~1st POV~

I know what your thinking. Why my name is Dayton? Ironically, it has nothing to do with the rule of "don't get attached." Sure, it was Tallahasee's idea to get called by the place your from, but my actual name is Dayton. I know. What a stupid name. My mother called me it after our home city. Up until the end of Elementary school, I hated my name. I despised it: it was the main form of my childhood bullying. Then I met my best friend Georgia. While Georgia was still a normal name, she was named after her state as well.

~3rd POV~

Dayton was friends for with Georgia for 6 years. All the way through middle and high school. Georgia then went off to University of Southern California (down in L.A) and Dayton went off to Harvard to become a surgeon. Dayton's grandfather was a surgeon for years and he went to Harvard as well. Dayton was closer to her grandfather than she was her actual parents. Her grandfather was always there for her when her parents were working. He also attended every single school production or ceremony she was involved in. Dayton was 17 when her grandfather died. She fell into a deep pit of depression for nearly 2 years before Georgia forced her to get medical attention for it.

Dayton had never wanted to be a surgeon growing up. She'd wanted to be a movie director and direct horror tv shows/films. But when she found out from the autopsy that her grandfather died from a failed heart-transplant, she decided that she would follow in his footsteps and make sure nothing like happened to anyone else.

Dayton was only a few weeks in her first year at Harvard Med when the Zombie virus hit. Luckily, there was only 118,000 people in Cambridge, so the virus didn't really bother them for a few weeks. But Dayton's friend, Emma, came back from a vacation to New York, not knowing she's been bitten by a zombie. It tore through Cambridge quicker than anything anyone ever seen or heard of before. Dayton stayed isolated in her dorm-room and kept it locked for nearly a month.

The problem arose when her roommate, Jessica, got bitten by her boyfriends roommate after she'd visited him. Dayton had woken up one morning with Jess leaning over her, about to bite her neck. Dayton shrieked and kicked her off. She'd scrambled out of bed and grabbed Jess' baseball bat to defend herself with. It took a few hits to Jess' skull, but she eventually dropped down, unconscious… at least that's what Dayton thought.

Dayton managed to escape with her emergency rucksack I kept by the door and left Harvard. Her emergency rucksack contained a phone charger, a few nutri-grain bars, a couple of tinned cans of fruit, some period things, some painkillers, a knife, a gun and a whistle.

Dayton was 22, nearly 23, when this virus hit. She'd never bothered to learn to drive: the cost of running and maintaining a car to and from her old apartment cost more than having a yearly bus/train pass bundle and accommodation at school. (Granted, there wasn't much in it, but enough to make a dent on her monthly pay)

After a few weeks out on the road by herself and with the help of some old YouTube videos, Dayton managed to grab the rough idea of driving. She could never properly turn corners and balance the clutch with the accelerator, but could drive around safely enough. Dayton had managed to get back home to Dayton in Ohio (following a map that she'd found in the dashboard of the passenger side) without too much trouble. She'd had to shoot and fight a few zombies on the way through, normally when she was filling the car up with gas or getting some non-perishables. Dayton got to Ohio and felt sick at how badly the cities and towns were. Every city and town she passed through was either completely burned to the ground, or full of zombies. Dayton decided she'd stop at her old house to see if her parents and siblings were alive.

Or, rather… she would have done if the house was still there. What used to be your typical white-picket fenced American family house only had the white picket fence. Dayton could vaguely make out the remainder of the kitchen, but that was it. A part of her wanted to check the old tornado cellar to see if her family had maybe taken refuge in there… but the more rational part of her hesitated. If the house was completely gone and the whole town were zombies… what's saying they weren't?

But Dayton brushed that thought away. If her family were still alive, Dayton wouldn't be able to sleep properly knowing that a zombie might eat them. So, she checked anyway. Dayton looked around and picked up a discarded hand-gun and slowly walked over. She kicked the door of the shelter and waited for any sounds. "Hello? Is anyone down there?" She called. Only silence replied back. Dayton's heart clenched painfully. She truly was alone now. Her parent's weren't exactly the nurturing type, but they were her mom and dad… and her little siblings. God, she'd miss them. They always looked up to her. Dayton remembered the day she left for Harvard. Her siblings tried to go with her on the train. After her grandfather passed away, they were all she had left. Her dad's parents had thrown him out after her mom get pregnant with her. Dayton was named after the city were her mom's mom was born and raised. Her mom's mom, Sheila, was a lovely soul, apparently. She'd died of Cancer about 6 weeks after Dayton was born. That's part of the reason she was so close with her grandfather: apparently, she was the carbon copy of her. Same mousse coloured hair, same hazel eyes, and same personality. Dayton shook off the bittersweet nostalgia. Better they were dead than ravenous cannibals.

