A.N.: So, from this chapter on things deviate dramatically from canon. I've got plans for what's going to happen, I thought I was going to kill Andrea instead of Amy, because I think watching Amy's progression from an innocent college-kid who still loves mermaids into a really strong woman would have been very interesting. Now I've got an even better idea.


Our Deepest Fear

03

Orphans


"Okay, so, I think we should go over the rules before we actually get into the city," Glenn said, glancing back at the others. "We need to get in and out, no drawing attention to ourselves if we can possibly help it. I'll park at the train-tracks under the overpass, it's a good central spot in case we get separated and the streets are quieter because it was an industrial area rather than housing. So, biggest rule, no guns."

"Agreed," Rick nodded.

"You had no idea what you were doin' yesterday, ridin' into the city, poppin' off them shots," T-Dog said quietly.

"No," Rick said quietly. "I… I had no idea, no notion how widespread…how apocalyptic this thing was."

"Nobody knew, not really. Not 'til they was droppin' napalm in the streets," Daryl spoke up, eyes on the girl as Rick glanced back. By the way the others had spoken of him, Rick had expected something a little different from Daryl Dixon. He'd met guys like him; easily agitated, bad families, wrong decisions made too young, all attitude but, ultimately, it was mostly a defence mechanism, and guys like him were not that difficult to handle. And he cared about his brother, Rick had seen that straight off. His reactions were too visceral. He'd been blinking tears from his eyes several times during their confrontation, overcome with emotion at hearing his brother had been left for dead. He cared about his brother; and that meant he wasn't a total loss. He wasn't like his brother.

"Bombs?" Rick frowned.

"Few weeks ago, choppers unloaded on Atlanta," T-Dog said solemnly. "'Fore we set up camp. Fire-bombs all over downtown."

"Fire? That works?"

"Don't kill 'em," Daryl grunted softly, wiping his mouth with a rag. "Slows 'em some. Gotta be the brain, though. Head-shot, clean as you can make it."

"You all had much experience with 'em?"

"Too damn much," T-Dog sighed. "Overran my whole neighbourhood, barely got out."

"They're not so bad, just a handful. Same as bein' in any fight, just don't let 'em get any licks in," Daryl shrugged. "Don't waste your ammo, neither, nothin' but a head-shot'll keep 'em down."

"How'd you get all the way to Atlanta not knowin' nothing about all this?" T-Dog asked. Rick sighed softly, glancing out the window as mountain-scenery turned into broad highway, the sky opening up without trees to keep it at bay. "You woke up in that hospital and what? How the hell d'you take all that in?"

"Hospital?" Daryl frowned.

"He's Lori's old-man," Collis said quietly, just barely glancing back at the hunter.

"No shit. Heard you were dead."

"I was as good as. Woke up in the hospital…if it wasn't for a guy named Morgan, his son…I'd've been dead on my own doorstep. Told me what happened, what they are, told me about Atlanta, the CDC. Plan was to hook up when Morgan'd taken care of his business." At the others' frowns, Rick added, "His wife." Solemnity passed across the men's faces, Daryl Dixon wiped his mouth with his rag again, keeping his eyes on Rick. He didn't want to have to ask the awkward questions, but these people had been around Lori and Carl; Shane obviously knew them well enough to be comfortable with them being so close, even Merle and Daryl, and Rick had always trusted Shane's instincts, he just never went on another's faith alone. He wanted to know who these men were around his family. And women. "Have you lost anyone?"

"Couple, in the beginnin'," Daryl shrugged. "Don't hurt, thinking 'bout 'em though. Strangers."

"Yeah, before we set up at the quarry," T-Dog sighed.

"It's a good setup. Cliff overlookin' the lake gives a natural boundary, protection," Rick mused, thinking back on the camp with the watch-position on top of Dale's RV, the cliffs on one side, single point of easy access, woods for hunting, the lake for water and fish. "Smart."

"We got lucky. Just glad it isn't winter," Collis said. "We'd be a lot worse off."

"Pretty bad off now," Daryl grumbled. She reached back, and Daryl glanced up as she rested a hand on his bent knee, without even looking up from her book. When they'd met he'd thought she must have ice in her veins, how the hell else did she survive the damn heat, the pressure?

"No worse than we're used to," she said quietly, glancing back at Daryl, who shrugged. She sighed. "Well, with you all takin' care of Merle, you alright for me to go off and take care of some things?"

"You're going off by yourself again?" Glenn asked, glancing at her.

"Got things to do," Collis said, not looking up from her book. "Didn't get nearly as much done yesterday as I wanted."

"How much time d'you need?" Rick asked. "We did this on the condition it'd be quick and easy."

"We go back to the old way," Collis said, glancing at Glenn.

"Are you sure?" Glenn asked anxiously.

"It worked far better," Collis said softly.

"What's the old way?" Rick frowned disapprovingly.

"We split up when we get into the city. Get what we need, agree on a certain time to meet back up at a pre-decided location," Glenn said, glancing back at him. "We wait fifteen minutes for each other, if we're not back by then we head back to camp. Whoever's left behind finds their own way back. And guess who that always is?" Collis didn't look up from her book.

