Disclaimer - I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. I only own Maria and any other future OC's as well as any non canon storylines.
Warnings - Violence, Gore, Language and some mentions of abuse
Chapter 1 - The Start Of The End
"Get me another beer!"
Will Dixon yelled to his youngest child Maria, Maria was 23 years old and still lived at home with her asshole of a father and her older brother Daryl they had another brother, Merle, but he got out a while ago and had his own place. Maria was planning on getting out as well, she wanted out of this hellhole as fast as possible but unfortunately renting a flat was expensive so she needed to save up money first.
She sighed as she got up to get another beer for her father if he had anymore she'd have to sneak out the house and join Daryl in hunting. Her fathers temper was short especially when he'd been drinking which was 90% of the time. When he would drink Maria and Daryl would sneak out the house together and go hunting in an attempt to avoid their fathers rage, the siblings spent most of their childhood in the woods tracking and hunting down animals. Daryl learnt to use a crossbow when he was 10 and Maria learnt how to use a bow, the woods were the only place where they felt safe.
However Maria didn't go with Daryl today as she needed to fill in job applications, she was filling out as many as she could in hopes that at least one person would employ her after she got fired from her last job at a cafe in town, let's just say Merle pissed of the manager and in return she got fired. It's hard enough finding a job in a small town but it was even harder when your last name is Dixon.
Maria made it to the fridge and pulled out a beer hurrying into the living room she quickly gave it to her father before going back to looking for jobs. She was searching through the paper when a news report about people attacking each other came on but she just shook her head thinking they were just drugged up idiots.
A knock sounded at the door before her uncle walked in, she immediately noticed that his arm was bleeding and rushed over.
"Uncle Rob? What happened?"
"I was out hunting with ya brother and some drunk guy in the woods attacked me, tore a chunk straight out of my arm"
She looked behind her uncle to see Daryl jogging up the drive his eyes wide with shock at what had happened. A heavy hand landed on her back making her flinch knowing who it was. Will Dixon stood there in a drunk haze eyes narrowed.
"Well we better go take care of 'em then, show me where they were" Daryl was about to say something but Will cut him off "no! Stay here with your sister, we need to talk when I get back"
Daryl huffed but complied going to stand next to his sister and their father grabbed his shotgun and followed their uncle. Maria was confused and even though she wouldn't admit it a little freaked out. She remembered the news she'd heard earlier about people in Atlanta attacking each other and biting and now her uncle had shown up with a bite.
"Ya okay?"
"Yeah it's just weird, heard a news report about people...um...biting each other, just thought it was drugs ya know?"
Daryl grunted "ain't like no drug I've ever seen before"
"What if it's not drugs, what if it's something else?"
"Like what?"
Maria just shrugged her shoulders "don't know"
A scream pierced the air, both Dixon siblings looked at each other before taking off in a sprint to the woods. When the arrived at the scene Maria clasped her hands over her mouth and tried to hold in the tears. Their uncle Rob was lying on the floor dead with a puddle of blood surrounding him, it looked like it was from the giant bite mark on his neck. Then her eyes wondered over to her father who was being eaten alive, Maria couldn't believe her eyes maybe her theory about it not being drugs was correct after all.
Will turned to face his two children mouthing a "help me" to them but neither moved. All of a sudden all those years of pain flashed through Maria's memory and she couldn't move, she didn't want too. After everything he'd done to them after all the pain and torment he put them through, why should they save him now? Maria knew she should feel guilty but she didn't, she was broken because of the man in front of her so why should she save him for he would just break her even more. Then another part of her a smaller part wanted to help, wanted to end his suffering but she just couldn't bring herself to do it.
Then a shot rang out killing the man that was eating her father, her head whipped round seeing Merle covered in blood splatter and stood there breathing heavy with a gun in his hand. She turned back around and walked over to her father staring down at him with an emotionless expression, her two brothers soon came to join her.
"So who wants to kill the prick" Daryl and Maria shot their brother a glare "oh come on he's dying already ain't nothing gonna save him now. Plus don't tell me that y'all never thought about it"
Maria had in fact thought about it on those dark nights after her father let his anger out on her in his drunken haze, or the nights when she could hear him doing the same to Daryl or Merle from behind her closed bedroom door. She didn't feel the brunt of her fathers anger as much as her brothers but that was only because they took the pain for her, it was on those nights that she wished she could just do it, but she never did. She had the chance to do it now to finally kill the person who had ruined their lives, but she still couldn't pick up the gun.
