Quick Note: The Maven Black-Briar/Female Dovahkiin ended up winning, so look out for that story. Also, shout-out and thanks to Dovazhul for that rocking Quislings idea, I absolutely love it!
Delphine POV:
I slowly wake up, the teenager practically glued to my body. I can handle the cold, but it looks like she can't. Oh well, I suppose I can use a little more warmth at night. The blanket I use to have was destroyed a long time ago, so the teenager's body heat might just save me from freezing (when we get to areas much colder than this). I disentangle myself from the girl, stand up, and walk over to the stallion. He's still wet, shaking, and exhausted. We need to keep going (the woods are bound to be teaming with zombies), but we might kill the poor creature. I suppose we can hunt for game, gather berries, and build a better shelter. So, the horse will get to rest for a few days while we get necessary supplies. I wake the teenager up and tell her, "Get ready to use your gun, we're going hunting.". She nods as she stands up, taking her shotgun from the ground. When she's ready to go I tell her, "We aren't going to go too far from camp, so we might not see any animals at all. But if we do, then hit it hard, fast, and in the head. If it runs we can't follow it. It's imperative that we remember where our camp is, we can't lose the horse.". She nods in understanding, motions towards the woods, and tells me, "Lead the way.". I crouch down (the teenager copying my movements), get my gun ready, and start to go off into the woods.
I stop when I find a shrub about five feet tall that's weighed down with berries. I smell them (they remind me of clove), examine their black color, and notice their leaves are almost like gooseberry leaves. I come to the conclusion that the berries are buffalo currant, and collect a large amount in my bag. As I collect them I tell the teenager, "We'll have to let these dry in the sun, but they're perfectly edible. They grow all over Oklahoma, so expect to eat these a lot. Pick some and put them in your bag, every berry helps.". She takes my advice and picks as many as she can, the bush almost completely stripped when we're done. I motion for the girl to follow me and go back to sneaking through the woods, climbing a tree when I find a suitable one. The survivor follows me, but stays a few branches below me. I whisper to her, "We'll just wait here for a while, hopefully some animals will wander by.". It's not until a few hours later I hear the woman's shotgun go off (I realize I need to get her a silencer). I snap up and ask her, "What in oblivion did you fire at?". The teenager shoves her hand up and shows me a squirrel, his head nowhere to be found. I roll my eyes, but tell her, "Meat is meat, put it somewhere and keep it safe.". I'm not sure where the woman puts the corpse, but we both go back to waiting for something to walk by.
The woman and I see the deer at the same time, the buck's antlers tremendous on his head. I raise my pistol, and fire when I hear the shotgun go off. The deer tries to run, but I hit him in the neck and the teenager hits him in the head. He falls to the ground, but keeps twitching. We scale down the tree and rush to the dying deer, the teenager drawing her knife. She throws it at the creature and hits his heart, the deer giving one final twitch before going still. As we walk to the corpse the teenager says, "Woo. Teamwork. High-five.". She offers me her hand, but I simply roll my eyes. The girl scoffs and keeps her hand up, not caring that I'm ignoring her. When she doesn't ease up I groan, but lightly hit the woman's hand with mine. She shakes her head and says, "We'll work on it.". Then, we arrive at the deer and I can feel my heart jump into my throat. The beast's fur is missing and thinning in places, and the revealed skin is a strange hue of greenish brown. The teenager examines his head and tells me, "His eyes are cloudy.". She pulls the knife from his chest, a disgusting black blood gushing from the wound. The smell hits us and I gag, the teenager rushing a few feet away to empty her stomach. The smell of any dead deer isn't pleasant, but this one smells like he ate rotten cheese, died, and has been lying in the sun for a week.
When the teenager is done vomiting she stands, kicks the corpse, and ask, "What's wrong with it?". She must know, but she just wants her fears to be confirmed. I tell the woman, "I don't see a bite mark, so it could be something else.". She shakes her head and tells me, "He has the zombie virus.". I sigh and agree, "It looks like it. I don't think he would have attacked us if he'd seen us, but we can't eat his meat. And, we shouldn't drink any water in this area that isn't from our canteens. If a zombie died in a pool of water or a lake and the deer drank the liquid, then it would give him the virus. Now, we need to get back to camp. There could be a zombie somewhere around here, if there is I don't want to meet her.". I turn and jog away from the infected deer, the teenager nervously following me. It seems we arrive back at camp just in time, a man attempting to calm our rearing horse. I clear my throat and the man spins around, drawing his machete. His head is blown off before I can fire. Damn. The teenager seems to enjoy blowing the heads off things. At least if she turns against me my death will be quick and clean. We loot the body (he has a few cans of food, but nothing else of importance). The teenager throws the body into the woods and tells me, "We've run into a lot of people in a zombie filled world.". I shrug and tell her, "Be thankful for that, soon enough we'll run into zombies daily.". I lay the berries out in the sun, calm the horse, and begin building a shelter out of branches and large leaves. The teen proves useful.
