A/N: I DO NOT OWN THE WALKING DEAD OR ANY OTHER RECOGNIZABLE ASPECTS OF THIS STORY. ANY RESEMBLANCE OF CHARACTERS, NAMES, TRAITS, PRODUCTS, OR ANY SEPECT IS UNINTENTIONAL. THANK YOU.
I WILL DESCRIBE NEW CHARACTERS AS THEY ARE INCORPORRATED INTO THE STORY.
THOMAS GREY: 5'11'', 265LBS MUSCLY/THICK, BOTH AARMS ADORNED WITH TATTOOS, REDDISH BROWN HAIR/FACIAL HAIR, BLUE EYES, SCAR ON HIS LEFT CHEEK.
LET'S BEGIN.
Chapter 1
Day 21
Charlotte, NC
21 days, three weeks since the dead began to walk, and the world fell to chaos. Almost two weeks since cell phone towers stopped working, and now everyone is more worried about their loved ones than ever before. A young man, mid-twenties, sat atop a Humvee in an army uniform, an M4 rifle by his side.
"Sergeant Grey!" A soldier yelled from across the field of vehicles. "First Sergeant wants us in the briefing tent!"
Grabbing his rifle and whispering "Yee fucking doggy" to himself. Sgt. Grey headed to the tent.
"Now I'm gonna be real, gentleman. We have orders to maintain this base camp and locate survivors. However, in my personal and professional opinion, this is the end of the world."
The silence in the room said more than any words could so 1SG continued.
"That being said, if and when this all goes ass up, leave, find your families, and do your best to live."
"The end of the world, just as my fantasy league was winning." A man jokingly whispered in Sgt. Grey's ear. He couldn't help but smile and chuckle a little.
"Your luck was bound to end, Shorts." He replied.
"Sgt Grey!" 1SG called. "We got news about a group of survivors holed up in a bakery about 5 miles northwest of camp. Take a team and scout it out.
"Roger" Grey nodded.
"All right, roll call!" Sgt Grey called. "Let me know you're here! Spivey! Collins! Andrews! Shorteski! Ramirez! Donaldson! Cortez! Kinlon!"
"Here!" "Yo!" "Ahoy!" "Present Daddy!" "Hola!" "Yeah!" "Hooah!" "Let's go!" They all replied one by one respectively.
"Hop in everyone." Grey ordered as he climbed into the driver seat of a Humvee.
"Ooooooh, I'm a passenger princess" Shorts giggled femininely. "Does this mean you're my boyfriend sarge?"
"If I swung that way, I'd do a lot better than any of y'all." Grey smirked
After showing checkpoint their order, the team was let out of the gate. They rounded a corner and immediately had to plow through a group of groaners.
"Hundred points to Sarge!" Ramirez exclaimed. Grey shook his head; it may seem disrespectful to keep score on killing groaners, after all they were people once, but we had to keep spirits up somehow.
After a pretty uneventful drive for most of the trip, the team found their path blocked by an overturned semi.
"Hoofing it from here, come on."
"But oh no what if the groaners eat us?" Spivey asked dramatically.
"You look like one already they won't touch you." Kinlon retorted.
"Damn, your sister thought I was hot enough though, Kinnyboo." Spivey pushed him playfully.
"Guys, lock it up. Heads on a swivel"
The group began making their way through the abandoned vehicles, using their knives to drop groaners so they weren't drawing too much attention to themselves. After dropping two, Grey turned around to address the squad.
"Ok, around this corner and it should be the bakery at the end of the street."
They all nodded and rounded the corner only to find themselves faced with dozens of groaners.
"Sweet cinnamon toast fuck." Andrews said.
"Retreat quietly and slowly." Grey ordered. But as soon as they stepped back Collins kicked a side view mirror of a car and the glass crunched. Every groaner turned to face them. "Ok then never mind!" Grey exclaimed and they opened fire while still retreating as fast as they safely could. After running out of ammo there were still almost two or three dozen left, they had barely taken out half. Shorts was in the back of the group and turned around just in time for a groaner to bite his cheek.
"FUCK!" He yelled as he pulled out his knife and stabbed it through the eye.
"Oh shit!" Grey exclaimed rushing to him.
"Too late for me sugar bear." Shorts smiled tearfully. "But maybe I can do one more thing for you."
"What?" Grey asked, confused by what he meant but knowing what a bite meant. Shorts pulled a grenade from his FLC. "Bet I'll still look better than all of you afterwards" He made one last joke before taking off directly into the herd. The grenade set off the other three on his chest and blew the rest of the herd, minus a few, to bits.
Quickly composing himself, Grey noted. "We need to hurry."
"Agreed, that blast probably summoned a party platter of groaners." Collins replied.
They dispatched the remaining groaners with ease and quickly made their way to the boarded-up bakery. Paskal's Perfect Pastries the front door read. Tapping on the glass Grey announced their presence.
"U.S. Army! We're here to take you to the camp a few miles away." After a moment of silence the blanket inside the door was pulled down and the boards were pried down. A small Hispanic man in his mid 40s stood before them dirty, disheveled, fear burnt into his eyes.
"¡Ayuda, mi Madre esta herida!" He panicked.
"He says his mom is hurt." Ramirez translated.
"Go check out his mom, Ramirez. The rest of us will gather the rest." Grey ordered. Ramirez nodded and followed the man. Grey took a mental count of everyone in the room. The man and his mother, a young college aged couple, a woman and her son, a man and his dog, a man, a woman and her two kids.
"Ok everyone, at the east end of the street we're gonna make a left and then right on the other side of the flipped over semi is our Humvee. It has a trailer that can fit all twelve of you including the dog. It'll be tight but it's a short drive." Looking around the room once Grey asked, "Ramirez can she walk?"
