It was June 3rd, 2016, and a group of friends would soon become a group of survivors. They had just graduated from high school in small-town New Mexico and had decided to celebrate with a road trip across the United States. Driving the car was Robert Hutchins, a thoughtful young man who cared deeply for each of his friends. He was slender, brunet, and had stunning green eyes. He clacked at the steering wheel with his long nails to the beat of the thumping song.
Next to him in the passenger seat was his best friend, Lily King, who was a very smart, short girl who was quite a comedian. In the back seat sat two girls named LaRissa and Lyrik. LaRissa Masterson had high hopes for her future, planning to go into nursing at Texas Tech. Lyrik Bernthal was a black girl obsessed with music, pop culture, and being right.
The foursome was just coming from Dallas, Texas, after having spent the last few days there. They were just arriving in a small town in Georgia, headed for Atlanta, and were running low on gas. Robert pulled into the first convenience store they found, a quaint little blue and white building on a crowded block in the middle of the city.
"All right," he sighed calmly. "LaRissa, you stay here and pump, I'm gonna go in and get drinks. Do you guys want anything?"
"Um..." Lyrik started, "I'll just go in with you."
"Me too," Lily said.
"You know what I want," LaRissa told Robert. "Just coffee."
Robert nodded his head and they all exited the car. LaRissa readied the pump and went right to her phone, texting and playing Candy Crush.
Lily, Lyrik, and Robert entered the gas station and immediately split off. Robert went for the coffee, getting himself and LaRissa one. For himself, a caramel espresso. For LaRissa, a French vanilla frappe. Lily went to the fridges in the back to get a drink, and Lyrik went straight for the candy.
"No Faygo!" Lily moaned loudly from her aisle.
After the coffees were filled, Robert met Lily in the drinks section. "There's no Faygo," she said sadly.
Robert smiled at her, rolling his eyes. "I heard."
She smiled at herself and continued eying the shelves. "Should I get water or Sprite?" she asked.
"Well, whatever you do, don't get that," Robert said, pointing to an orange liquid with red and yellow chunks floating around in it, resembling bottled vomit.
"Ew," Lily scoffed. "I think I'll just get Sprite." Lyrik came around the shelves, her left arm incapacitated, filled with candy; Skittles and Nerds falling out from between her fingers. She bent over and grabbed a Dr. Pepper, encumbering the last free limb she had. Robert and Lily rolled their eyes fondly at her.
The three went for the counter to check out with their items. Lyrik dumped her armful of candy onto the counter in front of the cashier on shift. He was a middle-aged Latino with squinty brown eyes and lots of prison-style tattoos, but was pretty short for a guy his age. His name tag read "Javier, yo." Lyrik seemed attracted to him, judging by the way the two were eyeing and chatting each other up.
As he was ringing them up, a scrawny man with wild blonde hair and big green eyes burst through the doors and ducked into the closest aisle. The expression on his face was of pure horror. "Get down!" he yelled to them, to which the cashier and Robert lifted their brows. As the cashier was about to speak, presumably to ask the crazy man to leave, a shrill scream was heard outside. LaRissa had fallen, her leg tangled in the gas pump. Her phone was lying in front of her, the screen now completely shattered, and she was struggling to free her leg as a group of scary-looking people approached. Some were missing fingers, walking with a limp, or had huge, open gashes on their bodies with blood staining their clothes and skin. There must have been nearly twenty of them, and they were close to LaRissa.
"What the fuck are they doing?" Lily swore in confusion as Robert and Lyrik panicked and ran to the door to help LaRissa.
"No!" Screamed the man cowering in the aisle. Robert and Lyrik staggered in shock, and he jumped in front of the door, blocking the way of anyone trying to get in or out. "They're monsters. I heard someone call them walkers. They're like mutations of humans or something. Whatever they are, they're dangerous. I barely escaped them," he said as he pulled up his dirty sleeve, revealing a huge gash on his left arm. "One of them bit me. They aren't normal. They don't think or care in any way. They just want to eat. I should know. My girlfriend did this to me."
Everyone looked on in horror. Lily and Javier looked like they were about to puke. "You're going to die, aren't you?" Lyrik asked him.
