My first Walking Dead fic.

I'll start by saying that I started watching TWD as soon as it came on free-to-air TV here in Australia. I also have a severe Zombie phobia -lol- so could only watch teeny tiny portions at a time - but dammit Michael Rooker was in it so I HAD to watch, didn't I! Its no longer on free-to-air because, well its an awesome show and everyone figured it out and now we have to pay to watch it, so I'm waaaaaaay behind.

I have also taken a fairly lax view of the canon timeline - its kinda the same, but I loved the Prison so that's where I set most of this story. In my head, I pictured the Prison to be a merge between the comic version and the TV version. - So biiig yards and lots of spaces and lots of Non-Canon timeline stuff.

As with all my writing - I did this in about a week and I'm not real happy with the ending, but I'm losing focus and have other stories wanting to be written, so I am going to stop playing with it and just post it up. There are several elements that I wanted to get in, but couldn't figure out how, so constructive criticism is always welcome - as usual, I have no beta and am a crap TWD fan so please excuse any mistakes.

Also - nothing but the OC are mine. Everything else belongs to those who could sue and win, but please don't because I'm just having a little fun and earning nothing but stress-relief and kidfree time!

It's long and I'm sure quite boring, but I had a blast writing it as I loved Merle Dixon as a character and cried when they wrote him out!

Trigger Warnings - there are two scenes in this fic that are Non-Con/Rape and some of it is quite graphic - though I tried to not be. If this is a concern to you, this fic may not be the one for you.

I'll be adding a chapter every night or so

Please Enjoy and I love hearing from readers, so don't be shy - give a review :D

*** Warnings - Strong Language, Rape/NonCon, Violence, Slow Burn, VERY slow burn, Merle/OC, Merle Lives! ****

Art could hear the whole thing from her nest and silently cursed them all. Up till now her little hideaway had been pretty safe. A few looters here and there, easily avoided but for the most part they were kept away by the walkers in the streets.

But thanks to this latest fuckup of a group, the place was now well and truly screwed. As was Art if she couldn't avoid the dead bastards that were now smashing their way through the place. She huddled into her blankets as she heard the groaning and cries of the walking nightmares as they stumbled past her nest.

After a little while she heard the faint sound of a car alarm and it seemed to draw some of the dead away. But she could hear him. One man, screaming curses and pleas.
'Shut up shut up!' She whispered in her mind, covering her ears and rocking back and forth. Finally after some long hours it seemed someone heard her for his voice quieted away.

It was late and Art knew that it would be safer to just bunker down, eat and get whatever sleep she could while blocking out the newly close sounds of groaning dead. Surprisingly, she slept well, safe knowing that none of the dead OR those left alive would find her here.

But she woke knowing she had lost her sanctuary. It was no longer safe to sneak around the random few walkers in the store and offices now that the group from yesterday had let everything in. So she washed, tied up her waist length hair into it's tight bun, packed up her kit, strapped it to her back and pulled herself up through the elevator roof hatch.

Climbing the elevator service shaft ladder was easy now. Months of practice made the effort almost mindless. This time though, she could hear the groaning and stumberling of the dead as she passed each floor, where before, there had been mostly silence.

In no time at all she reached the top and carefully opened a vent to peer out onto the roof.

She was highly surprised. There were not a single walker to be seen. She could hear them very close, snarling and banging like they were right there, but the roof seemed empty.

Then she heard a terrified yet pissed off muttering over the snarls of enraged walkers.

"That's okay. Never you mind, silly Christ boy. I ain't begged you before. I ain't gonna start begging now. I ain't gonna beg you now! Don't you worry about me! Begging you ever! I'll never beg you! I ain't gonna beg you! I never begged you before. Oh shit. No!" and the repeated sound of clinking then swearing and sobs.

Art pulled her speargun out of her pack and keeping a very close eye out, edged out of the vent, silently lowering and securely locking it behind her. You never knew when you might need a safe bolt hole again someday.

She could hear the dead and she crept up and peered around the corner. Rotted hands were reaching through the door but for some reason, the door seemed stuck, so the walkers were simply jammed up in the crack, obviously fixated on something.

All of a sudden, Art heard muffled screams and the dead at the doorway nearly tore each other apart trying to get through. Getting down on her belly, she scanned the roof and blanched at the sight of fresh red blood. Quickly looking around, she scrambled along the hot roof, yesterday's rain having been and gone doing nothing but make everything muggy.

The screams cut off suddenly and Art froze. Speargun at the ready, she slunk along the roof, managing to keep out of sight of the rabid walkers until she saw him.

A large male lay slumped over on the concrete, a bloody hacksaw by his hand. She kicked his leg hard, but there was no response. Praying the door would hold just a little longer, Art knelt down next to the greying craggy faced man and gagged.

Whoever that group was that fucked everything up, must've handcuffed this one and buggered off. Blood drizzled slowly from the not quite severed limb and the smell was driving the dead crazy. Art placed her hand over the man's mouth and sighed when she felt a breath.

In the world today, you didn't help people. You left them to their own fates, and prayed they did the same for you. Most of the time, Art knew that your fate was nearly always the price of someone else's choices. And never good for you.

She snorted and shook her head. This was NOT her problem so she squatted down, preparing to head to the other vent that led into the next building.

But the man had to go and mutter something and Art, ignoring all her experience telling her to GO GO IGNORE, leant down and placed her ear by the man's mouth.

"I ain't begging."

