Only things I own are my OCs.
As I splash my face with the cool water of this pond, I realize just how dirty I am. With gentle circular motions, I slowly start to remove the dirt and sweat covering my face and neck. This cabin that I discovered yesterday has enough canned food to last me a week. There's bound to be soap and shampoo in the cabin somewhere. The cabin may be alright for now, but at the end of the week I need to continue to Fort Benning.
A bloodcurdling scream catches me off guard. What. The. Fuck. I whip my head around to scan the area. The scream came from nearby. Another scream follows soon afterwards, and without a second thought I am on my feet. It sounds like a young girl, one that is in danger.
She's alone with three biters chasing her. I follow them with a knife in my hand ready to strike. The girl stops abruptly after looking behind her. I came across this place yesterday and I know exactly why she is stuck there. This girl is standing at the edge of a ravine. She's crying now as she grabs rocks on the ground and tries her best to throw them at the biters' heads. I am still too far away to bring the biters down with my knife before they turn her into lunch. It is risky using my gun, but what other choice do I have? The girl stops crying at the sound of the first gunshot. The other two biters drop to the ground not a moment later.
I'm about fifteen feet away from her now and I finally see her face clearly. She is definitely older than ten, but not yet a teenager. She is still trembling in fear from her near death experience. I open my mouth to say something, but I don't get a chance.
"Thh…Thanks." She begins to take a step forward. "I…I'm…Whoa…" Her arms are throw in the air as she is slipping on the wet soil. I take a few steps toward her, but this time I am too late. She's already falling down the ravine. As I stand at the edge now, I see her frail body tumbling down. Without a second thought, I make my way down the steep slope grabbing rocks and bushes along the way to prevent myself from slipping too. By the time I reach the unconscious girl, I am out of breath. Her arms are covered in scratches, and her legs are bruised. There is significant injury to the side of her head. I carry her limp body to the water in to wash away the blood so I can clearly see the extent of her head injury. It is bad, pretty bad. There is no one else around, and by the state of her clothing, she's been in the forest for at least a few days. This girl is left in this cruel world without her family, just like me. In a quick move, I remove my tank top and wrap it around her head tightly and then gently pull her over my shoulder. A plus side to all this is that I don't have to worry about someone seeing in me walking around in just a bra.
It takes me a while to reach the cabin again. I lie her down on a bed and grab the small bag of medical supplies. There is barely anything useful in the bag. I remove the tank top off of her head and clean the wound with whatever is left in the supplies, which is barely anything. The longest I can hold off a medical supply run is tomorrow morning, but I can't just leave her here by herself. It is definitely risky to travel in her shape, but it's not like I have a better option. Using dental floss, I am able to give her some stitches. Her temperature is fine when I check her forehead. This is a relief.
The sound of birds chirping wakes me up early the next morning. I don't take long packing everything up including the rest of the cans of food. I might as well move on from here anyway.
Again, I carry the young girl over my shoulder. To make things more comfortable for her, I attach a pillow to my backpack, so her head can rest nicely. As I make my way to the town, I run into a few biters, but I take them out easily without having to use my gun like last time.
I finally reach a pharmacy in the late afternoon. Luckily, there aren't any biters lurking around. I go through the entire pharmacy with pure excitement over the abundance of supplies. Eventually, it hits me that I can't possibly carry all these supplies with me, especially when there's a child over my shoulder. I walk back outside the pharmacy and search for a car. A laugh escapes my mouth when I find a car one with a half tank of gas. When I return to the pharmacy with this car, I hurry to load up the car with as many supplies as I can.
An hour after the sun sets, I finally find an empty house that is distant from the other houses in the neighborhood. There are definitely biters near the other houses, but this house is safe. Well, at least for a day or two. Hopefully, this girl would wake up by then. I lie the young girl down in the first bedroom I reach. Based on the decor and the toys in the room, I can tell it belonged to a boy with an obsession of cars. Using the medical supplies I gathered from the run, I try my best to address the head wound and the scratches on her frail body. The bruises on her legs will make it hard to walk when she wakes up.
She doesn't wake up in the middle of the night which scares me. I'm not a doctor, but I do know that she should be awake by now. It's almost been two days. I return to the bedroom several times throughout the following day. In the evening, I hear a soft whimpering as I pass her bedroom. When I approach her, I see that she is still not fully alert, but I am able to get her to take a few sips of water. Before long, she falls into a deep slumber. I relax now, knowing that she is going to be okay. It will take her a while to recover from the fall, but she will pull through. She has to. I can't stand to see another person die.
Several hours later, she wakes up again, still not fully alert. Unlike last time, I am prepared and give her a pain reliever along with the water. In the middle of the afternoon the next day, she wakes up again, and I follow the same routine as before.
