Chapter Three

"Is she still out there?"

Miles sighed heavily as he kept his eyes trained on the worn path that led down to the campground. After discovering the blood and torn clothes, Charlie had fallen to her knees at the edge of the tree line. He had wanted to stay with her, offer her comfort like she'd offered him earlier that day, but Charlie had told him to return to the car in a creepily monotonous tone that had him listening immediately. Of course, Jennifer had had quite a few colourful things to say to him when he had come back without Charlie in tow, but for the most part, he just ignored the older woman.

His eyes saw movement in the shadows of the path and he sat up further to see if he could make out Charlie's silhouette in the trees. He was worried about her. The temperature had dropped since earlier and she was still out there in nothing more than a pair of cargo pants and a bra. The thought still made him blush. Could you blame him? The world might be going to shit but he was still a teenage boy and Charlie was extremely beautiful. Both of the women he had found himself with were; though, Jennifer's constant insults were a major put off.

He slowly opened the door as the figure approached, still shrouded in darkness. "Charlie?" he called, hoping it was the older woman so he could give her the jacket he had fished out of one of the back of the Humvee. The figure stopped their stumbling for a moment and even in the dark, Miles could see when they turned to acknowledge him. He breathed out a sigh of relief when the lights illuminated a woman's figure. It had to be Charlie, right?

Miles stepped out of the car, ignoring Jennifer's questions as he shut the door behind him and slowly made his way down the worn path towards Charlie. "I've got a jacket for you," he said as he walked, "the last thing you want out here is a cold." He doubted the older woman even cared about getting a cold at this point. He had seen the torn kids' clothes, covered in blood and dirt, and he knew she was looking for her kids. Olivia and Jackson.

"Charlie?" he asked when she didn't reply to him, merely stumbling forward in his direction. He honestly didn't expect her to answer him anyway, the only thing she had said earlier was for him to go back to the car. She hadn't even cried. Shock, his mind had helpfully supplied as he had hesitantly followed her orders.

The closer he got to her the more he started to think something was seriously wrong. She looked like she was limping and she seemed to be groaning lowly. "Charlie?" he asked, stopping as she slowly began to come into the light, "you okay?"

It wasn't Charlie.

It was a woman though. And she was hurt.

The woman was the same height and build as Charlie, but that was where the similarities seemed to stop. She had red, greying hair and pale, almost yellow skin. Her eyes were glazed and milky and she didn't really seem to see him. She was hurt though, and he couldn't just leave her out here whilst she was injured. There was blood soaking one of the legs of her pants, the fabric ripped to reveal a chunk of skin missing from her leg. Her dirty blouse was also torn and covered in blood

"Are-are you okay, ma'am?" he asked unsurely. He'd have to go find Charlie when he got the woman back to the car, get her to stitch up the woman's wounds.

She was about two metres away from him now, her bony fingers reaching for him as she shuffled forward.

Then she sprung on him.

Miles screamed as he was dragged to the ground by the older woman whose groans had increased. "Get off!" he cried, kicking at her face as he scrambled back. She kept coming like she couldn't feel the blows he had been dealing her a moment ago. He knew he was a scrawny kid but she should have at least been stunned. Right?

She was crawling towards him, her hand reaching out every now and again where it gripped his shoe loosely before he kicked it off. More groaning and his head turned to see an older man coming up behind him, his eyes the same as the woman. Glazed and milky. "Fuck," he squeaked, his voice breaking as he tried to change his path and head for the trees. He needed to get to his feet, needed to run. But he was forced into inaction by crippling fear.

Two hands grabbing his shirt had him screaming again as he was yanked to his feet.

He turned, fist raised and ready to strike at anything he could get his hands on when he saw Charlie. Her fists balled into the front of his flannel shirt as she dragged him closer to her and further away from the couple. "Get to the car," she hissed, her eyes not leaving the couple. "Now!" she yelled, pushing him forward and staying just behind him. Every now and again, he'd feel her give him a light push, a silent 'hurry the fuck up, kid' and he'd force his legs to pump harder.

Miles scrambled into the passenger side of the car the moment he reached it, watching as Charlie jumped into the driver's seat and quickly started the engine. He was thrown back by the force of her burning rubber to get them the hell out of there. Both of them ignored Jennifer's questions, a fact that greatly pissed off the other woman if her grumbling was anything to go by.

