Go Back to the House

“Well, I think we should go help our people; I mean, they might still be alive and we have enough ammo to get us over there. I think it’d be pretty shitty to leave them there.” T-Dog pulled shells out of his jacket and reloaded the pump action shotgun.

“Thank you!” Daryl said to T-Dog then glared at me. What was left of my heart cracked a bit.

We loaded our last clips into our pistols and waited a little longer until the walkers thinned out from the trees. We then started to carefully climb back down the ladder, intent on our surroundings. We cautiously crept back to the house, trying not to make ourselves noticeable. Daryl was in the lead again and was now holding his hunting knife in one hand.

I looked behind me at T-Dog; he gave me a look that basically said “you’re an idiot”. It made me feel fantastic.

I rolled my eyes and turned back only to see a walker’s face inches away from mine. I instinctively yelled in surprise as it fell on top of me. I pushed its head away from me as it tried to bite me. Luckily I didn’t have to struggle long because Daryl had grabbed it from behind and stabbed it under its chin. He threw it on the ground beside me and stabbed it again, this time in the forehead.

I lay there for a second to catch my breath. Daryl held out his hand to pull me up and as soon as I was back on my feet I turned around and pushed T-Dog as hard as I could.

“You asshole! You didn’t tell me there was a walker behind me!” I shouted.

“I didn’t see it! It came out of nowhere!” he shouted back in defense.

“Shut up, both of you!” Daryl grabbed my arm and whipped me around. “Be quiet and follow me.”

I shook his hand off and continued across the field. We made it to the house to see that there was no way in without climbing over piles of bodies. However, that didn’t seem to stop Daryl. He heaved a couple of walkers from a broken window and squeezed his way through. As soon as he was in the house I heard gunshots and practically threw myself in after him.

The house was a mess; walkers were strewn all over the floor, the furniture was broken, the walls stained with blood, glass crunched on the ground as we stepped on it. There were a few walkers still alive wandering in different rooms. But the most noise was coming from the stairs above. My heart raced and I shot three walkers in the kitchen then followed Daryl up the stairs towards the moaning.

A group of about a dozen walkers crowded around a closed door, banging on it as hard as a dead person could. They had managed to make a hole in it and the ones in the front were sticking their arms through. I could tell the door was going to give way soon.

Daryl didn’t waste any time; he began to shoot the walkers in the head with the ammo he had left. I joined him, but was shaking too much out of disbelief that I missed about half of my shots.

That’s when I noticed someone else had joined us. There was another round of gunshots that soon finished off the rest of the walkers.

Silence.

Nobody talked. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. We just stood there looking at the pile of walkers we had just massacred.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, I got the feeling back in my legs and turned to see who the fourth person was. Maggie stood next to me, just as stunned as the rest of us. That’s when we heard voices from inside the room.

“Daryl? T-Dog? L-Lin? Are you still there?”

I stepped on undead bodies to look into the hole they had created and saw Andrea, Glenn, and Rick backed up against a wall. They had horrified looks on their faces and were each clutching a melee weapon. Rick had a baseball bat, Glenn carried the machete he used since the day he found it, and Andrea had a tight grip on a metal lamp.

“I-is it safe?” Glenn’s voice shook.

“Yes, at least safer than it was.” I replied.

I tried to pull the door open, but it was no use unless the bodies were moved.

“C-can you try to climb through the hole?” I asked. Daryl and T-Dog were behind me, heaving walkers out from the door. Maggie was still standing near the stairs, not saying a word.

The three survivors in the room took turns kicking the door to make the hole wider and they ended up doing a pretty good job. Andrea made her way out first, then Glenn, followed by Rick. They all looked flustered and traumatized. Glenn’s face turned from shock into a mixture of joy and concern when he saw Maggie. They embraced and Maggie started to cry.

I knew they were all thinking the same thing. They thought they were going to die here. I thought we were going to die here. All of this was truly a miracle. The explosion was a damn miracle.

Go Downstairs