Haunted

Chapter 11

Shane looks around at what's left of his camp. "Good good, everyone's here," he starts. "I'll cut to the point: we're low on supplies, and we need to go on a run. The debate is if we should go into Atlanta, or drive for a bit and go somewhere else."

"Atlanta's overrun! There's ten times as many walkers there as there were in that herd we took out!" Daryl says.

"We'll be fine if we can get in and out before they even realize we're there," Glenn counters.

"It's not worth the risk of losin' more people when we can jus' stop somewhere else," Merle adds.

"We don't have enough gas to spare for that trip, and the RV's radiator hose is broken," Dale says.

"We don't have enough time to spare! Our kids are starvin'!" Lori says.

Everyone starts arguing.

"Guys!" I yell. Everyone quiets down and looks at me like I have five heads. "This isn't worth arguing over. Why don't we just go to Atlanta and get it over with? It's closer," I point out.

There's more arguing before we finally end up agreeing to send some people to Atlanta. Merle, T-Dog, Andrea, Jacqui, Glenn, Morales, and I all volunteer to go. No one has any complaints except for Ellie and Amy. Neither one want their sister to go. I make Finnick stay with Ellie to make sure she doesn't do anything stupid again, and then the seven of us who volunteered head out.

Glenn leads the way to a department store. We start to loot the place when Glenn starts talking to some moron who got himself surrounded by infected. "Hey you, idiot in the tank," Glenn says into his radio, "cozy in there?" He proceeds to give him directions to where we're stationed. I hear gunshots and start to panic slightly. What if the guy Glenn helped was a bandit who decided to kill us? I run up onto the roof along with T-Dog, Jacqui, and Andrea, to find that it's just Merle. Drunk as ever, he's wasting ammo on infected and making a shit ton of noise. I take his gun from him. "Are you crazy?! You're going to bring all of Atlanta down on our asses!" I yell at him.

"Calm down sugar tits," he replies with a slur, "I wasn't hurtin' nobody."

"Yes you were," T-Dog says, "you just sentenced us all to death, not to mention wasting bullets we don't have!"

"Don't caaaare!" Merle sings loudly.

"Do everyone a favor and shut the fuck up," T-Dog says.

"Oh yeah? And who's gonna make me?! Why should I be taking orders from a damn nigger?" Merle says.

Whatever was left of T-Dog's peacefulness left him at that moment, because he started beating up Merle. Merle fought back, of course, and beat the shit out of T-Dog. Merle points his gun at T-Dog's head. Andrea starts pleading with Merle to stop. He spits on T-Dog and rubs it into his shirt.

"Alright now, let's have a little vote, huh? Talk about who's in charge. I vote me. Anybody else? Democracy time y'all," Merle says. "Show a' hands. All in favor?" He waves the gun at Morales, Jacqui, and Andrea, who are helping T-Dog. I stand in the shadow of the doorway, waiting for an opportunity to knock him down. Jacqui slowly raises her hand, flipping Merle off. Andrea and Morales follow. "Now, that means I'm the boss, right?" Merle says. "Anybody else, hm? Anybody?"

"Yeah," I say, and hear Rick say as well, as I sprint forward and kick Merle's legs out from under him before he could turn around. Rick slams Merle's head with the butt of the rifle he was previously using, causing him to drop his pistol. Rick cuffs him to a pipe.

Judging by his outfit, Rick was probably previously a sheriff. "Who the hell are you, man?" Merle asks Rick.

"Officer Friendly," Rick replies.