I was running; that was all that was on my mind at the moment as I hauled my redneck ass down the main street of the corrupt city of Atlanta. As far as I could see, only one human remained: me. Behind me, hundreds of walkers, that's what one of my brothers called them, followed my human scent with nothing but hunger in their eyes.

Many called them zombies, because that's what they are. I, myself, stuck to calling them walkers because I never want to remind myself the zombies actually exist. I read about them in books and was crazy about George Romero films before the world went to shit, but they didn't prepare me for this reality.

It started out as a virus that seemed tamable. Soon it was found untreatable, and before the world had time to prepare, the son of a bitch went global. Symptoms included a raging, uncontrollable fever (which brought hallucinations into the mix), cold sweats and organ failure, which led to death. However, victims never stayed dead for long. Once the dead copied Jesus and rose back to life, they hungered for warm flesh. Then it was found that there was only one way to kill them: destruction of the brain. Well, I shouldn't say "found". Technically, Romero knew it before we all did.

Walkers are ghosts of their former selves. Their souls are gone to God only knows where, and now they're nothing but sacks of ugly, rotting, disease-bearing, flesh.

My thoughts were interrupted by a... car alarm? The sound of a roaring engine? Were these people crazy? They would attract every walker in Atlanta! Wait... that meant there were living people. Not walkers; living fucking people.

A red, Dodge Charger stopped beside me, siren blaring. The passenger window rolled down, revealing a driver, whom I knew very well.

"Glenn?" My voice cracked from excitement.

"Need a ride?"

Without hesitation, I got into the passenger seat and buckled myself in. "Ride on, cowboy."

I went to high school with Glenn, but I was a senior when he was a freshman. I even stood up for the kid a couple of times. He was one of the three kids of different race at our school, and I was the bitch no one messed with because of my brothers. Now that I was with him, I knew that everything would turn out okay... for now anyway.

We pulled up, slinging gravel, to a campsite that had made a home at the top of a large quarry a few miles outside of Atlanta. My eyes grew wide as dozens of people surrounded the Charger. One man, however, had a scowl on his face that would put a nun witnessing adultery to shame.

Glenn and I got out of the car, and he was suddenly bombarded with questions from a petite blonde.

"Pop the damn hood!" The scowling man yelled at Glenn, but since Glenn seemed busy, I reached in and pressed the button.

As he reached to unplug the alarm system, I began looking him over. I noticed he carried a rather large shotgun, and then I saw why. He wore a dark blue cap that had POLICE written across the top in white letters. His shirt was unbuttoned a little at the top, revealing a broad, tanned chest. His arms were muscular, his shoulders were wide, and his jaw was angled just right and straight. His hair was dark and curly on his head. Sweat glistened over his skin, and it was when I looked into his intense, brown eyes that I realized he was looking at me with a questioning stare.

"Celine?" Glenn's voice pulled me from my fantasies.

"Hm?" I turned my head towards him, but my eyes lingered upon the eye-candy-cop just a moment longer.

"Shane asked you something." Glenn said as he gestured towards the cop.

Fuck. "Say it again, please?" My lips went suddenly dry, so I quickly reached into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out my best friend: my chapstick. I wiped on a coat as he asked me the question once again.

"Where are you from?"

Oh my God. His voice matched his deep, definite features. I struggled to find my voice to answer him. "Outskirts of Helen. I'm Celine, uh-" I stopped myself. Did they need to know my last name? Of course not. "Celine."

As Glenn was listening to questions, he answered one that particularly sparked my interest. "Everyone made it out okay. Well... Merle... Not so much."

Oh no. That can't be the Merle that I know. With a group? No way. I shrugged it off. We're in the heart of Georgia. There could be a million Merles out there.

I was freezing as I sat next to Glenn. Night had fallen and we were sitting on logs around a small fire. I had my legs pulled up against my chest listening to Rick's , a man they had picked up in Atlanta, story. He'd been reunited with his wife and son when he arrived at the camp with the rest of the supply runners Glenn had been with, and now he was telling the group, well part of the group (a large, burly man and his wife and daughter were sitting at a separate fire next to us), his story as to how he awoke from a coma and ended up here.

I was getting stared at, which bothered me to the bone, by a few people and Shane was one of them. I was probably a sight to see. My dark blonde, shoulder length hair was dirty and tangled. My blue eyes were sunk in from a tad of malnutrition, my once white tank top was dirty and my jeans and boots were scuffed all to hell. I stank to high heaven, that I was sure of.

I felt weight and sudden warmth consume my shoulders. A heavenly, masculine smell filled my nostrils, and I realized someone had given me their jacket. That someone had been Shane. I nodded at him in thanks and he smiled back, but as he went to sit back down, the fire next to us sizzled as another log was thrown into the embers.

Shane was not happy about this action. "He Ed, you wanna rethink that log?"

"It's cold, man," the large man, Ed, said.

"Cold don't change the rules, does it?" Shane glared at Ed. "Keep our fires low, just embers, so we can't be seen from a distance, right?"

Ed obviously didn't give two shits about the rules. "I said it's cold. Mind your own business for once."

At this point, Shane walked over towards Ed's fire. Out of curiosity, I got up and walked over to the fire as well.

"You sure you wanna have this conversation, man?" Shane asked softly.

After thinking for a second, Ed looked at his wife. "Go on. Pull the damn thing out."

"Why don't you pull the fuckin' log out yourself?" I said under my breath , but it wasn't quiet enough.

"What'd you say, girl?" Ed asked.

I sighed. "I said, pull the fuckin' thing out yourself. You got arms and legs. You put it in there, pull it out."

"Now you listen here, little girl," Ed started, but I wasn't in the mood to bicker. I just walked away towards the trees that lined the camp. I figured I could sleep against one of them for the night.

I sat against a tree with Shane's jacket around me, and then I fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of screaming. I threw a cover... cover? Since when did I have a cover? I looked around and noticed I was in a tent. When did I get into a tent? I shook my head and unzipped the tent to find my boots, but not before I noticed the smell. It was the same musky, handsome scent that I took in when I put on Shane's jacket; I was in Shane's tent. How the...?

Whatever. I'd figure it out later. At the moment, I had to see who was screaming. Were walkers nearby? I walked out into the open, and that was when I heard a voice that made my blood run cold.

"Merle! Get your ugly ass out here! Got us some squirrel!"

I was almost afraid to turn around, but something made me anyway. There stood my brother, one of the two that had left me for dead back in Helen.

"Daryl?"