Chapter 1: Starved For Help

September 8, 2010/Day 53 of the global outbreak.

It was hunting day – the day four people were sent into the woods to try and find any kind of animal life, that the walkers hadn't already gotten their decaying hands onto. The trouble was the walkers were becoming better hunters than the living. There was almost nothing left for the living to find.

The group of four was divided up into pairs, that way they could cover more ground and not have to risk sending anyone off alone. One of the pairs consisted of two men – Lee and Mark.

Lee had been on his way to prison for killing a State Senator that was sleeping with his wife, when the police vehicle crashed into a walker. When he woke up the next day, he found the world had changed. He found a little girl, Clementine, who was hiding in her tree house where the walkers couldn't get to her; and a young man, Shawn Greene, who was on his way to his family's farm.

Shawn took Lee and Clementine with him to his family's farm, where they spent the night. The next day, Shawn was bitten by a walker and his father, Hershel, dismissed Lee and Clementine from his property; along with another family of three. They headed for the Air Force base just outside of Atlanta – a place that was safe, according to the radio – but they never made it. Their truck ran out of gas, and they were forced to make a run for it by the walkers. It was how they found themselves in a CVS for the next two weeks, until Mark arrived.

Mark had been stationed at the CDC to help protect both it and the scientists, until they figured out how to fix the world. A couple of weeks in, there were a rash of suicides. Scientists and military personnel alike were either taking the easy way out of this new world, or they were taking off to find their loved ones.

Mark and one of his comrades stole a truck and took off. They'd nearly crashed it into the Jimmy John's, just next door from where the rest of the group had been staying, as they tried to avoid the walkers. The group managed to save Mark, but not his comrade. In return, he warned them of the military's plan to cleanse Atlanta with fire.

Like the CDC, the group was certain they were far enough away from the main part of the city that would be bombed – why would they risk destroying the one place capable of saving them all, for the sake of purging one city? But it was enough of a motivator to get everyone up and moving for the coast.

Together, they packed up whatever supplies they might need, distracted the walkers, loaded everything into Mark's truck, and headed away from Atlanta. All of that fast food had seemed like so much at the time. But having to feed 2 children, 9 adults, and a dog everyday had quickly diminished it to almost nothing.

In another part of the woods, a man named Kenny was hunting with a woman named Quinn Scott. Kenny and his family had been on their way back to Fort Lauderdale from visiting his sister-in-law, when the world took a turn for the worse. Like so many others, they'd heard about all the strange incidences, but it only became real to them when a walker tried to grab Kenny's son, Duck, at a gas station. He'd initially thought it was just a man trying to kidnap his son, until he got a better look at it.

Kenny and his family continued south, until they found Hershel's farm. He was kind enough to let them stay in his barn that night, along with Lee and Clementine. The next day, the five of them were asked to leave. They headed for the only other safe place they could think of – the CDC – only to be met with car trouble and walkers.

Lilly's group was kind enough to take them in, only asking for one thing in return: to check them all for bites. Kenny and the others didn't yet know that it was the bite of a walker that turned a person into one of them. It made them feel worse for Shawn Greene, and curious to know how their group had come to know this. One of their own, a little girl, had come in with a bite. By the next morning, she had turned into a walker. That little girl had been Quinn's 11 year old niece.

Quinn was a young woman in her mid twenties. She had long, ombre brown hair, and eyes as blue as the ocean. The hair wasn't by intent – she hadn't been trying to create an ombre effect – she'd just gone through a phase a few years prior, where she wanted to constantly dye her hair different colors. Since her hair was naturally brown, that meant a lot of bleaching; leaving the ends of her hair lighter from the last time she'd dyed her hair.

Quinn was only about 5 feet 3 inches tall, and had been slightly overweight when the world ended. But the rationing of the food, and moving around more than she'd done in her usual everyday life; she was starting to lose some of that weight.

Quinn's sister was a scientist at the CDC. When all hell broke loose, Quinn tried to make it to the CDC with her niece; but a pizza delivery vehicle had run her off the road and wrecked her car. The boy driving it, Glenn, saved her and her niece from the walkers, and helped them to the CVS, where they met the rest of their group. She was sad to see him go his own way, when their group left their little drug store in Emory Village, because even though her niece never made it out, Quinn wouldn't be alive today if it weren't for Glenn.

