=Chapter One=
I'm not a kind woman. Despite appearances, I'm a bitch. My Ma knew that from day one and my Daddy figured it out soon enough. My brothers had to face a few tantrums in the beginning but they knew which buttons to avoid by the end of it.
I am a bitchy person. Not the whine and complain all day kind, rather I'm the hardass that'll slap you upside the head when I thought you were being stupid. Which is too often in my folks' eyes and not enough in mine.
So despite me being an evil bitch, I still ended with this... ludicrous job.
A Nanny.
...
How the hell did I get here.
Wait, no, I know. Because of one of our whiny ass pussy moms down the street. Lady had five kids running around and a set of twins in the oven. Margret 'loved' her kids but the damn woman never watched them. Just acted like she did whenever her husband was in town.
Man, oh man, oh man could that woman bitch. Acted like it was more important than breathing every time she would waltz over from her farm to ours. Complaining up a storm and nagging at the little ones while she was at it.
My Ma had more patience that God Himself after an asshole like me was born. Could handle any spontaneous rants and tantrum like she was going for the world cup. Ma hated nagging though.
Fucking hated with more passion than a golddigger towards a stuffed wallet.
Probably siiiix? months into Margret's latest pregnancy did Ma snap. Volunteered my ass to watch her kids for Margy. Said some bullshit speel about me liking kids and knowing how to handle them. Margret of course demanded my services from that very day on and decided to tell eeeverybody in our small colony of farmers that I was The Nanny.
Not "a Nanny" but "The-goddamn-Nanny". Swore by my name more than Bible during her saleswoman pitch. Threw my bitchy self underneath the bus thinking it was a swimming pool the damn ditz.
Of course me actually liking children and knowing how to handle them legitimately did. Not. Help. At fuckin' all.
By twenty I had my own little business going and my own couple acres of pasture and a house big enough for thirty and going. Whole town pitched into building it after I saved some of my kids from some wanna-be-country city asshats that didn't clear the field before starting up a shooting range over by old Ben's farm. Saved his granddaughter that day by taking a bullet to the thigh.
Hurt like a mother fucker but since then the whole town thought I was a goddamn child guru. Or some kind of humanised gaurdian angle if you listen to the pastor.
As much as I complain, my twenties and early thirties really were the golden days. I practically raised all the kids in town and when they had grown up it showed. They didn't bitch like I did but they were smart, knew how to end an argument with words rather than fists by watching me talk down our more shady folk in our 'ville. Nasty and uncouth when they got all fired up but they rarely raised their fists.
They were good kids and in the thirteen years I raised them they became good men and woman.
I'm a hardass but I'm proud of each and everyone of them. They knew it too. Jen, Maxwell, Sam and Sammy, my own brothers Peter and Ash, they were good kids and good adults. Good, upstanding, and talented people.
It's what broke me a little inside when they left town.
Being a Nanny - coerced or not - makes it so that each and every one of your charges gains a little spot in your soul. They cling like fucking mold and they stay forever, no matter what you do to try and disway the matter.
So while I didn't cry, I watched every second of my older kids college graduation. Demanding pictures and for them to put a damn smile on because they were all grown up now and the house needed some fuckin' photos anyway. The assholes whined and played around but I knew that they wanted a small bit of them to stay with me as they left. And they would leave.
I was born in 1973, Peter was next twelve years later in July of 1983 and Ash was right behind him in August the following year. The twelve year difference meant that we were raised with two different fucking principles and goddamn manners in mind.
I was taught how to be independent from a young age. How to do shit without getting sent to the hospital and without much adult supervision. I was practically an adult in my own right by the age of seven.
I was taught how to grow up early and as the first born I was given every bit of responsibility that my parents could think of. Knew just about everything to do with farming or at least enough to get by for a season or two since I was eight. It was an unspoken expectation that I was going to take over the farm once I became of age and my Ma and Daddy were going to retire.
Then Peter was born and Ash a year later.
They were babied and taught to dream big. They weren't chained down to this old town like I am - they were going to be free.
I couldn't bring myself to hate them for their freedom but I wasn't above admitting I was jealous.
Then I became a fucking Nanny of all things and I knew without a doubt that this small town of farmers and cattle workers was where I'll die. Instead of being chained I was setting up my funeral home while I was still young and heathy.
Honestly I didn't give a damn, saved money and didn't have to move my fat ass out of the comfy corner of our town if I stayed. I liked where I was and didn't give a fucking damn what our new citizens thought. I knew everyone and everyone knew me. Shit happens and within the hour I'd have known about it and nine times out of ten I'd be sent out to stop that argumentative shit.
