All the Lonely People
Chapter Three
NOTE: I in no way claim the characters or plot content of these fanfiction stories that belong to The Walking Dead, those are proprietary creations of Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard, and Frank Darabont. Original characters and plot content are a blend of my own creation, and suggestions, input, and guidance from readers and reviewers.
I hope that everyone is enjoying the story so far. I've had this chapter (along with the prior one) outlined in a notebook for almost a week now, and FINALLY got around to typing and detailing it. I should be able to start (and hopefully finish) a few more chapters this weekend as I have a very lengthy plane ride ahead of me. I am going to try to use ALL original OCs that were submitted to me, in chronological order, so be patient! Each OC will have their own introductory chapter, explaining their background and linking them to the other characters. Once this is complete, we will all begin our adventure together! Please be patient if I have to change some details about your background stories. It's proving to be a little difficult to fit everyone in, and still progress the timeline forward.
I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far! Please feel free to mail me commentary, feedback, ideas, suggestions, or general well wishes at any time.
- Present Moment -
Cindy Andrews traipsed through the woods with Daryl and the other women looking for the little girl. She had only met this group moments ago, but found their hysteria and urgency around finding the little girl unavoidably infectious. Her straight-as-an-arrow platinum blonde hair swished around her shoulders as she bounded after Jackie Stone, the woman who had found her under the Camaro only mere hours ago.
She couldn't help but smile in spite of herself as she caught the sandy-brown haired man staring at her T-shirt and shaking his head. Cindy found it a comfort that even in these incredibly disconsolate times, it was possible to still feel human. She got a rush of excitement just knowing that he was paying attention to her. She smiled satisfactorily at the day-old T-shirt, now covered in car grease and oil, and riddled with holes. Heather-gray, and fitted, with tiny little white smiley pillows yanking and punching at each other, as feathers swirled around them; the shirt had once been her favorite.
"What's that?" Jackie asked in a hushed whisper, throwing her arm out in front of Cindy's chest to halt her.
"Something's coming." Carol, the tall thin woman with ash-colored buzzed hair proclaimed apprehensively.
"Get behind me." Daryl ordered the women, protective nature quickly becoming old habit.
Two women rode up on horseback. One with bright emerald eyes and short, chin-length chestnut brown hair, and the other fair-skinned with long, wavy red hair, a spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and navy blue eyes. The red head held a rifle poignantly in her arms, and looked frantically from face to face as if she were searching for someone in particular.
"Sophia?" Carol ran towards the women on horses frenziedly and without thought. "Have you seen my daughter Sophia?"
The two dark mares stamped nervously at the ground and shifted on their feet. "Stand back." The red head commanded with an impatient and stern look on her face. "You'll spook the horses." She justified.
"I'm Maggie, and this is Harper. We're looking for Lori Grimes." The brunette stated to the group. "Your husband Rick sent us. You need to come with us right away." She hurried.
A thin woman with bushy, mahogany hair elbowed her way through the group and began to walk cautiously towards the horses. In one abrupt and unexpected movement, Cindy vaulted towards the woman and grabbed her arm. "Don't go with them. You don't know them." Cindy stated with an air of panic, her ice blue eyes widened with trepidation and uncertainty. "You don't know what they want with you." She instigated.
"I don't know you either." Lori expectorated, "but we welcomed you into our group only moments ago with open arms."
"Lori, she's right." Daryl interjected, laying his bow to the ground so as not to agitate the horses, and walking towards the congregated women.
"We don't have time for this!" Harper, the red head, sighed tetchily. "It's your son Carl. You need to come with us now. He needs you." She stammered while gesturing to Lori to mount the horse behind Maggie.
Without further regard to any impending danger or atrocities, Lori climbed on the back of Maggie's horse, and wrapped one arm around the slender brunette's waist. "They know Rick, they know Carl, and they say that Carl needs me. That's enough for me." Lori articulated as the three women galloped away on horseback.
- A Few Hours Prior-
Cindy Andrews dismounted her clementine-orange 1995 Harley Davidson Sportster, and knelt to the ground pumping her fist in victory. She lifted her gray T-shirt and stared disconcertedly at her emaciated ribs, poking them absently and trying to actively recall the last time she ate. Despite all the weight she had lost, and the tightening of the skin around her abdomen, the large scar over her umbilical region remained prominent: a reminder to her that even people you love have the ability to hurt you.