She doesn't know what to do, but gathers a lot of supplies. When a small shelter is built I tell her, "It's getting dark and we need to get some rest. Tomorrow we'll ride to Oklahoma city, I don't want to stay in this area any longer. That okay with you?". She looks shocked I asked her opinion, but she nods and agrees. When I climb into the shelter I make sure to take up as little space as possible, but the teenager curls up beside me. I inwardly sigh, but allow her to sleep by me. She's a child, she finds nothing weird about sleeping next to a stranger who's old enough to be her mother. In the cities they don't teach kids what's morally right and wrong, so the children develop their opinions on their own. What some people think is right others think is wrong. The teenager grew up in a poor city, so her moral compass is probably flexible. And, she was probably never taught why she shouldn't just go to sleep beside a woman she doesn't know. If I wanted to kill, rape, or steal from her I could do so as she slumbers on (she'd wake up for the first two, but I doubt she could stop me). In her mind she's probably just doing this for warmth. In a different situation she might realize how vulnerable she is while she sleeps, and not want to curl up next to me. My mussing is cut off as I fall asleep, the teenager beside me already snoring.
The teenager keeps her shotgun drawn as we silently ride through the woods, our horse slowly trotting below us. We haven't seen a single zombie or bandit, which is what's worrying me. But I don't have time to voice my concerns, Oklahoma City is rising up before us. I've been in the city five times, and it's decent enough. The security is absolutely terrible (hence why I was easily able to sneak in and out), but the teenager will need my help. If we're caught I'll be shot (my data won't show up in the computer, and they'll assume I'm a bandit), and the teenager will be shipped back to Missouri for a small reward (an armored truck will carry her and any other prisoners headed for the plains area of the country). I don't want to imagine the punishment she'll go through if St. Louis ever gets her back. I dismount the horse, hide him in thick vegetation, and tell them woman, "Follow my lead, get ready to shoot, and always get ready to die.". She nods and follows me to the abandoned area of town outside the walled city. As we walk through the abandoned town I tell her, "The city is only half its original size, this is the area people fled from. There's a school up ahead that's half in the city and half out. It's technically abandoned, so it's been locked down to prevent zombies from entering the city. Since we're going there it should be pretty clear that isn't true.".
When we reach the school I walk over to one of the 'armored' windows, yank the metal away and tell her, "Go.". When she's inside she holds the metal away from the wall, so I can climb in. When we're inside I tell her, "It's pretty damned dark, and I forgot to bring a flashlight or anything. Damn. I didn't think this through.". I feel a hit to the back of the head and the woman says,"Give me a sec, I need to find a branch or something.". After a minute of two I see a small flame bloom, the teenager holding a makeshift torch in her hand. She takes another branch, lights it, and hands it to me. I begin guiding her through the school, the teenager telling me, "Prepare better next time. If I hadn't found branches, then we'd be screwed.". Her mocking is interrupted by a black shape charging at us, and our two guns almost instantly go off. The creature falls and we jog over to it, our guns still at the ready. His head is intact, but his chest is a bloody mess.
The teen curses and says, "He wasn't a zombie! Why the hell did he charge?!". I know exactly why, but I delicately explain it to her, "Some people try to do what you and I are doing, surviving outside the cities. But they end up not being able to handle fighting zombies, and snap like a twig. They think they got bitten, and even think they're going through the phases of infection. Like a woman going through false pregnancy. When it's over they act like real zombies, only slightly more intelligent. They can use clubs and stones as weapons, eat people they kill, and somehow manage to survive. They're dangerous, and should be treated like real zombies. Remember that. I thought I was the only one who knew how to get in her, but I can see that isn't true anymore. The place is probably crawling with zombies, real and fake.". She looks disgusted at the body, but nods and follows me into the school. The building practically screams danger, but what else can we do?