Chapter 1: Welcome to Hell.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Walking Dead, nor do I own the Fosters.
AN: The first chapter of a new story. Please read and leave TONS of REVIEWS!
Connor's POV (September 15th 2015):
"Keep Jude safe, Connor. Keep him safe. RUN!"
Those were the last words that were ever uttered by Stefanie Adams Foster.
Thirty seconds later, she was dead. Torn to pieces in front of our eyes by walking corpses as she tried to give the rest of us the time required for our escape from the dead to succeed. Those final orders, are words I will never forget, nor will I ever cease to obey them. Those words, their instruction, are my life's mission as we wander around the backwoods of Georgia in 90 degree heat. I will sacrifice anything, and anyone, if it means that Jude stays alive. That may sound cold, it may sound terrible, but honestly I don't care.
How did we ended up in Georgia? We had been in Florida, at Universal in Orlando on a two week vacation when it happened. Jude had pleaded, begged, and employed moderate amounts of emotional blackmail to con Stef, Lena, and my Dad to allow my accompaniment on their family vacation. My explanation was so that Jude and I could spend as much time together as possible before my then impending relocation to live with my mom in Los Angeles. My dad finally relented when Jude started to cry softly while begging, which he ceased immediately upon gaining my Dad's consent. I laughed so hard at that.
I miss laughing.
I haven't laughed since we left Orlando.
About a day and a half after we landed in Florida, shit started to hit the fan. It started off simple at first. Videos on the internet of cops unloading whole magazines worth of ammo into people, and only succeeding in their destruction with a well placed bullet to the brain. Rumors on social media that a strange sickness was going around.
It only took another day and a half before we actually saw one for the first time.
It looked normal. Human. But it obviously wasn't. It was snarling at us as it meandered toward us with an unsteady gait. It's eyes were glazed over and bloodshot. His skin was pale, almost translucent. It attacked Jude. Almost bit him. Thank god for Stef.
"If it's dead, destroy its head." Jude had muttered to himself about a day later, after speaking naught a single word for that whole time.
Over the next week, the situation steadily deteriorated. Within four more days, the governors of California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan had all declared states of emergency. When the news networks stopped broadcasting the following day, the only place in the United States that seemed to be free of infection and were relatively safe were Hawaii and Michigan's Mackinac Island, both of which had quarantined themselves as soon as things started to fall apart, and instated mandatory emergency measures stating that all recently deceased were to have their brain's destroyed, either by gunshot or knife, and their bodies burned or buried.
Jude's words are basically the rest of the surviving world's motto now, isn't it?
If it's dead, destroy its head.
It's been two years, and after all that time, we are all we have left of our old lives. Neither of us have any idea where our families are. My dad was still in San Diego, as far as I knew, and I remained blissfully ignorant as to his current state. I only knew that he was still alive when the phone networks went down, because it cut out right in the middle of a phone call to him. We were separated from the rest of the family in October of 2014. The only reason I know when, is because Jude is keeping track of the date. We were with Lena, Jesus, Brandon, Callie and Mariana. A massive heard swept through the small section of Georgia forest that we were camping in, cutting us off from them.
"CONNOR! TAKE JUDE AND GO! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!"
"WE CAN'T LEAVE YOU!" I had screamed back.
"GO! RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES!"
Those were the final words Jude and I ever heard Brandon say. The last we had seen of any of them, we saw from a distance as they ran for their lives as well. We looked for them for over a week, and our search turned up nothing, so we set out on our own.
The first thing we did was find us some weapons. I eventually selected a .22 rifle that we found in an abandoned shack in the middle of the woods about a week into being by ourselves as my primary weapon. I remembered my dad saying something about that being the most common kind of ammunition once. About a week later, we happened across an abandoned hunting supplies store, and we were both surprised to see that a fair amount of its inventory remained untouched. I chose a 9mm pistol as my secondary weapon. It was an M9, a pistol I recalled using on numerous occasions in various video games. We loaded up our pockets, plus two duffle bags apiece, full of ammo for the rifle and my pistol and hit the road again.
It was with reluctance that I chose the guns. I loathed to select firearms, due to the recurring trauma caused from my getting shot in the foot while gallivanting around the neighborhood in the middle of the night with Daria, Taylor, and a reluctant Jude. Jude absolutely refused to touch guns since then. He prefers blades. As a backup weapon, he carries a big hunting knife that he found in the same abandoned hunting shack that I found my rifle and pistol. I think it's called a bowie knife. His primary weapon, is an old saber. I have no idea how he got lucky enough to find it, but he discovered it in the basement of some random house. I was skeptical that it would hold up to the kind of heavy punishment it was destined to receive, via the dismemberment of hundreds of cannibal corpses, but it hasn't broke yet. He keeps it as sharp as it's possible for it to be.
We've both changed a lot since the onset pf the outbreak.