She got back into the stolen Peugeot and took a breather to reorganise her thoughts. Dayton had no where else to go. Until she remembered that her best friend, Georgia, was studying at the University of Southern California, in L.A! Sure, it'd be a hell of a trek to make, (around 32 hours) but it'd be nice to see (hopefully) a familiar face that wasn't dead or undead.

Dayton got to just outside of Nashville when the car broke down. It sputtered and groaned as steam poured out of the bonnet. "Fuck!" She swore. "No, no, no, no!" The car groaned and jolted to a stop. Dayton smacked the steering wheel several times, yelling in frustration. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it) she'd broken down on a freeway. There were dozens of unused cars just waiting to be driven. Dayton grabbed her rucksack, slung it over her shoulder, picked up her stolen handgun and ventured into the outside world once more.

She got… maybe a few meters or so, before she bumped into another person. Now, in the few weeks she'd been alone and been traveling by herself, Dayton had gotten quite good at loading and shooting her guns quickly. Her mother had also forced her to do Karate as a young girl due to her constant energy she had. Her parents had taken her to doctors, child psychiatrists, adult psychiatrists and even travelled to different states to try and get her diagnosed with some sort of hyperactivity syndrome. Her little brother was a lot like she was, but had a little less energy, but her sister was a normal child. No unusual amount of energy ran through her body.

Every person gave her parents the same diagnosis: she was just a hyper child. The hyperactive side of her died down as she got older, making her parents seem a bit stupid. But they'd forced her to do Ballet and Karate for years. Dayton enjoyed Karate, but didn't enjoy Ballet. She once tried to skip out of Ballet before, but her parents had found out and grounded her for 3 weeks.

But as Dayton came face-to-face with this new human, she paused slightly before aiming her gun at him. What are you doing!? She'd shouted at herself. This is the first human you've seen in over a week! Lower the weapon you stupid fucking girl!

God, she loved that voice sometimes. (Peep the sarcasm)

Dayton kept her gun pointed at the man who held his double-barrelled shotgun aimed at her head. His arms shook almost comically as he tried to keep it steady. "Who are you?" Dayton asked, keeping her voice level and emotionless. The man didn't say anything. "What's your name?" She asked. "N-n-no n-names," the man finally spoke. His voice was quite high, and he spoke quickly. Dayton rolled her eyes and let her arm holding the gun drop down. The man didn't lower his gun. "I'm gonna be straight with you here, dude," she began. "If you shoot me and don't kill me, I'll strangle you." The man slowly lowered the gun away from her chest area. "Where you from?" She asked, putting the gun in her jean pocket. "Columbus… you?" The man asked. "Which Columbus, though? Theres loads," Dayton asked. "Ohio," The man replied. Dayton raised her eyebrows. "No way, I'm from Dayton!" The man dropped his gun and smirked slightly. "That's the city after Springfield, right?" He asked. Dayton nodded. Then she chuckled. "What are the odds? Out of 7.8 billion people, of which probably around 7 billion people are Zombies, I meet someone from the same State as me?" The man chuckled at her.

Now, Dayton wasn't quite sure where she stood with her sexuality. Sure, she was mainly attracted to men (she wanted the whole fairy-tale wedding and the full kit-and-caboodle for having kids) but she did find some women hot. This man was… uniquely attractive. He didn't have anything that screamed HOT at her. But his eyes… and his hair… and his smile...

Dayton could feel her heart flutter just by looking at him. His eyes were such a bright blue, they almost looked aqua… and all she wanted to do was run her hands through his curly hair. What? Snap out of it girl. You've only just met him! He could be a serial killer or a rapist for all you know!

There goes that voice again… but it had a point.

