Hey, guys! Thanks so much for the reviews on the last chapter. I'm so sorry that it was so short, but sometimes, parts of stories are pretty quick to tell. This one will be a bit longer though, I promise. So here goes with Chapter 7! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or its characters. They are the property of AMC. I only own Olivia.
Two months ago...
My father's hand was still held tightly in min, his skin growing colder as time passed. I had been sitting there for two hours, looking at the lifeless body, tears still slowly traveling down my face. I knew I needed to end his suffering, to refuse his body to degrade itself by becoming one of those things, but this was my father and I couldn't yet bring myself to do it.
The sound of soft moans and growls came from the street below us; I went to the window to look out at what the night had brought with it, the cold feeling of my father's hand still lingering in my own as I left the bed. I pulled the blinds aside, revealing the staggering corpses as they aimlessly wandered around.
It had been a few weeks since the broadcasts had stopped and the number of creepers, as my father had begun to call them, had increased. Our own home had been destroyed when the raids had begun, forcing us out and further out of the heart of the city. We had managed to find the abandoned house we had been staying in, barricading the doors and windows for each night as the dead grew more and more restless. Somehow, our makeshift home had managed to keep the creepers out.
But, a couple of days ago, the barricades no longer were holding up and a creeper had managed to break through one of the windows, bringing several more trailing behind him. My father and I dispatched them quickly but sloppily since we had only had a few chances to practice actually taking these things out when they got too close.
I had thought it was over but one managed to sneak up on my dad before we had a chance to breathe. Dad had struggled and I hadn't been able to get a shot in before the creeper clamped down on his arm, blood spewing and trickling between its teeth. I finally had a shot, took it, and went to my father's side. We did our best to stop the bleeding, to do something to try and ease my father's pain, but we both knew what was coming. We both knew he was going to become one of the things we had just slaughtered; a hungry, rotting corpse.
For nearly an hour, after we had made sure the house was again secure and both of us had sobs constricting our throats and tears staining our cheeks, my father begged me to not let him become one of those things. But my heart, my sanity, couldn't let me. I couldn't make myself do it until the last moment when hope had been lost and there was no chance of returning to what had once been.
Looking back, I knew that I should have ended it, packed my things, and left. There was nothing left for me; the last family I had was gone and I was alone with nothing but corpses and the nightmare I now lived in.
Soft growls and moans emerged from behind me and I turned around to watch as my father came back with sick, yellow eyes and no memory of who I was or who he had been. He struggled against the ropes that held him down to the bed and I knew the time had come where I needed to make the hard choice. I went to the other wall where I had left my gun, picked it up, and aimed at what had once been my father. Tears began to trail down my cheeks once more.
"I love you, daddy," I whispered.
A squeeze, a deafening sound in my ears, and I slid down the wall, screaming into my hands...
