The Walking Dead: "Days Gone Bye"

Chapter 8: When All Hope is Lost

After driving for so long, his car finally ran out of gas. Rick pulled down the sun visor above him in his car, revealing a picture of him, his wife and his son. He takes the picture out and puts it in his front pocket in his uniform shirt, under his jacket. He opens the door and gets out. He grabs a red fuel canister from the trunk and continues down the road on foot with his gun bag in one hand, and the fuel canister in the other.

He reaches a small, white house on the side of the road.

"Hello?" he shouted while putting his gun bag and canister down on the dirt trail.

"Can I borrow some gas?" he said, hoping someone was alive and inside.

He walked up, taking his hat off and holding it to his side.

"Hello?" he said again, walking up the front steps. He knocks on the front door, looking inside.

"Hello? Anybody home?"

He walks to the window next to the door, seeing nothing. He then walks to another window perpendicular the first window and looks inside. On the wall, words were written in blood saying "God forgive us". Under the words, was a man lying on the couch holding a shotgun dead. His head was blown like he had shot himself. In front of the dead man was a woman lying on the floor also dead. Dried blood stained the carpet and couch around them and flies swarmed them everywhere. They've been like this for a while.

Rick turned his head away from the window quickly, gagging. Knowing that no one was there to help him, Rick walked to a bench under a tree thinking about what to do next. He looked over, seeing a red truck. He opens the door which is surprisingly unlocked. He searched for the keys in the ignition and the sun visor. After no luck in finding the keys, he slams the door shut.

Walking back up to get his stuff, he hears a horse nickering making him stop and turn. It was a beautiful brown horse with red roan hair. He sets his hat on top of the post of the stable. He finds a rope and opens the gate. The horse neighs and backs away.

"Easy now. Easy," Rick tells him. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Nothing like that."

He slowly moves to the horse. "More like a proposal. Atlanta's just down the road a way. It's safe there. Food, shelter, and people. Other horses too, I bet."

At this point, Rick was only 2 feet away from the horse. "How's that sound?" he asked. He put the rope around the horse.

"There we go. Good boy," he tells him. "Now come with me. Come on," he pulls the rope slightly, leading the horse out of the stable. After grabbing his hat and guns while leaving the gas canister behind, he saddles up the horse and they head out.

"Just go easy, okay?" he says. "I haven't done this for years."

Once he says that, the horse takes off, running full speed like it's been wanting to run forever. It was happy to leave and stretch it's legs.

Rick, being startled by this sudden burst of speed, tries to stop him but fails to do so as the horse happily runs through the field.

When they reached the roads to the city, it was quiet. On the roads exiting Atlanta, cars were lined up bumper to bumper. The cars weren't moving only because no one was in them. The roads leading to Atlanta however, were completely empty and Rick was the only person on that road with his horse.

Inside the city was quiet and filthy. Nobody was in the streets. The only sound being heard was the crows. No walkers were there. As they walked through street after street and seeing no one, Rick was doubting the fact that there might be Refugee Center.

They walked past a burnt and destroyed bus with a few walkers inside. When they got up and growled, the horse got scared and jerked away, scaring Rick. He ignored the walkers and had the horse continue walking.

"There's just a few. Nothing we can't outrun," he tells the horse.

A few other walkers appear, making Rick slightly concerned but not worried. He can still outrun them. They end up by a tank surrounded by sandbags and jeeps. Crows were sitting on a corpse. It was a marine. They were clearly dead and lying on top of the tank. No one has been here for a while. The crows were picking at it's dead flesh.

Rick looks away and continues down the road with the walkers not far behind. He suddenly hears a helicopter approaching above. He looks up, desperately trying to find it. He then finds it in a reflection from the many windows on one of the buildings.

He lets the horse run, trying to track the helicopter. They whip around a corner and immediately stop. There were walkers in the street. Hundred. Maybe thousands. He couldn't see the end of the crowd of walkers. Forgetting about the helicopter, he rushes back down the road where the tank was. Walkers flooded the street from the left.

"Oh shit," he said, terrified.

He tries to turn back but the other walkers swarm him, along with the other walkers, trapping him. As the walkers swarmed him, he fell off the horse. They all went for the horse first, dragging it to the ground and tearing into it. Rick laid there and watched in horror till others went after him. He kicked one off of him and tried to crawl away. He was stopped by walkers coming towards him. His only option was to crawl under the tank to crawl through the other side

They followed after him and one grabbed his foot. He kicked it in the face till it let got and he continued. The growling and snarling filling his ears. Till he was about halfway under the tank, other walkers came through the front end, completely trapping him underneath. He pulls out his python and begins shooting. Only having six bullets, and already used five of the, he didn't even make a dent. They were still able to come through. Rick thought this was the end of it and decided what to do next.

"Lori, Carl, I'm sorry," he told himself, raising his gun to his head, looking up. Right when he did, he noticed the hatch underneath was opened. He quickly climbed through and shut the hatch.

That was close. Too close. He got lucky. He crawled away from the hatch till his back hit the wall. He looked over, seeing another dead marine.

"Oh.. God," he said, panting heavily. He finds a pistol in the corpse's holster. He struggles to pull it out till it came out roughly, waking the corpse. It was a walker. It looks at Rick and growls. Rick gasps and without thinking, he puts his gun to it's chin and shoots his last bullet.

The gunshot echoed through the tank and caused a high-pitched ring. The ringing pierced Rick's eardrums. He covered his ears and desperately tried to stop it. Looking everywhere, he finds another hatch above him that was opened, with sunlight shining through. He climbs out, looking around. The first thing he sees was his gun bag. He left it behind after he fell off the horse, which was being eaten by the walkers. The bag was just laying in the street getting stepped on by the walkers. The walkers saw him and began to climb up. The ringing stopped and Rick climbed back in, closing the hatch.

Again, he was trapped. Walkers from top to bottom. Rick checks the pistol he found on the walker. It's full. At least he still had a weapon. This gave Rick a moment to calm down and think. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of radio static.

"Hey, you," said a man's voice. Rick looks over slowly.

"Dumbass. Yeah you in the tank," he continued. "Are you cozy in there?"

Rick couldn't believe what he was hearing.