The kids were used to me being the unofficial sheriff. I doubt that they'll get too much of a culture shock when they went City but whatever the fuck happens - it'll give them fucking whiplash in the beginning. Little smartasses will figure it out though, they'll survive.
When our pastor told us just seven months after our little shits left town that God had told him that they had a year before the dead would rise again that's what I told myself. "Little smartasses will figure it out, they'll survive."
It was all I could do as the folk of our town - not the city folkes out on vacation or visiting - got preparations in place. We sent out letters for jobs and to our relatives and friends away from our little town and told them our pastor's vision.
Some were in denial, others decided to stand their ground at their new lives but a small handful returned. My brothers stayed out and sent back supplies every Saturday to The Castle - the name of my damned Nanny daycare - but they stayed in the fucking death trap called a city. Stayed in Atlanta to bring news to our small town.
While they were being fucking country ass ninjas we fortified The Castle. In the town meetings we noticed that my land was one of the larger pastures and had ground work for a stone wall in place already. I had a three foot by three foot wall around the property already to discourage coyotes and rabbid dogs.
No one mentioned the fact that was where all the kids were most comfortable with anyway.
While we prepared our pastor, our dear Father John, warned us on his death bed (because he was a hard-working old fuck that was a dumbass and got a heat stroke while building up the wall) warned us that I was one of the few adults still alive in the dream. That try as we might most of the town will die and some of the children will too.
Everyone grieved but we were tough fuckers. We grieved as we worked and blessed the grounds of The Caste with fuckin' blood, sweat, and tears. I had a photo room now, copies of photo albums, stand alones, and portraits were in that sun room. Kids called it our "Memory Palace" a place to remember and grieve in but that was it.
That was how we grieved. Building and pushing forward and leaving all that memory shit in one place so that no body forgot the past. It...it isn't a good way of coping with the fact most of us will die in the coming of the apocalypse.
Parents distanced themselves from their children slowly and regretfully and the youngers didn't notice the change. They spent most of their time with me anyway, all that changed was that their rooms in The Castle became much more permanent. Their distanced parrents leaving the boxes of family memories and most of their possessions outside of our gate.
It fucking hurt like a bitch to watch but we are a hardy town - fed a hammer and shit out nails kind of people. We were smart too and everyone knew that I as a fucking Nanny and with a retired soldier as a Daddy would give the new generation the best fucking God blessed chance to survive the shit storm coming our way. I knew how to talk to kids, how to teach them, and how to protect them. Like some kind of fucking den mother on steriods.
Eleven months after Father John told us of his vision and the preparations began, every person wrote a few books. One was a will, another was their life story, and for most the final book was any survival tips that they knew. How to farm or take care of the cattle and other animals. How to track and make snares and how to make homemade weapons or essential supplies. They all wrote a small survival book of their knowledge and shit.
The parrents wrote a fourth book to their kids so the kids knew all the fucking love their mothers and fathers had to their babies.
Then we waited for the shit storm to hit on the last month.
...
Our dead pastor was right when it hit. Only I and the two pregnant woman in town - Jill and Nancy - were the adults to survive. Everyone else was slaughtered. By the undead and by passing groups of survivors that pillaged the town as they tried to head away from the city. There were a few people that survived outside though. Mainly farmers like the Greenes down west a few dozen miles.
Hershel Greene - the stingy fuck that didn't see eye to eye with me because I wasn't a fucking coward denying reality like he did. I openly admitted to beating the shit out of any passerbys like the Roaches and the survivers. Pillaged and stole all the shit on them or in their camps like a black woman at the grocers' on Black Friday.
He had his head up his ass in denial. Spoke shit about the undead roaches being more than the cockroach fuckers I considered them to be and just fucking sick. "God is sending us a message and when we learn our lesson our sick people will be cured. We just have to wait it out - they're still human."
Pansy ass fucker was going to get his small town and naive family sent to hell in a week if he kept this shit up.
—
The dead were rising. Jesus fucking Christ his Sis was right. Hoooly fucking shit.
Peter looked calm, way too calm to the people around him but on the inside he was screaming in fear and pissing himself. He had known a shit storm was heading their way. He had believed his hometown's Father but zombies. Mother fucking, honest as hell zombies - he hadn't believed that shit.
Now it was about to bite him in the ass.
"ASH! GET YA PANSY NERD ASS DOWN HERE!" Peter slammed a brick into a skull of one of those rotting fucks and screamed again for his baby brother, "TAY BROKE TA FUCKIN' DOOR!"