He threw a look at Charlie and recoiled at the sight of her blood-stained hands. There were small traces of blood smeared on her face but she seemed ignorant of that fact as she drove, not once looking back at the couple that had just tried to attack him.

"What the fuck is happening?" Jennifer screamed again, apparently over their silence.

"They're infected," Charlie answered, her voice hoarse and monotonous.

"How do you know?" Miles breathed, his hand moving over his buzzcut as he stared wide-eyed at the older woman who might have just saved his life.

Charlie grunted, "it wasn't them." A moment of silence. "It wasn't my brother or kids," she elaborated, "some other couple must have been campin' up there with their kids. One of 'em must have gotten bit or scratched; killed the others."

"But-but they weren't dead!" Miles yelled, "they were walking! The dead don't walk!"

"They do now," Charlie replied in that creepy emotionless way, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. Miles and Jennifer shared a concerned look as they continued to drive, Charlie not saying a word to either of them of what had happened earlier.

They drove in silence for close to an hour before Charlie suddenly pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the car, and got out. Miles looked back at Jennifer and saw her watching Charlie walk a little way away from the car before she crouched down and seemed to stay like that.

"She okay?" Miles asked quietly.

"Not even a little, kid," she replied, her voice softer than it had ever been since he had met her, "that there," she continued, pointing towards the crouched woman, "that's a woman barely holding on by a thread; and whatever the fuck just happened, might have been the knife that cuts the thread."

Silence fell.

Earlier…

Something was wrong. Her brain had been screaming the same three words to her since she had seen the horrific sight she now kneeled before. Something didn't add up and her brain was searching for it but the rest of her body seemed unable to make the connection. She knew she sent Miles away a little over five minutes ago. Knew she was still in her bra and could feel the biting cold of the wind against her exposed skin.

She had heard Miles' sharp intake of air when he had first stood behind her, knew he had seen the copious amounts of scars that littered her back. Hell, he had probably seen the ones that had been on her stomach when she was passed out in the car earlier. When he didn't say anything about them, she assumed Jennifer had said something to him.

The clothes, she thought as she looked at the batman shirt she had been gripping tightly, covered in blood and dirt and staining her hands a similar dark red, something's wrong with the clothes. It took her a moment to realise Jackson didn't own any batman clothes. He was a Marvel fan and generally kept away from the DC franchise because of that. She had Bobby to thank for that, her brother was a massive Marvel fan himself and had made it his personal mission to educate her son in all things Marvel.

She should have felt happy but she still only felt numb. They weren't here, so where the hell were they? Had something happened to them? Had the military gotten to them? Had Myers found them?

Charlie put an immediate stop to that thought, not wanting to even consider that a possibility. Another five minutes passed before Charlie stood and made for the trees. The clothes hadn't belonged to her children, but they had belonged to someone's children. There was a family out there, and they were hurt.

Her toes sunk into the cold earth as she moved, leaves rustling with each step as the moon illuminated her path. She made sure she didn't go into the darker parts of the forest, she wasn't stupid and she certainly wasn't going to end up on the news because she had gotten lost in the woods and died because she couldn't see her own hand in front of her face.

She'd barely taken more than twenty steps when she tripped over something on the ground. Charlie grumbled to herself, turning around and glaring at the offending object only to pale when she saw the small arm half hidden beneath a pile of leaves. Her stomach churned and Charlie threw up on the ground beside her, her whole-body heaving as she did. What the hell? What. The actual. Hell? In what fucking universe did you trip over a child's fucking arm?

Shuffling behind her had Charlie turning around to see a petite figure stumbling towards her. The person stumbled into a beam of moonlight and Charlie would have moved towards the obviously injured teenager if it wasn't for the blood coating her mouth and chin. Charlie watched the girl stumble around for a moment and wondered if the teenager even noticed her standing there. The girl was moaning and groaning as she dragged her obviously broken leg behind her slightly. Did she even feel it? Apparently not.

