Ridin' On The Mason/Dixon Line
Part 1
Cassia Mason winced as the dry rotted wooden door gave way with a crack. She had finally stumbled upon something resembling a town, after days of wandering through the Georgian forest without any concept of direction. It had been nearly a week since she'd seen someone that wasn't a walker and wasn't doing as well on her own as she'd hoped. Frankly, she found it to be a miracle that she had even made it this far by herself.
'There will be plenty of time to contemplate my surprising ability to survive after I've found some food' she thought while gripping her machete and flashlight tighter. After mustering up her courage for a moment more, she gave one final shove and the front door to the quaint towns' grocery store crashed into a postcard stand. After giving the store a quick sweep with her flashlight she holstered her machete and made her way past the vintage register and into the first set of aisles as quietly as she could.
The town must have been affected fairly early on because not only were most of the shelves at least half stocked, but the town didn't even seem to be overrun with many walkers. She had taken out a small group when arriving but other than that had gotten fairly lucky and hadn't seen any others since beginning her search.
It had been a solid 3 days or more since she'd had a decent meal that consisted of more than a couple of berries or the occasional rouge mushroom and she was beginning to feel the fatigue. Even when she did find something growing that appeared edible, she was weary to eat the foliage she found for fear of misjudging whether her findings were poisonous or not. Cassia knew that if she didn't find a serious source of protein soon she would be in some serious trouble when it came to defending herself against walkers.
She didn't want to admit it but she gave herself maybe 3 more days till shed be too weak to fight. If she was being honest even that was pushing it. Unintentionally her mind wandered to thoughts of fast food joints and home cooked feasts and her stomach gave an unstoppable growl of protest as she started to make her way through the aisles filled with crushed food products, debris, and overturned displays.
Her hunger and urgency had made her more reckless than usual. She wanted to be careful but she was just so hungry. As she was rummaging through the canned goods looking for anything that wasn't completely destroyed, or inedible looking, she almost didn't hear the labored shuffling coming up behind her. With barely a pause for thought, her instincts kicked in and she simultaneously spun and drew her machete from the leather holster strapped across her back.
Apparently the town wasn't quite as abandoned as she'd thought. Whether it was her smell or the crash of the door when she broke in, she had attracted at least a half dozen walkers into the building with another dozen or more making their way down the street. She couldn't worry about numbers right now though. A particularly grotesque pairing of biters were maybe 5 paces away and getting far too close for her liking. She let instinct take over and tried not to think about the rancid blood and bits of once human matter dousing her as she slashed, cut and hacked at anything moving within reach.
In the midst of the carnage she thought she heard the rumble of an engine and the sound of a car door but wrote it off as wishful thinking. No one came to save you these days. Best case scenario, people ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction. In the worst they tried to kill you or do unmentionable things. Survival of the fittest and all that jazz. She tried not to think about the odds of her own survival predicament and just kept swinging. She didn't know how long shed been fighting them but she could feel her stamina waning. If she wasn't making it out of here alive, she was at least going to take as many of these nasty fuckers down with her as she could.
All of the sudden Cassia heard the sound of a window break and let out a half muffled scream as she felt an intense pain slice through the meat of her left thigh. Cassia had been mid swing and her aim faltered as the pain grew more intense. She managed to recover her swing in time and caught the closest biter in the side of the temple. As the edges of her vision began to darken, she brained the next walker she was dealing with before her legs gave out and she crumbled to the floor.
With black spots beginning to cloud her vision she finally chanced a glance at her leg preparing to see the damning jagged, torn flesh of a walker bite. Instead she saw the shaft and feathers of what appeared to be an arrow, with a slow but steady stream of blood pouring from the entry point of the wound. The shock of seeing a projectile protruding out of her leg was too much for her. The last thing she registered before blacking out was being sprayed with gore as the head of walker that was about to claw into her was split like butter by the blade of a sword.