"Thought you wanted to come back to the city for Merle," Daryl said quietly, and this time Collis did look up from her book.

"I offered for you," she said softly, holding eye-contact with Daryl. He didn't answer, probably didn't know how; he just gazed at her for a minute, then looked away, uncomfortable. Glenn drove them into the city, parking under an overpass. There was an abandoned coach nearby, small suitcases tossed across the ground, a few bodies lying here and there.

"Merle first or the guns?" Rick asked, as the clambered through the chain-link fence that kept the train-tracks protected from walkers.

"Merle! We ain't even havin' this conversation!" Daryl cried angrily.

"We are," Rick said sternly. "Glenn, you know the geography. Your call."

"Guns will need doubling-back. Merle first," Glenn decided. He glanced at Collis, securing her sunglasses over her eyes. "Meet back up here?"

"No, I'm going the opposite direction, too many things could go wrong, me tryin' to backtrack. I'll meet you back at camp," Collis said, with the kind of quiet finality that left no room for argument.

"Are you sure?" Rick asked. He couldn't not. Collis going off by herself. Knowing the danger, the sheer magnitude of walkers, how could he with a clear conscience let her go off by herself? "You go off on your own, you've no-one to protect you."

"I've got no-one to slow me down," Collis said quietly. "We're wastin' time arguin'; you go off now, get Merle. Head back to camp with those guns, stop Shane poutin'. I'll get back to camp one way or another."

"Be careful," Glenn said softly.

"And you, too. Eyes sharp, stay light on your feet," Collis said, tapping the bill of Glenn's cap, and he smiled, adjusting it back into place.

"See you back at camp," Daryl said, and Collis nodded, smiling at him.

"I'll be seein' you, sweet-pea," she said softly, and with that she turned and jogged off, one hand on the hilt of her machete, ready. She could hear the boys' footsteps retreating as she picked up speed. Her entire life had been building up to this point, to entering a hostile city overrun with the reanimated dead. Experience had taught her a few secrets to use the walkers against each other, when she came into the city with Glenn, she went off by herself, safe in the knowledge Glenn was smart and resourceful, and was intimidated by her enough she could scare him into leaving the second his watch hit the 14:59 mark even if she wasn't there.

Deploying overseas had given her too much experience in active warzones; her adolescence had prepared her for a life independent of grocery-stores; and as for scavenging – all she'd had to do was shed the discomfort of taking things from people's houses. And that hadn't taken much effort.

What always struck her, coming into the city, was the quiet. There was nothing. At camp the cicadas created a chorus, invisible; the others chattered quietly and the kids usually giggled when it was play-time. But in the city, there was nothing, no vibrant thrum of life, no traffic, not even the hum from traffic-lights, occasionally she heard a bird chirping but it was an eerie sound, like the baying of a trapped dog. Entering the city was like entering a different world; a world belonging to the dead.

People thought it was difficult, taking down walkers. That might be so, when a person was swarmed. But it was easy, when the emotion was taken out of it. Collis found it easier killing them than she ever had found it pointing a gun in active warzones in the Middle-East. They weren't alive. They were what stood between her and survival; and Collis didn't know how to give up. She did know how to kill; and they were decomposing bodies. They might keep coming if she stabbed them in the stomach but they were deteriorating; their bones weren't strong like hers, a head-shot took a good amount of effort with her knife but less than if she'd been killing another living person. Shane had been speaking a little bit of truth earlier, when they'd been discussing bullets versus hand-to-hand; always going for the forehead with her knife she did risk her forearm being torn up by walker teeth, and her eyes were peeled for a good set of leather wrist-cuffs. They'd be ideal for archery, too. At the moment she was just careful, and she used her machete; as quietly as she could, she dispatched whatever walkers she came across. The entire human-race was outnumbered with ridiculous odds; every walker she took down was one less to threaten her and the human-race's survival. That was a heady thought. One with a head-shot, the other, she slashed its arms off, kicked it to its front and grabbed a handful of hair to use as leverage as she cut off its jaw. It was quick and easy work, provided no other walkers lurked nearby; she'd dodged quite a few before she'd found a quiet street where she could have the space and time to do what she needed before other walkers were attracted to her scent.

As soon as she had the walker lashed up with a rope she always carried attached to her pack, she was good to go. It wasn't infallible, but she'd learned keeping one close warded off the others, camouflage. It was a gruesome business, prepping the body, but she just didn't think about it. Couldn't. She'd got this far, done what she had, because she hadn't thought about it. Hadn't let it in. It was too horrific; if she let it touch her, she'd break into a million pieces. There was nobody to put her back together again, and she knew the effort it'd take to do it herself. The others couldn't afford for her to fall apart. Her dependents had never given her that luxury, that of being able to fall apart. The same was true now; she kept herself pulled together, because the others couldn't afford her to be anything but what she was now. Detached, strong, calm.

