Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead.

Lost Hope: The Beginning

Chapter Four

(Atlanta group. Carl's Pov.)

I was sitting on the ground fidgeting with a toy car I had found when I heard my mom.

"Dale, I'm heading out." She told Dale who was standing on top of his R.V. I looked up at her worried. I didn't like it when she went out because I was afraid of losing her too. Then she turned towards me. "Sweetheart, I want you to stay where Dale can see you, okay?"

I gave her a small nod and replied, "Yes, Mom." I turned bad to the toy car and began fidgeting with it more as my mom walked off. There weren't too many kids around. There were only a few people who were close to my age; Sophia and Morales' kids. They were nice, but all I wanted to do was to just go home and forget this ever happened, but I doubt that would happen. I'm not even sure if I will ever get to go back to my old house anymore. I wish this was just a nightmare and that I would just wake up from at any minute and have my whole family back together. I especially wanted my dad back.

"Hey Carl, what are you doing?" I looked up and saw Sophia hovering over me.

"Nothing." I said putting the toy car down. "Just being bored."

"Want to play a game?" Sophia asked me excitedly.

"Um, sure. What game?" I asked standing up.

Sophia stood quietly for a few moments and pretended like she was thinking when suddenly, "Tag, you're it!" She said and took off running away from me.

I laughed and then took off after her.

(Back at the abandoned building. Erin's Pov.)

"Hey, you alive in there?" Glenn continued to talk through the walkie-talkie hoping that the man will reply.

"Hello? Hello?" a frantic voice replied.

Glenn sighed. "There you are. You had me wondering."

"Where are you? Outside? Can you see me right now?" the voice asked.

"Yeah we can see you. You're surrounded by walkers. That's the bad news." Glenn replied.

"There's good news?" I asked Glenn raising my eyebrows. Glenn shrugged.

"There's good news?" The voice asked.

"No." Glenn replied honestly. I should my head in slight amusement.

"Listen, whoever you guys are, I don't mind telling you that I'm a little concerned in here."

"Oh, man, you should see it from over here. You would be having a major freak out." Glenn told him.

"You got any advice for me?" the voice asked.

"Yeah, I would say make a run for it." Glenn told him. I looked at him like he was crazy.

"Seriously?" I asked him.

"What choice does the guy have?" Glenn asked me. I nodded realizing that he was right and he didn't really have any other options.

"Make a run for it? That's all you got?" the voice replied.

"My way is not as dumb as it sounds. We have eyes on the outside here. There is one geek still on the tank, but the rest climbed down to join the feeding frenzy where the horse went down. You with me so far?" Glenn told the guy.

"So far."

Glenn gave the man directions to meet us at the corner of the alley way beside the fire station which was two blocks away from the tank. He also told him to make what he had left for ammo count. Glenn led me down to the alley he was talking about.

"Climb up there." Glenn said pointing to a ladder on the side of the building that led to a ledge as well as the top of the building. "I will bring him up on here and we can just cross the building and go through the alley to get to ours."

"Okay." I said climbing up to the ledge. Soon I heard a few shots being fired. Glenn walked to the edge of the alley way to wait.

Soon the man rounded the corner and Glenn put his hand up in defense stating that he was not dead and they ran towards the ladder. They climbed up to the ledge I was on and stood there trying to catch their breaths. The walkers flooded into the alley way and surrounded the bottom of the ladder.

"Are you the new sheriff that came to ride in and clean up the town?" Glenn asked sarcastically noticing he was a cop.

"Wasn't my intention." The man told him.

"Yeah whatever. Yeehaw." Glenn replied.

"I'm Rick." The man said holding out his hand.

"Glenn." Glenn shook his hand.

"Erin." I said nodding my head to him.

Then I noticed one of the walkers begin attempting to climb up the ladder.

"I think he should get going." I told them.

Glenn looks down. "Oh no. Well, On the bright side, it would be the fall that kills us. I'm a glass half full kind of guy." Glenn told Rick. I shook my head again in slight amusement as Glenn pulled me toward that ladder and pushed me upward following close behind. Rick followed Glenn and we climbed to the top of the building. We crossed the building to get to ours and opened the door to get inside. We climbed to the bottom and went to the alley where there were four walkers.

Glenn pulled out the walkie-talkie. "We're back, but there are more geeks in the alley."

Two people wearing heavy hockey gear came out with baseball bats and they beat the walkers' heads as we ran inside. As soon as we got inside Andrea put a gun to Rick's head.

