Hello everyone! This is my first TWD fanfic and I hope that you will all enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed writing it!
But I want you to keep in mind that English is NOT my native language and that some spelling errors will occur – but I have read it through a million times and tried my best to spot them.
The story is set before season 1 and it involves a lot more than just the relationship between my character, Alice, and Daryl, even though that's the main storyline.
I obviously do not own TWD, if I had I wouldn't be here. I would be sitting in the back of my limo making out with Norman Reedus.
It had evolved like any other worldwide catastrophe. There was no mention of it on the news or on the wireless. No pictures were taken of the wounded and there were no warnings. The first thing I could remember hearing of it was a small spread in the local newspaper. A column, no longer than fifty words, describing the odd psychotic behavior of an old man, who had killed fifteen of his own sheep.
I normally skipped merrily through these meaningless articles but the image of a completely random sheep caught my eye. I liked sheep. But I did not particularly like the column. It was badly written and its sole purpose was mainly to scare people. And it had most definitely not worked on me. Although, if I had known the horrific truth of the matter, I might have been. A bit.
I also remember being called into the kitchen by my mother. There, on the television, was the image of a little girl being restrained by five policemen after killing and eating her own brother. Her massive wounds and yellowish eyes had kept me awake for four nights in a row. I specifically remembered it being four, because during the fifth night, my roommate had slipped sleeping medicine into my tee, having been kept awake by my endless blabbering of murderous children. I had a sister too you see, and my imagination got the better of me. After one particularly hellish nightmare I had woken, sweating and panting, convinced that my arm had been chewed off, finding that the other half was hiding under my pillow.
My first meeting with one of those things was, comically enough, during a class in art history. Our teacher came in looking like he normally does, hair and beard pointing in every direction and a hump on his back reminding us all fondly of a neat mixture between Igor and Quasimodo. In other words, it was all to be expected by Mr. Irwin. Until he grabbed one of the boys in first row and started chewing away at his face. That was rather unexpected. Even for Mr. Irwin.
I had run into them once or twice after that. But mostly, I stayed in my room. Armed with a pocketknife and a lightsaber. I had never killed one before, but I had seen a gang of men on the street rounding one up and banging away at it with their axes and baseball bats. Not really expecting my trip to the grocery store to be so dramatic, I had hurled all over the pavement and my new pair of shoes. It was far from my proudest moment.
When things had started to get really bad (in other words, when the media did not seem to talk about anything else) my roommate, Denise, had bought a gun. That is when I remember being scared shitless, for the first time. I had never in my life ever held a gun in my hand; I had barely seen one up close so the thought of firing on physically made me ill.
I studied art history. I was no scarier than a power puff, before Professor X had incidentally dropped his super chemical into the mixture. I had concluded in my head that I would not survive this. This was Darwin's theory proving itself right; survival of the fittest. And I was not fit.
When those things had overtaken the city we stayed in the apartment for a week, Denise and I. Watching the world from outside our window. Helicopters were dropping bombs at the most infected parts of town and armed men had started to shoot people on the street. More and more people had decided to leave town. There were a line of cars from the city of Atlanta that went far into the darkness. I considered going with them, but reason got the better of me; if a zombie did not take me down a frightened cop surely would
Denise and I looked at each other. We would not be able to survive in the apartment for more than a few days before we ran out of food. So she left and I remained, in the empty apartment, feeling as insignificant and small as one can possibly imagine. Like a robot I reached for the top shelf in our kitchen drawer and pulled out what felt like a hundred pound gun. I had seen that in movies you are supposed to pull the trigger back, so I did.
The corridor was empty, so I cautiously stepped out and into the hall. There was no one or nothing to be seen or heard except distant yelling and gunshots. Slowly I found my way across the hall, the broken glass shuttering under my feet as I went.
Entering the streets was like walking into a war. Not far from where I was standing there was a tanks firing shots at groups of dead, and people in armor and uniforms either directing people into safety or firing away at the decaying bodies.
And in the midst of all this lunacy, I was now standing, with my gun dangling from my right hand and my sense of reality slipping and exiting through my left ear. I could feel my trouser leg being pulled at and, realizing that it was a dead body with no legs, I screamed helplessly and earsplittingly loud. I stepped on it again and again but it was no use, and before I could think my last thought, the sound of a gunshot made me jump and the zombie stopped moving.
My head snapped in the direction of the shot and quickly concluded that it had to be the man standing a few feet away from me who had fired it. He was racing towards me, with the gun in his hand and an additional shotgun on his back. He was broad and muscular, but not tall and with a grim expression on his face, like he was about to scream at me. Which he did.
"Are you fucking out of your mind?" He yelled and reloaded his gun, the empty cylinders clinging as they hit the ground. "What the hell is that gun for if you ain't gonna use it?"
I looked down at it as if I had just realized I was holding it.
"Are you stupid or somthin'?" He snarled at me before he turned around to leave, shaking his head at my idiocy. Not only was I insulted, but I was burning red hot in the face with shame and embarrassment. So I ran after him.
