Chapter 27: T-Dog
He had been an ordinary fellow before all of this. Of course he had been. He took old ladies in his neighborhood to church, the same thing he always did every Sunday.
It was when he stopped by old Janice's house to check on her, because she hadn't turned up for her ride, that the apocalypse came to get him.
"You there?" He called out, only to be greeted by silence. Oh great. If she had died in there, that would be awful. He had better go check on her and make sure she's all right.
He opened the door, only to jump back as Janice appeared and lunged at him, snarling. This…This thing wasn't Janice anymore. Half of her jaw was missing, her teeth were rotting and her glasses lay smashed on the ground.
"Janice? Miss Janice, it's me! Hey, stop!"
It seemed to be no good. He couldn't get through to her.
That's when he grabbed the chair leg and struck her with it.
She went down hard. He grabbed the chair leg again and brought it down on her head with a sickening crack.
He screamed in horror at what he'd done. "What the fuck?" He exclaimed.
What had happened? When he went back to his car, he found the other neighbors were out around the car, scratching at the windows and old Miss Helen was in the backseat, screaming.
He fended them away from her and got her into her apartment a few blocks away.
"The end of the world. Satan has come for us." She said.
"Nah, they had to be on drugs." He shrugged.
"You crazy, boy. You're crazy. They ain't human. They just ain't."
He found it hard to disagree with that train of thought after what he'd just seen and dropped her off.
He never needed to complete his job after that again.
None of his passengers or fellow coworkers ever returned to the job again.
His parents were gone. Killed like everyone else to the virus.
It was horrific.
T-Dog tagged along with these survivors, not expecting much, honestly. They didn't seem like they had what it took. The woman kept taking her eyes off her kid, the blond ladies seemed too busy chattering away, one of them wouldn't stop hitting his wife for five seconds, and the cop never stopped making him feel uncomfortable.
Christ, was that man a grump. Couldn't make him smile worth a damn.
Then one day, another cop appeared. This man was the father of the little boy in camp. This was awkward. Surprisingly, he took it rather well. T-Dog would have smacked the shit out of anyone who would have slept with his girlfriend.
Then he lost Jacqui, the closest thing to a girlfriend he had ever had. And it broke him. He became sullen and grouchy. He was grieving.
He kept thinking he'd hear her voice, then around and then she'd be gone. Like she was never there in the first place. Like he'd imagined her very existence.
Nonetheless, he stayed around to stick by the group.
That was why when he led Carol to safety and the walkers closed in on him, the only thing he could think was: I hope they're all okay. All of them. Rick. His wife. The baby. The boy. Glenn. Maggie.
All of their faces flashed through his mind as the end came and he accepted it like a warrior. Death took T-Dog down fighting, and he with it.