A simple supply hunt for a source of water in the middle of Atlanta turns sour quickly for Erin as she come fist to face with a fuming, handless Merle Dixon.
Alone in the middle of the apocalypse with only a racist guy who doesn't know the differen...
"I'm interested in how innocence fares when it collides with hard reality." - Geoffrey S. Fletcher
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Erin watched in silence as Rick joined the group scavenging for fuel and supplies, leaving the two children with two women; one had long brown hair and looked like the mother of the boy whereas the other had cropped grey and was presumably the mother of the girl. They all sat on the steps to the RV, the children playing some sort of game while the women looked into the nearest of the sea of vehicles that the rest of the group had dove into.
As she looked down at the kids whose game seemed to involve drawing in the dirt by the roadside, Daryl cleared his throat, "Erm, Emily?"
"It's Erin," she snapped on impulse before she remembered he wasn't Merle, "Sorry..."
"What? I could'a sworn Merle called ya Emily?" He gave her a disbelieving look, tapping his finger subconsciously against the bolts of the crossbow which lay across his lap.
Erin sighed, "My name is Erin... Merle just refuses to remember it..."
"Oh..." He went quiet for a few minutes, seemingly forgetting whatever it was he'd originally wanted.
"What was it? That you wanted to ask?" she reminded him when he shot her a puzzled glance.
He stared into the distance for a moment, probably wracking his brain for whatever the question was, "Wasn't a question. Just gonna say thanks for bringin' Merle back."
"You're welcome, but you totally owe me," she smirked at his surprised expression, "I just had to put up with your stubborn asshole of a brother for the past half a day. You owe me."
Daryl's eyes flared angrily like she'd just hit a nerve, boring into her from beneath the matted hair that clung to his forehead with sweat. He tilted his head in what seemed like an attempt to unnerve her.
"Watch yer mouth. He's my family..." For a moment she felt intimidated by the man beside her, but she soon realised that if she could scare Merle she could no doubt make his little brother fear her.
"Yeah, so you know every word I said is true," she retorted, mirroring and tilting her head at him to emphasise her point, "Your brother is a racist asshole."
Daryl glared back at her, his teeth gritted and his jaw set, but he seemed to bite his tongue, "I don't have to listen to this..." He turned his gaze towards the people they were supposed to be keeping an eye on.
"No, you don't. So why don't you just-"
Her anger was cut off by a sudden whisper-yell from amidst the cars, both of their heads whipping around at the sound. In the distance, just ten metres before the first car, Rick was stood confronted by two strays which quickly amassed to four, then ten, and soon enough a whole mob was stumbling through the wrecks and shells of vehicles around them.
"Get under the cars!" she heard him whisper harshly as the two mothers pulled their children under a nearby range rover. Another two men close by heard him, too, looking up just in time to dive beneath the truck they were searching. The old man on the roof of the RV flattened himself to the smooth metal of it to stay out of sight of the strays. Merle charged over to the door of the RV, clambering inside before shutting it firmly behind him.
"Damn..." Daryl cursed beside her, readying his crossbow, but she placed a hand on his arm to stop him. He looked down at it before shrugging her off, "Get off me, woman!"
"If they see us up here, they'll swarm the truck," she pointed out as he aimed the bolt towards the frontrunner of the mob which had just passed the car Rick was lying beneath. He hesitated for a moment, almost lowering the bow but deciding to let it fly anyway, hitting the stray straight between the eyes, "Damn it, now you've probably got us killed..."
Daryl turned to her, mouth open to say something before another yell and a clunk cut through the groans. One of the other men, the only one not under a vehicle or inside of one, had caught his arm on something sharp in his attempts to run and was now bleeding profusely, attracting dozens of strays in his direction. "Stay here. Hide under the truck."
Erin didn't have time to argue as Daryl jumped down from the roof, sprinting over to the injured man, his crossbow hitting his back in the same rhythm as his boots hit the ground. Not wanting to join him on his suicide mission, she reluctantly climbed off and crawled underneath the truck, pressing her body to the ground and keeping her head raised to watch Daryl's feet.
From her compromised position, she could just see him pushing the guy out of the way and appearing to grab the body of a dead stray from the car beside them. Then, dropping his crossbow onto the bonnet of a nearby truck, he found another and pulled it over himself, seconds before the mob passed them. She held her breath, anticipating screams, but none came - they'd completely blanked them.
The shuffling grew closer to her own truck and she ducked her head down, the cold asphalt cooling the side of her face. She watched, her heart pounding out of her chest, as the feet of around twenty strays came into her view, all pushing into each other and scuffing the soles of their feet against the ground. The pure stench of the crowd overwhelmed her nostrils, forcing her to hold back a gag, the heat from the sun baking their mangled flesh like a furnace.
The last one had barely passed the back of the truck when she heard yet another scream, this time from one of the children. Her heart dropped at the sound of fear in the little girl's cries and, almost on instinct, she crawled out from beneath the truck and started running towards the sound, not caring for her own life if the girl's was in danger.
She reached the child in seconds, finding her fending off a few stragglers from the group of strays near to the edge of the undergrowth. Erin ran forward, pushing the nameless girl behind her and forming a human shield between the kid and the creatures. By now, Rick had rushed over, too, also hearing the cries, "She's fine with me. Keep an eye on the others!"
Reluctantly, Rick agreed and turned back to run back to the rest of the group. Not hanging around to watch him weave his way back through the wreckage, she grabbed the frightened girl's hand and pulled her down into the woods behind them, hearing the strays follow suit. "Shoot them!" the girl cried, but Erin shook her head. She had a pistol, but it would only draw more to their location.
Pulling the child behind her, she stopped as they reached a muddy creek. She led the girl to a small cavern in the banks, pushing her shoulders slightly to make her crouch under the brambles, "Stay here..."
"Can't you just shoot them?!" The kid was getting frantic by now, despair clear in her bright eyes.
"I can't... Just... stay here, okay?" The girl nodded and she turned on her heel, heading back to finish off the strays who were now stumbling into the creek after them. The first one lunged for her, but she took its head off with barely a flick of her knife, the rifle abandoned beneath the truck in her stupidity.
The other three came all at once, outnumbering her, but she had two knives while they only had their teeth. She stabbed one in the head, decapitating the second in a swift movement with the opposite hand. Then, when the first had slid to the ground, Erin plunged the blade into the third's forehead to finish them all off. She'd made quick work of them, partly surprising herself before she realised how much pure adrenaline must be pumping through her veins that very second.
Breathing heavily, she kicked the head of the second corpse away from her feet, grimacing at it in the same way its expression snarled up at her. As she was about to head back to the truck, a snap of a branch in the trees behind her reminded her of the little girl she'd told to stay back. Navigating her way back through to where she thought she'd left her, she stopped dead in her tracks, spinning on her heel a few times.
The girl wasn't there. She scanned the undergrowth around the area, her pulse quickening with panic...
