The Walking Dead: Origins

Chapter 2: Carley

Here's chapter 2, ladies and gentlemen and here we shall discover the life of Carley up until the apocalypse began. I gave her my own last name for this chapter because of her job. You'll see why when you read. Enjoy chapter 2.

It was peaceful afternoon in the town of Macon, Atlanta in perfect timing for the International Cherry Blossom Festival. A young news reporter in her late twenties named Carley Mayman had just arrived at the festival with the rest of her news crew for WABE in Atlanta.

With her were her screw, and her producer Kate, whom she extremely disliked. Her co-worker Steve was usually with them, but he was somewhere else doing his job as a radio broadcaster. Truth be told, she wanted to do a report on the Lee Everett story, a man who had killed a state senator for sleeping with his wife, but for now, she had to follow her orders.

Carley prepared herself and remember her lines when she was about to be filming live. She recalled the last time she did a live show where she ended up messing up her lines that caused Kate to yell at her. Boy did she hate her.

The film crew had just finished adjusting the camera and boom microphone when it was time for them to film.

Carley got in the position she usually stood in, standing a couple of feet away from the camera with her microphone in her hand. She cleared her throat and prepared to speak.

"Carley, don't fuck up your lines this time!" Kate warned in a harsh tone, folding her arms together as she stood by their news van. "Mess it up and you're fired!"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it!" Carley assured, deep down, she felt like she wanted to just throw this microphone at her boss but what good what that do? She'd be fired and charged for assault. Like always, she kept calm and stared towards the camera.

"All right...We're live in three...Two...One..." the camera man paused and aimed his fingers towards Carley, giving her the signal to go.

"This is Carley Mayman, reporting live at the International Cherry Blossom Festival here in Macon. As you can see behind me, it looks like this year's festival is going to be a good one to remember. If you look behind me, you will see the beautiful pink colored trees and many residents from here in Macon to join this wonderful event. And if you look over there...You...Can...See..." Carley began to trail off when her eyes met something horrifying that the rest of her team did not seem to notice.

A couple of people were behind her crew and were making their way towards them, but they were not just ordinary people. They looked...They looked like they were dead! Their skins were torn and dry, their eye balls looked completely white, and their torsos were skinny as the average body should be. Those things snarled as they limped towards her crew.

The camera man was puzzled to why she had just stopped and signaled her to continue, but she stood there, frozen like a statue.

Kate was extremely annoyed to her actions that she wanted to scream. She angrily pointed her finger towards Carley whilst she began to yell at her. "Un-fucking-believable. You can't do anything right, Carley! You know, you're-"

"LOOK OUT!" Carley screeched, dropping her microphone and taking a couple of steps back. Her expression was too horrified to do anything further.

Kate swiftly turned around, but was too late to move when one of those monsters grabbed onto her and knocked her towards the ground and bit its teeth into her chest, ripping out her insides as it began devouring her.

With her last act of her strength, Kate screamed for help whilst she punched the undead monster biting into her, but there was nothing no-one could do to save her. She fell motionlessly to the floor as a second walker joined in on the feast and dug its hands into her stomach, ripping out her insides with its bare hands.

Almost seconds later after Kate had been devoured; more of those things emerged from out of nowhere and caught them off guard, biting into their flesh as they knocked most of them down to the ground.

Carley felt like she was going be sick after witnessing all of this. She turned towards the rest of her crew who had either been murdered by these things or had run off in order to save themselves. She turned around back towards the festival when she heard screams coming from there, and to her shock, there was more of those things lurking around the area, chasing the living.

"Oh, my God." Carley gasped, taking a few steps from the horrifying sight when a couple of those things were advancing towards her. She turned around and prepared to run away, but her escape was cut short when another one of those things stood only a foot away from her. She attempted to run, but the monster grabbed her and tackled both of them towards the ground.

She screamed as she placed her hands against its shoulders and attempted to hold him back. "NO! Help! SOMEONE HELP ME!" she tried with all her might to prevent this thing from biting her, but no matter how hard she tried, this thing was stronger than she was and more of them were advancing towards her.

The monster on top of her opened its jaws and prepared to take a bite out of her neck. Carley was beginning to lose hope that she was going to get out this alive, but nevertheless, she continued trying to hold it back.

The thing on top of her was close to taking a bite out of her jaws, and Carley closed her eyes. However, she opened them again when she felt the heavy weight of that monster had lightened up completely. She watched as her savior pulled that monster away and by the scruff of its neck and tossed it aside.

The man who had just rescued her from certain death leaned down and offered his hand to her to which Carley had accepted immediately. He looked around in his late twenties, he had short brown hair with a fringe hairstyle, and his ethnicity seemed to be Caucasian-American. He wore a light green shirt, brown shorts, and was a little overweight.

"Are you all right?" he asked whilst he and the girl he just saved took a few steps away from the rest of those monsters.

"Jesus, you saved my life." Carley replied, expression her full gratitude towards him. She watched as the rest of her crew was now dead, and this left her quite sad. She had known them for a long time. "Oh my...The crew..."

"I'm sorry, but there was nothing I could do." he apologized as he ran down the road, but before he made sure she was following him.

Carley had made sure she had her purse with her before she followed him down the road, desperate to get away from those things as soon as possible. She caught up to him whilst they were running, not daring to look back at those things. "What the fuck are those things? They killed me crew and tried to eat me!"

"I have no idea, but I know they can't run which is good." the man admitted as they both ran around the block, but to their surprise, they encountered more of those things along the way. "Oh, God."

Carley surveyed the area for a moment to search for something useful, but there was nothing nearby she could find useful. However, her eyes met a dead body laying a few feet away from them that looked like he used to be a cop. She ran towards the dead corpse and began to search inside its pockets.

