Hello everyone! Now, I recently joined the band wagon of watching The Walking Dead, and I can honestly say this ... WHY DIDN'T I START WATCHING IT SOONER? Anyways, the plot bunnies in my head have recently been tormenting me with some interesting ideas about both the Dixon and Rhee families, and I've since decided to grab at one particular idea and try to write it ... So we'll see how it goes! :)

Now, just some quick little notes. Yes, Glenn's last name has been noted to be Rhee in both interviews and on the many websites I checked for info. (Well dodging bullets of spoilers, might I add.) And yes, from the info I have gathered, Glenn's name is spelled with two n's. This is the information and spellings that I am going to use here on out. Also, this is going to be a OCxOC story, where both OC's will eventually meet up with Rick's group, so don't worry, the original cast of the show will be in this!

Thanks in advance for reading!

-D

Disclaimer: I do not, nor have, nor ever will own anything related to the label of The Walking Dead.

Chapter One: Four Days

Head up, just barely. Look up, over. Side to side. Head back down, eyes forward. Go, now!

She took a big breath and held it, trapping it deep in her lungs to silence herself. She checked around the hood of the abandoned car one last time before she scuttled across the street, keeping her body low to the ground. She avoided patches of gravel and litter, and made sure to side step around the broken bottle that was close to her right foot. She could hear the groans and gurgled cries of the walking dead, but she forced herself to look straight a head, straight at the grey Ford van that she needed to make it to. If she worried herself with how many of them there were just in the immediate area, she would only miss keys in her surrounding, and would surely end up getting killed. She had to be quick, swift, but quiet. With fourteen staccato steps, she made it to the other side, and crouched behind the parked van, letting her breath out slowly and surely.

Dammit, you can't keep goin' on like this!

She closed her eyes momentarily, and leaned against the cool paint of the van. She had been going for two days straight, only stopping to chew at an expired granola bar or to crack open a can of peaches. Sleep had been pushed into the back of her mind as well-she had only gotten three hours across the two day span that she had been traveling the roads like some sort of criminal. Yes, she had been raised to fend for herself. Sure, she knew how to trap rabbits and make spears out of sticks. Hell, she even knew how to catch catfish with her own two hands. It was all helpful survival skills that she had been taught ... if she got lost out in the woods. None of her prior knowledge would help her survive in the middle of a town, and it was much less helpful in the middle of an apocalypse.

Only four days ago, Georgia had proclaimed a state of emergency, one of the last states to do so. People panicked, ransacked everything, gathered their belongings and tried to group together all of their loved ones. Most people fled to the areas of protection, the military proclaimed safe-zones that were located in Atlanta, Macon and Albany. Highways were backed up with lines of idling cars, and getting out of the city became impossible. It was also four days ago that the army began to bomb the larger cities, trying to wipe out the swarms of dead that wandered the streets. To no avail, however. The dead still wandered, and consumed what they could of the living. A measly four days and most of the state had been turned into ... zombies.

It was also four days since she had last heard from her family. It had been four days since she had thrown clothes, food, knives and water bottles into her large cargo bag, had strapped it to her back, and had left her apartment for good to find them. It had been that long since she had any contact with any ... living being. She had forced herself to go to the streets, to make her way through the town and attempt to find those who she may know. She had promised to give herself a week. A week to find those who she loved and who loved her. Seven days would be enough time for her older brothers to come back from their hunting trip ... or wherever they had ended up this time. A week and she would flee to the forests and live off the land, just as her elder brothers had taught her to. Hopefully she would find them before that.

It had been four days. She had three days left.

She opened her eyes once again, focusing back on the reality that faced her. Her face remained against the cool surface of the vehicle as she brushed her muddy brown hair back behind her ears and out of her eyes. Her lips began to move, a whisper of a breath sounding from her lips.

"Daryl, Merle ... you two better be safe."

And with that, the youngest Dixon, Casey Marie, pushed herself back up on the balls of her feet and began to slink towards the back bumper of the van, planning her next move. She could obviously continue on forward, continuing to hide behind and under cars to avoid the odd undead that continued to amble around her. Or, finding a nice place to stay for the night was also creeping up in her mind, as the hazy yellow of the setting sun coated everything in a lemony daze. Her shaky legs told her to find a place to rest, to rest her weary head, but the logical-or maybe illogical-side of her mind told her to continue onward, that somehow, possibly, she would be able to survive for longer if she were to continue on in the dark.