The wind suddenly shifted, blowing towards the stumbling teen and Charlie watched as she sniffed the air before her head snapped towards Charlie. The older woman took that as her cue to leave and started taking cautious steps back towards the destroyed camp she had just come from. Had the wind not still been blowing in from behind her, she never would have smelt it. She recognised the smell from when she had entered her uncle Benny's hunting shed when she was seven. The smell of rotting flesh and decay had made her gag profusely and was a stench she doubted she'd ever forget.

Charlie quickly turned around and screamed when she saw the middle-aged man with his bottom jaw missing and half of his chewed-up torso exposed by his shredded shirt. She reached for her gun, her heart lurching when her fingers came into contact with nothing. Vaguely, she recalled not picking the gun up after jumping out of the window, not really high on her list of priorities at the time.

She ducked under the hand reaching for her and, without wasting a moment, took off at a damn sprint. She didn't look over her shoulder, didn't bother to see where the hell they were. Unless she could see one in the direction she was running, it meant they were still behind her and they hadn't gotten to her. Charlie had watched enough horror movies to know the character who turned to look back usually trip over something utterly ridiculous and avoidable and died shortly after.

She had been half way up the path when another figure stumbled onto it. This one a young man missing an arm. Her stomach churned but she swallowed the bile that threatened to come up as she veered off into the trees, still keeping the path in sight but running along it and not on it. Charlie's mind went back to the news report she and Jennifer had watched earlier. The dead were walking. Infected. Bite or scratch. Virus. The words appeared and disappeared equally as fast and she would later berate herself for her moment of distraction as she felt her bare foot catch on an exposed root.

Charlie fell. Her body was too tired. First the concussion, then jumping out of a second-storey window, not to mention all the stress of today. It was just too much. She felt rocks dig into her exposed skin as she rolled before she came to an abrupt stop at the base of a tree.

The black spots from earlier were back, threatening to send her back into the world of unconsciousness but the eerie sound of groaning and shuffling feet instilled enough fear in her to keep the adrenaline pumping through her body.

The young man from earlier, the corpse without an arm, was shuffling towards her. Her mouth was dry and her body cold, still trapped in that blissful little numbness she had been in since she had seen all the blood. Her eyes frantically searched for a weapon when suddenly a sharp twang rang through the air before the man in front of her fell backwards, an arrow between his eyes.

Charlie quickly turned around as she scrambled to her feet, not willing to have her back to anything in this damn forest that could kill her. Blue. Piercing blue. That's what she saw when she turned. Though, in hindsight, she probably should have seen the damn crossbow first. She couldn't have been any more than fourteen years old; short red hair, teary blue eyes, and blood smudged cheeks. Charlie's eyes narrowed in on the bite on her shoulder that was bleeding profusely.

"Jackson," she sobbed and Charlie felt something other than numbness in that moment. Fear. Despair. A crushing weight on her chest.

"What did you just say?" she breathed.

The girl didn't answer her; instead, she stumbled past Charlie who gave the potentially infected teenager a wide berth. She watched the girl fall to her knees in front of the young man she'd just saved her from. Her body shaking as she dropped the crossbow with a heavy thump, her shaky hands moving to cup the corpses face. "I'm sorry," she kept whispering as tears fell down her dirty cheeks, "I'm sorry, Jackson."

Charlie watched the girl sob over her brother, taking a hesitant step forward before her head snapped to the left as she heard Miles' familiar shout. She frowned, not liking the fact she'd heard him shout enough in less than twenty-four hours to become familiar with it. Though, she doubted she'd ever forget the sound of him screaming for his mum as the soldiers opened fire on the room down the hall.

When she looked back to the girl, she was already staring at Charlie, her eyes wide and pained. "The-the head," she whispered, "you have to aim for the head." Her body was beginning to slump, her eyes beginning to close. "They don't die unless you hit the brain," she cried before she was weakly pushing the crossbow towards Charlie, an arrow ready. "Please," she begged, her voice broken, "I don't wanna come back as one of those things."

She couldn't believe what this girl was asking her to do but when she had tried to say no, to move away so she could go help Miles, the girl jumped at her, fisting the material of her cargo pants with one hand as she picked up the crossbow with the other. She got to her knees and practically shoved the crossbow at her, though, thankfully not hard enough to set the damn thing off. "I saved you," she hissed desperately, "you-you owe me!"