The silence got to her, though. Every time. It was eerie. The desert had never been like this, even. And as always when she thought of the city, the walkers, her mind turned to the desert. To her friends still deployed out there. She found herself smiling; there was now no gods, no gasoline, no political agendas, no nuclear threats, no terrorists. Just the humans. And the walkers. Whoever was left over there, she hoped every human left standing was helping each other out. Putting all that ideology bullshit aside, taking care of each other.

With the sun beaming down on her, the humidity was already pressing against her like a tight and uncomfortable hug, the heat rising steadily, and she actually missed the continuous song of the cicadas, the birdsong in the woods. She kept her eyes peeled, listened harder than she ever had, and kept her footsteps light, guiding the stumbling walker down the streets she needed. Glenn had helped her mark the city-map and she had memorised the routes and locations of different places. And, as was her habit, she started rounding up empty shells she found on the ground, glittering in the sun, hot to touch, storing them in one of the baggy pockets of her pants. They need gunpowder, Shane's voice rang through her head, and she scowled, striding on faster.

Dead bodies everywhere, half-packed cars waiting to be climbed into to escape the city, walkers drifting aimlessly, suitcases thrown across the ground, Collis kept her eyes sharp for anything, whether it was another couple walkers drifting onto the street or a box of Band Aids in a suitcase, a full magazine in a gun still clasped in the hand of a rotting soldier's corpse. There were plenty weapons just lying around. She picked knives and handguns, a few grenades, ammo, chem-lights and a few packs off of dead soldiers, couldn't imagine her boys would mind a fellow grunt doing what she needed to. The walker she'd roped was good for more than just camouflage; she draped one of the packs over its back, one across its front, and kept adding things to them as she wandered on, scavenging, opening abandoned suitcases. Even in the heart of an abandoned city overrun by the dead, she could still pause and be amazed by what people packed for emergencies. Flip-flops, a case of DVDs, makeup, a curling-iron, a sweater and batteries for their vibrator.

She shook her head in disbelief, but she did keep the colourful, quilted pocket-organiser bag, stuffed with Vaseline, safety pins, Pepto-Bismol, cotton pads, a handful of condoms, a bag of banana-chips, fruit leathers, a sewing kit and all other kinds of useful stuff like stretchy bandages, pins and blister-packs, wet-wipes, Tide-to-Go pens and hand sanitizer. In another bag in the same car she found a stash of Fruit Squish'ems, Rice Sides and Nature Valley granola bars, ginger teabags, a few tubs of Motrin and a crate of expensive fruity waters. She rolled her eyes at them but tucked a few into her pockets and packs; she didn't look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Fact was, she loved scavenging. Growing up she'd never had money for anything, her clothes had been hand-me-downs from her cousins; she'd learned to eat dinner at the grocery-store, steal what she couldn't afford. Now she scavenged a wok and a catering-sized bag of rice from a car abandoned outside an Asian market, another small First Aid kit, some long-life batteries and an LED camping lantern, a mosquito net and emergency flares, a switchblade, and she smiled as she pulled a huge tub of Bazooka and a jumbo bag of sunflower-seeds from the back seat inside a crate of provisions.

And she was humming softly to herself as she continued down the street, sucking down a pot of apple-sauce, delighting over the goodies she'd found in a glove-compartment, a nickel-plated 3032 Tomcat Berretta and a beautiful Smith & Wesson 6906 that had her drooling, with three full boxes of bullets in the foot-space. She'd found empty thigh and ankle holsters on a couple soldiers and now kitted herself out, tucking the small Tomcat inside her boot where it couldn't be seen, along with the tiny KA-BAR 1478BP knife tucked inside the laces of her boot – she was a safety-girl. She had a haul of goodies in her packs, just knowing where to look, and as time wore on she added even more – an inflatable pink Disney princess pool she was sure Carol would appreciate for laundry so they didn't have to contaminate the quarry with detergent, a Ziploc baggie stuffed full of matchbooks picked up from bars; in a tiny Italian restaurant she'd discovered a few packs of what looked like emergency-backup mini-ravioli, the cheese Trader Joe's kind her first roommate after basic-training had lived off of; she found authentic pasta-making utensils and, reflecting that maybe she was too hopeful for her own good, added them to her pack, thinking ahead to the possibility of finding fresh eggs. In an expensive cigar-shop she found a Glock 21 hidden by the cash-register, and a family-planning clinic offered up a great haul of antibiotics, painkillers and bandages; she refilled her hipflask and took a shot – a few shots – of tequila in a Mexican restaurant where she found catering-sized cans of refried beans, masa and shortening.

She wouldn't say she was a good girl. If she'd been in uniform there was no way she'd ever disgrace it by taking hits of stolen booze while she guided a headless, jawless corpse through the city carrying her scavenged things. But she wasn't in uniform, and she'd been a survivor long before she'd been a Marine. And even as a Marine, that hadn't been the sum total of who she was, not for years. She'd built a life, a beautiful one, surrounded by laughter and affection, security. Something she had never taken for granted, as it was so rare in her life, so precious, something she had striven for.

