"Fuck"

"shh Noams, it's gonna be fine" I whisper to the blonde beside me. I take her hand in my own as I look into her eyes to speak keeping my voice low, "I'm gonna check how many."

She mouths "okay" in response. I lift my head up just enough to see over the counter we ducked behind. The small gas station is a complete mess, obviously been turned over a couple of times since the world ended. Broken shelving and whatever sock hasn't been looted covers the floor and dust and chunks of plaster from where a light has fallen from the ceiling add to the mess. In amongst all of that though is the reason we're behind the counter in the first place.

About three weeks ago the world went to shit, the dead decided they didn't want to stay dead and so they walk the earth and eat the living and I know what you're thinking "zombies!, you must be fucking crazy", well those were my exact words when Shane told us, yet here we are, scouting for supplies and facing the stuff of nightmares.

I take in the surroundings while I see how many walkers there are, that's what we call them thought it was better than the z word. I can see three of them, two by the door and one standing about a foot away with its back to the counter. Easy enough, we've faced far worse. I duck back down and turn to Naomi. I move closer to her to make as little noise as possible and lean in so can whisper in her ear "there's two by the door I'll get them and you get the lone one by the counter."

She nods in agreement and makes her way around the counter with me right behind her. She stands up, quickly and quietly lifting her large hunting knife and slamming it into the lone walkers head with a sickening crunch. The sound of the walkers body hitting the floor is enough to alert my two, I run unto the first one shoving him into his buddy who stumbles onto the floor. I jam my own knife into the first walker's skull then the second in quick succession. Taking my knife out of the now still and lifeless corpse I wipe the blood on its shirt and shove the knife back in the holder around my right calf. I walk back over to Naomi who throws me one of the rucksacks we brought with us.

"Remember and grab everything useful and not just booze okay Naoms" I laugh winking at her as I begin to fill the bag.

"Shut up Kel" she laughs while flipping me off "and no winking at me I'm taken remember"

"Awww naomikins, Ems is my best mate I'm sure she won't mind."

"You've been spending far too much time with cook" she turned to look at me "next you'll be asking for a willy waggle" she said in her best impression of cook.

We both laugh as we fill our bags with whatever we can find as well as keeping an eye out for some requested items.

Coffee and cigarettes being the most requested along with some beer and vodka if possible and of course Freds being the stoner he is asked us to keep an eye out for any spliff.

A good twenty minutes of rummaging around and we have three bags full of supplies including all the things from our list apart from Freddie's weed, poor boy he'll be getting withdrawal.

We head outside opening the sliding door of the van I adopted since the outbreak; we put the bags in the back and get in the front ourselves. We start to make our way back to camp with me driving and Naomi keeping watch for potential threats. Our camps on a clearing just above a quarry with a small lake, it's a pretty beautiful place with fields leading down to the lake on one side, woodland and mountains on the other and only one dirt path leading from the road so it's secluded. We've had no trouble at camp yet with people or walkers so it's definitely doing its job.

The majority of the drive was made in comfortable silence, with Naomi's eyes focussed out of her window and mine on the road. She nudged me when she spotted the path, I may have missed it on a previous run but shh. I turned up the dirt path driving to the camp. When the camp came into view I turned the van around and reversed into the space I'd taken it from earlier. I shut off the engine and climb out as Naomi does the same. I walk around to the sliding door at Naomi's side just in time to see a flash of bright red hair before the pint sized Emily wraps both of us in to a bone crushing Fitch hug.

"Glad you're both okay" she said in her husky voice before letting me go.

"Cheers Ems, but I might not be so okay if you'd hugged us any tighter" I laugh grabbing my side for dramatic effect.

"Oops, sorry" she replies blushing "I'll try not to next time."

"He's just being a drama queen, I love your hugs Ems" Naomi says pulling her girlfriend into a kiss.

"Naoms I can handle this, you and Ems can bugger off if you want"

"Cheers Kel" she says winking at me "see you in a bit."

I shake my head as the girls wander off while I open the door of the van and grab one of the bags before hearing an unmistakeable voice behind me.

"Nice one man" Shane bellows patting me on the back and taking the other two bags from the van, "should do more runs like this and maybe less to the city."

"Glenn and his motley crew not back yet" I ask as we move the centre of camp.