The next time she wakes up is just around midnight. She is fully alert this time and actually notices me and the surroundings. She opens her mouth to speak, but I place a bottle of water to her mouth before she gets a chance. She gulps down half of the water bottle before moving it away from her face. I am not concerned because this house has quite a supply of water bottles and multiple boxes of cereal, cookies, crackers, and other snack food.
"You…you're the one who killed those walkers?" Her soft voice breaks the silence in the room. Walkers? Is that what she calls the biters? I like it.
I nod in reply. "Do you remember what happened afterwards?" I ask her. For the first time, she observes her scratched up arms and delicately touches the bandage on her head. By her facial expressions, I can tell she is confused. "You fell down a ravine and hit your head pretty hard. Don't worry about those scratches. They're not from walkers." I explain.
The girl's eyes scan the room. "Where...Where"
I cut her off. "We're in a house that I found, it's not as close to the other houses in the neighborhood. We're safe here." I give her an encouraging smile to relieve her fears.
She tilts her head and gives me a strange look. "I mean…Where's my mom?" She says in a softer voice.
I had assumed that her family was dead because I found her alone and weaponless. What else was I supposed to think? Maybe she doesn't remember what happened to her mother. It is possible with that head injury. "Your mom? I found you alone in the woods." I inform her.
"He told me to go back to the highway…but I...I got lost." Her voice trembles and her eyes are watery.
"Who told you?" I asks curiously.
"Carl's dad!" She notices that I am still confused. "Carl's my best friend…His dad ran after me when I was chased by walkers into the forest. He told me to stay near some place and that he'd come back when it was safe. He said to go back if he wasn't back soon...to the highway where everyone else is…Where my mom is!" She tells me as she sheds a few tears.
Was it the same highway that I had passed last week? The same one that was crowded by cars and walkers? If that was the case, she had been far away from the highway when I'd found her. "Was this highway blocked off by cars and walkers?" I question her to find out if my suspicions were true.
"Yeah, but we didn't see the walkers until it was too late. Carl's dad told us to hide underneath a car, but then one of them came close to me and I...I got scared and I ran away."
"Oh okay, 'cause I think I know the highway you're talking about. I got stuck in that jam of cars about four days ago. There were too many walkers for me to take on alone, especially with how few bullets I had, so I turn the car around and ditched it soon after 'cause I ran outta gas. But where I found you in the woods...I have to say, you were no where near that highway. You must have been running for a few days, right?" My heart goes out to this girl.
"Yeah, I think it was three days. I got lost though. I forgot if Carl's dad told me to keep the sun on my left shoulder or my right shoulder. I must have picked the wrong shoulder…" She shakes her head in embarrassment for mixing up her directions. "Can you take me to my mom please?" Her eyes are pleading.
"Of course, but you're not in any shape to move around just yet. I could probably go in the morning to look for her and bring her back here." I suggest.
Her face changes to one of worry. "Don't leave me alone. Please..." She shakes her head violently.
"You can't walk though. In fact, I don't think you'll be able for a day or two. If I take you out before you can walk on your own...What will we do if we come across walkers? We'd be in a hell of a lot of trouble if you can't run. So what else can I do other than go on my own to bring your mom here?" I hold her hand in mine to comfort her.
"Last time I was alone, I got lost and separated from everyone. What if a walker gets you? Please don't leave me alone. We can both go when I'm able to walk then." She begs me.
"Umm, okay." I agree after realizing that she is still traumatized by the whole ordeal. I feel her pain and so I agree to her plea even though I know that her group will only wait for so long at the highway. It's already been around a week. How much longer will they wait and search for this girl?
"Thank you...for helping me. I'm Sophia, by the way."
"I'm Robin, and...you don't have to thank me. I'd like to think that someone would have done the same for me if I was in your situation."
Three days later, we arrive at the highway. I park the car and get out of the vehicle. Sophia follows me out, and instantly her smile disappears from her face. There's no RV, motorcycle, or white car here that Sophia had told me about. She is trembling as tears roll down her little face. I lower my body to reach for a hug, but she runs ahead instead. I follow her to see why. On the windshield of an old car is a message addressed to her. 'Sophia, we will come back for you every morning. Stay here.'
"Where will we stay for tonight?" Sophia asks me as she stops crying. "Until Mom comes in the morning…"
"We can't stay here…" I shake my head as my eyes land on the lingering walker walking towards us. Sophia hides behind the open door of an empty car as I take the walker down.
"Where will we stay for tonight?" Sophia repeats herself.
"We could try a tree…" I suggest to which Sophia just responds with a shrug.
Eventually, we find a tree relatively close to the highway with a branch sturdy enough to hold both of us.
