairs I found myself at the door leading to the roof. The door was chained, but knowing me and my sense of adventure, I slipped through the chains.

While I was on the roof of the department store I walked a little further jumping of the small ledge that was there and what I saw after doing that was really an eye opener. There was a pair of handcuffs on a screw or some like than one end was hooked onto the part of the roof; the other part was covered in blood I looked at it and the deserted belt that was next to it then my vision turned to the severed hand that was on the roof, the blood spilling out of it still looked fresh. There was a trail of blood moving down to the other door on the other side of the roof.

The hand obviously belonged to a man. Though my first intention was getting off the roof all together, but something in the back of my mind was telling me to go find this guy, try to help him out, or at least give him his hand back. Okay not the last option. That one was more like a joke, but going to find this guy was all my mind was telling me. That little voice may sometimes mean something stupid, but that was what got me this far so I decided to listen to it and find this dude. It's not like it was gonna be hard, I mean he was leaving a trail of where he was, so with an exasperated sigh, I decided to follow the trail of blood.

The trail led to some sort of office type place, like the administrative part of the department store. I looked around the corner to make sure that there wasn't an undead sack of blood ready to pin me down. I looked up and saw nothing but dead bodies. I was about to say this was a dead end, find a book of some sort, and leave, but then I heard something that caught my eye. I walked a little farther and saw a man pinned down by a female walker. I had a feeling that this was the guy that I was looking for, mainly because he was holding her off of him with only one hand but I couldn't help but wonder.

He looked a little to sheltered and protected from the living dead walking around. As if he had a group of some sort. I was about to help him but I kinda wanted to see if he could handle it. He sure as hell looked strong enough to handle it himself but it was like something was holding him back. After watching this for a good five minutes, I decided to intervene and help him, right when the living corpse was about to bite his arm I swung my sword and in one swing I took the dead bastard down.

After he got up he glared at me. But as soon as he did his eyes opened in surprise, like he was expecting someone else, but then that was just as easily with another glare.

"Need a hand?" I asked, but his glare didn't change, if anything I think it got more pissy. I thought back to what I said, saw the blood coming from his other arm, and remembered that he cut his hand off.

"Pun wasn't intended, sorry." I said. After that, with the look of swallowing his pride, he took my hand and I helped him up. After he got to his feet he started to head to the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" I asked with a hint of concern in my voice.

"leavin', I ain't stayin' in here." He said with anger in his voice,"Why do you care?"

"Well you're talking about just walking out of here, into a hoard of walkers waiting outside, so you can see my concern in your train of thought. Not to mention the fact you'd probably black out from blood loss." I said. I was thinking after I said this; it not like all of this is rocket science.

"Like you'd know" he said. Then he turned his back to me about to leave.

"You need to cauterize you arm." I said briefly. Saying that caught his attention. He stopped then turned around to look at me.

"What?" he said with annoyance in his voice.

"Yeah, you need to cauterize it to stop the bleeding. If you don't you'll end up passing out from blood loss." I said.

"How do you know that? You a fuckin' nurse or somthin'?" he asked. Curiosity was in his voice but it didn't replace the annoyance.

"No I'm not a fucking nurse. I've just seen a lot of medical shows and read a lot of books, but that's not the point now." I said, starting to get annoyed with this guy. Here I was trying to help him, and here he is questioning it.

"Come on, I think there's a kitchen somewhere here." I said, and with that I just walked away, hoping that he'd follow me. I'll admit I was surprised that he actually did follow me. I found the kitchen without any trouble and I found a metal spatula and put it on one of the gas burners that I turned on, then we waited.

"I'm Zachariah, by the way." I said. I started to have the feeling that just tossing my name around was dangerous but I thought; hey what the hell?

"I care why?" the guy said, with his eyebrow raised at me.

"I don't know, familiarity? What's your name?" I asked waiting for an answer.

"Merle." He said briefly. I just thought to myself; who would name their kid Merle? But something told me that he was the kinda guy who didn't get laughed at to his face. So I decided to drop the the spatula was all heated up, I gave him an extra belt I found while on the road.

"Bite on this. Don't need you attracting every walker in a fifty mile radius." I stated lightly. Expecting to hear him bitch about that, he did the exact opposite and did what I said. After cauterizing the remaining part of his hand, I got the bandages out from my bag and rapped them around the bloody stump where his hand once was. I was kinda grateful that I actually held onto all those medical stuff from Fort Benning.

"Thanks." Merle said silently, after I finished bandaging his arm.

No problem, it's not like I was ever gonna use these." I said, nodding towards the medical supplies that were put back into my backpack.

"How are we gonna get out of here? That my question." I asked. Not entirely certain where to go exactly.

"You seem to have all the fuckin' answers you figure it out." Merle said condescendingly.

"Well then..." I said. I looked forward and saw a window, and right under it was a fire escape. I walked over to the window and looked at it trying to figure out how to open it. Merle walked over to it when he saw that I was thinking about using the window as an escape.

"How do ya propose we open it-" his sentence was cut short when I used my gun to beak the window open. His eyes opened wide when the sound was louder than I expected, and three walkers where gathering to the bottom of the exit.

"Are you crazy?!" merle yelled after the glass fell to the outside ground.

"Sometimes the less graceful way is the most effective. Let's go." I said and with that I jumped out the window into the fire escape.

I put down the walkers that where gathered at the bottom of the fire escape and not too far behind Merle was right behind me. Then we made out of that particular ally, and away from the department store. I ushered Merle to a ladder that led to another rooftop so I could see where exactly to go. I was about to give him some help up the ladder but he was able to get up it with no problem. I got out my binoculars to see if there was anywhere to get to that wasn't infested with walkers.

"Well this was a genius idea, getting us trapped on another roof! What's your big idea now? Huh girlie?" Merle asked with sarcasm in his voice.

"Merle with all due respect, shut the fuck up! Your condescension isn't getting us anywhere!" I snapped at him.

"Okay, okay. Don't get all overwhelmed over nothin'." He slyly.

"Hey, make fun all you want, but my plans are what's gotten me this far, and for that matter-" I stopped talking for a minute when my gaze rested on the railroad tracks. "Is that a cube van?" I asked, it was mostly just me thinking out loud but I forgot that I had company now.

"Yeah it is, and over there is a tree. Why do ya care?" Merle asked.

"I care because that wasn't there when I came here, so that means we have a ride out of this god forsaken city." I said in an as-a-matter-of-factly tone.

"Well what are we waiting for let's go!" I said while going down the other latter on the other side of the building. He went down right after me and we started running towards the train tracks, but when I saw the number of walkers in front of us I started to see that maybe the two of us wouldn't get out of this unscathed.

"Give me a gun." Merle said. I hesitated for a minute but then I thought what the hell.

"Don't make me regret it." I said as I handed him the handgun that I found in the motorcycle compartment. Then we charged.

there you go, we have introduced Merle into this story! if he's acting a little too OOC tell me because again, first fan fiction ive ever written. reviews and favorites are apreciated and i'll post the next chapter soon. thanks for your time =D