Thanks for reading, everyone!

Oh, and for those who are curious, I imagine that Stella looks like Shannyn Sossamon. She's the woman I used in the picture for this story.

Enjoy chapter 4!


"Water pump is over here," Stella said, motioning for Daryl to follow her. She led him around the tree to where the pump was located, near what had formerly been the stairs to the treehouse.

"This your work?" Daryl asked, looking at the jagged remains of the stairs.

"Did you ever read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks?" Stella asked. Daryl's expression answered for him. She ignored his incredulous stare and continued. "It was written as satire before all this went down, but I took some of its advice to heart. This is the embodiment of the lesson 'Get up the staircase, then destroy it.'"

Daryl snorted, trying to remember if he'd ever seen a walker encounter a staircase. "Can biters even climb stairs?"

Stella shrugged. "I didn't care to find out. But having the ladder that I can roll up when I'm inside the house also makes me feel safer from living threats." She bent down and turned on the water pump, splashing the cold water on her face and arms.

"So what other tips does this this book offer?" Daryl asked curiously.

"Lots. But my personal favorite is, 'Blades don't need reloading.'"

Daryl chuckled. "That's true. But sometimes blades are a little too close for comfort," he said, placing a hand almost lovingly on the crossbow slung across his back. Stella could tell that he had had it for so long that it was a part of him.

"A longer blade than what I have would be more ideal," she said. "Like a machete or something."

"A woman in my old group had a katana," Daryl told her. "She was damn good with that thing."

"That would be amazing," Stella sighed wistfully. "The perfect weapon."

Daryl nodded and bent down to the stream of water to wash his own face and arms. He held his mouth close to the spout and swallowed mouthfuls of clean, cold water.

"I have some soap in the house if you want to wash up later," Stella said offhandedly.

"You sayin' I stink or something?" Daryl replied with a grin. She rolled her eyes and continued on her tour of "home."

"The road is a quarter mile through the woods that way," she said, pointing. "About half a mile south of here, there's a grove of wild blackberry bushes. They're getting a little picked over now that I've been eating so many of them, but they've still got some left."

She led him a few hundred feet from the treehouse and let out a groan as she came upon a heavy log and broken sticks. "I used to have a deadfall trap here, but it looks like the herd trampled it when they came through last night."

Daryl looked at her in surprise. "Where'd you learn how to make a deadfall?"

"Dad taught me," she smiled. "I can't seem to catch much, but when I do, the protein is most welcome. Only problem is, I suck at gutting small animals. Tyler always handled that part."

"Well lucky for you, I've been hunting my whole life. I'll try to catch us somethin' for tonight," Daryl offered.

Stella gave him a grateful smile and went to check her second deadfall, feeling quite relieved when she saw that it had not been destroyed in the herd's path. The trap was still empty, but at least it had survived.

"I'm going to go get us some blackberries for breakfast," she said. "Can you bring some water up to the house? Water jugs are up there against the south wall. It sucks to haul them up the ladder, but we need to make sure we have plenty of fresh water available in case another herd passes through and we have to stay put for a day or two."

Daryl nodded. "Yeah, sure."

Stella smiled at him and climbed the ladder to grab a container for the berries. She peeked at herself in the mirror before heading back down. Her short dark hair was messy as it always was. She pinched her cheeks a few times to give them some color and decided to bathe herself later in the day, regardless of whether Daryl decided to clean up. She tried not to think about how sexy he was even covered in grime as she headed back down the ladder and off toward the berry bushes.

It had been a long time since Stella had been with a man. Too long. A few months after she and her friends had fled to the treehouse in the woods, she and Tyler began sleeping together as a way to take their minds off of Rachel's death. After a while, Tyler admitted that he had developed feelings for Stella. Unfortunately, they were not mutual, and Stella had ended their "arrangement" to keep things as uncomplicated as possible. Their focus had to be on survival, not the drama the one-sided romance would have inevitably caused. It had been almost a year since she and Tyler had last slept together, and she was definitely feeling the effects of sexual deprivation.

She reached the blackberry bushes and began gathering the sweet fruit. Her mind wandered back to Daryl, and she imagined how his toned arms would look hauling the water up to the house. She thought about the way his cold blue eyes pierced right through her, and the way his large hands handled the crossbow. She wondered how those rough hands would feel caressing her skin.

Stop it, Stella, she chided herself. You met the man yesterday. Keep your fucking pants on.

He was older than her, but it turned her on. She had always preferred older men. And how old was she now, anyway? She had been twenty-four when the dead had started walking. Did that make her twenty-six now? Without a calendar to mark specific passage of time, she wasn't even sure. In the world they lived in, age was a trivial issue anyway.

A sudden rustling in the leaves jerked her out of her thoughts. The decaying form of a walker approached her, his claw-like fingers reaching for her. She stood and quickly unsheathed her knife, burying it in the dead thing's forehead with more force than was necessary. His skull easily crumbled beneath her blade and left rotting brain matter on the edge of her hand.

I have got to find a cleaner way to take out my frustration, she thought as she attempted to wipe her hand clean with a handful of leaves. She grabbed the container of blackberries and made her way back to the man who was secretly tormenting her.