That fat, yellow sun dropped like the yolk of a cracked egg onto the skyline of the distant Appalachians. The balmy breezes that tickled the sweetgrass were far beyond favorable, but the long-leafed peach trees were still gray and unyielding—with skinny, open arms asking God for mercy. Too bad times were too tough to spare those wailing weeds any water. In the far, far distance—between two rows of dead peach trees—was the staggering skeleton of Marjorie Pickett, who had moved in over four months ago from the neighboring county. She'd had two sweet old dogs named Daisy and Rosie and lived with her thirty-something daughter, Clementine. She'd been escaping a herd of the Dead. Her second daughter hadn't made it.
Gaging the space between her house on the hill and the wavering remains of Miss Pickett, May kept Grandpa Joe's deer rifle leant against her bony hip. She had a while before that rotting bag of bones made its way up the steep mound on which her back porch sat. There was also the fence—adorned with the still-moving limbs of walkers caught on the barbed wire.
May gulped the remainder of her honey-yellow iced tea and walked down the steps of the porch until she reached the few trees by the house that were captured by the barriers which wrapped around them. Before Grace had gone away, her and May had kept a few peach trees within the confines of their newly-constructed pen and had worked to keep them well. They were still as green as green could be and freckled with little light-orange fruits that flickered like Hippomenes' golden apples in the sun. It wasn't just the peaches that May and Grace had kept alive—they also had kept the carrots, collards, beets, and figs. Once Grace was gone, May had taken to replanting the old herb seeds her mama had put in the basement long ago, too. Her bed of herbs grew as days and nights carried on more lonesome with every passing of the sun and the moon. She had basil, parsley, and lemon balm—all with medicinal properties and all bound to vitalize her repetitive diet of canned goods, collards, beets, carrots, figs, and peaches.
She slid her palms across her legs so the round pellets of dirt would wipe away. It was noon and she'd been outside since dawn, working with the carrots as their frilly plumes sprung from the soil.
With a stiffening creak, she headed inside. When the screen door shut loudly behind her, her body went as rigid as the wooden doorframe. Times were quiet now—music wasn't played, gunshots were silenced, and even the slamming of a door earned a quickened heartbeat. Loud noises drew the Dead. Their working brain stems processed information like a radar based on smell and sound. Loud noises were like big flashing targets and the scent of human flesh screamed "right this way!" May muffled the scent with the thick peachy air of the orchard and muted the sounds simply by living without noise. It was harder than one would think—living alone in silence. May spent at least an hour a day fighting the urge to throw one of her uncle's dusty 45s on the pretty brass gramophone he'd inherited from Grandpa Joe.
While padding down the hallway on dirty, bare feet, an ominous breeze floated through the ends of her hair. She gathered it in a scrunchy, forming a buoyant blob of shiny red hair at the crown of her head, but the sour air still wrapped around her lungs and dug into her nostrils. The scent of the decaying world was something everyone had adjusted to—they had to, there was no escape from it. May had learned to cope with the bitter smell of rotting flesh, and the fruit of the fields kept her stomach quelled, but as she stood in the drifting wind she smelled something new.
The grumbling of a car rang in ears, igniting a perturbation that slipped into her awareness as an IV drip feed pushes drugs into a bloodstream. That quietness that the house had settled in just as it settled in a layer of dust was severely disturbed, and while May's mind was worried for her incoming visitors the threat of walkers being drawn loomed near her head as well. She sprang onto her toes and raced for the back porch, ripping the rifle from the swinging bench and setting it in place in her arms. It was already loaded and the suppressor was locked on, but with a quick aim and steady hand she cocked and unloaded, sending a hollow point bullet flying through the air into the rotting skull of Miss Pickett. She crumbled to the ground as May raced back inside, keeping the rifle close to her torso as she leaned against the wall beside the front door, peeking out of the ripped screen.
