Broken Sundown

As Shane and I walked back to the camp, we heard screaming that caused him to run. It caught me off guard, but I ran after him with my weapon ready in my hands.

"Nothing bit you? Nothing scratched you?" Lori asked her son frantically as I approached.

There was a walker on the ground, bent over the body of a freshly killed deer. The commotion around the walker caused it to turn to us, getting ready to stand up and take advantage of a fresh meal.

Rick, Shane, Glenn, Jim and Morales all took turns beating the walker with the weapons in their hands. Lori shielded Carl's eyes away from the scene, herding him back to the camp with Carol and Sophia in tow. Dale swung his axe down and took off its head, a shocked look on his face.

"It's the first one we've had up here. They never come this far up the mountain."

"They're running out of food." I spoke up, earning a few looks from the group, including Dale's.

The group tensed up as a few branches snapped close by but relaxed when a scruffy, dirty looking man wandered into the clearing. I assumed, based off of what Shane had told me, that this was Daryl.

"Son of a bitch. That's my deer! Look at it, all gnawed on by this...filthy, disease-bearing, motherless proxy bastard!" He went on as he kicked the rotting body of the walker.

"Calm down, son. That's not helping." Dale said. I was already annoyed with Dale, he constantly had to put his two cents in to everything.

"What do you know about it, old man? Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to "on golden pond"? I've been tracking this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp and cook us up some venison. What do you think? Do you think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?"

"I would not risk that." Shane sighed, placing his hands on his hips.

"That's a damn shame. I got some squirrel... about a dozen or so."

"So did Delilah." Shane mentioned.

"Who the hell is Delilah?" Daryl spat.

"I am." I said and held up my bag full of squirrel.

The head of the walked started moaning and moving its teeth.

"Oh God." Amy moaned and walked away with her arm wrapped around her sister.

"Come on, people. What the hell?" Daryl growled and shot the walker through the head with one of his arrows. "It's gotta be the brain. Don't y'all know nothing?"

The group of us stumbled back to camp, Daryl behind us. Lori looked up with a worried look on her face as Daryl called for his brother and looked around for him.

"Daryl, just slow up a bit. We have to talk." Shane said, glancing at me.

"About what?" Daryl asked cautiously.

I walked over to where Shane and I's tent was and sat down on a stump, taking out my knife and one squirrel at a time to start skinning them. I wasn't one for confrontation, and I didn't want to be involved in what was about to occur.

Carol timidly brought me over an empty pot to put the meat into and I thanked her for it. She nodded and hurried back to her tent.

I glanced over at the commotion. Daryl had lunged at Rick with a knife but Shane put him in a chokehold.

I managed to catch T-Dog's confession from where I sat. "Look, I chained the door to the roof... So the geeks couldn't get at him... With a padlock. It's gotta count for something."

"Hell with all y'all. Just tell me where he is so that I can go get him." Daryl said angrily and picked up his knife.

"He'll show you. Isn't that right?" Lori said, looking at Rick with a pissed off look on her face.

Rick nodded slightly and Daryl scoffed, walking off to his part of the camp.

There was a group gathered around the vehicles, planning who was going to go back into Atlanta and what the plan was. Daryl was obviously going, and Rick felt obligated to go, but he guilted Glenn into going with them too. He was the only one that really knew the city between them, after all.

"That's just great. Now you're gonna risk three men, huh?"

"Four." T-Dog spoke up.

"Make that five." I said after him.

"Absolutely not." Shane turned to me.

"It's me decision Shane, I'm going."

"No, I agree with Shane on this one." Rick looked at me nervously. "I think it would be best if you stayed here. The camp could use you anyway."

"I don't care what you think Rick." I said somewhat defensively. "I can handle myself, I proved that to the group the first time."

Rick sighed and nodded. "If this is what you want."

"It is." I confirmed.

"That's five." Daryl spoke up.

"It's not just five. You're putting every single one of us at risk." Shane said, looking directly at me, then glancing at Rick. "We need every able body we've got. We need 'em here. We need 'em to protect camp."

"It seems to me what you need most here are more guns." I said.

"Right, the guns." Glenn nodded.

"Wait. What guns?" Shane asked.

"Six shotguns, two high-powered rifles, over a dozen handguns. I cleaned out the cage back at the station before I left. I dropped the bag in Atlanta when I got swarmed. It's just sitting there on the street, waiting to be picked up.

"Ammo?" Shane asked.

"700 rounds, assorted."

