A Broken World

Eight

Month Later

I was getting ready to go into the city with Glenn, except this time we would be taking a group with us. Andrea, Morales, T-Dog, Jacquie, and unfortunately Merle. Daryl had decided to go out on a solo hunt yesterday and was still gone. Glenn had reluctantly agreed to take more people with us to try and get more stuff that the group needed. We were running low on food. Fortunately we had an unlimited amount of water with the lake. We just needed to make sure we boiled it before using it. “Hey, is it okay if I come in?” Shane asked from outside my tent. “Yeah, I’m just getting my pack ready.” I looked up when he walked in. “What’s up?” I asked.

“I wanted to talk to you about Merle," he said. I stood up from my cot and swung my pack onto my back. "I'll keep an eye on him. I have my cuffs, so if I need to handcuff him somewhere until we're done I will," I chuckled. He huffed out a laugh and nodded his head. "He needs to pull his weight around here since he didn't go out hunting with Daryl. He seems like he wants to be in charge and the rest of the group won't be able to handle him if he decides to try and take over."

I completely understood what he meant. Merle liked to think he should be in charge of everything. He doesn't like how things are being run. I agreed to help Shane with keeping the group in order. I guess we were kind of the leaders of the group; the people who made the hard decisions. "Don't worry about Merle, I can handle him. I know how he thinks and what his telltale signs are when he's about to do something stupid." 

After everyone was ready to go we headed out. Since there were seven of us going and we didn't want to take a vehicle so we decided we would just walk; we were only a few miles outside of the city. It was still early in the morning so as long as we got in and out with no problems we should be back by dinner time. Glenn and I have been doing the run together and we haven't run into any problems, but with five other people with us, and one of those five being Merle Dixon, it might take longer than usual.

We were currently in a department store looking through everything. When the outbreak happened and when the city started to be overtaken by walkers after the military lost control and they bombed the place, people hid in the buildings to get away. Some people took refuge inside them instead of going to the FEMA shelters. So there was a good chance we would find cans of food and other useful things. It didn't hurt to check supply closets for toilet paper and clothes were always needed. It will be getting cold in another month or so.

"You hurt my baby brother when you left. I always told him you never cared about him." I let out a sigh and turned around to look at Merle. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Merle, so shut your trap and do something useful for once. You're in a group and that means you pull your weight or you get kicked out." He scoffed and moved closer to me, reached his hand out, and picked up the badge around my neck. "This ain't gonna save ya now, sugar tits." I wrapped my hand around his and bent it back towards his wrist. "What the fuck did I tell you about touching me?" He forcefully pulled his arm out of my grasp and sneered at me. “Your time is coming,” he said, then he walked away. Before I could put too much thought into what he meant by my time was coming, there were gunshots from outside on the street. We all gathered in the middle of the store before running for the stairs that led up to the roof.

We looked over the edge of the building to see a man on a horse running down the street with a large group of dead stumbling after them. Unfortunately for him they were cut off by more walkers and they took the horse down. We watched as the man crawled away from the walkers that tore into the poor animal. The man crawled under the tank that sat in the middle of the street below and for what felt like hours we waited. There was no doubt in our minds that he was dead, that was until he popped out of the top hatch, looked around, and then quickly closed it. He was stuck inside a death trap surrounded by a sea of dead.

"What do we do now? The streets are crawling with walkers!" Andrea said. "We help him. He obviously didn't know that the city was overrun," I said. I turned and looked at Glenn. "What do you say? Think we can get him out of there and back here without anyone getting hurt?" I asked. Glenn walked around to the other side of the building, looked down at the alley before coming back over and looking down at the street clogged with walkers. "Yeah, I think we could do something."

He came up with a plan, telling everyone exactly what he was going to do and what he needed us to do, then he got on the handheld radio we had to keep in contact with the group back at the quarry. He tried all the stations until we heard the voice of a man come through. Glenn talked to him and explained what to do and where to meet him and when he was finished we headed back the stairs, into the store, and to the back where the loading docks were, to the door where maintenance would have come in.

Glenn went over the plan one more time tbwfore we walked out the door and took care of the few walkers that were I'm the alley. Then he headed for the stairs on the building across from us. He would take them up to the roof and go down the otherside to an alley that was blocked off from walkers and that would be where he'd meet the guy. We could only hope that this guy made it and Glenn would bring him back here safe.