A silver sedan with one broken headlight and a spider-like crack in the windshield pulled up in front of the house, arriving in a miniature tornado of dust that had been cooked tawny in the waterless weather. The engine eventually cut and, though it took a while, the driver's seat door opened slowly. A woman stepped into the sun, with gray hair clipped short and blue eyes full of persevering strength. She shut the door behind her, taking the keys as she went. It appeared she was alone, though the glare on the windshield hindered May from seeing if there was a passenger sitting shotgun.
The middle-aged woman took tentative stepped forward; her body was slender and agile. She wore a dirtied blouse and denim shorts that were cut mid-thigh—the severance at the hem so sloppy it was obvious that the shorts were once full-length jeans. May further tensed when the woman pulled a handgun from the waistband of her shorts. She surveyed the area, looking to the side of the house for the Dead and into the long and far orchards that rolled away from the back of the house. She didn't seem to have caught anything or anyone, so she crept up the stairs of the front porch with a few modest creeks. She looked through the screen door, which May had ran from when she decided to hide in the parlor beside the foyer. The woman's hand clasped the brass doorknob. Before she turned, she looked back in a expeditious manner, checking to see what rested behind her. May wondered if she was merely worried about her automobile—machines which were as great as gold nowadays—but she also wondered if the woman was checking the status of issues behind her.
When the road she had driven down seemed clear of whatever she was looking for, she twisted the doorknob and stepped through the open door.
"Drop the gun."
The muzzle pressed to the woman's temple and she froze. She bent down slowly, laying the small gun on the ground with the tip of May's rifle still pressed against her skull.
"You alone?" May asked. The woman shook her head, her eyes trained ahead of her. "What you doin' alone out here?"
"I could ask you the same," the woman answered. She didn't sound like she was from Georgia, nor any place near. Perhaps the Midwest or the East Coast.
"Maybe I ain't alone."
The woman nodded her head slowly, deciding not to push the matter.
"Who are you?" May asked, digging the muzzle further into her skin and pushing the woman away slightly. The older woman winced and May pursed her lips—she didn't plan on hurting her, but she wanted to state her dominance. Part of being out in the middle of nowhere was holding your ground, no matter who came along.
"I was with a group but," she paused and her eyes flickered. "I left them."
"Why in the Hell would you've done that?"
"I had to. It was a sacrifice I made for the better of my group."
May blinked, scrunching her freckled nose as her brain processed another whiff of that acrid stench. She kept the gun on the woman as she looked through the screen door—the direction from which the smell was being carried. She saw nothing through the mesh.
"What'd you do?" May asked. The woman didn't answer for a moment; she hesitated and looked at the wallpaper, as though its floral designs held the answer to whether telling her the truth would be wise. May frowned and nudged her with the muzzle again. "What'd you do?!"
"There was some kind of malady going around, and it spread like wildfire. I tried to keep it contained so I got rid of some of its carriers early on. Some believed they could've been saved—I made an executive decision impulsively and without approval from authority."
Images of May's mama ran through her head—with her eyes yellow and her skin pallid. She was the last to break, with an unusually large interval of time between her and the preceding family member to go. May felt sympathy for the older woman, she was not the only one to suffer for the sicknesses of others.
"What's your name?"
"It's Carol," she said. "What's yours?"
May ignored Carol's question and pulled away the gun, but still kept it aimed at her head. "Where's that smell comin' from?"
"It's Walkers. They followed the car. If I'd known someone lived here… But I'd figured—"
"How many?" May asked angrily. If Carol had led them all to her house, her crops, her medicines, her weapons…
"More than a hundred."
May paused, wondering what in God's name she was going to do. Was it even worth staying? She could send Carol right on her merry way, but the Dead would still pass her house if May sent Carol on the road, and they would undoubtably smell May in such close proximity
May held the rifle tight under her arm and pulled Carol harshly by the wrist, tugging her deeper into the house. When they were in the kitchen, she ripped open the cupboards and the Lazy Susan. "There's bags 'neath the sink. Get e'erything you can hold then put 'em out in your car. I'm gettin' the guns," May ordered, handing her the rifle that she kept tucked under her arm.
