(I DO NOT own The Walking Dead, Code Lyoko, or any of the names or brands that appear in this story. But I do own all OCs featured here unless stated otherwise.)

The five teens found themselves surrounded by the dead on the overpass. The creatures were ahead of them as well as behind them. They were trapped...

Aelita exclaimed a warning to everyone as soon as she saw some of the creatures begin to stir, but it was already too late. The group didn't see a way out of this...

Five teens versus... they couldn't even begin to guess how many were approaching now.

"Oh no!" Jeremie exclaimed as he unholstered his pistol and cocked it.

"They're all around us!" Yumi raised her rifle, her hands slightly shaking from a sudden rush of adrenaline.

Odd was the first to fire off a shot. He panicked and didn't wait for anyone else to give the word, he just couldn't allow his friends to end up like William and Kiwi...

The shot fired by Odd's revolver hit a creature in its left shoulder, causing it to stumble backward a step or two. But after that it went back upright and continued to stumble toward the group as if nothing had happened. A second shot fired by Odd, this time hitting the creature in its stomach, had just as little of an effect.

The teen was absolutely stunned. How can anything endure two gunshots and keep walking?!

"We've gotta get out of here!" Ulrich exclaimed as he unsheathed his sword, threateningly aiming it towards a 'walking corpse'.

"Any ideas?!" Jeremie exclaimed as he threateningly aimed his pistol at another corpse and fired. The shot hit the creature's left leg, and there was no effect. He silently cursed to himself when he saw this.

One of the creatures stumbled toward Yumi from behind, though she failed to notice. Aelita did though, and after she realized it was too close to Yumi for her to simply shout out a warning to her, Aelita did the only thing she could reasonably do...

Yumi heard a loud bang from her right and then felt something wet splatter across her face. When she turned, she saw one of the creatures had gotten behind her... but that it now had fallen to its knees, and then promptly fell to the asphalt with a fresh gunshot wound in the back of its head.

Yumi was frozen from shock as she stared down at the corpse that had tried to attack her, still having its rotten blood all over her face. She still kept a tight hold on her new rifle with one hand as she shakily used the shirt sleeve of her right arm to wipe the blood off of her face before she gazed up at Aelita, her savior.

The pinkette simply stared down at the creature she had just shot in the head. She looked pale and shocked and sickened to her core about what she had just done, even if it was to save her friend...

... she knew she wasn't, but deep down Aelita simply couldn't help but feel like a murderer now.

Yumi then heard another gunshot on her left, making her flinch in surprise. She turned to see that Jeremie had shot one of the 'walking corpses' right in its heart... but like what originally happened with the corpse that Odd had shot, it was still stumbling like nothing had happened to it.

A heart shot wasn't enough to kill these things... a heart shot...

Jeremie was just as shocked as Yumi was. The others were likewise flabbergasted, and now they were feeling a bit terrified.

The five Lyoko Warriors found themselves being pushed back. They were forced to leave behind their luggage bags as the dead came forth...

"They're on us, guys!" Ulrich stated as he raised his sword up high when one of the creatures approached.

After a moment of reluctance, Ulrich brought the sword down onto the hostile creature. He didn't intend to do this, but he severed the creature's left arm off of its body... the sight horrified Ulrich to the point where he almost vomited.

But even more horrific to the teen was that like the creatures which were shot, this one simply kept coming. It had just lost an arm and it was still trying to get him...

"What the-?!" Ulrich exclaimed as the creature grabbed onto his shirt with its right arm. Ulrich simply chest-kicked the monster away from him.

Then, an epiphany. Ulrich suddenly realized that Aelita had indeed killed one of them just moments ago by shooting it right in the head, saving Yumi's life...

The head... could that be some sort of a weak spot for these 'walking corpses'? Like the symbols on XANA's monsters in Lyoko...?

There was only one way to find out... Ulrich could only hope that this works...

As the corpse he slashed and kicked suddenly came at him again, Ulrich frowned and raised his sword to slash right at the 'walking corpse' again - this time into its head.

Ulrich swung, his new katana cutting the creature's head clean in two. With that, the corpse and the upper half of its head each quickly fell to the ground. The body twitched for a moment or two, and its eyes glanced up to Ulrich in a daze. But the creature soon ceased its movements and fell still and lifeless...

This creature was no longer a threat, causing Ulrich's eyes to widen in realization as he looked back up at his friends.

"Aim for their heads!" Ulrich urged all of his friends, "That's their weak spot! Like the symbols on XANA's monsters in Lyoko!"

Another slash of the katana at another 'walking corpse' head. Again, the creature and the severed top part of its head fell dead onto the asphalt. Another dead corpse...

The others heard Ulrich and saw what he had accomplished. Now they all aimed for the heads of the walking dead that was among them...

Yumi glanced down at the loaded rifle in her hands. After a moment where she was forced to fight the reluctance within her, Yumi finally raised the rifle, flipped the safety switch, and promptly began firing off shots at the creatures one after another. The guilt she felt at shooting these things was less important than staying alive...

As the group fired their guns, the corpses began to drop all around the group, one after another...

One creature down. Then two. Then three and four and five...

Then six, then seven, eight, nine, ten...

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty...

But more coming...

So many more coming...

The group knew that they were supposed to be horrified at what they were doing to these people, whatever they had become now. But they also knew that they had to focus more on staying alive than their own feelings toward self-defense or murder.

As Aelita said... it was them, or the creatures. And the way they each saw it, it might as well be the creatures... though none of them liked being in such a situation to begin with.

Despite killing many of these 'walking corpses', they could see that plenty more were pouring in from each end of the overpass. Realizing what that meant, the teens now had to find a way out before they could be overrun by them from two directions...

If they didn't... they'll all die here.

"Anyone see a way out of here?!" Aelita asked as she reloaded her pistol. Two magazines left.

"No, but keep looking! We can't go forward or back!" Odd shouted back at the pinkette.

Jeremie gasped as he tried to fire off a shot with his new Ruger, only to hear a loud 'click' noise. His pistol had jammed...

A creature approached Jeremie as the supergenius struggled to clear the jam in his pistol. Jeremie couldn't tell if he felt more frustration toward his gun or felt more fear at the approaching 'walking corpse' as the seconds went on... but he didn't have the time to figure it out.

Finally, in utter desperation and out of his frustration at being unable to clear the jam, Jeremie simply raised his pistol and threw it straight at the approaching creature. The pistol hit the creature right in the face, causing it to stumble a few steps over to the side of the bridge and promptly fall over the side-railing.

Jeremie went to the railing and saw as the creature landed on the roof of a car down on the highway below the overpass, crushing the metal and glass. The teen cringed to himself as he saw the creature was still moving...

As the creature meekly thrashed on the crushed car roof, Jeremie noticed something off in the distance approaching them. A car it looked like...

His eyes widened as he saw police lights on the top of the car turn on, followed by its loud emergency siren.

Help had arrived...

"Jeremie, what's going on?!" Ulrich asked from nearby, having heard the siren. He was too busy slashing and slicing the creatures to go check it out.

"A police car!" Jeremie announced to the others as the car approached.

After shooting another of the creatures in the head, Aelita hurried over to Jeremie's side in time to see the police car stop on the highway underneath just a short distance away from the overpass. A man in a cowboy-style sheriff's hat and matching unifrom came out, armed with a scoped rifle...

Aelita and Jeremie watched the officer move to the front of the police car and take aim. For a split second they thought he was aiming toward them, but when the officer fired a shot and the head of a 'walking corpse' near Yumi suddenly exploded, the teens got the message.

He was a friend.

"Get down here!" the officer urged the teens before loading in another shot, taking aim, and firing once again. The others had heard the exchange and they knew that someone was now around to help, but they were too busy fighting off the walking corpses to focus on that.

As the man fired, the head of a creature near Ulrich now exploded - much to the teen's matching disgust, horror, and relief.

Aelita and Jeremie didn't waste time. They knew they would all need to go over the side to get off of this overpass, but how...?

A lucky break caught their eyes. Nearby they could see a burnt-out firetruck, but they saw that there was a detachable metal ladder on it which survived the blaze.

It seemed to be their only way out of this mess...

"Cover me!" Aelita yelled to the others before she suddenly began to sprint towards the firetruck in order to get the ladder.

"Aelita, wait!" Jeremie urged, but it was too late - Aelita had already bolted for the firetruck. With a curse under his breath, Jeremie hurried after her to help get the ladder.

Yumi raised her rifle and fired off shots toward any 'walking corpses' which dared get too close to Jeremie and Aelita. Her effort was soon joined by Odd and Ulrich.

As the three focused on trying to keep the 'walking corpses' away from Jeremie and Aelita, the officer under the overpass was still firing off shots from his rifle at any of the creatures he could find on his scope. He watched the scene with worry, as he had absolutely no idea if these teens were going to survive this or not...

The officer soon was forced to lower his rifle when he saw a few of the creatures down below with him. They stumbled and crawled out of an overturned bus...

Without hesitation, the officer pulled his trusty Colt Python revolver out of his holster and fired at the heads of those walking corpses, taking them all down before they could get anywhere close to him. Those kids up there had to hurry...

Up above, Jeremie and Aelita reached the firetruck and worked on undoing the latches which held the ladder in place. They hurried as quickly as they could...

The couple got it off in moments, but one of the creatures managed to get close and grab onto Aelita by her hair, causing her to let out a scream of pain as it yanked her head backward. As it did that, the creature also leaned in to bite her neck.

"NO!!!" Jeremie growled, releasing his hands from the ladder and rushing to save his girlfriend from being eaten alive-

A fresh gunshot rang out from Yumi's rifle and the creature holding onto Aelita's hair suddenly went limp. Aelita could only let out a shuddery breath as she felt the creature's hand release her hair while it fell over dead.

That was far too close... that was far too close...

Aelita would've been cannibal food if Yumi was a second too late...

Aelita glanced at Jeremie and saw him staring at her in worry and shock. She simply nodded at him to show that she was okay... even if tears were welling in her eyes at the moment. A near-death experience like that was more than enough to rattle her...

Together, Jeremie and Aelita quickly returned to taking the ladder off of the fire truck. It took them only a moment...

