Of Monsters & Men [TWD]

1.04

"Atlanta"

—TRAVIS COULDN'T remember the last time he had been within the city limits of Atlanta since the outbreak began. He and his cousins had done their best to avoid crowded areas once they knew that the safety zones were gone. Whether there was a crowd of people or walkers, they didn't care to end up surrounded by either one. But despite the fact that Atlanta belonged to walkers, it seemed like a ghost town beginning to fall apart as if it had been abandoned for a few years.

The air smelt of the dead, nearly every city block was riddled with them— either melting to the pavement or still trying to find something to eat. The closer they got to the tall buildings, many of which had been damaged in one way or another by the bombs that the military dropped in the streets in a sad attempt to try and contain the virus and the dead. Merle said they did it because they were just "a big bunch of pussies", they would rather blindly blow half of every city in the country to bits than send themselves in to just take out the infected. But if Merle had cared to pay attention to the streets filled with walkers, many of which were in military uniforms, he'd see that the bombs hadn't been their first choice. It was their last choice and really the only one they had left.

The smell of the city was something that Travis still hadn't become used to. He had spent the least amount of time in Atlanta since they joined the group than either Daryl or Merle. Shane kept him at camp to help him manage whichever one of his cousins stayed behind. Walkers had a different sort of smell, it wasn't like some dead animal rotting on the side of the road. It was a smell that stayed in your nose, and one that you could recall at the drop of a dime. Sooner or later, he was sure that there wouldn't be a place on earth that didn't have the smell.

"So what's the plan if Merles-"

"-he won't be." Daryl said sharply, cutting Travis off from finishing his question.

Travis let out a heavy sigh, letting himself fall a bit behind Daryl as the group made their way through alleyways until Glenn led them down a street that had once been a busy street that went through the city of Atlanta that was now riddled with the rotting bodies of walkers that had been put down along with a few that were still stumbling aimlessly through the city. The group of men stood along side a building, tucked away in a alley while they went over the plan again. The group of them would all go to the department store, and get to the roof. Daryl and Travis would be the ones to get onto the roof first, hopefully to prevent Merle from attacking the others as soon as the chain was cut and the door was open.

A majority of the walkers that the group had claimed to take over the store were gone by the time Travis and the others got there. Apparently the car that Glenn had gleefully brought back to the quarry, despite its blaring alarm had led them away. Now the only ones that were still there were ones that had been trampled and were stuck dragging themselves across the floor or had found themselves entwined with the overturned racks, unable to free themselves. But the group entering the store, as quiet as they tried to be, stirred up the walkers that were still there.

"Alright, where to?" Travis questioned, glancing over his shoulder at Rick as Daryl made his way further into the store. As he waited for Rick's response Travis turned to the glass counter of jewelry. Earrings and necklaces that were locked away for safekeeping and people hadn't thought to take when Atlanta became a war zone. Travis thought briefly about possibly taking what he could, but it didn't appeal to him as much as getting his hands on that bag of guns that Rick had left in the street.

"Through here," Rick replied, keeping his voice low and motioning through the store towards the door that Daryl was heading straight for.

"I think chinamans' dinner bell led most of ''em away." Travis stated, earning a mumbled response from Glenn that he couldn't quite make out. "What?"

Travis turned around to face Glenn who was holding a flashlight up to light the way for him and T-Dogg who was carrying the bolt cutters tightly in his hand.

"Hey, let's just keep moving." Rick said before Glenn or Travis could say another word.

Travis reluctantly turned back towards Rick, moving past him to join Daryl who was yanking an arrow out of a walker's eye socket before stepping over it before the others.

As soon as Daryl pulled open the door that would lead them to the staircase, the group was met with a rush of rotten smelling air. The narrow hall leading to the stairwell was riddled with decaying walkers that were left there. Without a working air conditioner, the hot weather outside turned the building into an oven, causing the dead to rot even quicker than they were outside on the streets. But the smell didn't slow Daryl down, he sprinted ahead of the others, Travis not far behind him as they began up the stairs. The long strides from the group as they ascended the stairs filled the stairwell with clanking metal, echoing all the way up and down. Probably drawing the attention of any walkers in the building towards the stairwell. Travis didn't focus on that though, instead he could just think of what could be waiting for them on the roof. If they were lucky, it would just be a dehydrated but very much alive Merle that was still handcuffed to the roof. If he wasn't, Travis knew it would be much harder to keep him calm enough to talk to. If he wasn't, as soon as he heard the door get unlocked he'd be on his feet and ready to jump on whatever or whoever came through the door.

Come on!" Daryl shouted as soon as he reached the door, "Merle! Merle! I'm comin'!" he shouted over the sound of him banging on the door.

"Move!" T-Dogg added, finding a rush of energy to make it up the last flight of stairs, shoving past the others with the bolt cutters already held in front of him.

        Travis could feel himself growing restless as T-Dogg fumbled with the heavy chain that he had used to lock the door behind him when he had left Merle there in the first place. As soon as the cutters clamped down on the lock though, before anyone could unravel the the chain Daryl pushed T-Dogg out of his way and kicked the door open as soon as the chain was loose.

"Merle!"

         Travis shoved past Rick, stepping out of the stairwell and into the cleaner smelling air that was well above the rotting walkers on the streets. But unlike Daryl, a word could form in his mouth. He couldn't make himself callout for Merle, not until he saw if he was there.

If all of him was there.

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authors notes;
okay okay listen this update wasn't supposed to take so long. But I had this whole chapter done, and it was 8k, and I was so proud of it. Just to find out that when I got up to go get dinner, my laptop died, and my Wi-Fi had gone out, so everything on the google doc was gone 🙃 just to have to be rewritten. And instead of covering the entire storyline when they went back from Merle until they left for the quarry in one chapter, I broke it up into three. To stretch out season 1 a bit since the other seasons are easily going to be longer than 1 was going to be.

so, in short im sorry for the wait!
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