The Beginning Of The End (A Daryl Dixon Fanfiction)

Chapter One: The Sheriff

She didn't how long she had been in that tank, hours most likely but how many, she had no idea. There was nothing she could do but stay there with the little food and water she had left, no skill to take out the walkers that surrounded her and only armed with an axe, a small pistol and a grenade which she had found in the pocket of the dead soldier that was slumped opposite her. She had been contemplating throwing the grenade out there but what if she messed up? Even if it worked what would she do then? Out in the open. For the past couple of months she had only had run ins with a few walkers at a time, not a whole heard. She didn't know how to use the pistol, how to check if it was loaded or how to shoot it. She started to wish she took her father up on the offer to teach her how to shoot a gun, he always said it would come in handy for self defence. "A young woman should always carry a weapon." But she never took much notice.

By now the groans of walkers started to fade but the sound was replaced by something different, the clip clop of a horses hooves on the road. Slowly, she stood up with her head bowed so she didn't hit it on the ceiling until she found the hatch, then she stuck her head out to see where the noise was coming from. There was a chestnut horse with a white nose not far from her with a man on its back.
The man was wearing a sandy coloured police uniform and sherrifs hat and he had a big bag open on his shoulder which had the barrels of several guns sticking out of a gap in the zip. He looked around at the sky before whipping the horses reigns and riding off again.
She watched him disappear again but it wasn't long before he returned and the horses trot had become more of a gallop. As she ducked down she noticed what was chasing him... hundreds of walkers.

Quietly she crouched back down in the corner of the tank.
There was a loud neigh followed by a thud outside and then the noise of scratching coming from underneath the tank. She used her hands to shuffle away from the noise but it followed her, up and down the tank until suddenly it stopped. She used this break to try to catch her breath back and get her heart rate back to normal when, all of a sudden there were multiple gunshots coming from right underneath her, she jumped and clutched her chest as if she was checking her heart was still in there.
She tried to think of what to do and realised it had to be the man underneath her, she had never heard of a walker shooting a gun. With shaking hands she urgently unclipped the latch that was on the floor and tugged open the door with all her strength, the man noticed the hatch moving above him and helped her by lifting the door up, it opened to reveal his face, he was clean shaven with short brown hair and a stern expression. She grabbed his hand and pulled him up.
The man frantically crawled backwards towards the front of the tank and slouched next to the dead soldier, he was extremely out of breath.
"Here." She panted, throwing him a bottle of water from her rucsac, it was one of her only bottles but he clearly needed it more than she did.
"Are you hurt?" She asked and he shook his head while downing the water and letting it drip down his face. She didn't want to move closer to him till he was calmed down, he seemed skittish and she knew he was armed.
"My bag... my bag is out there." He stuttered,
"With your guns?" She asked and he nodded,
"Do you want these?" She held out her pistol and grenade, "I can't shoot and I sure as hell ain't using that."
He smiled and took them.
The pair sat in silence for a moment, the girl wondering if giving this stranger weapons was the right thing to do, she found out the hard way while on her journey to Atlanta that she couldn't trust people out here and now she tended to avoid them, she hoped this man was different, he was a sherrif after all.
It was only the second house she had found since she had started scavenging, she was looking around for food when a girls voice spoke behind her, "drop your weapon."
She placed her axe on the floor slowly before turning around to see a young girl about sixteen or seventeen.
The girl tied her wrists together with rope and locked her in the basement.

Her thought was interrupted by a quiet crackling coming from beside them, they both looked up at the source of this noise, a radio.
"Hey you." a mans voice came out of it,
"Dumbass... yeah you in the tank, are you cozy in there?"
They both scrambled for the radio and both hesitated to let the other one pick it up,
"Go on." he said,
Apprehensivly she reached her hand towards it.
"Hey, you alive in there?"
She picked it up and pressed the button on the side,
"Hello?"
The man took the radio from her,
"Where are you? Outside? Can you see us?"
"Yeah, I can see you, you're surrounded by walkers. That's the bad news."
She leaned in close to the man so the radio could pick her up,
"And the good news?" She asked,
"None." The voice replied,
"I'd say make a run for it, the walkers are all distracted by the horse down there, there's only one up on the tank."
"Okay."
"You'll need weapons."
"I have a pistol and she's got an axe, unless I can get to my bag out there that's all we've got."
"Yeah, I'd forget about the bag." The voice spoke and they both sighed in annoyance,
"Jump off the right side of the tank, keep going in that direction. There's an alley in the street, maybe 50 yards. Be there."
The radio went quiet and the man put it back on its mount on the wall.
"Give me your bag." He said, and she complied.
He put the bag on his back.
"you ready?"
She exhaled and nodded once before standing up, he did too and reached for the hatch,
"Wait," she said, he froze and looked at her, "what's your name?"
She was expecting him to seem annoyed, they were running out of time, they had to leave and she was making small talk, but instead he smiled.
"Rick."
"I'm Rain." she replied,
"Rain?"
"Yeah."