Down below, the officer fired off another shot of his revolver at another creature which tried to get up and attack him. Then he did the same to another.

"Damn it, they need to hurry up..." the officer murmured to himself, growing about as annoyed as he was worried about those kids up there.

The officer could hear all the gunfire up above him rage on. Just as he was about to try and find a way up to help them, he caught sight of a ladder being shimmied over the side of the overpass railing. A moment later it was extended, and he saw two of the kids lower it down.

The ladder was more than long enough to reach the highway the man was standing on. The two who lowered it left it propped against the railing on the overpass.

"Guys, come on!" the officer saw a girl - one with pink hair of all things - urge her friends to come to the ladder.

From below, the man lifted his revolver and fired at some of the creatures which he saw were close to the overpass railing. It wasn't much but it was all he could do for those kids from down below.

"Ulrich, Odd, Yumi!" the man heard the pink-haired girl yell, "You guys go down first!"

Another girl's voice was heard to protest. "But Aelita, you and Jeremi-"

"Yumi, GO!" the man heard the pink-haired girl bark, "We'll go down once you guys are clear!"

More gunshots rang out from the overpass above the man. Soon though, he could see people make it to the ladder and begin to climb down.

The first to come down the ladder was some kid with a samurai sword of all things. Then some other kid with wea pretty odd hairstyle. Then he saw an Asian girl armed with a rifle - Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi, if he got the order of their names remembered right. That 'Odd' kid's name was very appropriate given his hair.

As the teens all climbed down, the man hurried to help them when they were close enough to the road. He saw that the teens were exhausted and dirty after God knows how many days out there all alone...

"What about your friends?" the officer demanded. "How many are still up there?!"

"Two!" that kid with the samurai sword, 'Ulrich', told him.

The officer cursed before hurrying up to the ladder, but as luck would have it, he didn't need to climb up to the rescue.

The pink-haired girl and the glasses-wearing kid finally climbed over the railing and onto the ladder. The officer and the other kids down below provided them both some cover fire as they began to climb their way down.

When the two were about halfway down, one of the creatures up on the overpass pushed itself against the ladder, causing it to suddenly swing backward. Both the girl and the boy loudly exclaimed as they were suddenly taken by gravity.

The ladder fell to the ground with a loud 'clang!' sound. The glasses-wearing boy and pink-haired girl would've fallen too had the officer and the Asian girl, 'Yumi', ran forward to catch them. Instead of landing painfully on the asphalt, the boy in the glasses landed in 'Yumi's' arms and the pinkette landed in the officer's. Both were bewildered.

"You're welcome, Jeremie..." Yumi grinned at the boy in the glasses, 'Jeremie.'

"Good catch... both of you..." the pink-haired girl praised.

The officer, Yumi, and the other two boys all felt relief at this. The two soon set down Jeremie and the pinkette so they could stand on their feet.

Everyone took a brief moment to look back up to the overpass. They could see dozens - maybe hundreds - of the creatures were pressing against the railing and reaching down toward them all. They had lost their opportunity to feast...

"Those creatures never stop, do they...?" Yumi murmured to the others.

"'Walkers'..." the officer corrected her, "they're called 'walkers'..."

"'Walkers'..." the pinkette repeated the word as she glanced back up at the creatures - the 'walkers' - still up on the overpass.

The pink-haired girl murmured the name to herself for a second time, albeit a little quieter. The other teens also murmured or thought of the name, and they noticed that somehow the term seemed to fit those awful undead things pretty well...

Alright then... 'Walkers' it is. It rolled off the tongue better than 'creatures' or 'walking corpses' at least.

Now that the teens were all safe from the horde of walkers, they all stood down for the moment. They all turned their attention back to the police officer, who they saw was now walking back to his car to put his sniper rifle back in the trunk where it belonged.

After he did so, the officer closed the trunk and went to lean against the hood of his car to face the teens.

"You kids are okay...?" the officer asked just so he could be certain, "no bites? No scratches? Nothing like that...?"

"Nothing like that at all..." Ulrich told him with a nod.

The officer nodded at that. He felt relieved. The kids were tougher than he first thought...

"What're your names?" the officer wondered.

"Aelita." the pinkette, 'Aelita', introduced herself. The officer thought it was an interesting name.

Aelita continued on, gesturing toward the other teens standing with them. "The others are my boyfriend Jeremie, and our friends Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi." she informed the man, gesturing toward each teen as she listed off their names.

Ulrich, Odd, Yumi, and Jeremie all simply smiled at the officer. He smiled back at them and gave a polite nod.

Jeremie stepped forward. "Thank you so much for saving our-"

*CRUNCH!*

*SNARL!*

The group turned in alarm to find that one of the walkers from up above... was now laying on its back and snarling on the ground near them?

Suddenly, a second walker fell to the earth, almost crushing Odd under itself. Then a third walker landed close to Yumi. A fourth landed on top of a car, crushing its rooftop.

The overpass railing was breaking under the weight of the dead!

"In the car!" the officer ordered the teens as he unholstered his revolver. Already more walkers were coming down. "NOW!"

The teens hurried toward the police car, doing exactly as the officer demanded. As they did, more and more walkers fell from the overpass, and some were already getting back up on their feet... well, the ones whose spines weren't crushed when they landed.

The officer fired a couple of shots, taking down a couple of walkers. But he could already tell this wasn't a fight he'd win if he stuck around...

As the five Lyoko Warriors climbed into the car, the officer holstered his revolver and hurried for the driver's seat.

A few of the walkers stumbled toward the police car and got close enough to bang against the windows, frightening the teens. But the officer turned the key in the ignition, and soon he was speeding the car down the highway like a bat out of hell right after the railing fully gave way. They made it out alive...

As dozens of walkers fell onto the highway behind them, the five Lyoko Warriors as well as the officer all breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, they had a lucky break...

"God..." Yumi breathed, her hands trembling as she set her rifle on her lap.

"I thought we weren't going to make it out of there..." Odd panted, wide-eyed in disbelief.

"We lost all our luggage..." Ulrich sighed with annoyance. Apart from what was inside a couple of backpacks they had been wearing, their luggage bags with all their clothes and personal effects inside them were gone.

"Better our clothes and whatever else we had in there be lost instead of our lives, Ulrich..." Aelita retorted. That seemed to bring a bit of sense back into her friend, who only nodded. Anything was better than being eaten to death.

The officer focused on the road as he drove, but he listened to the teens as they spoke to each other. He was glad to have the company with him. He'd been alone ever since he left King County several hours ago...

Yumi, who was in the passenger seat of the car, turned to look at the officer as he drove.

"Y'know," Yumi blinked as she realized something, "we never got your name..."

The officer smiled at the question. Guess in the excitement back there, the thought of giving the kids his name just slipped his mind...

As he continued to drive the officer glanced for a moment at Yumi, then up into the rear-view mirror to look at the other kids in the backseat.

"... Grimes." the man introduced himself after a moment, "... Rick Grimes ..."

Some weeks and days prior...

"All available units, high-speed pursuit in progress - Linden County units request local assistance."

Two police cars of the King County Sheriff's Department sped along a rural road somewhere a few hours south of Atlanta. Time was of the essence...

"Highway 18 eastbound. GTA, ADW, 2-17, 2-4-3. Advise extreme caution."

One of the police cars stops on the road. The other continues on a few hundred feet before the driver slammed on the brakes.

The driver and passenger - both sheriff's deputies - hurry out of the car and grab a spike strip from the trunk. Together they deploy it a little bit ahead of the car.

"Suspects are two male Caucasians. Be advised they have fired upon police officers. One Linden County officer is wounded."

The two officers hurry back into their car after the strip is deployed. After this, the driver reverses the car into position next to the other.

The two police cars were now stopped bumper-to-bumper, forming a solid roadblock against any car that dared approach it.

"Unit 1, Unit 3, to eastbound Route 18, two miles west of Interstate 85. Will patch in Linden County Sheriff radio."

"Roger that. We're five minutes south of the Route 18 intersection."

The two deputies exited their car again once it was positioned. One grabbed his shotgun from the trunk. The other unholstered his revolver... a Colt Python.

Deputy Rick Grimes and Deputy Shane Walsh, Rick's partner and best friend - brother, even - readied themselves alongside their two fellow deputies for what comes next.

There was a high-speed pursuit going on from somewhere in neighboring Linden County. Two suspects committed a liquor store robbery in which a responding Linden County P.D. officer was shot, and in which the suspects managed to get to their car and escape from the area. Following a search, police found the suspects' vehicle still on the road and they have been chasing it for the last few hours.

The suspect vehicle entered King County about thirty minutes ago with the Linden County P.D. still hot on its trail. All PIT maneuvers made by the Linden cops had failed and were only becoming a risk to civilian drivers at this point.

The King County P.D. was moving in to assist. With this roadblock and spike strip emplacement, it was hoped the car chase would come to an end here on this road.

Rick, Shane, and the other two deputies went into position behind their makeshift roadblock. All had their weapons out and at the ready. Shane also removed his trademark baseball cap with the badge of the King County P.D. on the front and set the thing on the roof of his and Rick's car since he didn't want any distractions.

"Dispatch," one of the other King County deputies - a man named Lambert Kendall - began to address the Linden County Dispatcher through his car's police radio, "Unit 1 and Unit 3, we are 10-97 and code 100, Highway 18, E.B. of interstate. Please advise."

As Kendall and the Linden County Dispatcher spoke to one another, Rick and Shane double-checked their weapons. Best to be safe instead of sorry. They knew that the criminals heading toward them were armed...

"Understood." Kendall said to the Dispatcher before turning to his fellow deputies. "Sounds like they chasing those idiots up and down every back road we've got!"

The other deputy, a younger man named Leon Bassett, could only grin at the news.

"Maybe we'll get on one of them video shows, you know?" Bassett suggested, "Like 'World's craziest police chases'! What do you think?"

Rick turned to frown at his fellow deputy. Unfocused and incompetent, just like always...

"What I think, Leon, is you need to stay focused and make sure you've got a round in the chamber and your safety off." Rick chastised the man. He needed to focus on what was happening here. His life and the lives of his fellow deputies depended on it.

