Day 1.
There were actually many days before today. The dead had been walking for a few years now, but this was the first day that Lillian found herself having to go it alone.
It wasn't easy.
With Jason dead, it was really difficult. He had taken care of her all this time, taught her how to survive, but never had it crossed her mind that she was really going to have to put those skills to use without guidance.
She marked a small dot on the wall calendar - it was the last day of November. She and Jason had been reusing the same calendar from three years ago. They just used white-out to erase the old numbers and replace them with the new.
They had made Greenbrier Mall their home a few months after the shit hit the fan. It didn't do much business before the dead walked, so as long as they were quiet, they were killing them in small batches, and keeping their base had been quite manageable.
The area of Virginia they occupied was riddled with the dead on the street, but they practiced plenty of caution when they made food runs. After all, living on the dollar store's snacks in the mall wasn't going to cut it forever.
This was the first day Lillian had to make this trip by herself, and she knew it wasn't going to be easy. Somewhere out there, Jason was a walking corpse, and her worst nightmare would come to fruition if she had to see him like that.
And it would be even worse if she had to be the one to put him down.
From the two-story mall, it was a twenty-minute walk to the grocery store, and that was given if there were no distractions on the way. Lillian armed herself with a pair of war scythes, as well as a decorative dagger at her hip. They might have seemed cheesy at first, but they did well to keep her alive so far, and ultimately, that was all that mattered.
She tried to keep to one side of the main road until there was a clearing that allowed her to cross. It was still a mystery to her what kept the dead roaming around this area if there were so few live occupants to attract them.
Aside from herself and Jason, Lillian hadn't seen anyone else for months.
Now, she felt truly alone in the world, and it was horrifying.
As she rounded the corner of a shopping center, she stealthily drove the blades through the heads of two stragglers. There were more limping about further away - a group of four, it appeared, but unless she absolutely had to, she wouldn't bother.
No sight of Jason. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, to be honest.
Her stomach turned as she crept into the grocery store. Whatever hadn't been picked of the produce smelled horrid. By now, only the canned goods were worth picking, and even those rations were starting to thin out. It may be time to think about traveling the extra fifteen minutes to the next grocery store.
She grabbed what she could carry in two, duffle bags, both draped over her shoulders once they were filled with canned beans, corn, and whatever else she could find. She even shoved in a bag of assorted chocolates just to treat herself. She felt she earned it.
Day 2.
There was no need to make a food run. She stayed close to home, picking off two walkers that had wandered into her territory. One she found lurking in the lingerie store, and she might have found it comical, had her circumstances been different.
The second one was downstairs, hiding in one of the photo booths in the arcade. His putrid hand came reaching out from behind the black curtain, nearly startling the piss out of her. That was quickly resolved when the dragon-adorned knife was plunged through his skull.
Day 3.
She pondered, if even for a whole five minutes, if she should set up a Christmas tree. After she reminded herself that she would have no one to share the holidays with, she decided that it was a ridiculous idea.
Day 4.
Lillian cried. Hard. It was all she had the strength to do once the grief finally clawed its way in. She wanted to end it all, be done with it. It could be so easy, but it was a coward's way out, and one thing that never described Jason was cowardly.
She had to keep going, for his sake.
Day 7.
Her energy had been low for the past, few days since her emotional outburst. She tried to distance herself from the walkers while she was in this state. The distraction was bound to get her in trouble, and one slip, and she very well could be done for.
So, instead, she collected a few comforters for a new, makeshift bed. The old sheets were tossed into the arcade room, for the time being. She wasn't ready to take them outside, as she could hear the hungry undead hitting the metal, drop-down door with their bodies.
The restroom was close by, and so Lillian used the sink to clean herself up as best as she could, though the water was uncomfortably chilly.
Day 10.
On the lower floor was where she made her camp. Not in the jewelry shop where her and Jason had stayed in for all that time, but in Unlimited Imports, a shop that specialized in all sorts of cultural knick-knacks, edged weapons, and tapestries. She would pull down the metal gate when she planned on being inside the shop for a while, and though the mall was scarce of walkers on the inside, she wanted to be safe than sorry.
She lit a couple of candles once it started getting dark. She wasn't ready to sleep yet, and so there was no better time than to get some combat practice in. Before the outbreak, Jason taught her some basics in martial arts, and it had done her well so far.
Day 12.
It was time to make another food run. She grabbed her leather jacket that she had borrowed from one of the clothing stores and took the back door. It was quiet on this side, which was strange, though one could never really predict what the walkers might do until someone made noise.
She traveled to the grocery store that was further away. She couldn't describe her disappointment once she got there. It was completely scavenged through. She managed to collect a few cans of asparagus, corn, and stewed tomatoes, but she had expected more rations. These would only last her about two weeks.
She went to the store she had been grabbing from, and to her surprise, there were less on the shelves than when she was here last.
Someone else had been there.