When Sarah woke up, the sun was low in the sky. She grimaced as she got off the lumpy, half-rotten mattress and groped in the dark for a candle and match. She found the candle, still only lightly used, but the matchbox was empty. "Shit." she muttered. Sarah felt for the gun at her hip, Beth's police-issued pistol, before clumsy walking through the junk on the floor to leave the room. The door had been broken down, but Mrs. S. had nailed up curtains everywhere for privacy. Why bother when they were just going to leave in a few days? Sarah pushed back the bloodstained curtain to see Felix snoring on the living room couch.
"Oi!" She shook his shoulder roughly. "Fee, wake up."
"Hey, what?" Alison groaned. Her hair sprayed around her thin shoulders as if it were windblown. She had draped herself in one of the few clean blankets.
"Alison? Where's Felix? He was suppose to wake me up before it got dark."
"He left with Donnie and Mrs. S about an hour ago. They thought you could use the rest. Kira's in the kitchen with Gemma and Oscar."
Sarah crossed the living room to hallway to the barricade they had set up in front of the entryway to the kitchen. Without walls, the kitchen was open to foyer if anyone or anything decided to bust down the door. Sarah, Felix, and Donnie had moved the desk from the home office, two nightstands, and a loveseat to block it. Now the only way was through a door in one of the two bathrooms. Whoever built this place must have been high while he was doing it, but Sarah found no point in complaining "Are you alright in there?" She called over the mismatched furniture.
"Yes Aunt Sarah," Alison's daughter, Gemma, answered. Even though she had been introduced as their aunt, Alison and Donnie's kids had a way of making Sarah feel like a bloody kindergarten teacher. A bloody kindergarten teacher running south through Georgia in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
Kira's voice carried over, "Mummy, are you hungry? We cooked some noodles we found."
"Thanks Kira, I'll be there in a second." Sarah crossed the living room to the bathroom and into the kitchen. It had been rank and chaotic when they first arrived, but no mess could survive Alison cleaning compulsion. The grime and blood had been scrubbed from every reachable surface, the appliances straightened into their proper place, and each odd and end returned to its home. Even so, a sense of rot and decay permeated to place. "Hey, kids. Find anything you like?"
Oscar handed her a cracked bowl of watery ramen.
"Thanks Oscar." She accepted it, smiled, and patted his head. It was practically nothing compared to what Sarah liked, but with the world gone to shit, undercooked noodles were pretty good meal. Sarah sat at the small plastic table Mrs. S had found under the bed in the master suite. There used to be a large wooden one in here, but two of its legs were broken, so they'd cut it down for firewood for the next time they were on the run. The kids sat on mats on the floor playing some kind of game with a motley of discarded items.
Since the zombies had first stated taking over, Sarah and Alison had decided they'd better stick together. They got their families together on the excuse of being long-lost twin sisters and left Toronto as soon as possible. Sarah had left Beth's boyfriend Paul behind before he could come looking for her and complicate everything. If he thought she was dead, all the better; the woman he loved was long dead anyway and now he could mourn for her.
The first place they wanted to go was Minnesota, to find Cosima if she was still alive, but they never got the chance. The U.S.-Canada border had been shut before they got there, with it only chink in that line was in the forests near Maine. By the time they got over to the States, Minnesota was lost, its inhabitance scattered across the Midwest like the contents of a spilled tray. Since then, Sarah and Alison lead their loved ones down the Eastern Seaboard hoping to outrun whatever disease or curse that was sending the world out of control. They never stayed in one place for very long; resting meant dying.
They'd joined other groups of survivors several times, but those never lasted. Usually it was zombie attack that scattered them, but sometimes it was the people who fucked things up. Every so often, some little asshole would try to take control of everything, or put everyone at risk for some stupid reason, or just decide to be a pain in the ass. Then the infighting would start and before they knew it, the group was split again. It had happened so often in the past two and a half years that Sarah was reluctant to bother with groups anymore. Too complicated, too much obligation, for something that was certain to fail. Nothing was permanent, not anymore.
