The heat in Atlanta had been particularly hot that year. Usually, when air-conditioning and motorised fans were easy to come by, it wouldn't have bothered Annie so much. But today, the sun, hot and merciless beat down on her form, an empty bottle of sunscreen lay discarded at the bottom of her rucksack. Annie wiped the sweat from her brow and pushed on through the brush, she'd abandoned the highway long ago, feeling it was better to walk invisible amongst the trees that towered around her. Through the dense greenery she could still see the edge of the highway, cars littered, clumped together, some smashed, all abandoned when the dead began to roam.
Annie stopped, shrugged her khaki rucksack from her shoulders and pulled a half bottle of water from inside. She took a long gulp and savoured the trickle of liquid running down her throat, easing the sting and soothing the back of her throat. She'd been lucky, thus far, most of the walkers stuck to the highway, maybe because some corpses still sat within the cars. Annie sighed; it had been a while since she had seen another person, alive at least.
She dropped the water back into her bag and continued on, keeping the highway in her sights. She stopped when necessary. Once to pull off her boot and pull out the clumps in her sock that had been rubbing uncomfortably against her ankle, then to eat a couple of strips of beef jerky she had stored in her back.
When night fell, Annie took to the trees. At least up there she would not be devoured in her sleep, unless she fell from the branches. But, Annie being Annie, taking what she thought was a very clever idea from The Hunger Games; she tied a rope around her waist, securing her to the branch. For a moment she thanked the gods that she read so much before this apocalypse. Annie hung her bag on the branch next to her and unzipped the front pouch, pulling out her purse she flicked through the useless things, the fifteen dollars, three nickels and a couple of cents she had when the world decided to turn upside down. A gift card for Tommy Hilfiger, which she got for her birthday, was now a useless scrap of plastic, a few stamps littered the inside of one of the pouches. In the final compartment was a small picture, several small pictures actually, but all on one scrap of paper, the corner had been torn off in her haste to rip it from her cork board. Annie sighed, the pictures, the ones that are taken in small photo booths at the cinemas or in the shopping malls, were amongst her favourites. In fact, those exact pictures, the ones she held with muddied fingers, were her favourites. She remembered the day they were taken; it was the day that her brother, John, got back from Afghanistan. Annie had been so happy when he got back, she remembered crying so much that John had made a joke about there being a 'worldwide shortage of Kleenex,' and then the tears were replaced with laughter.
John was in the far left of the pictures, in the first he had his tongue stuck out and his eyes scrunched shut. Next to him, Annie was doing bunny ears behind him and her other brother, Steven, who had his eyes crossed and had his hands held up in the famous 'live long and prosper' sign. Two weeks after that picture was taken John was back in Afghanistan, and that was the last time she'd saw her brother.
Annie put the pictures back into her purse and shoved it back into her rucksack. She pulled out a small Nokia, another useless device, and checked it. It was the only thing that allowed her to hold onto that one shred of hope. The minute possibility, that maybe, maybe somewhere out there, John and Steven were alive. Maybe they're safe, wherever they are. She put the phone back and zipped the rucksack up. Staring up at the canopy of stars that lay above her, Annie sighed and allowed her eyes to close.
They'd been driving for hours. Driving away from the CDC, from the quarry and the city. Away from all of the death and the hurt they'd left behind, away from the bodies of the ones they had lost. It did occur to some of them, when they came upon the graveyard of cars that stretched out along the highway, that perhaps, maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Maybe they should turn back. But the idea of Fort Benning, a sanctuary, outweighed the dread that gripped their hearts. They trundled through the wreckage, slowly, quietly trying not to disturb anything that lay within the remains of the cars. That was when a small bang and a resounding hiss drew the group to a halt, the Winnebago giving a great groan as it trundled to a stop. Behind them the others stopped, engines cutting and doors opening, all moving forwards to watch as Dale slammed the door of the RV open a disgruntled look upon his face.
"I said it, didn't I say it?" Dale said, looking over at the steam that had begun to seep out the front of the Winnebago, cloud furiously, then lead off into the sky. "A thousand times, dead in the water." The elder man removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Now there's just a small problem of being stuck in the middle of nowhere."
The group gathered round, glancing around suspiciously at their surroundings. Dale looked on at the battered front of his RV. Trying to process exactly where he was going to get a new radiator hose in the middle of this- he stopped himself, turned around, eyes suddenly realising where he was. A graveyard of cars, perfect for scavenging, he went to voice his thought, but noticed Daryl Dixon was already on the case. The others, following the youngest Dixon's lead, began to file out amongst the cars, searching through bags, opening trunks. It was a goldmine, even if it felt immoral. T-Dog wandered off to syphon more fuel from the cars, it would serve them well when they eventually needed it.
Slowly, hesitantly, as if at any moment they could be dragged under the cars by a half-eaten corpse. They opened doors, popped hoods, rummaged for small supplies of food, water, and sunscreen, anything that would sustain them for a while longer. Dale took up residence atop his broken down Winnebago, standing vigilantly, beady eyes watching like hawks through a pair of binoculars, ready to shout down at any moment if danger passed close by.
