Surviving Alexandria (BOOK THREE IN THE SURVIVING THE WALKING DEAD SERIES)

Settling In

     Rick and I talked it over shortly after leaving Deanna's office, and he's decided to give it a try, said he'd be stupid not to, now he's regretting it because I've been boasting about how I was right and he was wrong. I'm gonna have fun getting under Rick's skin. After everyone was done with their interviews, we exited the house and was greeted by Nicholas and a heavyset woman with a cart.

     "You need to hand over your guns." Nicholas ordered.

     "They're still your guns." Deanna insisted as she stood on the front porch. "You can check them out whenever you go over the wall, but inside here, we store them for safety." Everyone quietly complied and piled their guns on top of the cart. I walked over to the cart and pulled my gun out from my waistband and placed it on the cart before removing my bow.

     "You can keep your bows," The woman smiled. "and in your case, sword." The woman motioned towards Michonne. "We just need the guns."

     "That's all we got." I responded. The woman gave me a smile and began to roll the cart away.

     "I should've brought another bin."

     "Michaela," I turned around to face Deanna who was now standing beside Aaron. "Aaron tells me you and your people saved Eric. Is that correct?"

     "I wouldn't call it saved, just helped 'em." I answered.

     "Well, be that as it may, I want to thank each and every one of you, but in the meantime, Aaron will escort you all to your houses."

     "Houses?" Michonne asked.

     "Follow me." Aaron smiled. We all followed Aaron down the street as he lead us over to two side-by-side houses. One was a grayish blue and the other one was a tanish grey. The blueish one was two and a half stories tall while the other one was only two, but still enough room to fit each and every one of us.

     "Both of them?" Rick asked.

     "At your disposal." Aaron smiled before leaning nonchalantly towards me. "I'd call dibs on the two story house, it's got more curb appeal." I smiled and nodded before looking over at the houses. "Listen, I know you're all still feeling us out, but I'm glad you came. Anyways, Deanna's asked everyone to give you some space so they aren't all coming at you at once. Take your time, explore. You need anything, you call me... I don't- we don't have phones. I meant... I'm four houses down."

     "Thank you." Carl nodded. Aaron gave us a gentle smile and walked down the street, leaving us to decide who lived where. We decided that Rick, Carl, Judith, Michonne, Gabriel, Glenn, Maggie, and Noah would take the bigger house while Abraham, Carol, Rosita, Sasha, Eugene, Scott, Samantha, Daryl, and I would take the two story one. The inside of the house was beautiful, almost like the place Merle and I shared after I cleaned it up. Off to the side, a stack of empty photo albums sat on top of an ottoman, waiting to be filled. I couldn't help but to sigh, I left my photo album behind with Daryl at the church, it's still there. The photos of us and the photo of Merle, they were gone. I'd never see them again.

     The living room was huge. A large fireplace sat off in the distance, a large sectional couch and a large bookshelf that I knew Eugene would thoroughly enjoy. The kitchen was fully stocked with dishes, food, water, pop, along with a huge kitchen table and multiple chairs in the connected dining room. I didn't even need to see the rest of the house. I was sold.

     "I CALL DIBS ON THE SHOWER!" I yelled as I ran up the stairs.

     "LIKE HELL YA DO!" Abraham yelled as he ran after me. It was close, but I managed to shove Abraham out of the way as I ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. BANG! BANG! BANG! "Damn it, c'mon, Michaela. My balls smell worse than a walker's ass."