Restoration (A Walking Dead Fan-Fic)

Chapter 16

A/N: Sorry for the long wait everyone. I've had this chapter pretty much done at the time but with work and my family, it's been kind of hard to get this out. Anyhoo, I think there is about three chapters left of Restoration after this... if it goes my way. I plan on trying to finish this whole story by the time The Walking Dead season 6 premiere airs in Oct.

Thanks to Angelicedg, Stacey73, Smokey-eyed-amazon warrior and msgemgem for reviewing on Fanfiction. Thanks to all the kudos by my readers on Archiveofourown.

Reviews please.

Restoration: Chapter 16

As she stepped out of the aisle, Alexis heard the door open and six men wearing camouflage and army boots entered. A growl of wind came with them, and then the door swung shut.

Her breath caught in her throat, and then she exhaled with a whispered, "Oh, Jesus."

She could sense the predatory presence, a subtle new pressure in the air, not dissimilar to that proceeding a violent thunderstorm.

"Get down. Hide." Alexis whispered urgently to Glenn.

"Where did you learn how to shoot?" The man laughed.

"Man...Screw you."

"You had an entire flock and you hit nothing."

"I'm about to hit you." He threatened.

She leaned around the corner and recognized a familiar face. Ivan stood in the center of the five-man squad, holstering his gun and drawing his knife as the door closed behind them.

Everything stopped moving. The room turned cold and silent. She heard her heart beat, a deafening uneven thud, pulsing an icy pain through her veins, chilling her to the bone. In a room with others, she was alone. Alone with her memories and the shame of what he'd left her with. A sick repulsion twisted through her as she tried to comprehend the horrible nightmare standing in this very building.

Alexis heard herself talking to God. An incoherent, beseeching babble. She clenched her teeth and choked on the words, though it was unlikely that her voice could have carried to the front of the store over their constant prattle.

"Wait. Wait here. I'm gonna draw them away from here," she told Glenn, urging him to hide by some coolers and freezers.

"You can't handle all of them on your own," Glenn whispered incredulously.

"Neither can you. You can barely walk," She shrugged off her backpack and set it beside Glenn. "I'll come back for you."

"Alexis!" He whispered urgently.

Safety lay in movement, she leaned into the light and looked around the corner into the aisle in front of the coolers. The six men were not in sight, although she could hear them moving at the other end of the store: crisp furtive rustlings like a rat in a drift of autumn leaves.

On her hands and knees, stomach clenched in terror, she crawled into the spill of sun light far enough to look along the narrow aisle,

She looked toward the far end of the store. The men weren't in sight, but across one wall their slouched shadows swelled huge and then shrank and then glided away like that of a moth swooping past a flood lamp.

She heard movement, the creak of the counter gate, footsteps. Half nauseated from protracted fear, she was gloriously heartened when it seemed that they were leaving.

Then she realized that the footsteps were not crossing toward the door at the front of the store. They were approaching her.

She was squatting on her haunches, back pressed to the end panel of the shelf row, not immediately sure where they were. In the first of the three aisles, toward the front of the store? In the center aisle immediately to her left?