"Shit!" The ass jumped the stairs and handed over one of the emergency axes he had scavenged up. The pale fucker brought out his own and a knife in case and Peter nodded before shoving him back a step. "Get ta bags - I didn' have time with these dead fucks ta scavenge this floor but I fuckin' know tha' thera few crowbars in dis pansy ass department."
"You always say tha' dumbass" Ash grunted, filling up bag two with all the cans and preserve shit he could find.
Peter slammed his axe into another shithead and snarked, "Doesn't make me less right now does it fucka'?" He cackled, swinging the weapon around like he was born doing it into another two corpses. Sending one of the skulls flying to one of the trapped civlians feet. At the woman's shriek Peter remembered the rest of the dumbasses stuck in the store with them.
Bunch of them were dead and undead by the time the brothers had made it downstairs where they'd been checking out the jackets up there. Peter had made quick work of them by locking the glass doors and grabbing a few hammers in the hardware section to bash the skulls in. Scared the lucky civies to hell and back but he got shit done. Ash had run upstairs again and started pillaging for shit immediately, just like Sis taught them, much to the panicking managers distress.
A few costumers joined in but a lot of them were grabbing things they wanted and wasn't that fucked up?
Ash came back with three loaded bags and a crowbar (fucking called it mother fucker) and Peter ditched the trapped civies and climbed the stairs to the roof. Ignoring the screams of the dumbasses that didn't grab a weapon in the fifteen minutes Peter had been holding off the Rotters.
No one followed them and Peter hadn't seen any one he cared about besides Ash downstairs and he knew for a fact that no kids were in the building today. Ash had checked while grabbing shit.
The men sprinted up the staircase to the roof, locking the inside door handle by breaking it off with a small sledge hammer Ash found. Peter gaped at the chaos they could hear, at the over run streets below.
"Hola fuck Sis was righ' - Fatha John was righ'." Ash breathed.
"Ya,"Peter swallowed,"Tay were fuckin' righ'."
A bang from the door behind them and brothers cursed, searching for a fire escape or a close enough roof that they could jump to. A plausible thing since they were in downtown where the buildings were scrunched together as they competed for space.
"Peter - ova here ya slow ass!"Ash waved.
Peter bit back a retort and ran over, snagging the hiking bag at his brothers feet and scaled the ladder down. Hacking into the Rotters around him at the bottom as Ash moved his slow ass down with the two duffels. As soon as his brothers feet touched the ground they were out. Going mindlessly through alleyways and Rotters as they tried to escape the mayhem.
Hours later they finally stopped, breathing heavy and with stitches in their side as they looked around to see where the fuck they were. If Peter was seeing shit right the brothers had managed to go uptown in their mad scramble and curl around Atlanta to the mountains fourty minutes by bus away. Holy crap they got lucky.
"Remind me ta kiss Sis' feet when we get a' asses back to Ta Castle." Peter gasped, stretching his limbs as they took a breather, "Alla' tha army shit she went through an' shoved down ah throats jus' saved ah asses."
"No fuckin' joke?"
"None - hike here evra' Wednesday since we moved," Peter groaned,"Know a quarry wit a lake just ah couple miles up. Anotha' thirta mins an' we be tha."
Ash groaned but reshouldered the bags,"Lead ta way fucka'."
"Leadin'," Peter hissed before taking off at a lope.
It was a stressful run and by the time the brothers made it they were ready to collapse. Not because the hike was bad - they were country boys with a hardass of a sister that put them through the ropes once Da finished training her up. They knew how to survive and were prepared for shit to go down from the letters but the dead rising? Having to abandon those people in the store so that they could return safe and sound to their Sister?
The emotional exertion of the day was hitting them harder than their hours of sprinting and the strain of killing the Rotters did.
Peter groaned in dismay but pushed forward. As comfy the ground looked his Sis' voice was ringing in the back of his head. Demanding he go further into the tree line and up a sturdy ass tree before making camp. To fill up their empty bottles with a drop of iodine and the lake water he knew was there. Fuck he needed to check goddamn inventory too.
Ash chuckled,"Her voice ringin' in ya ears too?"
"'Wha' ya'll thinkin' stahppin' naw?',"Peter mimed, voice a bit higher with a more southern edge to it,"'Get ya ass unda' some cova' an' haul ya fat fake City asses upa tree boy!'"
Ash snorted,"Sounds aba' righ'. Hardass bitch Sis is but damn did she giv' us sum comm'n sense while she wa' ad'dit"
"Tru' dat."
