Here We Are, Come Join Us (The Walking Dead FanFiction)

Chapter 2

Allison hoisted the enormous backpack onto her shoulders and picked up the "call bag" that contained her stethoscope, antiseptic wipes, bandages, and other tools of her trade. Rick, T-Dog and Glenn carried her other bags out to a conference area of the building. Everyone hunkered down on the floor as Glenn mapped out a complex escape plan that overwhelmed her. "Whoa, you've lost me already," she protested, pointing at Glenn's diagram. "Am I the eraser or the paperclip?"

"I think the best way to get you out of here is to have you wait inside for us until we bring the van back," Rick suggested. "Keep a sharp eye out 'cause you're going to have to move fast once we pull up."

She watched out a window as Glenn and Daryl went one way and T-Dog and Rick another. When they were all out of sight she sighed and wondered for a moment if they really were coming back for her. Maybe it was better if they didn't; she felt safe inside the office building. She'd been practicing with the machete for hours every day (it helped pass the time), swinging and slicing at upholstered office chairs and file boxes until she'd mastered the feel of it and had developed some impressive upper body strength in the process. She didn't know how much time had passed when suddenly the men came rushing back inside.

"Glenn! You've changed!" she remarked to the young Latino man whose hands were tied up.

"They got Glenn," Daryl growled as he shoved the boy into a chair.

"They? They who?" Allison asked, confused.

"Group of vatos hanging out down the alley way," T-Dog explained.

"You're not gonna give 'em our guns, are you?" Daryl said to Rick. "Guns are better than gold these days; can't feed folks with gold."

"Didn't say I was," Rick drawled.

Rick and Daryl proceeded to interrogate their prisoner, firing angry questions at him which he defiantly refused to answer at first. Then Daryl reached into a backpack and removed something wrapped in a bandana.

"This is what we do to assholes who piss us off!" he shouted, throwing a severed hand into the vato's lap. "Well, that loosened his lips," Allison thought to herself as the kid started babbling and confessing to everything except for the Lindbergh kidnapping and the sinking of theLusitania.

‡ ‡ ‡ ‡

Many hours later, the ragtag group was on foot, walking back to this Shangri-la of a camp they had described to Allison earlier. Even though the others were each carrying some of her baggage, she was wearing her overstuffed knapsack and carrying a bag in one hand, a loaded rifle in the other, her sheathed machete on her hip, and she was growing weary. The heat was oppressive and her body was aching. "Tell me again why joining this crew was a good idea?" she asked herself silently. They were walking because apparently Daryl's brother had appropriated the group's van and was headed back to camp, which is why they were all double-timing it. Apparently Merle was a bit of a loose cannon and had a grudge to settle. Nevertheless, there were snippets of conversation exchanged among the members of the group as they trudged along, most likely to take their minds off the Bataan Death March they were engaged in.

"I have to ask you, dude, where'd you get that hand?" Allison inquired of Daryl.

"It's Merle's. He must've sawed it off after Officer Friendly handcuffed him to a pipe on the roof and left him."

Allison considered that for a moment, trying to form a mental picture of someone abandoned and confined by a pair of handcuffs with a hacksaw nearby.

"Why didn't he just cut off his thumb? Why his whole hand?" she asked.

Daryl looked at her as they trotted toward camp. Her wide eyes made her look like she was genuinely curious, and not being a wise-ass for a change. "My brother's a tough son of a bitch, never said he was smart." He grunted succinctly.