THE WALKING DEAD:

"MONSTER"

CHAPTER 1

Michonne walked along the center of the long, black road that led to Woodbury, her cold eyes looking occasionally at the woods on either side for any threat human, animal…or dead. The hood of her cape covered her dreadlocks and the cape itself fluttered partially in the breeze against the katana slung over her back. She was alone, but she preferred it that way; her quarry was only one man, and she didn't need the others back at the prison to kill him…the Governor.

•••

Yesterday, Rick's group had succeeded in scaring the Governor's new, inexperienced army out of the prison. Michonne joined Rick and Daryl on a mission to sneak inside Woodbury and kill their mutual enemy, the Governor, and rescue their mutual friend, Andrea. Daryl led the way on his chopper motorcycle, while Michonne and Rick followed in the group's Dodge Ram 1500.

Alongside this very road they found the remnants of the Governor's caravan: a U.S. Army transport truck, a Jeep Wrangler YJ, and a Ford Excursion. Lying beside the vehicles and scattered across the field were the corpses of the Governor's army, now being consumed by Walkers. Michonne and her two companions stopped to kill the Walkers, and figure out what happened. That's when they discovered one woman—Karen—hiding inside the truck's cab.

After Karen calmed down, she said the Governor had forced the caravan to pull over, and he ordered his army to go back and renew the attack. Everyone but Allen refused and argued they should return to Woodbury, and as quickly as the argument began, the Governor suddenly opened fire on them with his assault rifle. The ones who weren't killed in the first spray of gunfire ran into the field in a desperate attempt to reach the safety of the forest, but the Governor gunned them down too.

The man behind Karen was shot in the back and he fell dead on top of her, and Karen laid perfectly still while Governor walked along the field, firing his pistol, and preventing the people he had just slaughtered from turning. Karen waited still and quietly until she heard a truck drive away, and she waited a while longer until she heard the underbrush swaying up ahead, followed by low growls. Karen looked up, and saw Walkers shuffling out of the woods. She was on her feet and running towards the truck in an instant, and once she climbed inside its cab, she shut the door, locked it, and hid from sight. A few minutes after that she heard a motorcycle and a truck come to a stop, followed by the the walker's growls coming to sudden stop one-by-one. Karen had just been rescued by the very people the Governor said were trying to kill her and everyone else in Woodbury. Rick decided to continue on to Woodbury, and they brought Karen with them in case they needed a witness to convince the people behind those walls to throw down their weapons and open the gates.

The group reached Woodbury after nightfall, so they left their vehicles and began sneaking towards the gate when a shot the wall rang out and just missed Rick. Both sides exchanged gunfire until Karen shouted Tyreese's name.

"Karen?! Karen are you okay?!" Tyreese asked.

"I'm fine!" Karen answered as she broke free from Rick and stood out in the open, her hands above her head.

"Where's the Governor?"

"He fired on everyone! He killed them all!" Karen answered.

A moment later Tyreese asked "Why are you with them?"

"They…saved me!" Karen shouted as she recalled how close she came to dying.

A long pause followed, as both sides were unsure of what they should do.

"We're coming out!" Rick shouted as he put his weapons on the ground. "We're coming out."

The former sherriff's deputy stepped out into the open and he and Karen walked towards the gate, with their hands above their heads. Michonne and Daryl followed reluctantly, but they kept their weapons with them. The gate opened and Tyreese and Sasha stepped out, their weapons lowered.

"What are you doing here?" Tyreese asked, his voice low, like he was in shock about the news of the Governor's slaughter.

"We were coming to finish this, until we saw what the Governor did," Rick answered.

"He…he killed them?" Tyreese asked, his eyes hoping that the news was a lie.

"Yeah," Rick nodded sadly. Then he decided to change the subject. "Karen told us Andrea hopped the wall, going over the prison. She might be here."

•••

Andrea was indeed there.

