Dixon's Daughter

Chapter 10: The Dinner Bell

Third Person's POV

Glenn, Sadie, and Rick finally got to the top of the ladder after what seemed like forever and got onto the roof. Then Glenn started leaded them to another building where his group was.

"Are you the one who barricaded the alley?" Rick asked, referring to the alleyway they met up with him in. "Somebody did – I guess when the city was overrun. Whoever did it was thinking not many geeks would get through." Glenn answered as they jogged over to a hatch that when opened had a ladder for them to climb down.

"Back at the tank, why'd you stick your neck out for us?" Rick asked him and Glenn looked over at him.

"Call it foolish, naive hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. Guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you. Plus, you had a kid with you." Glenn answered and just this once, Sadie ignored being called a kid.

Then Glenn started climbing down the ladder and Rick went next, Sadie taking up the rear this time. She closed the hatch behind her and then followed them down.

At the bottom, Glenn grabbed his bag that he had thrown down and then ran across to an exit. Rick and Sadie followed him and continued to do so down a staircase outside.

"I'm back. Got two guests plus four geeks in the alley." Glenn spoke through his walkie talkie, but froze when they reached the bottom of the staircase to reveal two walkers heading toward them.

Before the walkers could even get close, a door from a nearby building opened up and two people came out in protective suits and hit them from with baseball bats.

"Let's go!" Glenn shouted and ran to the door, Sadie and Rick following, as the two people smashed in the walkers heads with their baseball bats. The two people followed, closing the door behind them.

As soon as they got inside, a blonde woman pushed Rick against a cabinet and pointed her gun at his face. "You son of a bitch, we ought to kill you." She spoke and Sadie quickly grabbed her knife from her flannel and pressed it against the woman's neck. That made the other people aim their baseball bats at her.

"Sadie—Sadie, relax. It's okay. Stand down." Rick instructed her and as much as she hated it, she listened to him. She and Rick had been through too much together for her to not want to fight to protect him. But she also trusted him, so she did as he said.

"Chill out, Andrea. Back off." One of the men in the suits told her. "Come on, ease up." A woman who had been inside told her. "Ease up? You're kidding me, right? We're dead because of this stupid asshole. And his stupid daughter." Andrea replied, the gun still pointed at Rick's face.

"Andrea, I said back the hell off. If his 'stupid daughter' can stand down, so can you." One of the guys told her, stripping down from his protective suit as he went to stand between her and Rick.

And Andrea did. She took a few steps back and lowered her gun. "We're dead– all of us –because of you." Andrea spoke and Rick was just confused.

"First, Sadie's not my daughter, but I am responsible for her. And second, we don't understand." Rick told them and one of the guys grabbed his arm and started walking with him, the others (including Sadie) following behind.

"Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving! You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing. Not shooting up the streets like it's the O.K. Corral." The guy holding Rick's arm explained until they got to the main entrance of the building, which was a store.

"Every geek for miles around heard you and your kid popping off rounds." The guy finished explaining and Rick and Sadie saw that the entrance had two sets of glass doors. The walkers were gathered up and pushing against the outermost glass wall.

"You just rang the dinner bell." Andrea told them. "Get it now?" The guy questioned and Sadie and Rick could see that the glass was cracking. Eventually the walkers would break through and then it wouldn't be long until they got through the second layer.

That's when they noticed one walker picked up a rock and was hitting the glass with it, so the whole group of survivors backed up farther away from the doors.

"What the hell were you two doing out there anyways?" Andrea questioned. "Trying to flag the helicopter." Rick answered and they all looked at him as if he was crazy.

"Helicopter. Man, that's crap. There ain't no damn helicopter." A man said. "You were chasing a hallucination, imagining things. It happens." The woman from before said and Sadie shook her head. "No. It was there. We both saw it." Sadie told them and they dropped the subject.

"Hey, T-Dog, try that C.B. Can you contact the others?" One man handed the radio to the disbelieving-helicopter man. "Others? The refugee centre?" Rick questioned. "Yeah, the refugee centre. They've got biscuits waiting in the oven for us." The other woman said sarcastically.

"Got no signal. Maybe the roof." T-Dog said and that's when they heard shots coming from the roof. "Oh no. Is that Dixon?" Andrea questioned and Sadie felt her heart speed up as she glanced at Rick, who had already glanced down at her. Dixon might mean Daryl or Merle. And either way, that would mean Sadie finding her family. And there was nothing she wanted more.