HI all and we are onto chapter 2! I am really liking this plot and I hope you are too!

Previously

They swerved in-between cars as they headed down the road, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist as she looked back seeing the gas station catch fire before exploding. She whipped her head around pressing her cheek to Brice's back as she closed her eyes trying to forget the world.

A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye as she pressed her face into the back of his jacket, "This is just a nightmare, Wake up, wake up, wake up."

Chapter 2

They pulled off the side of the road after a few hours of driving, Brice was fine to go longer but Isabella wasn't used to riding on a bike at all let alone nearly 12 hours. They pulled into the tree line just outside Atlanta, Georgia. Isabella practically fell off the bike when she tried lifting her leg over it, Brice grabbed her by her jacket and helped her over to a rock to sit while he went back to the bike.

While he was kneeled over at his bike he heard the sound of a gun caulking behind him, they both stilled hearing the gruff voice. "Who are you?"

Isabella hopped up and got over to Brice as soon as she could gripping his arm to help her wobbly legs stay upright. Brice pushed her small form behind his, shielding her from the intruder, "We don't want any trouble; she just needed to get off the bike for a bit."

The tall man looked Brice over and then looked at the small girl behind him, "Follow me".

He didn't really give room for argument. Brice wrapped an arm around Isabella after grabbing his own

bag following the man. He was quiet at first but as we passed through a clearing they noticed that there were a number of cars all parked in the area, and few people walking around and talking with each other.

"We are not going to hurt you. But the two of you look too young to be out there by yourselves right now." He turned looking at them "My name is Shane. A few of us arrived here a few days ago when things started falling apart in Atlanta." There were even a few kids in the area a few years younger than Isabella as Brice looked around.

Brice nodded at the man keeping Isabella next to him, "My name is Brice, and this is Isabella." Shane nodded as he looked at Isabella, "Is she alright?" Brice shrugged, "Is anyone alright? She hasn't spoken since I found her last night. Her parents were both killed."

Shane furrowed his brows, "She isn't related to you? I figured she was your sister or something."

He looked at Isabella, "No, she was friends with my younger sister. I was getting out of town when I saw her mom run back into a house and never came back out. I grabbed her before one of the sick people grabbed her."

Shane snorted, "They aren't sick, they are dead."

Isabella started shaking hearing his tone and words, "Man, don't say that around her. She is only 13."

Shane shook his head looking at the girl, "The world you knew is over, and you might as well accept it."

He turned and walked towards a woman and her son who was about 10 or so. She looked pretty much like everyone else with her eyes rimmed in red from lack of sleep and emotional trauma. "This is Lori and her son Carl."

He turned to Lori, "This is Brice and Isabella, can you help them get settled in? I am going to grab one of the extra tents until you guys find something better."

The woman nodded and smiled at Isabella, "Is that all you brought? Do you have a bed roll or anything?"

She just shrugged looking at Brice for him to speak, "No, just my bike and I have a bag too, we left in a hurry. Isabella can you stay with Lori for a minute, I am going to bring my bike over here."

Isabella nodded and sat down moving her bag into her lap. "Oh Lori, she hasn't spoken since yesterday. I don't know why though."

She sighed sadly, "She is probably in shock. People are dealing with this in many different ways." As she pulled the young girl into a hug.

Later that afternoon their tent was up next to Lori and Carl's, Isabella was sitting inside on the makeshift bed using her duffel as a pillow. She was just staring at the side of the tent when Brice stepped in sitting next to her.

"Hey" he sat down in front of her, "I know you lost a lot yesterday. I lost my family too." He moved a stray hair from her face as her large doe eyes looked up at him. "I am going to take care of you now, if the roles were reversed I would hope someone would take care of my sister." He sighed leaning back, "You can trust me Isabella."

He took her hand, "Come with me, Shane said they have been able to find quite a bit in the cars on the road. Everyone either ran on foot or died, people just abandoned everything."

She nodded as they left their tent together and headed to meet Shane by the road.

Isabella stood at the edge of the road watching Brice and Shane looking through car window about half a mile from where they were staying. Her attention was drawn in when they opened the back of a SUV pulling out what looked to be sleeping bags and other rolls.

On their way back Shane called out, "Brice hold up! Look at this." Both guys walked to the other side of the freeway lanes talking for a bit. Brice looked to Isabella, "I will be right there, I think you will like it." She couldn't tell what they were doing and eventually, she couldn't see them anymore.

She tried walking a bit further down the road to get a better view, when she heard a low moaning from a car. She went to the open window to look inside when a hand with a gruesome bite mark shot out grabbing her hair. The person kept trying to pull her into the car as if wanting to bite her.

He almost had her when it was as if everything exploded, there was a loud noise followed by the man in front of her head exploding. Brice grabbed Isabella pulling her from the side on the car and into a black pickup truck that was running on the side of the road. Shane was standing off to the side with his gun drawn and aimed at the now lifeless man.

She was shakily holding onto Brice, her small arms wrapped around his waist as she buried her face into his jacket. Shane walked over to them pissed, his eyes trained on the girl. "ARE YOU STUIPD?" he pointed at the car, "One more second and he would have bitten into you, torn out your insides, and you would be infected and be wandering around like these mindless flesh hungry … things!"

Brice pushed her behind him glaring at the older man, "HEY. YOU DON'T GET TO TALK TO HER LIKE THAT. SHE IS A KID! AND SHE JUST LOST EVERYTHING YESTERDAY." He took a shaky breath, "I know we all lost people, but she is a kid. She doesn't know how to deal so lay off her!" Wrapping an arm back around her, "Thank you for your help, but maybe we shouldn't stay here…."

Shane just looked at them and shook his head, "You won't last a day. Come on."

