The courtship between Carol and Ed Peletier was a whirlwind. He was everything she looked for in her dream guy. He had a great job, came from a picture perfect family, and knew all the right things to say. She married Ed after six months of dating and realized as soon as her wedding night that she had made the wrong decision.
He never considered her to be a partner or teammate; he considered her property. The first time Carol disobeyed one of his unspoken rules was on their wedding night. She insisted that they make love face to face. But now that she was his, he no longer found the need to humor her. After making her insistent request, Ed issued his first of many blows that would happen throughout their marriage. He had no interest in her face or her eyes. As far as Ed was concerned, her needs were non-existent.
Her life continued that way for next several years. She learned that her literal survival was dependant on her unloving husband's mood. She even met Ed's mother for lunch while he was away at work. Expecting sympathy and support, Carol's despair reached new depths when she learned that Ed's seemingly perfect parents hid all the same secrets. His mother shared a few stories with matching scars. There would be no commiserating; she was showing Carol the deep battle wounds as a warning. The message from mother-in-law to daughter-in-law was loud and clear: make your husband happy or pay the price.
As news began to break of the spreading infection, Carol was at home nursing a sore, fresh bruise. She had brought Ed his breakfast at the kitchen table that morning and accidentally knocked over his coffee. She apologized repeatedly and bent over to clean up the spill, but Ed's fury had already surfaced as he broke the coffee mug over her left shoulder. She sat with a box of kleenex, smeared mascara, and an ice pack when the news began flashing alerts.
What had initially been reported as a series of attacks was then declared a full scale riot. Just before lunch, as details were flooding into the newsroom, it finally became clear that some sort of infection or virus was spreading like wildfire. Not more than 30 minutes later, the channel went to the state of emergency broadcast and stayed there permanently.
Carol quietly turned off the television and looked outside. She could see fires burning in the distance and hear the violence slowly starting to erupt. Popping into view from behind a bush, a man with an open wound on his forearm and glassy eyes looked directly at Carol standing inside her kitchen. He lumbered aggressively towards her and smacked into the glass. Blood soaked his button down shirt as he tried to bite and claw at her. He didn't seem to understand the kitchen window was in his way.
Losing herself in the man's crazed, distant eyes, the house phone rang and pulled her back to reality.
Ed screamed into the other end of the line, "Pack all my stuff, I'm on my way home. And hurry the fuck up! We're leaving town!
Ed hung up before Carol could even respond. She stared at the phone in her hand for another 10 seconds before she dropped it on the floor and sprinted to the stairs.
This was it. Her moment for freedom had finally come. Long ago, Carol had packed and hid a large backpack in case she ever became brave enough to leave Ed. She sprinted to it's hiding place in the attic and made sure all the contents were accounted for. With some room in the bag to spare, she grabbed several cans of food and a meager first aid kit. She quickly changed into clothes she thought might survive the outdoors and the sturdiest pair of sneakers she owned. Deciding she couldn't pack anything else, she grabbed two large kitchen knives. One went in her pack and one stayed in her hand. Lastly, she pulled a crowbar from the garage wall.
Carol nervously glanced out the front door, noting that while she didn't see Ed, she did see several car accidents and the infected were attacking drivers that had foolishly left their cars. Moving to the back of the house, she quietly unlocked the door to the deck but left it closed. Approaching the walker still banging on the glass to enter her kitchen, she gave her backyard one last look. Confirming that he was the only infected in sight, Carol used the crowbar to smash the low-lying window.
The man groaned and fumbled his way into the house. Once he was almost inside, Carol ran to the unlocked door and dashed out to the backyard. Carol was never much of a runner, but she used every ounce of energy to pump her legs through the empty field behind her house and into the woods.
She didn't know where she was going or what was even left of the world to find. She reached the edge of the woods and scurried in. She never looked back to see Ed enter the kitchen, kill the infected man, and watch her enter the treeline. She never heard him bark out her name and swear to "beat her ass". The only thing she noticed was that she was finally on her own. Carol was probably the only person in the world to consider the rise of the dead the best thing that ever happened to her.
