Alive Amongst the Dead:

Noah Wrigley's Story

Rated T: Violence, language, and non-M level sexual material

Noah's been on her own for a long time. In the old world, she lived with her mother, brother, sister, and harsh stepfather. After the world went to hell and the dead began to walk again, Noah ran away from her home in hopes of surviving off the land. A few weeks into her escape, overcome by the living dead, Noah is on the brink of death when she stumbles upon an encampment just outside of Atlanta, and she begins to build a life in a world of death. Does Noah have what is takes to survive the end of the world?

(NOTE: Story goes mostly to Walking Dead canon, with just a few alterations to the storyline to fit my character. Also, I did not take the extra time to make sure the conversations went verbatim as they did in the show—however, the material is still the same. Mostly. After all, this is fan fiction.)

Chapter 1: Saved

I wanted a burger.

For some reason, in the face of imminent death and un-death, while I navigated the Georgia forests alone in the day and tried to find a good hiding place at night, food was all I could think about. I wasn't starving; I had feasted on berries and roasted squirrel just a few hours before, and I was almost—it was hard to believe—uncomfortably full. But still, the image of a juicy cheeseburger wouldn't dislodge itself from my mind.

It was morning light. Everything was serene and peaceful. The sun, pink and gold in the sky, was peeking through the green leaves in the forest, which were blowing softly in the light breeze. It was the kind of morning I had often prayed for in the old world, but at that moment I would have killed to be stuck in outrageous morning traffic, complete with heavy rain and blaring car horns. Anything but this eternal quiet. Or, at least, eternally quiet until it was damnably loud.

I knew that I needed to get moving before morning faded to midday and afternoon melted into the dangerous night, but I couldn't help but stop to enjoy the brief moment of inactivity. For so long all I'd done was run, live hand to mouth, kill, run, hide, and run. Survive. It was impossible to let such a still, harmless morning go to waste.

I sat in silence for the next few hours. I tried to pray, something that I had done every day without fail in the old world, but it had become something I was unable to manage in the new world. I tried to sleep, but that as well was something that no longer came all too easily. So I opted to sit and absorb the day while I could. Or, at least, absorb the moment where I wasn't fighting for my life.

Without warning, there was a rustling in the trees behind me. In a flash, I was standing, my knife in my left hand and my right hand feeling for the small caliber pistol I kept tucked into my jeans. I kept my breathing steady, my eyes scanning the forest with precision and trepidation. I saw nothing, heard nothing.

There was another rustle, louder and closer in proximity. I tensed, readying myself. My backpack full of supplies was hanging from my shoulder; if I needed to run, I wouldn't be leaving anything behind.

A squirrel scurried out from behind a tree, kicking up fallen leaves as it ran. I immediately let out a pent of breath, trying to slow down my heartbeat, which had started rapidly pounding in my chest. And then—in the middle of trying to cut my flow of adrenaline, in the middle of recovering from the shock of a squirrel—that's when I heard it. The sound that set my blood on fire with adrenaline and pure, real, vibrant fear.

A growling hiss emanated from behind me, and the stench of a decomposing body filled the air.

As quick as the fear shot through me, I shoved it back. I whirled around and didn't even think. With my left hand I quickly jabbed forward, stabbing through the skull of that thing without a moment's hesitation. Its eyes widened, and then I twisted the knife and deftly pulled it out. The monster collapsed, dead. Or dead again, at least.

As the adrenaline slowly faded away, I took a closer look at the body on the ground. It was female, perhaps in the twenties-to-thirties age range, although most of those heinous things couldn't be differentiated. She had been wearing jeans and a pink tank top when she had died, complete with a denim jacket and a really nice but really dirty pair of tennis shoes. There was a gold band on her left ring finger, and there was a locket hanging around her neck that had been smashed open. It was hanging on the hinge, but a dusty photo of a little baby boy was visible through the grime.

I couldn't have told you why I did what I did next. I reached down and looked in the pockets of the dead girl, trying to decide if what I was doing was theft or just pure madness. Deciding on the latter, I finally found what I was looking for—the girl's wallet.

I flipped it open, and there it was, tucked between a ragged twenty dollar bill and a receipt for a tricycle. The driver's license.

Her name was Shelby Griffith. She was twenty-nine years old, and her birthday was July fourteenth. She was really pretty, with long brown hair, porcelain skin, and sparkly green eyes. She was five feet five inches, and she was an organ donor.

I looked at Shelby, lying on the ground before me, blood dribbling from the hole in her head. That wasn't Shelby anymore. Shelby had been dead long before I wielded my knife.

I knew my little bubble of serenity had been popped, and it was time to move forward. I tucked Shelby's ID into my backpack, unsure of why I was even doing it. But I did, and just seconds later I was trudging aimlessly through the forest, thinking of a suitable destination.

I didn't get far before all hell broke loose.

