HOMESICK - 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘥

𝟎𝟎𝟏 | DEMOCRACY OF MERLE DIXON

Mya hated the sight of the geeks, walking piles of flesh that killed anything with a pulse. It almost worried her that by now she was used to the sight of them. Were the military ever coming? Nobody knew what was going to happen, whether this twisted nightmare had an end or not. Mya just wanted to go home, even if the past month had been the most time she'd spent with her mother and sister in God knows how long.

"We don't have any other way out of here, if you were out there, you saw what the streets are like." Mya stated, turning to the officer, figuring he'd seen enough of Atlanta to realise just how unsafe the city was, "To put it simply, we're beyond fucked."

As Morales opened his mouth to continue what he was saying, a small group of geeks managed to push through the first wall of glass, leaving one left between them and the inside of the store. Instinctively, the group hurried to the back of the shop, horrified by the sight.

Andrea glanced over at the officer, "The Hell were you doing out there anyway?"

There was a slight hesitance, Mya noticed, before the officer answered. She assumed it was from the shock of everything that had been happening recently. "Trying to flag the helicopter." He admitted, treating it as if it was normal.

Mya raised an eyebrow, "What are you talking about? If there's a helicopter, we'd have seen it." She told him, immediately disbelieving him. Why would a helicopter be out here anyways? All the military had died trying to keep whatever safe zones they were working on held up. Neither they or the places they were defending lasted.

"You were chasing a hallucination, imagining things, it happens." Jacqui explained, as though it was natural to hallucinate helicopters and then go on to flag them down. Still, if people could die and come back as flesh eating monsters, anything was possible.

The officer insisted the helicopter had been there, causing an awkward silence to fall upon the group that remained huddled behind a clothing rack in the store. Eventually, Morales turned to T-Dog, "Hey, T-Dog, try that C.B. Can you contact the others?" He questioned. Unlike Mya, he had children to get back to. She envied that, as much as she didn't want to admit it, her daughter could be anywhere in the world right now.

"Others? The refugee centre?" The officer pressed.

Jacqui scoffed, her actions representing Mya's initial thoughts to the man's question. What rock had he been living under the past month? "Yeah, the refugee centre, they got biscuits waiting in the oven for us." She remarked.

The response from Jacqui had came out more aggressively than the woman had intended. Probably. Mya nudged the officer gently, "What she means to say is, there hasn't been anything like that the past few months. Whatever this virus is, not even the government could contain it." She elaborated in brief terms and as best as she could.

"Got no signal. Maybe the roof." T-Dog suggested.

As if following a queue, gunshots rang out from above the group, everyone tensing up instantly. Andrea was the first to speak, "Oh no, is that Dixon? What is that maniac doing?" She mumbled, getting up from behind the clothing rack, followed by the rest of the survivors hiding out.

Morales was the first towards the spiral staircase that led to the roof, "Come on, let's go."

The roof definitely wasn't the sight Mya had been hoping to see. Merle Dixon stood on the ledge, a sniper rifle in his arms as he shot at what she presumed was geeks. She hoped they were geeks. Merle was certifiably insane, there was no doubting that. Mya knew his type, washed up thugs, still struggling to kick a drug habit, had been to prison at least once. He was going to be the death of the group.

"Hey, Dixon! Are you crazy?!" Morales exclaimed, rushing over to Merle, however, he kept a safe distance from the maniac and Mya couldn't blame him.

Mya didn't bother following after Morales, she didn't have a death wish. "You're drawing more of them towards us!" She yelled from near the doorway, as cowardly as she knew she appeared.