((A/N: Thank you for the support you've shown so far! I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the story this early on, I'm having a lot of fun writing it (: This is the longest chapter so far, at about 6k words. Let me know if the length is nice, or if you'd prefer it shorter or longer. I wasn't sure if I should leave it this long or break it up or wait to write more...

Warning for plenty of adult language in this chapter. When you mix two redneck brothers and two Irish siblings together, it's kinda what you get. Be glad they don't have alcohol yet lmao. But besides that, enjoy the chapter!))


Jackson used to love the hot summer days. When he was younger, he and his sisters would sit out on the front porch eating watermelon slices with their father, sometimes with their mother too, if she was there at the time. They'd gather around on the porch, laughing as they told jokes to one another, seeing who could spit the seeds the farthest, their father telling them that a watermelon would grow inside them if they swallowed the seeds. He remembered the way Allison used to actually believe that, the way she would always carefully pick out every seed she could and set them aside for spitting later on.

But now, glancing up at the road in front of the both of them, the image seeming to waver in his eyes from how hot the day was, he found himself wishing it was cold again. Winter hadn't set in completely just yet, hadn't started snowing and hadn't started raining cold pellets of ice yet, so there were a few hot days in between the cold ones. This was the hottest one they'd had yet, letting him know that it would be the last one, and the other days from here on out would be freezing. He found himself cursing, knowing that, just yesterday, he had been hoping for the weather to be warmer. Be careful what you wish for, right?

He glanced to his side, looking at his younger sister, swaying slightly as she walked, panting slightly from the heat. Her plain green jacket was wrapped around her waist, her gloves had been stuffed into the bag slung over her shoulder, and she had even taken off her blue over shirt, simply wearing her grey tank top and her jeans tucked into her boots. He sighed, knowing that she should be resting, but also knowing she would never agree to it.

They'd been walking for nearly four days now, taking small breaks and resting for only four to five hours each, always looking over their shoulders, always trying to keep track of the tire tracks on the road in front of them. The men that had stolen their truck was still heading in this direction, and while neither of them were all that hellbent on catching them at this point, it was the only direction they felt like heading in. The road they were on had yet to end, stretching on for as far as they could see, with forests surrounding them on either side.

Sighing out a breath of frustration, Jackson took a water bottle from the pack tied to his waist, unscrewing the lid and taking a swig of the warm water. Afterward, he handed it out to his side, handing it to Allison. She took it wordlessly, taking a few gulps before giving it back.

After tying the bag shut once more, he grimaced. He was hot still, thirsty. Their supplies were running short enough as it was, considering most of their things had been in the truck. Which, now that he could look back at it, was a huge mistake. He and Allison were only planning on staying in the building for the night before they either left for someplace else or took the rest of their supplies inside to stay for a few days. They had hoped that tossing the tarp down over their items would make the thing seem more used, almost broken down. Clearly, it didn't work as well as they had hoped it would.

"...Are you a'right?" Jackson asked quietly, his Irish accent coming through in his tired haze. Allison glanced at him but said nothing, turning back to look at the road ahead of her as she took a few weary steps closer to him. He smiled softly, turning back to look ahead as well, knowing that that was about as good of an answer that he would get from her at this point.

Allison was still pretty torn up about what had happened that night. Jackson really couldn't blame her, he was pretty pissed off about it too, but he had gotten over it fairly quickly. He'd learned not to get too upset about things in this 'new world' of theirs; sitting in their own anger or frustration would only serve to get one killed nowadays.

Jackson sighed quietly to himself. Their supplies were on an all time low, tomorrow would no doubt be below freezing and would be even colder for every night afterward, and they had no tent or camping supplies. Their brief scuffle with the two thieves from a few nights before had attracted all the undead creatures from their hiding spots, flooding the small neighborhood with monsters. Therefore, they had no place to turn back to. Their only choice would be to continue forward, following the one-way road that their truck had gone down. The tracks often were in the mud to the side of the road rather than on the road itself.