The guttural groan that I'd heard from Shelby's body was multiplied, and I looked around me. There were six of those things surrounding me, and those were the ones I could see. I felt the adrenaline start up again, but something else began to spread slowly and poisonously through my veins. Helplessness, hopelessness. There was no way that I could take on six of those monsters at once with nothing but a knife and wimpy pistol.

But I did have one thing that they didn't have. I was fast.

I began sprinting in the first direction I thought of, letting the wind whip past me as I dodged trees and jumped over roots. I smelled the nearest creature before I saw it, and I quickly slashed to my left, gasping a little in surprise as I saw I had cleanly stabbed the brute right in the head. I didn't stay to admire my handiwork this time, as five more were scrambling after me. I took off running again, but the trees and dense forest forced me straight towards two monsters.

I stopped, planting my feet. I didn't have time to think out a plan. I knew the devastating consequences of what I was about to do, but I couldn't afford to not. I grabbed the pistol out of my jeans, and taking just a moment to aim, I took off the safety and tugged on the trigger. One of the thing's heads exploded in blood and brains, and it dropped to the ground. The very air around me reverberated with the sound of the shot, and I knew I didn't have a lot of time. More would hear; more would come. I quickly ran up to the next one and jabbed the knife again into its head, and it collapsed. Three down, three to go.

I felt a branch snag at my jacket as I ran off in a new direction. It halted me only briefly, but briefly was too long. Within another five seconds, another reanimated body descended upon me. I slashed with my knife, missing and instead hitting it directly in the neck. It hissed louder, riled, and lunged at me again. I couldn't dislodge the knife, and so it stayed there as I let go and put the pistol a centimeter away from the monster's forehead and pulled the trigger. Another loud shot rang out as it fell to the ground, and the other two things were staggering towards me, undeterred.

These two, both males, were faster than the others. One grabbed at me and I dodged it and took a second's breath behind the trunk of a tree. I gathered myself and then hurled my body at the nearest creature, blowing its brains out without a second to lose.

I felt myself growing tired, unnaturally so. I was breathing hard, and my arm was pulsating with pain. I looked down and my eyes grew wide. Blood completely soaked the sleeve of my jacket, and there was a large gash in my arm. It hadn't just been a little branch snag at all; I must have ran into something sharper, although what it could have been I had no idea. For the first time, reality set in. Even if I could manage to kill off this last thing, more would smell the blood and come hunting. And if, by some miracle, they didn't detect me, I'd die without properly caring for the wound.

I heard the familiar strangled hiss, and for the first time my fight or flight instinct didn't kick in. It was over. I sank to my knees, too drained to move another inch. I heard as it neared me and I lifted my gun, but when I pulled the trigger nothing happened. I was out of ammo, with no knife, and a wound that was pouring blood.

I wish I could say I went down in serenity, with some sort of peace of mind in the knowledge that soon I'd be in no more pain. But the innate human survival instinct had yet to die within me. I screamed and closed my eyes, and I felt a deteriorating hand clamp around my arm. I shrieked.

And then the grip slackened, and as the hand fell away I opened my eyes. Two figures stood above me, shadowed and formidable. I tried to stand up, but a hand softly pushed me back down. "Rick, she's got some kind of wound on her arm," I heard a voice say, concerned.

"Is it a bite?" another voice—I guessed Rick—said in a low Southern drawl.

"I don't know, there's so much blood…"

"No," I breathed. "Not a bite. I promise. A cut."

One man bent on one knee in front of me. He was tall, with curled brown hair and dark scruff. He was wearing what appeared to be a Sheriff's outfit, and his eyes were a kind, soft blue. "What's your name?"

"Noah," I said, starting to see two of him. "Noah Wrigley."

"How old are you, Noah?" he asked, cautiously but kindly.

"I'm sixteen. No, seventeen. I just turned seventeen," I replied.

"Pretty young to kill all those walkers," he noted. "Is there anyone else with you?"

"Walkers?" was all I could reply.

"The risen dead. The reanimated corpses you took down. Whatever you call them. The important question is, is there anyone else with you?"

"No. No one. I'm alone."

Rick stared me in the eye. "If you're lying to me, there will be consequences."

"Why would I lie to you?" I asked, and I could feel my breath becoming labored. "I've been alone for nearly a month."

"How'd you kill all of those walkers, then?"

"I had a knife. I killed some with it, but then it got stuck in one's neck when I missed and I didn't have time to pull it out…so I had to use my gun. But then it ran out of bullets…I was so sure I was dead."

"You almost were," the other guy, who was standing behind Rick, a gun slung over his shoulder. He was Asian, with short dark hair and steely, firm eyes. "Rick killed the walker that was on you right before he took a bite out of your neck."

I looked up at Rick, meeting his gaze for the first time. He looked back at me questioningly, as if trying to understand everything about me in just a couple of moments. "Thank you for saving me," I finally breathed, and then I felt myself pitch forward as everything rushed into blackness.

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