The highway out of Macon stretched before them, eerily empty except for the occasional abandoned vehicle. Glenn's pizza delivery car - a dented Honda Civic that still smelled faintly of pepperoni and regret - puttered along the cracked asphalt.
Lee stared out the window, his knuckles whitening around the shotgun in his lap. The scale of devastation hit him like a punch to the gut. Overturned school buses with doors hanging open like slack jaws. Bodies draped over guardrails, some moving, most not. A gas station convenience store with its windows smashed in, shelves picked clean. The skeletal remains of a family sedan burned down to its frame, a child's car seat still strapped in the back.
"Jesus," Lee muttered, watching a lone figure shamble across a field in the distance, its movements jerky and unnatural.
Glenn kept his eyes on the road, fingers drumming nervously on the steering wheel. "I don't think I'll ever be able to get used to this"
The radio crackled with static, the last gasp of a world that no longer existed. Lee reached over and turned it off. The silence that followed was somehow worse.
Every fifteen minutes, Lee clicked on the walkie.
"Clem? You holding up?"
"Mm-hmm. Carley says thanks for the batteries." A pause. "But she's kinda weirded out that you knew she needed them."
Lee smirked. "Just a lucky guess."
After an hour, the city's skeletal skyline faded behind them. The road ahead stretched empty, flanked by pine trees and the occasional corpse—some still, some not. Then, just as the sun began to bleed into the horizon, they saw it:
The Motor Inn.
It was exactly as Lee remembered—which sent an uneasy prickle down his spine. The was two-story and single-story building hunched beside the highway like a tired traveler, their faded yellow paint peeling under a flickering neon VACANCY sign. The office's glass door was shattered, shards glittering across the asphalt. A few cars, doors left ajar, dotted the parking lot. One—a station wagon—was smeared with blood, its windshield webbed with cracks.
Beyond a chain-link fence there were rooms that lined either side, some with curtains drawn, others gaping open like wounds. The air smelled of gasoline and rotting meat.
"We got a few walkers," Glenn whispered, peering over the crumbling cinderblock wall they crouched behind. "I count five, but there could be more. Most are upstairs—banging on that door like it owes them money."
Lee followed his gaze. Three figures in various states of decay slammed relentlessly against a motel room door, their guttural moans echoing down the stairwell. The wood groaned under their weight.
"Only one thing gets them that worked up," Lee muttered, thumbing the edge of his knife. "Someone's alive in there."
"Then we gotta help," Glenn said, as if it were that simple. And maybe it was—assuming whoever was trapped wanted saving.
"Glad we're on the same page," Lee said, scanning the lot. Two more walkers lurked below—one near a gutted raccoon carcass, another swaying beside an RV. "We do this quiet. No shots unless we've got no choice." He nodded at Glenn's crowbar. "You good with that?"
Glenn hefted the metal bar. "I'll get by."
"Left two are mine. Take the one on the right. On three—" Lee counted down with his fingers.
They moved.
Lee vaulted the wall, boots crunching gravel as he closed the distance on the first walker—a sun-bleached corpse hunched over its rancid meal. It barely raised its head before Lee's boot snapped its jaw shut. The knife followed, punching through its temple. "One."
The second walker, still clad in a tattered Falcons jersey, stood motionless by the RV. Lee crept closer, holding his breath—then struck. A kick to the back of its knee sent it sprawling face-first into the dirt. He drove the knife down—
Snap.
The blade broke off in the walker's skull.
"Shit!" Lee jammed the shotgun's stock against the protruding steel, forcing it deeper until the thing finally stilled. He didn't have time to exhale before a shadow loomed—a bloated walker, reeking of decay, lunged at him.
Lee raised the shotgun, hesitating—
"Batter up!"
The crowbar arced through the air and buried itself in the walker's temple with a sickening crack. The bloated corpse collapsed like a sack of rotten meat. Glenn delivered a second crushing blow to make sure it stayed down, flecks of black blood spraying across his face.
"Ugh... still not used to that smell," Glenn grimaced, wiping gore from his cheek with his sleeve.
Lee gave him an appreciative nod. "Good swing." They moved toward the stairwell, weapons at the ready.
Glenn eyed the narrow staircase warily. "How we playing this? Not much room for both of us up there."
A slow grin spread across Lee's face. "We're not going up. We're bringing them down."
Without explanation, Lee bounded up the stairs and slammed the butt of his shotgun against the wodden railing. The dull THUMP reverberated through the courtyard like a dinner bell.
All three walkers snapped their heads toward the noise, abandoning their assault on the door. They lurched toward Lee with hungry moans, arms outstretched.
Lee backpedaled down the steps. "To the sides!" he barked.
The first walker tripped at the top step and came tumbling down like a broken marionette. Bones snapped as it cartwheeled before landing in a heap at Lee's feet. He brought the shotgun down like a hammer - CRUNCH - and the skull collapsed inward.
"Your turn!" Lee called as the second walker pitched forward.
Glenn's crowbar flashed in the moonlight as it connected with a wet thud. The walker's head jerked sideways at an impossible angle before it crumpled to the ground.
The third met the same fate moments later, its rotting body joining the others in a grisly pile at the base of the stairs.