"Alright," Carol agreed, looking at the stacked cupboards with wide eyes.
May wagged a stiff index figure in Carol's face until she saw the woman's cornflower eyes go slightly cross-eyed. "Now don't you try nothin' stupid, got it? I got what you need—more guns and food and water than most folk out 'ere. So don't you try nothing."
Carol nodded obediently, taking the gun for protection May couldn't believe she was granting her. May waited as Carol took the rifle in her hands, sliding a hand around her hips to hold the pistol in her back pocket in case the woman tried anything. To her relief, Carol put the gun between her knees and bent over, turning to retrieve some bags from under the sink.
May headed out to the back porch, picking up one of the wide woven baskets that sat by the door. She almost tripped over her typically nimble feet as she sprinted out into the long grasses. Any peach that was relatively orange she ripped from its leafy womb and tossed into the basket, suddenly impervious to the threat of bruising. After she'd plucked about half of the trees barren, Carol appeared on the back porch with a creak.
"I got as much as the food as I could!" She yelled from the porch.
"How long we got?"
"I gained some distance, I'd say about an hour. We've got time."
"Sure, but we got a shitload to pack up," May yelled. "Come 'ere now, and bring one of them baskets by the door!"
Carol appeared shortly with a large basket resting on her chest and arms. "Get all the peaches you can—even them that only look a little ripe. I'll get the rest of the crops an' the guns. Hurry."
May ran to the beds of crops that sprawled out long and flourishing beside the widest, white-shingled wall of the house. She tore up premature carrots and young collards, hoping they were decent enough to eat. The herbs were a different story—those she'd get with the rest of the medicines.
She loaded carts of crops into the back of her truck, squishing the torn-up tarp that was already sitting in it. If they were on the run, they'd need that tarp.
After she had fallen down a few stairs on her way to the basement, she immediately threw herself at the heavy chest of guns her entire family had pawned and put together since it'd all started. Revolvers, semiautomatics, shotguns, rifles, even a couple old muskets her Grandpa had had hanging on the wall which were surprisingly still operative. After sliding in as much ammo into the chest as she could, she pushed it across the smooth basement floor with as much force as she could muster. When she realized there was no way she could ever get the chest up the basement stairs by herself, she called Carol's name from the top of her lungs. She offhandedly realized how scratchy her voice was from those many weeks she had gone without really using it.
Carol appeared on the landing of the basement stairs. Her eyes went wider then May had ever seen eyes go—when was the last time she'd seen a well-stocked gun supply? May wanted to smugly smile at her impressive resources, but she refocused quickly and gestured for Carol to come and drag the other side of the chest up the stairs. It took a great deal of time, but eventually they both got the chest in the back of May's old truck.
"Now go out back and keep on them peaches. I'm almost done."
While Carol picked, May swept up all the medical supplies in the house along with the herbs she kept out by the back porch. Carol slid the last cart of peaches and figs in the back of May's truck and May stood in her bedroom, looking at the unfolded, white-linen bed she had slept in since her mama lugged her and Grace East from Louisiana to her mama's brother's house. She looked at the bedside table—to the dirty, although framed, picture of her and Grace. They were only kids then; it was taken by her daddy when he was still around. Their Aunt Helen had been sweet enough to keep the picture and put it in a pretty opalescent frame.
May took the patched-up bag which she had been using as a makeshift suitcase for the past few months and poured all of its contents out. She took the picture from its glittery frame and shoved it in the bottom of her bag before stuffing in a pair of jeans, two shirts, four assorted pairs of undergarments, and one pair of shorts. The dirty old iPod on top of her dresser had been too much of an investment to leave behind—she'd bought it for herself on her twenty-third birthday after coughing up as much change as she could for a month. It was all she'd gotten that year besides a card from Grace. She stuffed the iPod in her pocket with some crumby earphones before leaving the bedroom.