Now fully chastened, Bassett glanced down at his pistol and cocked it, loading a round into the chamber.

The four deputies now began to wait for the oncoming suspects and their Linden County P.D. pursuers...

"... would be kinda cool gettin' on one of them shows." Shane murmured, breaking the silence for just a moment.

Rick blinked at the statement, then he could only shake his head at hearing that. Leon and Shane, two idiotic peas in a pod...

A moment later, the four deputies finally picked up the sounds of distant police sirens heading their way. The Linden County P.D. cars, more than likely.

Soon, the four deputies caught sight of them. Four Linden County P.D. cars were right on the tail of a sliver muscle car - a 1970s Pontiac GTO if Rick and Shane knew their cars right, which they usually did. The suspects had good taste in cars. Though the stupid stickers reading "The Judge" on the back bumper and the side panels in front of each door were tacky.

The four King County deputies watched the suspect vehicle approach the spike strip and hit it dead-on. All four tires were blown.

The suspect vehicle swerved before going airborne, quickly beginning to roll over and over again until it came to a rest upside-down in a field next to the road. The vehicle's engine sputtered a little before it finally died...

Shane looked on in genuine awe. "Holy shit..." he murmured. Wasn't every day as a small-town cop that he saw a car wreck, least of all one this bad.

Together, some of the the King County officers - one being Rick - and some of the Linden County officers cautiously approached the overturned suspect vehicle. The other officers all stayed by their cars with their weapons at the ready to provide them support. No one was sure if the suspects survived...

The officers got their answer a second later. The passenger door of the suspect vehicle opened and a man climbed out... a man armed with a pistol.

"GUN, GUN, GUN!" one of the Linden County officers warned his colleagues.

"Put it down!" Rick ordered as he aimed his revolver at the suspect. "Put the gun down!" he barked.

The warnings meant nothing. Rather than listen and do the wise thing, the suspect instantly began to open fire on the cops.

All of the King County and Linden County officers returned fire. Several dozen rounds were fired by the police, but seemingly none of them hit the suspect.

One of the bullets fired by the suspect impacted Rick's chest on the lower right, causing him to exclaim and fall to the ground below.

The deputies continued to fire - Shane especially, as he was driven to anger over seeing his best friend get shot. After another few moments, the suspect who shot Rick finally fell with several gunshot wounds to his chest, stomach, and head.

It was only then that the driver's side door opened and revealed the other suspect, who was armed with a shotgun. The firefight resumed.

As Rick rolled on the ground and gasped for breath, this second suspect was taken down with a shot to the heart. He lasted nowhere near as long as his buddy did...

Once this second gunman was down, Shane hurried out from behind his and Rick's car to check on his partner.

"RICK!" Shane exclaimed as he rushed toward his fallen friend. He damn near dropped his shotgun as he moved.

"I'm all right!" Rick assured with a very wheezy voice. He was clearly in pain... but at least he wasn't dead. Focusing on that might ease the pain in his ribs.

Reloading his revolver as he struggled his way back up to his feet, Rick took a moment to collect himself and catch his breath. Shane let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding the whole time since Rick went down.

"I saw you get tagged, man... that scared the hell out of me." Shane told his buddy. The relief in his voice was hard to miss.

"Me too..." Rick said, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

... he just got shot.

... he actually just got fucking shot!

... nine years as a sheriff's deputy and he never got as much as a bump or a bruise or even a papercut while working... and his first injury on the job is getting shot?!

"That son of a bitch shot me!" Rick exclaimed as if he couldn't believe it. "Can you believe that?!"

Shane blinked and glanced down at his friend's chest. "What? It catch you in your vest?"

"Yeah..."

Rick began to undo his shirt so he could see the damage the bullet did to his uniform and the bulletproof vest underneath. As he did, he could see the exact spot where the bullet had flattened itself against the Kevlar. Christ, he got lucky just now...

As he and Shane looked on in disbelief, they didn't notice a sudden movement at the suspect vehicle. Neither did any of the other officers...

"Shane, you do not tell Lori that happened – ever." Rick warned his buddy. If his wife ever learned of this, she'll kill him.

Rick turned, pointing at Shane's face to emphasize his words and how genuinely serious he was about this.

"You understan-?"

Suddenly, a loud bang was heard. Shane could only watch in horror as an unprotected part of his best friend's back instantly exploded in blood and muscle.

As Rick exclaimed in pain and then fell to the ground with a fresh bullet wound in his upper back, Shane saw there was an unreported third suspect by the car. He didn't waste any time in raising his shotgun and shooting the bastard in his chest. He killed the suspect so quickly that the other officers didn't have time to get their guns out again...

Shane dropped his shotgun onto the road and fell beside Rick, ripping open his friend's shirt to examine his wound. It was clearly very serious...

"No, no, no, no, no, no!!!" Shane murmured as he tended to his fallen friend.

Putting pressure on a half-conscious Rick's bleeding wound, Shane turned to the other officers.

"HE'S HIT!" Shane yelled to the others. "Leon! You get that ambulance down here! You tell them there's an officer down - you do it now!"

Bassett nodded at Shane's order and hurried to his car's radio. Meanwhile, Shane continued to try and keep Rick alive long enough for the paramedics to get here...

Several King County and Linden County officers moved in to the suspect vehicle to make certain there was no more surprises. A couple hurried to help Shane with Rick.

Rick glanced around at his surroundings, noticing how everything started to feel... brighter. Louder. He didn't even feel the pain in his chest anymore...

"Dispatch, we have an officer down!" he could faintly hear a distant Bassett call into his radio. "Request paramedics, please respond! Repeat - officer down!"

"Shh, I'm here..." he also heard Shane's worried voice. "Hey, you look at me! You stay with me, you hear me? Stay with me, Rick!"

The voices began to grow more and more distant. The surroundings began to grow brighter...

... Rick suddenly felt tired. Very tired.

A weak effort was made to keep his eyes open... but he couldn't.

Moments later, Rick allowed himself to close his eyes... He could hear Shane and the other attending officers urging him not to, but he just couldn't fight on...

He needed to rest his eyes... rest them, just for a moment...

After that...

After that...

...

...

...

...

... Lori ...

...

...

...

... Carl ...

...

...

...

... I'm so sorry ...

Rick wasn't sure what happened next, but one thing was clear to him.

He didn't die.

Or, rather... he was pretty sure he didn't die. If he was dead then he figured that he'd know with absolute certainty. At least that's what Rick always assumed would happen when you die...

Who knew how much time had passed. In one moment he was laying on the road and bleeding to death... and now... well, he wasn't sure where he was now...

Rick could hear some strange beeping sounds every now and then. He also heard the endless tick-tock of a clock on a wall... and he felt he was lying on something comfortable...

Oh, look - Shane was still there, just as he always was. But Rick noticed that he looked sad. Or maybe he looked... regretful?

... oh, right. He got shot. Shane killed the guy who shot him. Somehow Rick almost forgot about all of that...

"Hey bud... we're still here, we're still hanging in." he could hear Shane speak, though just barely audible. His voice was pretty distorted to Rick's ears too.

After a moment, he heard Shane sigh to himself. "... I'm sorry, man. I know I say the same crap every time I come in here ..."

It was only then that Rick could see something in Shane's hands. Looked like... flowers? Fresh ones too - not the fake plastic crap.

"Everybody pitched in on these..." Shane explained as he glanced down at the flowers. "They uh, they wanted me to bring 'em down... They send their love, and they just – They hope you come back real soon..."

Pretty flowers... nice vase too... Lori would like them...

... then again, she was never really big on flowers... so probably not.

Shane then let out a chuckle as he showed the flowers to Rick... who was conscious? Unconscious? Somewhere in-between? Rick himself couldn't tell...

"Linda and Diane from dispatch, they picked these out. Probably could tell, huh...?" Shane chuckled at the very fugly flowers. Those girls always have bad taste in flowers...

After a moment of awkward silence, Shane glanced down to Rick again, then glanced somewhere where Rick couldn't see.

"I'm just gonna set these on your side table, okay...?"

...

...

...

"That vase, that's something special..."

Rick stared up at the ceiling above his bed as he spoke to his friend. God damn, his throat felt so dry all of a sudden. "Fess up;" he then said with a tired grin, "you steal it from your Grandma Jean's house? I hope you left her that spoon collection..."

The recovering officer couldn't help but chuckle to himself at such a joke, even if it hurt his ribs and his back. His laughs quickly turned into pained coughs.

When Shane didn't answer him, Rick turned his head and noticed that his friend wasn't in the room anymore. That's when he also saw that he was connected to a heart monitor, along with an I.V. drip and some other medical equipment which he couldn't tell the function of.

Ah, right... of course he'd be in a hospital.

Well, he didn't like it much, but it was far better than a morgue and a grave...

"Shane? You in the john?" Rick asked as he glanced over to his hospital room's bathroom.

No answer...

Rick blinked as he noticed that although the bathroom door was slightly ajar, the light inside was turned off. Where the hell was Shane...?

Turning his head in the other direction, Rick caught sight of the flowers Shane had brought for him.

Slowly, his eyes widened as he saw that the flowers were all dead now. What had once been fresh, beautiful white flowers only moments ago were now just dead stems and dried-out wilted petals. It looked like the plant hadn't been watered for many days... or even many weeks...

The clock on the wall was also stopped. And it was only now that Rick finally noticed that there was no sounds aside from the ones he himself was making...

No voices in the hallway... no tick-tocks from the clock... not even the sounds of birds or car horns out his window...

... where the hell was everyone?

Distressed by all of this, Rick shook off the sensor attached to his finger, then pulled the cables of his heart monitor off.

Rick then tried to sit upright and he noticed his torso and midsection is covered in bandages. Right. Shot. How the fuck does that keep slipping his mind?

It was now that Rick tried to stand with the aid of the I.V. pole... only to have his legs immediately give out under him.

"Nurse, help!" Rick exclaimed in a raspy breath. No one answered, and no one came for him. "Nurse... help!..."