They found her inside the warehouse where the Governor had kept Glenn and Maggie prisoner. There was a puddle of blood underneath an iron door. Rick drew his Colt Python revolver, while Daryl covered him with an M4A1 rifle. Rick opened the door, and inside the room was barber's chair in the center of the room, and the corpse of the Governor's aide Milton, lying in front of it. But Michonne only caught a glimpse of Milton, because her gaze caught an arm lying beside the doorframe. Michonne ran inside the room, dropped her katana, and saw Andrea curled up against the wall. "Andrea!" Michonne gasped as she sat down and pulled her friend gently into her arms.

"I tried to stop him." Andrea said weakly as her eyes fluttered open.

Rick and Daryl walked into the room and lowered their weapons when they saw Andrea.

"You're burning up," Michonne whispered to Andrea, and not understanding how that was possible.

Andrea lowered her head and tried to pull back her vest and shirt; Michonne and Rick helped her, and they saw a bloody bite wound on her left shoulder.

Michonne shut her eyes in grief and held onto Andrea tighter. Rick looked away. Daryl gritted his teeth.

"Judith…Carl…the rest of them?" Andrea asked Rick.

"Us," Rick insisted as he looked at Andrea again and touched her, "the rest of us."

Andrea smiled, appreciating that Rick was welcoming her back into the group. "Are they alive?"

Rick looked up at Daryl and looked down at the floor. He didn't know how much longer he could speak to this dying woman without bursting into tears. "Yeah, they're alive," he answered finally.

Andrea smiled again and she seemed to go limp in Michonne's arms, as if she had held out to learn the group's fate, and now that she knew they were all right, she was prepared to die. She looked up at Michonne and smiled. "It's good that you found them."

Michonne nodded as she began to cry. She was too tired of being strong and too tired of keeping other people at a distance.

Next, Andrea looked up at Daryl. "No one can make it alone now," she warned him.

Daryl shifted his posture uncomfortably as if he didn't expect Andrea to say anything to him. "Never could," he agreed.

Andrea faced Rick, and her tired expression was replaced briefly by a thoughtful one. "I just didn't want anyone to die," she explained.

Rick said nothing, but he understood Andrea's intentions. He tried negotiating with the Governor to avoid a war. He had briefly agreed to the terms of handing Michonne over as a peace offering to save his children and his group.

"I can do it myself," Andrea said as she sat up straighter.

"No," Michonne begged.

"I have to…while I still can."

Michonne looked at her friend for a moment and nodded in defeat.

"Please," Andrea said. Rick raised his head when he realized the request was directed at him.

"I know how the safety works," Andrea smiled.

Rick instantly thought back to the day he met Andrea in that department store in Atlanta a year ago; her threatening to kill him because he inadvertently brought a herd down on her group, but what she didn't know was that she left the pistol's safety on. After Andrea had calmed down and lowered the weapon, Rick showed her how the safety works: red dot means the gun is ready to fire. He never thought that brief lesson would lead to this moment. Rick drew his Colt Python revolver and placed it in Andrea's hand.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," Michonne insisted. She had turned her back on Andrea at the gates when her friend refused to leave Woodbury; she wouldn't make that mistake again.

Andrea looked sadly at Michonne, Rick, and Daryl. She thought about the chances she had to flee Woodbury, or kill the Governor. But she stayed up until the last moment to stop a foolish war between two groups of survivors in a world filled with dead cannibals. "I tried…" she said wistfully.

"Yeah," Rick whispered, "You did. You did."

Rick stood up and he and Daryl stepped out of the room and closed the iron door behind them. Michonne moved in front of Andrea and held her left hand while supporting the back of her neck. They looked at each other sadly. A minute later Andrea nodded, Michonne nodded too, and she shut her eyes and turned away. Andrea pressed the revolver's barrel underneath her jaw and pulled the trigger.

BLAM!

•••

This morning, Daryl suggested to Michonne that she wait a day so he could get Merle's corpse, bring him back to the prison, give him a proper burial, and then they could hunt the Governor together. Michonne understood Daryl's desire for revenge, and she knew he was the superior tracker, but she knew this hunt couldn't wait. The Governor would run and hide and bide his time, and when he was ready, he'd attack the prison again.