We've both been forced through our metamorphosis kicking and screaming. Almost literally. We've both became shadows of our former selves, Jude and I. Whereas before the walkers Jude wouldn't hurt a fly, now is a time where I can say with dead honesty that he butchered somebody, and that he witnessed me disembowel a man who attempted to rape him.
It was in January of had already settled down to sleep for the night. The traps around our tent were set, and we were both exhausted, having been awake for twenty hours straight. Jude woke up after four hours sleep, and told me that he needed to go to the bathroom. Ten minutes after he exited the tent, he hadn't returned, so I went searching for him. I discovered him, gagged by duct tape, pinned against a tree with his pants around his ankles by a mountain of a man who was unfastening his belt to lower his own jeans. My memory of the event cuts out as I lurched forward at almost inhuman speed and plunged my knife into the square of the man's back, severing his spine and rendering him paralyzed on the ground, but still alive.
I don't remember anything of what happened next. But Jude does. He saw everything. He remembers it all with vivid detail.
"How does it feel, you sick bastard?" I had snarled at the man, "To be powerless? Weak? Frightened? ON THE VERGE OF DEATH?"
I drove my knife into his stomach and wrenched it upwards, my face warping into a look of sadistic pleasure as an agonized screaming gargle was emitted from the man's throat as I opened his torso with my knife like the zipper of a duffle bag. I stabbed the knife into his various organs, such as his kidneys, his liver, and his stomach, but I left his lungs and heart alone. I fired a shot into the air, alerting nearby walkers to the presence of what promised to be an easy and satisfying meal. Before we left, I noticed that the man was wearing some rings on his grubby fingers, a couple of which I quickly removed. My memory cuts back in while Jude and I were quickly packing up our campsite and extinguishing the fire. About twenty minutes later, after we fled the scene, I stopped to give him one of the rings.
"What's this?" Jude asked me as he put the ring on his finger.
"Wedding ring." I said, putting the other on mine.
He stared at me, his eyes wide.
"Seriously?" He muttered.
"Yeah. Might as well be." I said.
He just continued to stare at me.
"I mean, we both always said that we'd end up getting married someday. And If we ever find someplace safe, I will give you an actual wedding." I assured him shakily, trying to rub the blood on my hands off on my pants, "I promise. Until then, though... the ring and title alone will have to suffice. You and I will be together till the very end. Till death do us part. We live together, we die together."
It was a strange, and slightly ridiculous thing to do. Two fourteen year olds alone in the apocalypse having an impromptu wedding while fleeing the scene of a brutal disembowelment.
Ugh. Maybe we really HAVE lost our minds.
Anyway, as mentioned, I can also say that I witnessed him beat a man to death with a crowbar in a flashback induced moment of psychotic rage. The man was slime, and was attempting to rape a female survivor who he had lured her into his hideout with promises of food, water and rest.
Instead, she was beaten, starved further, and sexually assaulted at every moment the man felt convenient. She escaped and ran into us, and pleaded with us for help. She was with us for three days before the swine tracked us down and tried to kill all three of us in the middle of the night. I was knocked to the ground, and Jude and I watched helpless as the man butchered the woman, stabbing her repeatedly in the stomach with a switchblade knife as she screamed. Jude snapped, and grabbed the crowbar he had been wielding until he could find something better. One hit to the head knocked the man out. Two more killed him. After another five, there wasn't much left of the man's head to wail on.
We both ran from the scene, rather stupidly leaving behind most of our food. Neither of us could stomach the thought of having to go back and retrieve our supplies, so we didn't even bother.
I held Jude the whole night as he cried.
"What are we becoming, Connor?" He whimpered to me, clinging to me as if I would spontaneously combust if released.
"We're becoming survivors." I responded, pressing my lips softly into my slightly younger boyfriend's hair, "We will make it through this. I promise, my beloved."
Beloved. That's my pet name for him now. Funny that I was the one who started using them first, when I suspected that Jude would be the one to start that. I don't remember where it came from. I think it was from some cheesy British movie we watched one night about a week after the LGBT prom. I was just doing it to be a dork, but Jude just giggled at me and gave me a soft kiss on the cheek. I decided that I couldn't care less about dorkiness, and thus the name stuck.
Just about the only thing that hasn't changed about us, is that we are still in love with each other. I never hesitate to tell Jude that I love him, and he doesn't hesitate either.
Like I said, we're all we have left of the old world.
Today, we stood, at safe distance, outside of what was left of a prison complex.
The building was on fire. The massive fence that surrounded it was collapsed in multiple spots. A tank, an honest to god fucking tank, sat inside the second gate, and was also smoldering. Hundreds of walkers were roaming around the exterior and interior of the complex.
"Jesus." I whispered.
"Looks like a war happened here." Jude agreed quietly, so we didn't attract the attention of certain despised flesh hungry abominations.
"Do you think anybody survived?" I asked.
"I don't think we should stick around to find out." Jude commented, "Let's get the heck out of here."
