Animals We've Become/Tale of Two Walkers

Tale of Two Walkers is the twelfth episode in Animals We've Become. It's the season finale.

Plot
There was chaos everywhere. People running everywhere. Loud noises filled my ears from the zombies breaking in and the screaming. Jesus christ the screaming, I thought prep rallies were loud but...this was something else. At least in a prep rally you were confined to one spot as the cheering audience around you roared like a lion but out here in this forest the screams seemed to echo through the trees as the horde of the undead dragged their decaying corpses through the brushy environment, out here the screams come from every direction.

“GLENN!” I heard faintly. It sounded drowned out, like I was underwater.

“GLENN!!” I heard it again, only clearer.

Suddenly someone shook my shoulders, it was Sonnie. “GLENN! WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO DILLYDALLY! WE GOTTA MOOVE!”

I woke up from my slumber even though I was not sleeping. Sonnie was shaking me awake from my shock. When I realized where we were, I got to my senses. Around us, there were zombies everywhere. Everyone else had escaped, but Sonnie risked his life to get me in the middle of it all.

“GO!” He started blasting down zombies with his triple barrel, as he held my hand and led us forward. Zombie after zombie went down as he helped me through the masses, eventually clearing a path that showed AJ and Trace on a truck bed.

“G-GLENN! G-G-GET ON!” he screamed.

In a final sprint, I jumped onto the truck bed as Sonnie scooted into the driver’s side of the truck and slammed the door shut.

“Everybody on? LET’S GO!” he hit the gas and sped forward, crashing through the wooden fence with zombies grabbing onto the sides of the car as we tried not to get grabbed.

“Real close there, Glenn. Almost thought we lost you.” Trace said.

I was surprised, Sonnie’s replacement for me seemed to actually care about me even though we’d only spoken once or twice before. Maybe he wasn’t a replacement for me, I mean Sonnie can have more than one teenage friend after all.

“Nearly did man.” I respond holding onto the truck bed tightly. I didn’t wanna fall off and be devoured by the horde of the rotten meat sacks or basically end up like Vincent or Ms. Miller.

“T-T-Too bad we lost this new base.” AJ mumbles. “I-I thought we real-really hit the jackpot.”

“We did.” Sonnie reveals. “But even winners become losers eventually.”

“Too true.” I thought to myself, I thought back to Jason, the first person I saw fall victim to the outbreak. He was the definition of a winner, he was smart, for a jock, strong and handsome, basically had the world on his dinner plate. He had quickly become a loser as a zombie had bitten into his arm, never thought of it like that.

“You think we can become winners?” I ask Sonnie.

AJ puts his hand on my arm. “We-we already are.”

He was right, we’d managed to survive this, as far as we kept breathing we were winners.

“So where to now?” Trace asks. “Back to that campsite I saw you guys set up at the grocery store?”

“Perhaps.” Sonnie says.

This was my chance to shine, to try and be the leader for once.

“Maybe we should head back to the bank, that place was safe. Amber seemed safe in that vault.” I say.

“Glenn no offense but that’s not the best idea. If we’re gonna reunite with the others how would we do it there? Donnie’s never been to that bank. And besides we can’t live in a bank vault.” Sonnie points out.

“Yeah good point.” I lie through my teeth. Sure he did have a good point but I’m beginning to become frustrated at everyone here not taking my ideas seriously or just shooting them down. I may be seventeen but my parents used to tell me I acted way above my age, almost like a thirty year old trapped in a seventeen year old body.

“It’s getting dark.” Sonnie said, looking at the sundown happening in the horizon. “We should find somewhere fitting to set up camp before we head back to the grocery store.”

“I agree, Sonnie that’s a good idea.” Trace says.

We drove for maybe ten more minutes before we stumbled upon a building by the road, it said on a nearby sign “Homeless Shelter”.

I could tell Sonnie got a little emotional. “Let’s… stop here. Seems like a good place.”

“You ever been here before?” I questioned.

“A long time ago.” Sonnie says scratching his beard. “Had a lot of friends here, let’s hope they survived.”