Jackson had briefly wondered why their truck was driving at the side of the road rather than in the center, safest from both sides of the forests around them, before realizing that he really didn't care. Not at the moment, at least. He was too tired and too worried about what he and Allison would do for the upcoming winter. They needed supplies..

Or they wouldn't make it.


It's nearly five hours later when the two of them finally call it a night, finding a small clearing in the forest to the side, a few feet away from the road. It wasn't much, but it was more than they previously had, so it was enough.

Now Jackson sits in a higher branch in one of the sturdy trees surrounding the clearing. With no tents and no way to make any warning systems while they slept on the ground, they'd both taken to sleeping up in the trees, tying themselves securely to a sturdy branch while they slept so they wouldn't fall out of the tree if they tossed and turned in their sleep.

Allison had climbed up before him, and she was in a separate tree from his own. The trees surrounding the road were thick and sturdy, but not large enough to house multiple people on one of them, so they took to sleeping in separate areas. Glancing over at her, his eyes lowered as he settle down on his branch. She was turned away from him, her back leaning against the trunk of the tree as she slept. He knew from her slowed breathing and the flickering of her eyes behind her eyelids that she was asleep already, and he frowned. She must have been dead on her feet, if she could have fallen asleep so easily like that.

He couldn't really blame her. Feeling the weight of everything that had happened recently, finally feeling exactly how tired he had gotten, he settled down in a comfortable position, or as comfortable as he could get on a hard and scratchy log of wood, and closed his eyes, ready for sleep. It came easier than he'd like to admit.


In her dreams, she was alone again, in a dark and damp area. She didn't know if she was in a room or if she was outside, she couldn't see or feel or hear anything. She could smell them, though. The rotten bodies that never had the good sense to just stay dead. She could smell it all around her.

But she could turn and turn all she'd like, she couldn't see or hear or feel anything, still.

Yet she tried anyway. She tossed and she turned, feeling scratchy fingers grabbing at her back, at the sides of her face, at the back of her legs, they were everywhere. She cried out, but no sounds escaped her mouth.

She couldn't speak, couldn't see, couldn't hear, and couldn't feel them. So she stood there for what felt like hours, crying silent tears for help, from her brother, from her father, her mother, from a stranger.

She simply cried for help.

It was dark when she woke up. She had woken up slowly this time, not reaching up with wide eyes and crying out like she usually did when she had a nightmare. No, instead, she found herself tied down to the tree she had fallen asleep in, the bark scratching at her back and behind her legs painfully, and she grimaced, recognizing the feeling from her dreams.

"So that's what that was about..." she muttered to herself, under her breath, so quiet she could hardly hear herself.

She glanced up, looking around at the sky above her. It was still very dark out, for some reason. She glared up at the dark sky, as if her anger towards the night sky would suddenly make it morning. She let out a quiet breath, watching it fog up in front of her quickly, before she finally realized why her fingers and feet felt so numb. It was freezing.

Sitting up as best as she could, wincing at the pain in her back and her neck, she pulled her blue shirt out of her bag and put it back on over her tank top, putting the green jacket on over it. She zips it up all the way to the top.

She sat back against the tree again, trying to warm herself up in the cold. Glancing to the side, she could see that her brother had the good sense to put his jacket on before falling asleep, almost bitter that he hadn't warned her to do the same. She ignored the feeling and faced forward once more, glancing at the forest floor below herself.

She froze in her spot, eyes widening slowly at the sight before her. After a moment of simply staring, she brought her numb fingers up to her face, rubbing at her tired eyes quickly, as if the image before her was simply a tired, sleep-deprived illusion. Pulling her cold hands away, she gasped quietly when she saw her father's blue pickup truck still there, still right below her in the clearing, passenger side door opened just slightly and all the lights were turned off.

She glanced back to her brother quickly, and, realizing he was deep in sleep, began to untie herself from the branch as quickly as she could. The two men who stole the vehicle could still be around. She wanted to check the truck as quickly as possible.

