Hi guys! This is my second Walking Dead fanfic, I have another one on the go but I had some knew ideas so decided to start a new one. I'll probably do a few chapters of this and then see which story is more popular on focus on that one, this one will have some darker themes though such as rape/sexual assault and self harm. I do hope you enjoy it though and please review :) Also I would like to know if there are any mistakes that need fixing because no matter what I always end up missing something :') ~Skye
I don't own the Walking Dead or any of its characters, just my own.
Update - I've added a little more detail to this chapter and fixed some mistakes, hope it's a lot better and don't hesitate to write a review if you think it's good or if there's something else you think needs changing. I'm all for constructive criticism to help me write better :)
She ran through the woods like squirrel hunting for nuts, small and agile with two walkers closing in on her heel. Locks of her fiery red hair fell out of the loose ponytail, obstructing her vision, causing her to continuously keep pushing it behind her small ears. Her stomach ached from the hunger of not eating for two days, causing her to lose focus of where she placed her feet. She tripped over a large, knobbly tree root and smashed hard into the ground, grunting from injuring her knee. She realised quickly that she was in danger and frantically dug out her hunting knife, gripping it tightly with her trembling fingers while she turned around to face the undead beings staggering towards her.
"Come on you bastards," she muttered under her breath, trying her best to remain calm as they were almost upon her. She took advantage of their slow movements and shuffled backwards, away from them so she could stand up and raised her knife. Instead of coming up with a plan she just acted on adrenalin and plunged her knife into its eye deep enough to kill it straight away, ignoring the rancid blood that splattered onto her pale skin. She then used the dead walker as a shield against the other one until she had the opportunity to kill it, she threw the lifeless corpse onto the undead one to disorientate it and managed to dig the knife into the side of its skull, blood spurted out as she retrieved the weapon making her grimace in response. Finally thinking she was safe for the time being, she collapsed by a nearby tree to catch her breath and to calm down her shaking body but just as soon as she closed her eyes she was alerted to another noise but it wasn't a walker, walkers don't talk. She jumped off the ground and hid behind the tree, watching closely in the direction the unfamiliar voices were coming from.
"Let's head back," a male voice said from beyond the trees.
"Yeah, no use lookin' around in the dark," a rougher sounding voice replied to the other.
Lee watched as two men entered her vision, the darker haired male wore a white bloodstained t-shirt and carried a small gun while the other wielded a dangerous looking crossbow. She walked slowly back behind the tree to hide from them but she hadn't taken her surroundings into account and accidently snapped a twig making her curse in her mind for not thinking before she acted.
"Wait, there's somethin' over there," the rough looking man said, alerted to Lee's presence.
"Is anyone there?" The other one asked but Lee stayed quiet, trying to go through every possible outcome of how this would turn out. She could hear them walk closer to her position, and decided to walk out from behind the tree thinking it would be better than running with the chance of getting shot down.
"Okay, I'm coming out… D-don't shoot," she said, trying to sound confident but it came out as little more than a squeak. The men stared at her for a few seconds then lowered their weapons, not believing the petite woman to be a threat. She thought that they must have thought she looked pathetic, all battered and bruised from head to foot after two long days of surviving on her own in this place.
"Have you seen a little girl around here," the man with the darker brown hair asked immediately and she shook her head.
"I haven't seen anyone… No one living anyway," she replied with a slight tremor in her voice, they seemed a bit disappointed in her answer but the man carried on talking and introduced himself.
"My name's Rick and this is Daryl," his voice was kind but Lee knew better than to trust a man on how he sounded.
"Lee," she introduced herself bluntly, stepping backwards as Rick stepped towards her.
"Ain't that a guy's name?" Daryl asked causing Lee to sigh in frustration.
"It's a nickname, short for Lisa," she corrected him and her tone turned slightly sarcastic from the lack of trust toward them, "am I allowed to go now?"
"We're not going to hurt you," he told her, "are you alone?"
"how do I know you're telling the truth…?" she asked him, still uncertain about the pair.
"You just have to trust me," Rick answered.
"Last time I trusted someone… He brought his own group and killed every one of my friends and took everything we had," She fought back the tears threatening to fall, trying to push bad memories that were still so fresh to the back of her mind.
"Why didn' they kill you then," Daryl asked, not completely believing her story.