Quinn and Kenny watched a bird land in a tree, ahead of them. Kenny knelt behind a boulder, and aimed his weapon at the bird.

Quinn touched his shoulder lightly. "Don't. The noise'll bring walkers. That tiny thing isn't worth the shot."

"Yours is quieter. Think you could get it?" he asked, nodding his head towards the bird.

Quinn looked down at her bow. She wasn't terrible with it – she was actually quite good – she just doubted herself. Spending a little time at the archery range every year at the Renaissance Festival was entirely different from hunting for your next meal. Sure, she'd been practicing since she grabbed the bow in the sporting goods shop there in Macon; but her body was only just beginning to develop the muscles necessary for shooting arrows regularly.

"Shit," Kenny mumbled. "No point now."

While Quinn had been trying to convince herself that she could do it, the bird had flown away. Quinn sighed in frustration at herself, but Kenny didn't seem all that bothered. Although it was still technically food flying away, it wasn't much of a meal – no great loss.

"So where'd Lee come up with that, anyway?" Kenny asked, resuming their search for food.

"Come up with what?" Quinn asked.

"Walkers. I mean, it makes some sense – the dead are up and walkin' all around us. But what about 'the dead' or 'corpse'? Hell, anything that implies what's up and walkin' is already dead."

Quinn smiled. "Do you remember that book series I was working on, before all of this?"

"You mean the one that was about the very hell we're now livin'?" His tone held the same level of disapproval it always did, when the subject of her books came up. It was almost as if he blamed her for the apocalypse, just because she was writing about one.

In truth, all she knew when she'd started her story was that she wanted to write about an apocalypse, though she was unsure how to make one come about. It wasn't until she started hearing crazy reports of dead people rising on the news, that she decided to go with that. But even then, all she'd really developed was a working title. It was why she was staying with her sister – so she could help her figure out some scientific explanation for her fictional apocalypse.

"I called the series 'The Walking Dead'," said Quinn, ignoring his accusatory tone. "Lee said calling them that was too much of a mouthful, so-"

"So he shortened it to walkers," he guessed. Kenny seemed impressed with Lee, like he usually was.

Quinn nodded. She was just about to tell him how she hadn't even come up with a name for the walkers in her book yet, when they heard a scream in the distance. It was a man's scream. They shared a brief look of concern, before taking off to find the source.

The entire time they were running, both Kenny and Quinn had expected to find Lee or Mark being eaten by walkers; or at the very least, bitten. But what they found was like nothing they would have imagined. It was a man caught in a bear trap, with two teenage boys at his side. Mark and Lee were both fine, and had only just arrived themselves.

"Lee! You guys okay?" Kenny asked.

"Get it off!" shouted the man. "Get it off, God dammit, get it off me!"

"Oh shit! No. No...Please don't kill us! We just wanna help our teacher! We'll leave, I swear!" said one of the boys. They both seemed genuinely frightened of the other four adults now staring at them.

The other boy turned to his friend. "Travis, maybe they can help!"

"These might be the same guys that raided our camp and...We barely got away from that!" the boy named Travis argued.

"What guys?" Mark tried to ask.

"Why the fuck is there a bear trap out here?" Kenny questioned.

With all the yelling and panic from the teenagers, Quinn's eyes began scanning the tree lines for movement.

"It's okay," Lee told them. "We're not gonna hurt you."

"Don't listen to them, Ben," Travis told his friend. "Please, just let us go! We're no threat to you!"

"Kid, chill out!" Kenny snapped at him. "We'll try to help you, but you gotta shut the fuck up!"

"This is fucked up. We've gotta help 'em," said Mark.

"Please!" Ben begged.

Travis turned to Ben, again. "Ben, shut up! My dad was Special Forces, I know what I'm doing!"

Ben ignored his friend. "Just see if you can get him out! After that you can leave us or whatever, I don't care! Please!"

Lee looked to Quinn for her opinion. The selfish part of her that wanted to live, said to just leave the boys and their teacher. They were the ones screaming, drawing every walker for miles right to them. Why should she suffer, because of their stupidity?

But the part of Quinn that still had morals and a conscience told her that it wouldn't be right. Their teacher was caught in a bear trap, completely helpless. If walkers came, he had no fighting chance. And the two boys didn't appear to have any weapons to fend off walkers, while they helped their teacher.

