Glenn exhaled, his shoulders sagging with relief. T-Dog looked as though he had just walked out of his own funeral, some color finally returning to his face.
"Listen up," Daryl said. "You better pray nothing happened to him. 'Cause if it did, if he's dead out there somewhere..." He left the threat hanging, but his eyes said plenty.
Rick didn't dignify it with a response. He was already moving, following the trail of dried blood across the rooftop. The smears led away from the handcuff site. The trail terminated at another door on the opposite side of the roof, one they hadn't noticed before.
The door hung slightly ajar, propped open from the inside.
Daryl kicked it wide, crossbow up and ready. The others filed in behind him.
The stairwell landing was a graveyard. Four walker corpses lay sprawled across the concrete, their skulls caved in or punctured. Around them, scattered like breadcrumbs, were empty tin cans. Someone had been camping here.
He crouched beside the nearest body, examining it. After a moment, he grunted. "Clean work."
"What do you mean?" T-Dog asked.
"Look at the wounds," Daryl said, pointing to a walker with a hole tore straight through its eye socket. "A single strike. It went right into the brain."
He moved to another corpse, this one with the back of its skull caved in. "This one too. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing."
Glenn knelt down for a closer look, his face going a bit green. "That's... Jesus."
"The rescuer can handle himself," Rick said, meeting Daryl's eyes.
Daryl stood, brushing dust from his jeans. "Merle holed up here for a while. Whoever came for him must've come up through this door."
"These bodies," Rick added, studying the arrangement, "they're positioned to block the stairs. Whoever was here used them to mask the scent."
They continued down the stairwell. The mood had shifted from despair to optimism, though nobody was ready to celebrate yet. Too much could still go wrong.
T-Dog brought up the rear, his gun sweeping the shadows. His eyes caught on something outside one of the grimy windows.
"Hey." He stopped, pointing. "The hell is that? Why's there an alarm clock hanging outside the window?"
Everyone froze.
Rick turned, following T-Dog's finger. When he saw it, something clicked in his brain.
He'd seen that exact model before. Lucien had used one just like it in the hospital, setting it up on the bedside table to help him keep track of time in those disorienting first hours of consciousness.
He moved to the window, pressing his face close to the filthy glass. The clock was definitely the same model. And it was positioned, right at eye level for anyone coming down these stairs.
"I think... I know who saved Merle."
The others turned to stare at him.
He tapped the glass, indicating the digital clock swaying slightly in the breeze. "That belongs to Lucien."
Daryl and Glenn surged forward simultaneously, nearly colliding in their rush to the window. They pressed against the glass, searching for more signs. But what they saw below stopped them cold.
"Holy shit," Glenn breathed.
Directly beneath the shattered floor-to-ceiling window was a mound of walker corpses. Not just a few, but dozens, piled three or four deep in a pyramid of rotting flesh.
They'd fallen from this window. That much was obvious. Their bodies were twisted at impossible angles, limbs broken, skulls cracked open on the pavement below. Blood pooled around the base of the pile, spreading across the concrete.
But what made it truly horrifying was how deliberate it looked. This wasn't random. The bodies had accumulated over time, each one lured to the window and then... what? Pushed? Pulled?
Rick's mind raced, putting the pieces together.
"It's a trap," he said quietly.
"What?" T-Dog leaned in to see.
"A fishing trap," Rick explained, gesturing at the scene below. "You break the window, make noise, draw walkers to the opening. They see movement, try to climb through, and fall to their deaths. Keep doing it until you've got a clear zone around the building."
Daryl let out a sound that was half laugh, half snort. "Huh. Kid's got a brain in his head." He shot Rick a sidelong glance. "At least he knows what he's doing. Some people just charge straight into death."
Rick ignored the jab. His mind was elsewhere. If Lucien had set this up and saved Merle, then they were working together now. A kid and a racist asshole with a missing hand. Strange bedfellows, but the apocalypse had a way of forcing people into unlikely alliances.
T-Dog pulled back from the window, looking a bit sick. "Okay, so Rick's kid is with Merle. That's good news for us, right?"
Rick started to correct him. Not my kid, he wanted to say. Just someone I owe my life to.
In the end, he decided it didn't matter. They could think whatever they wanted. The important thing was finding Lucien alive.
Daryl studied him for a moment. Then he nodded once. "Alright. Let's find 'em both."
"First things first," Rick said. "I still need that gun bag."
"Right." Daryl hefted his crossbow. "Let's get your shit and get moving."
---
Five minutes later, they'd relocated to an abandoned laboratory a few blocks from the tank. The space was a mess but it had a clear view of the main street and enough cover to plan without being spotted.
Glenn crouched on the dusty floor and used his finger to sketch a rough map. He drew quick lines to mark the main roads and side streets, along with the position of the tank and the department store they had escaped from.
"Okay, listen. The tank's on the main drag, right here." He tapped the floor. "Walker concentration is heaviest there. We can't just walk up and grab the bag."
"So what's the play?" Daryl asked.
"I go in fast." Glenn drew a line from their current position to the tank. "Use my speed, grab the bag, get out before they swarm."
"That's a shit plan," Daryl said flatly.
"You got a better one?"
"Yeah. Don't go alone."