"They…" she tried to find a way to answer, biting her lip to try to stop the horrific memories from surfacing, "I would have rather died with what they did to me…"
They both seemed to understand what I was talking about and Rick changed the topic quickly, "we have food and water back with the rest of our group, you look like you haven't eaten in days." He also seemed to glance at the walkers that Lee had recently killed, "did you do that?"
"Yeah," she replied and looked at their surprised faces, "just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't defend myself against those things…"
"I'm not disagreeing with you there, we could really use you're help if you can handle walkers on your own," Rick proposed his offer for Lee to join his group.
Lee thought hard about her decision, she was started to get weak with hunger and she knew for sure she wouldn't last much longer, "What happened to that girl you were talking about?"
"We got overrun by a… herd of walkers back out on the road, two of them caught on to her and she ran into the forest and we lost her, she's only twelve so you have to tell us the truth if you've seen her," he told her everything about what had happened, how he followed after the little girl but lost her after drawing the walkers away.
Lee thought hard, this was definitely no place for a child to be on her own. Along with walkers, she could also run into people not unlike the men she had been tortured by. She sighed and nodded, "I'll come back with you and help you look for her but I won't stick around after she's found," Lee finally said after Rick had finished telling his story, "I know how hard it is to lose people… So I'll help in any way that I can to make sure that doesn't happen... But if you try anything, I won't hesitate in fighting back."
The walk back was more or less quiet, Rick and Daryl shared a few words but Lee remained silent. She trailed along behind them whilst still clutching the knife she killed the walkers with, thinking about how strange the day had turned out. The sun was started to set and a cool breeze broke the sweltering summer heat to which Lee was thankful for, running through the forest built up a sweat even with the thick forest canopy blocking out much of the sun's rays. She still had no idea what to think of the two men in front of her, Rick was definitely more kind and polite than Daryl who she originally just thought of as a typical redneck but he didn't seem too bad to her now. Lee was lost in thought, growing tired and disorientated from the hunger and thirst causing her to trip over her own feet and almost fell over if it wasn't for Daryl grabbing her arm to keep her up. The sudden feeling of body contact made her tense up and she jerked away from him automatically as soon as she was balanced.
"S-sorry," she apologised for her movements, "I didn't mean to… Thanks."
He nodded, "jus' try and watch where you're goin'" Daryl watched her with interest as she straightened herself up, when he heard her talk about her experience with other people and how she acted around him and Rick, he knew instantly that she had suffered from some kind of abuse.
"Are you okay?" Rick asked, "you look like you're favouring your left leg over the right."
"Yeah, I just banged my knee earlier… I'll be fine," Lee brushed the little tumble off and they carried on walking. It wasn't long until they reached the highway where Lee saw the figures of other people turning to our direction.
"They're back!" A man shouted. As they got closer, more people rushed over to them and Lee spotted a woman with short greying hair crying, she guessed that was the mother of the lost girl.
"You didn't find her?" she asked, becoming a bit frantic and then spotted me, "who is she?"
"This is Lee, we met her on the way back here. She was on her own and needed help," Rick said, "the trail went cold though and Lee said she'll help us look for her tomorrow as soon as the sun comes up."
"But you can't leave my daughter out there alone," the woman cried but Daryl explained that hunting in the dark would be no good. The woman then began taking her frustration out on Rick causing him, they were all upset over the situation but Lee stayed back and waited for things to calm down.
"You might need this," the blonde woman held out a wet wipe to Lee for her to wipe the dry, crusting blood off her face, "I'm Andrea."
"Thank you," Lee proceeded wipe her face clean of all the blood and dirt that had been there for days.
"No problem, we're going to have some food in a bit if you fancy some," Andrea continued and as if on cue, Lee's stomach started to growl from hunger making Andrea laugh, "I'll take that as a yes."
Whilst finally filling her previously empty stomach, one of the men introduced himself to Lee as Shane once things quietened down. He was kind enough to introduce her to the rest of the group so she knew everyone's names without having to go around them one by one on her own.
"What happened?" Shane asked Lee, noticing how quiet and timid she was around people.
"I lost a lot of people recently…" she answered quietly while eating a tin of beans, "it just feels a bit strange to be in another group. I'll be leaving though once I help you find the girl; I don't want to intrude any more than that."