It was only now that Rick truly realized that for some reason, he might actually be on his own. Though he felt weak and disoriented, Rick managed to find the strength to force himself back up onto his feet. He then made his way to the bathroom, being very careful not to lose his footing on his weak legs...

Rick opened the door to the bathroom as he took the remaining sensors on his chest off. They ripped a bit of his chest hair off but he ignored the pain...

As Rick turned toward the sink, he finally came across the sight of himself in the mirror. To his own astonishment, he now sported a beard... a light one, but one which told him that he had been out for several weeks at the very least...

Weeks unconscious in a hospital... and when he wakes up, there's no one around?

The deputy pushed those thoughts aside for the moment as he turned the faucet on. As soon as the water poured out, Rick lowered his head and desperately drank as much of the precious liquid as he could. He felt like he hadn't drank in days...

... maybe he actually hadn't.

After getting his fill of water from the sink, Rick went to leave his hospital room. As he opened the door, he was surprised to find that someone had left a hospital gurney in front of it...

Rick was baffled by this as it seemed like it was put there to block his exit on purpose... or maybe to prevent someone from coming inside?

Whatever the case, a still-dazed Rick pushed away the gurney and took a look at his surroundings. He felt utter confusion as he saw that everything around him was wrong.

Flickering lights. Papers scattered everywhere. No signs of human life whatsoever...

Confused, disoriented, and now a bit fearful, Rick stumbled down the hospital corridor in nothing but his bare feet and his hospital gown.

He soon saw a nurse's station darkened by the lack of light. Rick went to it since he saw there was a phone, but when he picked up the handset and prepared to dial his home phone number, he realized he didn't hear a dial tone.

No one was around. The hospital was a wreck. And the phone lines were down too...?

Whatever Rick woke up to... it was clearly not good.

Rick hung up the useless phone and started to fumble around in near-darkness at the desk behind the counter. After a moment he found a book of matches - a lucky break.

After lighting one of the matches, Rick glanced around the desk for a moment in an effort to find anything else which could be useful to him. When he found nothing else, he put out the match and tossed its burnt nub away to who-knew-where.

In the corner of his eye, Rick caught sight of a flickering light around the corner of the hall. Rick decided to approach, though he did so with caution...

As he walked and turned the corner, Rick saw the light was shining - flickering aside - through the glass windows of a pair of doors. The buzzing sounds from the lights only grew louder as he approached the doors and looked through. What he saw... what he saw was nothing like he'd ever seen before...

To his silent horror, Rick caught sight of a woman's corpse laying in the middle of the next hallway...

Even as a cop, Rick never truly came across death. At least not until the day he was shot, when he helped kill the two suspects which fired on him and his fellow deputies. He simply never got the call most officers dreaded. He never responded to a murder, he never responded to a suicide, and he never responded to a person's sudden death.

Death was something Rick Grimes had dealt with before in his life... but not like this...

The woman's face and head were intact. But her body looked like it had been torn apart and ripped open by God only knew what... Rick saw much of her flesh was missing. She had lost so much of her flesh that most of her torso was now just exposed bone and organs...

Rick's eyes widened as he stumbled back away from the doors. He felt terrified...

"Get out of this place..." Rick thought to himself, "get the hell out of here before you end up like that lady..."

With his weak legs keeping him upright, Rick hurried as quick as he could in the opposite direction of the corpse. He went further down the hall, noticing blood and bullet holes on parts of the hallway walls. Pools of blood and spent shell casings littered the floor under his feet...

At the end of the hall was the doors to the cafeteria, which Rick did not dare enter. The doors were padlocked shut from the outside, and a board of wood was shoved through the handles for extra protection.

On the doors read the hastily-painted words:

"DON'T DEAD
OPEN, INSIDE

Rick, naturally, was alarmed by the message. "Don't open, dead inside...?" he thought to himself.

Before Rick could even properly react to such a thing, the doors began to bang from the force of whatever was behind them, causing Rick's breath to shudder from confusion and a newfound fear.

The doors then slightly cracked ajar, but the padlock kept them from actually opening. He could hear the sounds of groans and sighs and shattering glass somewhere from the other side...

As pairs of fingers reached out through the crack, Rick realized they were trying to get to him... whatever was in there wanted him...

A frightened Rick turned and hurried for an elevator a short distance away, but when he pressed the call button there was no response. He didn't want to be in this hall for even another moment, so he hurried into the fire escape door he saw next to the elevator doors. He didn't care that when he opened the door and went through that the stairwell was in pitch blackness - anywhere was better than being by those doors...

Rick retched at whatever stench filled the stairwell. He lit another match to give him at least some idea of where to put his feet as he walked down the stairs. The match soon burnt all the way down to his fingertips, making him exclaim and curse under his breath before he lit another. He repeated this process a second time.

With the light of his third match, Rick finally found the fire exit door to ground level. He opened it, instantly being subjected to blinding daylight. His eyes must've needed some time to get used to the sunlight again...

The deputy cringed and protected his eyes with an arm as he made his way down a loading dock. When he reached the end of it, his eyes could only widen even in spite of the burning pain they felt from the light...

The entire loading dock was filled with the lined-up shroud-covered corpses of people. Trailer trucks were also full of corpses. There must've been hundreds! Rick could also hear an endless loud buzzing noise all around him. This was caused by the literally millions of flies all around, all feasting on the dead...

Many of the dead had blood staining through the cloth where their heads were, leading Rick to assume they must've been executed. The theory filled him with dread. He had expected things were bad given what he had seen inside the hospital... but if something like this was happening...

Rick couldn't understand how this was possible. All he knew was that his wife Lori and Carl, their son, were somewhere out there...

God, he had to find his family...

Dazed and even more confused by what he had found himself in, Rick climbed up a grassy knoll nearby to find an abandoned army camp in the hospital's parking lot. He made out abandoned Humvees, a few abandoned helicopters, abandoned tents, abandoned supplies... it was the sight of a rout.

Whatever was going on, it was clear that even the military couldn't stop it...

The front of the hospital showed signs of fire damage. There was also some more shroud-covered bodies laying here and there...

Rick simply turned and hurried in the direction of home as quick as he could in spite of his condition...

It wasn't just the hospital... it was the entire town...

Everything was wrong. Stores were trashed and looted and abandoned. Houses too. Cars were abandoned on the streets. No signs of anyone alive anywhere...

Rick struggled to comprehend what he saw at the hospital. Now he had to contend with the fact that whatever this was, it seemed to be affecting the entire region at the very least. Could even be affecting the entire country... or, God help him - the world.

As Rick walked down the sidewalk of one of the neighborhoods some blocks away from his house, he caught sight of a corpse ravaged just as badly as the one he had seen in the hospital. This one had its back facing toward him, but he could see the entire lower section of its body was gone. Where the corpse's stomach and everything else on down should've been was just some intestines hanging out onto the grass...

The sight of the corpse nearly made Rick lose his lunch. Near the corpse, however, was an old bicycle. The thing looked to be in good shape, and like the corpse it was just resting on the grass in a neighborhood park which the sidewalk bordered.

Rick didn't approve of taking someone else's property without consent... but dammit, he needed to get home as quick as he could...

So, Rick walked onto the grass to take the bike. As he raised it, however... the corpse suddenly turned onto its side and reached out toward him...

... that thing was still alive?!

Shocked, Rick dropped the bike and fell onto his back, horror overtaking him.

"Ah!" Rick exclaimed as he fell, "oh shit!"

The corpse... the somehow-living corpse... snarled and hissed at Rick, desperately reaching its arm out toward him... for what reason it did so, Rick didn't know...

... what the fuck was going on?!

Rick didn't dare stay and risk the corpse getting anywhere within arm's reach of him. He hurriedly got back to his feet, raised the bike back up, then climbed on and rode away as quick as he could. The corpse continued growling and reaching for him even as he rode down the street.

Briefly, Rick couldn't stop himself from looking back at the corpse.

... as horrified as he felt, he still felt so sorry for her ...

Home... he was finally home... but it was not what he hoped for...

Rick ditched his bike and hurriedly stumbled up the front steps of his porch - climbing at one point when his legs felt weak - then pushed open the front door. The reawakened deputy hurried inside, distraught and worried for his wife and son...

"Lori?!... Lori?!" Rick called in desperation for his wife, then for his son. "Carl?!... Carl?!"

No answer... no goddamned answer...

Rick searched the house room by room for his wife and son. In his and Lori's bedroom he found a suitcase which was only half packed, and with clothes strewn all over their bed. Lori and Carl must've left the house in a hurry...

The master bathroom. Carl's room. The kitchen. No one.

"LORI?!" Rick screamed as tears fell down the sides of his face. "CARL?!"

The living room. The guest room. The garage. No one at all.

The whole house was empty... They weren't here... Lori and Carl were gone...

When he finally realized this, Rick fell to his knees in the living room and broke down into anguished sobs. He fell to his side as he choked out the names of his wife and son. He had nothing else to do now but give in to his worry and grief for them...

Rick sobbed until there was no tears left within him. After a while, he started to think about something...

"Is this real...?" Rick murmured as he stared down to his hand, then tapped the wood floor underneath. "Am I here...?" he had to wonder aloud.

This was just some awful dream. It just had to be... There was no way he could be awake right now...

He was still in his coma, still in the hospital, still in his bed. That had to be the case...

This couldn't be happening...

This just couldn't be happening...

God, please, please just let him wake up in the hospital again!

Rick looked at his surroundings once more. It all felt real at least... The officer then slapped himself in the cheek a few times, then a couple more times in his forehead. He wanted to wake up in the hospital... he wanted to see Lori and Carl there at his bedside...

"Wake- Wake up!" Rick told himself... but it was no use. As desperately as he wished otherwise, he was awake, and this was all truly happening. He knew it...

Somehow the world collapsed while he was in his coma... and his wife and son could very well be dead right now...

Eventually, and wordlessly, Rick made himself get up off the floor and he stumbled out the front door. He went to sit on the steps of his front porch so he could think on what he was going to do next...

Lori and Carl had to be alive somewhere out there. He chose to ignore the possibility - the likelihood - of the opposite..

Somehow Rick had to find them... but he had absolutely no idea where to look first. If all this began weeks ago, then they could be anywhere by now...

