CHAPTER FOUR

"Hey, are you alive in there?"

Rick bangs his head on the way to the radio, and MJ stifles a laugh. Even in dire situations, her sense of humor is twisted. It probably helped her stay sane in the life that she's lived all these years.

"Hello?" Rick finally gets the radio. "Hello?"

"There you are." The voice comes through again. It's a guy, young sounding. "You had me wondering."

"Where are you? Outside? Can you see us right now?"

"Yeah, I can see you." He says. "You're surrounded by geeks. That's the bad news."

"There's good news?"

"No."

"Can I kick his ass?" MJ mutters.

"Probably not." Rick glances at her and then puts the radio to his mouth again. "Listen, whoever you are, I don't mind telling you, we're a little concerned in here."

"Oh, man." The guy says. "You should see it from over here. You'd be having a major freak-out."

"I take it back. We get out, I'll hold him down so you can kick his ass."

"That's sweet, but entirely unnecessary." MJ says with a smile.

"Got any advice for us?" Rick asks the kid.

"Yeah, I'd say make a run for it." He tells them.

"That's it? Make a run for it?" He questions.

"My way's not as dumb as it sounds. You've got eyes on the outside here. There's one geek still up on the tank, but the others have climbed down and joined the feeding frenzy where the horses went down." He says, and Jack whimpers.

"Shh, shh, shh." MJ rubs his back.

"With me so far?" The kid asks.

"So far." Rick tells him.

"Okay, the street on the other side of the tank is less crowded. If you move now while they're distracted, you stand a chance. Got ammo?"

"Yeah." MJ pulls her duffle bag from beside Jack and pulls out two guns.

"Some." Rick tells him. "That duffle bag outside, can I get to it?"

"Forget the bag, okay? It's not an option." The kid tells him. "What do you have on you?"

"Hang on." He says, and they go through what they can take out. "We got a Beretta with one clip, fifteen rounds. And two other hand guns, both one clip, ten rounds."

"Make 'em count. Jump off the right side of the tank, keep going in that direction." He instructs them. "There's an alley up the street, maybe fifty yards. Be there."

"Hey, what's your name?" Rick asks as MJ picks up a grenade from beside the walker that she killed when they first came in. She stuff's it into her backpack with her clothes.

"Have you been listening? You're running out of time." He says, and MJ picks up her angel blade.

"What about me?" Jack asks as the other two ready their guns. Rick has two, and MJ has one as well as her blade.

"Stay ahead of me. Don't fall." She tells him, and Rick looks at her.

"You ready?" The cop asks.

"Yeah." She lies. "You?"

He glances at Jack, seeing how nervous he is. "Absolutely." He says, and she nods.

"Jack, hun, you go up after Rick." She instructs, and he reluctantly listens.

Rick gets the first walker off the tank and then climbs out. Jack jumps immediately after Rick does, and MJ's close behind the two boys. They run and burn through a lot of rounds, but not all of them.

"Whoa!" A kid pops out of the alley. "Not dead! Come on! Come on!" He leads the way as MJ kills more walkers that are following behind them.

The guy helping them starts up a ladder on the side of a tall building, and Rick makes Jack go next. MJ after, then he finally follows her up. They make it to a platform, and the walkers are looking up at them. They're all panting, and MJ immediately starts checking Jack for any sign of injury. He's fine, just terrified.

"Nice moves there, Clint Eastwood." The kid says as he looks at Rick. "You the new sheriff come riding in to clean up the town?"

"It wasn't my intention." Rick says.

"Yeah, whatever. Yeehaw." He says. "You're still dumbasses."

"I've been called worse." MJ mutters as she looks down at the walkers below them.

"Rick. Thanks." He introduces himself as he holds his hand out toward him.

"Glenn." He shakes it. "You're welcome."

"This is MJ and Jack."

"One of them is trying to climb up." The dyed-blonde says as Rick puts their guns back in her duffle.

Glenn looks up at what they still have left to climb. "Bright side — it'll be the fall that kills us." He tells them. "I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy."

