The Walking Dead FF

Chapter 1

3 years after the outbreak.

"This motorway's fairly quiet; we should take it and head to Augusta for more supplies." I said.
"I thought we were heading back to Atlanta, where everyone else is?" Carl questions and takes a look around.
"Look, listen," I skid both my hands up my hair, collecting sweat and eventually put my hands behind my head in frustration. "W-we can't go back there, it's too dangerous and there's nothing back there anymore."
"What about Daryl, Glenn, what about them?"
"They're….not," I try to change the subject and lighten up the mood, but it's proving difficult, especially what happened back in Atlanta.
But I—But you said— ... wait, what?" stammered Carl.
"I'll tell you later, now's not the time." I slouched against the car, waiting for my son to take in the reality. He lingers around and then makes his way to the car. He opens the door of the red, dusty Volvo. I stop him from getting inside. "Too many cars around, we won't be able to make the city by car, we'll have to walk. We can also forage some supplies from these cars."

Carl and I walked passed many cars and almost all of them had junk of no use to us, except finding some more ammo and 4 cans of spam. "A nice bowl of spam this evening, would that do for a couple of days?" I implied as I hand the spam to Carl to put in his backpack, almost forcing him that we are going to eat this for the next few days.
"Sure," Carl sulked. "About what happened between you and Carol, I hope that wasn't because I told the truth."
"It wasn't anything to do with Carol teaching the kids how to fight."
"What was it then?"
"I thought she was the one that killed Karen and David, in fact, she admitted it. She wanted to get rid of the disease and make the prison a better place, but it in turn grew chaos and havoc around the prison."
"Oh…" Carl stood back in disbelief. I knelt down and hugged him tightly. I'm going to make a promise. I will never ever let anything happen to Carl, never. I've lost him too many times, and he's the only one I have left. I felt like such a bad father, in those times when we had to struggle through pain because it was my fault, my fault…When Lori died, then Judith. Tears shed from my eyes and created a view of blur. I wiped the tears with my sleeves, trying to hide my emotions from my son, as if I was afraid of showing him. I finally let go gently, realising that Carl was also emotionally touched and looked like he was going to cry. We kept on walking, looking out for walkers and supplies, as both of them would affect us.

I viewed the perimeter from where I was crouching. Huge industrial offices towered the city, leaving immense shadows as the sun started to approach mid-point. The motorway surrounded by trees on both sides was packed full of broken and abandoned cars. Brown, muddy leaves flew across the streets like feathers and only the sound of the resilient wind could be heard. It was almost too quiet for my liking; it felt like we were being carefully ambushed. "Keep a sharp lookout, I don't feel safe here." I murmured. Carl nodded and lifted his hand above his eyes to block the sun.
"Well, I don't see anything too sketchy." Carl looked back at me.
"I know, that's why we might be being ambushed." Then we heard a hoarse groan, a groan that was certainly to be coming from a walker. "Psst," I whispered. "Ten o'clock."
"Gotchya," Carl responded. He crawled past the fence, trying to be as silent as possible. Creeping across the car, he takes a quick glance at me. I nodded and tailed him, while keeping a lookout. I stopped by the car, while Carl rested behind the truck. I show him some hand signals, proposing that he knows them because he gave a serious look. I swiftly passed him a shell just in case but, he unexpected to catch that. Carl fumbled it and the shell dropped making a loud 'clang' noise. Right at that moment, everything seemed to slow down. My mind was becoming fuzzy, and it was hard to collect what was happening. I tried to get out of this confusion I was having, but all hope was lost. I look at Carl, a blurry face moving in front of me. Carl began to worry and then slapped me on the face. "Dad…Dad?" Carl said worryingly. Then I snapped out, realised that it was too late to do this quietly and deviously. I stood up, the walker only being a couple of meters away, wearing darkened torn clothes and a huge gash from its neck had blood oozing out. I pulled out my knife wrapped in fabric, as I haven't had to use it for a while and I sprinted to the walker and stabbed it ferociously in the head. Its groan had stopped, it was now fully dead.

I wiped the dark blood with the fabric and put it back into my adaptable holster. "You all right?" questioned Carl as he came closer to me. "Yeah… just a little off the whole fighting thing." I explained and it was true. Being in the prison for quite a long while made me lose my skills, we did go hunting once or twice, but we hadn't since Carol left. It seemed as if Carol was the person keeping us intact: always cleaning up wounds, cooking, caring. I keep doubting myself whether I did the right decision. It's been up to me, to make all the decisions, yet it keeps bothering me.

"Hey dad, I'm not sure we should stay here any longer…" Carl stammered and gave me a petrified face.