Rick sighed and tried to sort his thoughts together. He supposed that maybe he could... could...

The deputy trailed off from his thoughts when he suddenly saw some movement down the road. It looked like a person... but one who was walking strangely.

Rick moved his hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he saw the man turn and start walking toward him. Rick was so focused on the man that he didn't notice what was behind him until he heard a twig snap.

He turned his head. Was someone behin-

*THWACK!*

The metal blade of a shovel impacted onto Rick's face without warning, sending him straight to the ground in a pained daze.

"Daddy! Daddy!" he heard a boy exclaim.

... a boy.

"Carl...?" Rick blinked. It was becoming an effort to keep his eyes open. He felt blood on his face. "Carl... I found you..."

Rick couldn't have known at the moment that it wasn't his son. The flat of a shovel blade hitting you in the face would knock the senses out of anyone. It scrambled his mind for the moment, blurred his vision a little.

"Daddy, I got the sumbitch! I'm gonna smack him dead!" he heard the boy exclaim a second time, this time with more excitement to his voice.

Rushed footsteps nearby drew Rick to turn his gaze away from the boy and back to the road. He now saw a second man, one who was approaching the first one...

Without warning, the second man got the attention of the first, then promptly raised a small revolver and shot him in the head.

Rick's eyes widened. Whatever sense had been knocked out of him by the shovel had quickly come back at the sight of murder...

The second man... the murderer... ran up to Rick and the boy who was standing over him, still with shovel in hand.

"He say something?" the murderer asked, "I thought I heard him say something!"

"He called me 'Carl.'" the boy replied. Was he the murderer's son? Would explain the 'daddy' thing.

"Son, you know they don't talk."

The murderer then turned his attention downwards to Rick, who could only stare up toward him in growing worry.

"Hey, mister," the murderer frowned, "what's the bandage for?"

Rick blinked at the mention of his bandages. He had honestly forgotten he was still wearing them.

As blackness threatened to consume him, Rick suddenly began to grow aware of his growing lack of thought...

"W- Wha...?" Rick asked, his voice now turning groggy.

"What kind of wound?!" the murderer demanded, "You answer me, damn you, what's your wound?!"

Rick could only watch as the murderer again raised his revolver... this time aiming right at Rick's face.

"You tell me..." the murderer warned before cocking his gun. "... or I will kill you ..."

The hit to the head by the shovel and the stress of everything he's been through so far was just too much for Rick to deal with all at once...

Within moments, before he could answer, his eyes rolled back into his head as he fell unconscious...

The next thing Rick knew, he was laying on something comfortable.

As the deputy finally came to, albeit now with a bad headache, his vision began to unblur enough for him to realize he was in someone's bedroom.

He noticed that the boy who hit him - shoveled him, more like - was standing watch with a baseball bat. He then heard the sound of rubber snapping, and he turned to see that the murderer had taken off a pair of rubber gloves. A bowl of water rested on the dresser in front of the murderer.

"Got that bandage changed now... it was pretty rank." the murderer said as he washed his hands. "What was the wound...?"

Rick debated not answering... but quickly judged that to be a bad idea. He realized his arms and legs were tired to the bedframe, making any resistance difficult.

"... gunshot." Rick replied after a moment.

"Gunshot?" the murderer wondered in genuine surprise. "What else...? Anything?"

"Gunshot ain't enough...?"

The murderer suddenly moved away from the basin, staring down at the tied-up deputy with a fierce seriousness in his eye. Rick's sarcasm was most unwelcome...

"Look, I ask and you answer..." the murderer frowned. "That's common courtesy, right?"

Suddenly, the murderer leaned in very close toward Rick.

"... did you get bit?" the murderer asked, his voice holding a very emphatic seriousness to it.

"Bit?"

"Bit, chewed, maybe scratched... anything like that?"

Rick couldn't understand why such a question was important... He only got shot, not bitten.

"No, I got shot. Just shot as far as I know..." Rick told the murderer.

The murderer seemed to be a little more at ease when he heard this... though not by much.

Rick flinched back as the murderer suddenly raised a hand to bring up to his face.

"Hey, just let me..." the murderer said, his voice softer now.

The deputy relented. The murderer reached forward and placed his hand on Rick's forehead. To his hidden relief, it felt normal. Not even warm.

"Feels cool enough..." the murderer told the boy before turning back to Rick. "Fever would've killed you by now..."

"I don't think I have one..." Rick surmised.

"Be hard to miss..." was what the murderer replied with.

The murderer glanced over to the boy before he pulled something out from his back pocket. To Rick's growing alarm, he saw it was a pocket knife.

Opening it to reveal the blade, the murderer showed the knife to Rick, holding the weapon right in front of his face.

"Take a moment, look how sharp it is..." the murderer instructed with a frown. "You try anything, I will kill you with it and don't you think I won't..."

Warning noted.

After a moment, the murderer brought the knife up to the ropes which bounded Rick's wrists and ankles to the bedframe.

Once Rick was freed, the murderer closed the knife and put it back in his pocket.

"Come on out when you're able..." the murderer said before heading out of the room. He instructed the boy to follow.

As the two left, Rick turned to his side and took a moment to compose himself. His hand went to one of his wrists as he struggled to comprehend his disbelief...

Waking up in a destroyed world and now he's being held by some crazy murderer and his son...

... Wonderful ...

With a blanket wrapped around himself, Rick slowly stepped out of the bedroom. He still felt weak, so he was taking it slow for the time being...

Rick stepped down a hallway, realizing he was inside of someone's house. He saw light emitting from camp lanterns... the place must've been without power.

He stepped to the end of the hall and soon found the murderer and his son in the kitchen preparing a meal. To Rick's silent surprise they were even setting a table. Seemed a bit too casual considering how a murder and kidnapping had just happened...

Rick glanced around at his surroundings. To his surprise, he knew whose house he had found himself in...

"This place... Fred and Cindy Drake's?" Rick inquired.

"Never met 'em..." the murderer said with a shrug.

Rick took another look around as he entered the living room.

"I've been here..." Rick said to the murderer, "this is their place..."

"It was empty when we got here..."

Fred and Cindy Drake, friends of Rick and his wife... he hoped that they were okay, wherever they were...

Tarps, blankets, curtains, wooden boards, and some sort of thick cloth paddings covered all of the windows which Rick could see. When he went to try and look through the front window just to see the situation outside, the murderer stopped him before he could.

"Don't do that. They'll see the light..." the murderer warned. "There's more of them out there than usual..."

As Rick pulled away from the window like he was told, the murderer sighed and turned his attention back to the dinner table. Rick watched him pick up a large tin can with a pair of towels before setting it on a nearby table, then pick up a sterno can and blow out the flame.

"I never should've fired that gun today..." the murderer shook his head at his act earlier. "Sound draws them. Now they're all over the street... Stupid, using a gun. But it all happened so fast, I didn't think..."

The murderer sat down at the table as Rick walked toward him.

"You shot that man today." Rick said with an accusing tone of voice.

"Man?" the murderer.

"It weren't no man." the boy then said with a dismissive tone.

The murderer turned to face the boy, a sudden frown on his face.

"What the hell was that out of your mouth just now?" the murderer demanded.

The boy shrugged. "It weren't no man." he said, matter-of-factly.

Rick glared at the murderer. "You shot him in the street out front - a man."

"Friend, you need glasses... it was a walker." the murderer glared right back as he 'corrected' the statement.

... a 'walker'? What on earth was a walk-

"Come on..." the murderer then said. His face had relaxed and he was gesturing toward a free chair. "Sit down before you fall down... here..."

The murderer, as a gesture of friendship and civility, spooned some of the food he and his son made onto a plate for Rick. Baked beans, mainly. Not a lot of baked beans, mind you, but it was at least something after going without food for who knew how long...

It was only now that Rick truly comprehended how hungry he felt. Without protest, he went to sit and was about to take a spoonful of beans into his mouth when the boy spoke again.

"Daddy," the boy said in realization, "blessing..."

"Yeah..." the murderer nodded.

The murderer and boy both set down their forks and linked hands to say grace. Rick, despite his hunger, and seeing that the boy was looking at him expectantly, decided that it would be impolite if he didn't join in. So in disbelief he also set his fork down and joined hands with the murderer and the boy.

"Lord, we thank thee for this food, thy blessings. And we ask you to watch over us in these crazy days..." the murderer prayed. "Amen..."

"Amen..." the boy agreed.

After that, the trio let go of each other's hands and they finally dug into their meal. Baked beans had never tasted so good to Rick Grimes...

As they ate, the murderer glanced at Rick and eyed him for a moment. The guy seemed far too naive... or... maybe...

"Hey, mister..." the murderer said, "you even know what's going on...?"

After swallowing another mouthful of beans, Rick simply shrugged. He still felt so confused...

"I woke up today in the hospital, came home... that's all I know." he replied.

"But you know about the dead people, right?"

Rick nodded. "Yeah, I saw a lot of that out on the loading dock, piled in trucks."

The murderer seemed to be surprised by such a statement. Even shocked. The boy seemed to be as well.

This guy... he genuinely didn't know what was happening out there, did he...?

"No, not the ones they put down. The ones they didn't – the walkers, like the one I shot today." the murderer corrected. "'Cause he'd have ripped into you, tried to eat you, taken some flesh at least..."

Silence was all that the murderer was met with from Rick, who simply looked on with bewilderment. The deputy was clearly taken aback by what he had heard...

The dead have come back...? They're killing and eating people...? How?!

The murderer looked at Rick with sympathy. "Well, I guess if this is the first you're hearing it... I know how it must sound..." he said with a much gentler voice.

"They're out there now? In the streets?" Rick asked, gesturing to the living room windows.

With a nod, the murderer continued. "Yeah," he said. "They get more active after dark sometimes... Maybe it's the cool air or hell, maybe it's just me firing that gun today. But we'll be fine as long as we stay quiet. Probably wander off by morning..."

Rick simply couldn't believe this... the world ended because of dead creatures... these 'walkers'... coming back to eat the living...

He could only guess at how many were probably dead out there. God, he hoped Lori and Carl made it to somewhere safe...

