The Ballad of Rick: The Beginning

I went outside to a world on fire. The nearby buildings were either smoking or still blazing. There were cars and trucks in smoking wrecks. What the hell was going on? And what is that godawful rotten smell? I better return inside.

Great, no one's around. This was a hospital, goddamit. There should be someone around. And where was Laurie? My wife should at least be here to watch over me. My already dizzy mind was making want to vomit. Take a deep breath. And I gagged. What is that awful smell? Deep breaths, calm down and look around.

Some kind of disaster happened around here, to judge from the broken light fixtures and paper scattered all over the place. A big storm? No, there's no sign of water or any water damage. A bomb? There are no burns marks here or any sign of fire damage. But there were broken wheel chairs and gurneys. A lunatic run amuck? I went to a locked door and looked through the glass frame. There was a dead body in that hallway, its stomach ripped apart and the guts taken out! The lunatic theory was turning out to be right.

I turned to see a set of double doors with the handles chained tight and padlocked for good measure. There were even panels of wood nailed to it to make sure whatever was on the other side of those doors couldn't pass through -- and judging by the pale hands with long fingernails trying to slip through those doors and try to loosen the chain, the triple precautions were necessary. There was even a warning painted on the doors in capital letters: DON'T OPEN, DEAD INSIDE.

Thousands of questions ran around my head. I tried to get out of the hospital through the stairs, hoping that I would see someone who could help make sense of things. The rotten smell was stronger here. I grappled with the matches I found in an abandoned nurse station. There's the Exit sign. After I got used to the blinding daylight that hit me when I got out of the Exit door, I saw I was in the hospital's loading/docking area. Hundreds of dead bodies, all wrapped up and lined up, confronted me. My first thoughts were Laurie and Karl -- my wife and son were all right, I told myself. I need to see them. I need to go home right now!

I couldn't remember much of the bike ride home. I think I used some abandoned bike I found at the side of the parking lot. And there was a sort of -- I don't know what it was. It looked human, or at least the upper part of one. And it was going to attack me, I think. Anyway, it only crawled to attack, so I quickly got away from there.

"Laurie! Karl!" I shouted and kept on shouting as soon as I got home -- but they were was no answer. They were not in any part of the house. I feel the whole world came down on my shoulders right then -- they're OK, they're not, they're OK, they're not. Laurie, my beautiful wife, Karl, my beautiful, beautiful son. 

I think it was near night time when I picked myself up from crying on the floor and went around the house again. There are no signs of struggle, so probably none of that happened to Laurie and Karl. Some clothes were taken from the closet and some of the big bags were missing, so they probably packed up and went somewhere. And Laurie probably took the framed pictures and the photo albums. That's my wife. My beautiful wife. My beautiful son.

I feel the world coming down on my shoulders again as I sat down heavily on the stone steps in front of the house. There's someone walking more than a little drunkenly on the street and I started to wave in greeting. I didn't see the big shovel aimed at my face to knock me out -- nice shot. The last thing I remembered before blacking out was a someone shouting "Daddy, I got him" -- it was a boy! A kid hit me with a shovel? Another man walked up the street and shot the drunken walker in the head then rushed to the shovel-wielder.

"He said something?" the man said urgently. "I heard him say something."

"He called me Karl," said the boy, who was obviously not Karl.

"You know they don't talk," the man said, then turned to me, "Tell me what your bandages are for. Tell me, and I'll know if you're lying."

I don't remember if I answered. I passed out.

I woke up on an unfamiliar bed, hands and feet all tied up. The boy who hit me with a shovel, was at one side of the bed, carrying a baseball bat. He looks scared and was ready to hit me if I said or did something wrong.

"I changed your bandages," said the man the boy called Daddy who was washing his hands at the other side of the bed. The man was talking to me. "What was the wound?"

"Gun shot," I said.

"Is that all?" the man asked.

"Isn't that enough?" I asked, more than a little peeved since I was parched and confused and don't know what was happening. And the last thing I remember before waking up in the hospital was being shot and almost dying. "I'm a sheriff's deputy who was going to apprehend this bunch of criminals. But there was more of them than I thought."

"Did you get bit?" the man continued.

"Bit?" I asked back, my confusion growing.

"Chewed, scratched anything like that?"

"Just shot, as far as I know. "

Then the man felt my forehead, obviously wanting to know if I had fever. 

"Feels cooler now," said the man to his son, then to me. "Fever would have killed you by now."

The man cut the ties on my wrists and ankles soon after, threatening to kill me if I did something to harm him or his son. But they were the ones doing wrong -- they were squatting! I happened to know the house where we were, and they were not the owners. I was a house three doors down from mine.

"It was empty when we got here," said the man when I confronted him with this truth. His name I found out, was Morgan -- his son was named Dwayne. "Don't do that," Morgan said to me when I was going to peer out the thick fabric covering one of the windows. I quickly closed the covers, getting the familiar feeling of bewilderment.

