A/N: Is it just me, or are there more things on TV about the south than there used to be? Southern Fried Stings, Hillbilly Handfishing, Swamp People, Lizzard Lick Towing…I don't know of any others that air up here in Canada, but I know I watch them sometimes purely for hearing their accents. :D

Whatever, amusement aside, this is supposed to be my first stab at a Walking Dead fanfic, since I've been typing this and retyping this for the last year.

Haha, so just to be fair, there'll be racial slurs, and if I come across as racist in any way shape or form, know it was not intentional since the story most likely will not have anything more to do than a slur here and a slur there, but to be fair...there'll be a lot of degradation of Native Americans/Canadians a like...

I am Native Canadian and I don't really care about races myself, so I don't notice these mistakes. Sorry Nelle07! :)

Also, I do not claim any ownership over the amazing series (and comics) that make up the Walking Dead, nor do I claim ownership over the awesome song title I took from the amazing CANADIAN band Three Days Grace. ~~

Enjoy! (I hope)

Chapter One: The Cana-In-dian

She was walking through the woods; she'd only been there for a month when the world went to hell. Figures that's what would've happened when she finally got to leave the country to visit her childhood friend for a year at her college. She didn't quite know what she'd expect in the States though; it certainly wasn't kindness or mature people that could get over the fact that she came from where igloos, snow and maple syrup were "home". At least she had her one friend, who knew what she was going through, having been raised where she grew up too and then transferred to Kansas at the time where her dad's company needed him; and then transferred again to Georgia. And that's where she found herself to be when it all started.

I don't even know how to make a god damned igloo. She thought, remembering how she got treated the first week she got there. If she couldn't answer a question, what could you expect, she was only Canadian. If she asked a bartender for a Canadian beer, she got laughed at. She was watched in every store she was in, because as far as they were concerned, her kind would pocket the store if they turned their backs.

While living in Canada, she had a job dealing with tourists in high school, and often she'd have southerners ask 'What's with all the Mexicans?' and having to explain to people that they weren't the same. It never went well either and often ended in a racial debate that got out of hand with the names being called 'injun' or 'spic' because they didn't understand how different skin tones could be actual human being, until one day her boss fired her over it all. On top of that, it didn't make a difference for her at all; all the redneck Texans she dealt with seemed to think all brown people weren't to be trusted. First Nations was not Mexican; just because there was a similarity of tan skin and black hair did not mean they were the same.

Mexicans came from Mexico and Natives (or Indian if you want to be politically incorrect, since they're not from India either) came from Canada, case closed. She wasn't even close to Spanish, but what did they know? They were only American. Most of them didn't even know what the capital of Germany was, or where to find Africa on a map, or their whole national anthem for that matter; that's what the media exposed to her about Americans, that and they all seemed to be fat, At least Mari was there to defend her for the most part.

Anyhow, that world was long gone, and it started with a phone call.

..._...

"Get your things together, food, clothes, first aid, anything you can carry! We're getting out of here!" The voice on the other end of the phone was panicked and didn't give her time to ask why. "Meet me at the coffee shop!"

"Wh- Marie? Marie!" She was utterly confused but decided to comply with her friend's only demand. She grabbed a backpack and stuffed it with clothes and canned foods and her one pouch filled with antiseptics and other first aid essentials. She hurried out of the apartment she shared with Marie and decided against the elevator. Good thing too, had she seen what was inside the elevator; she probably wouldn't have made it to Mari at all. Once on the ground floor and completely out of breath from flying down the stairs from the top floor, she was surprised to see that everything was relatively normal. People stared at her oddly as she wiped the small amount of sweat accumulated from carrying an extra twenty pounds of canned goods and other things she considered essential. After a few minutes of recuperating, she picked up her speed again and raced towards the coffee shop that was just a block away.

Good thing she didn't have to worry about traffic, since she depended solely on walking and public transport. The streets were packed tightly with cars, and people on motorcycles were zigzagging through what little space between the cars to get ahead of the traffic. Whatever was going on, most people were taking it seriously, and the rest looked at everyone else like they were crazy. She heard people in the streets and the conflicting views they had.

"I don't see the big deal, it's just another flu scare." People nonchalantly rolled their eyes at people like me who were running around with backpacks and looking frantic. Others were on their phones, talking to their people.

"I don't care what the TV says, just get the kids and we're out of here." It was like listening to a debate; the people that didn't care what was going on around them and the people who were alert and took the time to prepare for what needed to be done. She saw Marie standing at the corner, trying to get a glimpse of her friend over the crowd, which was next to impossible with her height.

"There you are! About time too, my friend in the news business said we had to meet him and his partner at his work place." She spoke in short frantic words; her normally happy-go-lucky features were stained with worry and frustration. It became clear why. "Jake isn't answering his phone."

