'Stay indoors'

Oh god.

'Whatever you do, don't approach them.'

Oh god.

'Head for the cities.'

Oh god.

'If anyone you live by shows any of these symptoms report them.'

Jackson laid dead by my feet his head gashed in by a metal soup pan. I had to kill him. I had too. He was coming at me. He looked like those things on the television with a huge chunk of his shoulder missing and bleeding. Broadcasting was to be ending soon; this was just them trying to hold onto communication as long as they could. The world was destroying itself. The dead rising. Everyone was out on the loose losing their minds. "Oh my god." I cried out running to my room grabbing my coat from my bedroom throwing some clothes in a small bag and fleeing the apartment. It had been seven years since I had last been home and they had been the best seven years of my life. I had graduated collage, moved out of that dingy apartment near my university with Jackson; we relocated into California looking for jobs; me, the lawyer, and him, the still undecided major. The life was great. Rose was getting on well with Martin forever goon in that prison. She mentioned meeting a boy whose name started with a D or was it a T? She was happy, thriving without me. Now the world was going to shit and I was back to where I started; going back home to my sister who needed me. Knowing everything about my sister had its downfalls. I knew she would never get out of this alive and I needed her to stay alive, so here I was revving my engine as fast as I could down the crazy highway to save her. I drove for hours day and night passing me by without a care as I listened to the radio stations go in and out of tune as they lost the service needed to warn people. Civilians were going mad. Prisoners were on the run…

My tires screeched to as I came to a halt gripping the steering wheel. He was long gone out of the government's hold on him running a muck in the streets.I could keep driving on this highway and end up in my neighborhood where my sister was, or I could take this exit and finish this business once and for all. My body knew the answer before I did hitting the gas and turning onto the exit ramp. What I was doing was wrong, I knew that, but it had to be done. He did not deserve this life. The streets were almost abandoned by now people taking refuge inside their homes or fleeing to the cities. I turned onto his street going where I had driven with my father years prior. I knew exactly where he lived. Knew exactly where he would be. Knew exactly he would be expecting me. I flung the car door open picking up the bat from the backseat and stormed up to his door way knocking it down with ease with my foot.

"I knew you would come for me." His back was to me. He sat in his study room to the left of the front door. "I knew you would want you revenge." He stood up swapping his prison outfit out for a suit before this encounter. He walked calmly towards me then came at me throwing his fist against my face. Blood pooled from my nose instantly at the contact, but it did not stop me from swinging my weapon at him. I cracked my bat upon his face making him crumble to the carpet. It was quiet in his house, but there would be no interruptions. Not even the apocalypse could save him. I swung my bat upon his side causing him to jerk sideways. He rolled away just as the metal hit the ground where he ought to be. His hand was around my wrist tossing the bat aside and bringing me to the ground. His first met my face multiple times, then, suddenly his hands wrapped around my neck. "I remember the first time I ever touched your sister." I flipped around in his grasp feeling my head pounding from loss of oxygen. No doubt my face was the color purple with dark red as a mixture of blood and no air. "She was so young back then, so ripe, so tasty." He licked his lips and vomit had risen in my throat. "She was no good at putting up a fight. It was so easy to overcome her; it was like she begs for people to take control. Her girl hood was so tight back them…she was perfect, that sister Rose of yours, she was my finest."

I guided my knee up to meet his groin. Martin slid of me clutching where his pain was as I coughed my bruised dignity away and let my hand slip onto the grip of the bat. I pulled it over knocking it upon his head. "Don't you dare speak her name." I stood up swinging once, twice, three times more his blood littering onto my face. I went to my knees again pressing the bat to his throat. "You ruined her! You ruined my sister! How dare you do such a thing! You sick bastard!" He was gagging on his own blood desperately clinging to his breath. I removed the bat from his throat pulling him up with me by his ensemble. He deserved a death far worse. "You destroyed the purest thing in the world and now this is what you get. You destroy my sister's innocence and think you can get away with it? I am sorry Martin, I am so, so sorry. You mess with my sister you have me to deal with." I glared at him dragging him by a fist full of his bloodied suit. He flailed and twisted but he was no match for an vengeful brother as I moved upstairs into his bedroom where I knew he had a balcony. I could hear them, growling in his backyard, gnawing to get in. I lifted him onto the railing. "I'm fucking Keegan Shepard. I am your worst nightmare." I pushed him releasing his shirt watching him slowly fall to the ground too injured to pick himself up. I turned away hearing him scream as they ripped at his flesh.