Charlie's hands had wrapped around the crossbow instinctually when it had been thrust into her stomach and watched with wide eyes as the teenager fell onto her back as her body was wracked with body-heaving coughs. She moved onto her side, spitting out an unhealthy amount of blood before weakly turning her head to Charlie. "Do it," she whispered, her face ashen and her arms shaking with the strain of supporting her, "do it!"

She positioned the crossbow the way she'd seen the girl holding it, and aimed it at the girl's head as her eyes filled with hot tears. Her hands shook as she lined the arrow up with the girl's head, the teenager moving so the arrow tip was only inches from touching her forehead. Those big blue eyes looked up at Charlie and she almost dropped the crossbow then and there. "Do it," she breathed again, "please, just-just do it."

Charlie closed her eyes, her ears filled with the wheezing that was coming from the teenager knelt before her. She opened them as the tears began to fall and her finger moved to the trigger. "What's ya name?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper on the breeze.

"Lily."

She took in a deep, shuttering breath. "I'm sorry, Lily," she said.

Twang.

Thump.

Charlie would have thrown up if she actually had anything left to throw up. Instead, she dry-heaved, dropping the crossbow in the process. She forced herself to move, forced herself not to look at Lily's body, forced her legs to move as she ran back through the trees and towards where she had heard Miles scream.

She saw him through the trees barely a minute from where she had been only moments ago. She saw the two-approaching dead, saw Miles frozen by fear, and pumped her legs faster to get to him. Charlie barely stopped as she gripped him by the back of his shirt and hauled his ass off the ground. She didn't flinch when he turned to her with his fist raised, his eyes wide and full of fear.

She balled her fists into the front of his flannel shirt as she dragged him closer to her and further away from the couple. "Get to the car," she hissed, her eyes not leaving the couple and inwardly cussing herself for dropping her gun earlier that day. "Now!" she yelled when he just stared at her, pushing him forward and staying just behind him. Every now and again, when he stumbled or began to slow down, she'd give him a light push, a silent 'hurry the fuck up, kid' as they made their way towards the awaiting car.

Charlie jumped into the driver's side, ignoring Jennifer yelling at her to tell her what the fuck was going on. She turned the key in the ignition, put the car into gear, and floored it out of there. Now that the danger was over, Charlie's mind kept flashing back to Lily. She couldn't get the girl's face out of her mind, couldn't stop seeing the spray of blood that had left the back of her head when Charlie had fired the arrow.

"What the fuck is happening?" Jennifer screamed, her loud voice breaking through Charlie's thoughts if only for a moment.

"They're infected," Charlie answered, her voice hoarse and monotonous even to her own ears. She felt an emptiness forming inside her, hell, she'd felt it form when she had bashed Harrison's head in earlier that day. The emptiness had grown when she had shot that soldier in the chest and seemed to grow again when she had killed Lily. It was weightless and yet, she felt like she'd be crushed under its intensity.

"How do you know?" Miles breathed from beside her.

Charlie grunted, "it wasn't them." A moment of silence as she waited for happiness to fill her at the knowledge that her family could still be alive and out there. The happiness never came, the emptiness where it might have once been. "It wasn't my brother or kids," she elaborated when no one else spoke. She supposed she was just trying to drown out the thoughts in her head by explaining things to them. Trying to drown out the voices that were telling her she was a murderer. A monster. Harrison she could have lived with. The soldier she would have dwelled upon but eventually gotten over. But Lily? She had been a damn kid, barely older than her daughter. How was she supposed to move on from killing a kid?

"Some other couple must have been campin' up there with their kids. One of 'em must have gotten bit or scratched; killed the others," she finished, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel as she gritted her teeth tightly.

"But-but they weren't dead!" Miles yelled, "they were walking! The dead don't walk!"

"They do now," Charlie replied, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly.

They drove in silence after that for close to an hour before she couldn't deal with it anymore and suddenly pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the car, and got out. Charlie walked away from the car until she couldn't walk anymore and fell into a crouch. The numbness had given way to the emptiness that had been steadily growing since this morning. She had known shit was going to hit the fan, but she never imagined she'd be killing soldiers and teenagers.