The congregation of walkers up ahead made her stop with a sigh, frowning as she gauged where she needed to go. She had mapped out different routes with Glenn based on the map and his knowledge of the area, just in case something like this happened – but in case some of those other routes were just as clogged with more walkers than she wanted to pass through even with her camouflage, she needed to get high. The hunter in her always headed for high ground. It was a relief to fall under the shade of the buildings, the tall buildings and narrower street gave the illusion of safety compared to the wide boulevards crawling with walkers. She tied her walker up to a dumpster and climbed a ladder up to the first landing of a fire-escape. This side of the building, an apartment block with small boutiques, restaurants and salons on the street, overlooked a park. Beyond it, the skyline was open, a few buildings here and there, she could see a church and baseball diamonds, beyond it, a grand building, apartment blocks.

Up and up she climbed the fire-escape, gazing out. That had to be the campus. The park wasn't half as crowded as the streets, in fact it was pretty much a clear shot. Too easy; too dangerous. Wide open spaces like that, the trained soldier in her, the one still locked in combat in the Middle-East, said that was no-man's land, do not enter that seemingly innocuous territory. But it was either that or risk wading through walkers on the streets. If she took off that way, she could keep to the tree-line up the length of the park. She was sure there would be more walkers on the campus, they tended to gravitate toward large structures where lots of people had once congregated. Passing schools was the worst. But at least there weren't many corpses left behind.

The sun beat down on her, and she glanced up. She didn't have to check the watches she'd got from a store – she figured if there were more runs like this the others could use them – she knew by the height of the sun it was midday, maybe a little past. She stopped, pulling a bottle of fruit water from her pack, grimacing. It was warm, and fashionable waters like this were obviously supposed to be drunk chilled with special ice-cubes or something, but it was wet and purified. She didn't dive into any more of the provisions she had found, she had trained for hunger. She did pause for breath, though…caught by the quiet, the view, the sun beating down on her, sweating through her shirt, weary and a little light-headed from the exertion, what it took out of her to be on her guard like this. The quiet got to her.

She heard something knocking on the window beside her.

Turned, and had a small heart-attack, almost dropping her water-bottle as she reached for her machete, her heartbeat hammering in her throat at the little face smiling out at her.

Collis stared. This was absurd. She'd come into an abandoned city scavenging for supplies to help her camp survive, the city infested with the dead returned to consume the living. And a little face was smiling at her from behind the glass. Just…a little kid. A little girl, cocoa-skinned with unusual freckles and a mane of natural hair that glinted in beautiful curls around her head like an enormous dark halo. The little girl smiled out, and Collis stared back, startled and utterly stunned. A little girl, a little living girl was smiling at her from her apartment window. A window she was in the process of unlocking, fumbling excitedly with the lock, and she pushed the sash window up and open. Collis continued to stare as the little girl squinted in the sun, her face scrunching up. She couldn't have been more than five or six, beautiful, more than half her body-weight made up of that untamed hair. Collis squatted down slightly and capped her water-bottle.

"Hi!" the little girl chirped.

"Hello," she said hoarsely. It was the first thing she'd said in hours since separating from Glenn and the others, and not drinking enough hadn't helped. She peered past the little girl into a living-room filled with amber light, there were photographs on the wall, it was prettily decorated, DVDs were stacked up by a television and magazines and nail-polish bottles were tossed on the coffee-table; she could see empty Gatorade bottles lined up neatly on the linoleum floor in the bright kitchen with its aubergine-purple wall and chilli plant heavy with peppers. It was strange seeing a blender glinting on the side, chopping-boards ready to be used, the vase on the sideboard, a basket of laundry folded on the dining-table just under the window.

"Are you here to rescue me?" the little girl asked. She was little enough that innocence and hope, excitement, radiated from her face like a light. Happiness. Delight, it twinkled in her eyes and her smile was so guileless.

"Do you need rescuin'?" she asked.

"Moms said Daddy was gonna come get me so we can go on an adventure," the little girl grinned eagerly. Then she frowned, fiddling with the window-frame. "But he didn't come."

"I think he tried," Collis said softly. "Did Daddy not live with you?"

"No. He and Moms got a deevorce," she said softly, yawning widely. She fidgeted where she stood, glancing up at Collis. "I like your hair. It's the same colour as Merida's." Collis smiled.

"I liked Brave too," she said softly, not missing a beat, and the little girl grinned.

"I think Merida's the best but my sister Rachael likes Hiccup," she declared, and Collis smiled again.

"Well, he has a dragon," she said fairly.

"That's what Rachael said," the little girl sighed, giving her a jaunty smile.

"Is Mommy there?" Collis asked. She couldn't believe anyone had survived the city; when Atlanta had fallen, when the bombs had been deployed, everyone had looked on and known there was nothing left, no hope. No survivors. The living would have joined the dead in those blasts.