May met Carol outside, who had a new layer of sweat gathering on her silver hairline. "Take your car and follow me, alright?"
Carol nodded; May was satisfied with how compliant the woman could be in such a pressing situation. In that rusted hunter green truck, May took the skinny dirt road that traveled South from her house and in a direction away from which the Dead were headed. She kept an eye on Carol in her rearview mirror and watched the little, white house she'd come to call her home in the past few months fade away into the rolling, green hills—just another part of her past that blew away in the passing wind.
Several weeks later.
May was glad to have that gut-covered poncho off of her, as the scent was close to pushing her over the edge of upchuck. She was tough as nails after all she'd been through, but she was still unbelievably sensitive to strong scents. They sent her hurling more often than not.
She worked at the smudges of blood on her arms and her chest—ranging from seal brown to vermillion. She didn't know what was Dead blood, what was human, what was her's… It all wrapped around her shoulders like a giant patchwork quilt of varying shades of red.
Carol's pace quickened as she deftly jumped over a jumble of roots braiding into moss and soil. May sighed at the sudden change in speed and tried to predict the direction the older woman was heading in, but her efforts were futile. Carol was chasing after something and May had no idea what. Though, she didn't bother asking—she just followed.
As they weaved through the groves of trees, May saw a group of figures in the distance. She knew who they must have been based on Carol's excited sprinting towards them. As May began to take a more leisurely pace, she watched a young man take Carol in his arms and hold her. He lifted her several inches off the ground with his golden, hardened arms and his long-haired head buried in her shoulder. Carol said she was closest with a man named Daryl; May figured that was him.
Nearly every one took Carol in their dirtied, shining arms. She was beloved—May could see, so she left the moment to her older friend. Behind the scattered trees May's hair shined in the sunlight as red as a wild corn poppy and she stood just as small and withdrawn as that poppy before its June bloom.
A few of the group members took note of May's presence, even the man who held Carol's eyes flickered to her shortly, curious about the brightly-colored young lady standing little and covered in blood.
"You did all this, Carol?" A man in a Sherpa jacket asked. His words seemed didn't seemed tangled despite the wild gray beard on his face that May figured most would loose their speech in.
Carol turned to May, her eyes terrifically blue and looking like the tops of ponds which reflected the rest of the world. "It was mostly her idea. You all owe her your life."
"Who are you?" The man with the beard—the identifiable leader—asked her. Despite what she had done for them all, his eyes were untrusting still. This was Rick, May could tell. He was tall and broad and hard-eyed, but he did not look as strong as Daryl, who took discreet steps in front of Carol to protect her from whatever dangers May apparently posed.
"May," she replied simply.
"I was being chased by more than a hundred infected Walkers. May took all her supplies and left her house behind. She could have told me to keep driving, but she left with me and took all of her supplies for us both. She helped Tyreese and I get here. She knew about Terminus, she told me how to bring it down so I could save you. May did all of this."
Rick came several steps closer, nodding thankfully. "How many Walkers have you killed?"
May couldn't help but let a smile tickle the corner of her lips. Who counted that nowadays? Were they even worth counting? "I don't count that."
"How many people have you killed?"
May didn't smile that time. She kept her eyes on Rick and wondered what would inspire a person these days to dare ask a question like that. May's sternum caved in on her and the prick of abhorrence sent her blood racing at a much faster pace through her body. "That ain't got nothin' to do with you."
"It does," Rick clarified calmly. Carol stepped in, shorter than May and Rick both but still serving as a relatively effective barrier.
"Rick, could we hold off the questions with May? She saved my life and all of yours' too, don't you think that's enough to know she's trustworthy?"
"Our policy applies to all, Carol. If she plans on traveling with us, she'll answer the questions."
May resorted to the back of her heels. She should run, she knew. She didn't have any business with anyone besides herself. All of her companions were gone—she only could trust herself. "Who said anythin' about traveling with y'all?"