Rick had an argument with Lori and Carl aside from the group, trying to make them understand why he needed to return to the city. I grabbed my bag, cleaned it out so I could collect food for the group. I slid two knives into my pockets, my handgun into the back of my shorts and kept my bow and arrows readily available.

After an hour of debate, the five of us finally left in the truck. I sat in the passenger seat next to Rick who drove. The rest were in the back, quiet for the most part.

"He'd better be okay." Daryl mumbled.

"It's my only word on the matter. I told you the geeks can't get at him. The only thing that's gonna get through that door is us."

Rick stopped the truck outside the city limits. "We're walking from here." He stated.

"Merle first or guns?" Rick asked after we had walked for awhile.

"Merle!" Daryl retorted. "We ain't even having this conversation."

"We are." Rick returned. "You know the geography, Glenn. It's your call."

"Merle's closest." He murmured. "The guns would mean doubling back."

"Merle it is then." I say and push past the arguing men, leading them deeper into Atlanta.

I remembered pretty well how to get back to the department store. Whenever we came across a herd, Glenn led us down a different road or alley. We made it to the department store in good time, we didn't have to deal with any geeks yet, which made it a lot easier for us. Daryl and I had to take out a few walkers in the store, leftovers of the walkers that had broken down the doors before our escape.

We made it up to the roof and T-Dog used the bolt cutters to cut the padlock and pull the door open. Daryl shoved past us to walk out onto the roof, shouting out Merle's name.

Suddenly, Daryl started sobbing and saying "no" over and over again. As we approached him, we noticed the hand lying on the ground.

Daryl whips around to face T-Dog with his crossbow targeted on him, ready to kill him. At the same time, I reached for my gun and paused to actually pull it out as Rick draws his gun on Daryl.

"I won't hesitate. I don't care if every walked in the city hears it." Rick threatens.

After a few heart-pounding seconds, Daryl lowers his crossbow and stares at T-Dog.

"You got a do-rag or something?"

T-Dog hands him one and Daryl picks up Merle's severed hand, wrapping it with the do-rag. Daryl notices a trail of blood along the roof and starts to follow it, the rest of us following behind him.

Merle continued to frantically search the building for his brother, shouting out without a care that there were dozens of walkers throughout the building.

We came across a stove where Merle had cauterized his arm, pieces of flesh were stuck to the still-lit stove. The smell in the room made me want to throw up. After Daryl found the smashed window, he accepted the fact that his brother was alive and had escaped. He picked another fight with Rick, but he eventually gave up and sulked to himself.

Glenn had laid out a map of the city on a table in another room and I leaned over the map with him, pinpointing where we had come into the town and an estimate of where the guns had been left behind.

"You're not doing this alone." Rick said to Glenn.

"Even I think it's a bad idea and I don't even like you much." Daryl said leaning against the wall.

"It's a good idea, okay, if you just hear me out. If we go out there in a group, we're slow, drawing attention. If I'm alone, I can move fast."

"He's right." I nodded.

"Look. That's the tank, five blocks away from here." Glenn drew out on his map. "That's the bag of guns. Here's the alley I dragged you down when we first met. That's where Daryl and I will go."

"Why me?" Daryl asked.

"Your crossbow is quieter than his gun."

"What about me?" I questioned.

"You're going to cover me from the other side, here's the path I want you to go down to get there." Glenn drew out. "You're going to cover me from both sides."

"You got us elsewhere?" Rick asked.

"Here." Glenn points. "You and T-Dog, right. You'll be in this alley here."

"Two blocks away? Why?"

"In case I can't come back the same way. Walkers might cut me off. If that happens, Delilah you run to Rick, okay? And I'll move forward back to you guys. Whichever direction I have to go, someone is in both places to cover me. After, we'll all meet back here."

"Sounds good." I mumble. "Let's get going while we still have enough light. I don't want to be doing this in the dark."

---

I headed out first, Rick hugged me tightly before we separated. I headed the way Glenn had directed me too several times on the map and waited on the other side of the main street behind a car to back him up. There were a few geeks in the road, but none of them noticed me.

I watched Glenn and Daryl climb own the ladder and run down the alley. I looked a few alleys down for Rick and T-Dog and relaxed a bit when I caught a glimpse of Rick.

Glenn ran into the street and I raised my crossbow and kept it aimed around him. Several walkers noticed him, but none of them went after him yet. I watched as a man approached Daryl from behind and Daryl nearly shot him. The man started shouting in Spanish, causing the walkers to start converging. Glenn grabbed the bag of guns and takes off down the street.

That was the last thing I saw before everything went black.