"Mm…" The little girl winced. She glanced from Collis to a door inside the apartment. Then she offered her tiny hand – Collis blinked; her fingernails were painted the same gorgeous iridescent dark-sapphire as the dress she was wearing. Nail polish. Nail-polish. Such a thing still existed?! She manoeuvred inside through the open window. A basket of laundry was folded on the dining-table, there was a cherry-red cast-iron skillet on the stove and there were photographs on the walls, birthday-cards on a sideboard. She was in someone's bright, beautifully-decorated home. She pulled the window down, locking it again, drew the curtains closed to keep the room cool and keep eyes off them. She propped her sunglasses on top of her cap and squinted in the dimmed light, noticing the details. The empty Gatorade-bottles lined up neatly under the breakfast-bar, the trash-bag full of wrappers from granola-bars, bags of potato-chips, packaging from Goldfish and WonderBread, cookies, candy-bars and cereal boxes. Someone had pushed the heavy sofa flush against the front-door as a blockade.

There was typical mess on the living-room floor, around the coffee-table, from a child's uninhibited playing, doll's clothes and colouring pages, probably her sister's makeup – glittery pink MAC shadow pots, nail-polishes – magazines tossed on the floor open to glossy spreads, picture-books, square tear-offs from a 365-day Calvin & Hobbes calendar. She jumped when the little girl reached up and tucked her hand inside Collis', guiding her to a door.

"Moms and Rachael are in here," she said quietly, looking down at the floor. The way she said it, the way she had been allowed to spread out all her toys and playthings across the living-room, Collis' gut instinct screamed something awful had happened. But the little girl opened the door, and led Collis into a pretty bedroom. Photographs lined the walls, there was a pretty vanity with neatly-organised cosmetics and more pictures, and lying on the bed were two women. One could hardly be older than eighteen, and the other was obviously her mother. The bodies hadn't started to truly decompose yet, they couldn't have been dead long, not in this heat. And they were still beautiful. That's what struck Collis. The immediate and unquenchable sorrow at seeing two beautiful women, the older embracing the younger. Bullet-wounds to the head. Both were African-American like the little girl, the teenager had the same unusual freckles, but her waist-length hair was wound in a pretty weave; she wore a powder-blue Minnie Mouse t-shirt, had gold hoops in her ears, and her lips were still stained with gorgeous fuchsia lipstick. She had a chunk missing out of her neck, and old blood stained the delicate floral bed-sheets. Her mother had the same wild, natural hair as the little girl and had her arms around her daughter.

A glass of iced-tea rested on the bedside table, alongside a plate with the crust of a stale sandwich. Bottles of nail-polish and cotton-balls stood next to framed photographs of the three smiling girls. The little girl looked up at Collis with sad eyes brimming with tears. "They're dead, aren't they?"

"They are," Collis said softly. The mother had taken her daughter's life, and then her own, before the fever could hit and they would be a threat to the little girl. Collis glanced down at her. "How long have they been like that?"

"Mm." The little girl squinted thoughtfully, and turned to the living-room. While she was gone, Collis carefully removed the tiny Colt Pony from between mother and daughter. She examined the photographs on the bedside-table, the vanity, her chest aching. The little girl came back with a few of the Calvin & Hobbes calendar pages. "This many. I take 'em off before I go to bed." Collis nodded, glanced at the two women on the bed. She took the comics, nodding, and guided the little girl out of the bedroom.

She sighed and squatted down, almost overbalancing because of her pack. "What's your name?"

"Noelle. Because I was born on Christmas," she said quietly. Collis smiled.

"It's a pretty name. Mine's Collis," she said softly. She offered her hand. "It's very nice to meet you, Noelle."

"It's nice to meet you too," Noelle said, shaking her hand with an innocent smile.

"Have you been taking care of yourself?" she asked, and Noelle nodded.

"I brush my teeth, and I make my bed," she said, gazing earnestly at Collis.

"That's very grown-up of you," she said, smiling sadly. "Noelle…you know you can't stay here all by yourself, don't you?"

"Am I coming with you?" she asked innocently. "Moms said I'm not allowed out. The dead people will eat me, like the movies."

"Well, she's right," Collis said softly. "But you can't stay in this apartment. And I don't live here. I live with some people out by the woods. There's little ones there, too, just about your size."

"Really?" Noelle asked eagerly, and Collis nodded.

"I think if your mama knew…who I was, she'd ask me to take care of you," she said honestly. She didn't have much to recommend her but Collis had raised kids. Good ones, despite obvious issues and circumstances outside their control, enterprising spirits and a certain inherited disrespect for the law.

Collis didn't believe in God, or if she thought about Him, she thought he and his son might be taking all the credit – and the blame – for another force. Fate, she put her faith in; the belief that everything happened for a reason. Everything she'd been put through in her life had led her to this point, she'd known that going through all the awful shit, she knew that looking back. For some reason she'd been led to pause on that fire-escape, to take a drink of water and be caught up briefly by the beauty of the view. Even amid the awful things they were going through. She had stopped on that landing and little Noelle had seen her drinking water and knocked on the window. A grown-up. Asking Collis if she was here to rescue her. Because Collis had the same red hair as Noelle's favourite Disney princess, the fiery and independent, bow-wielding redhead Merida. Noelle had been left alone, and Collis had stopped on that particular landing of the fire-escape to take a drink of water. That wasn't a coincidence.