Joining them in their humble dinner, Morgan told me of the "Walkers" who were regular human being who died, then something happened and they came back to life but not like what they were. They were now walking around, always looking for living animals and humans to eat. The man who Morgan shot earlier when Dwayne hit me with a shovel was one of these Walkers. Now that I thought about it, these Walkers were not that hard to spot -- they looked like rotting, dead people who walk around like drunks.

According to Morgan, Walkers were attracted to light (thus the covers on the windows) and always gravitated to any loud sounds (so Morgan's shooting of the Walker was probably not a good idea). There is something wrong in their brains, Morgan said, which was why shooting or bashing their heads in was the only way to kill them. I was really trying to take it all in, but I guess the confusion was evident on my face.

"Hey mister, do you even know what's going on?" asked Morgan.

"I woke up in the hospital today so not really," I said, feeling that the bean soup I was eating was getting harder to swallow. "Came home to an empty house. That's all I know." Laurie and Karl were in the middle of all of this! It's no use to look for them this evening with all the Walkers around. Morgan said that there are usually less of them in the morning, so I guess I'll have to wait. 

Next morning, we all went back to my house. Morgan was right; there were less of them in the morning. 

"I know they're alive, my wife and son," I insisted, more to myself than to anyone else. "At least they were when they left the house." I told Morgan of my thoughts about Laurie and Karl packing up, clothes and photo albums, all. So Morgan and Dwayne told me of a huge refugee settlement in the city where Laurie and Karl might have gone to.

"The military told everyone to go there because it was the safest," Morgan said. "And there's this big disease research center there which was working out how to solve the problem."

"I have to go there," I decided. "But we need to make a quick stop before I go." So the three of us headed to one of the cars in my garage.

The police station was the same as I remembered it, although there was no one around. Since I have the keys, we all went inside and found that the gas, light and shower were still working -- things that were very hard to come by when what happened happened. The warm shower made us all more than halfway civilized, but Laurie and Karl were never far from my mind.

"Are you sure you're not coming with me to the city?" I asked Morgan after I changed to a clean police uniform and raided the armory for guns that might probably be needed by all of us.

"We were going to go there, you know, my family and I" Morgan said. "But something happened and my wife couldn't travel, so we looked for somewhere here to stay. After she died … well, Dwayne and I just stayed -- I guess we got frozen in place. Haven't worked up to moving on."

We brought our guns out and I put mine in a squad car. Morgan put his in the car we came here in.

"A word of advice," Morgan said. "One Walker may not seem much, but if they’re in a group all angry and hungry, then you better watch out. I hope you find your wife and son."

The city was about 20 miles away. I encountered only one or two Walkers -- and it wasn't hard to avoid them. It was a lot harder to look for gasoline for my squad car. Seeing there were a lot of cars which were abandoned in the roads, other people found it hard, too, it seemed. In the end, I borrowed a horse from an abandoned farm to complete my journey to the city.

The horse got me to the city in good time and we entered the city while there was still daylight. The line of abandoned cars and trucks going out of the city was unbelievable -- and had me worrying at the safety of the military settlement where my wife and son were probably at. The city's empty streets made me worry more. Where were the military, the authorities? What happened to the refugees? The horse and I rounded a corner and came face to face with Walkers. 

I turned the horse to try to run away, but we were surrounded. I was soon out of the horse -- either I jumped or I was pushed, I don't know. I lost the bag I was carrying which contained the guns. I ran quickly to take cover under an armored tank, the first sign of military presence in the city that I'd seen.

"I hope they won't crawl down here after me," I thought. But they did -- a lot of them. Soon there were Walkers at every opening I could go to. I pulled out my gun to shoot some of them, but it was all futile -- other Walkers just kept on coming. There's no way out of this.

"Laurie, Karl, I'm sorry," I whispered as I put the gun in my mouth. Just as I was closing my eyes before I pulled the trigger, however, I saw a door hatch in the tank's underside, just above my head. I quickly slid into the hatch, closed it and leaned against one side. That was so close.

When I caught my breath, I looked out of the hatch on the tank's topside. There were still a lot of Walkers around; I don't see any chance for me to walk away. They are feasting on what remains of the horse and I don't think it would be long before I ended up like the animal.

"Laurie, Karl, I'm sorry," I thought, readying myself to putting the gun in my mouth again, this time for real.

Then the tank's radio squawked into life: "Hey you in the tank! Cozy in there?"

I rushed to the radio, but I was so surprised, I didn't know what to say. "He-hello?" I stuttered.

"Hey. Funny time for you to come visiting the city," came a man's response.

"I'm looking for my wife and son," I said. "They went to the city's refugee settlement."

"I'm from the city's refugee settlement. I'll help you find them," the speaker replied, making me want to hug the man and burst into tears at the same time. "But first, we have to get these Walkers off you. Here's my plan."

He had to repeat the plan three times because I had trouble focusing on what he had to say. Laurie, Karl, I'm coming!

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