When she had her rope untied and her bag secured tightly around her shoulders, she began to climb down the trunk slowly, easing her cold legs to feel again so she could land safely without tripping over herself. When the branches got too thin for her to climb down, she lowered her legs over the hood of the truck for a second, dangling herself over it before letting go of the tree branch. Her feet made a soft thudding noise as she landed on the top of the truck, glancing around her wildly.

She had so many questions at the moment – why was their truck there? Why wasn't it miles ahead of them? Why was the passenger side door open? Allison found herself darkly hoping that it was because the two thieves who had stolen all their things had been attacked and had run off for their lives.

Worming her way out of her dark thoughts, she bent down on her hands and knees to look inside the driver's side window silently, hoping that nobody was inside. Peering in, she saw her hopes were true, and sighed to herself in relief. They weren't here. Whoever they were, they weren't here anymore.

However, a sound far off in the distance made her rethink her train of thoughts. She glanced up quickly, nearly giving herself whiplash in the process, looking into the forest ahead of her with wide, wild eyes, willing them to adjust to the darkness quickly, hoping against all odds that it was simply an undead creature. Those, those she could handle on her own, but another person? She wasn't entirely certain she could take someone else alone.

She jumped off the roof of the vehicle, spotting muddy footprints leading further into the forest, where she had heard the barely audible noise coming from. She pulled out her hunting knife in one hand, using the other to aim in the darkness in front of her, poking through the shrubbery as she stalked forward.

If she had really thought the situation through then maybe she would know that heading out to follow a strange noise in the middle of the night alone, without a gun, was not a good idea. But she wasn't thinking it through, the tired haze from her sleep still there, and the adrenaline coursing through her body from the remnants of her nightmare still present. Add the hope of finding their things again, their truck again, and she was simply hoping against hope that it was nothing.

Still, she stalked forward, walking through the forest wall, looking behind each tree she passed as she walked a bit away from the clearing where her brother still slept. He had their only useful gun with him – the rifle they carried with them was out of ammo, had been for the past two nights, but the shotgun still had a few rounds left. Allison told herself she'd be fine with just her knife. She believed herself.

At least, she did until she heard the footsteps behind her. Her eyes wide, she threw her arm back, intending to hurt whoever it was by catching her elbow in their gut, but the intruder caught her arm quickly, pushing it forward roughly with a strength she recognized could not be her brother. True to her thoughts, the mystery person behind her reached forward with both hands, clamping one hand over her mouth before she could scream, the other holding both of her arms against her body tightly. She kicked and thrashed at the intruder, but the man behind her simply chuckled in a deep voice, nearly lifting her off the ground with ease, whispering in her ear,

"Lil' girlie like you shouldn't be out here this time'a night."

She paused in her thrashing only for a second as a cold tremor ripped through her gut as she realized the kind of mess she may have just gotten herself into.

The thought only seemed to make her fear dissolve into anger at the thought of what the man behind her might do to her, and she thrashed harder, kicking her feet wildly, feeling pleased with herself when her elbow finally did catch the intruder in the side. His hands loosening for only a second as he tried to correct himself. That second was all she needed, as she brought her knife down with as much force as she could, breaking free from his hold and catching her knife on something soft, the man yelling out in pain.

"Fuck! You stupid fuckin' –" his gruff words are cut off when she runs forward, as fast as her legs could carry her, trying to break through the thick wall of trees to the small clear area ahead of herself. She could see the moonlight shining through. The man swore and gave chase.

Cold fear snaked through her body, pushing herself to run even faster, to escape his grasp. Fast enough to get away, fast enough to be just out of reach of his outstretched arms, fast enough to not see the crossbow brought down on her head just as she ran into the clearing.

She fell like a rock, not nearly hurt enough to have been knocked unconscious from the hit, but just enough that she could hardly see through the haze of her mind, a pain throbbing in the back of her head steadily. She wanted to get up, to stand and run again or to stay and fight whoever it was, but she could hardly muster the strength to keep her eyes open.

"Ya got 'er?" The familiar rough voice from before spoke up, panting, above her. There wasn't a response to his question, but from the quick grunt he let out as an acknowledgment, she assumed that the other person had probably nodded their answer.