"Ease up, Andrea." Morales said taking off the hockey gear after he had come back inside. T-Dog was doing the same.

"Put the gun down." Jacqui told her putting her hands on my shoulders. I set my bag down on the ground beside me.

"Ease up? Are you kidding? We are dead because of him." Andrea said with her gun still pointed at his head.

"Andrea, I said back off." Morales said more firmly. She didn't move. "Or pull the trigger and draw more of them here." Andrea put the gun down.

"Where all dead. All of us because of you." Andrea told Rick shaking her head.

"I don't understand." Rick said confused.

"Look, we came into the city to get supplies." Morales said pulling Rick along. "We are trying to survive and in doing that we are supposed to be sneaking in and out not shooting up the streets making noise." I followed close behind them.

"Every geek from miles around heard you popping off rounds." T-Dog told him pointing outside the two sets of doors to the building.

"You just rang their dinner bell." Andrea said.

I looked at the doors and saw that there were now a bunch of walkers banging on the windows trying to get in. We backed away from the doors a bit. I walked back around the corner to get my back-back because I felt safer with it. Then I hear shots being fired again.

"Guys, what the heck is that?" I called out from around the corner.

"Oh no, was that Dixon?" Andrea murmured and they all began to rush upstairs to the roof.

"Come on let's go." Glenn told me urging me up the stairs with them. We got to the roof and sure enough Merle was up on a ledge shooting a rifle.

"Hey Dixon, are you crazy?" Morales shouted at him.

He just laughed and continued shooting. "You got to be more polite to a man with a gun." he said jumping down from the ledge.

"Man, you're wasting ammo we don't even got!" T-Dog said running towards him. "Just chill."

"You think I'm going to take orders from you? I don't think so." Merle said getting closer to T-Dog. They continued arguing. Rick looked at Glenn and Glenn just shook his head and put his hands up.

Then Merle said something and T-Dog threw a punch, but missed and got smacked in the face with the butt of the gun Merle was carrying.

"Hey that's enough." Rick said walking up behind Merle. Merle threw a punch at T-Dog and then punched Rick knocking him down. He set the rifle down, and then continued beating on T-Dog, ignoring the other's protests to stop. Morales tried pulling him off, but only got hit in the gut. Rick was still trying to recover. Merle than pulled out a gun and aimed it at T-Dog's head.

"Oh no no, please." Andrea pleaded with Merle.

Merle looked around for awhile then looked back at T-Dog and spit on his chest.

"Now let's talk about who's in charge." He said standing up still holding the gun. "Democracy time. Let's do a show of hands for all in favor of me in charge."

The others went to T-Dog to try to help him and were not sure about what to do with what Merle was saying. One by one the slowly began to raise their hands, but me, Rick, and T-Dog.

"Why aren't you raising your hand, little girl? Still haven't learned to respect your elders?" Merle said walking towards me. I began to back away from him, slowly.

"Merle, leave her alone, she is just a child." Jacqui told him.

"Shut up, I wasn't talking to you. Now I suggest you raise your hand before I teach you a lesson in respect young lady." Merle threatened.

"That won't be happening." Rick said from behind. Merle turned to face Rick only to get smacked in his face with the rifle. Rick then handcuffed him and hooked him to a thick pipe that ran along the top of the building. "Look here, Merle. There is only dark meat and light meat now; the dead and the living. If we survive this we are together not apart.

"Screw you, man." Merle said quietly. He was humiliated.

"I see you have a habit of missing the point." Rick told him.

"Yeah, well screw you twice." He replied.

"You got to be more polite to a man with a gun." Rick said holding a gun to his head mocking what he said earlier. I smirked.

"You wouldn't. You're a cop." Merle replied.

"Not anymore. Now I'm just a man trying to find his wife and son and if you get in the way…I'm sure you can figure out the rest." Rick said threateningly. He looked through his pockets and pulled out some type of drug. "Got something on your nose there." He said flicking his nose. I giggled quietly.

"Hah, what are you going to do, arrest me?" Merle asked sarcastically. Rick through the drug off the roof. "Hey, what are you doing? That's my stuff! Hey!" he yelled as he struggled against the hand cuffs as Rick and the others walked away.

"Take it easy, elder. We wouldn't want you to strain yourself." I said as I walked passed him to join the others. The others were discussing the condition of the city and how they were going to get out. The next thing I know we were all heading down to the basement to a drainage pipe to see if that would be a safe way out. I zoned out looking down at the tunnel.