"Be careful." MJ tells Jack, and he nods as he pulls on the straps of his backpack. She sighs as she looks into his bright blue eyes, then she takes the duffle with their weapons from him. She doesn't want him carrying the extra weight on the way up the ladder.

They make it up and walk across a platform to another building. "Are you the one that barricaded the alley?" Rick asks Glenn as he helps Jack onto the other roof.

"Somebody did — I guess when the city got overrun." He says, leading the way to somewhere safe. "Whoever did it was thinking not many geeks would get through."

"Back at the tank, why'd you stick your neck out for us?" MJ asks. It hasn't been her experience that many would, and that was before the walkers came along.

The two men open a hatch in the roof that leads inside the building. "Call it foolish, naïve hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me." He says as he starts down the ladder. "Guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you three."

"Why am I a dumbass?" Jack asks, and MJ smiles as she rests her hand against the side of his face for a second.

"I'm gonna protect that innocence for as long as I can." She says and then motions for him to follow Glenn down.

Rick's the last down the ladder and he closes the hatch above him. Glenn continues to lead the way, and they end up outside again.

"I don't like being outside." Jack says as he reaches for MJ. She holds his hand in her free one, she's got her angel blade in the other.

"I'm back." Glenn says into his walkie. "Got three guests, plus four geeks in the alley.

He stops, and Jack backs into MJ. A door opens, and two people in full body suits run out with bats. They start beating the walkers, and the other four run for where they came from.

Glenn runs past his friends and then a blonde woman grabs Jack. "You son of a bitch. We oughta kill you." She says as she aims a gun at his face.

MJ easily disarms her before shoving her back. She's got the tip of her angel blade pointed at the blonde. "Touch him again. I dare you." She says through her teeth.

"We're dead because of you stupid assholes." She says, and MJ smirks.

"You go near him again, I'll kill you before the walkers even get close." She says, and the others exchange uneasy glances.

"M." Jack walks up behind her, resting his hand on her arm. "I'm okay."

"Andrea, leave them alone." One of the guys tells the blonde — her hair's naturally that color.

"We're dead. All of us." Andrea says as she backs up. "Because of you."

"I wouldn't be so sure, sweetheart." MJ says as she lowers her blade. "You've never met anyone like me before, I can promise you that." She holds the gun out, and the blonde takes it from her.

She's not at all bothered by the blonde having a gun, she obviously doesn't know how to use it anyway. The safety was on when she had it in Jack's face. It was his obvious fear of the stranger that set MJ off. He doesn't know guns well enough to know if the safety's on or not.

"I don't understand." Rick says, gaining their attention.

One of them grabs his arm and leads him into another part of the building. "Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving!" He pushes him. "You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing. Not shooting up the streets like it's the O.K. Corral. Every geek from miles around heard you popping off rounds."

"You just rang the dinner bell." Andrea says as they look at all of the walkers outside the building — it's a department store.

"Get the picture now?"

"You call those things geeks?" MJ questions.

"You have a problem with that?" Andrea asks as she looks at her.

"My little brother was a geek. Those things are savages." She says as she looks at the blonde.

"Oh, God." One of the guys jumps back when they see a walker banging on the glass with a large rock.

"What the hell were you guys doing out there anyway?" Andrea questions.

"Trying to flag the helicopter." Rick tells her.

"Helicopter? Man, that's crap." The same one who jumped before says. "Ain't no damn helicopters."

"You were chasing a hallucination, imagining things. It happens." The other girl says — a black woman.

"I saw it." Rick insists.

"Hey, T-Dog, try that C.B. Can you contact the others?" The Hispanic guy who seems to be their leader asks.

"Others? The refugee center?"

"Yeah, the refugee center. They've got biscuits waiting in the oven for us." The woman who accused Rick of hallucinating says sarcastically.

"There's no need to be a bitch." MJ says, earning glares from multiple members of the group.

"Got no signal." T-Dog says. "Maybe the roof." He suggests, and they hear gunshots.

"Oh, no. Is that Dixon?" Andrea asks.

"What is that maniac doing?"

"Come on, let's go." Glenn tells Rick, MJ, and Jack.

"You stay close to me or Rick." MJ tells Jack, and he nods as they all run for the stairs.