We got out of the truck, I had to help AJ out but soon enough we were at the door of the homeless shelter. Sonnie knocked on the door.

“Hello?” Sonnie asks, “Anyone home?”

It was quiet. Too quiet. Sonnie slowly opened the wooden door peeking inside, it was completely pitch black.

He grabbed his flashlight and pressed the button, shining a beam of light inside. The light hit the face of a zombie sitting against the wall, slowly rising to his knees.and groaning while approaching Sonnie.

“We gotta kill it!” Trace said.

But Sonnie just stood there. He just stared at the poor zombie stumbling towards him. He had no shoes on, and his clothes was torn.

“Dammit, Max. Why’d you have to end up like this?” he somberly muttered.

He grabbed his knife from his belt and slowly raised it as the zombie, apparently named Max, closed in and almost grabbed at Sonnie

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry pal.” he struck the knife straight through Max’s skull and he fell lifeless over and collapsed on the floor. Sonnie pulled the knife out and furrowed his eyebrows looking down on the corpse.

“That was Maxwell Maxson. My best friend. My brother.”

We all watched sadly as Sonnie shed a tear, before he put the knife back.

“Seems like he sacrificed himself, like the good soldier he was. He was the only one left in here.”

“He was soldier? Was in your unit?” I ask.

“Nah, army rangers, general. Good guy.” Sonnie responded.

“I’m sorry Sonnie. No one deserves this.” Trace said, patting his shoulder.

“Thanks, son. Means a lot.” “Do-do you think there’s an-anymore walkers in here?” AJ asks, gripping his shotgun crutch.

“Might be, be on the lookout. You never know what could hit us.” Sonnie answers. “I’ll clear em out if I see any. Glenn and Trace you go check out the kitchen. AJ and I stand guard here.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I respond grabbing Collin’s sword. Sonnie hands his Remington New Model Army to Trace and the two of us head over to the kitchen.

“Wa-watch out Glenn.” AJ warns. “Don’t want you to-to end up like my mom.”

“I’ll watch myself.” I respond giving him a wink. “Oh and I’ll watch out for the new guy.”

“Thanks but I don’t need watching.” Trace says. “I’ve handled myself so far.”

“Like how you were captured by the claimers?” I point out, wait shit, I know what he’s gonna say.

“Like how you were captured?” Trace pointed out, damn, I walked myself into that one.

The two of us head into the kitchen and begin to look around for any rotten walkers. I look around at the poor state of the kitchen.

“Y’know it probably looked like this before the outbreak.” Trace says, “Most homeless shelters are terrible. Serving people like Sonnie slop with a side of bread. Terrible.”

“I knew that, the homeless situation before was crazy.” I point out, “I once worked at a homeless shelter for community service, tried the food and thought it was terrible. Plus the amount of homeless we served compared to the ones waiting to be fed but never were was horrendous.”

“Yeah. With this outbreak the homeless were probably the first to go, just like before.” Trace says soberly as he looks around and places his revolver on a microwave.

“Hey Trace can I ask you something.” I ask.

“Sure Glenn, what’s up?” Trace asks leaning on the fridge.

“Where’d you go to school? Y’know since you’re my age and all. I don’t recognize you.” I ask.

“I was homeschooled.” Trace reveals. “My dad wasn’t the best so it was up to my mom to teach me. Sorry, a bit anticlimactic.”

“Not really.” I respond. “In order for something to be anticlimactic there has to be buildup.”

“True.” Trace smiles. Suddenly he smiles turns into a frown as he shouts, “Look out!”

I turn around to see a walker stumbling towards me. Trace reaches for his gun but can’t find it, seems he forgot to pick it back up.

