I am re-doing this story! Edited the two chapters I had posted, and maybe I'll get lucky enough to find the inspiration for a third. Someone, please, smack me in the face with a plot bunny! I desperately need it.
Some people were meant to live in this world, to survive. Most were not. I guess I was one of the lucky ones, if luck is what you'd call it. I would say the world went to shit, but it was a shitty place, even before the dead came back to eat the living. I knew that better than most people.
I haven't seen a single, living person since all of this insanity went down. I have been on my own for two months now. I guess I really can't complain, I mean, I have always wondered what it would be like to live in a post-apocalyptic world, completely alone. No annoying people to deal with. No obnoxious neighbors or self-serving people too absorbed in their own lives to see the horrific things around them. I never realized how much I would miss the sound of someone else's voice, the sound of cars honking, dogs barking, or even the construction works that used to drive me insane. There was nothing now, except silence. And the moans of the undead. Or The Infected, as I called them. What else is there to call them?- reanimated corpses just doesn't sound right. It's too long. Neither does zombies. It's too.. inhuman.
I was brought out of my reverie by something I was sure I would never see again. A person, a real, living, breathing person. The first one I've seen in two months. I really was beginning to think I was the only one left. I was so shocked by the boy's sudden appearance I didn't immediately see the four Infected trailing after him, hungry for their next meal. (Did they get hungry? How did they digest the flesh they devoured so ravenously? Will I ever know?) I threw my hearse into drive, driving towards the running boy as fast as I could. I smacked into the slowest Infected that was giving him chase, running it right over. I couldn't stop the sadistic laugh that bubbled up. I hate those undead fuckers.
I pulled up beside the boy, my passenger side window already down. "Hurry up! Get the fuck in before they catch up!" I snapped at him, stopping just long for him to climb in with the duffel bag he was carrying. I sped off just as one the Infected began grabbing at the back of my hearse.
"Wow, thanks! Thought I was done for a minute there. I'm Glenn." The young man said. He had a friendly tone. Good, I wouldn't the first living person I've seen in forever to be a douche.
"Nico. Nicolette Harper, most people just call me Nico. Or at least they did before, well, y'know." I indicated with my hand the barren wasteland that was formerly known as Atlanta. "Where ya headed, kid?"
"We have a camp, at an old rock quarry just outside of Atlanta."
"We? You mean there's more of you?" I asked incredulously. More survivors!
"Yeah, we have a whole group. There's about twenty of us." Glenn said, giving me a strange look. One I couldn't decipher with my eyes fixed on the road ahead of us. "Are you alone?"
"Yup. Have been since this whole shitstorm started." I glanced at Glenn out of the corner of my eye. He was watching me, carefully, like he couldn't believe I had survived this long on my own. I couldn't blame him, I had a hard time believing it myself. Now that I got a better look at him, I could see that he was some flavor of Asian, around my age. Kind of cute, too. "Never thought I'd be so happy to see another living person."
"Well, I think you'll like it at our camp. It's safe there."
Safe. I held back the laugh that threatened to break loose. No place was safe anymore, at least not for long. "Safe just means temporarily protected." I said with a bit more bite that I meant to. Oops. Glenn fell silent, only speaking to indicate the direction of where I should go to get to this 'safe place'.
"Who's that?" Glenn pointed to the photo I had taped to my dash. I swallowed hard, tightening my grip on my steering wheel, but said nothing. So he tried a different tactic. "Where'd you get this hearse?" He asked. He was obviously trying to engage me in a conversation.
Normally I hated small talk, but I've been starved of human contact for so long. "Ehh, had a job at a funeral home when I was 19. Got a discount." I patted the steering wheel affectionately. "It's my baby. I've pretty much been living out of it since the world ended, never staying in one place too long. I can't imagine any survivors trying to rob a hearse. Hearses transport the dead, and nobody wants to mess with the dead now."
"Where are you from?"
I held back a sigh, reminding myself how lonely I was not even an hour ago. I despise small talk. "DC, but I had family in Atlanta. I was trying to find them." I said stiffly. That was the reason I was near that hellhole in the first place. Family. "I have no idea where they could be, or if they're even alive anymore."
"I'm sorry." Glenn spoke softly.
I shrugged. "Whatever, not much I can do about it now."
Up ahead, I could see cars parked in an orderly fashion, and what appeared to be a man standing on an RV, watching me approach through a pair of binoculars. "You're gonna like it here. Everybody's really friendly." Glenn tried to reassure me. I rolled my eyes slightly, pulling up beside a beat-up truck. Glenn climbed out quickly, running for the group that was gathered, waiting for his return. I continued to sit in my seat, watching all of them interacting. Glenn was right, there was a lot of people here. I didn't think that many people survived.
