Disclaimer: I've decided to admit this, to everyone, right on this site. I do not own the Walking Dead.

There. It's out there and there's no taking it back.

Yeah, you're fucked all right and all for spite

You can kiss your sorry ass goodbye

Totally fucked, will they mess you up?

Well, you know they're gonna try

Spring Awakening, Track 15 – Totally Fucked

Jess was currently trying to figure out how long it had been. She stepped over a large root, putting a hand on the tree trunk to steady herself.

Two weeks ago, she had finally decided to leave Atlanta. Three weeks before that, she had entered Atlanta, searching for safety. And a week before that, she had been in her car driving to a job interview when everything finally went to hell.

So counting today, that would make it… a month, one week, and five days since the zombie apocalypse started.

Jess couldn't understand why she, of all the important people in the world, had survived. Toward the end, there had even been reports of the president being infected. Of course, no one had been sure of anything, but she would bet her last granola bar that their great leader of the United States had become a lumbering, drooling zombie.

Of course, that posed the question, if the president, with all his body guards and safe houses, couldn't survive the zombie apocalypse, how could she?

She'd asked herself that question every day for the last six weeks.

After, like always, summing up no logical conclusion, she began a list of her pros and cons.

Pro: she knew her way around gardening and plants.

Con: she had no idea how to hunt.

Pro: she had hiked nearly all her life and had become accustomed to trekking long distances.

Con: she couldn't fight very well, not that zombies were interested in hand to hand combat.

Pro: she was quiet and was learning how to throw knives pretty decently.

Con: she knew absolutely, positively nothing about guns.

That last bit bothered her, more than she would like to admit. She had been born and raised in Georgia; she should just know how to wield a weapon. Her father, god rest his soul, had forbidden guns. Her mother had felt the exact same way. By the time she had moved out, it had been ingrained in her to stay away from such weapons. Even if she found a gun, it wouldn't be of any use to her. She didn't have the simplest idea of how to handle it.

In fact, her parents had banned violence of any kind. Which only added to the puzzling question of: how hadn't she died yet?

As if the world decided to back up her thoughts, she spotted a zombie, or a grabber as she preferred calling them, bumbling toward her. And not just any grabber, no, this one was gigantic. It had broad shoulders, a protruding gut, and thick legs. Jess could tell he must have been a very large, perhaps overweight, man at one point, but now he was just one of the things that wanted to eat her. Besides being wide, he stood tall and just barely missed running into low hanging branches. His large size didn't seem to hinder his movement at all and as soon as he caught sight of her he was lumbering forward with lopsided, but quick, steps.

She fumbled for her knife, the handle sticking out of her belt for easy access. Somehow, that easy access turned into difficult grasping as the edge of the knife became stuck on the leather of her belt. She silently cursed, mentally screaming at herself to yank her weapon out. She attempted to keep her eyes on the bloodthirsty monster, but they kept straying down to her uncooperative weapon. She was so hung up on dying. Well, maybe the world had decided to right its wrong by finally ending her.

She stumbled back a few steps, her eyes flicking from her belt to the grabber.

Just as the man came within a foot of her, the knife finally jerked loose and escaped the confines of her belt. She felt a small flash of relief.

That relief vanished as she looked back up to see the zombie lunging toward her.

She knew better than to scream, but she couldn't help the helpless squeak that came out as she was knocked back onto the dirt. Grubby hands grabbed at her shoulders, staining her loose tank top straps and causing decayed flesh to rub off onto her bare skin. His whole body covered hers, and if anyone was watching, they wouldn't even be able to spot her underneath his gigantic build. She tried to move her legs, kicking them as if she was a child having a tantrum, but she could barely feel them under the enormous grabber's weight. Her breath came out in one large gasp as the monster's full body mass crushed her chest and compressed her into the dirt.

Jess received a good view of his face. Flesh was peeling off at the cheekbones and chin. His eyes were a sick, dead yellow that only recognized her as meat. His lips had nearly disintegrated away, nothing but jaw bone and teeth left. Various hiss and growls met her ears, slipping out of his rotted and blackened teeth.

Those teeth made her cower even further back into the ground. Her arm holding the knife struggled to wiggle out from under his body. It was pinned directly underneath the side of his large stomach.

As she twisted and thrashed and wriggled around, dodging the grabber's teeth and trying to free her arm, her eyes landed on a rock.