Michonne heard a flock of crows cawing ahead of her and a minute later she saw the birds pecking at the corpses lying alongside the Governor's parked caravan or lying in the field. The crows saw Michonne approaching, and sensing she wasn't one of the rotting humans, spread their wings and flew away. Michonne reached over her shoulder, and held the grip of her katana as she walked alongside the transport truck and glared up at the driver's side door.

It might be a good idea to take the truck, Michonne thought. It would save me some time, and if that son of a bitch left Woodbury, I can catch up with him a lot faster.

Michonne stepped on the foot ramp, opened the door, and peered inside the cab. The keys aren't in the ignition; no wonder Karen didn't just drive away. Whoever was driving this rig

likely took the keys with them after putting it in park and killing the engine. So which one was the driver?

Michonne stepped down from the cab, walked past the transport truck and looked down at the fresh corpses and the dead walkers mixed together. She noticed one of the fresh ones—a black man—lying face down and facing the truck as if he had turned around to walk back to it. He was the driver, Michonne thought, the first one out of the truck and the first one to tell the Governor to go to hell. Michonne knelt down, turned the man over, dug into his vest pocket, and a moment later she pulled out the truck's keys.

Michonne stood up and looked at the Jeep Wrangler YJ parked in front of the transport truck. The driver was lying dead on the road beside it, and his passenger was sitting dead in the passenger seat. Michonne noticed the driver had the jeep's keys clutched in his right hand. Which one should I take? The truck is more powerful and it's got a cab to keep the walkers out. The jeep is more maneuverable and it's faster. Michonne looked at both vehicles, and she dropped the truck's keys and walked towards the jeep; she pried the keys out of the driver's hand, walked around to the passenger side, lifted the corpse out of the passenger seat and carefully laid it down on the ground.

•••

Michonne drove the Wrangler YJ at full speed down the road to Woodbury. Her katana was leaning against the passenger seat, and her Glock 19 pistol was sticking out of the cup holder of the jeep's console. There were a few walkers on the road, and they stopped shuffling and watched as she sped past them.

If they can still think, they're probably thinking they'll see me in Woodbury, Michonne thought. The joke almost made her crack a smile.

Michonne's eyes went wide and she slammed her foot down on the brake.

SCREEECH!

The Jeep slid as it left a trail of black tire treads along the road until it came to a complete stop. Michonne put the jeep in park, and stood up and looked straight ahead in horror.

There were columns of black smoke rising on the horizon.

Michonne sat down, put the jeep in drive, and continued to speed down the road. Within minutes, Woodbury was in sight: the town was afire but what worried Michonne most was that the gate—which Rick had closed before they had left last night—had been smashed into splinters. The walkers would soon overrun the town, if they weren't inside already. Michonne would have to find the Governor and kill him quickly.

Michonne drove the jeep through the shattered gate and swung the steering wheel to the right; she stepped on the brake and put the jeep in park. The heat from the fires was intense and Michonne pulled down the hood of her cape to let the cold breeze touch her neck. She turned towards the burning town and saw the flames leaping across Main St. She then looked to see if the Governor was standing on the street, but what she saw were a dozen walkers, staring at the burning buildings. One of the walkers looked over its shoulder, and growled at Michonne; the other walkers turned around and growled at her too.

Michonne took the keys out of the ignition and she shoved them into her pants pocket. Next she grabbed the Glock 19 pistol and stood up; as she stuck the pistol against the small of her back, she turned around to watch the walkers again: shuffling towards her and growling from hunger. Michonne grabbed her katana, leapt out of the jeep, slung the scabbard over her back, and drew the blade in one swift motion. The walkers growled louder now, and continued to shuffle forward. Michonne gripped the katanna's handle with both hands, and waited for the first walker to step within striking distance; her hunt for the Governor would have to wait.