We've been at the quarry for about two months in total and we are running extremely low on supplies. Usually Glenn, who I've become good friends with, does the runs solo but he can't bring back enough to feed everybody. So Shane and I have a discussion about who could go and help Glenn and who we need to keep at camp but in the end it's the people's choice.
I stand on the stairs of Dale's RV and hold a little community meeting. "We need a group of people to go with Glenn to the city for supplies. We are scarily low on essentials. Who would like to volunteer?"
People raise their hands immediately and I start calling names "T-Dog, Morales, Andrea, Jacqui, Merle and Nessa?" I raise my eyebrow at the girl "You sure?"
She nods "Yeah Gwen, I'm not an invalid, I can do stuff."
I think about it nervously for a minute but nod slowly "Okay"
We agreed they would set out in the morning. Daryl also announces he's going on a hunt tomorrow. I smile at him appreciatively. That night we are sitting by a tiny, embers only fire, talking.
I take Nessa's mirror out of her hand after she starts scrutinizing her hair, it's not dirty it's just the fake blonde is coming out and her black roots are starting to look awful. Her dark brown eyes flash over at me in annoyance and she crosses her arms.
"Maybe you should invest in a black dye when you go to Atlanta" I say with a grin.
She glares at me with a pout "It's not that bad!"
"Yes, yes it is" I reply "Don't worry, I'll do it for you"
She grins, her wonderful straight teeth glow against her tanned skin "Yeah? Cool! I can never do it right"
"That's because you suck" I say with a grin so she would know I was kidding.
She laughs "Shut it you"
I pop the mirror open and do my own inspection. My own, natural black hair is no longer pristinely straight, it hasn't been since the first night here, and instead it has its natural curl back. My face is looking paler and paler everyday, which is a surprise giving the intensity of the sun. My cheeks are looking thinner and my eyes look bigger from weight lose. My eyes don't have one colour. They're a mix of every colour, blue, green, and brown with flecks of gold and violet, weird I know but it's a family thing. Scottish eyes my Grandma calls them. Despite our hair colour Nessa and I are nothing a like in looks. Dark and light is how I would describe our differences.
"Where are you from, Gwen?" Carl bursts out
I look up from the mirror and over at the young boy surprised "What?"
He flushes red "Where are you from? Your accent isn't American so I was curious" He mutters his voice trailing off.
Nessa and I both laugh a little. I answer "We're Scottish. We moved to the states, what? 3 years ago, for our PhD's. We study at Georgetown but we got placed in Georgia on a work placement for our last year."
"Unfortunately" Nessa states with a grin "Being shackled to you all your life has been a pain in my ass"
"Why lie? You love me" I retort and we both laugh again.
The groups laughs with us "What were you studying?" Shane asks.
Nessa and I both stop laughing. "Nessa was studying archaeology, I was studying Forensic Anthropology."
There is a lot of confused looks around the group "Basically, I identified dead people who have gone passed the point of recognition, burn victims, drowned victim who have been in the water too long, skeletal remains or people who are badly decomposed, usually in the medico-legal sense but I sometimes do ancient remains"
Daryl scoffs "That's a great business for ya now, that's if you can keep the dead from eating ya first"
I was actually going to smile until he asks "How you still alive if you work wi' the dead?"
I do smile but darkly "If I wasn't running late the day of the outbreak, I probably wouldn't be" No one said anything so I continue "I arrived just in time to see a man who was brought into the coroner's office the night before eat my boss, safe to say I got out there pretty sharpish. Thank God I'm streetwise or I would have been dead before I got back to my house" I say the last bit with a little laugh to lighten the mood a bit.
Merle laughs but not a nice laugh, a condescending laugh "What does a uppity, college educated princess like you know anything about bein' streetwise?"
Nessa scoff "University education is free in Scotland. If it wasn't then neither of us would have been able to go. We both worked two jobs to afford to do our masters and got our PhD on scholarship. We come from a working class background and we grew up in an extremely rough town. You learnt how to be streetwise and quick or someone would stab you for looking at them wrong. So yeah, we know a lot about being streetwise"
I laugh "What?" She barks at me
I laughs harder before choking out "You know you go all Glaswegian when you get angry, like mum"
She glares at me "You're worse! You sound all schemy!"
"What does Schemy mean" Carl asks.
"When we call someone schemy it means they're from a scheme which are council run estates for the underprivileged, it's mostly full of junkies or deadbeats. It's basically like you calling someone a hick" Nessa replies punching me a little.
Daryl eyes flick straight to Nessa and glares at her before his eyes drift over to me and stay there. "Thanks, ya wee dick" I say in the strongest Glaswegian accent I could muster. Then I punch her harder "We grew up on a scheme, bitch! You saying we're junkies and deadbeats?"
Nessa rubs her arm "Mostly, I said mostly! Stop hitting me so hard!"
"Oh, grow a pair! That didn't hurt" I tell her and she pouts
Everyone laughs apart from Daryl who continues to stare and I don't dislike it, in fact I love it.
"Are you two twins?" Carl asks
Nessa grins "Son, you should see us when our hairs are both dark, we look even more alike. Apart from the skin and the eyes" she points to my chest "And those"
I slap the upside of her head as every pair of eyes fall to my chest, a few linger "I'm 25, Nessa is 31" I say and I'm met with an unnecessarily hard punch in my arm
"Ow! What? You are!" I snap at her.