They kept chatting and bickering as they went. Mindful of the fallen branches and hidden potholes as they tried to find a sturdy enough tree that would be a bitch to climb. As backwards as it was, the brothers knew that of it was a fucking fight and a half for them then it was a damn near impossibility for any passerbys.
Ash ended up finding one that near the edge of the cliff hang by the lake. Hauled ass up there with a triuphant "Mine bitch!" as Peter cursed below him shaking a fist at the laughing ass. The light haired brother cursed and grumbled but found a suitable tree soon enough. It was a neighboring one lucky enough and a bit further in the treeline.
Peter tightened the bag straps and started climbing. Grunting as an entirely different set of muscles started burning the further he went up.
"Ya okay ya fat ass?" He heard Ash call out, "Needa ladda' Petie pie?"
"Jus' cause ya part squirrel don' mean ya can be ah asshat!" Peter hissed.
"Sur' ah can ya big baby."
"Waheva ya squirrelly fucka'! Suck ma dick asshole!"
Ash snorted,"Hell nah - I know whar tha shit has been,"
Peter laughed and finished scaling the damn tree. As worrying as all this shit was - fucking traumatizing that shit is - it felt almost like background noise as the habitual bickering between him and Ash picked up. It was normal for them to fuck up or mess around with the shadier sorts and be able to shrug it off by bitchin' at each other.
It was a bit of a daily ritual that he clung to viciously as he and Ash set up for that night. Organizing their supplies and shit as they bantered quietly while the sun set. Peter called first watch as they ate a can of mixed fruit which sent Ash into a weird ass rant of Peter not playing fair even if the chestnut haired man-child was the baby of the family. It almost made Peter fall out of the tree from laughter if it wasn't for the ghetto harness of rope he'd made that settled him comfortably against the trunk as he ate.
With all his funny ass bitchin' and rantin' Ash tired out soon enough after Peter's laughing fit (which had sent him on a nasty but still funny as fuck rant about the asstry that was Peter) and conked out just after sun down. Peter left him be and settled into the role of being a silent gaurdian. Letting the night noises settle over Ash's quiet breathing as he waited and watched.
He left Ash be until hours before first light, telling the far too cheery brother to take watch for the next six hours. He needed rest or else he'd end up making a fucking mistake that could get them both killed.
And like fucking hell would he do that shit.
Couple of days passed like that, the brothers sinking into the nature and mountains around them as they tried to create a routine that would settle them a little bit. Routines were good, that meant that they had a plan and could move forward and away from the city. It meant that they were becoming stable through the horror that they went through.
Peter and Ash only went back in Atlanta once since their mad scramble away from it. Going into the chaos to steal from the outer ring of stores and grocers' before hauling ass back to the quarry.
It was bad in the city. Gunfights and gore everywhere and the streets shut down and the highways backed up. It took half a day to get there and back but the brothers didn't dare steal a car. The noise would condemn them to the Rotters and made them a target to the military and those struggling in the middle of it all.
It pulled on their morals to not help out but every time they so much as thought of it a phantom sting would grace the back of their heads and their Sis' words ringing through their ears loud enough for the brothers to flinch.
"I knaw it seems mo' lika horse shit storay tha' ya can believe but ya can't help anyone. Nun den fuckas giva horse's ass aba' y'all whan tha shit storm finally roles on en. Ya two ignore dem all ya hear mah! Ignore all a' dem an' focus on covera'n each otha's asses than no strangas. Fuck dem! Fuck any surviva' ya come across an' head home when shit calms adown a bit! Y'all come on home en one piece or I'll whip ya myself!"
It was those words and the image of their big sister's face, all hardass looking with the tiniest of tears gathering as she stared at them worriedly through their phones,that stopped them. Peter and Ash hadn't known their parents well in the beginning and it showed when shit like this popped up.
If their sister hadn't demanded that they ignore the survivors and only focus on each other then they would be out there. In the city and trying to rescue as many people as they could with their bleeding hearts.
They had managed to block out the guilt but the sixth day in the quarry and Ash snapped.
"I know she told us not ta' bah damnit Pete! Dis hurts an' I hate it! I hate da fact she told us no an' now I can't help nawn!" He ranted, baby blue eyes shining with guilt as he ran a dirty hand through his grease mop of hair."I dun know how Sis' can be ah hardass an' jus' ignore people in need bah I can't. I'ma too soft bruther an' dis hurts."