Peace, at last.

I was driving again trying to wipe his blood off my face. I could feel myself crying realizing the monstrous thing I was capable of doing. I kept telling myself he deserved it, but no one deserved that. I don't think she would notice who's it was. Walker or Martin's did it matter? I just hoped when I finally told her she would appreciate it rather than be angry. I sped down the familiar street peeling into the driveway carelessly parking in front of my old house. "Rose!" my voice echoed around the empty house. "Rose!" What if she was dead? What if I got here too late? It had only taken me a couple hours to get here, but what if it was too long? What if-

"Keegan?" she crawled out from behind the wall of the kitchen. I ran to her scooping her up into my arms. She must have been hiding in the pantry judging by the open door of the cupboard. "Mom and Dad are dead…"

I furrowed my eyebrows but did not ask instead set her on the ground and pushed her towards the stairs. "Go pack some things and come right back down here." I watched her take the stairs two at a time then disappear into her room. I did not waste anytime throwing various canned goods into a bag. My mind was running mostly fragments of Martin's murder weighing heavily on my brain as I tried to make sure she would never know was crying. There was a loud banging on the door behind me and then the growls crept into my ears. "Rose!" I called out. That glass door would not hold them for long.

"I'm ready," she was breathing heavily a small backpack over her shoulder. I grabbed her hands and took off out of the front door. "Where are we going?"

Where was there to go? "I don't know." I pulled out of our driveway not daring to look back. "What happened to Mom and Dad?"

"I-I was just in my room…and." She was shaking. "And I heard this scream from downstairs. When I got down there Mom and Dad tried to…they tried to bite me. I locked them in the basement and hid in the pantry." She was crying now. "I knew you would come back for me."

"Because I love you." I tried to smile reassuringly but it seemed too forced. "We have to head for the cities. It's our best shot."

"Did you get hurt?" she asked quietly her eyes piercing the blood on the steering wheel from my hands.

"I fell, that's all." I nodded towards the back seat. "Go lie down in the back." She did not need telling twice as she climbed over the console and into the backseat.


Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Ever city we tried seemed to be overrun or on the verge of it. Everywhere was unsafe. We had nothing left. I tried to keep my faith for Rose, but having her trailing along with me, depending on me to the point that I was looking out for both of us; it was becoming terrifying. We would never survive like this. She would never survive like this. She needed to grow up. All the way across the country we traveled, from Washington now currently walking an abandoned highway somewhere in Georgia. People came across our paths each state we traveled too, but trust was hard to find resulting in fleeing or killing. Everything about our past world was gone. I was losing it. All the things I used to be before this happened was slipping right out of my hands like warm sand on a beach. The grains slowly sliding in the cracks of my spread out fingers back to rejoin its home. My whole world was washing away with he tide taking my sanity with it and if I did not save Rose from the same fate she would be lost too. "You alright?" I looked down at her as she walked close to me. She nodded her head but I caught that slight childish pout on her lips. I knew what I had to do. I knew it would kill me. I knew she would hate me forever but it was necessary. She needed to live. I glanced behind me making sure the roadway was clear of all danger before stopping. "Here," I pulled open a door of a car. "Lie down for a minute I am just going to scavenge some stuff in these cars. Do not move." I bit my tongue taking in all the features on her face. The last time I would ever see it.