I stab the zombie through the chest with the sword but it just keeps pushing forward, the blade still penetrating him. I need to think of something quickly. I turn to see Trace’s revolver and notice it’s on a...microwave. I open up the microwave and push the walker’s head into machine and slam it shut. The walker’s head moves around in the microwave as its neck blocks the door from completely shutting. I press the buttons and with the last bit of electricity in the building the microwave turns on. The zombie screams in what I can only imagine is pain as the heat rises. Soon the zombie stops moving as the microwave scrambles whatever is left of its brain. Finally as the microwave stops the zombie’s brain explodes in a bloody mess inside the microwave, splattering all over the glass.

“Wow that was close.” Trace says as the zombie falls to the ground, headless.

“Trace that was stupid!” I yell. “You should never leave your weapon alone. Without it you could’ve gotten both of us killed.” I take the sword from the corpse.

“Well you saw me put the gun down. You should’ve warned me.” Trace points out. “I’m sorry though, it was a mistake.”

“It was a mistake to let you in the group.” I respond.

Trace sighs and looks down. “I’m sorry man…”

I realize how much of an asshole I must look like right now, but I had to show my dominance. If Amber saw me now there would be no chance of us, well I guess there’s no chance anyways now that Mark had her caught.

“Look that was mean, I apologize but I had to teach you that. Not everyone is cut out for the apocalypse, I get that.”

“It’s alright, I’m used to getting yelled at by my dad.” Trace reveals.

“Oh,” I respond, “Hey listen man...you wanna talk about it?”

Trace stops. “No...not really.”

“Alright man, sorry again.” I respond. Geeze, I feel like a douchebag. I should do something to make this up to him. It’s not his fault he was captured by the claimers at the beginning of the apocalypse and didn’t learn how to survive in a world like this.

“Well let’s head back to Sonnie and AJ and see what they’re up to.” I say.

“Yeah, let’s.” Trace agrees.

The two of us head back to the others.

“Heard something in the kitchen. You two alright?” Sonnie asks.

“Yeah we’re fine.” Trace says, “Just a walker, nothing big.”

“If-if you say so.” AJ says placing ammo into his shotgun.

“I made sure the rest of the place was secure. It’s fine for now but we should leave as soon as we wake up.” Sonnie says.

“Right.” I respond, “I’ll sleep on the bench over there, AJ can sleep on the other side.”

“A-alright.” AJ says slowly moving to the bench I just pointed at.

Sonnie gets onto the floor and uses his arms as a pillow. “Night boys.”

“Night Sonnie.” Trace says as he sits down next to him.

As I close my eyes as I lay on the uncomfortable bench I feel my mind become empty as sleep washes over me like waves on a beach. Just as suddenly as I fell asleep I’m thrown to the ground on a grassy plain. What’s going on? I look around to see nothing but white surrounding this small little island in the middle of a white void.

“You killed them you idiot!” Ethan screams. I look over to see him storming towards me with his baseball bat in hand and both of his arms intact. He swings it at my knees and I can feel my bones snapping. I drop the ground in pain as I look up to see him smash the bat on my head. Everything’s suddenly blurry and dizzy. I can make out Ethan dropping the bat and grabbing my neck in an attempt to strangle me. I feel too weak to fight back, what’s going on? What’s happening? Where am I? Why is Ethan killing me? Why am I letting him…

I look around and see the faces of Amber, AJ, Sonnie, Donnie, Vincent, Trace, Collin and Tom staring down at the two of us. Their faces mutilated like Collin’s as hyper realistic blood dripped from their black soulless eyes.

“You killed Sarah!” Ethan screams. “You killed Jason!”

Is this the end? Is this where I die?

“You killed AJ! You killed Amber!”

They’re not dead! What’s going on?

“You killed Sonnie and Donnie and...and.

I can’t feel anything anymore, is this what it’s like to die?

“You killed me!” Ethan screams. Suddenly I can see clearly again and am met with Ethan’s now warped face. Eyes black and soulless like the ghoulish faces above, blood poured from his skull and his face is split into two. One half looked like it was crying, the other looked like it was enjoying every second strangling me.

Before I know it I wake up in a cold sweat.

“Gl-glenn! You’re awake!” AJ yells as he stands back. “You were yelling in your sleep.”

“I...just a nightmare.” I responded.

