It was deadly silent in the forest and this disturbed me greatly, I mean the majority of the world was silent know, but in the distance you could always hear the moaning and groaning of the undead, but there was nothing today. In my previous experiences with the undead, the silence usually meant one of two things; they were either munching on someone's small intestine or they were going sneak up and start munching on your small intestine. I wished that neither of things would happen, but this was the world that we lived in now.
Standing up from my spot by the small fire, I decided to do one last perimeter check before retreating into the tent for the night, and attempting to get some form of sleep, but that seemed unlikely. Walking around the small area that served as the campsite, I made sure that the cans that were strung up were as tight as they could be so that they would rattle if the undead or any other humans came by the camp. Satisfied that my camp was a safe as it could be during the apocalypse, I made my way back to the tent, stepping into the small two man tent.
Looking down at small bundle that was buried underneath a mountain of blankets, a small smile fell upon my face. My four-year daughter Grace, made this the hellish life that we were now forced to lead a little bit better; when she gave you her toothless grin you couldn't help but a feel a little bit better or when she told you a joke that she had made up herself you couldn't help but laugh, even though the punchline made no sense. I remembered a time before the dead outnumbered the living, when her and her uncle; who acted tough but when it came to family was a big teddy bear, had went out to for an ice cream sundae, they conveniently forgot to tell me and my husband and when they returned Grace could barely contain herself from telling us that she had been out for ice cream and we hadn't, we both had indulged her pretending that we didn't already know that since the moment she walked in the door, her teddy bear uncle had forgot to wash her face, those were the happier times before we all got split up.
We had gotten separated in the early days of the apocalypse, when there was still hope that we would all be safe at the refugee centre that was set up in Atlanta, the four of us had been on the main highway that would lead you into Atlanta, when a herd of the undead had marched their way from the city and started to bit into any living human that was in the area, I had been away from the truck with Grace who had needed to the toilet, and my husband and his brother who were complete and utter wimps refused to take her, so it was left to me. We had only been gone for about 5 minutes when the herd arrived, it was then I made the quick decision to grab Grace and run into the forest, instead of fighting our way back to the truck, and since then it had been me and Grace
That had been a few months ago now, from that moment on my main priority had been to protect Grace, which meant scavenging food, supplies and losing a lot of sleep to make sure that she was safe, but I would rather has Grace safe and protected, instead of me getting a decent nights sleep. Looking down at my sleeping daughter, I couldn't help but think about my husband, Grace was the perfect mix of the both of us, she had been blessed with my dull brown eyes, a fact that I had hated as my husbands bright blue eyes were so much nicer than mines, her hair was a mix of my dark brown and his sandy blonde colour, you could tell that she was ours from the moment you met her.
The soft snores from Grace brought me back to the present, I mentally slapped myself I couldn't be getting lost in my past, when I had my daughter to worry about, the undead weren't going to wait until I was back in the present before trying to kill me. Kicking my boots off, I went to lie down beside Grace who was such a deep sleeper didn't budge when I slipped into the blankets beside her. Lying on back I stared up the moon through the thin material of the tent that I had scavenged in the early days, I started to think about my husband, it had been nearly six months since I had last seen him.
Daryl and I had been married for almost 7 seven years, but been together 12 years, and they had been one hell of an adventure. During the first couple of months that we were together it had been hard, Daryl had trouble showing affection and opening up to me and I had trouble accepting that he wouldn't open up just as I had opened up to him. It got better though, after a year and a half together he began to finally open up more and let me know about his past and what he had went through. After that life only got better for us I had a steady job as third grade teacher and Daryl had a job at the local garage, we had a nice house that sat on the outskirts of our town, and most of all we were happy.
But that all changed on our sixth year of being together, his brother Merle returned. It wasn't that I didn't like Merle, I just didn't like what his recreational activities were, during that time he has doing some of the more dangerous drugs, and Daryl couldn't understand why I didn't want drugs in my house, all he saw was me refusing to let his brother stay with us, this result of this was a massive arguement between Daryl and myself, and me leaving my own home to stay with a friend until Merle left. It was a few months before Merle left to go back to the army, and Daryl's way of apologising to me was to propose to me, I was reluctant to agree, but the speech that the man of so few words said to me mad my heart flutter and I had to day yes.
After being married for just over a year, we found out that I was pregnant. I was overjoyed at the thought of starting my family with Daryl, but he had his doubts; he didn't have the same childhood as I had, while I had grown up with loving parents and a safe home to return to, Daryl hadn't his mother had passed when he was young and his father was an abusive drug, who barely noticed if he wasn't home. It was during the last few months of my pregnancy that Daryl finally accepted that he wasn't his father and would be good father would love his child no matter what. Then Grace arrived, and it was the most amazing moment of both of our lives and from that moment on our lives were filled with joy and laughter, well that was until the apocalypse happened and fucked everything in our lives up.
As I lay there in the makeshift bed beside my sleeping daughter, I realised how much I actually missed Daryl, I had went from spending every day with the man to only thinking about him in my mind, I mean I swore I almost could smell his scent when the wind blew a certain way and that was the last I needed to lose my mind. Deep down in my heart I knew he was still alive, he was survivor and would probably out live everyone, but there was always that nagging feeling in the back of mind, that little voice that told he wasn't alive, that I shouldn't be so delusional to think he was alive, I had Grace to protect, and that I shouldn't be caught up in my silly little fantasises. No I couldn't think these bad thoughts, I had to believe that he was still alive, and that one day we would eventually be reunited with each other. As I felt my eyes began to shut from exhaustion, the last thought that drifted through my mind, as felt my body give into sleep was;
"Where are you Daryl? I miss you so much"