After several days on the road, traveling through the South Carolina countryside, she had finally happened across a section of highway cluttered with vehicles left in reckless abandonment. She rifled through the cars looking for canned food and water. Cindy was never more thankful to be alive, more than that, Cindy was never more thankful to be alone.
At the peak of the outbreak, Cindy longed for the amity of other living, breathing human beings. She desperately craved companionship. Only twenty-one years of age, still naïve in many ways of the world, what she didn't realize is that anarchy and lawlessness walk hand in hand with the collapse of civilization. A microbiology student from Duke, Cindy had consciously decided as infection spread and loved ones died, that she needed to make her way to Atlanta, to aid the CDC in what little (if any) progress they had made towards discovering the causative agent responsible for the outbreak.
As Cindy searched with prodigious fervor through a green 1978 Chevrolet Camaro, she heard the distant hum of an engine approaching. Terrified as she hypothesized that her captors had returned for her, had followed her all this way, hundreds of miles down the highway, Cindy decided to crawl under the car and hide.
- A Few Days Prior-
Cindy aimed the 10mm Beretta at the man standing before her. "Let us go, and I won't shoot you." She quavered timidly.
"Blondie, you know you aren't going to pull that trigger. You have a hard enough time shooting walkers. You want to kill one of the only living people left in this world? Come on now angel face. Put the gun down and bring your sweet little ass over here. I'll tell you what, I won't even hit you for acting up." He grinned flashing his perfectly straight, bleach white teeth at her. He walked towards her in slow, confident steps, and touched her lightly on her right acromion process, running his finger tip lightly down the anterior side of her arm.
"Don't touch me." Cindy stammered nervously, hands still coiled tightly around the gun, fingers laced through the trigger. She knew she had to escape, but she was not prepared to kill one of the few living people that remained in this world. Weeks of being trapped in the makeshift harem with James and his seedy fraternity friends had robbed the girl of what remaining innocence she had left.
James continued to move his finger possessively over her body with little fear or repercussion of the consequences of his action.
Cindy closed her eyes, lowered the barrel of the gun to the James' kneecap, and pulled the trigger. Spatters of blood and small chunks of flesh and bone that once comprised the his patella flew into her face, and she stopped only for a moment to wipe the crimson blood from her eyes before turning and running as fast she could.
- A Few Weeks Prior-
"You and that bitch mother of yours contribute nothing. I'm sick of this. You hog all the provisions. You're just holding me back. That's all you've ever done. You're only purpose in life you little whore is to keep me from realizing my own." He slurred as he attempted to raise his rifle to his trembling daughter for the second time that evening.
"You don't mean that dad." Cindy reassured him as she took a deep breath. Her body writhed with pain, and she forcefully ignored the wound in her abdomen as she attempted to regain control of the situation. "You've had a little bit too much to drink tonight, and I think that the alcohol has you a bit down. You don't mean that though. Why don't you put the gun down." Cindy suggested as she limped purposefully towards her father. Her mother gripped her arm tightly, partially in fear for her daughter, and partially in admonished pride for the amazing woman she had become.
"I'm sick of this. I'm sick of having to wake up every day and pretend I give a damn. Sick of looking after your worthless asses." He ranted as he attempted to steady himself and raise the rifle.
"I know things have gotten bad dad, but this needs to stop." Cindy cautioned her dad. "Things won't always be this bad. We can go to Atlanta. The CDC is there. Surely they have established some sort of survivors' colony." Cindy asserted. "They'll let us in. I can help them in the lab. We can put a stop to all this, just please dad, put down the gun." Cindy implored as she grasped the flesh wound in her abdomen from where he had already shot her.
"Why are you so convinced things are better there? There is no cure. No vaccine. This isn't something man created; this isn't something within our realm of control. This is God's work you dumb bitch, and no solitary man can avenge the wrath of God." He ranted. He raised the gun once more and aimed it at Cindy's temple. As he squeezed the trigger, Cindy's typically submissive mother threw herself into the path of the bullet, sacrificing her life for that of her only daughter.
Cindy blinked her ice blue eyes, and stared at the empty hollow of a man she once loved, a man she once called her father. She took a deep breath, and forcefully restrained the tears that dwelled within. "Good luck surviving the apocalypse asshole." She muttered as she limped towards the door.
- A Few Month Prior-
Cindy Andrews teemed with excitement as she began to set up her tent. Life had become unexpectedly perfect for her over the past year. She was preparing to enter her senior year at Duke, she had met the love of her life who she was absolutely certain was going to propose to her tonight, and she had gotten a great job leading expeditions for wayward youths with Outward Bound. It seemed that her life had finally turned around.