"You a'right?" The second voice asked a moment later, not sounding as out of breath as the other man did, but sounding rather tired instead. He had the same accent that the man from before had.

"Damn bitch cut my arm. Di'nt even see the fuckin' knife," he growled out, not sounding very pleased, and Allison let out a breathy chuckle at the pain in his voice. When both voices went quiet, she pursed her lips, finally mustering the strength to pull herself up, trying to stand on her feet, but simply wobbling up onto her knees, one arm braced on the tree behind her.

"S'what you get, asshole," she muttered, her barely heard accent cutting through the silence as she struggled to open her eyes. When she did, she had to blink the drops of blood out of her eyes, and she realized with a startled expression that it was her own blood. The man holding the crossbow – and wasn't that a shocker – had hit her over the head hard enough to make her bleed, and she knew she would need to get it cleaned and patched up as soon as she could. She swallowed thickly when she looked at the two men in front of her, neither of them seeming very pleased with her words.

Then she realized with a start that these were the two men she had seen stealing her truck. She could recognize the taller of the two men, wearing a dirty wife-beater styled tank top and dirty jeans. The other man she didn't really recognize, with choppy brown hair and hard eyes. His sleeveless vest nearly throwing her off guard due to the cold weather, but she didn't dwell on it too much. She could recognize the first one as one of the two thieves, so it made sense that the other one was the second thief. This only made her angrier.

The balding man, looking older than the one with the crossbow, scoffed at her harshly, a sadistic grin on his face.

"Well, shit, look at you, girlie's still standin'," he muttered, addressing the other man with the last part. He nodded to the man's words, holding up his crossbow at her, aiming right at her face, or perhaps her chest. The hit over her head was making her see doubles.

"Still standin', still well enough to kick your ass for hitting me over the head," she ground out through clenched teeth, glaring as hard as she could at the man who had yet to speak since she had gotten up. The first man laughed again, and Allison could only think for a second that his annoying laughter would probably attract some more of the creatures, before the thought slipped from her mind as she struggled to simply stay awake.

He pulled out a gun from his waistband, and before Allison could curse herself out for not even noticing it, he had it trained at her forehead from where he stood feet away from her, standing next to the bow man.

"How 'bout I jus' put some lead through yer skull?" He asked, his voice sounding much more pleased than it should in this situation. Allison narrowed her eyes, finally pushing herself up to stand on her feet, trying her best to shift her glare from the bowman to the asshole.

"Fuck you, you fuckin' thieves," she spat out, feeling dizzy from the motion of standing, trying to keep her eyes open for as long as she could. Both men looked slightly confused at her insult, the bowman looking between her and the other man quickly, before his eyes landed on hers again, hard and impassive like they were before.

"We didn't steal nothin' from you," The man with the crossbow finally spoke, his voice low as his aim on her never wavered. He was almost glowering at her now, as if he felt insulted she would call them something like that.

"Like my truck? You didn't steal that blue piece of shit?"

Recognition dawned on the other man's features, and he grinned at her when he realized who she was.

"Aw, yeah, I 'member you," he pointed at her with the gun, raising one hand to clap the bowman on the shoulder hard. His aim wavered slightly with the hit, but he fixed his position quickly. "You 'n that guy you were travellin' with. Where's he at? Or did he die already?" He asked, letting out an airy chuckle.

Then she heard a gun being cocked, and she paused.

"No, I'm still here," Jackson replied coolly, positioning himself to move closer to his sister without having to take a step closer to the men.

Allison nearly sagged in relief when she saw Jackson standing at the edge of the small clearing, his shotgun pointed right at the side of the balding man's head, a dark look on his features as he lowered his finger to the trigger of the gun. The motion was not lost on either of the two other men in the clearing. The man with the bow swiveled on the spot, pointing his weapon at Jackson rather than at herself, and she felt a little bit lighter knowing she had backup, knowing that there was only one weapon trained on her at the moment now.