"I don't know," he said, looking quite sad.
"What's your name?" Robert asked him.
"Jackson, but it doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you don't go outside. And that she doesn't get in. Sorry, but she's on her own now. If those things — those walkers — see us, we're dead!"
"We can't just leave her out there!" Lyrik said. Their attention was drawn back to the gas pumps as LaRissa had freed her leg and was nearly at the doors. She pushed on the handle and the doors opened slightly, but then Jackson threw his weight onto them. LaRissa peered in and saw the man then looked past him to her friends. She screamed, begging them to get him off and to let her in. Lily didn't budge, believing the strange man. She wasn't about to get herself killed. Robert thought that Jackson's words held some weight as well, but he and Lyrik did their best to get the man off the doors.
"No!" Jackson yelled, grabbing a display case full of lighters and flinging them at the two. "I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're doing! Would you rather one die, or all of us die?!"
"I'd prefer if none of us died," Robert said. He looked to the cashier, "Are you just going to stand there the whole time or are you going to do something?!" He looked to Lily, continuing. "Help us!"
The man behind the desk was nervous and was already at the back door. When the teenagers turned to him, he bolted out to the back alley and escaped. Lily watched, her weight shifting toward the door, but she knew she could not leave her friends like this. Bravely, she began trying to get Jackson off of the doors as well.
The walkers outside were getting dangerously close to LaRissa as she was putting all of her weight against the doors. She grew desperate, and began banging her fists against the windows of the door, hoping to knock out the glass and get in. The walkers were now close enough to reach out and touch her. Finally, teaming up together and using brute force, the three were able to get Jackson off the doors, and LaRissa fell to the ground as her weight swung the doors open.
While trying to get herself up, a walker fell on top of her, and she screamed in panic. She scrambled, trying to get to her feet, but the walker chomped down into her right leg, ripping right through her jeans and pulling out veins and muscle, viciously digging into her calf. Robert and Lyrik dragged her in while Lily and Jackson kicked at the walker on top of LaRissa, flinging it back into the crowd of walkers. Lily, Lyrik, and Jackson tried closing the door again, but the weight of about twenty undead corpses was too much to fight. Robert was on the ground attempting to help LaRissa, and told Lyrik to run and get supplies to help LaRissa while he did his best with what he had near him.
Hastily, she bolted off into the aisles, searching frantically for something to help LaRissa with. Lily and Jackson were struggling to keep the doors closed. The wild-looking man told Lily to hold onto the doors while he went to get something to put against them. Lyrik returned to Robert with bandages and alcohol. Robert did his best to use the bandages to stop the bleeding as LaRissa was hemorrhaging blood and was only faintly conscious. The doors suddenly burst open and Lily fell onto a knee, scraping it open, but quickly got up and screamed, "We have to go! Now!"
Jackson was dragging an ice cream fridge to the doors when Lily fell. He cursed under his breath and ran to LaRissa to help Lily and Lyrik get a good hold on her.
"Get her out of here," Jackson advised them as he released the unconscious teenager.
"Are you serious?!" Robert shouted in frustration, refusing to let him go.
"Yeah," Jackson curtly stated quickly before recklessly jumping into the crowd of walkers. The creatures began devouring him, and Lyrik and Lily could only watch in horror.
"Come on!" Robert yelled, and they stumbled out of the back doors, Robert running ahead to find help. They went down the alley in the opposite way that the walkers were coming from and made it to the door. They struggled to keep LaRissa up, and two walkers had followed them out of the backdoor by the time they were halfway down the alley. When they made it to the street, LaRissa fell, and the walkers were coming quickly.
A car was coming down the street and Robert and Lily ran to stand in front of it. It stopped and Robert approached the car quickly to make sure it did not drive back off. Lily went back to Lyrik to help LaRissa back up and out of the alley. About three walkers were beginning to appear from other sides of the streets.
Robert opened the back door to see that the back seat was filled with groceries and he pushed them to the floorboard.
"Hey!" said the old man driving. "What are you doing?!"
"My friend is hurt and we need help. If anything back here got damaged, I'll pay you back. Just take us to the hospital."
