Chapter 2

It took them four days to arrive at the outskirts of Atlanta. The streets and highways on the way were chaotic at best and downright not traversable at worst.

During that trip the smell was the worst part in Lori's opinion. The pungent, sweet smell of decay that was waving around their car that only moved at walking speed through the more often than not clogged rural streets and it was nearly impossible to escape it. Only when the wind changed or Shane accelerated the car a bit there was a short reprieve before the smell hit them again. The smell caused Lori's stomach to roil and she felt nearly constantly sick and unable to eat anything, to counter that she kept to soft drinks during the day and drank calming teas in the evening. On the third day her stomach settled finally and she joined her son and Shane at lunch.

At times the whole situation was too surreal for Lori, she felt as if she had been thrust into a third rate zombie movie and sometimes she was nearly overwhelmed by the desperate urge to search for the hidden camera that was filming this farce. Especially when they passed small villages or settlements and everything was deathly quiet but for the slow shuffling noises the dead made while they stumbled through the streets.

Lori tried to shield Carl from that sight as best as she could, adaptable child or not, he would have probably been traumatized for life if she hadn't protected him from the sight of this carnage in the beginning, she herself had thrown up more than once at the macabre view. Shane was faring a bit better than her, he at least had seen a murder victim or two during his career but Lori could tell that the whole situation was getting to him as well, not that she blamed him.
The ditch on both sides of the road was more often than not littered with upturned cars and burned out vehicles. Additionally to that they could see the half decaying bodies feeding on dead bodies inside the cars or moving slowly in the fields like abominable scarecrows.

Carl was… quiet. After the second day when they had been surprised by a group of undead and Carl had gotten a close up on their bodies Lori had given up on trying to keep him away from what was happening, he had to understand how dangerous the undead were in this Apocalypse. It may sound horribly callous from her but Lori preferred her son alive and disillusioned over naïve and quite possible dead. Because an Apocalypse it was, of that Lori was sure. The brunette housewife also doubted that the government would get a handle on this. It was too wide spread and it happened EVERYWHERE they were passing through, the continent if not the whole world was affected. Whatever it was that caused the dead to reanimate, it would probably have to run its course before something like normalcy could start again.

Lori's only real concern until then was how they would survive and how to avoid the masses of undead bodies.

Through all this chaos Shane continued to be dependable and strong, even with his own world view shattered he kept his calm. Lori was more than thankful for the support, on some days the situation they were in was nearly too much for her to handle. Lori wasn't sure what she would have done if she had been alone with Carl. How do you handle traumatized children that were not only grieving for a parent but also aware that the world as they knew it was ending around them? Carl's had been crying quietly in the back of the car during the first part of their journey, his half choked sobs kept distracting her from what was happening outside of the car. Lori couldn't describe the utter relief she felt about the fact that her husband's partner didn't lose his temper or concentration even once. Instead Shane navigated them carefully through all the burned out obstacles and the moving dead on the streets, kept watch during the short and harried bathroom breaks and found them places to sleep in the evenings.

While all this was happening Lori didn't give herself a chance to grieve for her husband; she knew if she started to deal with her loss she would be distracted from surviving, instead she kept busy and tried to not think about Rick. Yes, their marriage had been in a crisis before he had been shot but she still loved him. This was the man that had been her first in everything and had given her a son; they had lived together for ten plus years and had made countless happy memories together. When Rick had walked away from their fight that morning Lori had not anticipated that he wouldn't come home anymore.

She had never thought that things would go so wrong in a span of a month.

XXXXXXXX

They were waiting on the clogged highway that led directly into the center of Atlanta when they saw it.

The three survivors from King County had gotten out of the Jeep to escape the stiffening heat inside the car and the restless feeling that surrounded all three of them for days now. Carl had looked curious at the long line of cars in front of them when a loud boom had let all of them flinch.

The city of Atlanta was being napalmed.

They could see the explosions and flames that ate themselves through streets and buildings from the highway that led into the city. Carl whimpered in her arms while she had turned his head away from the scene and pressed her hands on his ears, he was just eleven years old for god sake! Too young, too young, too young, her brain screamed while she desperately tried to think of a way to distract him.

Beside her Shane looked frustrated, tired and strangely resigned but he refrained from saying anything and only motioned back at the car. Lori just nodded in return; they would have to find a road that led away from the highway because getting trapped her would be a death sentence. But before she could climb into the passenger side, Lori's eyes fell onto the RV that had just pulled up behind them. Shane who needed the space to turn the Jeep around quickly walked over to the older man that had just left the RV and looked horrified at the scene on the horizon. Out of the small windows of the RV Lori could see two blonde women watching the burning city just as shocked as she was feeling.
Shane quickly jogged over to the silver haired male and seemed to explain what had happened and that he wanted to turn the car around. Lori couldn't hear the conversation but to be honest she was more concerned with the trembling Carl in her arms at the moment, it had been a trying last few days with a lot of emotional turmoil. Thanks to the few safe moments and even less sleep, the eleven year old was exhausted and Lori herself was at the near end of her capacity but she was forcing herself to not lose hope, she HAD to be strong, her son needed her.

"It's going to be fine baby." she soothed her eleven year old.

"You don't know that. What if those things come after us?" Carl asked in a small voice.

"Carl I know what is happening is really a horrible but I promise you, we are going to be fine. Somehow we will make it and if the government doesn't get this under control we will find a way to survive. You know Shane; he wouldn't let anything happen to you. You are his godson, and neither will I." Lori said with as much calm as she could muster while she kissed him on his head.

Carl may have inherited Rick's body type and temperament but he had her eye and hair color as well as her face structure. It hadn't been hard to fall in love with the little boy the moment she had first held him in her arms. Lori would compromise, fight and yes, even kill to make sure that he survived this chaos.

The old man that was driving the RV seemed to have come to an understanding with Shane because he nodded before he gestured in the direction of the hill on their left hand side. Shane's vis-à-vis fished out a map that he had had in his breast pocket and he showed Shane something on it. Whatever the man had pointed out to Shane it was clearly something that the deputy sheriff liked it because he smiled tentatively and nodded before coming back to the Jeep. Her husband's partner smiled reassuringly before he opened the car door for Carl to climb in the back.

After everybody was buckled in Lori finally asked, "What's going on?"

"That was Dale Horvath; he knows the area and showed me an old camping place by the quarry up in those hills." Shane answered while he pointed in the direction of said hills, "I think it's the safest to stay away from the populated streets as long as we aren't sure what's happening."

Lori just nodded and sent him a tight smile, playing it safe was probably for the best right now but she knew that they would not be able to continue like this. Finding gas stations that worked had been a nightmare and Shane had to siphon gas from more than a few abandoned cars on the side of the street to keep his Jeep running on their journey. It worried her immensely; their dependence on gas was going to be a nightmare in the next months.

Trying to relax and get at least a few minutes of rest Lori leaned her head against the window and looked into the side mirror. The surface showed her that a long line of other cars were following behind them, and quite a few followed them when they left the highway. Lori couldn't make her mind up if that was a good or a bad thing, biting her lip she told herself to relax, she would find out soon enough.