As he moved over to his sister, he stood in front of her protectively. While Allison would usually scowl at his protective nature, she was grateful for it in this instance. Her feet wobbled below her, but she forced herself to stay standing. Her mind began clearing ever so slightly, and she pushed through, hoping that this dizziness would go away quickly. If Jackson and the two men got into a fight, she needed to be there, needed to help him win it.

"My sister n' I will be leaving now," he spoke lowly, hiding Allison behind himself as best as he could while still keeping his eyes on the two men before him. The one with the bow seemed surprised to realize they were related, but didn't lower his weapon at all. The other man scoffed quietly, lowering his gun to point it to the ground ever so slightly.

"Really? And what if I wanted t'stop ya from leavin'?" He asked, his gravelly voice low with a threatening tone to it. Jackson's eyes narrowed as his finger squeezed the trigger ever so slightly further, a warning without words. The man's smile is wiped from his face when he sees Jackson's unrelenting stance, and he purses his lips as he seems to think this over.

"A'right," he finally speaks. Bowman seems shocked by what he says, looking over at him quickly, as if trying to keep his eyes on the both of them but give the man a hard glare at the same time.

"Wadd'ya mean, 'a'right'?" He whispers harshly.

He simply shakes his head at the man, holding out the gun in his hands for Jackson to take. Allison sags in relief behind him, leaning against the tree heavily as she closes her eyes silently, as if ready to fall asleep on her feet right then and there.

"I mean a'right, I give," he spoke, shrugging his shoulders, gun still outstretched. Jackson looked lost for a split second before he took a single step forward, hesitating to get any closer to the duo of strangers. The second man's eyes went wide for a moment as he realized what the other meant. His crossbow lowered as he looked on in confusion, but he glared at Jackson as he stepped forward, as if he had personally offended him and his strange friend. Jackson leaned forward to take the gun from his hand, lowering the shotgun only slightly as he pulls it from the man's hand.

Seeing his opening, the balding man lunges forward, landing a punch across Jackson's face as he tries to grab the shotgun from his hands. The momentum forces Jackson back, firing off the gun in his hands as he falls back with the man tumbling to the ground after him, landing on top of him. Allison is jumping forward in an instant, trying to her to ignore the sudden ringing in her ears from the loud shotgun blast as she runs toward the other man.

He only has a split second to think before Allison knocks him over, rolling over to land on her side as the man in the vest hits his head on a patch of dirt roughly. He groans in pain before trying to right himself, Allison kicking the crossbow out of his hands and off to the side, pulling out her knife again. She didn't exactly know what she was planning on doing with it, she was certain she didn't want to kill the man if she didn't have to, but in the heat of the moment, she was simply doing whatever felt right at the time. She couldn't waste a single second to stop and think about what to do next.

So when she dropped down on top of him, one of her knees digging into his chest, one arm around his throat pushing him down into the dirt, her other arm raised high in the air as she prepared to drive it down into his throat, she didn't hesitate to throw her arm down. When the man saw her movements, his eyes widened a fraction, his arms both launching up to stop her from doing what she had been planning.

Allison couldn't spare a glance to her brother, although she could hear him wrestling with the man behind her, a few gruff cusses slipping through both of their mouths as punches were thrown and they each tried to wrestle the weapons from each others' grasps.

She grit her teeth as the man below her caught her arm, knife inches away from his neck as he pushed his weight forward, trying to wrestle her off of him. After struggling for a brief moment, he turned and twisted his body, sweeping one leg underneath her, pushing his body to the side in order to switch their positions. His legs on either side of her, one hand still clasped firmly on her knife wielding arm, the other reaching back and pulling his own knife from his belt.

Their breaths fogged up in the night air around them as they fought each other, Allison pushing her arm forward and catching the side of his cheek, a small line of blood coming through. He grunted from impact, and when he realized his knife wasn't hitting any of the targets he intended them to hit, he simply dropped it on the ground and resorted to using his fists.