"But listen... one thing I do know? Don't you get bit..." the murderer then warned. "I saw your bandage and that's what we were afraid of... Bites kill you... The fever burns you out. But then after a while… you come back..."

So... that's how the world ended. Explained all the executed people Rick saw in the loading dock. The authorities must've been trying to stop the spread, but failed...

"... Seen it happen ..." the boy murmured after a moment.

Rick saw the sudden expression of sadness appear on the boy's face. He and the murderer must've lost someone... someone close...

Upon seeing this too, the murderer reached out to give his son a supportive squeeze on the arm. He smiled down at the boy.

"C'mon..." the murderer smiled at the boy, then they resumed eating along with Rick.

As he ate, Rick silently continued to think on what has happened while he was in his coma. He quite literally woke up to a new world...

... what he wouldn't give for all of this to really be a coma dream ...

After dinner, Rick, the murderer, and the boy all went to sit in the living room together. The murderer and the boy took a mattress they had placed in there, while Rick went to simply prop himself up against the front of the couch.

All the while, the two adults chatted. Rick learned that the name of the murderer - well, not murderer - was Morgan Jones. The boy was his son, Duane.

Earlier, Morgan had scrounged up a battery-powered radio from a storage closet under the stairs. Although there were walkers out on the street, Morgan decided that they would be alright so long as they kept the volume low. There likely wouldn't be anyone playing any music, but they might at least be able to get some updates... that is if the government was still broadcasting anything.

So, the radio was set on the coffee table and tuned to the station which whatever was left of FEMA was broadcasting on. They managed to hear an ongoing speech to the nation being delivered by Thomas Resnick, the President of the United States. He sounded tired... the two men hoped he was safe.

As the president spoke on the radio, Rick and Morgan sat silently in the living room for a while as Duane slept on the mattress next to his father.

"Carl... he your son?" Morgan asked at one point to break the silence.

Rick turned to Morgan, causing the man to shrug.

"Well, you- you said his name today..." Morgan explained why he asked the question.

"He's a little younger than your boy..." Rick said with a nod.

"And he's with his mother?"

Rick's face fell. If only he knew...

"... I hope so." Rick replied after a moment. His voice was very soft, solemn.

Morgan nodded, feeling very sorry for his new friend. He couldn't imagine what he'd be like if he lost Duane...

"Dad...?"

Speaking of which - Duane was beginning to stir.

"Hey..." Morgan smiled softly down to his son.

"Did you ask him...?" Duane asked, his voice still a bit groggy as he awoke.

Morgan chuckled at the question before he glanced up to Rick again.

"Your gunshot? We've got a little bet going..." Morgan explained with a smile. "My boy says you're a bank robber..."

The statement made Rick laugh a bit. "Yeah, that's me..." he grinned, "deadly as Dillinger! Kapow!" he said as he made a finger gun and aimed it at Duane.

Morgan was greatly amused by this, and by his son's suddenly-enamored reaction toward Rick. It felt nice to laugh after the hell they've been through...

After his joke, Rick simply smiled at the father and son.

"Sheriff's deputy." Rick told them what he actually did. Duane thought it was even cooler.

As they spoke and enjoyed the conversation, the words of the President of the United States continued to broadcast from the radio on the coffee table.

"I won't lie to you, my fellow citizens. Cities and nations have fallen. Millions around the world are believed dead at this moment." they heard the president say. "Our valiant military, which are currently continuing their brave fight against the infected, has taken very heavy losses as well... The horde is growing in numbers at a rate for which nothing could have ever adequately prepared any nation on earth.

We are not losing... but, at this moment, we are certainly not winning either...

But our advanced weaponry and our technological might isn't the key to victory in a fight such as this... I like to think of that which will ensure our salvation as being our secret weapon. The one special thing which, when we find ourselves in times of turmoil and chaos, we turn to, and which always sees humanity through...

... our courag-"

Without warning, a loud alarm sounded outside. Rick hurried to turn off the radio while Morgan eased a very-startled Duane.

"Hey, it's okay... Daddy's here..." Morgan soothed.

Duane calmed down a little, though not by much. Morgan then looked up at Rick again.

"It's nothing... one of them must've bumped a car." Morgan said.

"Are you sure?" Rick asked.

"It happened once before..." Morgan explained. "It went on for a few minutes... Get the light, Duane."

As instructed, Duane rolled to his side so he could turn off the camp lantern on the table next to their bed. Likewise, Rick went to turn off another lantern. As they did so, Morgan quietly hurried to look through the coverings on the windows...

After a moment, Morgan stood aside as Rick approached to join him. The deputy peeked through the coverings and finally got a look at the walking dead outside...

There was at least a few dozen stumbling and shuffling all over the street, sidewalks, and front yards. Probably more, but Rick and Morgan didn't dare try to think about that. Seeing so many of these 'walkers' unnerved Rick...

The two men also soon caught sight of what drew the dead here...

"It's the blue one on the street." Morgan pointed out a distant car with blinking headlights. "The same one as last time... I think we're okay."

"The noise..." Rick murmured, "won't it bring more of them?"

"Nothing we can do about it now. Just have to wait 'em out till morning..."

Rick nodded in resignation. All they could do was hope that the car alarm would die off and the walkers would leave...

As he stared outside, Rick could've sworn that he saw movement in the window of a house down the road. He must've been imagining things 'cause he could've sworn he saw a couple of teenagers looking through that window at one point...

No, the deputy knew he was seeing things... 'cause one of the figures he thought he saw had cone-shaped blonde hair of all things. Soon enough, his attention went back to the car and the walkers.

Duane then went to join the two adults in watching the walkers. He felt even more unnerved by the sight of the dead than Rick was...

... then, after a few moments ... he saw her.

Morgan and Rick heard Duane gasp softly to himself, almost inaudibly. As if he was suddenly frightened.

"... she's here." they heard Duane whisper.

It was only then that the two men caught sight of a walker in a white nightgown. She was once a beautiful woman, a loving wife and mother... but now she was just this.

"Don't look..." Morgan whispered with wide eyes to his son, not looking away from the walker. "Get away from the windows..."

When Duane froze and kept staring, Morgan's voice grew more desperate. He didn't want his son to see his mother like this...

"I said go!" Morgan urged, "go on!"

Duane pulled away from the window at that. He hurried back to his and his father's bed and fell onto it, sobbing at the traumatic memory of his mother dying and coming back...

Morgan then went over to him, not just to hold him in his arms and comfort him, but to make sure his cries wouldn't be heard by the walkers outside...

"Duane, Duane, quiet now..." Morgan soothed with urgency, "Come on, quiet now... Shh... shh..."

The walker that used to be Duane's mother walked toward the front porch as Rick continued to watch. He moved away from the window to look through the peep hole on the front door of the house...

Rick watched as the walker slowly went up the front steps and came to the door. All the while, Duane couldn't stop crying...

"It's okay..." Morgan continued to soothe Duane as best he could.

The father then grabbed a small pillow for his son. "Here, cry into the pillow..." he instructed like he has done some times before. "Do you remember? Shh... shhh..."

Duane did as Morgan asked. As the car alarm outside finally went silent, the boy took the pillow and buried his face into it, continuing to pour everything out. Thankfully, it silenced him enough to not risk alerting the dead...

At the front door, Rick's eyes widened as he watched the walker approach and look directly at the peep hole... almost as if she was looking straight at him with those lifeless milky-white eyes...

Then, much to Rick's growing shock, she actually grabbed the doorknob and tried to twist it, though the door was locked...

Rick backed away as quietly as he could while the walker tried entering the house. He didn't think that she... it... would be smart enough to try that...

... no wonder the world had ended.

Wisely, Rick went back to his spot against the couch, and eventually the walker stopped trying to open the door. He assumed she went back to the street after that failure...

"She, um..." Morgan tried to explain, though it was difficult. He didn't like to think about what happened to his wife let alone talk about it...

After a moment, he found the will to continue. "She died in that other room, on that bed in there..." he gestured to a hallway leading to the guest room. "There was nothing I could do about it... That fever, man, her skin gave off heat like a furnace..."

Duane sobbed even harder at the memory. How burning hot his mom was, how she died...

He wanted his mom back... not that thing outside...

Morgan continued to speak about what happened, though Rick could tell he was barely keeping himself together.

"I should've - I should've put her down, man..." Morgan admitted with tears in his eyes, "I should've put her down, I know that... but... you know what, I just didn't have it in me... She's the mother of my child..."

After saying this, Morgan had to bite his inner cheek and silence himself. If he continued... he would've broke into sobs just like Duane.

As the father and son continued to hold each other, Rick simply watched in silence and empathy. His heart broke for Morgan and Duane. He couldn't even begin to imagine what it must've been like to see someone you love die like that...

... he prayed he himself would never have to.

The walkers in the street were gone by the next morning. Rick, Morgan, and Duane were safe now...

The three planned on taking Morgan's Land Cruiser and heading to Rick's police station to see if they could find anything useful there - weapons and ammo, they hoped most of all. Before that, though, they would have to walk back to Rick's house to see if his keys to the station and its armory were still on the kitchen keyholder where he left them.

But first things first... there was still a single walker still outside the house, and it had to be dealt with. Rick volunteered.

Rick had donned a safety mask he and Morgan found in the basement. A blue hard-plastic helmet with an attaching plastic face shield. Rick figured it'd be best not to risk getting any blood or bone in his face if he really was about to do this...

A part of him still held doubts even as he held the wooden baseball bat that they found in Fred and Cindy's bedroom closet. Even as Morgan opened the front door for him, Rick still couldn't help but feel a great reluctance.

"Are we sure they're dead?" Rick asked, glancing back and forth from Morgan to the walker. "I have to ask at least one more time..."

Morgan nodded in confirmation. "They dead..." he said, "except for something in the brain. That's why it's got to be the head..."

Rick nodded, though he still didn't feel fully right about this. How on earth could you if you're about to bash a skull in?

As Rick, Morgan, and Duane stepped out of the house, they caught sight of the walker leaning against the picket fence in the front yard. The creature glanced in their direction as they approached, and as it stood it greeted them with snarls and hisses.

