“If it’s useful, don’t leave it behind.”
Dizziness hit Magnus Vane so hard that he nearly threw up whatever remained in his stomach.
His consciousness drifted through a thick haze, the world around him reduced to overlapping shadows while a relentless ringing buzzed through his ears.
His chest felt compressed, as though he had been shoved inside a steel coffin with barely enough room to breathe.
Gritting his teeth, Magnus forced himself upright, lowered his head, and shook it several times until the spinning finally began to ease.
When he opened his eyes again, the blurry images gradually merged into one.
Magnus instinctively raised both hands when he realized the first thing waiting for him was the dark muzzle of a revolver pointed almost directly at his face.
He leaned back slightly, making sure his hands remained visible.
“Deputy, mind telling me what I did?”
The man crouched in front of him wore the tan uniform of the King County Sheriff’s Department, though sweat, dust, and blood had already ruined whatever professional appearance it once had.
A badge remained pinned to his chest, while his right hand held a stainless-steel Colt Python chambered in .357 Magnum.
Magnus could smell fresh gunpowder lingering inside the cramped compartment, and the faint heat coming from the barrel made it obvious the revolver had been fired moments earlier.
More importantly, Magnus recognized the man holding it.
Rick Grimes.
Hearing Magnus speak seemed to ease some of Rick’s tension, but only slightly.
He shifted the Colt Python away from Magnus’s face without holstering it, his exhausted eyes remaining fixed on the stranger in military gear.
Whatever Rick had experienced since waking from his coma had already taught him that living people could be dangerous too.
“Rick Grimes.
King County Sheriff’s Department.
What happened to the military?”
Rick’s uniform was soaked through with sweat, and the hand holding the revolver trembled faintly from exhaustion.
Despite that, his eyes were alert and focused, carrying the stubborn calm of a man forcing himself to function despite having no idea what had happened to the world.
Magnus followed his line of sight and finally noticed the dead soldier lying several feet away.
A large-caliber bullet had destroyed much of the corpse’s lower face and skull, leaving blackened blood pooled beneath its head.
The gunshot wound wasn’t what bothered Magnus.
It was the body.
Its skin was dried, cracked, and gray, resembling leather that had been left outside for years.
Rotting muscle showed beneath several tears, its eyes had turned cloudy and lifeless, and the smell of decomposition filled the enclosed tank.
Magnus stared at it for several seconds as recognition struck him harder than the dizziness had.
“A…
walker?”
Rick’s expression tightened.
Magnus immediately realized he had reacted too naturally to something he supposedly knew nothing about, so he covered it with a cough.
His thoughts, however, were already racing.
Rick Grimes, a tank in downtown Atlanta, a Colt Python, military corpses, and walking dead left almost no room for doubt.
He was inside The Walking Dead.
Before Rick could start asking questions, Magnus caught movement near the open hatch above them.
He reacted instantly.
Magnus surged to his feet, grabbed the heavy hatch, and slammed it downward just as a pale arm reached into the tank.
Rotten fingers passed within inches of his face before the steel caught the walker’s forearm.
A nauseating stench rolled over him as Magnus threw his weight against the hatch, and a series of wet cracks echoed through the compartment as brittle bones shattered beneath the metal.
The sound of flesh tearing from broken bone made his stomach twist, but Magnus didn’t stop.
He pushed until the hatch sealed completely, severing the arm near the elbow.
The rotten limb dropped between his boots with a wet slap and twitched several times while dark blood spread across the steel floor.
The entire struggle lasted only seconds, yet sweat already covered his forehead.
“I’m Magnus Vane,” he finally said, staring at the severed arm before looking back at Rick.
“And I’m starting to understand why you look like you’ve had the worst day of your life.”
Rick didn’t answer.
Magnus couldn’t blame him.
Before waking inside an armored vehicle surrounded by corpses, Magnus had been an ordinary guy trying to build a decent life.
He had graduated from college during a miserable job market, found a position, and then watched it disappear before his career had even properly started.
With bills piling up and no intention of asking his family to support him, Magnus took one of the few jobs he could get.
That job happened to be at a meatpacking plant.
More specifically, he worked on the slaughter floor.
Stunning livestock, bleeding carcasses, breaking them down, separating cuts, trimming meat, and deboning had become part of his daily routine.
Magnus had gone from a college graduate who almost gagged during his first week to one of the more capable workers on the line, and several veteran butchers had admitted that he had unusually steady hands.