Allison managed a few more scrapes on the man before she could hear a haunting noise ahead of her, right above herself. She looked up beyond the man's face and could only gasp as one of the undead creatures loomed over the two of them, bending down to grab at them. She shot herself over to the side, knocking the man off of herself in the process – saving not only herself, but him as well. He looked ready to reach for her again before he could see why she had moved so quickly. He jumped to his feet, looking around wildly for his crossbow when he realized that there was more than just one.

Allison sat up on her hands and knees, seeing the same thing he was. She grabbed her knife from the forest floor, jumping up to her feet and driving the blade through the creature's head. It let out a low growl before slumping to the ground, taking her knife with it. Looking over, she could see that Jackson and the other man were still fighting, although both of them had weapons on them now. They were both covered in bruises and scrapes, their clothes and hair mussed from rolling around on the ground for a while. The creatures were surrounding them now, coming into the clearing from all directions, and she nearly came to a halt when she realized that the shotgun blast had probably called them here. Seeing more of them coming forward, she pursed her lips.

Leaning down, she gathered the other man's knife from the ground rather than wasting time trying to pull her own out of the creature's head. The moment the smaller blade was in her hands, she dove forward, killing the one nearest to Jackson. She heard a shout of surprise, a quiet cuss, and looked over to her side, seeing the man she had just been tussling with. He had found his crossbow, but was now pushed up against a thin tree, an undead grabbing at his clothing from the other side of the tree as two of them closed into him slowly. He managed to amble himself to shoot one of them, but due to his struggling, it had only hit the throat. The creature didn't stop, not even as a fountain of black-red blood began pouring from its throat.

Allison panted heavily, her body aching all over from various wounds and aches, as she looked at the man in hesitation. She twists herself to look over at her brother again, and seeing that both of them had realized what was going on, they were now fending off the creatures, not exactly together, but weren't trying to kill each other anymore. Not yet, anyway.

So she grit her teeth, hating herself for even thinking about it, before she lunged forward, pulling the bolt out of the creature's throat and sticking it back in through the back of the head. It slumped forward onto the man, but she hardly paused as she bent forward and thrusted her arm upwards, forcing the small blade into the base of the skull of the other. The man didn't waste a second, pulling back out of the thing's outstretched grasp, pulling his own blade from the creature's skull and shoving it forward with force, into the empty socket of the monster behind the tree.

He hardly had a second to look at the woman in surprise for her help before he made a face, pushing her down into the dirt again. She held up her arms, ready to take a blow, but only panting on the ground in shock when she saw him leap forward, killing one of the monsters that had been creeping up behind her.

"Allie!" Jackson called, from somewhere far off. She looked around wildly for her brother, only now realizing he was no longer in the clearing with her and the other man. Instead, she found he was back in the forest again, the man he had been fighting with running ahead of him as Jackson held his hand out, signaling for her to come with them. "It's overrun, let's go!"

She didn't need to hear him say it again before she was leaping to her feet, seeing the man she had been fighting with pulling a bolt out of the head of one of the things around them before he, too, was running after them. They ran through the forest for only a moment, the undead growling and groaning behind them as they chased after the easy looking meal, before they came across the clearing they were in previously. The blue pickup truck was still there, the passenger side door still open.

Jackson reached the clearing first, jumping into the driver's seat of the vehicle. He began to start of the truck immediately, the engine sputtering for a moment as the other three raced to the vehicle as well. By the time they had broken through the forest wall, the engine had sputtered to life, and Jackson was slowly backing out of the clearing, shouting at Allison to get in. She hopped into the bed of the truck, sliding to the other side and hitting the wall of the bedding hard. She cried out when her shoulder hit the cool metal, only vaguely aware of two other thumps into the back of the vehicle before the whole truck shook with effort as it began driving backwards. It exited the clearing quickly, and Allison could only stare on in horror at the many, many creatures that broke through the forest wall after them, moaning in an almost saddened way, as if they were upset their meal had gotten away.

When the truck began speeding off in the other direction – away from the creatures, away from her previous camp sight – Allison finally turned from where she sat in the corner of the truck bed.

She turned to see the two other men in the bedding as well, and she paused, unsure of where to continue from here.

"What the fuck?"


((A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Read and review!))