Truth be told, Carol had invited May to join the group she had been sent away from. Without the house, May had no reason to decline this invitation; she'd accepted. But now, seeing the type of people that made up Carol's group… She wanted to forget all about it.
"No, no… Rick!" Carol interjected, jabbing a finger towards his face. "She saved everyone here… Judith, Mika, and Lizzie included! You don't shoo someone like that away!"
"I'm not shooing her away, I—"
"I'll go, Carol," May stated.
"You won't!" Carol latched onto her new companion by the wrist and kept her close. "If you make it so May can't stay here, Rick, then you're making it so I can't stay here."
Suddenly Daryl stepped in, shoulders square and face close to Rick's. May was faced with his leather-clad back and the swirling, black tattoo that peaked out from the ragged armholes of his vest. She could nearly feel the heat emanating from his skin. He was warm—not like any star or the sun, but like the burning coals left in an expired fire that hid between the dark rocks and charred logs.
"Rick, we'll finish it later," he said adamantly. Rick's eyes grew wider to a very slight degree, a hardly detectable indicator that Daryl rarely told Rick what to do. His voice was rough although gentle, not hinting at any sternness in his command, only that it must be met.
Rick was momentarily quiet, but he eventually nodded. May saw Carol's freckled hand wrap around Daryl's delineated bicep in a tacit thank-you.
They were moving before May could process what exactly they were moving towards. When they reached a lackluster log cabin where Tyreese and Judith were, they scooped them along after a moment of reunification then moved on. As May walked alone some place in the heart of the group, she was sweltering and left in an uncomfortable bubble that seemed to isolate her from everyone else there. She decided to put in earphones and lay her reaction to potential dangers on the backs of those before her.
They carried on for hours, panting and moving in the silence of the Georgian forest. When the sun left the sky they made camp by a quiet stream, in which Carol, Tyreese, and May filled cans and jars with milky water. That night, Carol and Daryl took first shift. Halfway through the night when their shifts were over, Daryl offered to take the shift of a girl named Tara. She worried for his exhaustion, but he assured her he was well-rested enough to stay up the entire night. Reluctantly, she agreed and let him take watch for the second half of the night. May wondered if his offer was a response to the watch schedule—in which Tara and May would take the second night shift. Perhaps he didn't trust May with anyone besides himself.
They didn't speak really, only when he asked small questions about her time with Carol. May noted how important Carol was to him, which she admired. A common understanding thrived between Daryl and May, that which was the understanding of Carol as a key figure to their existences. It was a sort of common ground between them.
Not only did it strike admiration in May but also inquiry—what was Carol to Daryl, specifically? Their embrace the day before could possibly have been amorous, but she was a little old for him. However, in times like these that didn't seem to be an important factor.
Between Daryl's few short queries, the two sat in silence. Although they were essentially strangers, there was an ease in the silence. May doubted Daryl felt similarly, as his posture was eternally rigid and ready, but she enjoyed the comfort in their quietness. All too often did May feel pressured to communicate with someone, but Daryl made no effort to pressure her in this way. Perhaps he liked the silence like she did.
"'Ere was somethin' out there movin' earlier. Thought it was the wind, probably was, but…" he shrugged as he spoke. When he interrupted the aforementioned silence, it wasn't disruptive. It was more like a leaf blowing through a constant wind—gentle and coming in quietly.
May nodded, deciding not to respond. Daryl pursed his lips in unfamiliarity in her lack of response. Anyone else in the group would have attempted to carry on a conversation with him after his comment, but not her.
The next morning, they went on in their journey. It was painfully repetitive of their previous day's traveling: May listened to music, Rick led the way, they all sweat to no end. At one point Rick spoke to Daryl and ordered him away for what Carol later explained to May was a hunt. May was the only one who didn't pull a gun on Daryl when he returned with a string of squirrel tied to his pack several hours after he had left.
"We surrender," he held up his hands mockingly.
Relief flooded the faces of those who had thrown themselves up in arms.
