Chapter One

Humble Beginnings

Sometimes adventure starts from a land where there is need, sometimes it starts from a great desire, but here adventure starts because of the will to survive. No, not that, perhaps it is the will to live, to live a life that is something beyond what those around you seem to think is normal.

My name is Rachel Svenfeld. Nowadays last names don't really mean too much though, after all, there aren't too many families that are whole. My adventure starts in Springfield because of a young man who taught me not how to survive, but how to live.

Back in Illinois there weren't many of the infected running around. The military went and killed most of the bastards that were still alive before snow fall last year. It took them twenty years to finally push them back. I wish the people would've believed them though. Too many people cramped in a small space, it was only a matter of time before things boiled over. There were so many people from all over trying to find a place to sleep that was still moderately safe.

There was one upside though, with all the people that came into the city I finally made a new friend. In this world, friends are a rarer commodity than bullets or alcohol. His name is Damien and he came with a group of survivors a couple of months back. They dropped him off at the school where I go and never came back. He was a rough one at first. He didn't say much and there wasn't much that could get under his skin.

That being said there were a couple of boys the first week that wanted to pick a fight with him. It was a day much like usual for summer, bright with a few puffy clouds in the sky. Our school was a colorless grey building that had about twenty rooms.

Everyone gets let out at the same time, at exactly one o'clock. As they let us out to go home three boys started to tussle with Damien. I was minding my own business, eating lunch at a bench when they started.

"Hey, new kid. Whatcha got in the bag?" Chided an egotistical prick that we called Charlie. He was about five foot seven. He was really thin and wasn't good for much, besides causing trouble. "You hear me kid? I'm talking to you."

If it were any other day, and any other kid Charlie would have gotten what he wanted. There would have been a fight between three fifteen year old kids and a thirteen year old. However, that day was not a normal day and Damien was is a far better person than I. He quietly ate the lunch that he packed.

Charlie was an impatient little bitch on top of everything else. He walked over to Damien and threw the boy's lunch on the ground. Damien looked at him and stood up slowly, almost like he was in no hurry to do anything and was not fazed by the newcomer's advances. "You know, I was never really that hungry anyway." He commented as he turned and started walking away.

Now about this time Charlie and his posse really wanted to pick a fight. Charlie and moron number one decided that they were going to fight Damien whether he fought back or not. They shoved him onto the ground and took his bag. "Let's see what our new friend carries with him." Charlie taunted as he dumped the entire contents of the bag onto the ground.

"Hey, asshole, when are you gonna learn that you aren't that tough?" I was tired enough of watching Charlie picking on people, much less when he had two more people to back him up. That and something about the new kid made me want to stop those idiots. Charlie turned towards me and dropped the bag. Damien pushed his stuff back into his bag and stood up.

"Do you know who you're talking to? We run this school Rachel. There isn't going to be anybody here to stop us from doing anything to you." Charlie retorted, with that smug grin on his face that he constantly wears. He wasn't going to be smiling for very long. Now, moron one and moron two were slowly circling around to the sides for what they probably thought was going to be an easy fight. Just one small girl, what was I going to do?

I've never claimed to be the smartest girl in the world, but I'm not exactly stupid either. I wasn't going to be able to take the three of them from all sides so I did the only thing I could think of. I ran at Charlie and dodged the wild swing I knew he was going to throw. I grabbed his arm, straightened it, and elbowed the back of his upper arm, hard. When I heard a distinct crack I dropped him to face his two friends, who were suddenly much more fearful about approaching me. Taking the one on the right first, I threw a punch to his stomach that he tried to block and was unsuccessful. As he was doubling over from my hit I grabbed his head and drove my knee into his face. A sickening crack resounded as his nose was broken.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and threw a hard right hook toward the assailant. My hand stopped in mid-flight by a hand slightly larger than mine. The third of the group of thugs was running away with his tail between his legs. Instead there was Damien grasping my hand. He dropped my fist. "Thanks, but I didn't need your help."

"It wasn't for you. Those pricks have been on everyone's shit list for a long time. Now I don't want them coming back after you. So, where do you live? I'll walk you home." Damien stared at me for a few seconds before turning away. He started walking down the street. I caught back up to him and matched his pace. "You aren't very talkative are you?"

"You aren't very quiet are you?" Damien said as he continued walking. For a second though I caught what was probably the closest thing to a smile I had seen from him in the few days since he arrived in town. I laughed a little at his quip and settled into nice relaxed walked beside him. "I actually don't have a place to live, you can just head home. I'll be fine."