A pitiful sound reached her ears and it took her a moment to realise it was coming from her. Charlie's shoulders shook as she tried to muffle the sobs that her body was releasing against her will. Now wasn't the time for crying. She had to clear her head and try and work out where the hell her brother and kids could be and she couldn't do that while she was sobbing on some backroad.

She heard the sound of a car door opening and gravel crunching under a pair of shoes. Charlie listened to the sound of approaching footsteps as she tried to take in deep, even breaths. Miles' dirty converses came into view just before he crouched before her, his Bambi eyes wide and searching as they moved between her hands and her face.

Charlie looked down when she felt his hand gently grasp her wrist and pull her hand towards him before he started rubbing at it with a damp shirt. When the blood was cleaned as much as possible, he switched to her other hand and began the process again. She watched his face as he did this, taking in his puffy eyes and pale skin. His fingers on either side of her chin made her stiffen for a moment only to relax when he merely used his grip to hold her face still as he cleaned the blood from her face.

"I don't know what happened back there," he told her softly, still holding her face as he searched her eyes for something, "and I'm not going to ask either." His hand fell from her face and threaded around her neck before he pulled her to him in an awkward hug. "I'm going to tell you something a wise and pretty badass woman once told me," he continued as she fisted the material of his shirt, "you're not alone in this. I know I can't replace what you lost, and I'm not planning on trying, but I'm not going to leave you to fend for yourself either, okay?"

Charlie cracked a small smile as she buried her head in his neck and listened to him recite her words from earlier that day.

"They're out there, Charlie," he whispered into her hairline, "they're out there, and they're alive. We'll find them. I promise. But in the meantime, we've got to stay alive. So, take a deep breath and get your ass up so we can get outta here."

"When did you become so pushy?" she asked hoarsely, even as she took a deep breath as he had ordered.

"I'm not pushy," he chuckled, "I'm stubbornly insistent."

Charlie snorted before they pulled away from each other and Miles helped her to her feet, handing her a bundle of fabric as he tossed away the bloodstained shirt he had been using to clean her up with. She nodded her head at him, a silent 'thank you' for verbally kicking her ass into gear before she shrugged on the oversized military jacket and zipped it up to cover her exposed body.

They made their way back to the car and, whilst Miles went to the front of the car and climbed into the passenger seat, Charlie went to the back and rummaged through the trunk of the military Humvee until she found the duffel she had placed her guns in. Charlie pulled out the 9mm and checked to make sure the magazine was full before she put it to the side as she loaded the shotgun. She strapped one of the knives to her thigh, the knife her uncle Benny had given her after she had killed her first rabbit when she was ten. She grabbed two more knives to give to Miles and Jennifer before she grabbed the two guns and made her way around the car and to the driver's side door.

"Here," she said when she hopped in, handing a knife to Miles and leaning over the driver's seat to hand one to Jennifer.

"Where are we going?" Jennifer asked as she took the knife and placed it beside her on the back seat.

Charlie paused for a moment, thinking about the answer to Jennifer's question. "I don't know," she sighed, "what we all need right now is sleep. In the mornin' we'll find a gas station and fill up the tank, get a few supplies, and figure out what we're gonna do next."

They each threw out their own goodnight before everyone hunkered down and tried to get some sleep.

Charlie was staring out of the Humvee, looking at the stars as they shined brightly in the darkness. Loud, obnoxious snores filled the vehicle but she had learnt to drown them out. Not everyone was as lucky as her.

"How can someone so small make noises that loud?" Miles asked incredulously as he threw a look back at the sleeping Jennifer.

Charlie snorted, looking back at her blonde companion through the review mirror. Jennifer's head was tilted back, her mouth open as ear-rattling snores fell from them. "No idea," she answered as she lazily turned her head to look at the teenager sitting beside her. "Can't sleep?" she asked softly. Miles had been asleep for about an hour before she had heard him startle awake, calling for his mum.

She didn't say anything as she heard him sniffle softly, merely placed her hand on his knee and left it there as a form of silent comfort. They'd sat in silence for another hour before Jennifer's snores had filled the Humvee, making both of them jump at the sudden sound. They had shared a tense look and a nervous chuckle before their comfortable silence had descended upon them once more.

"Could ask you the same thing," he retorted as he turned in his seat to face her a little more, "you had a head injury earlier, you should be sleeping."

