Walking Dead is my new obsession. Other stories not abandoned, by sat down and wrote this out because it would not leave me alone. Please enjoy.
What Brought Us Together
Faith was a feeble thing within their tiny dysfunctional group, but miraculously it still existed. That did not mean it had survived the entire way. Faith had nearly died the day when the world went to shit, when corpses began to walk the earth and every lunatic with 'The End is Nigh' sign clutched in their dirty, coke encrusted fingers were proven too fucking right.
But despite the chaos, the panicked confusion and the swift and brutal descent into madness, there were still allusions of safety. The media assured them that the government was handling the situation, to simply stay inside, bar the doors and wait for further broadcasts. So they barred the doors and they waited.
At first the reports claimed it was angry protestors, mass riots, civil unrest. Then it was a disease, a vicious and aggressive virus, an epidemic escalating at a record breaking pace more devastating than Small Pox or the Bubonic Plague. Quarantine zones began popping up on the map, spreading out like pools of blood as each day went by. That was faith, bleeding out, the red covering whole neighborhoods until half the city was no longer safe. And then the blockades stopped accepting people, and the military, their protectors, began blindly shooting everything that moved, regardless of infection. There were no further broadcasts after that.
That's when they got their shit and ran.
Everyone else had the same idea. There must have been thousands of cars on the road out of the city, all heading towards the same direction. Away. As far and as fast as they could, but with every urging of faster, farther, escape! the cars began to slow till they were no longer moving at all. Lined up, bumper to bumper, the max exodus halted for miles like a clogged artery, cardiac arrest imminent.
It wasn't until they heard the jet fighters screaming overhead on that deadlocked highway, and watched Atlanta burn in the distance that faith took its last, agonized breath, shriveled up and died.
That was when everything had ended, and a whole other world began.
Perhaps it was luck, perhaps it was the right circumstances, or perhaps it was a product of clawing desperation for leadership that their particular group of people that just happened to be stranded on the same stretch of road banded together.
It was a ragtag group from all walks of life, strangers clumped together by fear, but they clung to each other because they realized there would be no rescue. They had to help themselves and each other now. Together they left that death trap of a highway and escaped into the woods.
Surprisingly, it was Merle and Daryl who suggested the abandoned quarry, since they were the only ones to have ever stepped in the forest before all of this insanity.
It took time, it was an uneasy grudging thing for some, but slowly they all learned to work with each other. They became something like a community, striving for normalcy in their fumbling and handicapped way. They had to build order from the ground up, like the first pioneers in the new world of the walking dead.
Shane, with his police badge and holstered guns, didn't so much volunteer for the title of leader as he was elected, since the only other option was Merle and no one wanted Merle in charge. But despite the ultimate living, breathing definition of a racist, inbred, hillbilly red-neck that Merle was, he at least knew how to survive, him and his quiet but equally intimidating brother Daryl. When the hastily grabbed can food began to run thin, it was the Dixon brothers who provided for the group. They had brought along the most guns after all.
Almost typically, the males became the protectors and providers, and the females took care of the rest, grudgingly reversing the women's rights movement out of necessity. Many things came from necessity, like establishing a 24 hour watch and maintaining a perimeter, setting curfews and performing head counts, counting bullets, rationing out food and supplies, and eventually, heading out for supply runs when things became low.
Glenn proved himself an integral part of the group when they came upon the question of who should go, volunteering himself for the role when no one spoke up. He was fast and quiet, and knew the city roads better than any of them. He provided the things so inconspicuous in the old world but was now vital in the new one. Funny how people took so many things for granted.
Medicine, pain killers, bandages, anti-bacterial ointments, vitamins, batteries, needles and thread, , bullets, kitchen knives, forks and spoons, socks and underwear. Who would think to bring an extra pair of underwear when the world ended?
After his first successful run, he became the group's go-to man, and his every return was celebrated like Christmas. He was the Korean Santa, giving out precious candy to the kids, chocolates and soap for the women, packs of smokes for Merle, and even a case of beer for the guys when he thought he could risk it.
There were still hiccups along the way, butting heads and flared tempers, disdainful obedience and mulish stubbornness. The horrors were still there, the sense of danger never receding, their many losses too fresh to even share with each other, but they functioned as best as they could in the only way they knew how.
But despite it all, as they survived and worked together, as the children began to play, and smiles began to return to their faces, faith sprouted out of the ashes, and built tender, tentative bonds between them.
So when sheriff Rick Grimes, long thought dead husband of Lori, father of Carl, best friend of Shane appeared with all the fuck ups and tragedies that came with him, they did not, could not reject him. His very existence was a miracle, beating all the unfair odds the new world had set against him, finding them when it should have been impossible, wandering around on blind faith and determination that he would be reunited with his family. It was like he was untouched, like he was dropped in this world out of a fairy tale, because he didn't see the everything fall apart like they had. He still had the lingering vestiges of humanity clinging to him, all the morality and sense of right and wrong clear in his head, the lines unblurred by horror. He was a phenomenon that reminded all of them of the good things of the old world.
But as if to over compensate for the sheriff's serendipity, things had gone to shit again in a whirlwind so fast that it was almost more devastating than the first time the world had ended.
Because the place they had built together was no longer safe, and there was a dawning realization that perhaps nowhere they could ever go would be safe. They lost people, good people, and it was like blunt fingers had torn into just stitched wounds, tearing it wide and bloody and gaping before packing the exposed muscle and ruined flesh with ground glass and salt.
But at least, this time, they could bury their dead.
Perhaps it was renewed fear, renewed ruin and loss, which made them listen to Rick when he fervently insisted on the CDC as their last chance. Of course they didn't believe him, he had regained his son and his wife, while they had lost more than he could imagine. But perhaps it was the glimmering tendril of faith, strengthened between them when everything else was exhausted, that made most of them consent.
True some did choose to leave and go their own way, but the rest stayed, clinging to each other because in the end that was all they had. That and Rick's unwavering hope, naïve as it may be.
They followed him despite it all, when they were forced to watch a man deteriorate, and say goodbye as they left him behind, when food ran out and the gas meter tapped the dangerously close to the bone white E, they followed him.
And when they stood at the closed doors of the CDC, geeks closing in as Rick screamed desolation at the camera, begging for salvation, faith nearly died then.
But like an answer to a prayer, it opened.
As always, please tell me what you liked, what you don't like, and what I can impove.