"I thought you were living with the people you came with." I softly prodded. He shook his head in response. "You can come home with me if you want. I've got a nice solid place, roof over your head, a warm bed, and all the trappings of home. "

"I don't know. I don't want to intrude on the life of such a violent and aggressive girl." Damien attempted to maintain a sense of composure while poking fun at me.

"What do you mean violent and aggressive? If I was violent and aggressive I might do something like this." I hit him on the shoulder to emphasize my point. "Where would you get the idea that someone as innocent as me would be violent?"

"Well, you did just beat the crap out of those kids and you haven't even missed a beat. How are you so…you?" He said while rubbing his shoulder in pretend pain.

I hadn't ever thought about it up until that point. It was the way the world was now. You didn't have a choice. Did you? "It's just the way that life is nowadays. You don't get to be a good guy anymore. You have to do bad things. That's what Roger told me anyway."

"It's not a bad thing to defend yourself or others you know, but it almost seemed like it was something you took enjoyment in. Who's this Roger guy?" Damien asked trying to divert the subject. Good to hear that he wasn't too worried about me fighting those kids. I was getting a little bit afraid that he was a weirdo, like one of those nutjobs they found downtown trying to spread "the light of the firefly."

"Roger's the old man who took me in after they found me. My parents and I had made it to the city, but the two of them had gotten bitten in the process. We found an abandoned house just outside of town. My parents had locked themselves in a closet and the military found me a couple of days later. Both of my "parents" were still banging against the closet door when we left. Roger was an older gentleman who happened to be passing by as the military decided what they wanted to do with me.. There were already too many children running around as it was. He offered to take me in and they left me with him."

"What does he do?" Damien asked, interested about the man that we were going to see.

"Well he's a mechanic by day, but he's a gunsmith by night. All sorts of people come by to see him at night. Usually it's friends, but sometimes we've had military guys come over." Damien stopped in front of an old building with the roof caved in and yellow tape around the outside. He dropped his bag for a second as he peered through the window. "Are you sure you don't want to stay with us? You look like you could use the company. Plus we've got a nice couch you can sleep on."

"I'd like that." He turned away from the window and half smiled at me. "I'd like that a lot." We talked about a lot of things on our way back to my place. Damien was very young when his parents had died. The group he was with hated him because he never fought anybody. It wasn't that he was unable to either. The kid was only thirteen, but he was already two inches taller than me and I was five foot seven. He was built like one of those players on the old football posters you would sometimes come across too.

When they finally got to the city though, his group didn't want to have such a big guy that was never going to help if they ever got attacked, so they left him. Their loss. We got to my house just before it got dark outside. I tried to open the door and found that it was locked.

"I wonder where your friend Roger is it's almost dark." Damien said, admiring the house and the surrounding neighborhood.

"He's probably at work still, sometimes he stays late to help the next shift start off better. He'll be back soon." I pulled out one of the bobby pins I had and snapped it in half. "He'll be… mphhh … bringing stuff home with him too. Pfff…. Ahhh." The lock opened with a quiet click and I stumbled through the door.

"It looks… very nice." Damien smiled as we entered the house.

"Yea sorry about the mess; we don't normally have company." I started moving stuff off the couch and placing (throwing) it into the closet. "Can I get you a glass of water?"

"Yes, please. It's been a while since anyone's ever made me feel like I'm at home. Is there anything I can do while I'm here?"

"No relax. We've got all the time in the world and not much to do with it." I assured him as I filled one of our few clean glasses with water. "Besides when Rodge gets home I'm sure we'll have plenty to do." I walked over with the glass of water and handed it to him.

"Thank you." Damien sipped a bit from the glass before setting the drink down on our small coffee table that Roger had made from a couple of old blocks of wood and a surfboard. "Where'd you learn to pick locks?"

"Something I picked up after the old man locked the door without leaving me the key one too many times. It's not too hard. I could teach you if you wanted. Although you might get picked on a bit more if the other kids find you with a bunch of bobby pins." I laughed at the thought of Damien having bobby pins sticking out of his hair. The way that it frizzed just wouldn't make the pins look right.

"Hey, you don't think I could stand what those kids could throw at me?" He asked feigning hurt.

"No, I was just imagining what you would look like, and the thought is kinda funny." I heard the door creak slowly. "Hey, old man; we've got company."

"Good, then the company can come help carry in some of this shit that I've got." Roger called back from the door way as he set down a case of spare parts. Damien walked over to the case, picked it up in one hand, and walked it back to the couch.