The day she was born was the happiest day of my life. I vowed to protect her like every older brother should. I promised to love her with no intention of ever leaving her feeling lost. I joked with the fact to pick on her to make her be strong, but whenever her petite baby face stared up at me I never had the guts to give her a pull or yank. I was her best friend, her brother, and her guardian. I had to look out for her as she got older; our parents were never ones to pay attention to our needs too involved with each other. We knew they loved us but it was never enough and anyways we had each other, so why did we need them? Staring at her now with those scared wide eyes resembling our mother's was heart breaking. I was leaving my only living family member behind. Though that thought nagged on telling me she would be alright all I could feel was doubt. She would be great without me. Her life would finally flourish, it had too. "Don't go to far." Her quiet voiced whispered as she lay down against the dirty backseat cushion. I nodded too afraid to speak, too afraid to move. Then as if this had never happened I turned around and walked away not daring to ever look back. I couldn't. I could never look back. If I would have looked back I would have ran straight back up that hill, back onto that highway, and right into her trusting arms. I would have not have put my foot down to end her fright in the world. Now was not the time to test my theories in what to do about her long kept innocence, but what choice did I have. We would have died living like we did. I walked into the woods nearby the high way waiting to hear her scream for me, but her shriek never came so I kept moving forward. I wondered what would happen to her. Would she survive? Would she wander? Would she loathe me for forever? I wondered if our paths would ever cross again. She could find me if she wanted too. If she tried, but would she care about me after discovering I left her? Would she believe me dead? I had no idea what was to become of my little sister. My wonder, little, innocent sister.

What would this world do to her?

Days have passed since I left her alone. Most of my subconscious begged to forget her to numb the pain I held inside, but her face always appeared in my dreams when I was capable of sleep. If seeing her pleas for nurturing wasn't enough images of Martin was forcing me to stay awake to not glimpse his bloodied body about to be dropped onto those cannibals. I tried to reason with justice but what I did was not good. Life or death should not be held in my hands. You think you know death, well you don't. Not until you've seen it; really seen it. It gets under your skin and lives inside. All I wanted to do was forget. All I wanted to do was end this war raging in my mind driving me mad with this quiet that surrounded me. Were those biters any different than me? I killed just as they did, I wandered with n sense of placement, I was just as inhumane as they were. I shivered shaking these thoughts away. It was getting colder outside as dark neared and I wondered if she ever got out of that car okay…I hoped she did. I wandered around in these woods with no particular direction listening to sky rumble preparing for rain. Shelter seemed distant and such a lost cause for me. I would have to camp against the grassy, mossy ground once again this night, walkers never passed through these parts much. That made it easy to hide, made it easy to drown myself in quiet sorrow. I nestled against a tree pulling my coat around as water droplets splattered down upon my head. This has what my life has become. Damp, cold, and near insanity.

"We can patch a route from this path up to the town so people can find it." I heard a voice say through my foggy brain. "Make it small enough so they can't bring their cars near." I shrunk lower into myself feeling wet mud smear down my clothes. Humans. Actual humans were near me something I should be happy about but wasn't. This world changed people so who could I trust. "Do you hear that?" the same man asked and all I could hear was rain splattering against my coat and ground.

A hand grasped around my shoulders bringing me to my feet. "Found him." A Hispanic man spoke a sly smile on his face as he pushed me forward. I stumbled on my feet at the shove staring up at this patronizing man.

"Good job Martinez." he smiled looking at me. "Been tracking you for miles," The one who I first heard spoke to me. He was tall and lanky and his eyes pierced me with icy cold fractals. It was the first time I had ever truly been scared.

"Mm-me?" I stammered straightening up. Why would they track me?

He chuckled. "We were searching for weapons when we came across you tracks. We own a town just a couple hours away and we thought someone traveling alone in these cold woods would want a place to stay." He extended his hand. "Call me The Governor." I did not know to trust him, but he had a town. I had no where else to go, no where else to be, no one else to take care of. It was all me in this world; all alone.

"Kristopher," I lied shaking his hand.


What do you all think of Keegan?
Think he's rude for leaving Rose? Smart? Selfish?
What about him joining The Gov.?
Let me know xoxo -kate