Atlanta was a bust.
Amity knew that from the moment she saw the smoke cloud in the distance. She couldn't tell how long ago the city had been attacked, but she could tell it wasn't exactly recent.
The woman fought against the bile that rose up in her throat at the thought of everyone in the city who had been seeking sanctuary or simply living their lives being gone- just like that.
They were nothing but numbers and statistics on a screen to someone somewhere that was calling the shots on this thing and yet Amity found herself still driving towards the ruined city that she once frequented for days out with her friends.
Before long, a knocking sound had the redhead looking at the dashboard of her vehicle as if it would tell her what was going on and sure enough, it did. She was running on fumes.
With a hiss of anger, Amity pushed open her car door and looked at the scenery around her with a bit of frustration.
Trees, trees, and more trees.
At this point, the woman didn't even know where she was aside from the fact that Atlanta was one way and her home was the other.
Frustration drove the woman to kick the tire of her car once then twice, suddenly thankful for the hiking books that she had donned as she could barely feel anything when she had done so.
Snatching her bag and bow from the passenger seat, Amity set them on top of the car so that she could reach in and grab the small handgun she kept in her glove box after getting her concealed carry license (at the request of her brother) when she turned twenty-one seven years prior. Luckily, since then it had only been used for recreational purposes at a shooting range.
Slipping it into her pocket and stashing the extra ammo in her duffel bag, Amity took a deep breath, eyes trained on the smoking horizon before she got to stepping.
It had been about two months, give or take a few days thanks to the lack of a phone calendar that she had so relied on, since Amity had abandoned her car on the side of the road.
Her brand new car- the car that she had been saving up to buy, not that she was bitter or anything.
Of course not.
The soles of her hiking boots slapped against the hot pavement, the makeup that she had been wearing the day she left her hometown was now long since washed away, leaving her blues eyes looking darker though her eyebrows sparser.
Again, the woman found herself thanking whatever gods were up there for helping her think to don her hiking boots along with thick socks as she knew her trek would have been a hell of a lot harder without them. At least part of her plan had suited her well since for some reason extra fuel slipped her mind.
"What I wouldn't give for a hot shower and a California roll." The woman muttered to herself, knowing that her words were ridiculous, but the heart wants what the heart wants.
Readjusting the bow in her hand then, Amity paused as she suddenly felt the hairs on the back of her neck and arms stand to attention, the chill of danger in the air having her on the defensive almost immediately.
She drew back her bow, ignoring the way the strings ate at her now callused fingers without her release which had apparently been broken weeks before the world decided to end. The backpack that she had traded her duffel bag for sat comfortably on her shoulders and in that moment she was glad that she had tucked her water bottle away so that her hands were free.
The redhead stood quietly, striking a fierce picture against the nearly set sun as her eyes narrowed in concentration, scanning the woods around her. She heard a shuffle and some moaning and nearly laughed at herself, ridiculously relieved as no one should ever be when they realize that the feeling they had was nothing more than the dead walking by.
No big deal at all.
After leaving her car, Amity had quickly become acquainted with exactly what the virus that swept the nation entailed.
Sure, she knew from the beginning that it made people turn into cannibalistic loons thanks to the reports on the news, but that didn't prepare her when she stumbled across a woman who was literally rotting but still walking towards her.
She had watched the thing as it groaned and moaned, seemingly becoming excited by Amity's appearence. The woman found herself asking how.
How could a virus do this to people? She had studied the brain her entire career- she knew what it could do and the miracles it could preform, but this?
They were dead.
Now, Amity was used to the stumbling nuisance that the walking dead had become.
When they were in groups of two or less than she barely even worried about taking them on. It was the ones that were hidden or formed small packs that you had to worry about.
The woman took a step forward then before freezing once more as the groaning grew louder and she spotted not one but five undead stumbling into the road up a ways from her.
Immediately the woman ducked down low, moving behind an abandoned pontiac to avoid being seen as more and more of the bastards made their way out of the woods and across the road. Amity was just relieved to see that they were continuing on their merry way.
"That's right, fuckers. Keep on walking," she said to herself, keeping her bow steady and ready just in case.
As the last one stumbled into the woods on the other side of the road, Amity finally stood with a small groan and stretched out her lower back that was aching from her squatting for so long. Maybe she would meet a chiropractor around and trade him a squirrel for a realignment?
At that, Amity couldn't help but let out a small snort of amusement at herself.
