Safe & Sound ↠ R. Grimes

Chapter 4: Guts & Tell It to the Frogs

Annie sat in the passenger seat of the van, leaning back and eyes closed, rethinking the past couple hours of her new adventurous life. The voice over the radio told them the bad news, that an ocean of walkers surrounded them. The good news? There hadn't been any. His advice was to make a run for it. The voice on the radio assured them that it wasn't a dumb idea since they had him as eyes on the outside. He told them that the street on the other side of the tank was less crowded, since most of the walkers were busy feasting on each other. If they moved then and there, they stood a chance. Rick wanted to know about the bags but it simply wasn't an option. So, with the soldier's gun and a grenade Rick found, plus a mini-shovel and Annie's own knife, they had something. Rick went first, bashing the lone walker on top the tank across the face. They jumped off the right side of the tank and ran for an alley about fifty yards away, Rick shooting in front while Annie covered him from behind. Rick never let her leave his sight for too long, grabbing hold of her free hand with his own and pulling her along.

When they reached the designated alley, Rick almost shot their radio friend, Glenn Rhee, who shouted that he wasn't dead, and led them up a ladder and inside a department store. It was there they met a few of his group and none of them were happy to see them. One of them, Andrea Harrison, almost shot Rick. Almost, because another man, Morales, told her to back off. Apparently, they were volunteers of a larger group who risked coming into the city to scavenge supplies. Of course, their easy in-and-out trip was ruined when Rick and Annie showed up guns blazing. They'd rung the dinner bell. One other person contributed to that, however, and that was Merle Dixon. He'd been on the roof, shooting at random walkers below until he nearly beat another survivor, T-Dog, to death. He almost shot him before Rick finally handcuffed him to a pipe.

They'd planned to get out through the sewers, since the streets were swarmed, but that wasn't an option as Glenn and Morales found out. Not only was the way barred off – it would've taken a blowtorch and half a day to get through the bars – but it was filled with walkers, eating rats. Then the walkers at the front doors of the store broke through the outer doors. Back on the roof, they spotted a construction site and knew that if they could get to it, to the van, they'd have a way out. How they'd get to it was another matter entirely, as the roads were still swarmed with walkers. That was when Rick came up with a brilliant idea: to cover himself and Glenn in the blood and guts of one of the walkers they'd killed in the alley. They needed to smell like the dead to get past the dead. Annie didn't agree, wanted to go with him, but Rick told her he needed her to be his eyes in the sky and to make sure everyone was ready when they got through. It worked amazingly well; the walkers didn't even pay attention to them beyond a glance and passing sniff.

When it started to rain, however, that was the real problem. It started to wash off the guts, clear up their scent. The walkers noticed it, too. They'd had no choice but to run the last bit of the way, hacking at walkers until they hopped the fence into the site. Even then, they didn't stop. Walkers were swarming, climbing the fence, it wouldn't be long till they got over or even broke it down. Luckily, Glenn got the keys and they got a truck going just in time, but it looked like they were leaving. Annie tried to assure them that Rick wouldn't abandon them, even though it definitely seemed that way. At least until Glenn came over the radio, telling everyone to meet them at the loading dock of the store and be ready. Everyone grabbed their shit and bolted, running past the doors that were cracking under the pressure of the walkers. That was when they heard the car alarm and then a knock on the door. They quickly pulled the door open and tossed their things inside, driving off just as the walkers from the front got to them. Rick and Glenn had come up with a plan, let Glenn distract the walkers with the alarm's noise, draw them off so Rick could get everyone out. Glenn hadn't liked the idea at first, but he'd warmed up to it once he was cruising down the empty highway in the hot red Challenger.