"Fine then ya bunch of pussys I'll do it" Merle raised the gun to their fathers head "rot in hell old man"
He pulled the trigger as Maria flinched and turned her head away from the gruesome scene. She felt a flicker of sadness within her at the fact they had lost their only remaining parent and their uncle Rob, but she pushed it away as they had bigger things to deal with.
"Merle what's going on?"
He just looked at his little sister muttering "I need some booze" before storming towards the house.
Maria and Daryl shared a glance before hurrying to follow Merle, if Merle was freaked out it meant that they needed to be worried. Entering the house they found Merle chugging down a beer before he threw the bottle smashing it against the wall.
"The hell Merle! What's going on with you?" Daryl asked
"Bro I've seen some crazy shit today. People eating people, people coming back from the dead"
"Oh for god sake Merle are you high again!" Maria demanded
"Shut up sis! Ain't had nothin for a couple days!" He paused running a hand through his hair "my friend was bitten, he died a couple hours later. Next morning I wake up to him tryin to eat me! So I shot him point blank in the fucking chest"
"Merle you-"
"Quiet I ain't finished yet! He gets back up so I shot him in the head and he stays dead. I ain't got no clue what the fucks going on but something ain't right" Merle mumbles before taking another beer out of the fridge.
"Do you have to drink so much?" Merle looked at Maria and sighed putting the bottle down, he knew she didn't like people drinking around her and he understood why. Anyone else who told him to stop would've been punched but not her. Even if Merle didn't show it he cared about his little sister.
"Wait I saw something on the news earlier about people attacking and biting each other" Maria suddenly remembered as she rushed into the living room and turned on the TV. The news popped up, it was an emergence government report.
"We don't know what's causing this, all we know is that people who are bitten by those infected will turn, that's how the infection spreads. We plead you not to go near anyone that has been infected. We are setting up a safe zone in Atlanta while the military try and get control of the situation, there will be food, shelter and medical treatment for everyone."
Maria stood there in shock not believing what she was seeing was real, how could this be happening?. Her brother was right, they needed to go down to Atlanta she didn't feel safe here anymore not knowing that there was more of those infected people in the woods.
"We should go, it would be safe for us there"
"She right Merle, just until this whole thing blows over"
Merle thought for a moment before nodding his head "fine, get all the supplies and weapons into the truck, just I case this whole thing doesn't blow over"
Maria quickly rushed upstairs to her room pulling out a large backpack and filling it with what little she owned. She put in a couple of shirts, two more pairs of jeans, a hoodie and then a photo of her, Merle and Daryl. She looked at the photo smiling, she was in the middle of the two brothers who had their arms wrapped around her shoulders. Her and Daryl were wearing bright smiles and you could just about make out the tiniest smile on Merle's face as well. She smiled at the memory of that day, it was her 21st birthday and Daryl and Merle had taken her camping for the weekend, she had insisted that they take a family photo as they didn't really have any and the brothers reluctantly obliged.
""Hey Mar you ready to go!" Daryl shouted from downstairs. She quickly shoved the photo into her backpack and reached under the bed to grab her hunting bow and arrows, just in case. She rushed downstairs and saw Daryl stood there with his bag.
"Give me ya bag I'll take it out while you get food and stuff from the kitchen"
Maria nodded and handed her bag to Daryl, she went into the kitchen and started to fill a box with whatever they had which wasn't a lot. A couple cans of soup, some crisps and 6 bottles of water. She was normally the one that did the shopping but this week they had only had enough to pay all the bills which normally resulted in her and Daryl hunting for anything they could fine.
A car horn sounding from outside made Maria jump out of her thoughts and rush to pack the rest of the things before hurriedly grabbing her leather jacket and rushing outside. She quickly made her way to the truck and placed the box inside while grabbing a bottle of water for the journey. She noticed that only Daryl was in the truck, looking around she finally spotted Merle at the top of the drive sat on his motorbike waiting impatiently.
"Maria hurry up and get your ass in the truck!" He yelled angrily at her. She quickly did what he asked sliding into the passenger seat. Daryl started up the truck and started on their way to the "safe zone". Maria hoped that this safe zone was real and that the situation would blow over quickly, but something inside her was telling her that it wasn't going to happen that this was only just the beginning of worse things to come.
A/N - I hope you all enjoyed this first chapter, let me know what you think!
Also I would just like to say that I love Glaggie but I just really wanted to do a Glenn/OC fic and this idea just popped in my head a couple weeks ago and I really wanted to write it. Don't worry I have someone else in mind for Maggie :)
Thank you for reading!
- Emily x