She still thought everything happened for a reason. She'd come into the city today, she'd stumbled upon Noelle. A tiny orphan abandoned in the centre of a walker-infested city. She couldn't leave Noelle by herself, but the thought of taking her out of this apartment into the city, back to camp…to live a life on the run, always fearful, even if she grew up in the outdoors learning skills that would get her through any scrape except the SATs, was a daunting, harrowing thought. How could she even start trying to explain that Noelle couldn't stay in her home, with her pretty things? That one day the walkers would overpower that sofa and devour her alive, if she didn't die of starvation or risk leaving the apartment through the window for food. Collis had read Flowers in the Attic, seen The Blue Lagoon probably too many times than was healthy, but what life would Noelle have had, stuck inside this apartment, not allowed to use the stove, unable to count past fifty, still gazing at her picture-books. Not a feral child, but she would never grow into an adult. If she made it to double-digits and puberty, adolescence.

Just then, Noelle's stomach rumbled, loud enough Collis heard it, and Noelle gave her a guilty little smile. "Are you hungry?" She nodded. "Well, let's see what you've got."

"Are you allowed to use the stove?" Noelle asked, a little awed.

"Yes, ma'am," Collis nodded, opening the cupboards. Everything was clean, neatly organised. And the cupboards were full – everything untouched that Noelle wasn't allowed to prepare because it involved a stove, or because the microwave no longer had power. There were tins of soup and chilli, Betty Crocker mash and cake-mix, grits, Rice-a-Roni, cornbread, instant noodles, pasta, oatmeal, snack-bars, fruit-cups, Cup-a-Soup, dried fruit, nuts, peanut-butter, jelly.

A feast.

"May I have macaroni?" Noelle asked, and Collis smiled. Manners.

"You may," she said. "D'you wanna wash your hands while I get it ready?" Kraft Mac-n-Cheese had always been a luxury for Collis growing-up, but now she couldn't stomach the processed cheese powder. She eyed the empty Gatorade bottles, the garbage bag full of wrappers. Her thoughts drifted to the two dead women in the other room, but she winced and slammed that door shut. The stove was still hooked up to the gas mains and she boiled the pasta while showing Noelle how to set the table – she'd said she didn't know how when Collis had asked her. It was surreal, teaching a five-year-old how to set the table when she ate beside a campfire. Manners. She'd grown up dirt-poor but even she had eaten every meal at the table with her siblings, hats off, hands washed, whether or not it was foraged mushroom and wild squirrel stew. It was surreal to stand in the gorgeous kitchen full of spices and memos on the refrigerator, the beautiful cherry-red skillet, when she was soaked in sweat from scavenging around the city using an armless, jawless corpse as a mule and camouflage from the dead who would otherwise eat her. Strange that a little girl was humming happily, a tiny freckled cocoa nose appearing at her elbow, watching the steam rise from the saucepan. She was thrown back to her childhood, tiny Bea all but chewing her fingers off for a grilled-cheese sandwich hot off the stove. Bea had been a vibrant redhead like Collis, not a freckled African-American with grey eyes and beautiful lips and the cutest little nose, but she almost swayed, the memory was so powerful, and her stomach hurt.

This was not how she had expected her day to turn out. She wondered briefly how the boys were faring. She didn't know if Daryl being there would be any good for the others, Merle chewed him up worse than he did anyone else. Their relationship was complicated; in a lot of ways Daryl was dependent on Merle because Merle had made Daryl believe he was, that he needed Merle. When they heard she'd found an orphan holed up with enough food to feed a military unit that she wasn't even allowed to cook because she was so tiny, would they laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it? It had to be Fate, proving it still had a sense of humour. She wondered whether Fate recognised her efforts in the past. Why else would she be led to the fire-escape outside Noelle's window? The threads of Fate were being worked together, the old crones sharing their one eye trimming threads and spinning stories. She wondered who watched on, and sat at the edges of their seats.

"You eat your mac-n-cheese, alright," she said quietly.

"Okay," Noelle chirped, her eyes on her meal, making noises almost indecent for the consumption of noodles. Noelle was so little she'd had to lift her onto her chair, she'd bet the little girl still had a booster-seat in the car. How was Collis supposed to look after a child as little as her, when the entire world had conspired against their survival? Well…thinking like that, Collis frowned and rinsed off the saucepan and bowls, put them back in the cupboards, and thought…the odds of her survival now were the same as they had ever been, growing up below the poverty-line with two unstable parents, going out into active warzones. The way she'd come to look at this new development, she was still fighting a war for survival, at least now she had a tangible enemy to slay. Poverty, hunger, those were things she had fought off every day; taking down walkers was easy in comparison. Hunting was in her blood, survival, her instincts were honed. Darwin said it, hundreds of years ago, it was the survival of the fittest. Every species went through that; now nature had turned on itself and the dead had risen to consume the living. Only the strongest would survive this.