"What're you doing out here then? Heading back to Columbus?" She asked. The man nodded. "Yeah… I just wanna see if my family are still there." Dayton didn't have the heart to tell him they weren't. No one was there. At least not where she'd driven through. "Ok, seeing as you don't wanna do names, how about this?" Dayton began. The man raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm from Dayton, therefore you can call me Dayton. You're from Columbus, and I'll call you Columbus." She said. The main raised his eyes as if to look at the sky before looking back at her with a smile on his face. The man held out his hand. "Nice to meet you then, Dayton." Dayton grinned and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you Columbus."

"So… what're we gonna do now then?" Dayton asked. Columbus looked at her confused. "Go back home… aren't we?" He asked. Dayton shook her head. "Nah. I don't have any family in Dayton anymore. They were all long gone before the virus hit. I'm heading to my friend in L.A," It was a lie, but she didn't want to say that Ohio was a ghost state. "Sorry," Columbus said. "Don't be sorry, I'd rather them have died from something else than be eating peoples livers and shit," Dayton said, waving her hand dismissively. Before Columbus could speak again, a loud roar of an engine tore through the quiet of the freeway. They both looked at the new vehicle quickly approaching them. Dayton felt a warm, but slightly calloused hand, grab hers and yank her forwards. "Jesus, fuck!" She was unable to not yell. Columbus dragged her to behind a destroyed mini-van. "Stay here," He said.

Not gonna lie, a little turned on by the authority… no. Bad Dayton.

Columbus picked up his gun and leaned on an abandoned Yamaha motorcycle. The vehicle, which Dayton could now identify as a black Cadillac, stopped just a few meters in front of them. Dayton watched as Columbus' arms shook with anxiety again. The drivers door of the Cadillac opened and, (shit you not) a cowboy got out. Dayton snorted to herself… until she saw the gun the man held. He pointed it at her new friend, arm as steady as a professional. Dayton felt an unusual sense of protection surge through her body.

She stood up and aimed her handgun at him in the shooting pose she'd seen them do in the movies. (You know, the one where they stand at a slight angle, with their legs slightly apart? Where their left hand holds the handgun out and waits like a badass? Yeah… that pose)

The cowboy moved his aim to her now. "What're you doing?" Columbus hissed. Dayton didn't answer: she focused on staring this asshole down. The man clicked the safety off of his gun, so Dayton did the same. She quirked an eyebrow. "You would be unwise to underestimate me, cowboy." She spoke. The man's dead lined mouth quirked slightly at the corners. He pulled his gun away. He rose his hands in a show of defence. Dayton almost lowered her gun before the cowboy rose his gun up and aimed at her again. "And you, me." He said. Dayton grit her teeth. "We're humans as well, ya know. You don't need to aim at us," She spoke, trying to keep her temper in check. "Hey, enough. You really gonna shoot us?" Columbus had dropped his gun, showing surrender. The cowboy turned his aim to her new friend. Dayton (wasn't going to lie to herself, but was quite badass in what she did next) clicked the safety off of her gun and shot a few inches away from the man's boot. Both men turned to her, shocked.

"Are we gonna be adults now? Or do I have to change my aim to something more sensitive? Maybe a knee? Or a heart?" She asked, cocking her head. Columbus watched her with wide eyes. The cowboy dropped his gun, smirking. "I like you, girlie." Dayton clicked the safety back on and put it back in her pocket. "I truly wish I could say the same about you." She sniped. The man laughed. Dayton shook her head. Then she turned to Columbus and muttered in his ear so the cowboy couldn't hear her. "I'm gonna go and find a ride." Then trekked off down the freeway.

Maybe… 5 minutes later the black Cadillac pulled up next to her with Columbus in the passenger seat. "I've found a ride. You coming?" He asked. The cowboy watched her through the open window. Dayton glared at him. "Fine," She said. She opened the door behind Columbus and slid into the middle, fastening her seatbelt. "Uh… Dayton, this is Tallahassee. Tallahassee, this is Dayton." Tallahassee tipped his cowboy hat down in a form of respect. "Pleasure," He said. Dayton could tell he didn't like her much. "Ditto. And don't worry big man, I don't like you much either. So let's not pretend and make it awkward, yeah?" Columbus sighed deeply, but the man snorted. "Done,"

The car was silent for about 15 minutes before Columbus chirped up with: "Wanna play 20 questions?"