The front door clicked open. "Keep down." Sarah whispered to the children. As they scurried under the table, Sarah pulled out her gun cautiously and peered over the barricade.
"It's just us." Felix called when he saw the barrel of Sarah's pistol aimed at the door. "Though, we brought company."
Sarah lowered her gun as Felix, Donnie, and Mrs. S entered to apartment. "Company? Felix, you know how I feel about groups."
"Just hear him out Sarah." Donnie said. A tall brown-haired man of about Mrs. S's age entered the room. His clothes had little to no stains or wear, nor did his shiny leather boots. He smile genially at them, as if Sarah wasn't still gripping her pistol tightly. "This is the Governor."
"Of Georgia?" Alison appeared out of the spare bedroom, still clutching her blanket.
"No ma'am, I'm not a real governor. It's just what they call me." The Governor answered in a warm Southern drawl.
"That's my wife Alison." Donnie introduced, "And in the kitchen is her twin sister Sarah."
The Governor nodded politely, exuding Southern charm. "Your family has told me so much about you. I lead a settlement just a few miles from here, Woodbury. We have room for more. It's a real town: houses, streets, big walls to keep out the biters. We even have a clinic, and a school for your little ones."
Sarah and Alison looked to each other, then to the trio.
"It's true Sarah, Alison." Mrs. S. confirmed, "We've seen it."
"How far is it?" Alison asked.
The Governor answered, "If we hurry, we can get there before dark."
Sarah stared at him for a moment. The Governor seemed nice enough, and her family confirmed his story, but there was something about him that seemed off. Triumph gleamed in his eyes when Alison shook his hand and went to gather their meager belongings. Sarah didn't like that but she knew her arguments would not be heard. She'd go with him, but she would also keep an eye on this Governor.
Kira, Gemma, and Oscar got out from under the table. The Hendrix kids raced out of the kitchen to help their mother and father, but Kira lingered. She pulled down on Sarah's pant leg.
Sarah knelt for Kira to whisper in her ear, "Mummy, I don't like that man."
"Neither do I Monkey," Sarah whispered back, "but we go with him for now. We'll take what he gives us, but don't trust him."
Sarah and Kira left their kitchen, threw their belongings in their bags, and left with the Governor. The corridor was dark and smelled foul, but the group went on down the stairway. When they had first arrived last night, Donnie suggested they take the highest floor possible - in this case the sixth of seven floors - to avoid any zombie wandering in. They were numerous, but not agile or persistence enough to climb so many flights of stairs.
Outside, the sun was starting to sink. Sarah's eyes widened when she saw a semicircle of men standing in front of the main entrance. She counted five of them, all bearing heavy rifles or machine guns. She clutched Kira tighter.
"No need to worry Ms. Sarah." The Governor smiled again, "These men are with me. At Woodbury, we protect our own." He pointed to a two pick-up truck.
"You have real trucks? That move?" Gemma gushed.
"That we do, little lady." The Governor nodded. He helped Gemma, Oscar, and Kira into the bed of one of the trucks before the adults got in with their belongings. The Governor drove that truck, while his men got into the other. As they drove, Sarah leaned on Felix's shoulder watching the city turn to forest. Her legs felt strangely numb; she hadn't been in a working vehicle in over two years. They went on until they reached a wall of metal, wood, and stacked tires. Several more men with guns stood on top of it before the gates opened to let them inside.
The Governor had been telling the truth. Woodbury looked bizarrely normal; neat little houses on either side of a main road, gardens and flowerbeds, mailboxes, chatting neighbors, babies being pushed in strollers. Nothing was broken, decayed, bloodstained, or abandoned. In the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Alison wipe something from her cheek. This was all Alison had ever wanted, the dream of a white-picket fence. Here, there weren't any zombies to avoid, not more running to be done. Sarah and Alison could even pretend to really be twins, not clones.
If not for the mystery of what happened to Cosima.