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...
"Gone. The saddest word in the language. In any language." - Mark Slouka
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It had been a long week. The longest it seemed since the 'strays' as Todd called them had first risen in Macon all those months ago, since this fight with the dead had first started.
Erin was exhausted, her legs aching as she tried her hardest to reach Rachael's outstretched hand while the younger girl screamed for her to hurry up. Her brother and Rachael were positioned on the roof above her, only a broken stairwell dangling between her and them, but she just couldn't grab hold of the rusty metal no matter how high she jumped.
The slightly more stable grate beneath her creaked every time she landed, riling up the strays it separated her from beneath. A few managed to get their hands through the bars to grab for her ankles, but they were finished off by the whoosh of a bolt before it met their foreheads, swiftly released from Todd's crossbow far above their heads.
"Erin! We don't have time!" he called down through his teeth, his eyes focused on the creatures beneath her as she leaped once again, "Come on!"
"I'm trying!" she shouted back, her fingers scraping against the rust and coming back bloody, "Ah!"
Rachael held her hand out further as another bolt whistled past the two women, pushing herself out from the guttering, her legs now the only leverage she had to stop her from falling, "Erin! Grab my hand!"
Cursing at the pain of the rust seeping into her skin, Erin brushed it against her jeans, leaving a red streak on the denim as she reached up again, her fingers barely touching Rachael's before she fell back down. "It's no use!" she yelled up to them both, "Surely there's another way up?"
"We can't see another way," Todd replied as another stray fell victim to his aim. Erin knew he'd be running out of bolts soon if he kept this up, "You have to get up here! We're not leaving you behind..."
The determination in his voice gave Erin a boost of energy - she may be selfish, but she wasn't selfish enough to let her brother live with the guilt if he left her to the strays. She leapt once more, putting all of her strength behind it, the feeling of weightlessness overwhelming her for a second before she felt human skin against her own; warm human skin, not cold and slimy like the skin hanging from the bones of the strays - Rachael's skin.
"Yes!" she heard the woman above her shout as her hand grasped tightly around Erin's, pulling her up with all her might. Erin figured the amount of weight she'd lost from lack of food probably meant she weighed less than a feather, excluding the muscles on her calves and biceps - they seemed to have swelled to twice their size from the weight of some of the knives she carried and the sheer amount of running they'd endured.
She was still breathing heavily as the two of them collapsed in a heap on the rooftop despite the fact her asthma only usually flared when she ran. Dizziness took over her brain for a few moments as Todd rushed over to help them up, but he suddenly froze as a voice spoke up from behind him.