"Should be doin' a lot of things, kid," she grunted, "sleepin' in a stolen military Humvee while the dead walk isn't one of those things. Hell, it sounds like some cliché bullshit you'd find on TV."

Miles snorted, "yeah, I guess."

Silence.

"My mum was a nurse," Miles said, his eyes trained out the window as he spoke, "she was working a double shift to take me to Atlanta for my birthday in two weeks. When she came home, she told me she was tired, that some guy attacked her at work. He had bitten her," he whispered, his voice ragged, "who bites people who are trying to help them, right?" He laughed bitterly, "when I saw the news report about the virus, I didn't want to believe it because-"

Charlie looked at him as his voice broke. Silent tears were falling down his cheek as he took a deep, shaky breath. "-because it would mean she was infected," she finished for him, her hand moving to lay atop his as she watched his shoulders shake. "You couldn't have done anythin', kid," she told him, "I know that doesn't make you feel any better. Hell, probably makes you feel like utter shit; but you need to know that nothin' that happened to your Ma was your fault, okay?"

"She shouldn't have been working that shift," he argued, "she never worked nights. If I didn't want to go to Atlanta, she never would have been at the hospital when that guy was brought in."

"You're right," she agreed, earning an incredulous look from the teenager who had probably been expecting her to argue against the fact and tell him it wasn't his fault that his mum had been working that night. "Had you not wanted to go to Atlanta, she wouldn't have been workin' and she wouldn't have been bit by that guy," she continued bluntly, "who knows, maybe she'd be alive and here with us. Maybe she'd be sleepin' in the back, or tryin' to with Jen snoring anyway."

Miles' shoulders sagged with each word she spoke and he jumped when Charlie placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing firmly as she looked him square in the eyes, her own eyes stern.

"And maybe she would have lasted a month, maybe two, hell, maybe she'd last a couple years in this ensuin' shitstorm. Sooner or later, she'd get bit, or scratched, or die from somethin' that would have been treatable at a hospital – because God knows they ain't gonna been runnin' for much longer – then what, kid? If those soldiers hadn't killed ya Ma, would you have been able to do it?" she questioned coldly, watching as his eyes widened with the realisation of where she was going with this, "would you have been able to look ya Ma in the eyes and put a bullet through her brain? Cause I know, if it were my Ma, I'd rather have her infect me then kill 'er."

"We're all going to die, aren't we?" he asked in a small voice that made her remember just how young he was and suddenly Charlie felt bad for how she had chosen to word her argument.

"Yes," she decided to answer truthfully, it wasn't like she could put her foot in her mouth any worse than she already had, right? "But that was true before the world went to shit," she continued, "now? We just have one more way to go. Nothin' lasts forever, kid."

More silence. Charlie was looking out the window and could feel Miles' eyes on her, boring a hole into the side of her head so to speak. She knew what he wanted to know, knew he was resisting the urge to ask the question. Charlie didn't know what Jennifer had told him but it seemed to keep him quiet. When the ten-minute mark passed and she could still feel his eyes on her she finally snapped.

"Just ask already, kid," she grunted.

She heard him splutter for a moment but wasn't going to say anything until he asked, all too happy to draw out the rapidly approaching conversation. She wouldn't lie to him, way the world was, no one had time for lies or even half-truths. He was right, they were all gonna die, sooner or later; Charlie just hoped, when her time came, someone would put a bullet through her brain before she came back as one of those things because she knew she'd never be able to do it herself. Her survival instincts were just too strong. You didn't survive the shit she'd lived through by rolling over and showing your belly.

"How-how did you get-get your scars?" he stuttered.

Charlie sighed deeply, wishing she had some alcohol, maybe some cigarettes. She wasn't a heavy drinker, growing up with a drunk for a father had been enough to turn her off the substance before she was even old enough to drink it. With that said, she didn't smoke too often either, usually, she reserved it for times when she was particularly stressed. So, now seemed like a pretty good time for a cigarette or two.

"That's a long, complicated answer, kid," she said, "so, which ones do you really wanna know about, cause I ain't gonna tell you how I got 'em all."

He was quiet for so long she had started to think he had thought better about learning the answer to his question. Then, after a long five minutes, he spoke again. "You-your back," he answered.