So there was only one clear choice, in Quinn's mind. "If you're gonna help him, do it quick. With all this yelling, the walkers will be here soon," she warned.

With the only other option being to leave the two boys and their teacher to be eaten by walkers, the group began doing their best to free the man from the bear trap's grip. There was just one problem: there was no release latch. Whoever left the trap in the first place, removed the release latch, so that whatever was caught in it could not free itself. But what exactly were they hoping to catch in their trap that was capable of releasing itself?

"We've got company," Quinn announced.

Walkers began emerging from the trees. Like Quinn had said they would, they had been attracted by all the shouting. Now the smell of food in front of them was riling them up more.

"Shit! Walkers!" Kenny confirmed. "It's now or never, Lee."

"Please...get me out of this!" the teacher begged.

Lee weighed the options in front of him, carefully. The bear trap was attached to a tree by a big chain. Another questionable decision. Why would someone be so worried about their prey being able to run off, or be carried off with the trap still attached?

The chain was too sturdy for Lee to smash apart with his ax, and the tree was far too thick for him to chop through as quickly as they needed him to. And if they tried to take down all the walkers to give them more time to free the man, they would only waste ammo and still be overrun.

Their only third option, Lee liked the least: they could leave them all to fend for themselves. But Lee couldn't do that. Leaving them now, like this, was a death sentence. The only way they stood a chance was to cut their teacher's leg off with his ax. So that's what he did.

Lee took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Then, without any warning, he began hacking into the man's leg to free him. The man cried out in pain, as the others began shooting the walkers closest to them.

Travis was sickened by the site, and moved away to throw up. His teacher passed out from the pain.

"If he's alive, grab him and let's go!" said Kenny. The walkers were getting closer.

Mark hoisted the teacher onto his shoulders fireman style, and began carrying him back to the motel. Kenny led the way to take care of any walkers. Ben and Lee were about to follow suite, when they heard Quinn shout "Behind you!"

Ben's friend Travis had been too busy puking to notice just how close the walkers were. By the time he looked up to check, they had already grabbed him and were piling on to devour him.

"Travis!" Ben shouted. He tried to run to his friend, but it was too late.

Lee and Quinn grabbed him and guided him to follow the others back to the motel. There was no help for his friend, now.

It was chaos, when they got back to the motel. Many people were concerned and confused by the new faces Quinn and the boys had brought back with them. Who were they? Why were they here? Why was one of them missing a leg?

Kenny and Lilly butted heads, as usual, about it. Lilly felt it wasn't smart bringing in two more mouths to feed, when food was so low already. Kenny and Lee argued that they couldn't just leave them to die. These people were in trouble, so they helped them. Lilly may have liked to think of their group as her own personal dictatorship, but she wasn't in charge of people's lives.

"You know what? If you think I'm doing such a shitty job, then you do it." Lilly pulled out the day's rations and handed them to Lee. There was a piece of jerky, half an apple, and two cheese and crackers snack packs. "That's all the food we have for today. You decide who gets to eat. You see how it feels to not have enough food for everyone."

Lee looked down at the pathetic excuse for rations in his hands. There were only four items and eleven hungry people. Who to feed, and who to let go hungry for another day?

"Apply some pressure here, while I try to close this up," said Katjaa.

Quinn did her best to help without looking. She didn't mind helping Katjaa with injuries, but the more severe ones like a chopped off leg made her skin crawl to look at too much. She never did have the stomach to look at such things, even fake ones on TV.

Katjaa grew more flustered. "What were you all thinking in bringing him here? Even if he lives, we aren't going to be able to take care of him..."

"They would have died, if we left them," Quinn defended. "We had to try and help them."

Katjaa sighed. "Yeah, I know. The right thing is just scary sometimes, I guess."

"Everything is scary, these days," said Quinn.

Katjaa made a face that said she agreed. "Well, you've done all you can for me. Why don't you go get cleaned up? I need a little space here, anyways."

Quinn looked down at the sticky, crimson liquid on her hands. This was a site she wasn't sure she'd ever get used to. She tried to take a deep breath to steady herself, but the coppery smell of blood filled her nose, doing nothing to help ease her nerves. She turned away from Katjaa and began walking across the motel parking lot towards her room.