Sophia wakes me up at the crack of dawn. I doubt she even slept last night. We make our way to the highway and sit with our backs against the car with the sign. We wait for hours. Every ten to fifteen minutes, I have to put down a walker or sometimes two or three.
Sophia doesn't say anything and I don't either. We are both thinking the same thing. Her group has left already. They aren't going to return anymore. It has been over a week now and unfortunately they have had to move on. They probably presume that Sophia is dead.
Sophia finally speaks up when the sun starts to set. "I don't think they're coming back Robin. We can't stay here any longer. There are too many walkers here. We should just go to Fort Benning ourselves. Maybe we'll see them on the way there." Tears are falling from her eyes at a rapid pace. I throw my arms around her into a tight hug while she sobs into my chest.
If her group had left to Fort Benning, they had not taken this road. There was no way they could have driven their car and RV down this road with all the cars blocking it. Maybe they turned back and found a different route, although I didn't know an alternative route from here.
I think about Sophia's mom, Carol, and what Sophia told me about her. Her mom must be going crazy not knowing what happened to her daughter. More than anything, I want to reunite Sophia with her mother. I can't stand to see her cry anymore, and I can only imagine what shape her mother must be in now.
After Sophia stops crying, we make our way through to front of the block of cars. Sophia picks up a car key on the ground and we search until we find the car it belongs to. Luckily, this new car has close to a full tank of gas. We give each other high-fives before running back to our old car and gathering all our supplies to transfer to our this new vehicle.
Sophia is sitting in the passenger seat next to me, quiet as a mouse since we'd left, so when she finally speaks, I am a little surprised. "Robin, you haven't told me anything about your family. Did they…die?" She whispers 'die' as if it's a curse word.
I let out a deep breath before answering her question. "I don't know. I'm from Pennsylvania originally which is where my parents and my one of my brothers are…or were. I really don't know."
"You're far away from home, huh? Why are you in Georgia then?" She asks curiously.
"College student. A month shy of graduating from school in Atlanta. I wasn't planning on moving so far away for school, but when Braden, my oldest brother, moved to Atlanta for work, he told me to apply to school in the city, and I did. Couldn't say no to the scholarship either..." I chuckle lightly.
"Where's Braden now?" Sophia asks, even though I can tell she's already figured out the answer.
"At the time of the outbreak, they said that Atlanta was safe. The day before the napalmed the city, Braden comes home from work, freaking out because he saw a whole group of walkers attacking people. Braden made us leave the city a few hours later. We left before other people did and didn't get stuck in that traffic jam like everyone else did. Anyway, Braden and I ran into a couple in their late twenties that were smart enough to leave the city when we did. Together, we formed our own group. We were holed up in a small hotel complex for a while, but eventually we got overrun. Braden…he…he died saving us." I wipe away the tear running down my face. "The other two survivors, Lilly and Stan, didn't want to try for Fort Benning. They went east, towards the coast to Stan's childhood home. They begged me to go with them, but before dying Braden had made me promise to try for Fort Benning. His best friend is stationed there and he's the last person we had contacted. As far as I know, it's the only place that hasn't been overrun yet."
"I'm sorry about your brother. I lost someone too. My dad died two weeks ago." Sophia sighs and looks away.
"I'm so sorry about your dad, Sophia. It must be so hard to lose one parent and then get separated from the other."
"He wasn't a good man though. He used to hit my mom a lot. He was just as scary as the walkers sometimes..." She admits to me.
"Oh." That's all escapes my mouth. I didn't expect to hear that her father was abusive. "No one deserves to live in a household like that. Your mother" I am cut off by Sophia.
"At least he can't hurt her anymore," Sophia says with another sigh before leaning her head against the window of the car. She closes her eyes, signaling the end of this conversation.
We never made it to Fort Benning. On the way, we ran into a middle-aged man on the side of the road. He had been bit as he was trying to escape from a herd of walkers and insisted on giving us the rest of his supplies. Before he took his own life, he warned us that Fort Benning was a bust.
It was that day that Sophia and I realized that it was just going to be the two of us. We only had each other. We had no way of knowing where her group was. Had they gone all the way to Fort Benning, or did they change their plans?
That night I had a nightmare that Sophia was bitten by a walker and died. It scared me so much that I had woken up crying. That dream brought a whole new set of concerns to my attention. What if I got bit? What if I have to leave Sophia alone and she comes across a walker? How would she even protect herself? It turned out that Sophia had the same concerns when I talked to her about it a few days later. She asked me to teach her how to protect herself from the walkers and I agreed immediately.