“More like a night terror.” Sonnie says opening the door to the shelter.

“What’s going on? How long did I sleep in?” I ask, I’m used to sleeping in but in situations like this I knew it wasn’t the best idea.

“Not lon-long.” AJ mutters. “We’re le-leaving now.”

And just like that we’re on the road again. I sit in the middle of the truck as Sonnie drives and Trace sits to my side. I couldn’t get that nightmare out of my head, I’ve never had one like that before, absolutely horrifying.

As we pull up to the burned grocery store we could see everyone back, safe and sound waiting in our old location. I could make out Amber in her sexy get up as usual standing with a gun in her hands, Mark’s gun. Amber with a gun was a good sight, honestly women with any sort of gun was kinda...sexy in a weird way.

But just as I see her I see Mark next to her...he couldn’t have known about my feelings for herm there’s no way so why I am so angry at him. I should let him be happy, I should be happy for him.

Just as I hopped off the truck bed, I could see Donnie and Ethan talking together in the distance. Ethan seemed distraught, looking like he was venting or something to Donnie, who looked like he didn’t care about what he had to say. Soon Ethan noticed us, and in seconds he stormed over to us.

For a second I thought he were going to say he was excited for seeing us, but he rushed past me and instead went for Sonnie, who just had buried the body of Max back in the shelter. As he stepped out of the car, Ethan punched him in the face.

“Hey! What the--” Sonnie uttered.

“YOU! You fucking TRAITOR!” Ethan screamed.

Sonnie got back up, looking confused as ever. “I- what?”

“Do I need to prove it?” he looked around at the other group members standing around shocked. “First, you start a war with those fucking CRAZIES when I HAD IT UNDER CONTROL!”

Sonnie tried to calm down Ethan. “Ethan you don’t--”

“SECOND! You then SYMPATHISE with those fuckers! Like you’re their FRIEND!” Ethan had tears in his eyes, pointing to his cut off hand. “THIRD! YOU THEN SPLIT OFF FROM US AND DON’T RETURN, LIKE YOU’RE TRYING TO GET RID OF US!”

“ETHAN!” Sonnie yelled in his face.

“MY NAME IS NOT FUCKING ETHAN!” he screamed back louder. “IT’S GRAYSON!”

Everybody gasped. Sonnie even backed up, holding his hands in the air. “Whoa, whoa. Easy, buddy.”

Ethan or… Grayson shook his head and looked at the ground, then at the dumbfounded group. “I was never Ethan… I never was.” he paced back and forth. “All my life, I’ve lived a fake life. A fake personality. I had to put on a show all the time. It wasn’t even a GOOD SHOW! I had to lie to Jason. To my mom. To… Sarah.”

Grayson looked soberly over at the grocery store, a tear running down his face. “My Sarah.”

He then turned his back to the group. “When I was young. My uncle Elias.... he… abused me. Molested me. He was an evil man. And to deal with this rage I constantly felt I had to make an alternate personality… so I created Ethan.” Grayson took a deep breath, continuing his monologue. I looked at Sonnie, who looked back at me. He looked very worried, shaking his head.

“Ethan Hawke. You know him? Yeah, I took his name. I became Ethan Walker instead. And everybody believed it. Hell, people liked Ethan better than Grayson. And to be honest…” Grayson looked back over his shoulder. “That fucking pissed me off.”

I looked at Sonnie again, and he nodded. I took a slow step forward. “Ethan, I--” I stopped myself realizing what I just said, a force of habit had made me make a grave mistake, as I was about to witness.

Grayson turned around immediately. “What… what did you say?!”

I held my hands up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU CALL ME?” Grayson yelled as he threw off his jacket.

In what seemed like milliseconds, Grayson slammed into me, pounding my body against the gravelly ground, making me hit my head. With his remaining hand and tears dripping down on me, he punched me time and time again, between each word he said.

“I’M. NOT. FUCKING. ETHAN. ANYMORE! I’VE. HAD. ENOUGH. OF…”

A final punch landed on my face, which had swollen up and were bleeding.

