To those of you following my Transformers story 'Primary Mechanisms' I assure you that I have not discontinued it, I have merely hit an incredible case of Writer's Block. It is being really relentless.

BUT, I have recently watched the entire Walking Dead TV series, after reading the comic series; and it has become something of a muse. I have fallen in love with the characters and the stories, and I found a little bit of Artistic Muse in this.

It was relentless, and persisted me to write this.

I sincerely hope you enjoy this first chapter, here's to hoping it helps pull me out of my slump.

UlurNaga

Gone were the people.
The cars that once drove children to school and adults to work stood stationary and useless, gathering dust in a now dormant ghost town. Men who cherished wives, women who cared for families, children who had no cares…
Gone.

In their place were hordes of creatures that were once the living, people whom one called sister, brother, parent, friend, lover; all now with nothing but a mindless hive mentality to devour the flesh of those who still lived.

This was the new World Order, and it was no longer a world of men….

…but of monsters.

It would be getting dark soon, and as a pair of murky green eyes looked to the sky, their owner could for a brief moment be fooled into thinking it was peaceful…a world where creatures once human did not eat the flesh of the living. That she was simply on the road of her backpacking trip around the States…

The last rays of sunlight were streaked across the sky in magnificent pinks and orange against a grey-blue fading canvas, darkening in the corners as the world succumbed to the dark. It was almost beautiful, were it not for the distant moans of the undead on her trail.

Alex scanned the area with almost desperate eyes, until she spotted a tree with a foothold that she could use. Shouldering her pack tighter, she took in a deep breath and gripped at the branch to haul herself up, finding footing clumsily and moving to the next branch.

It took a few minutes of climbing, and once or twice she lost her footing, but eventually she was high enough in the tree to be well out of harm's way.

Never had trees like this back home… she thought distantly as she untied a length of rope from her pack. Alex felt her chest grown heavy at the memory, would home even still be there? She did not even know the fates of her family, had no way to contact them or get to them. There was no way across the sea in a world like this; she couldn't just book a flight back home to Australia now.

Who was to say home was even still there in the first place…?

All the young tourist could do was just hoped that this outbreak of bloodthirsty freaks was restricted to one continent, and not where her family was.

Pushing the thoughts to the back of her mind, Alex secured the length of rope around her waist before attaching it tightly to one of the branches above her, with enough slack for her to move, but short enough that should she fall while sleeping, she would not be dangling low enough for the Hungries below to reach her. With a heavy sigh she pulled the beanie from her head and allowed her straight red hair to fall to her collarbone, running her hands through it to separate the sweaty strands.

The girl felt disgusting, she'd not showered for almost a week and she was running low on toiletries and food. She would be lying if she said she didn't spend every day terrified being alone in this 'zombiefest' but she'd had nobody at the time of the breakout.
Alex had flown over to America just over three months before the bizarre outbreak, on something of a working/studying holiday, backpacking around the US. Her brother had been with her, but had returned to Australia because he'd been unable to take any more time away from work. He'd gone back about two or three weeks before the world went to shit, and now she had no way to contact her family. She hoped against all hope that Australia hadn't been affected by all this mess.

Back home, Alex had worked on the mine sites at the top of Western Australia as a mechanical engineer. She was good with building and repairing, her job had been to design the equipment and make it run efficiently and in a lot of ways she very much missed it.
What she probably missed most about her work though, was probably the end of the day when she would sit with the men and have a few cold beers as they talked about what they had accomplished.

Hell, she could do with a cold beer right about now.

With a sigh, Alex twisted her hair up into a pile and tugged the grey, woollen beanie back over it to hide the colour. Camouflage wasn't exactly effecting when your hair was fire-engine red, it wasn't particularly subtle.

Pulling a map out from her bag and the pocket torch from her belt, Alex skimmed over it diligently before pinpointing her destination. If her sense of direction was correct, she was very close to the city of Atlanta. If she could avoid the Hungries, it would be a good place for her to restock her supplies, maybe get some better weapons if possible.

She'd so far been defending herself with little more than a machete and an old rifle, both of which she acquired from a man who'd lost his life, the first real death she had seen since the start of this horrible nightmare. A farmer who had given her a lift at least part of the way to Atlanta, a seemingly good man in his late fifties to early sixties who had been one of the only people to pull over for the foreign hitchhiker.