"With help, yeah, her foot is broken, and she has a bad cut on her leg."
"Ok let's hurry." Grey said.
"Sir, wait." The mother of the two kids piped up. "Please, I need a favor first."
"What's up?" He inquired.
"My h-husband, he was b-b-bitten trying to get us out of the city. He's in th-there." She pointed towards the walk-in cooler.
"Sergeant, what's the point if he's locked in there?" Collins asked.
"Do you really expect us to let this woman leave knowing her husband is an undead monster rotting in a locked room forever?" Spivey asked. "I'll do it sarge"
"I got it." Grey held up his hand. "He's killed plenty of groaners already, but this one felt personal. The rest were just rotting face, this one had a wife, two kids, and judging by the pain in their eyes from losing him, he was a good man.
Approaching the cooler, Grey opened the door and stepped inside. The man had been smart enough to tie himself to the shelves so that if anyone came in here, he couldn't hurt them.
"Aghh rahhhh" He groaned as Grey approached him.
"I'll get them somewhere safe" Grey promised, staring into the eyes of the man who he hoped still had some soul left in him and could, deep in the dark reaches of his mind, hear him. He unsheathed his knife and plunged it into his temple, the man went limp.
Back at camp, the survivors were unloaded and taken to medical to be checked out.
"How they looking?" 1SG asked.
"Old woman is gonna need crutches and some stitches but other than that some water and food and they should be good." Grey reported.
"Good, good, we need to keep this place sa-" 1SG was cut off by the sound of a loud explosion. The entire camp shook as if the world was in a blender."
"Breach! South wall! So many groaners!" Someone screamed over the radio.
Rushing to the south wall Grey slid behind an overturned Humvee.
"What the fuck happened Smith?!" He asked in a hurried tone.
"About twenty of them came into the yellow zone so I opened fire and I accidentally hit a fuel truck. It blew up and the next thing I knew a swarm was pouring in from the surrounding streets!"
"Fall back!" Grey ordered. "Get behind something!"
Once everyone was safely covered, he called in "Strike, south wall, zone three alpha!"
"Copy, three alpha." The radio crackled.
"Stay down!" Grey shouted as the mortars rained down from above. Explosions tore through the air like a football team running through a homecoming banner. Grey briefly thought of his days doing so, a lifetime ago, in another world.
After the dust settled, they raised their heads to see only a few handfuls of groaners left. Grey was about to give the order to resume engagement when he noticed it. Spivey had his ankle pinned under some debris, unable to get clear of the blast zone in time. Collins was seemingly out of ammo, taking out groaners with a rebar while Collins desperately attempted to free himself.
"Engage but be careful!" Grey ordered as he sprinted to assist, gunning down a handful on the way. "I got them, help him!" He ordered Spivey. Defending their position for a few moments while Spivey sifted through debris. Eventually, with a broken leg, Collins was out.
"Got him!" Spivey yelled.
"Stay behind me!" Grey ordered as he loaded his last magazine into the weapon and chambered a round.
The two minutes it took felt like an eternity, chaos surrounded them. Finally, they rested against a Humvee behind the defense line. For a moment there was peace, the shooting stopped. Grey turned around to assess the situation and saw a groaner with an unexploded mortar round buried in his stomach.
"Oh hell, fall ba..!" He began to shout before an explosion ripped the air in two and everything went black.
"Sarge!" Collins yelled at the unconscious body of his leader. "Is he dead?!"
"He's breathing just got knocked out from the blast!" Spivey replied as more groaners, drawn from the noise, began to pour in. "Load him in the truck!"
They lifted Grey off the ground and secured him in the armored vehicle. They then turned around, Spivey picking up a discarded rifle and held position as everyone else fled.
Ears ringing, head pounding, the world clouded in a haze. Grey opened his eyes and saw nothing but the ceiling of the Humvee, illuminated by the flickering fires outside. After taking a moment to gather himself he noticed a sticky dried feeling on his right cheek, running his fingers against it he winced in pain as he touched the deep gash. He opened the door and stumbled out. Oddly enough there wasn't a single soul, alive or dead, in sight.
"Collins! Spivey! Ramirez!" Grey whispered loudly.
Stumbling through the wreckage of the now abandoned camp he heard a shuffle behind him. He turned and saw a familiar face.
'Spivey thank God" He breathed a sigh of relief. Just then the light from a fire lit up his soldier and Grey saw it; his left arm dangling by a sliver of skin, a giant hole in the side of his neck, his eyes glossed over with the desire to do one thing, eat.
A gunshot brought Grey back to Earth, he spun around to see Collins leaning up against a pile of rubble.
"Glad you made it brother." Collins chuckled and began to cough up blood. "I just shot my best friend."
"It wasn't him anymore." Grey noted.
"Then why does it still hurt?"
"You're gonna be okay." Grey tried to shift topic, unable to find the words to soothe his guilt.
"I'm coughing up blood, I've been impaled, and I got bit, I'm done sarge. Just do me a favor?"
"Anything brother." Grey took his hand.
"Kill me, then after you find your family, try to find mine. Sweetville, Georgia. Apner Drive, small grey house, red roof."
"I'll do my best."
"All I can ask." He smiled before his eyes fell shut. Grey looked around for a moment trying to find something. Finally, he spotted a double set of tomahawks that had been blown out of the sporting goods store he now sat on the rubble of. Opening the set, he took the long-pointed end and placed it behind Collins' head before wiping a tear away and plunging it into the back of his skull.
Tearful, Grey sat next to his body for what seemed like only moments. Only when he noticed the sun coming up did he gather himself, secure the tomahawks to his belt with some 550 cord, and grabbed a discarded rifle, a pistol off a body, and any ammo he could fit in his backpack. Then, with one last view of his camp, he climbed into tan Tacoma and pulled away.