1.
A man with a crossbow had lived alone for two years when the walkers started to die.
I mean really die - for good.
At first he didn't understand that something had changed fundamentally. When he found the first decomposed, motionless corpses in the woods he was just surprised. He had walked across this opening in the woods a week earlier - these corpses hadn't been here back then, he knew it.
He frowned.
A faint hope awakened in him. Maybe - just maybe - he wasn't the last man on earth after all. Maybe there was someone else in these woods too. Someone who had killed these three walkers.
He examined the bodies quickly, expertly. Their skulls especially. But no - there were no punctures of any kind in their heads.
He stared at the corpses confused. Something was wrong here. Walkers didn't just die like this. He knew it very well - he had fought against them for years. This pile of dead bodies seemed so harmless now. The strange force or illness - whatever the hell it was that made the dead rise again and again was gone now. The dead were only dead.
Eventually he stood up and took his crossbow. He decided to hurry back to his little cabin in the woods before the dark.
He walked forward flexibly and quietly - and suddenly he found the whole herd of walkers. They were lying in the grass all around a little meadow nearby. All truly and completely dead.
He inhaled and glanced around. Could it be possible? Could the zombie apocalypse really … be over?
If so, he felt like laughing somehow. So many others had died but he - a redneck from backlands - had survived. Too bad he couldn't share this grim little joke with anyone. Everybody else was gone now. It was even possible that he was a sole survivor, he realized.
"You will be the last man standing…"
Someone had said that to him a long time ago. At that moment he couldn't remember who it was. Probably someone within the group he knew once. He didn't want to think about the group now, no - but he did.
Rick. Glenn. Maggie. Hershel. Carol. Carl and Judith. And… yes… Beth.
He gritted his teeth. Two years of loneliness had passed and yet it was still painful to think about them.
He lost most of them on the day the prison fell. Afterwards Beth was there with him but eventually he lost her too.
It was my fault. I was so damn stupid, he told to himself.
The cemetery. The dog at the door. The attack of the walkers. Mysterious car that took Beth away. He had thought about it over and over again. God knows he had had time to think over the years.
He remembered Beth and those days with her clearly. She was so young, so stubborn and so childish, yes. But also so cheerful, beautiful and … full of life.
The complete opposite of me, he thought gloomily.
But it was all in the past now. He had been alone for a long time. Just him and a lot of walkers everywhere. His excellent survival skills had kept him alive so far.
And now even the walkers were gone. It was quiet everywhere in the woods. The birds were silent. Funnily enough he felt more lonely than ever.
He turned around slowly and left the blackened remains of the walkers behind.
It was time to head back to his cabin. Time to eat a simple, joyless meal alone.
And after that - yet another lonely, endless night.
He was already quite near the cabin when he saw something unusual ahead on the path. A fair-haired woman wearing a long, white nightshirt. She was barefoot and walked slowly away from him.
He froze.
The way the woman moved told him that she was a living person, not a walker.
He was not all alone in the world after all. He felt a sudden hint of joy.
It was at that moment when a woman sensed someone behind her. She stopped and turned to look at him.
He stared at her stunned, horrified. He would have recognized her anywhere.
It was Beth.
"Beth!" he shouted desperately. His voice was hoarse because of the lack of use.
To his surprise she didn't respond.
No, he could see that she was terrified.
Then she turned around and ran.
Trying desperately to escape.
xxx
AN:
This dark story popped into my head unexpectedly. It is inspired by Beth's words to Daryl: "You will be the last man standing."
Please leave a review if you like the beginning.
xoxoxo,
SandyBell