She felt a slight pang of guilt at the memory of his death, it had been the beginning of her abrupt descent into the hell that this world now was. Tucking herself into the nestle of several branches, she clipped her backpacker's bag to the branches and dropped her head back against it in exhaustion; her memories sifting back to how she found herself spending her days running from the dead.

"So y'said you were from Australia now, young missy?"

Alex looked over at the old man with a nod, "Yep. Western Australia, to be specific."
The farmer, whose name was apparently Marshal, gave a curious smile and gestured to the gun rested on the console in the middle of the cabin between them, "You folk get guns over there?"

"Yeah, absolutely. It's not as backwater as everyone in the world seems to think." Alex laughed, "My parents had a really nice farm out in the sticks, Dad used to take me roo shooting when I was a kid."
"Roo shootin'?"

Alex shrugged embarrassedly, "Kangaroos. Big marsupials with really strong back legs, they're kind of like giant rabbits that get around on two legs rather than four."

Marshal nodded and gave a throaty, chuckling laugh as he shook his head. "Sound like pests if y'ask me missy."
"Oh they are, absolutely. In Australia's wilderness they're kind of like a rabbit problem. But they don't mean any harm, they just get in the way mostly."
"So what're you doin' so far from home?"

Alex broke out into a grin at mention of it, reminding her that she was in a great country on an awesome adventure away from home. "This was sort of my belated graduation present. REALLY belated, my parents started the fund up when I finished high school, and they told me when I finished uni that they would pay for a trip to the States for me."
"Uni?"
"Oh…sorry. University." She corrected herself. One's slang was a hard habit to kick, particularly in a country where almost nobody understood it; Australian slang and humour was renowned for being confusing to outsiders. Poor old farmer probably didn't even know that McDonalds was 'Maccas over there, rather than the American Slang of Mickey D's.

It was during the progression of this conversation, a limping, mangled figure covered in blood and gore had wandered out onto the deserted, woodland road and was staring at the vehicle.

With a shout of warning and a violent scream from the girl, Marshal veered the pickup sharply and it ran off the road before crashing full force into a tree. The force of the blow sent Alex's head smacking into the dashboard, her chest held in crushing weight by the seatbelt across her ribs. Her vision spotted with black as the adrenalin slowed and she got her bearings, turning to see the old farmer having gone through the windshield, blood clinging around the hole in the glass where Marshal had flown through.
Alex suddenly felt sick.

"H-Hey!" she cried breathlessly, still feeling winded from the seatbelt that constricted her. Hastily and frantically she fumbled for the buckle, unclipping it and throwing it off so that she could get a hand onto the man's back and shake him.
"Mister Marshal! Hey! Oh God….please don't…Hey! Wake up! You can't be dead…Oh no…no, no, no…" she felt like she was borderline hyperventilating, tears prickling the corners of her eyes. How could she, a total and complete stranger, be the only one this poor man saw in his final moments.
How did she find his family, or friends and tell them? Did she try to get the police? Had the person they'd crashed to avoid stuck around? Or just run off like a coward?!

"Help!" she called out, hoping that the pedestrian could hear her pleas, "Marshal…? Please wake up! We'll get you help."

On the man's hip he wore a belt that carried a machete in a holster, and for a brief moment she wondered if he'd stabbed himself somehow in the accident…but the weapon was still sheathed. The shotgun had fallen forward to her side of the car at her feet, and with shaking hands she picked it up.
What did she do? Did she leave to get help, or try and revive him? She had nobody to call to help her, her mobile phone was back home in Australia, the sim-card was not usable overseas so she'd had no use for it. Maybe she should try to fix the car, at least to get him to a hospital or-

Alex screamed at the sound of a vicious thump on the passenger side door. Was it the guy they'd avoided hitting?
"H-Hey! We need help in here! Shit… Please, can you-?"
A face appeared in the window, but it was grotesque… The eyes were sunken, but exposed…vacant looking. The flesh on his face was peeling, rotted…almost green from decay. His teeth exposed, gnashing at her from behind the window as his hands clawed at the metal frame of the car.

Alex's heart sunk into her stomach, bile rising in her throat. "Oh my God…"

Suddenly, Marshal's legs kicked and her attention was drawn to him with an expression of terror. "M-Marshal! You're alive! There's a monster! We have to get out of here!"

She put a hand on his back, trying to assess how hurt he was, would she have to carry him to an escape? Her plans of rescue were cut short when a bloody hand lashed at the windscreen, Marshal's hand. Through the cracked, blood smeared glass she saw his clouded eyes, his teeth gnashing as breathless groans and growls erupted from his chest.