Her mirth didn't last long though as just as she turned from the car, about to continue on down the road- a shrill scream sounded from what seemed to be further up the mountain from where she was currently.
It was only once she was already tearing through the forest at breakneck speed that the woman began to realize that maybe helping a random stranger in the dead of night would be detrimental to her own survival.
Oh well, too late to turn back now.
Tripping into a clearing, the screams of the large group of surprisingly alive people reached Amity's ears and she realized that the numbers of living in that group were going down fast.
"Shit!" She cursed to herself, immediately drawing an arrow and sending it through the skull of an undead that was right in front of an african-american woman who looked at her with wide eyes.
Not pausing to chat, Amity continued on her way and to her utter dismay and confusion, the woman spotted a child of all things huddled with another child and a couple of women, the man in front of them yelling at them to stay close.
It was only once the man turned to shoot one of the things stumbling too close to the brunette woman that Amity spotted one of the undead about to take a chunk out of his forearm. Swiftly she released another arrow, skewering it right through the eye and drawing the attention of the man who looked at her like she was a new species.
"Keep going!" Amity all but shrieked at him, kicking one of the undead in the chest as it stumbled towards her.
"Get to the RV!" The man shouted at those around him in response, not sparing Amity another glance as he cocked his gun and shot another one of the things in the head.
Amity rushed to join a different man who was cracking undead skulls like they were softballs with the bat in his hand, unsheathing the knife that she had tucked away in her belt after finding it in a car about a month before and jabbed it into the temple of one of things, ignoring how its hands grabbed for her throat.
As she went for another, she was surprised to see it drop in front of her with a bullet hole through its head.
Looking over, she spotted a man jogging her way as the last few shots were fired and the last few undead were put down forever. He looked at her like she had brought this plague on herself- maybe he thought that she had? The man was a good head and a half taller than Amity and wearing a sleeveless shirt with a crossbow strapped to his back.
"Who the fuck are ya?" He snarled and immediately Amity's temper flared up, her teeth nearly baring as she all but squared up to the man, but was stopped by a hand on her arm.
She jerked away from the touch, immediately on the defense as her bow rose, but she was met with the eyes of the man that she had stopped from losing a piece of his arm.
"I'd like to know that too." He said, voice carefully trained into a tone that Amity knew was meant to be soothing and reassuring, like he was talking her down from a ledge.
She wasn't going to be talked down like she was in the wrong when she wasn't, so she kept her bow raised in front of her.
As she looked between the two men, one staring at her with nothing but heated distrust and the other open curiosity and a bit of suspicion, Amity went to answer but a loud cry cut her off. Blue eyes turned to see a blonde woman hunched over a blonde girl's body and immediately, her arms gave way under the weight of her bow, leaving it to hang at her side.
The fire went out of her in that moment as the woman's cries of a name reached her ears and her heart clenched in her chest.
The man with a crossbow slung over his back watched her with narrowed eyes, observing how she went from ready to fight to a seemingly timid woman in two seconds flat. It was unusual and it was something that he had to think over.
"Now's not the time- y'all've got to handle your losses. I've got to get on my way." Amity said, her voice quieter than before as she looked at the scene in front of her.
"You can't go out there alone in the middle of the night. You've seen what can happen." Another voice chimed in from the sidelines and Amity turned to see an older man with a rifle walking over to them after apparently listening to their exchange. Amity deflated a bit under his gaze, his eyes holding a bit of wisdom and sureness that reminded her of her father.
"I-" She went to speak, but the older man cut her off.
"I'm Dale, and this is Shane and Daryl." He said, pointing to the man she saved then the crossbow guy respectively.
"Amity." She replied after a moment's hesitation and the man offered her a pained smile.
"We can do the rest of the introductions in the morning. Tonight..." He trailed off and Amity nodded, offering a smile that told him she understood what he meant before he moved along.
"We appreciate your help during that. I appreciate your help." Shane said, regaining Amity's attention as she had been counting the fallen bodies around them then.
"It's no problem. I didn't even know I was going to help until I was, so..." She trailed off, the awkwardness of meeting new people in such a heavily emotional time having her reaching for all of her people skills that seemed to have fallen away over her time alone.
"I'll help with the bodies- the undead dead ones. Y'all need to count your blessings... and your numbers." Amity said finally, uncomfortable under the piercing gazes of both men who were staring at her as if waiting for her to do something to reveal her inner most thoughts and intentions.
'Good luck', she thought with an internal eye roll. 'That kind of shit was my job.'