The group makes it to the roof and they see an older white guy looking down at walkers through the scope of a rifle. The leader of their group runs over to him.

"Hey, Dixon, are you crazy?" He questions, and the man starts laughing.

He fires off another shot before turning around to look at the group. "Hey! Y'all be more polite to a man with a gun! Huh?" He hops off the ledge. "Only common sense."

"What the hell would he know about common sense?" MJ mutters, and Jack looks at her. He's standing just behind her right shoulder.

"You're wasting bullets we ain't even got, man!" T-Dog yells as he jumps off of the higher platform. "And you're bringing even more of them down on our ass! Man, just chill."

"Bad enough I've got this taco-bender on my ass all day." He glances at their leader, and MJ moves closer to them. "Now I'm gonna take orders from you? I don't think so, bro. That'll be the day."

"That'll be the day?" He questions, and MJ motions for Jack to move closer to Rick as she walks over to T-Dog and this Dixon jackass. "You got something you want to tell me?"

"Hey. T-Dog, man, just leave it." The leader says.

"No."

"Alright, it ain't worth it." He tells him, but both of the men are angry. "Now, Merle, just relax, okay? We've got enough trouble."

"MJ." Rick tries to get her to back up because Glenn told him to stay out of it.

"You wanna know the day?" Merle asks.

"Yeah." T-Dog nods.

"I'll tell you the day, Mr. Yo. It's the day I take orders from a nigger." He says, and T-Dog goes to throw a punch, but MJ quickly gets between them.

She shoves T-Dog back and raises the angel blade, pointing it at him. In the same instant, she pulls her gun from the back of her waistband and aims it at Merle.

"Get out of my way." T-Dog says angrily as he looks at the tip of the blade.

"No." MJ's tone is firm. "I'm not gonna end up dead because you two can't set race aside. Look around, we got bigger issues at hand here."

"That's a nice piece you got there, pretty lady." Merle says, and she turns her head to look back at him. "Who'd you steal it from?"

"I didn't steal a damn thing. My father gave it to me." She tells him. "He knows his weapons, seeing as he was a Marine. He raised me and my two brothers. You want to get to T-Dog to continue this bullshit fight? Okay. Let's go, asshole."

"You think you scare me?"

MJ smiles. "That's not the point. What matters is, you don't scare me." She tells him, and he looks at her. "You done?" She looks between him and T-Dog.

"Yeah, I'm done." T-Dog reluctantly backs off.

"You guys got him—" she motions to Merle. "—and you're calling me a dumbass?" She questions as she lowers both of her weapons. "Yeah. Okay."

"You know, you seem like my kind of girl, señorita." Merle says, and she scoffs.

"That'll be the day." MJ mutters as she goes to walk past him, and he slaps her ass.

She immediately spins around and punches him in the face. Merle goes down, and Rick — who was slowly moving closer to her — takes out his handcuffs. He quickly kneels down and uses the fact that Merle's disoriented to his advantage. He cuffs him to a pipe, then grabs him by his shirt, and hauls him into a sitting position.

"Who the hell are you, man?" Merle questions as he looks up at the cop.

"Officer Friendly." Rick says as he backs away from him and starts loading the handgun he picked up off the floor. "Listen here, Merle. Things are different now. There are no niggers anymore. No dumb-as-shit, inbred white-trash fools either. Only dark meat and white meat. There's us and the dead. We survive this by pulling together, not apart. And we sure as hell don't treat women like that."

"Even at world's end, chivalry ain't dead." MJ says with a smirk, and Jack walks over to her, pulling her away from Merle and Rick.

"Screw you, man. And your little girlfriend too." Merle says.

Rick glances at MJ and Jack for a second before looking back at Merle. "I see you make a habit of missing the point."

"Yeah? Well, screw you twice."

"Ought to be polite to a man with a gun." He says as he cocks it and presses the barrel to Merle's head. "Only common sense."

"Look out boys, there's a new sheriff in town." MJ smirks, and Jack nudges her. He's scared, and she's not helping. "So, we gonna find a way out of here? Or are we gonna keep this up till tomorrow?" She asks as she looks around at the others.