She shifted on her feet, chanting in her head what she usually did before she jumped from car to car. Head up, just barely. Look up, over. Side to-

The ringing sound of a gun shot blasted through the air, and Casey ducked back behind the van's back bumper. Hands to the ground, her eyes just barely peering out from behind the metal, Casey mentally cussed whoever had done that. It would only bring the attention of the dead to full alert, making it even harder to sneak around them and past them. There was a reason Casey hadn't went and ransacked some guns and ammo-it would only draw more unneeded attention to her.

The closest one, the only one who hadn't wandered away by now, was a stumbling man with dusty black hair. He twisted his head in the direction of where the shot had come from, due North, not even a block away. A mixture of coppery blood and what looked like thick drool fell from his mouth, dribbling down his dirty, rotting chin. He groaned and went to turn, his foot twisting at an odd angle as he did, and she could hear the crack of his bones as he did. That didn't seem to stop him as he staggered drunkenly past where Casey was hiding, groaning and moaning his way along. Casey took the general misfortune as an opportunity; she slunk away only seconds behind him, quickly making her way to the next car that was parked a good twenty feet up the street, hoping that she would be able to make it before anything else spot her. As she went, Casey kept her eye on the dead that had, before, been so close to her.

She only made it half way to the car before another shot rang out, and the dead she had been watching jerked back before he fell to the ground, blood seeping from his head.

Casey froze, eyes scanning ahead, hand reaching back towards the back belt loop on her jeans, were she had been keeping a steak knife handy in case there was trouble. Her upper lip curled in anger in response. She remained motionless; there was no point in running, he already knew she was there. Casey only remained there, crouched and ready, waiting for the arrival of the gun-wielding moron.

He appeared around a car, a single handheld, a Beretta, she assumed, in his hands, pointed wildly and haphazardly in front of him, eyes wide and spooked. The second he laid eyes on her, he pointed it towards her, the barrel obscuring her view of most of his face. All she could see was a mop of think, inky black hair, a dirty tee-shirt, and shaky knees that were covered by jeans.

"A-are you bit?" he yelled as he continued to approach her.

Casey had to resist the urge to run up to him and slap him. Why was this idiot so loud? She only glared at him.

He waved his gun around again. "Are you bit? Are you hurt?" His voice seemed genuinely concerned.

"I'll be better if you shut the hell up, dumb ass." Casey stood straight and swallowed hard; she hadn't had a good drink of water in a day or so, and her voice was scratchy and rough. "They're attracted to noise."

He was in front of her now, only a good couple feet away. His gun was being lowered to his hip as he got the confirmation he needed just by hearing her annoyed reply. Casey got a better look at him now; he was of obvious Asian descent, dark eyes that glimmered in the setting sun that matched the color of his mop of hair. His toned face was smudged with dirt and a bit of blood that lined his left cheek bone. His lips began moving once more, and Casey had to struggle to keep up to his motoring story.

"Sorry if I scared you there, but you scared the shit out of me. I haven't seen anybody around here since this all started and when I saw you darting in between the cars I wasn't sure if you were bit or just plain hurt and trying to hide from them. Y'know, most people will just run around blasting their guns and killing them all, but I haven't seen you kill one since you got here. That's why I started getting 'em; that last one was awfully close to you."

Casey's glare intensified, and her dusty brown eyebrow twitched. "How long have you been watching me? I 'ad everything under control, stupid."

"About an hour. From where I was, I could see down the entire street," he replied, his face softening. This guy was such a pansy. "I just ... I wanted to try and help you-"

"It ain't safe out here," Casey muttered, not letting him finish. She didn't care what this guy said or did. The sun was falling back behind the horizon, and Casey knew she only had about half an hour before their entire world would be encased in a blackened night. She would be prime pickings for a zombie platter. Her grip on her steak knife tightened as she brought it around from her back, giving him a good view of it as she clutched it in her battered hand. "If you really wanna help me, you'll take me to where you were."

He looked left, right, then back left again. Checking if there were others with her, Casey noticed, mildly impressed. Maybe he wasn't so damn dumb after all. Then, to her surprise, he nodded. He began galloping down the street, motioning her his way with a flick of his head. Casey had to struggle to catch up to him, jogging down the now empty street with him, still dodging anything that would make noise by instinct. This guy had long friggin' legs and was a hell of a lot taller than her, much to her chagrin.

"My name's Ryan," he offered, a small smile twitching on his lips.

"Shut up and keep going," Casey huffed with a quick roll of her eyes. There was no time for pleasantries in the apocalypse.