I remembered the gun training lessons from my father years ago. He had been the police chief of our town and had taught me to defend myself at an early age. Those skills had turned out to be life-saving in this new walker-infested world. Growing up with two older brothers, both of whom were star athletes in high school, I was pressured to follow in their footsteps. I may have complained when I was younger, but by the time I reached high school, I recognized that my athleticism was a gift. Now, more than ever, I am grateful for growing up in a family that never let me get out of shape. Not only am I fast on my feet, I can run long distances without getting tired easily.
She was a terrible shot when she first started, almost more scared of the gun than of the walkers. It took time and patience, but she improved greatly. We only used the car when it was necessary in order to save gas. Since we were on our feet most of the time, Sophia got used to the walking and running around for long distances. When she was ready, I taught her how to take a walker down with a knife. It still made her a little nervous getting so close to them, so she didn't use a knife unless it was necessary. Most of the time, she just snuck around them, avoiding them totally. I know she was proud of the fact that she was better at avoiding being seen by walkers than I was, though it was largely due to her small size. For her thirteenth birthday present, she requested her own gun. Her wish was granted a few days later when we found one in the glove compartment of an abandoned SUV.
A few months after Sophia's birthday, we met two survivors, a father and son, Morgan and Duane. They had assumed that Sophia and I were sisters, but we never bothered to correct them. I guess by then we did see each other as sisters. At some point during the two weeks we spent with Morgan and Duane, Sophia and I began to refer to each other as sister. We don't even know who started it.
Apparently, Morgan and Duane were the same people who helped Carl's dad, Rick, after he escaped from the hospital. Morgan told us about a radio that Rick used to update him on where the group was going. Rick's last message had been around the same time that Sophia was separated from them. That was the day that Sophia and I lost all hope that her group may still be out there.
Even though it was months ago, I always kept the address of Stan's home that he and Lilly had given me before we went our own ways. It was a little over an hour's drive from Morgan and Duane's place. I hated taking Sophia away from Duane, who had quickly become her friend, but I was hoping to find the couple there.
It became obvious that Lilly and Stan never made it to Stan's parent's home as soon as we arrived. The house had been untouched for quite a while, even before the outbreak. There was a lake close by which we could fish from. I found a few generators in a town nearby that we used on occasion to preserve as much power as possible. Sophia and I were finally able to sleep at night without having to one eye open. Safety, it was a good feeling.
A few weeks later, Sophia and I took the trip back to Morgan and Duane's town hoping to convince them to return with us. There were a lot fewer walkers in our new home than there had been in Morgan and Duane's town. Stan's home was at the edge of a forest, secluded from the rest of the small town. No one would find it, unless they knew exactly where to look.
When we reunited with Morgan, I immediately knew something was wrong. He acted different, almost dangerous. I sent Sophia to wait in the car while I calmed Morgan down. He broke down and told me that Duane had been attacked by a walker a few days after we first left. It wasn't just any walker though; it was Duane's own mother.
Sophia and I left the same day, and we never returned. We both realized that Morgan was never going to leave that town, especially not after what happened to Duane.
It must have been about eight months since I'd rescued Sophia from the woods, when it happened. Sophia cried out my name in the middle of the night. When I found her, she was in the bathroom looking at me awkwardly. In her hand was a bloody underwear. It was her first period. I handed her a maxi pad and made a mental note to get more pads and tampons on out next supply run. Sophia seemed a little embarrassed and nervous about the situation, so I shared the story of my first period to lighten the mood. It seemed to work because I got her to laugh. I told her that I had been alone with my two older brothers because my parents were away for the weekend, and neither of them knew what to. Braden, the oldest, ended up calling his girlfriend to ask which pads to buy me.
It was that night that I realized just how much Sophia had changed since I'd rescued her that day in the woods. She'd gone through quite a growth spurt. She wasn't as skinny anymore and even started to wear a bra. Sophia let her hair grow out and always braided it to the side. For a thirteen year old girl, she was quite fit, which really wasn't surprising considering the life we were living.
The changes weren't just physical though. Mentally, she was a lot tougher. She didn't hesitate to shoot down walkers. She didn't cry as easily as she had when I first met her. If we ran into trouble on a supply run, she was able to keep calm while we came up with a plan of escape. The Sophia I'd first met was a child. Now, she may be thirteen, but she wasn't a teenager. No, she was an adult, hardened by the world we live in. If this new Sophia was lost in those woods off that highway, she would have found her way back within an hour or so. This new Sophia was a survivor. If her mom was to see her now, a year later, would she even recognize her own child?
I know that this doesn't exactly match up with the timeline of the tv show. I'm pretty sure that the group spent a longer time at the farm. But for the purpose of this story, let's say the stay at the farm was a lot shorter.
Leave a review to let me know if I should continue this story. I love the idea of Sophia becoming a badass, do you guys agree?