“YOU!!”

Then, a loud bang followed. Blood sprayed over my body and face and several holes were created in Grayson’s chest as he sat on me. Through these holes, I saw AJ. He shot him.

Grayson’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened and his face froze. In a slow motion, he looked down at his chest, looking like a swiss cheese. He looked at me one final time, then up in the skies before weakly uttering;

“Sarah…”

Grayson fell to the side. AJ had killed him.

“I’ve had enough of you.” AJ said as smoke poured out of the barrel.

The group was shocked. Trace looked stunned, he aimed his revolver at AJ.

Sonnie looked over and pushed the revolver down. “Son…”

“What the fuck” Donnie says very confused.

“AJ, you...you killed him.” Amber stutters almost like AJ usually stutters.

“Is he dead?” Mark asks, terrified.

“Y-yeah. I d-did what was b-best.” AJ says, looking down at Grayson’s lifeless corpse. “S-someone needs to m-make sure he d-d-doesn’t turn.”

“I got it.” I say getting up with Ethan’s blood and organ parts littering my shirt. I take Collin’s sword and get ready to put him down. I raise the blade up and slam it down, cutting his head in half. But for a split second it’s almost as if his head was Collin’s? I step back and look back at the body and then the sword.

It was quiet, too quiet. Nobody said a word as we looked down at the corpse of our friend Ethan who I guess never really existed.

“What now?” Amber asks.

“I...bury him I guess.” I say. “But not here.” I look back towards the grocery store, “We should bury him where he was always happy.”

“You-you mean?” AJ asks.

“Yup, the high school.” I answer. “He’d like it there.”

“That’s a good idea Glenn.” Sonnie says. I felt my heartbeat, it had been awhile since somebody recognized my ideas. This is what I’ve wanted since the beginning.

“I…” Donnie starts up before stopping himself clearly realizing he’s outnumbered.

Mark walks towards the corpse and picks up the detective badge from his jacket. “See ya cowboy.”

I turn to Donnie and Amber, “Can you two help me with the body? Gotta put it in the truck.”

“Of course Glenn.” Amber says, kind as ever. Kind as she is beautiful, ain’t she a goddess.

“I-I did the right thing right?” AJ asks.

“Of course AJ, thank you.” I respond. “You’re my brother as he was mine.”

Then suddenly without warning Sonnie falls to the ground. A loud thud is heard as he falls onto the pavement.

“What the hell?” I ask.

“Sonnie, you okay?” Mark asks.

That’s when I notice a syringe in his neck. What the fuck?

“Winston?” Trace asks as he’s hit by a syringe as well. He falls on top of Sonnie.

“Something’s happening.” Amber says. I turn to her and see that she’s been hit as well. She falls to the ground.

“Glenn, what’s going on?” Mark asks as he’s shot as well.

Soon he falls too and suddenly Donnie is hit by a syringe as well.

“Son of a bitch.” He mutters as he falls to the ground.

I jump into cover as I grab Mark’s gun. “What the hell is going on? Who’s doing this?!”

AJ swings his shotgun wildly looking around for anyone. “G-Glenn I don’t wanna g-go out like this!”

Suddenly I feel a sharp pain in my back. I feel my back and grab a syringe from my back. God dammit.

“It’s okay AJ. It’s okay.” I mutter.

He turns to me in horror as he realizes I’m next. Before he could say anything he’s shot in the neck with a syringe and he falls to the ground almost instantly like a buffalo.

I fall onto my back and look up at the sky as whitest takes over. I barely make out five figures emerging in my vision with all but one wearing gas masks.

“Captain, is that him?” One of them asks.

“Looks like it,” The man without the mask says, kneeling next to me as my vision blurs, but just enough for me to see that he wears some kind of captain’s hat. His british accent was apparent. “These are the ones. Bag em and drag em, gentlemen.”

I can’t feel anything anymore, is this what it’s like to die?

Trivia

 * This marks the second death of a main character.
 * This episode is the first season finale in AWB.