Along the way she passed by Carley and Doug. Doug was setting up an early warning system with some bells. He was explaining to Carley how they worked, as Quinn walked by.

"I set up triplines at four locations, and each one triggers one of these four bells. So-"

"So we'll know where they are and how long we have," Carley guessed. "That's really clever."

Quinn wasn't sure if it was because Doug had saved her life when this all started, or the limited selection of men, or if Carley genuinely liked Doug. But she doubted the two of them ever would have ended up together, if it weren't for the apocalypse.

Not far down the wall from Doug and Carley, Larry was picking on Lee, again. Quinn wasn't sure what about – it happened so often that she'd just learned to tune it out. The most she could tell was that Larry was unhappy, as usual, about something; and Mark was trying, and failing, to keep the peace.

Quinn glanced over at Clem and Duck. The teenage boy they'd brought back with them – Ben – was with them. They were laying on the ground drawing, with Kuru at their sides. Kuru was a large dog of unknown breed – probably a lab and retriever mix. His fur was a light brown, like a walnut. In fact, he'd been named as such, because Kurumi was Japanese for walnut.

Before everything went to hell, Kuru had belonged to Quinn's sister. But given the circumstances, it seemed he was her dog now.

Kuru lifted his head and wagged his tail at the sight of Quinn. That's what alerted Ben to Quinn's presence. She did her best to hide her hands, and picked up the pace, before Clem or Duck could look at how much blood she was covered in.

Ben stood up, and followed her inside of her room. "Hey, is Mr. Parker gonna make it?"

Quinn kept her back to him, as she began scrubbing away the crimson stain on her hands. "I'm not sure. But Katjaa's doing her best. I promise."

"...I can't believe he just chopped off his leg."

"It was the fastest way to get him free."

Ben was silent, as she continued scrubbing her hands and arms. When she was finished, she turned to face him, with a sincere expression. "I'm sorry we couldn't do the same for your friend Travis."

Ben looked saddened by the memory of watching his friend get eaten only a short time ago.

"You said Mr. Parker was your teacher?"

"He was the band director at my school," said Ben. "We all came down from Stone Mountain for the playoffs, when...when everything happened."

Quinn had no idea where Stone Mountain was, but she could appreciate the fact that these kids weren't at home with their families when everything happened. Their parents were/are probably worried sick. Then Quinn realized something more awful: where was the rest of the band? She had been a choir girl herself back in high school, but she'd had a lot of friends in band and knew they typically consisted of a lot more members than two. Not that it took someone of high intelligence, nor someone who had known band students, to know that.

So what happened to the other kids?

Before Quinn could ask, Lee knocked on her open door. He looked at Ben. "How you holding up, kid?"

"Uh, well, I, uh...I keep wondering if I could have done something to help, you know? Some kind of...I don't know. Something."

"It was a tense situation," said Lee. "You'll be prepared next time."

Ben looked at him with a mixture of surprise and dread. It was as if he was assuming, or at least hoping, this was a one-time situation. "Next time? Yeah..."

Lee watched as Ben left Quinn's room. He waited for Ben to get far enough away, before handing Quinn the piece of jerky. "Here."

"I ate yesterday," Quinn reminded him.

"I know. I also know you give half of your rations to Kuru so he won't starve."

It was sad, but true. Lilly didn't care about Kuru – she only cared about keeping the adult humans fed. They all knew Quinn gave half of her food to her dog, but in Lilly's opinion, that was her choice and thus did not warrant giving her more food.

"What about the kids?"

"Already taken care of," said Lee. "Fed Kenny, too."

"What about Katjaa? Don't you think our resident pseudo-doctor should be kept fed?"

"I tried offering her some food, but she didn't want it. Said she was too busy."

"What about you? Why don't you take it?"

"Because you get less food than any of us," said Lee. "The rest of us only have to worry about how many days until our next snack pack. You have that on top of only getting half of what Lilly gives you." He pressed the jerky into her hand. "Take it."

Quinn gave him a 'thank you' smile, then called Kuru. Kuru came running into the room. When he saw the jerky in her hand, he sat perfectly still, awaiting his treat – just like Quinn's brother-in-law had taught him. Quinn tore the jerky in half, and the two of them dug in.

"Thank you, Lee," said Quinn.

"Don't mention it." He glanced back at the door to make sure Ben wasn't nearby, before asking, "So do think that guy's gonna make it?"

