The sporting goods section of Harrison's had become a charnel house in seconds. Merle Dixon's reckless gunfire and the ensuing brawl with T-Dog had been a dinner bell for every walker on every floor. They poured in from the main aisles, from shattered internal doorways, even seemingly from the ventilation shafts, a relentless, groaning tide of death.
"To the stairwell!" Ethan yelled, his voice cutting through the din. He had directed Andrea and Jacqui there earlier, and it was their most defensible fallback point from this section. "Protect the path!"
His System was a maelstrom of red threat indicators, but it also highlighted the most immediate dangers. [Walker pack, east aisle, flanking! Andrea and Jacqui vulnerable!]
Ethan, his machete a silver arc, moved to intercept, his enhanced Agility and Perception allowing him to navigate the cluttered aisles with surprising speed. He took down two walkers that were closing in on Andrea, who was fumbling with a newly acquired shotgun, her face pale with terror but her hands surprisingly steady. "Thanks!" she gasped, finally racking a shell. Jacqui, armed with a small handgun, fired a few shots, more to create space than with any real accuracy.
The rest of "Shane's raiders," as Merle had derisively called them, were in a desperate, scattered fight. Glenn, agile as ever, used a hunting bow he'd grabbed (no arrows yet, just the bow itself as a makeshift club) to create distance. Morales fought fiercely to protect T-Dog, who was on one knee, bleeding from a fresh gash on his forehead where Merle had struck him, his injured arm making him a liability.
And Merle? Merle was a laughing, shrieking berserker, high on whatever he'd consumed, firing his shotgun indiscriminately, sometimes dangerously close to his own team members, reveling in the carnage he had unleashed.
"Come on, you dead freaks!" he bellowed. "Let Merle show you how we party!"
"He's lost it! Completely!" Glenn shouted to Shane, who was trying to reload his own shotgun while kicking away a grasping walker.
The situation was untenable. Walkers were flooding the area. Their hastily gathered supplies were scattered. T-Dog, trying to retrieve a dropped bag of ammunition, cried out as Merle's wild firing caused a heavy display case full of fishing lures to crash down, showering him with glass and metal hooks, and pinning his leg.
That was the breaking point for Shane.
"DIXON!" Shane roared, his face a mask of pure fury. He ignored the walkers for a split second, lunged at Merle, and tackled him with the force of a linebacker, sending both men crashing into a rack of camouflage gear. "You're gonna get us ALL KILLED, you crazy son of a bitch!"
A brutal fight erupted between Shane and Merle, even as walkers closed in around them. It was chaos.
Ethan, seeing his chance while several walkers were momentarily distracted by the fresh commotion of Shane and Merle wrestling on the floor, yelled, "The fire escape! I saw a door to the roof access near the elevator bank when we came up! It's our only way out of this section!"
[System confirms: Rooftop access door, north-east corner of this floor. Currently unblocked. Offers temporary vertical evasion from current walker swarm.]
"GO!" Ethan would have ordered. In his absence, Shane, even while pummeling Merle, seemed to register Ethan's shout. Glenn, ever the pragmatist, was already moving, helping a terrified Jacqui and a now-determined Andrea (who had managed to load her shotgun) towards where Ethan was pointing.
Morales struggled to free a moaning T-Dog from under the display case. Ethan rushed to help, his enhanced Strength making a difference as they heaved the heavy case off T-Dog's trapped leg.
"Can you walk?" Ethan asked T-Dog urgently.
"Think so… just… get me out of here!" T-Dog gasped.
With walkers now only feet away, it was a mad, fighting retreat towards the steel fire escape door. Ethan and Glenn formed a desperate rear guard. Ethan's machete was a blur; his System wasn't even bothering with individual kill notifications anymore, just highlighting the most immediate threats in red. He felt his Stamina plummeting but fought on, driven by adrenaline and the desperate need to get these people out.
They reached the rooftop access door. It was heavy, steel, but unlocked. Glenn yanked it open, revealing a narrow, dark stairwell leading up.
"Andrea, Jacqui, Morales, T-Dog, get up there!" Glenn yelled.
Shane, having finally subdued a struggling, cursing Merle by slamming his head against the floor, hauled the semi-conscious Dixon up like a sack of potatoes. "Move it!"
Ethan and Glenn were the last ones to the door, walkers clawing at their backs. They slammed the heavy steel door shut just as the horde reached it, the metal booming under their furious assault. They found a heavy steel bar lying nearby and jammed it through the handles, securing it for the moment.
They stumbled up the short flight of stairs and burst out onto the rooftop of Harrison's Department Store. The sudden, open sky, even filled with the smoke of a burning Atlanta, felt like a breath of fresh air after the claustrophobic hell below. For a moment, they just stood there, gasping, taking in the panoramic view of a city consumed by the dead. The sounds of the walker horde raging in the store beneath their feet were a terrifying, constant reminder of their precarious position.
Shane, his face still dark with rage, dragged the groaning Merle towards a thick ventilation pipe running along the rooftop edge. He pulled out a pair of handcuffs a relic from his police days he apparently still carried.
"You are done," Shane seethed, snapping one cuff onto Merle's wrist and the other around the cold steel pipe. "You hear me, Dixon? You are DONE causing trouble."
Merle, dazed but defiant, just spat a string of curses and racist slurs.
T-Dog, leaning heavily against the rooftop parapet, his face pale from pain and blood loss (both from Merle and the display case), fumbled for something in his pocket. "Here, Shane," he said, his voice weak. "The key. Lock him up good." He held out the handcuff key.
But as Shane reached for it, T-Dog, unsteady on his feet and still shaken, stumbled. The small, silver key flew from his trembling fingers, skittered across the gravel rooftop, and with a tiny, almost insignificant plink, disappeared down a narrow drainage grate near the edge.
A horrified silence fell over the group, broken only by Merle's sudden, harsh laughter.
"Well, now," Merle cackled, blood trickling from his lip. "Looks like ol' Merle ain't going nowhere. And neither are you fine folks, without a key to my heart."
They were trapped on a rooftop high above a walker-infested city, with their most volatile member now, it seemed, permanently attached to the plumbing, and the only key to his freedom lost to the abyss below. Dale's voice, tinny and filled with static and panic, suddenly crackled to life over Glenn's walkie-talkie, which he'd clipped to his belt.
"Glenn? Shane? What in God's name is going on up there? We're hearing all hell break loose! Report! Do you copy?"
Their situation had just gone from desperate to utterly catastrophic.