"Um, hey lady, I'm not trying to rush you, but I think we should keep moving." the man suggested whilst he took a few steps away from the monsters limping towards.

Carley continued to search the cop's pockets and belt until she felt something hard in his pocket. She leaned her hand inside and retrieved his weapon: a Glock 17, and with it were a couple of rounds that she slid into her purse.

Now armed with a weapon, Carley ran back towards the man her saved her life moments ago and aimed her new weapon towards those monsters and opened fire on them. She had used firearms in the past when she got into bad situations. She was surprisingly a good shot, killing five of those things without missing once.

"Hey lady, not sure if this is the past time, but my name's Doug." he decided to introduce himself at this moment in time. He continued backing away, letting her kill those monsters.

"I'm Carley." she introduced herself in return before finally deciding to run away with Doug through the town of Macon. She had a gun at least, now, but it would be useless if she ran out of ammunition.

Doug surveyed the area they were in for a moment, looking for someone safe. He had only recently moved to Macon around two-months ago and did not have the chance to take a tour around the area. But as luck would have it, he spotted a drugstore only a couple of blocks down the road that he had seen a couple of times, but never actually went inside. "Follow me!"

Carley was not sure where he was taking them both, but if she wanted to live, she trusted Doug and followed him down the road towards the drugstore. As they were both, near the drugstore, Carley had suddenly froze when someone emerged from an alleyway beside them and she immediately mistaken him for one of those monsters, but he looked human.

He had short black hair but it was mostly covered by his blue and white cap with the initials "SW" written on. He looked around in his middle twenties and his ethnicity seemed to be Korean-American. He wore a brown jacket with a red shirt underneath and blue jeans.

"Whoa, whoa, relax; I'm not one of them!" he assured, lowing his hands when the woman no longer held him at gun point. "My car is just down the road by that drugstore there. I was just looking for gas. I'm Glenn."

"I'm Carley, that's Doug." she introduced the two of them whilst she looked behind her to see how far those monsters were away from them.

Doug gave Glenn a small wave before he decided to ask about his vehicle. "Is your that pizza car just down the road there?"

"Yes! But it's low on gas and won't make it anywhere out the town." Glenn replied whilst he looked back down the way he came where his eyes met more of those things advancing towards him. "Um, mind if I stick with you guys?"

"Sure, come on!" Doug answered before it was time for the three of them to continue running towards the drugstore. "Quick, get inside!"

Without a second's hesitation, the trio burst inside the drugstore and closed the door behind them, hoping those things did not see them run inside. Now that they were out of harm's way, the trio took a couple of seconds' to rest for a moment. However, as luck would have it, it seems that they were not the only ones here.

Inside one of the rooms inside the drugstore, a young woman and an elderly man emerged, and by the looks of their faces, they did not look happy to see them. The woman had long brown hair, she looked around in her late twenties, and she looked Caucasian-American. She wore a dark brown vest and blue jeans.

As for the elderly man, he had grey hair; he looked around in his late fifties, and looked Caucasian-American, and had s surprisingly big nose. He wore a blue polo shirt and beige pants.

"Who the fuck are you people?" the woman inquired, immediately that got the impression she was a jerk.

"Wait, you're not the Everett's, are you?" Glenn asked, remembering the names of the people who owned this place. He never went in there before, but heard their names after living here for so long.

The old man was about to say something, but the woman placed her bad back and beckoned for him to not say or do anything. She spoke first to the three strangers, now in a calmer tone. "They're dead...We found their bodies in the office back there...Had to drag them out."

"Oh...My gosh." Carley silently gasped and placed her hand over her mouth.

"Jesus..." Glenn sighed; shocked to how bad this situation had got when it only just began.

The woman decided to introduce herself since she had the feeling they were planning to stick around for a little while, and she was in no mood for herself and her father to start a fight. "I'm Lilly. This is my dad, Larry."

"I'm Carley."

"I'm Glenn."

"And I'm Doug."

"All right, first things first. That door stays shut no matter what, got that!?" she ordered in a bossy tone that the trio did not seem to take a liking too, but nevertheless, they decided to nod their heads in agreement. "Good. Whoever owned this place, boarded it up good. We should be safe."

"Yeah, got it." Carley assured.

"Now if you going to stay help us find the fucking keys to that pharmacy." Larry requested, marching over towards the security gates that blocked off the pharmacy. He attempted to pull it open with his bare hands, but he was not strong enough.

Carley placed her purse on the counter whilst she decided to try and get settled in since they might be there for a while. But she was worried about those monsters barging through the doors. She noticed a pair of security gates outside that looked strong enough to hold them back. "Anyway we can lock those gates outside?"

"We found a combination lock in one of the draws, but we don't know the code." Lilly replied, throwing the combination lock over towards Glenn, whom caught it, but was unsure what to do with it. "If those things find us, THEN we put the lock on."

Carley nodded in agreement whilst she turned her interest over towards a radio on the counter that caught her interest. If she could get it working, then she may be able to hear what was going on out there. She approached the radio and attempted to turn it on, but it was not working.

As much as that frustrated her, she was still thankful to be alive because of Doug. Since she would be here for a while, Carley decided to work on that radio for a while. As for Doug and Glenn, they searched the store for anything useful to help Larry with the pharmacy.

She was still in shock to what she witnessed today: the dead roaming around, her boss and news crew being killed in front of her, and almost being killed by one of those things. This certainly would be a day she would remember for the rest of her life.

And chapter 2 of The Walking Dead: Origins is completed, folks, and that was the story of Carley, Doug and Glenn and how I think they got into the drugstore. Stay tuned for chapter 5.