Chapter One: Eyes Open

Rick stumbled through the woods. He'd received a blow to his head, so he was a having a little trouble seeing things straight. Maybe he'd been having trouble even before then. Shane and Lori. How the hell had he not seen that? How had he not expected it?

He'd awoken from his coma six months ago, fought creatures out of nickel fiction for the bare hope he would find someone, anyone alive, then had done the impossible and found his family alive. His wife, his son, his best friend who'd been like a brother to him through High School and their time on the force together.

He'd not even been suspicious. Shane and Lori had always been close, and Rick and Lori had been fighting a lot more right before he got shot and went into a coma. There was bound to be some awkwardness.

Then Shane had attacked him. He'd been stealing a kiss with his own wife and Shane and come up behind him and hit him with enough force to kill Rick if his head hadn't been so hard.

Rick blinked blood out of his eye and leaned his long body against a tree. "Sonofa Bitch," he murmured, trying to shake the dizziness. The groan of a walker sent a shot of adrenaline through his system. He grabbed the only weapon left to him, a dead branch of the ailing oak that supported him. "Sonofabitch left me for dead!" he snarled as he smushed the soft skull of the walking, rotting corpse.

He pushed himself away from the tree and stalked back in the direction of the camp. His thoughts focused enough to keep him upright. The sharp sting of betrayal pumped venom into his blood. "My brother and my wife?" The words bubbled in his gut and conjured up images of even before the fucking dead started walking and ruining the world.

Lori had been getting distant for a long time, picking fights for no reason, looking at him like didn't quite measure up to something, or someone. And he'd been lying in a coma in the hospital when all hell broke loose. Shane had gotten Lori and Carl out. For that Rick was grateful, but the bastard had also left him for dead in a hospital packed full of zombies.

"That's twice you sonofa bitch. Fucking twice!"

He picked up speed, his boot heels crunching in the fallen leaves and fragile twigs, his heart racing with one he was gonna do when he saw Shane's face again. He'd killed before; only men who had guns trained on him and zombies, but he felt like he could do it just for the pleasure of it if it were Shane. The field near where they made camp was coming into view and Rick bore his stick like it was a club.

"I can forgive a lot of things, but not this Shane. Not this."

He hurried through the last barrier of trees and it was minutes before his adrenaline clouded brain slowed down enough to allow him to see what was wrong with the scene. The area where they usually kept the RV and tents was clear but for a few hurriedly left behind supplies and the torn bodies of zombies.

Rick felt his knees try to give out as he staggered through the piles of bodies, pushing some to the side. "Lori! Carrrl!" He cried, not caring if he brought some of the walking dead down on himself. He had just found them. At least if he lost them to Shane they would still be alive, but if he lost them to the fucking zombies…

"Lori!" He rushed over to a dark haired body, pushing away the arm of another corpse until he could see the face. A gusty sigh left his body when he saw that it wasn't her. "Carl?" He whimpered, scrabbling over and through the rest of the bodies. "Carl?"

He couldn't forgive himself if something happened to his son. "Carl?"

He'd reached the edge of the campgrounds and found nothing resembling his son and breathed a sigh of relief. They were alive. They had to be. Shane might be a son of a bitch, but he knew that he wouldn't let anything happen to Lori or Carl. He pressed his palms into his eyes and tried to press the tears back into their ducts, but they streamed down his face despite his best intentions.

"How could you take them away from me again? They're all I have."

Rick looked up at the darkening sky and pulled his sheriff's belt tight around his waist. He wiped the snot from his nose and blinked at the waste left around him, seeing what he could use, what would be useful. A canteen. A knife. A few scraps of cloth. A pack.

He gathered what he could and squinted his eyes at the ground, torn up where the wheels of the RV had peeled away the grass. He'd found them once. He would find them again.