That wasn't like him; Jake was the kind of guy that would throw himself off a bridge if it meant making Marie happy before missing a phone call from her. "Well, maybe he's already there…"

"Maybe, Josh did say he already called him. Let's go! We're wasting time! We were supposed to be there ten minutes ago!" Marie grabbed her friends arm and bolted down the street with her in tow. Now she was beginning to see why the frantic were frantic; while running, she seen a homeless guy trying to pull his hand away from a fellow hobo, screaming at him and howling in pain at the same time. She wasn't sure what she saw, but she knew that that was the reason the people running for their lives were doing just that, running for their fucking lives.

Once inside the big building, Marie really took the lead by bolting up the staircase that led up the twenty or thirty floored building. On the eighth floor, the pair almost got trampled by a flooding of people racing down the steps. "Everyone's leaving the building, and we're the only two idiots trying to get further in. What are we even doing?"

"Getting a ride." Marie's smirk was supposed to be for show, but she didn't turn around to let her friend see it. Panting and out of breath, the two stopped and caved in. "Maybe we should just catch the elevator?"

"There's one free right there!" The girls rushed towards the open elevator and pushed the top floor button. "So this ride…are we going to go in a helicopter?"

"There's nothing wrong with helicopters…they're perfectly fine, don't worry." Marie reassured her friend and smiled.

"I'm not worried, I was just asking." The girl frowned and looked at the door of the elevator, dreading something besides riding in a helicopter, but she couldn't place what. Once the doors opened, they found the last staircase that led up and found themselves on the roof of the building. There was a helicopter alright, and it was already forty or so feet in the air. They saw Josh, the one that called Marie there, pounding on the window, yelling wordlessly at the both of us. I did kind of make out the words 'I'm sorry'. But I wasn't sure. Yelling at the helicopter that clearly wasn't going to come back, the first one said to her friend in a sarcastic way, "They're perfectly fine…when they're not taking off on us, eh?"

"Shut up, he said sorry. He thought we weren't going to make it," Marie held her phone in front of her friends face to prove it. "Why would he think that?"

"Well, what's going on? Why are we on top of a building we don't work for?"

"The news said there were flu outbreaks last week, yeah?" Marie looked at her friend, who nodded cautiously, "Well then you know that the morality rate was substantially high then, right?"

"Yeah, like the swine flu or stuff like that, right?" She tried to sound like she understood her medical student of a friend, "Can you tell me what's just going on, in plain English please?"

"Well, the people that died from this kind of flu…sort of came back when I was working on a cadaver in class today! He bit the teacher, and I didn't want to stick around…that's when Josh called and told me about the attacks." Marie cringed at the last part, like she didn't even understand what she was saying, or want to believe what she said was true. "I know, I know it sounds just plain crazy, but it's true. I swear on my life it's true."

"Well I'll be God damned…really?" Marie nodded at her, "Well, all craziness set aside, where do we go now?" She half smirked at Marie, who half smiled back, knowing she wouldn't be shunned for sounding like a lunatic.

"Well, Josh said they're headed to Savannah to a…what'd he call it…a- a safe zone. That's it…Well, we best be heading there then, hey?" Marie shrugged and looked over the town and sighed. "I don't know how, but I think we can do it."

They looked down at the growing chaos below, and looked at each other a little less certainly than they would've liked to.

Heading back down the stairs, they found that some floor was set ablaze. Not wanting to ask questions to each other, they kept going down the stairs in a determined silence. At least until she had to ask. "So, these dead people that are walking around, what does that mean to us?"

"Well…" Marie started off slowly, as if contemplating what her friend could handle, "They're not who they used to be, they didn't just come back to life. It's like they came back to take it. This morning, there was nothing but news reports on every channel updating how many more attacks there were. Jesus, did you just sleep all day again?"

"Why do you think I got to the coffee shop so fast?" She smirked inwardly; lately, she'd been shut in the apartment watching old horror movies and just letting her mind steer clear away from her studies. Marie rolled her eyes.

"When this is all over, I'm making it my personal mission to drag your butt to school and actually finish it." Marie chuckled dryly. "My point was that the more attacks there's been, the more the flu's been spreading. They didn't say that, but that's the connection I made from all the news reports. They even had video footage of the Mayor ripping apart his secretary when he was making his public statement for making people calm down…it didn't work. She got back up on live TV, and made a run for the camera…"

They both grimaced at the thought and continued. The world was already going down the shitter, and it was obvious once they stepped outside. There were people yelling and screaming, still a few people rolling their eyes at the looters and other crazies that were running through the streets in a frantic frenzy. And then there were the bloodied up people, some in hospital uniforms or other EMT's sauntering after the skeptics and making them believers on the 'Not just another flu' side by biting into them. The screams of confusion turned into screams of pain and fear. The living's walking speed turned into running.

She kept running, because that's what Marie kept yelling, so she assumed she was right behind her. At least until she heard a frantic yell that sounded like her and replaced the yelling of 'Run' she'd been hearing for the last few minutes. Stopping dead in her tracks, she turned to see the homeless guy that was screaming at another hobo a little while earlier holding on to Marie's ankles, while Marie was screaming frantically for help. Without thinking she kicked the guy's head, which made him let Mari go, and then she continued, since the TV said this guy was dead, she didn't stop until he stopped moving. Crying, Marie threw her arms around her friend.

