Alice lay awake listening to the sounds of the night, clutching her knife, on edge, ready to react at any second. The wind whistling, leaves rustling, hushed voices and the occasional owl all made her jump. No matter how hard she tried to relax she simply couldn't she'd been watching her own back for far too long, danger was everywhere. She focused on Dale whistling up on the roof some silly chocolate bar jingle it served as a reminder that someone was keeping guard. Gruesome thoughts of walkers ripping innocent people apart, her slaughtered family haunted her...and what had happened in Daryl's tent, like some weird gravitational pull. She had never felt that buzz with any man before let alone some stranger. Reliving past sexual encounters was definitely not the best cure for insomnia! "Grrr..." she mumbled to herself tossing and turning, trying every position to get comfortable but It was no use, she wasn't going to sleep. She was pissed off as she swung herself out of bed, pulled her boots on and clambered up onto the roof to join Dale.
The first beams of dawn were peaking through the gray clouds, illuminating their little camp and the surrounding forest, it should have been beautiful but nothing in this world was anymore. "Hey little lady, thought you would be out cold." he grinned,removing his fishing hat in a gesture of politeness. She shrugged in reply with a weak smile and he gestured for her to sit on the chair by him, he'd never had kids but was pretty good at the whole father figure thing, offering advice, listening and sticking up for the ones who needed defending. They started chatting away about nothing in particular at first and then he told her about everyone in the group. He was a sweet old man, he had nodody of his own left but had grown very attached to Amy and her sister Andrea who was one of the ones that had gone into the city. After about an hour she knew the dirt on pretty much everyone.
Ed beats his wife Carol, something dodgy is going on with Shane and Lori, who's husband died not long ago leaving Carl without a father and the Dixon brothers had been acting suspiciously before the eldest Merle had gone on the city run. "Daryl seems nice enough to me." Alice spoke after a few moments in silence. Dale gave her a cheeky sideways glance. "Deep down he's a good guy, it's his brother that leads him astray in my opinion. He can be an asshole but sometimes he does things so you can tell he's alright. Like last night for example, he helped you out and he provides food for the camp." Shane appeared from a tent, followed by Lori a few minutes after, her son still fast asleep like the other kids were as all of the adults rose to begin the days work. Alice cast her eyes over to Daryl's tent, nope, still no sign of life. "He did. I'm grateful to him and to all of you. It's nice being around people that aren't trying to munch my face off." She patted the old guy fondly on the back and slid back down the ladder to see if she could help with anything.
Carol was cooking again, her husband made sure of that, breathing down her neck as she fried some fish up,he didn't want her getting rusty for when this whole thing was over and they were back home again. Alice shot him a dirty look and wondered why nobody did anything. "It's not our place to interfere." Lori whispered as she took a seat right by her reading her mind. "I guess, I just hate men like that, the world's still got plenty of them." Lori placed a comforting hand on her arm and said "I know it's not nice. Especially when we all live so close by but it's their life and we need to respect that." She finished speaking as Carl took his place by her, Jim, the little Mexican family (minus the father who was on the supply run) Amy,Carol, Sophia,ed and Shane shared breakfast together, all eager to finally chat with Alice now the dust had settled.
After the general chitter-chatter Carl shot the first direct question off first "So you've killed some of them walkers, Alice?" Everybody seemed to want to know the same question. All eyes on her, she decided to be honest if she had a chance to be a part of this family. "I've killed a few." The young boy bounded closer, his eyed wide with awe "How,you're just a girl?" He laughed cheekily. His mum scolded him "Women are just as strong as men." Alice lifted her top up, revealing her toned stomach and a very sharp hunting knife tucked into her skirt. She had picked it up off a dead guy months back, it cut through walker skulls like cheese. "I just stab 'em in the head" she gestured slicing her fish in half as fast as lightening and with little effort. Shane looked impressed, not just at her body but at how resourceful she was, since this thing started all women he came across needed defending ;finally a chick who can handle herself. The other women didn't seem so sure, none of them had killed a thing before, besides the odd bug which was usually in self defense. "Can you teach me how to?" Carl persisted. "Well I'm glad you found your way to us Alice. Sounds like you're gonna be a great asset." Shane pulled the boy into his grasp, effectively silencing anymore questions. Clearly he had established himself as the leader, when he spoke all eyes were on him. He seemed all right to Alice, someone who was respected and kept a level head always made a good chief.