Her grandma had been a strongly spiritual woman and Art had lived with her for a few years. One thing that Gran always said was that your instincts, your gut feelings, were there for a purpose. Never ignore them. Art never had and that advice had saved her over and over again. Especially after everything that had gone down since the world ended.

And those damn instincts were screaming their little goddamn heads off.

With a glance to check that the door was still holding, Art moved back to the man. He had wrapped his belt around his arm as a tourniquet and had managed to get about 1/2 of the way through his wrist before the pain had overwhelmed him. She wriggled the handcuffs, but they were not coming off. Gritting her teeth and sending a prayer out, she pulled out her own knife and in three swift strikes, had completed the job.

Art checked and saw that the stump wasn't bleeding all that much, but if she didn't get the tourniquet off soon, he would lose his arm and didn't she watch something on TV once about crush injuries or toxic blood or something nasty about tourniquets? She quickly wrapped the stump up in one of her tshirts and knotted it off as tight as she could.

Attempting to rouse the man, she tried slapping his face. No response of course, not that she really expected it to. Whats a slap to the face when you have just performed emergency surgery on yourself?

Art rifled through her bag until she found her rope and looping it under both his arms, she gritted her teeth and dragged the unconscious man to the fire escape.

Dammit, why did he have to be a giant? Why couldn't he be a kid or someone tiny… She cut that though off at the knees. Heehee cut off at the knees, she chuckled morbidly.

She managed to get the the side of the building, the snarls of the dead muted and not quite so in-your-face, giving her a bit of thinking space. Now how the fuck was she going to get his ass down these stairs? She could barely drag him! But before she could decide to just toss him over and hope for the best, he came up swinging.

Catching her on the shoulder, he sent her down to the ground, the gravel top of the roof biting harshly into her hip.

"Who the FUCK are YOU?" The man snarled at her, his voice booming across the rooftops, sending the dead at the door back into a frenzy.

She kicked out and clocked him in the face with the heel of her boot, sending him sprawling onto his back again before she scrambled up and held her still bloody knife to his throat.

"Shut UP you fucking moron! You WANT to get eaten?" She whispered harshly before showing him the still bloody knife and stepping back out of reach.

"I'm the one who finished the job you started. I'm also the one trying to rescue your fat ass off here before we both become lunch. So you wanna get up or am I saying seeya?" She stepped to the side of the building, showing that she was happy to be gone. He squinted up at her, she could clearly see he wasn't doing well, and then he glanced at his arm.

"Well shit me." and he laughed.

Getting into the next building over was almost easier now that he would walk, or actually hold onto her and stumble, but it was better than her dragging him. At one point, he had stopped in the hallway to puke and Art had gone ahead to scout out the way to the other fire escape, the one she knew would get her to her next bolt hole. But as she was lifting the window, she heard the all too familiar sound of shuffle and spun around just in time to jam her spear lengthways into the walker's mouth, holding it back as it snarled and gnawed on the black shaft. Behind him, another was reaching for her and she let out a whimper. She was fucked!

But suddenly both were gone and she found herself sitting on the floor, watching as the man slammed a wench down on one head and before the rotting pieces had even finished falling to the floor, he had spun around, kicked back down the one who had been chewing on her spear before and caved it's head in as well.

Art shook as she took in the look on the man's face and a whole new sense of dread arose. He simply stared at her, the blackish foul blood dripping from the wrench clutched in his hand and a blank look on his face as his eyes just stared at her.

Just as she was about to bring her speargun up, he shook his head, like a dog shaking off water and dropped the wrench as he spotted something over the side of the room. Still shaking Art clambered to her feet.

The man exclaimed somewhat happily when the flames burst into the life and Art stared in confusion. That was until he tried to take off the shirt bandage.

"What are you doing?" She squeaked, rushing forward to pull his wounded arm away and got a shove in the chest in return.

"Shut it girlie." He snarled and Art watched horrified, as he thrust the still leaking stump into the blue flames. He bit down hard on the bicep of his uninjured arm and Art could hear the muffled scream but he kept his arm in the fire until the smell of burnt roast filled her nostrils before yanking it out and collapsing to his butt on the floor. He smashed his head backwards against the cabinets as tears streamed down his eyes and he held his steaming/smoking stump up in the air. His other fist punched at the floor and Art fell to her knees, shock and tears of her own visible on her face.

Art looked away as soon as the man's breathing left hyperventilating status and moved to panting. She somehow knew that this was not a person who would take sympathy or pity well at all.

With that in mind, she pulled out one of her precious water bottles and uncapping it, held it out until he noticed.

Without even a nod, he snatched it from her and drained it in seconds, tossing it back empty.

"Another?" Was all he said, and with a sigh, Art dug out one more.

An hour later, they were in the Maintenance Room that was one of Art's boltholes. Only accessible via the elevator shaft maintenance catwalk and THAT was only accessible via the roof through a razor wire enclosure.

The man's skin was grey and sweat was pouring off of him and Art could see that he was not doing well. She had taken a huge risk and brought him to her best nest, but it was the biggest, safest and best stocked. She only hoped that the building was still walkerproofed, but the looters and other city survivors were slowly destroying that hope. Art hoped that she could at least outlast the walkers and other survivors.

But this survivor was her latest problem. Her instincts were still gnawing at her, telling her to help and she seriously considered ignoring them and just leaving. He would have everything here he would need, no reason for her to stay.

But one look at the gasping man, and she knew she wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.

And how true that thought came to be.