Lay Your Hands on Me

Glenn, Maggie, and I were on the road again, we were making a run to look for more ammo which we had been running low on. Glenn had found an old phone book in one of the guard towers that had given us information on a few places we could scope out. The three of us including Daryl the odd time were the only ones to leave the prison. Ever since the Andrew incident Rick never fully snapped back into himself. He spent most of his days running through the prison tunnels, clearing out any walkers he found, section by section.

Glenn pulled our truck up to an old convenience store, the first stop on our list. It was around midday, the sun was high in the sky giving us the time to make a few stops for any supplies. I hopped out onto the pavement, the parking lot was littered with trash. I looked around the perimeter, no signs of any walkers, it was fairly quiet.

"Clear outside," I called out.

"Alright, let's take a look," Glenn said, stepping out of the vehicle. Maggie followed close behind me. She looked around, the breeze of the warm Georgian air wisping through our hair.

"It's a beautiful day," she paused.

"A day like today something good should happen," I responded, flashing her a smile.

Glenn grabbed a pair of bolt cutters, clipping off the chains that held the door shut. He swung open the door before a bird came darting at his head, scaring the shit out of all of us. We laughed as Glenn exhaled harshly. It nearly took his head off.

Glenn was the only one to go inside and Maggie and I stood to watch at the door. There was a peaceful silence between us as she kept an eye on Glenn and I looked over the road at the surrounding trees.

"What are we going to do about Rick?" she asked me, carrying concern in her tone.

"As of right now, nothing. Rick will come around, we've all had our moments. It was only a matter of time before the burden he carries caught up to him."

From the corner of my eye I could see her staring at me, she didn't respond.

"We just hit the powdered formula jackpot," Glenn said, emerging from the convenience store. He carried a grocery basket full of supplies.

"Oh, thank god."

"I also got beans, batteries, cocktail wieners, and many mustards. It's a straight shot back to the prison from here. I say we have enough we could probably make it back for dinner."

"I like the quiet though," Maggie said, "back home you can always hear them outside the fence, no matter where you are-"

"And where is it y'all good people are callin' home?" a man's voice caught us by surprise. I turned to see a large bald man standing to our left, his face was all bloodied up as he held a gun raised over his right arm. The arm looked to be mangled, a stump with a metal object attached to it like a prosthetic arm. At the end of it, he had a knife welded into the base.

We instantly raised our guns in defense, stepping around the back of the car and spreading out.

"Merle?" Glenn asked. Maggie and I looked over at Glenn, questioning how he knew him.

The man began to laugh hysterically, "Wow!" he said as he placed his gun on the ground and raised his hand and metal arm in surrender, walking towards us.

"Hey, back the hell up!" I shouted to him. He looked to be in disbelief.

"Okay, okay, honey!" he laughed, but he continued to press forward.

"You made it?" Glenn muttered to him in what sounded like shock, but when I looked at Glenn's face he seemed disappointed.

"Can you tell me, is my brother alive?" Merle asked.

"Yeah," Glenn answered.

Merle breathed a sigh of relief, nodding his head and smiling, "Hey, you take me to him and I'll call it even on everything that happened up there in Atlanta. No hard feelings. Huh?" He tried to bargain with Glenn.

"We'll tell Daryl you're here and he'll come out here to meet you," Glenn answered and my head shot up towards him. This is Daryl's brother? My memory finally came back to me now, Merle was the brother that stole their truck on the day that they found me. He was the brother that led them into the city to find him, which ultimately led them to me.

"Hold on, just hold up here. Hey, the fact that we found each other is a miracle. Come on, now. You can trust me." He pleaded, slowly inching himself closer to where we stood.

"You trust us. You stay here." Glenn was firm with him.

Merle chuckled, smirking at Glenn before he reached for something in his back pocket and screaming. He pulled out a gun and instantly shot at us, hitting the back windshield of our car, right between where Maggie and I stood. I ducked and shot around the right side of the truck, hoping that Glenn and Maggie did as well. I was knelt on the ground trying to get to the front of the car for cover when Merle grabbed onto my foot, yanking me back and into his grasp. He dragged me towards him, sitting me between his legs and placing his knife at my neck.

"Hey, hey, hold up there, hold up," Merle shouted as Glenn and Maggie rounded the car searching for me.

"Let go of her. Let go of her!" Glenn yelled.

I breathed heavily as his metal arm pressed firmly against my neck, I held onto it for dear life to relieve the pressure.

"Put your guns in the car there. Put it in the car, son!" Merle ordered them. They looked back and forth between one another, they couldn't do anything with the knife against my neck. One move and I was done. They reluctantly placed their Glocks on the car seat, raising their hands in surrender. "There you go. Now we're gonna go for a little drive."

"We're not going back to our camp," Glenn shook his head.

"No, we're going somewhere else.

-------

I sat in a dimly lit room, my arms duct taped to a wooden chair they had placed me in. They separated the three of us, all in different rooms waiting to be interrogated. I was sweating in fear of what came next. Merle had driven us to his camp, a small town they had barricaded themselves in from the walkers. I could hear the deep mumbles of men outside in the hallway, their voices becoming more prominent as they approached my room.

The door creaked open and my body tensed up at the sound of it. A man walked through, his large stature filling the door frame. His eyes were dark with demise as he held a knife in his hand. He approached where I sat in the middle of the room, his brown hair stuck to his head with sweat and grease making it look a shade darker than it was. He looked ungroomed, making him appear animal-like, it scared the shit out of me. He placed the tip of his knife down on the table in front of me harshly, scrapping it across the wood towards my body.

"You don't even know why you're here, do you?" his voice was rasp, dripping with amusement. "We don't mean you no harm if you cooperate," he said. I stayed quiet, nearly holding my breath in fear. He sat down on the edge on the table close to me, twiddling the knife between his fingers. "So tell me, are you going to cooperate?"

"What do you want from us?" I spat.

He chuckled, "Well Merle's pretty upset that you tell him his baby brother is still alive and then hold off on where he is. But me, I wanna know where it is your keeping the rest of your people," he smiled down at me. I locked eyes with his, there was nothing but a black hole behind them. He was displeased with my silence. "No, you don't want to tell me? I could always go ask one of your friends. The farmer's daughter doesn't look like she'd put up too much of a fight."

Reacting without thinking out of anger I spit in his face, instantly regretting my actions. My chest rose rapidly from my breathing, but I held myself together, staring daggers at the man above me. He slowly wiped my spit from his eye laughing.

"Oh, you're going to regret doing that," he said before hitting me across the face. My head flew to the side with so much force that the wooden chair moved from beneath me. I held my head to the side, my hair clinging to the blood dripping from my nose. He stood up from the table, "Just wait until the Governor gets his hands on you."