Not the Walking Dead

Violence Against Music

The group didn't so much as speak but cough and whisper at the stench of the hundreds of corpses littered on the ground around us. Everyone was coughing into their arms as they walked, squinting their eyes and wincing at the sound of buzzing flies piercing their ears. Even the Dixons hadn't ever had their senses overwhelmed with so much death. Everyone had their own bag of belongings on them; I don't think anyone has more than one bag of personal belongings. Everything else we have is survival supplies, which we shouldn't need in there anyway.

Carol and Lori whispered to their children as they walked, urging them forward and trying to keep their attention off of the intense situation. Shane, Glenn, Rick, and T-Dog led the pack. Morgan, Dale, and Jim kept close by the women and kids, herding them in between the two packs of fighters. Merle, Daryl and I brought up the rear. It took five minutes of walking over bodies and barely breathing through the rot in the air before we got to the shutters of the building I really really didn't want to go in. I eyed Rick who had the bag of guns, then noticed Glenn had the small box of explosives tucked into his backpack, barely visible. I ran over to him and zipped up the backpack all the way, quieting him with a finger to my lips as he turned back toward me with a questioning glance.

Everyone's faces had an equal equation of fear and disgust on their faces. This situation was far too dangerous for anyone to allow the sadness of all this death to truly take root in their features, at least for now. Anger was far heavier on their faces as they noticed the shutters were down and Rick and Shane failed at trying to lift them.

"There's nobody here." T-Dog surmised, sending me a scalding glare that I pretended not to notice as I scanned the area around us for walkers that had taken notice of the fresh, living meat in their vicinity.

"Then why would the shutters be down?" Rick asked him, gesturing to them quietly. As angry as everyone was, and terrified, everyone kept quiet.

"Walkers!" Jim practically screamed from behind me. I took out an arrow and shot the one he had pointed before it fully stood up, hoping no others noticed the movement.

"Would you shut the hell up?" I sneered at him, as even I was feeling the effects of the tension as it sunk in. We needed to get inside, now. Like three minutes ago now.

"This psycho bitch led us into a graveyard!" Daryl yelled as well, pointing at me in the angry redneck way he does, elbows fully cocked out. Merle said nothing to me but the look on his face was murderous.

"I didn't want to come here." I reminded them with attitude.

"Rick made a call." Shane interjected, trying to defuse the situation for once.

"It was the wrong damn call!" Daryl yelled again, gaining the attention of even more walkers.

"Shut up, you hear me? Just shut up!" Shane growled loudly at Daryl, sticking his finger in his face, then turned back on his partner. "Rick, man, this is a dead end."

"Where are we going to go?" Carol asked, again, far too loudly for our situation while holding her sobbing daughter in her arms. Duane clung to Jacqui and Carl to his own mother in a similar fashion.

"She's right, we can't be out here this close to the city after dark." Lori added, looking between Shane and Rick. I ignored the rest of their ramblings as I've heard it all before as I scanned the area. I took down three more walkers with my arrows that got a little too close for comfort while everyone screamed at Rick to let it go.

"Elena, please help me! You know there's someone in there!" Rick pleaded grabbing my arm and dragging me to the shutters. Shane was trying to usher everyone back to the cars, but we couldn't leave until Rick stopped howling and came with us. But, as I looked at the dark of the sky and the dead descending on us faster than Daryl and I can shoot our arrows, I turned to the shutter.