Terror gripped her, and glancing at the hungry looking corpse-man at the door, she felt her chest hitch a breath.

She needed to escape. But how? The thing outside was not reasonable, it was mindless. Alex screamed again as Marshal kicked again, violently clawing at the windscreen with blood on his hands. With tears in her eyes, Alex fumbled to get the machete belt from him, feeling him thrash and groan and kick in his attempts to get to her.

What's happening?! She thought desperately, What is all this?!

More heaving thumping at the door, and she spotted more of the rotting corpse creatures in the background, and her heart sunk in terror. If she didn't get out of the truck now they would get her.
But she needed to be able to get them away from her…

She looked at the machete with a twisted stomach before recalling the old rifle the farmer had in the car. Fumbling she struggled to secure the belt around her waist and picked up the gun with shaking hands.
"Ammo…ammo…" She breathed tearfully, desperately, "There's got to be ammo!"

Frantically she grabbed at any crevice in the vehicle, sobbing and heaving at the smell of dead flesh that was seeping into the pickup's cabin.

"Come on, come on, come ON!" She hissed desperately, reaching into the console and under her seat before popping open the glove box. Several small boxes of ammunition for the shotgun tumbled into her lap, and Alex almost cried with relief.
The joy was short lived by the breathy snarls from around her, and desperately she fumbled with the rounds with shaky hands. The rifle was ancient, but it would help. Pulling her massive hiker bag onto her shoulders and clipping it securely, Alex seized the boxes and

She dropped on or two rounds on the floor in her haste, but she ignored them and she heaved in desperate breathes and raised the weapon to the window.
With a rattled sob, she poised her muscles to run…and fired.

Alex woke with a start from the nightmare, her brow drenched in sweat and her fingers clenched tightly around the branches nearby.

"Shit." She breathed, pressing her head back against the tree.

It was becoming lighter, the sun peeking over the horizon and touching the trees, and this made the young woman sigh in relief. She was close enough to make it to Atlanta today, and hopefully this meant more supplies.

The least she was going to do was try to find a motel or apartment, then she could find a way in, fight off whatever Hungries were in her way and have a shower. At home when she had been working in the mines, she was more than used to having to go a few days on the job without showering and pissing in a tin can, but even the rough and tumble Aussie tomboy was not enjoying smelling like a farm.

There was only so much of one's own body odour that one could take.

Taking a can of aerosol body spray, she shook it in disappointment of how empty it was getting, but she'd discovered something interesting about the zombies. If she wore floral scented body spray, they were less immediate to notice her. She suspected that it probably had something to do with the fact that they clearly hunted flesh, and if she smelled like flowers and artificial floral scents, it was not the smell they were looking for.
Sure, it didn't trick them for long, but once or twice it had given her the chance to avoid their attention long enough to climb a tree or barricade a door. It was enough to mask the smell of being human for a least a few seconds, and in this world those few seconds could be life or death.

Unclipping her pack from the branches and untying her safety rope, Alex reached into her bag for something to eat. What she found was not incredibly satisfying though; a few stale water crackers and one of her sample packs of Vegemite that she had packed in bulk from home. Not exactly filling, but the Vegemite was a good source of energy, so she supposed it would do until she could get some decent supplies.

Part of her wished that she could have been navigating her own homeland, she knew the Australian territory, the land and the places that would be safe. Here she was blind, she knew nothing about the American terrain, or if Atlanta was even a plausible destination. Maybe she wouldn't even get in the city walls before being chewed to death.

Come what may, she thought, I won't go down without a damn good fight.

Unstrapping the shotgun from her pack, she checked to make sure it was fully loaded before tucking it back into place. The ancient firearm had served her well so far, but the old weapon had a tendency to jam when she needed it the least. To compensate for this, she had strapped a large kitchen knife to the end of it using duct tape; both of which she had procured at the diner she'd staying in overnight a week or so back.
It was hardly a full-proof weapon, but it gave her something to use for back-up should she get caught by the untimely occasional jamming of her gun by using it in a fashion similar to the muskets of the American Civil War.

After packing up everything she had, Alex pinpointed the location of Atlanta city in the distance, and then slowly and quietly made her way down the trunk of the large tree, surveying in all directions for flesh-eaters.

Once she touched down on the ground, she slipped the machete from its sheath and breathed in heavily. She took good solid not of the sun's direction in association to her destination, and began trekking forward.

God be willing, she would reach Atlanta before lunchtime.