ONE RULE • THE WALKING DEAD

chapter two- the evacuation

"God, I fucking hate Atlanta."

"Daphne..."

I ignored him, pressing a hand against my forehead and squeezing my eyes shut to try to will the traffic we were currently stuck in away.

"In fact, I hate all big cities. New York, LA, Chicago..."

"What is—?" I peeked at Glenn to see him leaning forward, nearly smacking his head into the windshield.

I chose to complain without a care. "I could really stretch my legs right now..."

"Daphne!"

"What? What?" I glared at him through an eye. I quickly sat up when I saw the horrified look on his face. The fear of what I'd see up ahead paralyzed me for just a moment. I had never ever seen Glenn so terrified in his life.

"We need—" he started blindly reaching out for the door handle, pressing every button on the side door console. "Out. We need to get out right now!"

I whipped my head forward when the screams started and nothing could've prepared me for what I saw.

There was a crowd— no—herd— of people stumbling down the adjacent empty side of the freeway. Some of them were crossing the small median barriers that separated the lanes that led out of the city and the lanes leading towards it, where every single car in the state of Georgia crammed into.

From a distance, it looked just... odd. Then they started to get closer and I realized with a start what was causing Glenn to panic in a way I'd never seen.

These people were... dead.

Flesh hanging off their cheekbones and extremities... a horrid stench of death and rotten flesh that I could smell from a mile away... I instantly wanted to throw up.

I tuned back into my immediate surroundings and found that Glenn was still desperately grabbing at the door, eyes wildly looking at the chaos unfolding around us.

He was saying something— more like screaming something — but my hearing went into a strange state of white noise.

It was my body's fight or flight. The sort of survival instincts I'd never had to tap into before in my mundane life.

I slammed my whole hand on the driver's door console and in his panic, Glenn instantly re-locked the doors with his button. "Goddamnit, Glenn!"

"I'm sorry! I'm—"

"Let's go," I rushed out of the car and made it to Glenn's side in record speed. He was still struggling, halfway out the car, his hands reaching for whatever he could find useful in the car.

"We don't have time for this," I dragged him by the shirt and started running towards the woods adjacent to the highway, desperate to create some space between us and the dead.

A corpse lunged in front of me out of nowhere and a scream ripped through my throat. It tackled an older lady that was trying to grab something out of her car trunk just a few paces ahead of us.

I completely froze, the terror was icy cold and spreading from the tips of my fingers to the bottom of my feet. My stomach started turning painfully —

My arm nearly came off my body from how hard Glenn pulled me away.

We began running, sprinting faster than we had ever pushed ourselves before and I couldn't even feel myself break a sweat.

The adrenaline pushed me farther and farther away until I was the one leading Glenn by the hand, tearing through the woods and never looking back.

The screams were louder than ever and I could faintly hear Glenn hyperventilating over the pounding in my ears.