Chapter One - Just The Beginning
I wasn't heading in any particular direction when I first met her. I was drifting along with two walkers pulled along behind me by shackles and chains. They had once been my boyfriend Mike and his best friend Terry. I had cut off their arms and jaws to prevent them from attacking me. Their only purpose now was to avoid attracting the attention of any other walkers.
This was my existence before I met her. I drifted along almost believing in my own head that I was the only person left alive. It was easier that way. I didn't have to think about what meeting another person might mean. That attachment . . . I hadn't felt it since Mike and I didn't want to ever again.
Loss was too painful to bear especially in this new hell on earth. We were all in hell now.
Then.. as I walked aimlessly through the woods I heard the gunshots. They weren't rapid; the barks and booms echoing between the trees were punctuated by ominous periods of silence. There was only one shooter.
As far as I knew, walkers couldn't fire guns. Then again they weren't supposed to be walking either. With bated breath I tugged Mike and Terry in this new direction. I had a destination now. I had a goal.
There was a human being over there.
Within minutes I had drawn close enough that the gunshots were louder now. I could see shapes through the trees now, most of them clearly the slow trance-like walkers.
One was moving only slightly quicker than fresh walker speed, stumbling as if exhausted. I quickened my pace dragging Mike and Terry firmly.
As I emerged into a small clearing I saw the young woman fall and tumble into the dense leaves with a walker hot on her heels. She scrabbled backwards on her hands, unarmed and defenseless now. She was screaming in panic, trying to keep the walker at distance with feeble kicks as it grabbed at her legs with blind hunger.
I had seen enough.
I drew my katana and sliced the walker's head from its shoulders with a single well-oiled motion. I had lost count of how many times I had performed that motion in the past several months.
Shaking the foul infected blood from my katana's blade, I stepped cautiously towards the young woman on the ground to take a closer look at her. I was looking for bite wounds. If I saw any I wouldn't hesitate to give her the walker treatment. It would almost be a relief.
She sat up chest heaving with loud deep gasps of breath, staring at my hooded face with unconcealed shock. She looked like she had seen a ghost and maybe she had.
Maybe she had. I had been dead before I met her. I knew that much even if I couldn't admit it to myself.
I ran my eyes over her, my gaze at first harsh and critical and then softening as I realized she was unarmed and terrified. She was panting and sweaty and covered with several different shades of blood and gore and yet... she was beautiful.
Beautiful?
The woman seemed to snap out of her trance, scrambling to her feet and looking around frantically for walkers. I could hear them - smell them - all around us. These were probably the front-walkers of a herd that was hot on this woman's heels. She had every reason to be afraid.
Her eyes snapped back to stare at me as I slid the katana back into its sheath. I slowly, carefully pulled back my hood and met her gaze. I could feel her eyes studying me and for the first time in a long time I felt . . . uncomfortable, unconfident.
I didn't like it.
"Who are you?" she whispered hoarsely, taking an uncertain step back.
I didn't answer. I was at a loss for words. The silence stretched on for what seemed like an eternity but could have only been seconds before she spoke again.
"What are you doing with those?" she asked, the fear creeping out of her voice a little bit and turning to wary hate as she pointed at Mike and Terry.
This had gone on long enough. I turned away without a word and got Mike and Terry moving with a firm yank on their tether. I got only a few paces further into the woods before I heard her footsteps crackling through the leaves after me at a run.
"Aren't you listening?" she called out.
I whipped around, the katana sweeping around and extended to tickle her nose under her shocked eyes before she could even blink.
"What the hell do you want?!" the woman shouted in my face, her eyes blazing into mine now. "Have you lost your mind?!"
I dropped my gaze from hers for a split second. Those words had struck home, to a fear that had been eating away inside of me since I had mutilated Mike and Terry. Since I had become a survivor.
"There are hundreds of walkers coming this way right now! We need to work together!" the woman was shouting now, her hands high in the air but her eyes wide with urgent anger. "Haven't you ever trusted anybody?"
I lowered the katana an inch and then another and finally withdrew it into its sheath.
"I haven't given it much thought," I answered finally.
A bossy smile I would grow to know so well started to form on the woman's full lips.
"You had better start figuring it out," she told me.