"Nah man, not yet."

Shane and I put the bags on one of the tables we'd set up. The centre of the camp's made up of a fire pit surrounded by a small stone wall with a collection of mismatched camping chairs and three tables with benches. Surrounding our makeshift communal area is a series of tents where we all sleep along with Dale's R.V, my van, Shane's range rover, the Morales's people carrier, Carol and Ed's car and a motor cycle owned by Merle Dixon. He thankfully was one of the people that Glenn took to the city with him, Merles a foul mouthed redneck who doesn't give a damn about anyone but himself and to a certain extant his younger brother Daryl.

The camp was a lot of members this afternoon but was still full of people as usual. I mean there are a lot of us so I understand why Shane insisted that Glenn take a group this time although he much prefers to do solo trips to Atlanta, he always says it's less risky when he goes on his own and he's probably right. This time however we needed more stuff than he could move on his own so he took Merle, Morales, Jackie, Andrea and T-Dog. I had offered to go with them but Shane mentioned a run to the gas station so I asked Naomi to join me. Emily hadn't been to happy when I asked but she knew that we'd have each other's backs so in the end gave in.

I sat at the table while Shane sorted through our spoils and looked around the camp. Dale and Jim were working on the R.V. making sure it runs smooth in case of a quick getaway, Lori and Miranda were keeping an eye on the kids of our group and Amy, Effy and Katie were sitting around the fire pit talking. I assumed the rest of the group must be busy with odd jobs around the lake and woods. Shane was just finishing taking stock as Naomi and Emily sat down beside me giggling about something that obviously wasn't intended for the group.

Shane looked at them with a raised eyebrow "wanna share with the rest of us ladies?"

"I'd rather not" Emily answered, her already husky voice hoarse from laughing.

Shane shook his head as we joined the laughing "hey blondie, you and Kel did a great job today" Shane confessed with a huge smile on his face "you pair definitely have my permission for future trips."

"Thanks Shane" I say proudly.

"So got any jobs for us since we're so brilliant" Naomi asks with a grin.

"You two can help me store this stuff" he pointed to Naomi and Emily "and Kel you can take these to the kids" he tossed me a bag of M&Ms "Carl missed you man."

"Sweet, no problem."

I head over to Lori, Miranda and the kids while the others go about their business, Lori turns to smile at me when she sees me coming.

"Hey stranger, what you got there" she asked with a wide smile across her features.

"M&M's for the kids" I smile back at her "apparently Carl missed me."

"He always does, he worries about his cousin coming home safe."

Lori married my dad's brother Rick thirteen years ago and twelve years ago they had Carl. This past month has been most difficult on Lori and Carl and not just because of the walkers and fight for survival but because a week before all of this happened a tragedy struck out family.

My mum and dad moved to Bristol when I was eleven and we lived there since. I had come over to America with my friends from college before Uni started so we could spend some time together before parting ways for what would probably be months on end. I'd suggested starting in Georgia so I could visit my family before we ventured into the unknown, so Cook, JJ, Freddie, Effy, Katie, Emily, Naomi and I took off. Once we had landed I checked my phone to a distressed voicemail from Lori saying Rick had been shot on the job. He was a police officer at the King County Sheriff's Department. He and Shane had been in a pursuit involving a car with were thought to be three armed men who were taken out without any issues but there was a fourth man that no one had seen who shot Rick in the back. We headed straight for the Grimes household and ended up delaying going anywhere else for a couple of weeks to help Lori out and keep Carl occupied. We were glad we hadn't ventured out when Shane came to the door and explained that the dead were up and walking around, Lori had been reluctant to leave Rick and that's when Shane told us the hospitals power went out when he was there and Ricks heart stopped.

Even with all that tragedy having happened in such a short space of time she still managed to smile large, genuine smiles at the people who helped her through.

Carl came running over when he saw me.

"Kel!" he yelled smiling from ear to ear, his blue eyes shining and his scruffy brown hair flopping around "got anything for me?"

"Sure do buddy" I laugh throwing the sweets to him "remember and share."

"Of course, I'm not that mean" he laughs running back to the other kids.

I smile to myself for a moment before hearing a car alarm coming from the road.

"Shit" I move toward the top of the dirt path "Shane it's getting louder!"