"Where did you want it, sir?" the boy asked, setting the case on the back of the couch while he awaited a reply.

"Over in the workshop through the black door over there. Careful too there are a lot of fragile pieces in there that I don't want broken." Damien walked over to the door and opened it before disappearing into the dark room. "You finally brought home a good one." The white haired man said as he shut the door. "I'm not used to having anyone help me carry stuff in. That was the only box I got today."

"I'm just making sure that you get your exercise so that you don't die on me old man. Hey!" I tried to fight him off as he messed up my hair. "I spent a lot of time getting my hair this way." I joked with the old man as he sat down on the couch.

"Sure you did. Right after I woke you up this morning and you sprinted out because you were late again." The old man laughed as he pulled out his workbook and looked over what he was doing the next few days. A door slammed and Damien entered the room again and looked at the both of us.

"So I put the stuff in the corner; I hope you don't mind. Hey, what's up?" He asked and the both of us stared at him for a few seconds I looked over to Roger, who was looking back. Then the both of us started cracking up.

"Nothing my young man, come sit next to us. That was all I had to do for the rest of the day, so you have saved an old man half of his troubles." Damien walked over to the couch and strategically placed himself on the opposite end of Roger. Roger seemed to ignore the fact as he looked around the room eyeing everything and its place. "Rachel, when were you going to tell me that you took my old M9?"

I stared at him for a few seconds trying to figure out how he noticed that the old piece was missing from his drawer without opening it. I reached into my bag and pulled out the weapon. It had a new polish on it and was freshly cleaned. I handed it over to him.

"The only reason I noticed was because the handle of the drawer has significantly less dust than it did this morning when I left. You would do better to keep this place cleaner, I wouldn't notice as much." He gave a playful push before settling back into his spot. "It looks nice. When did you have time to do this?"

"This morning after you left for work, I got some polish off one of the… neighbors. I used that to shine it all up for you. Haha."

"You didn't. Rachel… what have I told you?"

"I know Rodge, don't go out by yourself, but it's your birthday today and we had to do something special."

"First off I don't need you to remind me how old I'm getting and second you could do something safer like making a cake."

"We both know I would kill myself before you caught me baking a cake. Besides that's not one of my talents." I noticed Damien sitting, quietly twiddling his thumbs. I decided that now would be as good a time as any to show him the shop. I silently prayed that he wouldn't be freaked out and run away when he got the chance. "Damien. Let me show you the workshop." I got up and led him back to the door. I made him cover his eyes and then led him into the workshop. It took a second to find the lights, but when I did the room changed vastly.

"You can open your eyes now. You got a dense one didn't you?" Roger continued poking fun at us as Damien's jaw dropped slightly. In front of us was the wall where we kept the weapons. Everything from a 1920s Thompson to a more modern M4 to an Ak47 was on the wall. If one looked to their left they would see the 2010 Ford F150 that Roger had made some adjustments to. The front of the truck had a plow on the front that almost seemed too large for the vehicle. The cab was reinforced with bulletproof glass, and the bed was sporting slightly higher sides to give extra cover to those in back.

"So, Damien, what do you think?" I asked warily. The kid hadn't said a word since he opened his eyes. He walked up to the wall and grabbed one of the rifles. It was an old M1 Carbine that we fixed up a while back. He weighed it for a second before handing it over to me.

"It's nice, somewhat scary, but nice. I'm not that good with a gun, so I wouldn't leave that in my hands too long. Someone might end up dead." Damien laughed awkwardly while stepping back toward the door.

"You know. I could teach you sometime if you wanted. I'm not the greatest shot in the world, but I know my way around some of the rifles." I gave him a reassuring smile and put the rifle back up on the wall. We walked out of the room and I shut off the light and closed the door.

"Rach, you've got a funny way of doing things around here, but I would love to go shooting sometime with you." Damien smiled a little, letting up on the reserved stance he entered with and began to relax a light bit. This was also the first time that anyone called me Rach… or anything not unfriendly. Nicknames weren't a big deal around here; you just called everyone by their name.

At the same time it was nice. I had finally made a friend in this beat up, scary town that we called home. A friend that I wasn't about to let go of. It was starting to get late however, and I was beginning to feel tiredness begin to tug at my eyelids. I really wanted to stay up a little longer, but for some reason that night my body wouldn't let me. As we sat on the couch idly talking about nothing in particular, I began to nod off.

Thankfully I had the next day to look forward to. Tomorrow was Saturday. On Saturday we got to take school off and go help out at home. In my case however, I was going to teach Damien how to shoot. Yep tomorrow was going to be a…