Once back at the camp Brice took the sleeping rolls and sleeping bags putting them in the back of the truck they had found with the keys inside. It was a bit older, which was good since he knew how to work on those engines. There was also a hard camper shell over the bed of the truck, perfect for sleeping safely. Plus they could get into the cab of the truck without leaving the truck through the back window if they needed too.

They started settling into the camp group. Lori had taught Isabella how to do laundry in the streams, the fine art of cooking outside, finding the right type of berries and fruit, and cleaning out game and fish for food. Luckily when she would visit her dad in Forks, he would always take her fishing so she was pretty good at that already.

Brice had taught her a bit of survival skills such as starting fires and some self-defense against the walkers, while he learned how to hunt and track with some of the others.

Walkers that is what they called them, no one could bring themselves to use the word 'zombie' or "people' those things only caused problems and it was easier to accept if they weren't those things.

Isabella was sitting in the woods right outside of the camp when she heard stumbling coming towards her location. Standing up she looked in the direction the sound was coming from when sure enough a decaying woman with her stomach hanging out of her body dragging behind her limped towards her.

The walker wasn't coming too fast as she shakily took out her knife that Brice had told her to keep close. She rubbed her arm trying to still her nerves, but her feet took a subconscious step backing away from the walker. Holding up the knife her paint clipped fingernails squeezing the butt of the knife so tightly her fingers were turning white while she tried to gather the strength to stab the walker in the head.

Suddenly something whooshed by her ear and impaled the walked through the head to a tree. Turning she saw one of the guys that helped Brice with tracking, "You know, shaken ain't gonna kill them. Might kill you though." He walked over pulling the arrow out of the walkers head before walking back to her as he slung his crossbow over his shoulder.

"Come with me." She just nodded following him over to his camp grounds, "You're a small thing. Handing you a knife is serving you up for dinner." His brother walked over and gave a crude laugh, "You're giving the girl lessons? Oh that's hilarious Daryl. You gonna screw the little thing too? Ain't much there." His disgusting eyes roamed her body.

"Leave the kid alone Merle." Daryl glaring at his brother as the girl shrunk away a bit wrapping her arms around her chest. The man rolled his eyes as he grabbed a warm beer before wandered off again.

"Don't pay no mind to him. Here." He held out a bow to her, it looked pretty high tech to her though. Dials, a scope, and supports covered it as she looked up at the man questioning. "I'll teach you how to shoot." Handing her a quiver with 10 arrows in it. "You don't want to have to get close."

She nodded her head gratefully, as she followed him. He continued talking as they headed towards the stream, "You know, I never thought I'd find someone quieter than me. But you don't talk at all. Can you?"

She nodded her head once, but that was it. "I get it; you can, but you can't."

She nodded again, her eyes trained on the ground. "That is okay with me, you don't have to talk to shoot." He lifted his crossbow hitting a target about 20 feet away.

Come here I will show you how. He spend the rest of the day and every day they could training for the next month and a half.

Two months after they had arrived at the campsite Isabella was sitting with Brice in the back of their truck when she reached her hands into her jacket pockets for warmth. She stopped furrowing her eye brows as she pulled out a crumpled up piece of paper.

Slowly she unraveled it as she rolled to her stomach so she could flatten it out against the sleeping mat. "What do you got there Isa?"

She didn't even nod as she looked at the paper, it was a map of the United States with a faded red hand drawn line mapping out the way from her house in Florida to Washington near the coast line.

Her stomach rolled as she realized the line actually ended right over Forks Washington. Off to the side there was an address in her mother's hand writing, her fingers brushed over the writing remembering her. When she felt Brice put his hand on her shoulder.

"What is that Isa?" His eyes scanning the map, the end area looked to be heavily wooded.

Her memory took her back to the day her mom and Phil died. They were packing to go stay with her father, she had forgotten. She hadn't wanted to remember anything about that day, but now she held in her hands the last thing her mother gave her, a map to her father.

She took in a breath before looking at Brice, the guy who took her in and cared for her. Looking back at the map she opened her mouth but nothing came out.

Trying again she swallowed and her small strained voice that hadn't been used since she had begged her mother not to go back into their house finally came alive again.

"My Father."

There was only another week of whatever passed for peace these days before the inevitable happened and the walkers found there site.

Lori's husband was found wandering the streets in Atlanta when a scout group had gone out, on their way back the walkers followed in the middle of the night. Luckily Brice and Isabella were tucked away in the bed of the pickup truck when the first walkers arrived.

Brice managed to get out to help the other telling Isabella to stay inside and keep the doors locked.

She grabbed the bow and an her quiver Daryl had given her just in case when she saw a walker headed straight for Brice who was currently oblivious while trying to help another girl who was trapped in her tent.

Isabella took a breath before stepping out and loading the arrow like Daryl had taught her before releasing. She was shocked when she saw the walker go down, she had hit its shoulder. But it was close, and it sent him to the ground giving Brice time to get away with the girl.

The next morning everyone decided it was time to move on, they had managed to stay hidden for over two months since the initial fall of civilization.

Brice walked over and sat next to Isabella, "You did good last night. You saved me." He kissed her on the side of the forehead as she nodded. "Isa I was thinking… the rest of the group is planning on staying in the south. But, the map you found…. There is a possibility your dad might be alive."

Her hands clenched around the bow in her hands. Could she really hope for that? She shrugged not wanting to think about it. "Look we would have to make some detours, the red line on the map goes through a number of large cities. But I think we should chance it."

She took a breath and held onto his hand nodding her head. "Okay" was all she could muster, she still was only talking when absolute necessary and even then it was only one or two words at a time.

It was late October when they said good bye to the others and headed north in their truck. The cold winter already biting at them as they drove off to the west so they could avoid the city, then they would head north west slowly making their way across the country to where her father hopefully was still alive.

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