She had always taken that with a pinch of salt – the fittest survived to protect their young. Noelle had no-one now; and the reason Collis had joined camp in the first place was because she couldn't cross hundreds of miles of hostile territory by herself, to get to scary sons of bitches who could take care of themselves. She'd be in like company – but the ones she'd met up with, Amy and Dale and Jim and the little ones, they were soft. Couldn't hunt, couldn't fight; didn't want to, clinging to the hope they wouldn't have to. They'd wake up tomorrow and this would all be over. That was their hope, and Collis shared it. She eyed Noelle and that hope swelled again, hot inside her chest 'til it hurt. They had to be going through this for a reason. Every catastrophic event in history, no matter how atrocious, natural or manmade, it had always ended. There was a natural start and end to everything. She had to believe the same rule applied to the walkers. For whatever reason they'd risen, surely there had to be a natural end.

And if she achieved nothing today, she'd get Noelle back to camp. The saying was it took a village to raise a baby. In this bleak world, that was certainly going to be the case. If she could get Noelle to the quarry, she might stand a chance.

She washed up the saucepan, Noelle's bowl when she was finished, and Noelle led her into her bedroom. Collis stopped on the threshold. Noelle had shared this bedroom with her big-sister. Noelle's side featured Merida posters, colouring-pages tacked to the walls, stuffed-animals, dolls, a pale-pink CD player and, true to her word, her bed was made.

What made it hard for Collis to breathe, suddenly, was her sister's half of the room. Posters papered the walls, and a memo-board was stuffed with photos, ticket-stubs, magazine clippings; a desk had a binder open with a math textbook, the equations half-finished, Post-It notes stuck inside a copy of Romeo & Juliet and piles of notes highlighted for Biology. A photograph showed Noelle's sister as part of a cheerleading squad in a red and black uniform with silver details, and she had been stunning. There were ribbons from competitions dangling from a bookshelf where novels were organised behind trinkets – glittery snow-globes, little figurines, a jewellery tree – and a jewellery-box issued a tinkling song when Collis opened it. She listened to The Swan from Carnival of the Animals as she opened tiny pots of shimmering MAC eye-shadow. One had a faint well in the centre from use, the lavender-rose colour was stunning, and Collis touched the pad of her ring-finger to the pigment, blending it onto the back of her hand, gold pigments shimmering iridescently in the sunshine pouring in through a beam of light between the curtains. She bet it'd looked amazing against Noelle's sister's skin-tone. She noticed the photographs of Noelle's sister all featured her wearing the same necklace, a tiny gold outline heart glinting with crystals, the delicate gold chain featuring tiny gold dots at intervals along the length. It was the same necklace Noelle now wore over her princess dress, slightly too long for her, obviously an adult piece of jewellery.

Collis had been scavenging the city for weeks, going through people's discarded suitcases, raiding abandoned stores and restaurants, family-planning clinics and office break-rooms. But as she examined the photographs tacked around the mirror, her chest panged so hard she raised a fist to it, kneading hard. She hadn't let it in. They were people. Once, they had been people. Every single walker out there had once been human. Had had lives of their own, people they loved, things they treasured, triggers of memories that made them roar with laughter or wipe tears from their cheeks. They had been people. She killed them easily because they threatened her survival, that of the people she'd connected with at camp. They were no longer human – but they had once been. Atlanta, all of Georgia, it was possible the entire world had been overturned by this…this unexplainable, brutal tragedy.

It hurt. It hurt thinking that so many people, so many lives had been destroyed. And why? What could possibly have caused, could they have possibly done to deserve this? Nuclear radiation, the effects of the O-zone, deforestation, the dead were surely laughing at them being reliant on fossil-fuel. Because they ate meat, what? Battery-farm chickens had caused a worldwide epidemic that threatened to truly wipe out the human race for ever.

People's lives had been destroyed. She had no idea who Noelle's mother and sister were, but even just the way the apartment was decorated, the way Noelle still made her bed every morning though her mother and sister were dead in the next room, reflected on who her mother had been; the photographs on the walls, the sister's eloquent summary of a Scene of Romeo and Juliet, her taste in makeup and the movies and books she liked, Noelle's mother's collection of cookbooks…she'd have liked to know these people. Strangers she would never in a million years have ever passed in the street before today, when she was contemplating getting the tiniest member of their family to safety, so she could survive.

It got to her, then. It got to her that these strangers were gone. Their lives had been frozen, math equations unfinished, but the dishes washed, a little girl left alone and unprotected. But they'd protected her from themselves, gunshots to the head rather than risk reanimating after the fever took them.

Her head pounded, her eyes burned, and Collis clutched her aching chest. It hurt. She hadn't let it in. Couldn't. But Noelle's mother and sister had snuck up on her and she'd…let it in. It was too senseless, too familiar – little girl, no mom. Big-sister dead. Left to look after herself.

She choked on a sob, and pressed her fingers to her eyes to stop the burning, stop the tears, not wanting to scare Noelle. She couldn't think about it – couldn't think about Amelia, her dad; couldn't think about Bea and her nephew, or Ephraim, or her favourite cousin and her now-teenaged daughter in the Ozarks; couldn't dwell on her friends overseas any more than she ever let herself. Couldn't dwell on the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, who had been lost to the walkers. Good lives, innocent ones, hard-working, beautiful people, destroyed.