"Don't just go telling everyone my age" She pouts
I roll my eyes "You're 31 not 91, calm it"
"So you are both Doctors?" Dale asks with a laugh
I nod "I just received mine the week before the outbreak, I was actually supposed to be leaving for Washington the week after the outbreak but that obviously never happened. Nessa was going to be defending her dissertation at the same time so she doesn't have an official doctorate"
Nessa sighs audibly "8 years of hard work, studying, teaching, begging for extension, exams, countless sleepless night and stress for nothing"
I nod "My degree is bloody useless, the dead don't stay dead"
"Yours is useless? I'm an archaeologist who specializes in stratigraphy. Who the hell cares about old dirt right now?" she says.
I laugh a little "You win"
I look over at Daryl again and I have to ask "Daryl, it's been bugging me for ages now, but I've seen you somewhere before. Any ideas?"
Daryl looks a little shocked but nods all the same "Yeah, the courthouse"
A memory pops into my head. I was preparing my first case for the court in Georgia. A Murder of a 40 year old women by her husband, it was an easy case and I've testified before so I wasn't nervous. Although, that outfit was so not me it wasn't funny. I'm pretty laid back so being stuffed into a pencil skirt with a tight blouse and a short suit jacket with four inch heels wasn't my idea of fun. I remember it clearly. Court finished the husband got life and I walked out happy, unlike Britain, in America life means life. That's when I met Daryl. I collided with him on the way out of the court room. He managed to catch me around the waist before I hit the ground. Thinking back, I remember his firm hold, how strong his arm felt and the look of surprise on his face. Hell, how close his face was. He was a lot cleaner then and his shirt had sleeves.
"Watch yourself" He grunted at me as he straightened me and let me go.
I give him a big smile "Thank you"
He nods with a hint of a smile of his own.
I come out of my memory and grin "That's it! You saved me from breaking my hip on that marble floor. Not to mention the absolute ass I would've made out of myself trying to get off the floor in that stupid skirt"
Daryl watches me carefully with the tiniest hint of a smile. Merle bursts out laughing "Look at that little brother, you found 'er! Well ain't this just destiny"
I tilt my head in wonder, found her? Daryl looks mortified for a brief second before coughing and getting up and walking away. I watch him go with a smile. Did he think about me?
The next morning when the supply group were packing up to leave Nessa comes to my side "I'm going to see if I can get us guns"
I smile "I have a gun"
Nessa shakes her head "I don't"
"Since when did you start wanting a gun?" I ask suspiciously. She's silent and walks away but I'm not having that.
I head after her as she walks towards the van used for supplies and I speak so loud everyone can hear, I'm not angry but Nessa has this habit of pretending she can't hear you so I make a point of being loud when I speak to her "You're the one who said that we're British and British people don't go well with guns. You said it's better to be stabbed than shot. You said that in this world guns are too loud and using knives is easier anyway. So why do you want a gun all of a sudden?"
She stops and turns on me "It was just a suggestion!" She snaps "for security reasons, just in case, I don't know!" She flings her arms in the air.
A tear runs down her face from frustration. I smile and wipe it away quickly "Oi, don't cry. We're British, we don't cry" I state.
Nessa laughs quietly "we carry on" She finishes. 'We're British, we carry on' is a private joke between us that we took from World War II posters.
I turn her around and tap her backside "Off you go"
She propels herself forward to avoid my hand but it fails. She squeals and walks off to the van and climbs into the back. They leave and I can't help but watch after them nervously. I bite my lip and force myself to turn around.
Amy comes running up to me eagerly and asks "What can I do?"
I stare at her blankly "Do for what?"
"The camp" She replies
"Right, umm, I don't know Amy, we are really short on food maybe you can see if you can find berries or mushrooms, anything is better than nothing, but don't go too far." I state.
She grins and skips away. I shake my head and head for my tent. Amy's nice and all but my God she kind of useless. I see Daryl gearing up for his hunt and I walk over to him.
"Hi, thanks for doing this. You could probably do better on your own, yet you stay and help us. Thank you, again." As I said it I heard myself sounding like a tool.
He looks at me and actually smiles a little, well smirks. "I'm not staying for the group"
I look at him confused "Then what are you staying for?"
He lifts his hand and moves it towards my face. My eyes widen and honestly I feel a bit giddy. He pulls a strand of hair from my mouth and moves it behind my ear. I swear my breathing stopped at such a simple gesture. I feel myself moving forward. Daryl and I are an inch apart, so close I can feel his breath on my lips. Suddenly, I'm pulled back by an arm around my waist. My breathing restarts and it comes out in a gasp. I snap my head to the persons face in anger.
"Shane!" I snap.
He gives a fake smile to Daryl and states "Have a good hunt."
Daryl glares at Shane and storms off into the woods. I watch after him a little heartbroken. So fucking close! I twist in Shane's grip and he took that in the entirely wrong way because he wraps both arms around my waist and presses my chest flush into his. He dips his head and catches my lips with his. I push him away from me quickly.
"Woah, what you doing there buddy?"
He shakes his head and composes himself. "Sorry, Gwen" with that he walks away.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and turn around and most of the camp had seen what just happened. I look at them and snap "What?"
They all jump and go back to what they were doing. I take a deep breath and sit on the car seat turned couch. This is going to be a long few days.