"Erin will come down with me." I heard Glenn say. I snapped out of my trance and looked at him. "She's small enough for us to both get out quickly if we needed and also we are both used to getting in and out of situations together due to the last several hours. Jacqui, Morales, if something happens yell down to us and get us back up in a hurry."

"Alright." Jacqui replied.

Glenn grabbed his flashlight and began climbing down the ladder. I followed close behind him. We reached the bottom and jumped onto the wet ground. Glenn shined his flash light down the tunnel as we began to walk deeper inside. Many pipes ran along the outside of the wall. A rat squealed causing both Glenn and I to jump. We shook it off and continued down the tunnel until we reached bars that kept us from going farther.

"Now what?" I asked Glenn.

"Do you think we can cut through it?" Glenn asked me.

"If we had the right tools, sure." I replied. Then we heard groaning noises. Glenn shined his flashlight towards the noise to reveal a walker chewing on a rat. We gasped. The walker heard us and turned towards us. It lunged at us through the bars. I pulled Glenn away from the bars so he wouldn't get grabbed.

"That was close." Glenn said sounding a bit panicked.

"Too close."

"Let's go back up." Glenn told me and we headed our way back through the tunnel. We climbed back up the ladder and ran to where Rick and Andrea were. We then realized that the walkers had broken through the first set of doors to the building.

"That's not good." I mumbled.

"What did you find down there?" Rick asked us.

"It's not a way out." Glenn replied.

"We need to find a way." Andrea said getting worried as we watched the walkers pound on the last barrier that was keeping them out.

"She's right. Those doors aren't going to hold much longer." I told the others. We headed back to the roof to look to see if there was any possible way to get out.

"There's a construction site over there. They always keep the keys in the vehicles. If we can get to it we can drive are way out of here." Rick suggested.

"You will never make it passed the walkers." Morales said looking down at the walkers that infested the streets.

"Glenn got me out of the tank." Rick told them.

"Yeah, but they were distracted with the horse." Glenn replied

"Could we give them a different distraction?" Rick asked. They continued to think of a plan to get passed the walkers and to the construction site. I walked along the top edge of the building looking down at all the walkers. It would be a miracle to be able to get passed them.

"I have an idea. It's crazy but it just might work." I heard Rick say. I glanced up to see the others following him down the stairs.

"Why don't you stay here and keep good o' Merle some company. Maybe you can even be a good girl and help me get out of these cuffs." Merle called out to me.

"I'm sure you would like that." I mumbled to him.

"More than you would know, little lady. Now why don't you make your daddy proud and hand me those tools over there." He told me pointing at a bag of tools nearby sitting up on a ledge.

"Not a chance, old man." I told him.

"Kids these days; no respect for their elders." Merle mumbled under his breath and I began to walk down the stairs to join the others. When I found them they were in a room standing around a dead walker wearing gloves and extra clothing. Rick was holding an axe.

"Stay back, sweetie. You may not want to be in here for this." Jacque warned me.

"What's going on?" I asked them eyeing the dead walker than looking back at them.

"We need to…..smell like them….to get passed them." Glenn told me looking sick.

"How are you….oh." I realized what they were about to do and put my hand over my mouth to avoid being sick. "Your right. I don't want to be here for this." I told Jacqui as I walked out of the room. Soon I heard them hacking the walker to pieces. I cringed and walked to the clothing part of the store.

I realized that I hadn't packed any clothes and I wouldn't be going back to my apartment to get any. I began looking through the clothes in the store. All the clothes in the store were too big because everything was for adults, but I still grabbed some. I would grow into them eventually and it's alright if the clothes were a little big. I put the clothes in my bag and walked back to the others to see Rick and Glenn covered in guts. I gagged and turned the other way.

"Hey, at least you don't have to wear it." Glenn said to me sounding sick himself.

"If we make it back be ready." Rick told us. I look at him and nodded.

"What about Dixon?" T-Dog asked.

Rick tossed him the key to the cuffs. "Give me the axe. We need more guts." Rick told the others and he hacked away at the dead walker.

I turned back around again and gagged a bit more. The others then began to smother more guts on Rick and Glenn.

"Alright let's go." Rick told Glenn and the others watched as the two exited through the back door carrying the axe and a crow bar. Now all we can do is pray that they would make it passed the walkers and come back with a vehicle for usto get away.

A/N: Hey everyone. Thanks for reviewing, following, and favoriting my story. I am glad you enjoy it. :D I have actually finished the whole story and just have yet to upload it all. I'm currently working on the sequel to this story and will probably be uploading it soon too after I finish uploading this one. :D