Chapter 2: Surprise Encounter

-Kim hides half of her face behind a black mouth mask, for health and safety reasons to keep anything from getting near or around her mouth or nose

moving on!

The roads were empty as far as driving went. All empty, the lanes heading away from the city were piled up with empty and abandoned cars of all varieties, many of them broken or out of working order. Windows were shattered on some side doors were left open. I could already see many of the city skyline, the skyscrapers shining in broad daylight, their colored glass windows and reflecting the sun and illuminating the city even more.

The noise was low, save the exception of my car, whose hybrid engine made a low hum as it worked, which made me a little uneasy; it was too quiet for comfort. Normally there was the sound of muffled footsteps, or walkers groaning out as they made their way walking about, but even that wasn't heard.

As I drove towards the big and glorious city that was , I kept my guard on high alert, waiting for a sudden herd of walkers to appear, or a group of rouge survivors to ambush me and finish the job the walkers haven't yet done. It was almost too much to bear for me, and I felt the urge to yell out and see if what was going on was even real.

So I lowered the window and shouted out. "Hello?"

Nothing still. Just the engine noise as I drove through the first broken street light of the city, now being surrounded by tall buildings all around, no more open space, or safe areas like fenced in surroundings or large fields. It was all buildings, narrow streets, and dark alleyways.

A little while after passing the first street crossing, the car battery decided to die on me and shut off, slowing down until the car was at a full stop in the middle of the road. In slight frustration, I groaned out loud and banged my head on the wheels, letting the horn blow out, which I immediately pull back in horror. There has never been more regret in my body than that moment. After the little scene I pulled, I resorted to get out of the car and sort out what I could and could not leave in the back seats. After deciding to bring the extra rucksack of canned and boxed food, I stuffed as much extras as my bag could carry me, with the extra gun ammo, along with a knife hidden in the rubber stuffing of my shoes.

After looking around my new surroundings, I could try to locate myself and find a map of the city, because at the moment I was completely lost, but seeing as how that was nearly impossible, as I had never been to the city before now, and it was in reality way bigger than what I had initially expected, with the beach located across the city, on the other side of where I entered.

Giving up on trying to find a map, my new goal was to try and find a temporary safe spot from any danger that would be nearby, so I ended up locking the car, along with all my unpacked supplies inside on the seats and trunk, and keeping the key safely hidden in my sock before venturing further into the now uninhabited city.

Only three blocks down into the walk, I came across a herd of seven walkers, all seeming to get the corpse of a cat laying fresh on the floor, and like the usual clumsy person I am, I managed to trip over a crack on the ground and ultimately, unfortunately get their collective attention as I saw their cold and lifeless eyes, before letting out a curse and taking out my pistol.

"Oh for god's sake!"

Before I could accurately aim and shoot, the herd started stumbling after me, to which I cursed out again before breaking turning a full 180 degrees around and breaking into a sprint away from them.

'Great job Kim! Now you have a herd chasing you with no fence or barricade to block them!'

As I ran god knows where in the city, I kept turning back every chance I could to shoot at the now fast moving herd, only getting one down with every two or three bullets that I shot out, which only echoed out throughout the area.

The groans from these re-animated corpses sounded close behind as my energy was raining from the constant running and stopping, by now there were only three left chasing after me. Now me being a think-before-I-act kind of person, I decided the last three should be handled hand-to-hand, meaning knife-to-face. So I swiftly put away the pistol in it's own place in my back pocket, and took out the knife strapped onto my right thigh with a leather buckle before turning around to face the remaining walkers still stumbling after me.

The first one I had managed to stab ended with a knife deep in the left eye socket as black ooze came out from the open flesh and the body fell to the ground in a thud. Taking out the knife from the face, my arm swung around back to catch the other walker in the chest, but missed the neck, which was a main spot any survivor knows to aim for. Missing the spot, I tried to fix the mistake and step back, but a pothole on the ground tripped me, and I let out a surprised yell before falling backwards and hitting my head, to which I responded with a loud cry of pain. I think the back of my head had started bleeding from the hit, but my mind was too busy on trying to get the rotten walker on top of me dead to even notice the warm crimson liquid going down my head.

As the walker tried to get at me, I managed to get one hand on the handle of the knife and pull it out, letting ooze spill from the wound and onto my shirt and jeans. My inner-conscious gagged at this as I made a move and cut the head off, making more blood spill on my once clean mask as the now decapitated head part rolled a few feet away, and what was left of the body fell slumped on-top of me. My disgust showed as I used my upper body strength to push the body off of me, before turning my attention to the last walker, which was still stumbling to me with a hungry growl. Getting back on my feet, I wiped the dark blood off of the blade before lodging it in the back of the walkers head, it fell to the ground in a slump, giving me time to stop my shaky hands.

After resting a bit from all the energy and strength I had just used, I had to lay my hands on my knees to try to steady my uneven breaths as I wiped my now bloody hands and arms on my dirty pants, seeing a reflection on a nearby window, my ombre pink hair was also stained in dark blood while the back of my head and top of the shirt was stained in warm crimson with a strong smell of iron. I would have puked at the sight if I wasn't so used to it by now.

Moving a hand to the back of my head where the bleeding was, I made an attempt to graze the wound with my pointer finger, to which a large stinging sensation ran through my head and I hissed out in pain, lifting my finger from the wound. Deciding to deal with the injury later, I went back to the corpse and took out my now dirty knife, trying to clean it as best I could, eventually I gave up and put it away in it's strap.

The sudden gunshots that rang from a nearby area went off and I was thrown completely off guard, taking a step back in surprise. Who was shooting? Had they heard my own shots and went to investigate? I had never encountered any other survivors before, and I didn't plan on it any time soon, so I tried to pull myself together and get as far away from any other people as fast as I possibly could.

Unfortunately, my plan was cut short when I found more walkers the next street ahead of me, only this time I was in no condition to face them alone with only a knife, a few bullets left in my pistol, and a head wound. My head started aching, a heavy throb setting off the pain. Now I'm not a doctor or anything, but I knew for sure that I had some form of concussion.

Taking the choice to use my gun instead of my knife and risk having other people find me, I took out another round of ammunition and reloaded it before opening fire and taking down the herd of walkers in front of me.

I could hear quick footsteps approaching from what I guessed was at the other end of the street as I took down all decayed bodies in the way. After finishing them off I slumped forward on shaky feet to try to steady my breath yet again before hearing a voice I could almost recognize call out my name.

"Kim?"

How did they know my name? there wasn't enough time to think who it could be, but it sounded so familiar, I could almost remember it. It took me out of my slow recovery, straightening my back and keeping my gun tightly in my hand as I turned and pointed the barrel to whoever it was that called me, finger on the trigger ready to pull.

It only took a second of seeing the other person before I reacted, my eyes widened and my body froze as I finally saw sight of who had called me by name, nearly dropping the gun as I stayed quiet for what felt the longest second, before responding, my voice displaying my shock for whoever could hear me.

"Perci?!"