Peter just tugged his baby brother close and led them down to the lake. Setting him up for a wash and cleaning him up of all the gore and sweat of the past couple of days as the younger teared up. Peter mourned the fact that his baby brother was going through hell. The brat had always been the kinder one of the trio. A real country southern boy that tried to help whoever was in need.
It used to be a winning factor that Sis and him had praised him for, now it could kill him if the older siblings didn't stop him.
"God made ya ta be a kind one," Peter started,"Handed all the selflessness ta ya when ya were born. If the world hadn't gone ta shit ya'd be happy. Be able ta help all dos helpless fuckas ya want"
Ash laughed bitterly but didn't say anything as Peter bathed him like he was a baby again. Gentle and thorough as the grime and blood and sweat was taken off his pale skin with each wipe of the rag.
Peter continued,"I'm not tellin' ya ta stahp bein' ya buh ya gotta choose naw. No more save ta strangers off da street an' all thata holy angel crap ya do."
Peter let the words settle on his brother and guided him to a rock nearby to dry in the evening sun as he washed himself off. Relief palpable as the Rotters' blood he'd been stuck with came off.
When he finished he went back to the rock to find his brother gone but a clean set of clothes where he had been. Peter huffed through his nose and smirked a bit. Typical Ash, get all embarrassed about the emotional shit and hide away but still leave a clean set of clothes for him.
"Damn softie he is," Peter muttered,"betta choose fast babay bruther."
He tugged on the clothes, a pair of cargos and a blank t-shirt with fresh socks. It was refreshing to dress in something clean again after running loose in the wild in the gore clothes.
He'd just finished shoving his feet into his ratty combats and snagged his pack when Ash's scream rang out over the lake.
"LEGGO AH ME YA BASTARD! LEGGO!"
"Ah fuck naw," Peter snarled, ditching the bag and sprinting up the cliff trail. His heart was thundering and he was ready for blood. No fucker touched his brother - no one.
Peter dashed by their camp - Ash wasn't there damnit - and ran further into the quarry hoping to God that was where he was.
He broke the tree line just in time to see some cop fucker haul Ash into the middle of a gang of people. Got his baby brother in a head lock with a hand over his nose and mouth. None of the group deemed to step up and stop the cop from strangling the struggling twenty-four year old. Of course not.
Even though it went against all the training his Sis taught them for hostage situations, Peter charged. A wordless roar of anger passing through his bared teeth as he launched himself at the city mongruel. Punching at the man's back directly on the right shoulder bone. The man yelped and flexed to get away from the digging fingers and dropped Ash. Ash scrambled backwards in the dirt and tried to breathe through the pain in his throat and side.
The sight of his brother just struggling right there in the dirt surrounded by all these people made him see red.
"Ya nasty fucka'!" He snarled sending a hay maker to the off guard assaulter,"I'll kill ya for touchin' him ya hear mah!"
The fucker dodged and tried to whirl around to grab his gun at his hip but Peter wasn't having it. He got up close and personal and made a jab for the trachea as he sent a punch to the guy's stomach. The cop dodged the jab but ended up with the punch hitting his side just below his ribs harshly.
The guy choked and sputtered but Peter didn't let up. Using every bit of knowledge Sis taught him to leave the guy disabled and in pain. He ignored the screams and demands to stop and went to town. Punching and kicking and out right punishing the fucker for going after his baby brother.
Peter didn't stop until someone jumped on his back and pushed on the back of his knees to make him buckle. It was Ash's favorite ambush move so Peter relaxed and took a step back and bore the weight of his brother instead. He was crying and muttering for Peter to stop too distressed from the violence to see that he already had.
Peter cursed and shifted Ash around so he was clinging to his front instead. It wasn't difficult to carry him like this, he took after Ma more than Daddy and was a bit short and looked like a muscley twig rather than the humanized mountain that Peter looked like.
"I stahpped Ash...it's all don naw, ya gotta calm down fer me little bruther." Peter muttered softly glaring over top the mess of wet hair at the conflicting looking crowd and the pissed cop on the ground. "It's ahll righ' naw."
"No more fightin'?" Ash asked, grip tightening painfully around Peter's shoulders and waist."Not gonna pull a fast one ar'a?"
Peter snorted,"Nah, pansy ass learned 'is lesson."
Ash nodded and let go of him. Eyes wary and throat visibly purpling as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Peter angled slightly in front.
"Naw tha tha's all settled,"Peter drawled,"Mind tellin' dis country bumpkin da fuck ya were doin' draggin' mah baby bruther through da woods like dat?"
Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead in any way, shape, or form. I do own the OCs presented in the story and this story itself though.