The Sheriff's Daughter

Chapter Twelve: Rescues and Reunions

As it turns out, there were two things I hadn't counted for: a kickass CD that turned out to be more than just Led Zeppelin and the fact that they had most certainly tinkered with something under the hood of this beat up car back at the camp. So when the car thumped and thudded and finally rolled to a stop roughly 5 miles away from the main entrance to Atlanta, I was understandably annoyed.

I blew a small bit of my hair out of my eyes and reached over to grab my bag, pausing just long enough to take the CD out of the player right before the entire car turned off.

"You're coming with me," I announced to the disc, wrapping it safely in the jacket that I had stored in my bag. After checking that I had all my things and checking that my gun was definitely loaded, I exited the vehicle (kicking the tire for good measure) and began walking towards the city, mentally doing the math to see how long it'd take me to reach the entrance that I could just see behind the pile up of cars.

"Five or six miles," I mumbled aloud as I walked. "Distance equals rate. . . Times time. . . The average human walks. . . three miles per hour. . . So. . ."

I groaned. "Over an hour."

I picked up the pace, deciding that I definitely, for whatever reason, wanted to be in the city within an hour. Which would require running.

Securing my bag tightly to my body and taking a quick swig of my water bottle, I began jogging. And then I was running.

I hadn't ran without the prompt of murderous creatures behind me in what felt like forever. Something about it was oddly exhilarating, the feeling of my body working to move me from point A to point B with whatever speed it could manage. Even when my lungs craved more air, when my legs asked for a minute to rest, when my heart raced and a burn tore through my body - something about running without the overwhelming need to was nice.

Until you stop and your legs ache worse than you remember and the sweat forming on your body has made your clothes and hair stick to you.

I was just outside the entrance by this point, and though I had shaved off some of the time required to make it, I was now paying for it. I hadn't ran properly since Glenn and I had been chased by walkers. Oddly enough, the memory seemed slightly fuzzy. Perhaps it was because of the heat beating down on me or, more likely, because of my blatant dehydration at this point.

Taking a few moments to rest in the shade of a nearby car, I took slow sips from my water and debated about trying to contact camp to let them know I had made it safely to Atlanta. My better instincts told me not to, but I reached into the pocket of my bag anyways and pulled out the small radio I had brought with me. I flipped it over and over in my hands, not really focusing on much of anything except the noises around me.

The mysterious man on the radio was no where near here and, by this point, I knew I had been too late. He was somewhere inside the city. Perhaps alive, but most likely dead. That left me with three options: set up a sign and return to the camp; set up a sign and enter the city to try and find that man; or set up a sign and try to find Glenn and the rest of the group. No matter what, I'd have to set up a sign.

Lucky for me, the people who had set up the roadblock had left cans of black and red spray paint just lying around after the infected took over. After checking to see that at least one of them had paint still in them (the black was empty, the red was good enough to work for a bit), I decided on a message that would get the point through without wasting time. So I began spraying walls, barriers, cars and even the road with a simple warning: CITY OVERRUN.

The way certain letters ran made them look like I had used blood at certain points. An oddly fitting look for what lied within the city.

With that in mind, I pulled my bag close to me and began walking into the heart of the city, my hand resting on my gun. I wasn't sure where to begin my search and I wasn't sure where all the walkers were, but I walked as quietly and carefully as I could down the deserted streets of Atlanta, my ears trained for the slightest of noise and my nose constantly searching for that fresh smell of death that followed the monsters.