Love's Conquer

Walk With Me

The smell of smoke corrupted my insides as the heat from the burning helicopter began to prick at my skin. I watched carefully from a distance, bringing my arm up to my mouth to stifle some coughs as Michonne helped Andrea to the ground.

"We'll check it out. Belle', cover me." Shane ordered as he dropped his duffel bag by Michonne and drew his gun from his waistband.

I followed his command, dropping my own bag to the ground as I raised my arms over my head to take out my twin bowie knives. Looking down to Andrea and Michonne, I gave them both a quick nod before heading after Shane to check over the crash sight. We hadn't actually seen the catastrophe happen, but we heard it. We saw the blackened smoke rise into the sky and we travelled miles to meet the source of it. Shane came to a halt as his figure lingered over a man whose body had been severed in half by the blades of the flying machine. I felt Shane bring his eyes to me as I came to a stop beside him, as if he waiting to see my reaction to find the young boy was one of my own; an army veteran. He looked so young, too young. Around the age I was when I first started out.

"Let's keep goin'." I pressed, causing Shane to refocus his attention back to our surroundings.

The smoke was intoxicating and it was as if the more I tried to hold myself back from coughing, the more I felt my throat itch with irritation. The chopper itself wasn't one of our official plated ones, but when everything broke down, we used whatever we could. A lot of our supplies in general were succumbed to the dead. It shocked me that any of our units were still operating this far deep into the apocalypse. Looking inside the helicopter, there was another man who was limply tied up in his seat. I brought a foot inside the contraption, leaning over slightly to raise my wrist just under his nose. He wasn't breathing.

"Bella, this one's alive." Shane spoke up, causing me to back out from the side when suddenly, I heard movement from way in the distance. It sounded like vehicles, the type of vibration they let out is very detectable now since it's not often that we hear it anymore.

I placed the back of my hand over Shane's forearm, stopping him from moving the pilots body anymore than he already had as he attempted to rescue the injured man. Two cream coloured vehicles came into sight from the lining of the trees and they were heading this way. "Move, move!" I whisper shouted, causing Shane to retreat back with me. "Two four by fours heading this way." We quickly hunched down behind the bushes with Andrea and Michonne.

"Any survivors?" Andrea asked.

"Two dead, one alive but we couldn't get him out in time." Shane explained as we all watched intensely as the vehicles pulled up next to the debris of the chopper.

I placed my bowie knives in their holders as I rested my hand gently on Andrea's back, drawing circles with it to support her breathing. Four men arose from the comfort of their vehicles and I scanned each of them individually, soon spotting the leader standing tall, a gun tightly grasped in his right hand.

"Fan out." The brown haired man confirmed his authority for me with his own words. He had a radio strapped to his belt, along with a carving knife and an extremely stern expression all over his face. He looked dangerous, even more dangerous than any one of us. Maybe he was like us, he knew the importance of looking that way. Or maybe it's because he is someone worth fearing. "Save those rounds until you need 'em." The leader spoke wisely, directing his words to one of his men who was about to shoot down a lone walker. There was something about the man in charge that attracted me, not in a good way, in a mysterious way. I couldn't read him properly, but there was something off, something secretive about him. A facade. With many layers to it.

The men tackled a few stray walkers before checking around the wreckage. They were thorough, wouldn't leave anything to waste. "We've got a breather!" The leader called out, placing his gun back in the belt around his waist. "Tim!" I watched another man sprint to the pilots compartment, as both men attempted to get him out from the metal carcass. "Drag him out, over here.