Hey guys...sorry for such a long time of being away. However, I'll try to put some focus back into this fanfiction stuff. So let's get going!

It had been about two weeks since I met Duke. We decided to go to one of the coasts as that could give us some options of what to do. We had made it to somewhere in Alabama. We were driving down the highway when Duke turns off towards a small convenience store. "Dude, what are you doing? There is still a lot of distance between us and the coast." I said as he was going down the off ramp.

"Relax. I just want to stop here and stock up on some food and small medical supplies. Also we could try and syphon gas from the cars in the parking lot." He said trying to act as though he is the smartest man in the world.

"Point taken." I gripped my gun and leaned back in my chair staring out the window. I then looked in the back seat, we had a decent amount of food and water, and trust me Duke has stocked up on weapons. What we really needed were those medical kits, that is gonna be used more for injuries from the non-infected. As Duke drove around the parking lot I was getting irritated at how long it was taking him to park. I point to an empty spot near the back of the row. "How about there."

"Nah. It's too much walking." He says as he goes down another row of parking spots. As we do this we notice most of these cars were just abandoned in the parking spots. People didn't even get to their cars. They just ran. After circling around for what felt like forever I finally had enough.
"Will you just park the fucking car in front of the damn store! Who fucking cares if we're not in an actual parking spot!" Duke just stared at me. He drove the car up next to the sidewalk in front of the store doors. I was about to get out when he grabbed my shoulder pulled me to face him and pressed his butterfly knife against my chest.

"Don't you ever yell at me like that again or I'll turn you into fecto bait." He let me go, put his knife away and hopped out of the car. I gasped for air and then got out as Duke opened up the trunk of the Humvee. I got out and went to the back of the car and looked at all of our weapons. He grabbed a sword and a sickle. I took a baseball bat and a large hunting knife. "Let's go." Duke said as we entered the store. We looked around and saw that the place was really trashed. Some of the aisle shelves have been knocked over and there was blood everywhere. We were walking down the canned food section grabbing anything that was still good. We kept looking when we heard a groan. Duke stopped me and pulled out his sickle. We turned a corner and saw a hefty bastard facing away from us. Duke snuck up to him and raised the sickle. The walker turned around just to see Duke smash the sickle deep into his head. He pushed the walker down and wiped the blood and brain bits off. I got up and walked over to him and the corpse.

"Well...shit." I said. Duke just shrugged. We started to grab certain items that weren't out of date. We decided to loop around the store and we picked up a load of items. Thank god for abandoned shopping carts. After a few minutes we were

just about done. I started walking up the aisle to the door when I noticed Duke wasn't next to me. I looked back and saw him staring at something on the ground. I couldn't see what it was because their was a bunch of boxes in the way. I started to walk back to him. I slowed down as I saw what it was. I saw a pale foot with a sneaker on. As I got closer the rest of the body was revealed. It was a woman in a sweater and skirt. She was slightly decayed but you can make out that she was about 20 something. However the true horror wasn't shown until I got close. I stood next to Duke in silence. Lying next to her hand was a small pistol. There was a small hole in her head. Next to the gun was a small figure. A boy. He had a hole in the side of his head. His blood was splattered on a small box next to him. I looked at Duke and could tell he was holding back tears. We stood there in silence for a while. Then we heard two clicks behind us. We heard a voice that was slightly softer than ours.

"Get your fucking hands up." I looked at Duke and he nodded. We lifted our hands slowly. "Turn around." We slowly turned around and saw a girl who was a little shorter than Duke yet roughly my height standing there holding two pistols at our heads. She had black hair that was fairly short. She had a tattered black tank top and black cargo shorts with combat boots. She had a fair amount of bruises and cuts on her. "Weapons on the ground now." We slowly put down our weapons. However Duke still had his knife in his pocket. "Who the fuck are you?" We looked at each other for a second, not sure of what to say. Duke eventually spoke up.

"I'm Cheech and this is Chong." He smirked and chuckled to himself. The girl pressed the gun deep into his forehead.

"Quit joking 'fore I blow that hat right off of that damn head of yours. What the fuck are your names." She was getting angry. I decided to speak up.

"I'm Lee. This here is Duke." I said as Duke nodded. She looked at me.
"What are you doing here."

"Just scavenging, like most people. Though this place seems to have run fairly dry." She sighs still holding the guns up to our heads.

"People took most of the good stuff, that or the good stuff has gone bad. Now I don't need idiots like you taking what's left away from me." After she said that Duke knocked the guns out of her hands threw her on the ground and pointed his butterfly knife at her throat. I grabbed my weapons and stood next to them.

"Now then," Duke said while pressing his knife against her neck. "we are going to grab take what we need and leave, okay?" The girl tried to fight but Duke had her pinned down.

"Fuck You!" She said as she spat in Duke's face.

"You think you're safe in here? What'll happen if a whole group of people stronger than you come through here. Would you be able to take them on. You can't even stand up to us two. Besides, this stuff will run out and most of the surrounding area is probably looted as well, so you won't have much of a back up plan. You're not getting very far, so just let us leave and I'll let you live." The girl stayed silent for a while before letting out a defeated sigh.

"Fine…" Duke got up and pulled her up. He grabbed her pistols off the ground. He took out the clips and popped the bullets that were in the chambers. He put the clips on the ground and slid them away in opposite directions. He walked over and grabbed his weapons. "My name's Meredith by the way." Duke started walking towards our stuff.

"Well miss Meredith, nice meeting you, but we've gotta head out." He said as we started to leave. She then ran up to us.

"Uh… Where are you guys headed to?" She asked while looking kinda defeated. I stopped and looked at her.

"We're headed to the coast. Hopefully we can find some more options on what to do there. Why did you ask?" Duke stopped a few feet in front of me and turned around. He seemed aggravated that we weren't already out of here. Meredith looked at the ground gripping her now loaded guns.

"I-I… I would like a ride. If that's okay." She asked. I looked at Duke he shrugged as if he didn't know what to say.

"I'm not sure, we'll need to talk it over." I say. Meredith nods as I walk over to Duke. We hush our voices to whispers so she can't hear us. "Okay, so now what the fuck do we do?" Duke just shrugs.

"I don't know. I mean she did just almost kill us." He says nodding in her direction.

"I know but I think having more than two people could be a good idea. Another person to watch our backs."

"Or stab our backs."

"Okay Mr. Negative how about this: we do a test run. If she doesn't try anything within a week of being with us, she's good. If not, we leave her."

"Sounds good." We turned around and walked up to her.

"So we've made a decision." I say to her as she nods. I hold out my hands. "We're going to need your guns." She looks at me confused.

"What you don't trust me." She says slightly sarcastically.

"Well you did try to kill us." She's silent while inspecting her guns and looking at our loot and car.

"Fine." She hands me her weapons and we lead her to the car. We toss our loot and weapons in the back. I keep her pistol's with me just to be sure. We get in, Duke starts the car and we start back on the highway. I'm sitting with Meredith's pistols at my sides with the safety on. I'm still not sure whether or not she's gonna be a good addition to our group but we need allies in order to survive. So this is all that we've got.

So what do you think. A bit longer than usual and I'm sorry for How long it's been, I'll try and get back into posting on here again. Sincerely TheFlameBlade

Deuces Up!