"Thought I was a goner…" She sighed and grabbed her friend's wrist to start going again.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" she caught up to be in stride with Marie, who was trying to cover up a limp. She was also holding her side and looking straight ahead. "Did he?"

"It's just a bite. I'll be fine." Marie cringed as she looked ahead, "Don't pay attention to me; I don't want you getting dragged off too."

..._...

She'd been leaning up against a tree, taking refuge from the sun she had not gotten used to at all in the month she'd been in Georgia. One month for school, and the seemingly rest of her days were to be dedicated to killing off the undead with nothing to look forward to, since she didn't know where Savannah was besides the general direction.

She met a few people along the way, but anyone she got near seemed to be walker bait and always took the fall she felt she should've taken. She never had the humility to actually let herself fall though- it was one thing to feel bad enough to think it should've been you; it was a whole different story when it came to actually doing it though. In all, she'd learned to just not be around people. It was better for everyone, she figured. She heard a motorcycle on the road she wasn't too far away from. The last live person she'd encountered had been the week before, and he'd been mauled in his sleep at the camp they set up, and that was the only signal she'd gotten that a walker had stumbled upon them in their sleep. On the bright side, she got the remainder of his carton of smokes they'd looted from a convenience store the day before his last. He was a dick anyhow.

Curious, she lit a smoke and wandered towards the road. She wanted to be sure she wasn't hearing things. She heard a slew of slurs and curses as she got closer to the road and realized it was two different people that were talking. She knew they just had to be from Georgia, judging from their accents, they sounded like they came straight from the sticks that were riddled with hicks. Rednecks, she thought; she often found herself giggling at their accents about as much as they laughed at hers. Obviously, they thought hers sounded odd and foreign since she came from Canada. It was like she might as well have a tattoo on her forehead to state it.

Looking out at the road from what she thought was a safe distance; she saw that there were two men staring at the bike they must've been riding. One was holding the back of his head, cursing at the older one while the older one looked at the bike that was steaming from the engine.

"What the fuck was that for? I ain't the one that wrecked yewr hunk of junk." The one holding his head glared at the older one, they had to be brothers.

"Shut up, and stop being a baby. I needed ta hit somethin'." The older one had a gruff voice; he wore a leather vest and a white tee with the sleeves torn off and black pants. The younger one seemed to be allergic to sleeves too; he wore a sleeveless tan shirt and dark cargo-like pants tucked into muddy boots. There was a hunting rifle in the hand of the leather hick who looked like he must've used that to hit his assumed brother.

"Asshole." The younger one grumbled. The side of the bike had a decal on it that read 'SS'. Taken aback, since she never had the misfortune of actually meeting a racially biased Georgian outside of a store, she stepped back and flinched at the sound a branch made when she stepped on it without looking. She didn't have plans made to meet some hillbilly now of all times, especially since the only thing that stood between hate crimes being committed before was written on a piece of meaningless paper with no muscle behind it.

The two obviously heard it; on top of being openly racist they must've been skilled hunters on top of that. One was wearing a chain of squirrels on his side, and they both had their weapon of choice up and ready before she even had a chance to blink. Feeling like a deer caught in headlights, she had the briefest eye contact with the one holding a crossbow before letting out a surprised squeak-like sound and hiding behind the tree that she dared to look out from behind to get a peek at the two. His eyes widened slightly at the last second after he shot the arrow. She heard the whizz of an arrow before the blunt sound of it piercing the tree she hid behind. "Shit…"

"Niiice aim." The older man gave a sarcastic slap on the back, as the younger one looked up at him with a squinty glare and a half-hearted punch to the older ones chest.

"That ain't no walker…" The younger one trailed off and looked at the tree she was hiding behind. "If it was that arrow'd be between its eyes, idiot."

She wasn't going to lie, she was pretty scared of the two men; one because they were other people, and normally she avoided people like they were walkers too, and two, because they looked to be pretty violent with anything that wasn't each other, if they treated each other that way. She heard footsteps get closer to her and stop. The crossbow guy had come to retrieve his arrow his trigger-happy finger had sent it flying towards her in the first place. She realized her smoke that was hanging from her mouth was still lit.

The man yanked out the arrow and swore at the "Som'bitch" as it was probably deeper than he expected. Then she heard his movements stop, and he sniffed the air with a soft, yet sharp intake of breath. What she didn't hear was his silent footsteps, despite the branches around the tree she was standing underneath.

"Well what do we got here?" The first thing she saw was the string of squirrels around his waist, then the lowered crossbow, and the solemn stare from his bright, yet deeply blue eyes.

A/N: Haha. I looooooove the Walking Dead, and I've been determined to write about it for the longest time, so just saying, this has been on my laptop for the longest time (so I've said before), so I figured it was about time I get up on my profile. :)