After years of saving, he had finally put together enough money to lease a small butcher shop and start working for himself.
Then he woke up here.
Magnus looked down at the military combat uniform covering his body and then around the cramped interior of the tank.
Nothing about the situation offered an obvious explanation, much less a way home.
Understanding how he had gotten here would have to wait.
Survival came first.
Telling Rick that he was a fictional character from a television series was obviously not an option either.
Magnus exhaled slowly.
“I don’t know what happened to the rest of the military.
We got separated somehow.
When I came around, you were already here.”
Rick watched him closely for another few seconds.
He clearly had more questions, but the constant pounding against the outside of the tank reminded both men that there were more immediate problems.
Neither spoke as hands and bodies scraped against the armored hull.
Bang.
Scrape.
Bang.
Scrape.
Then static crackled through the radio near the front of the vehicle.
Both men turned toward it.
Rick looked stunned.
Magnus felt a surge of relief.
He remembered this part.
Magnus hurried forward and grabbed the radio while Rick moved beside him.
“Hey, you in the tank.”
A young man’s voice broke through the static.
“You planning to stay in there all day?”
Magnus almost laughed.
Glenn Rhee.
That meant the story was still following the path he remembered.
For now.
Magnus pressed the radio control.
“Are there still walkers around the tank?”
“So you can hear me.” Glenn’s voice came back through another burst of static.
“From where I’m sitting, you’ve got more company than anybody should want.
Most of them are busy with the horse right now, though, so if you’re coming out, this is probably your best chance.”
Magnus closed his eyes briefly.
Good.
His appearance hadn’t completely derailed events.
Rick leaned closer to the radio.
“I dropped a bag outside.
Guns and ammunition.
Can I get back to it?”
A short pause followed.
“Forget the bag,” Glenn replied immediately.
“Seriously.
Leave it.
Take whatever you’ve got and get moving before those things turn around.”
The humor had disappeared from his voice.
Glenn quickly gave them directions toward an alley before cutting the transmission.
Magnus and Rick exchanged one look.
That was enough.
They immediately began searching the tank for anything useful.
Magnus recovered a fragmentation grenade from the dead soldier, a military entrenching tool, and a Beretta M9 with a fifteen-round magazine.
The combat uniform fit him well enough, but wearing military clothing didn’t suddenly make him a soldier.
He understood tools and blades far better than firearms, especially compared with Rick, who had spent years carrying and training with a sidearm as a sheriff’s deputy.
Magnus secured the Beretta and tightened both hands around the entrenching tool instead.
It wasn’t sophisticated, but a sharpened folding shovel was still a sturdy piece of steel, and walkers didn’t care what weapon killed them.
His palms were slick with sweat, while his heartbeat seemed loud enough for everything outside the tank to hear.
Rick checked the Colt Python and looked back.
“Ready?”
Magnus tightened his grip.
“Ready.”
Rick carefully pushed open the upper hatch.
The hinge produced little more than a faint creak, but even that was enough to catch the attention of several nearby walkers.
One immediately turned toward the opening and staggered closer, its ruined face twisting as both arms reached toward Rick.
With no melee weapon ready and no room to hesitate, Rick raised the Python.
Bang!
The .357 roared.
The walker’s head snapped backward, and its body toppled off the side of the tank.
For one terrible second, the street seemed almost still.
Then hundreds of dead faces began turning toward the gunshot.
Rick’s expression changed immediately.
“Move!”
He pulled himself through the hatch and climbed onto the tank.
Magnus followed close behind, and for the first time he saw downtown Atlanta with his own eyes.
Abandoned vehicles clogged the streets, military equipment had been left where units made their final stands, bodies littered the pavement, and walkers seemed to fill every open space between the buildings.
Seeing it on a screen had been one thing.
Standing in the middle of it was something else entirely.
A walker stumbled toward the tank.
Magnus stepped into the swing.
The edge of the entrenching tool smashed into the side of its skull, and the impact traveled painfully through his arms as bone cracked beneath the steel.
The corpse dropped against the tank before sliding onto the pavement.
Magnus stared at it for half a second, swallowed hard, and forced himself to keep moving.
“If it’s useful, take it,” he muttered, repeating the rule he had lived by whenever money was tight.
Rick was already heading toward Glenn’s escape route.
Magnus followed.
“If it keeps you alive, don’t leave it behind.”