Glenn nudged one of the corpses with his boot. "Damn... that actually worked better than I expected."
Lee wiped his brow. "Walkers may be dangerous, but they're dumb as rocks. We just have to stay smarter."
They ascended the stairs cautiously. The door showed signs of a desperate struggle - deep gouges raked the wood like some wild animal had tried to claw its way through. From inside came the faintest sound of movement...
"Glenn, you see if you can convince whoever's in there to come out. I'll see if I can scavenge us some gas." Glenn nodded as Lee walked back down to where he found a case on the wall that held a fireman's axe. "Oh yeah. You're coming with me."
He smashed the safety glass and picked it up, playing with the weight of it in his hands. He very much fancied this as his new main weapon.
He then walked over to another car, where a corpse lay that had a crowbar-sized injury in the side of its head. He peeked into the car and found a spark plug which he quickly stomped on and pulled out a bead of aluminum.
He used that to smash another truck window where on the passenger seat a screwdriver lay - a great weapon that wouldn't get stuck as easily as a fire axe. "Maybe I can teach Clem to use this."
Lee didn't like the thought of her fighting walkers at all, but he understood how necessary it was for her to be able to protect herself. The world had changed, and even though he promised he'd never leave her in this world, tomorrow was never guaranteed. If that day should come where he left her, he'd want her to be able to survive without him.
"Lee?" Glenn came down the stairs with a clear frown on his face. "She won't come out no matter what I say. She's even boarded the door to stop me getting in."
"Did she say why?" Lee looked toward the door that was indeed boarded, his new axe itching to taste that wood.
"She started yelling and saying how I was bitten. There was no convincing her then." Glenn sighed as he looked around. "Maybe you can try?"
Lee nodded his head and began walking up the stairs until he was in front of the door. He looked at the board and raised his axe above his head. With one solid hit, the board broke in two.
"Stop! Just stop... I'll come out." The girl cried as the door slowly opened to reveal a rather pale woman who had bags under her eyes like she hadn't slept in days. "I-I said stay away."
Lee looked down at her side where he saw the torn fabric of her shirt with a large amount of dried blood. "Are you bitten?"
The woman sobbed. "I am, just like my boyfriend... I-I'm gonna come back as one of those things and kill anything I find!" Her face was a blend of fear and panic.
Lee frowned in disappointment. He couldn't save her like he did Shawn... but maybe he could help her another way, a way he was disgusted with.
"Are you at peace with turning?" A silly question that sparked a guttural cry from her.
"Of course not! I can't! It's not Christian!" Her teary eyes suddenly landed on the shotgun on his back as she suddenly calmed down a bit. "Can I borrow that?"
Lee looked at his shotgun and shook his head. "It'll draw too many walkers..." He lifted the axe. "But this is fine."
"I can't do it with an axe. It has to b-"
"I'll do it." Lee said, which shocked her silent for a moment.
"You'll do that for me?" The woman tilted her head down for a moment before sniffling. "Thank you!"
"Let's go inside." He looked over his shoulder to see Glenn searching a car, clearly distracted. "I'll make sure it's quick and painless."
Lee walked into that apartment, and two minutes later he walked out with a freshly bloody axe and a heavy feeling in his chest. He had killed a woman, an innocent woman who didn't deserve to die, yet he had helped her - given her exactly what she wanted, what she pleaded for. His head was a conflicted mess of thoughts.
[Irene Brown killed. Reward: Cooking (Lv. 1)]
"Certainly doesn't feel like a reward." Lee felt the bitterness in his mouth as his skill activated for the second time, and new knowledge of culinary practices filled his mind.
He walked down the stairs, quickly wiping the axe blade on the clothes of a walker to get rid of the blood. Once it was clean, he went over to Glenn.
Seeing a lack of girl beside him, Glenn frowned. "Guess you couldn't get her to come out either. I'll give it another shot."
Lee watched him place a pretty full jerry can into his car boot before debating internally. "There's no point." Glenn turned with a puzzled expression that changed to horror. "She's dead."
"W-what do you mean... dead?" Glenn asked as he looked up to the flat door which he could now see was wide open. "She was screaming at me five minutes ago."
Lee knew he wouldn't take this well. "She was bitten, and she was heavily Christian and refused to become one of those things... so I helped her out." The word 'help' sounded funny as it came out of his mouth.
"You can't mean... oh god." Glenn bolted up the stairs before Lee could stop him, his sneakers pounding against the concrete steps.
Lee heard the choked gasp before Glenn came stumbling back out. The younger man barely made it to the railing before vomiting over the side, his whole body shaking with the force of it.
When Glenn finally lifted his head, his face was pale and slick with sweat. The look he gave Lee wasn't anger or disgust - it was something worse. A kind of horrified understanding.
"We should get back," Lee said, unable to hold Glenn's gaze. "They'll be wondering where we are."
Glenn wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his movements mechanical. "Just... yeah."
The car ride back to the motel was suffocating in its silence. Glenn gripped the steering wheel like he was afraid it might disappear, his knuckles white. Lee stared out at the broken yellow lines passing beneath them, counting each one like it might somehow make the road shorter.