"Glenn! Glad to see you made it back okay." Dale laughed, placing his hand on Glenn's shoulder.
"I wouldn't have made it back it weren't for Nico." Glenn said ruefully, indicating the parked hearse behind them. "She saved me back there. Came out of nowhere and saved me."
"Is it just her?" Shane asked, eyeing me still sitting in my hearse.
"Yeah.. Hey Nico, come say hello!" Glenn yelled over to me, waving his hand at me furiously. I groaned and forced myself to open the door to my hearse. Baby steps, it's all about baby steps. I never liked people before, why was I stupid enough to think that would change just because the world ended? I berated myself as I slowly walked towards Glenn and the two men standing beside him. I could see their stares, practically feel the judgment rolling off the younger man in waves. Even at the end of the world I was still being judged by my appearance. The older man looked friendly enough. "Guys, this is Nico. She saved my butt."
"Ehh, couldn't let a butt that cute be eaten by The Infected." I grinned at him. Glenn's face turned red, which made me laugh. "Hi, I'm Nicolette Harper, but just call me Nico."
"Dale Horvath, it's very nice to meet you." The older man, who I now knew as Dale, greeted me warmly, extending his hand to me. He reminded me of a grandfather, one of the nice ones that always let you do the stuff that your parents wouldn't.
"Shane Walsh." Shane also shook my hand. Something about him was.. off. It didn't sit right with me, but I shook it off and chalked it up to being nervous. Which was a lie- I never get nervous. About anything. "Why don't you come meet the rest of our group? You can tell us about how you saved Glenn's ass."
I chuckled, following the three of them to be introduced to the rest of their group. I scanned the faces staring at me. I could almost hear their thoughts. Who dresses like that during the apocalypse? Who's that strange girl in those strange clothes? I got the shock of my life when my eyes landed on two blondes I thought I'd never see again. "Andrea! Amy!" I cried, running as fast as my legs would carry me to my best friend and her younger sister. I laughed, laughed so hard I started crying as I enveloped the two sisters in my arms. "Oh gods, I thought I'd never see you again!"
Andrea laughed, hugging me hard. "Nico! I knew if anyone could get out of this mess unharmed it'd be you." She pulled back, smiling until she looked around me. "Where's-"
"It doesn't matter." I cut her off. She didn't need to know. At least not yet.
"I'm so sorry." She whispered as she hugged me again.
Shane chuckled. "Well, I guess you already know Andrea and Amy. That's Morales and his family over there, Ed, Carol, and their daughter Sophia, Jim, Jacqui, Lori and her son Carl, and T-Dog." He gave the quickest introduction before going to talk to Lori. I shrugged off the vibes he gave me and turned my attention back to my friend. Andrea took my arm gently, leading me over the RV Dale was keeping watch from and sitting me on its steps.
"How did you find us?" Amy asked me.
"I was heading into Atlanta to see if I could find my mum. Turned out to be a bust, she wasn't there. I was sitting on the outskirts of the city, trying to figure out where to go next, when I saw your boy Glenn trying to outrun some of The Infected. I figured he was too cute to be eaten, and you know the rest." I explained.
"You've been alone this whole time?"
"Nah, I have Frankie with me. He's sleeping in the back of my hearse right now."
"A cat doesn't count. Nico, what happened?" Andrea fixed her blue-eyed stare directly on me.
"Please, Andrea, not now." I couldn't bear it. I haven't had a chance to talk about what happened, wouldn't even let myself think about it. I might just lose it if I did. Whatever I was going to say next was abruptly cut off by the appearance of two men I hadn't seen yet. One was older, with a short haircut. I guessed ex-military. The younger one.. Oh man, was he a looker. Dirty, scruffy, totally sexy. "Wow! Who is that?" My eyes widened as I watched them make their way to a couple of tents that were set a distance from the others. Obviously they weren't very into the whole 'group' thing, although I couldn't really blame them. The younger one set down the crossbow he was carrying, his lips moving as he said something to the older man he was with. Brothers, maybe? Lovers? You never know.
"Those are the Dixons. Merle and Daryl." I could hear the distaste in Andrea's voice when she spoke their names.
"The cute one?" I never took my eyes off them.
"Daryl." Andrea clarified for me. "Don't get your hopes up, he's not a social person."
"Don't have to be social to have sex." I shrugged, flashing my friend a wicked grin. "You know me, Andy, never did know when to leave well enough alone. I think I might go say hello." I stood up, brushing off the back of my black pants after sitting on the dirty steps of the RV. I could feel everyone's eyes on me once again as I made my way over to where the Dixons were situated. Most likely to make a fool of myself. I had a bad habit of doing that.