Good choice, kid, she thought, her lips curling into a bitter smile. The ones that littered her back were some of her oldest.

"I was nine," she began, ignoring his sharp inhale of air, "Ma had sent me down to the store to get a few things. On the way home, I got caught in a downpour," she continued, remembering that day with startling clarity, as she did whenever she recalled a day she was punished for anything she may have done wrong. "Pa had been drinkin', the man was always drinkin'," she scoffed, "spent most of our money on alcohol; money Ma had earned workin' herself to the bone. I knew the rules," she explained, refusing to meet Miles' gaze, "dry off before you go into the house. But I was cold and scared of the thunder and lightnin' so I just ran right in.

"My Pa had been waitin' for me to get home, probably hopin' for a reason to punish me 'like I deserved to be'," Charlie rolled her eyes as she recalled the mantra her Pa would repeat to them when he would punish her or Bobby. "Don't really remember much after that," she shrugged, "woke up to Ma and Pa shoutin' in the livin' room as Bobby worked on cleanin' up my back after Pa had taken the cane to it again."

When she finally turned to him, she frowned, "now don't you go pityin' me," she told him sternly, "I don't need it, nor do I want it. Doesn't change what happened and certainly won't help you any right now, either."

"Why didn't your mum leave him?" Miles asked.

Charlie's eyes softened, "fear," she breathed, "fear has a way of diggin' its claws in so deep it makes a strong woman cower in the presence of a violent man." She wasn't sure if she was talking about her mother or herself anymore as she fell silent.

"He died," she said after a moment, "drank himself to death when I was sixteen."

She remembered feeling grief, relief, and guilt. It was the guilt that had chased her into the arms of someone who made her forget why she was feeling that way. Her childhood bully. A boy who had turned into a young man that had seemed like the exact opposite of her abusive pig of a father. She should have known better. Myers had been far more dangerous than her father ever was. The whole town knew about her fathers drinking habit; knew that he beat them and the town had done nothing about it. Not once.

Charlie physically shook herself, not allowing those thoughts to continue their destructive path as she turned away from the silent teenager.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I'm not," she replied simply.

They remained silent until the sun began its slow ascent across the sky, neither of them finding any sleep that night as they became lost in their own thoughts.

Charlie pulled up at the empty gas station and looked around cautiously. "Okay," she began, turning to address Miles who had been trying to strap the knife to his thigh like she had done the previous day, "gas first. Then we go in and grab as much as we can. If it's not food, water, or somethin' of equal use, it doesn't come with us. That includes Busty magazines," she added with a pointed look at the teenager who flushed deeply.

"I was holding it for a friend!" he argued.

Jennifer scoffed from her spot in the back, "sure, if by 'friend' you mean little Miles," she snickered.

"Shut up!" Miles yelled at her.

"How 'bout you make me, kid?" she replied with a cocky raise of her eyebrow.

"So, help me God, if you two do not shut it right now I may just shoot you both," Charlie hissed, "you've been goin' at it all damn mornin' and ya givin' me a headache!" She turned to glare at Miles and continued speaking, "keep ya ears and eyes open, kid," she instructed, "they're loud and slow. Not to mention you can smell 'em pretty easily too. You see one, you alert me and we hightail it outta there. No playin' hero, got it?"

"Got it," Miles answered with a nervous nod of his head.

"What about me?" Jennifer asked from the back.

Charlie looked back at the younger woman, "ain't nothin' you can do until ya leg is healed," she told her simply, "that shard of glass wasn't too long but it was quite wide. You won't be usin' ya leg until the wound doesn't need stitches to hold it together anymore."

Jennifer huffed but didn't otherwise say a word and Charlie turned back to Miles in time to see the teenager reaching for her shotgun. He yelped when she slapped his hand, his wide eyes snapping up to meet her narrowed ones. "What the hell do you think ya doin'?" she questioned.

"Just in case-"

"-just in case, nothin', kid," she cut him off, "you see one of those people, you run. No need for a damn gun and I especially ain't givin' you a gun when you probably have no experience usin' the damn thing."

"I've used a gun before!" he exclaimed.