The walker didn't get the chance to attack. Rick sprung forward and bashed the baseball bat against its skull, then again after it didn't go down.

Rick continued to hit the walker's head as the creature fell to its knees. Then, with one last hit which made Rick reel and fall to his own knees... the walker died.

He did it, as much as it disturbed him to have to do such a thing. He killed a walker...

"You alright?" Morgan asked as he watched Rick struggle to regain his bearings.

Rick nodded, wheezing as one of his hands went to the grass below to keep himself stabilized. His ribs hurt... and now his stomach was churning...

"... I need a moment ..." Rick managed to say in the midst of his effort not to vomit...

Morgan understood, and he gave Rick the time he needed to recover.

It wasn't easy when he killed his first walker either...

A short while later, after Rick had gathered his bearings, the three walked back over to the Grimes household just a street or two over from the Drake home. Luckily they didn't come across any other walkers on the way there...

As they walked, Rick and Morgan spoke and somehow the topic of Rick's wife and son came up. And how Rick was adamant that they weren't dead...

"They're alive! My wife and son!" Rick said as he, Morgan, and Duane entered the front door of the house.

"How can you know?" Morgan asked, gesturing around the house. "By the look of this place-"

"I found empty drawers in the bedroom..." Rick interrupted. "They packed some clothes. Not a lot, but enough to travel..."

Morgan was still unconvinced. He hoped with all his conviction that Rick's wife and son were still alive, but... the odds were simply against that. Very much so, in fact.

"You know anybody could've broken in here and stole them clothes, right?" Morgan pointed out.

Rick shook his head, and with an annoyed expression he raised his baseball bat and gestured at some empty spaces on the walls.

"You see the framed photos on the walls?... neither do I." Rick pointed out. "Some 'random thief' take those too, you think?"

To add to his point, Rick opened a nearby cupboard which he and Lori usually stored their important things. Most were still there, but their collection of photo albums...

"Our photo albums, family pictures - all gone..." Rick stated after checking the cupboard.

Morgan laughed in disbelief as he went to sit at one of the chairs of the kitchen table. Shit, his wife and son really could still be alive...

"Photo albums..." Morgan said with amusement, "my wife - same thing. There I am packing survival gear; she's grabbing photo alb-..."

The man suddenly stopped speaking. He couldn't go further without risking breaking down right then and there...

As his father sat in silence, Duane spoke next.

"They're in Atlanta, I bet." the child said.

That suddenly piqued Rick's interest. Any lead he could get on where Lori and Carl could've gone was what he had to follow...

"... that's right ..." Morgan said, regaining his voice after a moment.

"Why there?" Rick asked.

"Refugee center." Morgan explained. "A huge one they said, before the broadcast stopped. Military protection, food, shelter. They told people to go there, said it'd be safest..."

Duane nodded. "Plus they got that disease place."

Rick blinked at that. Morgan realized he'd have to explain...

"The Center for Disease Control." Morgan said. "Said they were working out how to solve this thing..."

Atlanta. Food, shelter... military protection... and potentially efforts to create a cure for all of this...

It was the best lead Rick had. It was the only lead Rick had.

He had to get to Atlanta. But first things first... he had to go to work.

Without a word, Rick hurried into the hallway outside the kitchen and he found the keyring holder. Luckily for him, his set of the station's keys were still there...

"I'm coming, Lori..." he thought as he took the keys...

After another walk - this one back to the Drake house so they could pick up Morgan's truck - the trio went to the King County Police Department.

Rick used his keys to open up a side door to the station, deciding it best to avoid the front doors in case any alarms were still active. As he and the father and son went inside together, he turned on a flashlight he found while Morgan re-activated the camp lantern.

With plenty of light to guide them, Rick, Morgan, and Duane went through the station's break area. It wasn't anything special - just a small hallway which held the station's mail box, a table with a couple of coffee pots and microwaves, and a small fridge.

The trio went past the break area and entered the station's shower room. As much as they wanted to grab guns and supplies, there was something else they wanted to do as well, at least if the damn things still worked...

Rick set down his things and went to one of the showers. When he turned one of the knobs, fresh water began streaming out of the shower head...

Morgan and Duane looked in disbelief. They hadn't had the luxury of showers in far too long...

"Gas lines have been down for maybe a month..." Morgan stated to the deputy.

"The station's got its own propane system..." Rick smiled at the man as he held a hand under the water. "Pilot's still on..."

That did it. Within minutes, the smelly trio had stripped their clothes and each claimed a shower for themselves. Morgan even cheered and let out a cry of "oh my lord!" as soon as he felt the hot water hit his skin. Duane even danced in the stream!

Rick could only chuckle at the sight of the two enjoying themselves. They certainly deserved this...

For the next hour and a half, the trio continued to bathe happily, and Rick even took the opportunity to shave. The sensation of the hot water was nirvana to all...

After their showers, Rick and Morgan shared a moment when Duane went to get changed in privacy. Morgan explained to Rick how he and his family were actually trying to get to Atlanta at first, but that once panic set in among the people and the streets became unsafe, and after Jenny got hurt, they were forced to lay low.

Then, after Morgan's wife died... the father and son simply hunkered down in the house. Morgan explained that he just didn't have the nerve to move on yet.

Rick offered to take Morgan and his son with him to Atlanta, but the father politely declined. The deputy understood.

As soon as all three of them were ready - including Rick taking the opportunity to don himself in the spare deputy's uniform he kept in his locker - they went to check out the station's armory. It was further into the station, near the chief's office.

Luckily for them, they found that the armory was still locked up with some guns still in storage, though Rick could tell that not everything was here... In fact, it seemed like most of the weapons weren't anymore.

Rick used his key on the padlock and chain holding the door, then opened the armory up.

"A lot of its gone missing..." Rick commented as he took one of the remaining bolt-action rifles and examined it.

Duane glanced at the guns which were still here, and he liked the idea of being able to keep himself and his father safe with them.

"Daddy, can I learn to shoot? I'm old enough..." Duane stated.

"Hell yes, you're gonna learn," Morgan told him, "but we've got to do it carefully, teach you to respect the weapon..."

"That's right." Rick nodded before glancing down at the boy. "You pull the trigger, you have to mean it."

Rick gently poked at the boy's shoulder. "Always remember that, Duane."

"Yes sir." Duane said with a nod.

The deputy smiled at the boy before turning his attention back to the guns. Duane was a good kid, and he was confident he took those words to heart.

Then, Duane looked up to his father and saw him grab a large duffle bag.

"Here," Morgan said to his son before opening and setting the bag on a table with a bunch of ammo boxes on it, "load up." he instructed.

Duane nodded and went to work. As he did so, Rick picked up a Remington bolt-action with a scope, then he handed it over to Morgan after checking its sights.

"You take that one." Rick instructed, "nothing fancy, but the scope's accurate..."

Morgan nodded in gratitude as he took the rifle. Rick nodded back at him before he picked up a shotgun and examined it. He also found his trusty Colt Python revolver - the sidearm which he had been using for his whole career as a sheriff's deputy.

As he held the rifle, Morgan took a moment to tun away from the two others so that he could raise it and examine the scope at eye-level. After that, he experimentally pulled and closed the bolt-action a couple of times, listening to the clicking sounds it made.

It was a good gun. Reliable, Morgan could tell...

... it'll work for what he intended to do with it.

After gathering all they could carry, Rick and Morgan left the police station through its back door with Duane following close behind. Each man carried two loaded duffle bags worth of weapons and ammo. They left behind what they didn't need.

"-conserve your ammo," Rick was in the middle of giving them one last tip as they left the building. "It goes faster than you think, especially at target practice..."

Morgan and Duane nodded, filing the tip for later. The three continued to walk until they reached the rear parking lot where Morgan's Land Cruiser and some cop cars were parked.

When they got close, Morgan handed off one of his duffle bags to his son.

"Duane, take this to the car..." Morgan instructed.

With a nod, Duane took the duffle bag and went to put it in the backseats of the truck. With him doing that, it gave Morgan and Rick one last chance to talk.

"Are you sure you won't come along?" Rick gave one final offer for the two to come with him to Atlanta as he set his duffle bags next to one of the cop cars.

Morgan appreciated the offer, but politely shook his head. He wanted to stay for a bit longer to... wrap up a few things. One of which was practicing with the guns.

"A few more days... by then Duane will know how to shoot and I won't be so rusty." Morgan shrugged.

Rick understood and accepted... but he still wanted to do one last thing. Something which would hopefully reunite them if and when the two reach Atlanta after him.

The deputy went to one of his duffle bags, opened it, and Morgan saw him pull out a walkie-talkie. Rick turned it on and handed it out for the father to take.

"You've got one battery," Rick told him. "I'll turn mine on a few minutes every day at dawn. You get up there, that's how you'll find me..."

"You think ahead." Morgan praised as he accepted the walkie.

"Can't afford not to... not anymore."

Morgan nodded in agreement.

"Listen, one thing..." Morgan then began to say, "they may not seem like much one at a time. But in a group? All riled up and hungry...? Man, you watch your ass."

The walkers, Morgan learned from experience, had their true strength in numbers...

"You too." Rick said with a nod of gratitude for the advice.

Now, Morgan and Rick clasped hands in a firm handshake. One which they mutually hoped didn't mean goodbye...

Morgan smiled at the deputy. "You're a good man, Rick." he said, "I hope you find your wife and son..."

Rick smiled back, then he turned his attention downwards to Duane. He reached forward to shake his hand as well.

"Be seeing you, Duane..." Rick said to him, "Take care of your old man..."

"Yes sir." Duane told him. He wouldn't let anything happen to his dad now that they had these guns...

Now Rick prepared to go his separate ways from the father and son, but he suddenly saw Morgan look over his shoulder. The father's entire demeanor changed as he pulled his revolver out from the back of his waistband...

Rick turned to see what Morgan had seen. It was a walker, one that was approaching from the street in front of the station. Luckily there was a chain-link fence with razor wire on top that separated the three from it, so the walker wasn't going to get to them...

The walker, to Rick's growing realization, was wearing a deputy's uniform, and it had a police radio speaker dragging behind it as it walked toward them...