As they finished up eating, the dirty dishes put in a pile ready for the women to wash down at the lake. Kind if sexist but who was she to argue with the way that they ran things? Balancing the tower in her arms she paused to cast another look over at Daryl's tent, he hadn't appeared for breakfast. Shane intercepted her gaze and came marching to her side, making sure he put her right about what she should be focusing on. "He's doing the only thing he's good at-hunting. Left hours ago, he stays for days at a time sometimes so don't expect him back any time soon." "Why? " she asked finding his tone offensive. "Because.." he placed his arm around her shoulders, leading her in the direction of the lake."Dixons are animals. Redneck animals. So just you focus on gettin' them plates nice and shiny." Shane's name just leapt to the top of her bad books. Against her better judgement, she did as she was told and crept down the dirt trail towards the clear blue lake where the other women were hard at work.
Alice huddled with Carol and Amy on the bank scrubbing away at the plates furiously with the old piece of clothing they were expected to use. Most of them came out clean enough, all three women were silently reminiscing about what life used to be like, how convenient everything had been. A dish washer would have come in really handy right about now, flick on a switch and relax with a coffee while it did all the hard work. Alice never would have guessed that she would be doing chores during the apocalypse, she kinda thought these people were crazy but on the other hand appreciated that they were trying to live a life as normal as possible. She sighed and looked around, after being constantly on the go for months sitting around was a tad dull.
Turning her attention to Carol beside her she spotted several bruises dotted around her pale body, some looked old, a couple seemed fresh. As always Ed was leering at her, he had driven the few feet down the hill from the camp just to keep his woman in check. "You ok, Carol?" Alice whispered. Carol flashed an unconvincing smile and nodded finishing her last plate and returning to her husband, eyes lowered to the ground like an obedient pet . "Dick head" Alice tutted. Amy couldn't help but laugh, "Speak your mind why don't you!" They laughed and joked until everything was done, sharing happy stories for a change as they climbed back up the hill to get started on other chores. "It's nice having you around, Alice. I feel like I've known you forever!" "It's nice to be-" Alice froze, she could hear a shrill ringing in the distance, so far off she could barely make it out but gradually it got louder and louder sounding more like a car alarm, loud noises always bred danger.
They rushed back into camp just in time to see Lori and Shane ducking out of the forest suspiciously, adjusting their unbuttoned clothing at the same time. Carol, who had been reading books with the kids, herded the children into the safety of the RV as a bright red sports car came into view. "It's not one of your group?" Alice shouted up to Dale who was on top of the RV with his binoculars over his eyes. Adjusting his binocular focus as the vehicle neared Dale breathed a pent up sigh of relief and mopped the nervous sweat from his brow. "It's Glenn!" he almost laughed, this old man had already seen more than enough trouble to last him another life time.
Alice craned her neck to get a good look at the driver as the car parked up on the edge of camp, alarm still blaring. Everybody was having to shout just to be heard over the noise but Alice was too far away to hear what they were saying as an Asian guy, about her age, wearing a cap and a huge grin leapt excitedly from the car. The men argued over how to stop the noise whilst Amy began to panic, with just Glenn returning that must mean the rest were dead, her sister... "There's a truck coming too." Alice alerted the rest as everything finally went quiet. Silence never sounded so good! In the big removal truck was the remaining survivors, all welcomed back in a blur of teary reunions. Alice was a tad uncomfortable, she didn't like so much emotion, she had used to cry about everything when she was younger but since the world had begun to change so did she. Besides its not like she had anyone left to welcome back, her loved ones were all dead. The last person from the truck she assumed was Merle but he certainly didn't live up to his bad ass reputation, he was clean shaven and smartly dressed as a cop.