"A gun that isn't otherwise attached to or apart of a video game, kid," she added, watching as he crossed his arms over his chest and pouted. "Besides," she continued, "I've got the 9mm and if we really need to resort to such a loud method of protection, I'll be firin' the gun and you'll be gettin' ya skinny little ass back here like the hounds of hell are nippin' at ya damn heels. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," he grumbled, throwing a dirty look over his shoulder when Jennifer burst out into laughter.

Charlie grunted before she and Miles got out of the car. He watched her back while she filled up the tank and one of the jerry cans she had found in the back of the Humvee before she picked up a small backpack and tossed it over her shoulder. Miles followed her lead with a bag of his own before they made their way into the gas station.

She entered first, hand already on the gun tucked into the space between her belt and her cargo pants. Charlie looked around before she threw a look over her shoulder and gave Miles a nod. They both went their separate ways and Charlie walked over to the fridges to get water. The place had already been rummaged through but whoever had been doing it had left in a hurry and left a few bottles of water behind. Apparently, whoever had been raiding the station had gone straight for the energy drinks and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

Beef Jerky. Crackers. Tuna. Sardines. Charlie packed anything that wouldn't perish on them in a matter of days and shoved them in her bag until she couldn't fit any more stuff in it. Every now and again, her head would shoot up and she'd look around the station. When she spied Miles' head, she'd calm down a little and go back to what she was doing.

"You ready, kid?" she called across the station.

"Yeah," Miles answered and Charlie was just moving past the counter when she spied the cigarette packets.

She knew she should have just left them, cigarettes weren't exactly a necessity right now. Charlie shook her head as she jumped over the counter and moved towards the cigarettes, shoving a few packs in the already over full bag before she placed two packs in each of the pockets of her cargo pants. A few lighters were shoved into another pocket before she shrugged the bag back onto her shoulders and went to jump over the counter.

Only to freeze when she heard shuffling and groaning.

"Oh shit," she heard Miles breathe and Charlie looked up to see one of the dead had made their way into the main store from a back room. Miles' eyes met hers and she put her finger to her lips to tell him to be quiet.

Charlie quietly scaled the counter and latched on to Miles, her eyes not leaving the walking corpse stumbling down the aisle furthest from them. "Just be quiet," she whispered into his ear, "they're slow, we get out the door and we run to the car."

Miles nodded silently beside her and she backed up with him.

A scream pierced the air.

Jennifer.

Charlie and Miles turned to see another corpse stumbling near the Humvee, its hands banging against the door as it registered someone was inside. Not good. Jennifer's scream had drawn the attention of the other walking corpse in the station and Charlie quickly shoved Miles out the door. "Run," she hissed, picking up the bag he had dropped and practically tossing it at him before they both started running towards the Humvee.

Jennifer was still screaming, the sound echoing in the eerily silent town as they got closer and closer to the Humvee. Charlie was already pulling out the 9mm and taking the safety off, knowing she'd need to use it so Miles could get into the car. The teen slowed down the closer they got to the car and Charlie had to grab his arm and drag him along beside her as she got close enough to the corpse that she wouldn't miss.

Bang.

Thump.

Jennifer screamed. Miles gagged. Charlie opened the passenger door and shoved the teenager in before she ran around the side of the car.

Bang.

Thump.

The second corpse dropped and she practically flung herself into the Humvee. Jennifer was still screaming. Miles was still gagging, his face pale. Charlie's heart was beating out a staccato in her chest as she turned the key and threw the car into gear. The emptiness in her chest stretched a little more as she thought about the people she had just killed. Four. Four people now. Two living. Two dead. Could the dead still count as people anymore? Her brain said no but the emptiness that was growing in her chest said yes. Yes, they were still people, and she had just killed them.

Charlie tried to take in a deep breath but nothing she did and nothing she thought about seemed to fill the emptiness forming inside of her. An emptiness she had created. An emptiness she doubted would ever get filled and would likely grow until it consumed her.

A hand on her thigh and one on her shoulder grounded her and Charlie managed to take in the deep breath she had been attempting to take in. Her eyes met Miles' when she looked to him and Jennifer's when her gaze went to the review mirror. All of them were pale and sweaty. All of them were scared and none of them had any idea what they were going to do next.

But they had each other. It wasn't much, but in this new world, it was better than being alone.

But how long could that really last in a world now filled with the walking dead?

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