She exhaled slowly, counting, but her eyes still burned and it didn't matter. She was upset; seeing Noelle's mother and sister had struck home with her in a way no amount of walkers had managed.

Noelle was orphaned. And so little, in years to come she wouldn't remember joy with her big-sister, her mother's hugs. Sitting at the dinner-table with them, listening to the Tangled soundtrack while her big-sister did Geometry and watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 and got pretty for parties with shimmery eye-shadows. She wouldn't remember her mother and sister. She was too young – Collis hadn't been too young; she remembered. And it hurt; but wouldn't it hurt Noelle, in years to come, when Collis explained she'd taken the little girl from her home where her sister and mother were decomposing, taken her to a quarry-side camp where strangers were scratching at survival. Taken her from her memories, her home. The place filled with her mother's and sister's faces. She eyed the tiny girl carefully arranging her stuffed-animals in the corner by an armchair draped with shimmering t-shirts and dark denims, books, magazines.

"Noelle, where's your clothes?" she asked, and Noelle showed her the closet, half of it filled with mini clothes, the other, with gorgeous clothes she'd have envied when she was still a teenager. A red 1950s-style flare dress hung from a hanger, the same one as Noelle's sister had worn in a photograph from her high-school homecoming. If she could, if she thought there was ever a chance Noelle might one day wear it, Collis would've boxed up that dress and taken it with her. As it was, she went through Noelle's half of the closet and picked out enough clothing that they could account for seasonal weather, accidents and extended laundry cycles. She tucked them up so small and tight, and found a duffel in the bottom of her mother's closet, where she found some plain long-sleeved tops to her taste that would fit her. It didn't feel the same, taking clothes from her closet, eyeing the shimmering t-shirts and blinged out jeans belonging to Noelle's sister, the way she'd had no qualms raiding abandoned suitcases.

But she had to do it, and one day she might be able to tell Noelle, your sister wore that t-shirt in pictures taken with her friends. She read Neil Gaiman books, was terrible at Geometry, liked dragons and had probably tried to read Game of Thrones after watching the TV show, had lots of friends, was very active at her school, liked listening to Paloma Faith and very old-school songstresses like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James. She'd liked shimmery eye-shadows in pinks, lilacs and warm mocha colours, could put false eyelashes on; she liked Disney and had a killer shoe-collection of awesome Converses, Vans, wellies and velvet Doc Martens. If any of that would even matter. She glanced back at little Noelle. One day, hopefully, she would get bigger. She would grow up. A teenager. And between then and now there would be few chances to go clothes-shopping as she outgrew her clothes. So Collis picked out t-shirts and packed denims from Rachael's side of the closet. She stuffed a duffel full of clothes for Noelle, with winter boots and wellies, a fur-trimmed khaki coat, pyjamas, hair-ties, the princess Band-Aids, extra tubes of toothpaste, spare princess toothbrushes and clean washcloths from the bathroom, found the Brave sleeping-bag in a cupboard and rolled Noelle's pillow and sheets, comforter and extra blanket inside it. She'd stuffed another duffel with as much food as she could carry and tied them together before she climbed back down the fire-escape to load the walker with – she might have to get another, especially with Noelle, although controlling two walkers while trying to keep a hold of a five-year-old posed its own problems.

She paused as she watched Noelle sitting on the sofa, waiting, gazing thoughtfully at the tiny sparkling heart draped around her neck.

She turned back into the bedroom she had shared with her sister, to the desk where Rachael – Noelle said her sister's name was Rachael, her mama's name had been Tamsin – did her homework. She carefully took photographs off the memo-board, out of frames in the living-room, her mother's bedroom. She secured them in a Ziploc baggie and tucked them into her money-belt. She couldn't leave all these photographs here when Noelle would grow up forgetting what her mother and sister looked like, who they were, what her family had been like. She should at least know that they had been beautiful – that they had put themselves down rather than putting her at risk.

"Come on, Miss Lady," she said softly. "You any good at climbin' outta windows?"

"I don't know," Noelle said, sitting up with a bright smile, clambering off the sofa. She had a sparkly Merida backpack strapped to her back, with her precious things and spare underwear at Collis' insistence, snacks, a sweater, a flashlight and a matchbook.

"Well, we'll find out," she smiled softly. Then she squatted down in front of her. "There's some rules before we go out there, though. We have to keep quiet like mice out there, 'cause the walkers like noise. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you get underneath the nearest car. Don't come out 'til I come get you. Don't scream, and don't cry. Can you do that?"

"I'll try," Noelle said sombrely. Collis nodded.

"Alright. Out the window, then." Absurdly, a quote from Professor Dumbledore struck her, Let us pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.

Oh, if only Horcruxes were her only problem.


A.N.: And I'm going to introduce another character in the next chapter who will be a useful addition. Unlike, say, Shane, who is a testosterone-fuelled, arrogant halfwit with a truly heinous haircut. I mean, you know you're short on people so you decide to have a barbecue rather than keep watch?! *This point will be addressed, worry not.