Cans of food, bottles of water, anything that would be of use, that would aid in their survival was shoved into bags and into pockets. Daryl headed further into the field of cars, glancing in windows, picking out of abandoned rucksacks. He glanced up, shielding his eyes from the sun and then back down at the cars in front of him. But instead of being alone, like he should have been, this far out in front of the group. A woman stood opposite him. Her red hair was in tangles, her clothes and face blotched with dirt, a large jagged cut ran the length of her shin, blood seeped through onto the fabric of her trousers. "You better get back to your group," and then she darted off, disappearing in between the cars, nothing more than flashes of red hair.
Daryl was taken aback by the strangeness of this woman. But heeding the somewhat fearful tone in her voice, he edged his way back through the cars, back towards the Winnebago where the rest of his group should have been. Instead he saw the group of geeks, slipping their way through the cars, shoulders slumped, faces half sunken in. Daryl turned, slinging his crossbow up onto his shoulder and headed back the way he'd came, sliding underneath a milk truck just as a set of hurried feet rushed past him, stumbling as blood dripped onto the tarmac. He glanced out from under the truck and saw T-Dogs crumpled face as he tried to stem the flow of blood that was gushing from his arm.
Crossbow still in hand, Daryl slid out from under the car, keeping low so not to be seen, slipping round the back of a car his eyes widened slightly as he saw T-Dog slumped against a car, a walker closing in on him. Silently, he slipped a screwdriver from his pocket and, grabbing the walker around the neck, shoved the screwdriver straight up into the brain. The walker gurgled, black bile dripping from its mouth and onto the floor, the corpse hit the ground with a hollow thud. Glancing up, a slight panic gripping him as the walkers flowed through the cars towards them, Daryl grabbed the body of the walker he'd just killed and laid it over T-Dog, masking the fresh blood from the highly sensitive noses of the undead. Then, grabbing the nearest corpse he could find, he dropped to the floor and pulled the body over him just as several walkers began to wander by. Momentarily, Daryl wondered where the red headed woman had disappeared off to.
When he was sure that all of the corpses had passed, and because he couldn't stand the smell of the body above him, Daryl moved out from under the body, rolling it away and scrambling over to T-Dog. A small pool of blood had started to gather next to the injured man. Pulling the corpse off of T-Dog, Daryl quickly handed him a towel, knowing that if the blood wasn't stopped soon, T-Dog would die. Gripping him under the arm, Daryl pulled T-Dog upwards, T-Dog swayed for a moment, disorientated from the loss of blood.
"Hold your arm above your head." Daryl whipped round, hearing the strained voice. "It will slow the flow of blood." Eyes finding the green ones of the young woman that passed him earlier, Daryl wondered how she had appeared there. "Are you deaf? Hold his arm up or he's going to bleed out." Daryl complied; the young woman began to rummage around in a backpack that she had deposited on the front of a vehicle. "Where's your group?"
"A little way in front," Daryl said, eyes surveying the woman suspiciously. "Up by the RV."
"You should move him up there, I have a medical kit that-" A scream cut the young woman off. It made all three of them shudder, because they all realised that it was the scream of a child. "A child?"
"Let's move." Daryl said, helping T-Dog to walk to the RV. Blood soaked up the towel that he had pressed against the wound, now held aloft above his head with the help of the young woman who had taken it when they began walking. Daryl's eyes kept on flitting over to the woman, wondering who she was and who she was with. "How did you know about the horde?" Daryl questioned.
"I've been walking the highway for days," she said without hesitation. "But mostly I stayed in the woods, keeping my eyes on it. The woods are safer, you see. I came out of the woods this morning, hoping to scavenge some supplies from the cars, then they started coming so I ran, couldn't get back off the highway without being seen so I kept going forwards. Then I saw you."
"So why didn't you tell me they were coming?" Daryl said, eyes narrowing. Surely, he thought, she could have told me there was a horde so he had time to warn the others.
"I panicked, okay?" She said, keeping the pressure applied on T-Dogs wound. "It's not easy being out here on your own."
The young woman placed her arm around T-Dog, trying to support him just as Daryl was doing. When they made it to the RV, the child had stopped screaming but the rest of the group had gathered at the side of the highway. Carol was being supported by Lori, Carl was looking worriedly off into the forest, and Daryl knew that something had happened to Sophia.
"Set him down over here," They placed T-Dog with his back up against the RV. The woman opened her backpack and rummaged around pulling out gauzes and bandages. She held out T-Dogs arm, Daryl watching her intently, and removed the towel. The bleeding had receded slightly, so the woman began to quickly wrap the bandage around T-Dog's arm. "This will do for now, but you need stitches and I haven't got them." T-Dog's eyes were glazed over slightly, but he managed a nod.
"Who are you?" Daryl asked, as she turned to face him, brushing a stray strand of red hair behind her ear.
"My name's Annabelle. But it's just Annie."
So that's the first chapter of my new Walking Dead fic. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Thank you for reading!