"Where're you going to go?" He asked further questions with more interest. Lee got the feeling he didn't want to stay in this group for much longer himself and he was quite distant from the others.
"I don't know yet," She shrugged and then smiled slightly, "somewhere safe would be nice."
The rest of the night was quiet for her which was how she preferred, most of the group did attempt to make conversation but soon came to realise she enjoyed her own company rather than making friends. Most were still friendly and polite towards her, though they seemed not too sure of her, Lee didn't mind however, she would soon be far away from these people. As everyone started to retreat for the night, Lee found herself wandering between the abandoned cars. Many were dirty, bloodstained and some still contained a body or too, though not undead to Lee's relief. She eventually found a car, empty of bodies that seemed safe enough to sleep in and cleared the back seat so she could lie down, it wasn't the comfiest but it was far better than sleeping on the rough, hard ground again.
Ropes bound Lee's hands behind her back painfully, all she could do was struggle to break free and try to shout and cry through the dirty cloth forced in her mouth to act as a gag in an attempt to keep her quiet. She felt someone kick her hard in the side and telling her to shut up but couldn't make out who it was because of the blindfold covering her eyes.
"She the last one left?" Another man asked.
"Yeah, shall we just kill her like the others?" the one who kicked her answered. Lee heard footsteps getting closer to her and what sounded like someone kneeling down, a hand started to stroke her arm gently giving her a moment of false naïve hope that she was going to be let loose. The blindfold was removed from her face and she looked upon the man in front of her. He didn't seem out of the ordinary, he had black hair with a slight beard but the way he looked at her sent shivers down her spine. She looked away but soon realised it was even worse, she saw the bodies of her friends and family strewn around the camp like bloody dolls. It was too much for her to take, she cried and lashed out while the men just laughed. The one who appeared to be in charge held her still and told her to stay still or she would end up just like them.
"Nah, she's kinda cute," the mystery man spoke again, his hand moving down to stroke her thigh, "hold her down."
A pair of hands grabbed her and threw her onto the ground, while someone else pinned her shoulders down but Lee didn't give up. She kicked the air in front, managing to kick someone who grunted slightly and called her a bitch but before she could try to inflict any more damage on anyone else, someone jumped on top of her to stop her from lashing out.
"Come on now, darlin', we just wanna play," a cruel voice laughed and breathed over her neck. Terror overcame her as she felt a sharp knife being softly dragged up and down her body, threatening to cut her if she moved. All she could do was lie there while hands groped her and listen to the sniggers from those who watched, her shirt was torn open and the buttons on her jeans were quickly undone. She screamed as loud as she could, earning her a hit on the head by something blunt and heavy causing her to drift into unconsciousness.
Lee bolted upright from the nightmare, sweat pouring down her face but she was thankful that it ended when before it could get any worse. She knew exactly how it went though, it was no random nightmare put together by her subconscious but a very real memory she had relived every night since it happened. She opened the car door and stepped outside to get some fresh air and placed her hands on the car with her head hung down.
"You alright?" A voice from behind made her jump and she turned to see Daryl.
"Yeah, I was just having some trouble sleeping," she replied after composing herself and let out an exhausted sigh, "I don't think I've had a good night's sleep since this whole thing started."
"How long you been on your own?" he asked, sitting on the hood of the car.
"About two days, I managed to…" Lee struggled again to come up with the right words to say without going into detail, "I managed to escape the men who killed the rest of my group, I suppose they thought I had no fight left in me… I could hardly believe it myself when I did escape."
"Shit, I didn' mean to bring it up," he said apologetically.
"It's fine, people usually say it's better to talk than keep it all in or something like that," she laughed weakly.
"I think it's all bullshit, never helped me but each to their own I guess," he responded.
Lee smiled at him, "well, I wish I had a carefree attitude like you." She sat back down in the car and pushed her messy hair out of her eyes before speaking again, "have you lost anyone since it started?"
"My brother," Daryl answered quietly, "we got separated in Atlanta."
"I'm sorry… I lost my cousin a few days ago," Lee confessed, "but I guess now... Now I haven't got anyone else to lose, I've just got to look after myself… I'm going to try and get some more sleep, thanks for the chat."
"See you later," he nodded and walked off as Lee shut the door and lay back down, hoping to not fall into another horrific nightmare.