"Hey! Hey, you!" I yelled, trying to sound more confident then I felt. He stopped and turned around to stare at me, his narrow piecing blue eyes looking me up and down. He was sweaty and smelled of gunpowder and tobacco. His dirty blond hair was matted with sweat and his flannel shirt was dirty and stained with blood. I could tell by the way he was looking at me that he had a very short fuse and decided to get straight to the point.
"I'm not stupid." I proclaimed loudly. He snarled and wiped the sweat off his forehead like he did not believe a word. I could suddenly feel my throat closing up as I looked at the chaos around me: a woman had just been shot in the head by a scared and disorientated policeman and a boy was standing in the middle of the street screaming for his mother. In an attempt to push the unwanted and sudden tears back I rubbed my eyes with my hand discreetly.
"I, I just don't know what to do." He considered me for a moment, looking embarrassed by my honesty. I was too, but I did not know what else to say. I did not know if any of the people I knew in Atlanta were still alive, and right now, I did not have the time to look for them. Firstly, I had to get out of this alive.
"Damn…" He murmured and looked around before grabbing my arm firmly and started to run in the opposite direction. "Come on."
We ran through the chaotic streets for a few blocks, the man taking out the dead that was in our way. We were losing sunlight, and I became more anxious of where we were going. But I dared not ask. He was in survival mode and when his gun ran empty of bullets, he pulled out his hunting knife and stabbed them repeatedly until they were motionless.
"Merle!" We had been running for about three blocks when he started to shout someone's name. After a couple of minutes of absolutely nothing, I was on the verge of turning on my heel and running back to my apartment. But then, the roaring of an engine filled the air as a car approached us in high speed. The man behind the wheel was bald and wearing a positively hideous leather west and a dirty blue shirt.
The car came to an abrupt stop a few feet from where we were standing, sending a few of the dead flying across his windscreen. The man called Merle was leaning out of the window with a disturbing smile on his face, looking as though apocalypse had done him a world of good.
"Who's the bawd?" His voice was rusty and rather high pitched, and it literary made my neck hair stand on edge. He was significantly older than both me and the man who had saved me.
"How the hell should I know? Just some kid." The man yelled over the sounds of sirens and screams. "One less walker to take care of later."
Before I knew it I was shoved into the front seat of the unreliable looking car, closely followed by the grim man who, when we took off, leaned out the window and took out a few of the dead nearby with the shaft of his rifle.
"Who the hell are you, girly?" The man called Merle smirked at me, his thin lips curling into a smile. I opened and closed my mouth a few times before anything sensible came stuttering out.
"I'm Alice."
"Alice, eh?" He chuckled and spat viciously out the window.
"Why aren't you dead yet, Alice?" I was taken aback by this sudden turn in our introduction, and I was left forming words with my mouth, being at a total loss for what to say.
"By the looks of yah, it ain't cus' you're a good shot." I was not sure if I should be flattered or deeply insulted. On one hand I did not want to be associated with criminals. But on the other hand, it would be nice to appear just a bit scarier than I was, so that he would not try anything. Because, you know, I'd slap him, or something twice as terrible.
"Truthfully, I've just stayed inside." Merle's laugh was so sudden that it almost sent me flying through the roof in surprise.
We continued on through the city and into the outskirts of Atlanta, all silent except for Merle who was giving me the most disturbing look every now and then and the occasional smirk. I wanted to cry and scream and laugh all at the same time. The urge to break down was partly because I had just left my home, possibly for good, partly because the world had gone to shit, and partly because Merle was freaking me out. The urge to laugh came mostly from the fact that this whole situation was ridiculous.
I was buried deep in my own mad thoughts when I felt a heavy hand on my thigh, caressing it violently. Merle was ogling me with his narrow eyes while harshly thrusting a hand under my sweater. I, who had only ever read about these sorts of assaults in the newspaper, could not really grasp the chain of events as they occurred in front of me. It was really not until he grabbed my breast firmly that I splashed sideways into man next to me, who was just as surprised by my movement as I was.
"What the hell are you doing?" I choked out, wrestling with his intruding arm while pushing further and further away from him, until I at one point was physically lying on top of the man on the opposite side of me.
"Merle, what the fuck are you doing bro?"
At this point Merle had stopped the car and with his free hand he grabbed me by my jaw and drew me so close to his face that I could smell the alcohol and smoke on his lips. He murmured something disgusting in my ear as he forced the zipper of my jeans down with his free hand.
"Let. Go. Of. Me." I struggled, trying to prevent his hand from slipping down my jeans, but it took both my hands and all my might to keep him from it.
"Merle, come on. Cut the fuck out!"
"You think you're better than us? You think your uptight pussy is too good for us?" His breath was damp and horrible against my ear as he grabbed a handful of my hair to prevent me from pulling away. I gave up the battle with his thrusting hand and slapped him hard across his face. I doubted that it hurt much, but the motion had wiped the smile off his face and his grip tightened around my neck.
"If you can't shoot and you won't fuck, what good are you?"
I could hear him opening his door violently, and in one swift move he threw me head first out of the car and on to the pavement. I could hear my shoulder crunch and the air being knocked out of me as I hit the hard asphalt. Before I could take another breath the car door had slammed shut and the engine roared as they took off. Leaving me in the middle of the road exposed and unarmed.