"Hey Cindy," Francisco called to her. "I'm going to gather firewood while you help the kids set up camp for the night." He informed her.
"OK. Is that before or after you propose to me?" she asked him ruefully.
"What makes you think I am going to propose to you?" he said chewing on his lip and displaying an exaggerated frown.
"Because you love me, and Jack loves me, and I love both of you. And…" she trailed off, "the stars have all aligned." She smirked as she gestured to the sky where indeed one discernable line of stars shone brightly amongst the clusters. "What more reason do you need?" she asked playfully.
"Well then, it seems you have diffused my last resorting means of procrastination." He said thoughtfully. "I guess I'll just have to propose to you."
Cindy gazed at him expectantly, eyes wide, perched on the tips of her toes.
"Not this second though. First, we need firewood." He proclaimed as he kissed her softly on the cheek and trotted towards the woods.
Cindy softly hummed the melody of "All You Need is Love," as she assembled the frame of the tent. Her isolated bliss was quickly interrupted by inconsolable screaming and crying from her charges. She turned around quickly and saw Francisco limping from the woods, holding his arm. Crimson red blood surged from a gaping wound, and fell in puddles and trails at his feet as he made his way towards her. Cindy quickly ushered the campers into a large tent, instructing them to remain there and quietly talk amongst themselves until she instructed them otherwise.
"It bit me." Francisco murmured quietly turning a ghastly shade of pale. "We need to get the campers out of here and back to the base." He said as he fell to his knees.
"What bit you?" Cindy asked worriedly. All these months she had spent in the woods, the docile animals that patroned it never bothered her or the campers.
"A man. A man bit me." He stuttered as he passed out at her feet.
Cindy arrived at the hospital hours later after assuring that all the campers had returned home safe and sound. Jack sat at his father's side, clutching his clammy hand with a grip that only the Jaws of Life could undo. Cindy quietly sat down in the chair beside him, and ran her hand through his soft blonde curls. "It's going to be OK Jack."
Days later, as Francisco began to recover, and his wound began to heal, he suddenly took a turn for the worse. He became hyperpyrexic, and exhibited signs of hemoptysis with a violent cough. The doctors informed Cindy that he had acquired a nosocomial infection, Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, and that the antibiotics were not working. There was nothing left for them to do, other than to make him comfortable.
- A Year Ago-
Francisco Ranier smiled confidently as he approached the beautiful blonde sales clerk at Mountainman Chic, the local camping and sportswear emporium. Things were definitely looking up for him, and if he had his way, they would be looking even better tonight when he had dinner with the friendly blonde sales woman. His drug-addict of an ex-wife had been deported back to Toronto, and after a grueling year of custody battles and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, he finally had full custody of his son. On top of that, he had just been promoted to the head of Human Resources and Employee Development at Outward Bound.
"Hi!" the enthusiastic young goddess greeted him. "I see you have been staring at those hiking boots for quite some time now. Is there something I can help you with?" she smiled displaying two identical dimples in her flawless porcelain skin.
Francisco took a deep breath, and ran his fingers through his thick, ebony hair. This was the part about meeting women he dreaded the most. "I just received full custody of my son. I wanted to celebrate by taking him on a camping trip, and I need new hiking boots." He grimaced as he revealed to the woman his parental status.
"I can help you with that, no problem!" she said without hesitation. "Why don't you have a seat." She instructed him gesturing to the maroon leather arm chairs outfitting the shoe section of the store. "What size do you wear?" she asked him casually.
"Eleven." He replied without thinking.
"Oh yeah?" she responded coyly raising an eyebrow at him.
Francisco blushed at her insinuation.
"I'm afraid you are going to have to get to know me better first if you want to officially verify my shoe size." He joked. "For now, I think you are just going to have to trust me."
"Are you asking me out?" she queried.
"Are you responding yes?" he replied.
"I don't know anything about you." She said as she struggled to carry a stack of boxed hiking boots to his chair.
"Well, you know that I'm divorced, I have a young son, and that I wear a size eleven shoe. What more do you need to know?" he smiled. His jade green eyes twinkled as he stared at her.
"Well, I guess it's settled then. Despite the fact that we don't know each other's names, ages, or mental status, we simply must have dinner together." She smirked as she helped him into the first boot.
"So this is how she felt." He replied dreamily.
"Excuse me?" the blonde girl asked him with an air of perplexion.
"Cinderella. This is how she felt when she put on her magic glass slippers and changed her life forever." He grinned as he locked eyes with the exquisite girl.