Quinn was just about to answer, when they heard a scream. Like before with Kenny in the woods, the two barely hesitated before taking off to find the source. Once again, what they found was not what they thought they'd find.

"Get out of the damn way!" said Larry.

Kenny shoved Mr. Parker's reanimated corpse away from himself, and Larry took a swing at him with Lee's ax. He missed.

"Dammit! I had it!" Larry shouted, as though it had been Kenny's fault he missed.

The reanimated Mr. Parker lunged at Kenny. Lee tackled the walker to the ground, before it could touch Kenny. The two struggled on the ground, until Larry yelled at Lee to get out of the way. Rather than stand up only to be grabbed or bitten, Lee rolled onto his back with the walker on top of him, holding him at arm's length.

Larry took another swing with the ax, not particularly caring if he missed and hit Lee. He hit his target in the back of the head, and Mr. Parker's body fell still once more. He was truly dead, now.

Everyone stood there in stunned silence for a good minute or two, before Larry broke it.

"Why'd you bring him here in the first place, asshole?!" he shouted at Lee.

Lilly stepped in to calm her father, before he had another heart attack. But Larry wasn't the only one that was angry at what had just happened. Kenny's wife had been the first one grabbed by Mr. Parker, after he reanimated. If Kenny hadn't gotten to his wife as quick as he did, Katjaa would have been bitten.

Kenny's rage flared as his eyes landed on Ben. "Why didn't you tell us he was bitten?!"

"He wasn't bitten! I swear!" said Ben.

"Well, your 'not-bitten' friend here came back to life and tried to kill my wife!" Kenny argued.

Ben's face shifted from fear to surprise. "Wait...y'all don't know?"

"Know what?" Quinn asked. She'd stayed back with Duck and Clementine to keep them safe, in case Mr. Parker took notice of them.

"It's not the bite that does it," said Ben. "You come back no matter how you die. If you don't destroy the brain, that's just what happens. It's gonna happen to all of us."

Everyone stared at Ben in disbelief, as though hoping this was some kind of lie to get him out of trouble for not telling them that his teacher had been bitten.

"We're all infected? All of us?" Lee asked.

"I-I guess so. All I know is that I've seen people turn who I know were never bitten," said Ben. "When I first saw it happen, we were all hiding out in a gym and everybody thought we were finally safe. But one of the girls, Jenny Pitcher I think, I guess she couldn't take it. She took some pills. A lot of them. Someone went into the girls' room the next morning and...God..."

No one knew what to say. Clementine clung tighter to Quinn.

All they had to worry about before was not getting bitten. Now they were being told that they would end up a walker no matter how they died. What happened if one of them starved to death? They could come back and kill everyone.

One of Doug's early warning bells jingled, signaling someone was coming. They all ducked down to hide, and waited. The two men who had set off the alarm bickered, as they approached the motel. When the group felt they had come too close for comfort, they rose up and aimed their weapons at the two strangers.

"That's far enough!" said Kenny.

"Woah shit! Okay, okay...No problem," said one of the men.

"We don't want any trouble," said Lee.

"Of course. Neither do we," said the same stranger. "I'm Andy St. John. This here's my brother Dan. We're just out looking for gasoline. Looks like you folks got the motel locked down, which is fine, but if you could spare any gas we'd be much obliged."

"What do you need gas for?" Lilly asked.

"Our place is protected by an electric fence," said Dan. "Generators provide the electricity..."

"Our generators run on gas," Andy added.

The group exchanged looks. Some seemed excited at the prospect of such a safe place. A couple felt this was too good to be true.

"Look, we own a dairy farm a few miles up the road. If ya'll be willing to lower your guns, we can talk about some kind of trade," said Andy.

"How y'all doin' on food? We got plenty at the dairy," said Dan.

The mere mention of food made everyone's stomach growl. A few of the more clear heads were skeptical of the promise of food. Yet the St. John brothers appeared to not be suffering from lack of it, like they all were. Could it be true? Could they really have so much food, that they could afford to share it?

"Lee, why don't you and Mark check the place out – see if it's legit," said Lilly.

"We'll go too, improve the numbers, in case we run into anything dead," said Carley, referring to herself and Doug.

"So, uh, what are y'all thinkin'?" Andy asked.

"You've got a deal."