Though the limb she truly need, the one gripping the knife, was trapped beneath this behemoth, her other was only partially stuck. The edge of her left hand was just barely confined. She rocked her whole body to the right, forcing the grabber to shift most its weight along with her.

Realistically, she knew it had only been a few seconds, but everything slowed down. It felt as if she was processing everything slower than she should be; her mind not in sync with the surroundings. Yet she knew if it had actually been minutes, she would have been bitten by now.

Her left hand slipped out, automatically scrambling to grasp the rock.

The first blow did nothing. The grabber continued snapping at her flesh, straining to get a bite of her human body. The second hit stunned it momentarily, but made it practically roar and snarl with desperation. As if sensing that it may not get its dinner, it began to attack more vehemently.

Jess brought her arm up high, straining it. Against her better judgment, she closed her eyes. With with a deep, constricted breath, she rammed her hand down as hard as could on the back of the grabber's head.

Either everything went absolutely silent in the woods or she blacked out momentarily. Time seemed to stretch on for a long period as her gasps stopped, the zombie's grunts ceased, and the birds ended their songs.

When she finally opened her eyes, thirty-two decaying, discolored teeth were the only thing in her eyesight. Luckily, they no longer snapped at her in hungry desperation.

A whole other battle ensued as she struggled to push the large monster off her. He had to weigh more than two hundred pounds-way more. She pushed him away, her attempts feeble against his heavy bulk. Her whole torso twisted as she tried to escape and her back popped as she tried.

It took agonizing pushing and shoving, which she knew would leave her body sore and unreliable, but she finally managed to shove the grabber off of her.

Jess laid on the ground a few moments, letting her adrenaline and fear drop back down to normal levels. Her chest wheezed, trying to suck in the air she had been denied. She was sure her chest, and her breasts, were going to be bruised. Her legs and arms were practically jelly and they didn't want to cooperate after so much exertion.

"Okay," she sighed to herself, finally pushing herself into a sitting position, every muscle shaking. Another deep, gasping breath. "Time to get up."

After a few wobbly steps, everything began working normally again. The knife hung limply from her fingers, her hold just barely tight enough to keep it from falling. She placed it back in her belt, knowing she would need to find a better place to stow it. Her backpack slipped from her body and onto the ground carelessly. She was sure the contents were crushed anyway. She exhaled a long breath, unsure of how, once again, she managed to cheat death.

Jess didn't know why, but for some reason, she kept surviving. She had known people back in the normal world-survivors-willing to do anything and everything to live. She had never considered herself one of those people. She still didn't. She didn't have any skills, anything special about her. She didn't have an unstoppable will to live. Yet somehow, she managed to escape, if only barely, death.

A feeling of gratefulness welled up inside her, momentarily interrupting her internal questioning. She didn't need to know why she was alive, just that she was.

Her hand came up to her shoulder, preparing to assess the damage of her top where the grabber had yanked on the straps. She only had so many clothes left to spare. Her fingers traced along the edge and she sighed, closing her eyes and distancing herself from the recent dance with death. She savored the feeling of her warm, alive flesh. Knowing it wasn't dead, unfeeling flesh. Knowing she still had time left to live.

She yelped, a slight stinging on her left shoulder causing her to wrench her hand away fast. Her eyes opened abruptly. They snapped to her fingers. She swallowed and her breathing stopped. The blood on her fingers had a bright crimson color, so different from the undead grabber's black, stagnant ooze. Her gaze hesitantly found the place her fingers had touched.

Underneath the strap, just barely at the tip of her shirt, a deep scratch stretched the short distance from her shoulder to the edge of her top. She didn't move; didn't breathe.

Jess slowly fingered the cut again, ignoring the hot, stinging sensation of pain. The pads of her fingers again came away smeared with blood.

She flicked her eyes from the scratch to her fingers slowly, and then finally, to the large zombie. The zombie whose left hand, if she squinted, had a spot of bright red on its fingers. She stepped back, shaking her head. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, thinking she might have become delusional.

No, the blood, the scratch, the infection, was still there. Was still real.

And here she had been, going on and on about her uncanny gift for surviving. Her ability to endure grueling, deadly situations and somehow come out on top. In the back of her mind she had been thinking she was simply blessed, when the truth was entirely different.

She was completely and totally fucked.

A/N: Now, do you really think I would kill her within the first few chapters?

YES, YES I WOULD.

However, that's probably not the case. So I encourage you to stay tuned for the next chapter, whatever happens! Love anyone who took the time to read!