Robert ran back to help them carry LaRissa, and Lyrik got in first. The three cooperated to gently get LaRissa in next to Lyrik, and the bitten girl's torso fell limply onto Lyrik. Robert jumped into the passenger seat as Lily tried her best to get LaRissa further in so she could get in as well. They took off with walkers all around them, headed to the hospital.
"Thanks, sir," Robert said. "My name's Robert Hutchins. That's Lily," he gestured to them, "that's Lyrik, and my hurt friend there is LaRissa. What's your name?"
The man looked a bit nervous, unsure of what exactly what was going on. "H-Hershel," he stuttered out confusedly, "Hershel Greene." After an awkward pause, he continued. "Uh, if you don't mind me asking, what happened to your friend, there?"
"I'm not exactly sure," Robert stated. "A crazy man locked her out of this convenience store we were in, and those things back there, 'walkers' he called them, there were more of 'em. A lot of 'em. One fell on top of her, and bit into her leg. She nearly died of blood loss, but we kinda managed to get the bleeding to stop before the doors burst open and we had to bolt."
The car swerved around a corner, dodging a walker in the road. Just a few blocks farther and they were in front of the local hospital. There were people inside in police uniforms shooting at the ravaged people, which were everywhere. "Fuck!" exclaimed Lily as she angrily looked down to LaRissa. "What are we gonna do now?"
Robert furrowed his brows at the confusing scene, watching as people were shot repeatedly in the chest but still kept coming. "I don't fucking know," he said. "Is there somewhere else we can go?" He desperately asked the driver.
Already driving away from the gruesome scene, Hershel opened up to them. "I'm a veterinarian. We can go back to my farm outside of town and I can help your friend there."
"My friend isn't exactly a cat, sir…" Robert replied worriedly.
"You got much choice?" Hershel retorted
"Thank you so much," Lyrik said to him before anyone else could reply. "Really."
The old man nodded in return. "Just don't make me regret this," he said, looking seriously into the rearview mirror to them.
They made it to his farm about thirty minutes later and were met at the driveway by his son, Shawn, and two daughters, Maggie and Beth. Shawn asked what happened, and Hershel told him to help the teenagers get LaRissa inside. The young farmer picked up the stranger as Hershel rushed inside to prepare his medical supplies. Maggie and Beth were told to get the groceries from the car and to bring them inside.
When they entered, LaRissa was laid onto the couch, and Hershel's wife approached from the kitchen. "Honey, what's happening? Who are these people? We already have guests over, dear." In the kitchen was two fat men and an old blonde lady. One of the fat men resembled Maggie and had moderately long, deep black hair. The other one was wearing camouflage, with stubbly, balding hair. He was sat next to his aging blonde wife. They looked on in worry and confusion.
"Hello, Otis. Patricia. Arnold," Hershel said in a rush. They nodded, feigning smiles, still looking confused. "Annette, get me some peroxide and bandages," he said to his wife. She turned to the couple at the kitchen table, smiled politely, and excused herself to go upstairs. She came back down shortly afterwards and they both attempted to help LaRissa.
Half an hour later, having done the best they could for LaRissa, Annette and Hershel invited Robert, Lily, and Lyrik to join them for dinner. The three were all quite taken by Shawn, as he was very handsome and kind. Otis and Patricia left shortly after to their home in town. Hershel and Annette apologized for ruining their night, and they talked about the monsters that hurt LaRissa and apparently killed a man that Robert and his friends had met that day. Otis and Patricia thought the teenagers might be lying, but Hershel vouched for them, seeing the strange people himself. Annette suggested that they might just be sick people desperate for help.
After a few hours of waiting, LaRissa had remained unconscious, and Hershel decided they should move her to a bedroom. He invited the teenagers to stay the night with him and gave them rooms to sleep in. Robert got a room of his own, while Lyrik and Lily shared a room.
This is a huge story that I've already written a LOT of (all the way up to chapter 18 as of posting this), so this story isn't going ANYWHERE! I'll be posting chapters twice per day until I catch up to another site I'm posting this to, so chapter 14 should be up by November 3rd! From then, expect a chapter every other day. Definitely need you guys to rate and review, as you always should with stories! Any and all feedback is welcome. Make suggestions, complain, compliment, correct me, do whatever!