... Rick knew that poor creature.

"Leon Bassett?" Rick murmured in astonishment.

As the walker reached the fence and snarled at the three from the other side, Morgan protectively moved his son behind him.

Rick's eyes looked on at the creature with sympathy. "I didn't think much of him... careless and dumb," Rick admitted, then sighed. "...but I can't leave him like this."

"You know they'll hear the shot..." Morgan cautioned.

The deputy didn't look away from the creature as he suddenly unholstered his revolver.

"... let's not be here when they show up." Rick told the father and son.

Morgan understood. "Let's go, son..." he instructed to his boy. "Come on..."

Both Morgan and Duane hurried back to their Land Cruiser as Rick headed toward the fence. As he approached, the walker that used to be Deputy Leon Bassett pushed against the fence as it tried to get at Rick. It endlessly snarled toward its meal...

Without a word, Rick raised the revolver up through the fence and pressed the barrel against the walker's forehead. He looked the creature in the eyes...

*BANG!*

With the pull of the trigger, the walker instantly collapsed to the ground... he wasn't a threat to anyone anymore...

Now that the business with Leon Bassett was done, Rick hurried his way back to the police car that he planned to take for his long drive to Atlanta. He and Morgan drove their vehicles out of the station's rear parking lot together, then turned in opposite directions...

Morgan honked the horn once toward Rick as he drove away. The deputy returned the gesture with two whoops of his police siren as he did the same...

It didn't take long for Morgan and Duane to return to the Drake home. Not many obstacles on the road and not many walkers between there and the station...

Morgan hammered nails into a piece of wood against the front door, strengthening the barricade he had already built within the Drake home. Nearby, his son was aiding his dad by putting up some of their extra blankets over the bay windows.

As they worked, the father and son glanced at each other and shared a smile...

Morgan knew it was the last they'll enjoy for a while...

... as much as Morgan didn't want to think of why they were putting more fortifications on the house, he would have a task to do very soon.

Rick was ready to leave King County behind him for however long it would take... maybe only a little while... or maybe forever... but there was one last thing he needed to do.

Parking the police car off the side of the park where he found that bicycle, he left the car and walked to the grass where that half walker had been. The creature was no longer where he had last seen it, but he made out a darkened trail across the grass leading deeper into the park...

Rick put on his deputy's hat and followed the trail. Through green grass and shady trees and clover studded fields all as the sun shined bright and birds chirped all around...

... it was very peaceful for what he was about to do.

Now that the Drake house was extra-fortified, Morgan resigned himself to the next task at hand...

After helping his dad put up the wood boards and the blankets, Duane went to sit and rest on the mattress with his comic books for a little bit. Morgan didn't dare think of letting his son come upstairs given what he was about to do...

"Read your comic books a while..." Morgan instructed as he grabbed the suitcase full of family items which his wife packed before she died. "Daddy will be upstairs..."

Duane nodded at his father as he walked past him. Before he left his son alone in the room for a bit, Morgan made sure to grab the rifle Rick had given him...

It was time... As much as he wished otherwise... it was time...

Rick continued his search through the park for the missing half walker, and as he did he had some time to think to himself...

As he walked through the grass, Rick thought back on everything that has happened since he woke up. The death, the destruction, the despair... but also the kindness which he encountered in Morgan and Duane Jones, and the hope that he would reunite with his wife and son...

Those two saved his life... and now he had the chance he needed to survive in this new world...

The photo albums held many memories for Morgan as he flipped through one of them... all of them wonderful... all of them he missed terribly, just as he did Jenny...

The photo of himself sitting on the beach followed by one of his wife smiling toward the camera... One of himself and Duane sitting on the bench at the park, then the family photo they took at the shark tank of the Atlanta Aquarium on Duane's fifth birthday... another of his and Jenny's wedding day and how beautiful she looked in her dress...

With tears in his eyes, Morgan flipped through page after page of one of the album in his hands. He was trying to find a clear photo of his wife's face, something which he could have there by his side when the deed will be done... but he had allowed himself to go down memory lane for a little while...

Morgan couldn't keep the tears from falling onto the pages...

Eventually, after walking in the green of the trees for a while, Rick finally found the half walker crawling in the middle of the park toward who-knew-where. Rick knew that he had to get to Atlanta as soon as possible, and he also knew that he had to save every bullet he could... but he just had to do this first...

This was the first walker Rick Grimes had ever encountered... it wouldn't be right to just let it continue to suffer...

Taking a deep breath, Rick began his approach toward the creature...

Morgan found a studio shot of Jenny happily looking into the camera, a big smile on her face... he taped the picture to the window frame of the second floor office's window facing the street.

Wiping away a tear, Morgan moved a wooden desk chair up to the window. He kneeled beside it and placed the sniper rifle on the back of the chair where it would be stable. He couldn't risk allowing a bad shot... not for practice, or for what he was going to do after he felt he was ready...

Below there was walkers here and there in the street, and he sighed one through his scope... he whistled to get its attention, and as soon as it raised its head-

*BANG!*

The walker crumpled down with a hole in its head, and several more immediately turned their attention toward the Drake home... Morgan saw this and he ejected the spent cartridge from the rifle, loading another quickly.

"Daddy?" he heard Duane call from downstairs.

"It's all right, Duane!" Morgan called back to him. "You stay there, son... Don't you come up here!"

Duane knew what was going on. What his dad was doing. He was going to put down his mom...

With tears in his eyes, Duane hurried back to the mattress. He soon covered his ears as tightly as he could, and continued reading the comics under his breath...

Upstairs, Morgan set his sights on another walker and shot the creature down...

Where was she...? Where was Jenny...?

"Jenny..." Morgan murmured as he prepared to fire again. "Come on, baby..."

In silence, Rick approached the creature, listening to its weak gurgly groans as he grew close to it. The walker soon noticed Rick, and the weak creature tried to raise its arm up to grab him... but it couldn't even do that. It hadn't ever managed to kill and eat anything, it had simply rotted away for all this time...

Rick simply stared at the walker for a long moment, contemplating the fact that this used to be a person just like him... and now it was just this...

His heart felt heavy as the walker's eyes met his... He hoped the dead didn't feel pain... didn't feel suffering of any sort...

Morgan had shot a few walkers for practice, drawing in many more. He hoped he made enough noise to draw in her...

Where was she...? Where was she...?

Soon, he found her amidst the crowd of walkers... he aimed at her and put his finger on the trigger, tears welling in his eyes again as he prepared to put her down...

... but then, Jenny glanced up toward him. His eyes met hers through the scope. The finger on the trigger didn't move... couldn't move...

Emotion overtook Morgan, briefly making him lower the rifle as he struggled to collect himself. But soon he was able to raise it and re-sight his wife...

The finger on the trigger again didn't move. In the end, he truly couldn't do what he knew he must...

As the walker that used to be Jenny Jones turned and stumbled back down the street, Morgan again lowered the rifle and broke down into choked sobs...

What Rick would never know was that this walker used to be a mother... Hannah... a brave woman who was bitten by a walker, and who then willingly gave her life so that her two children could escape from an advancing group of the undead. She allowed the undead to eat her alive simply so her precious son and daughter could have the distraction they needed to escape and hopefully live...

... she didn't regret it even as she died so horrifically. She gave her babies a chance in this new world ...

Rick felt tears in his eyes as he studied the poor creature below him. The only thing he could do for her was to grant her the eternal peace she deserved...

"... I'm sorry this happened to you ..." was all he said. All he could say...

The deputy unholstered his revolver and steeled himself as he aimed it at the walker's left eye. A single tear left his eye as he steeled himself...

... a single pull of the trigger ended the walker's suffering forever. Even though he knew it was a good thing and that it had to be done, Rick still felt very shaken by having to do it. He felt as if all the hopelessness of the world had just fallen onto his shoulders, if only for this brief moment...

Without a word, Rick stood back up, wiped away the tears with his left sleeve, and headed back for his car...

Rick drove for hours away from King County in the direction of Atlanta. Thankfully, the route had been peaceful ever since he ended the suffering of that walker in the park...

This new world he had awoken to was dangerous. Right now, the officer had just three goals on his mind - stay alive, get to Atlanta, and find Lori and Carl there.

Stay alive. Get to Atlanta. Find Lori and Carl there.

Simple... or at least he hoped it would be...

Rick drove the police car for hours away from King County, eventually going onto one of the interstates which led straight for Atlanta. There was more than a few walkers to encounter on the way, though he wisely avoided them.

But as Rick approached an overpass hanging above the interstate, he could suddenly make out the sounds of gunfire. For the moment it sounded distant, but the sounds grew louder and louder as he drove toward that overpass. He quickly realized it was coming from up there.

Rick reached into the dufflebag of guns to pull out an extra sniper scope he packed. He slowed the car down so that he wouldn't crash it as he raised the scope to eye-level, aiming it at the overpass.

Through the crosshairs of the scope, Rick made out some figures up there, and they looked cornered by an uncountable-amount of walkers. Even from this distance he could tell that it was a bad situation for these people... the first survivors he had seen since Morgan and Duane.

As the car got closer, however, Rick realized to his shock that the figures up there weren't adults... they were teenage kids...

Kids...? A group of kids...?

Rick's eyes widened at the realization. Those kids up there were completely surrounded by the walkers... they were helpless...

... he wasn't going to let a bunch of kids end up like that poor woman in the park. He was a cop, damn it! He was going to save them or die trying!

"... Alright then ..." Rick murmured to himself with a determined frown, pressing his foot down on the gas pedal as he tossed the scope back into his bag.

The lights and sirens for the cop car were then turned on so that the kids would know help had arrived. Rick knew the danger in that it would draw in more walkers, but he didn't care. He'll get them out quick enough, he was certain of it.

Soon, Rick stopped the car a short distance from the overpass. From this distance he made out the sight of a blond boy with glasses looking at him from above.

Rick hopped out of the driver's seat and grabbed the scoped rifle from the trunk, then hurried with it in his hands.

As soon as he made it to the front of his car, Rick raised the scoped rifle, aimed at the head of a walker near an Asian girl...

... and fired.