They kept on that long journey north. Rick whistled at one point, pulling a burly man named Abraham to the side after ordering them all to tighten up their formation. Subtly, May paused her music and eavesdropped in on their conversation.
"Ready to get some concrete under your feet?" Abraham asked. May observed the soil brown his originally-beige undershirt had been stained to.
"I think it's time," Rick replied.
"That is sweet music to my ears, Officer," he sighed with a hot breath. "Take the next road we come to, try to get back goin' north 'til we find a vehicle?"
"Actually, Carol told me her and May left two cars just outside Macon on 74. We'll be lucky if they're still there, but if they aren't there'll be plenty more cars there, I bet," Rick explained. "Good?"
"Good."
With her earphones no longer playing in her ears, May could focus on her surroundings to a more severe degree. And expectedly she smelled the Dead near—and not their 'remains' but their moving 'corpses'. Before she acted on this the rush of sensation, she contemplated the issue that lay within updated post-apocalyptic vernacular.
She turned right—out of the group. The air that combed through the trees blew from the East. Carol was the first to notice May's diversion and she cut herself out of the line of people, meeting May just off the beaten path.
"What is it?"
"They're near," she answered. Just with her words, the alarm seemed to blare. Cries and screams for help came from the East.
The group merged into one living being—most of them being the muscle, the beating heart, the blood, but Rick the brain. He held up his hand and halted the rest of the body from moving on instinct. But Carl—his son, who was also a part of him and a part of the brain—was his morality. And when Carl questioned his father for his hesitation in saving a life, Rick's morality assumed the wheel of the brain's functions.
"Come on!" Carl urged, pulling his father's hand. With a grind of his teeth, Rick began to run in the direction from which screams came. The brain told the rest of the body to follow.
Five of the Dead scraped their decomposing hands against a boulder which served as a pedestal to a dark-skinned man in a formal, black outfit. They had a firm grip on his ankle, which he flailed around to no avail. A bullet belonging to Carl's gun ripped through the air and into one of the Dead's head. A woman May had yet to meet jammed the stock of her firearm into one of their heads and Rick crushed a Dead skull against the wall of the rock with a sharp tug. While Carol sank a dagger into one of the Dead's occipital lobes, May circled the rock for the fifth. Its swaggering walk was frighteningly lifelike and its blonde beard was still present, though matted with blood. It sauntered towards May, so she wrapped her fingers around the push dagger in her belt and sunk it into the space between the base of the skull and the first vertebra, letting the body crumble before her.
As the Dead fell, May looked up to see Daryl before her, having just rounded the boulder. His crossbow was poised and it seemed as though she'd stolen his target.
When the commotion quelled, she looked up to the man at the top of the boulder. He took heavy breaths of liberation and had highly dismayed, dark eyes. May caught the white rectangle of a clerical collar at the man's neck—contrasting greatly with his deep brown complexion and black vestments.
A surge of gratitude quickened the thump of her heart. A priest. May hadn't attended church since it happened, although she prayed every night and read the Scriptures as often as she could. The weight of her spirituality had been in decline through the months prior and she was afraid its skeletal frame would crumble under the weight of the current status of the world. But God had granted her with a priest and her spirit would once again be nourished.
She pushed through Rick and Carl and held a hand to the priest. He was vacillating in the trembling aftermath of the attack, but he was reassured by the glitter of the golden crucifix pendant wrapped tightly around May's neck. He took her hand and let her assist him in lowering him to the ground. A warm joy sat in his eyes when he reached the ground.
"How rarely I see people of God nowadays," he immediately said—his voice was tremulous. "God bless you."
May smiled minutely but genuinely. She would speak to him later—those she traveled with seemed so skeptical she knew they would mock her for her faith if she revealed its depth before them.
As a tinge of green surfaced beneath the priest's skin, his jaw seemed to fill grotesquely.
"You okay?" Asked Rick.
The priest held up his index finger before bending over and hurling. "Sorry," he apologized breathily when he was done spitting up his last meal.
Hello everyone! So this is the start of my latest fanfiction...