Glenn shook his head. "One person is quieter than two. I can move faster. I've done this before."
"Yeah, and you almost got eaten last time," T-Dog pointed out.
"Almost doesn't count." Glenn drew another line, this one veering off to the side. "If things go wrong, I'll head for this alley two blocks east. Ninety-degree turn, easy to defend. Rick and T-Dog, you post up there for extraction."
Rick studied the map. "And Daryl?"
"I'll cover him from here." Daryl pointed to a spot near the alley entrance. "I've got a clear line of sight, and I can drop any walkers that get too close."
It was a decent plan. Not perfect, but decent. Rick had seen worse in his years on the force.
"One question," T-Dog said, looking at Glenn. "What'd you do before all this? You're talking like military."
Glenn blinked. "I delivered pizza."
The silence that followed was profound.
"Pizza," Daryl repeated.
"Yeah. Why?"
Daryl shook his head slowly. "Nothing."
Delivering pizza in Atlanta must be a hell of a lot more complicated than I thought, Rick mused. But then again, maybe that was the apocalypse for you, bringing out skills people never knew they had. Look at Lucien. He had gone from being a hospital visitor to setting up walker kill zones in less than a week.
"Alright. Let's do it."
---
They moved into position quickly. Rick and T-Dog headed east, keeping to the shadows. They found the alley Glenn had marked, narrow, with good cover and multiple exit routes, and posted up behind an overturned dumpster.
Daryl settled in at his vantage point, crossbow resting on a concrete barrier that gave him a clear view of the street. His breathing was slow and steady.
Glenn stood at the mouth of the building, rolling his shoulders, shaking out his legs.
"Don't be a hero," Daryl called quietly. "Get in, get out."
"I wasn't planning on it." Glenn flashed a nervous smile. "See you in a minute."
Then he ran.
It was like watching a deer sprint across a highway. He vaulted over a crashed motorcycle, ducked under the sagging arm of a traffic light, wove between cars like he'd been doing parkour his whole life. The walkers barely noticed him. A few turned their heads, drawn by the movement, but Glenn was already past them, disappearing into the maze of vehicles.
Daryl tracked him through the crossbow's sight, finger resting lightly on the trigger. From his position, he could see at least twenty walkers shambling around the tank. None of them had spotted Glenn yet.
Glenn reached the tank, dropped into a crouch beside it. His hand shot out, grabbing the gun bag that was still lying where Rick had dropped it. Then he snatched Rick's sheriff's hat, sitting forlorn on the pavement.
He paused for a second. Then he jammed it onto his head and turned to run
That's when things went sideways.
A walker, one of the faster ones, lurched around the far side of the tank. It spotted Glenn immediately, let out a shriek that echoed off the buildings.
Every walker on the street turned.
"Shit," Daryl muttered.
Glenn didn't hesitate. He bolted, the gun bag bouncing against his back, Rick's hat threatening to fly off with every step. The walkers gave chase. But Glenn was fast. Faster than the dead, at least. He put distance between himself and the horde.
He was going to make it.
Then the kid appeared.
Daryl saw him stumble around the corner of the alley. He was skinny, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old. He looked lost and terrified, his eyes going wide as saucers when he spotted Daryl crouched there with a crossbow.
"Stop!" he barked, swinging the weapon around. "Don't move!"
The kid froze like a rabbit in headlights. "I... I was just passing through! I didn't see anything!"
"Shut up. You'll draw—"
"Help!" The kid screamed. "Somebody help me!"
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Daryl lunged forward, trying to clap a hand over the kid's mouth, but it was too late.
Footsteps pounded from deeper within the alley. Two men burst into view: one bald, the other shorter, with a scraggly beard.
They saw Daryl "attacking" their friend.
The bald one didn't hesitate. He charged forward and drove a fist into Daryl's face.
The impact sent Daryl sprawling. Before he could recover, the bald man was on top of him, raining down punches like a man possessed. Each hit landed with meaty thuds that Daryl felt in his bones.
He tried to throw the guy off, but the angle was all wrong. His crossbow was somewhere on the ground. Blood filled his mouth from a split lip.
Then Glenn appeared at the mouth of the alley, gun bag in hand, eyes going wide at the scene before him.
"Hey! Stop!"
The two men's heads snapped toward him. Their eyes locked onto the gun bag.
The bald man abandoned Daryl and charged at Glenn, his partner right behind him. Glenn stumbled backward, fumbling for the zipper on the bag, trying to get to the guns inside.
"Shit!" Daryl rolled to his feet, grabbed his crossbow, and fired.
The bolt took the bald man in the ass cheek. He went down screaming, clutching at the shaft sticking out of his flesh.
His partner skidded to a stop, realized he was outgunned, and made a split-second decision. He grabbed Glenn from the side, used him as a human shield, and started dragging him toward a car parked at the curb.
"Glenn!" Daryl tried to line up another shot, but the guy was smart, keeping Glenn between himself and the crossbow.
The wounded man stumbled after them, still screaming, blood running down his leg. Together they hauled Glenn toward the vehicle.
From two streets over, Rick and T-Dog heard the commotion and came running.
And from the opposite direction came a voice Daryl would've recognized anywhere.
"Fuck! You goddamn pieces of shit! Stop right there!"