"Damnit! It was just here like, five seconds ago. How can that son-of-a-bitch be gone?"

"Well, if ya'd shut ya damn mouth, we might be able to find it."

"What are ya tryin' to say Dixon? That it's my fault it took off?"

"Will you keep quiet already? And get your lil' ass over here and help me track it, 'fore the damn thing gets any farther."

"Little? My ass isn't little! It fits all right in yer big-ass hands, don't it?"

"Oh, it fits alright. I'mma come over there and squeeze the mother fucker 'til it pops if you don't get over here."

"I swear, I will fuckin' shoot you-"

"Oh, don't lie to ya self KJ. You would be lost without me."

"Yeah well, you'd probably cry like a lil' bitch if I was gone."

"Not at the rate yer goin'. How many times I gotta tell ya? Bring yer ass over here and help me follow it's tracks!"

This hunting trip just started and its already turned to shit. Daryl and I rode out here together. I met his uncle Jess and his dad's friend, Buck. Like Daryl told me weeks ago, those two were pretty decent. Neither of 'em had a problem with me being here. In fact, they decided to wage a bet with me, who ever came back with the most game, would win thirty dollars cash. But Will, just like I had figured, he wasn't as accepting. Even with Merle's ass being stuck in the Police Department, Daryl still decided to introduce me to everyone as his girlfriend. Guess he figured they would be quicker to accept me if they knew that I meant enough to him to be his lady. It seemed to work all right for Jess and Buck.

Now that I think about it, I probably got the easier end of the deal. Will didn't cuss me like a dog, or dish out any sly remarks. To be precise, he didn't say anything at all. Sure he gave me dirty looks anytime I was even in his peripheral, but that's really it. It's pretty obvious the man didn't care for me much, but something kept him from openly expressing it. Daryl and I just agreed that life would be easier for us if we just kept to ourselves and ignored his stares. So, that's what we did. Will, Buck and Jess decided to stick together and head North, while Daryl and I partnered up and headed West.

Not too long ago, I spotted a buck. Out of nowhere the stupid thing just took off. Neither of us had even moved and I don't remember hearing or seeing anything else that would've made him bolt like that. Daryl has told me before that deer can sometimes sense when something bad is coming, but I don't get it. Normally, both of our instincts are pretty good at keepin' us out of too much trouble. So what is it that the buck could sense...but we couldn't? Unfortunately, my question was answered.

We were so concentrated on following the deer's trail, it didn't exactly register what was going on at first. When our brains finally decided to tune in, the screams and gun shots became crystal clear. I just had to ask though, to make sure it wasn't just me hearing shit. "Did-did you hear that?"

We both had already stopped, our bodies frozen. Daryl focused on his environment, the whole scene reminding me of an animal listening to it's surroundings. Then we heard it again, and it was blood-curdling. "That sounds like the old man. We gotta go! C'mon!" And with that he was off, me not far behind him. Daryl was definitely frantic and who wouldn't be after hearing their own father scream like that? My heart was even pounding through my ears. And that's when it finally kicked in, my instincts. My stomach churned and my heart felt like it was being stabbed every time another scream would echo through the air. When I started to hear Jess' heart-wrenching yelling, that's when my intinct told me that whatever this is, it's BAD.

"What in the hell! Dixon!" Jess' voice was getting closer now, we had to be literally seconds away from them. BANG! Oh no...that was another gun shot. "Ah Dix, naw, no man!" They were right ahead of us now and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were so many dead bodies, HUMAN bodies. One of them belonged to Buck. All I could see was Jess' back facing me, but I noticed that his right arm was bleeding pretty bad. Daryl stopped and once I finally caught up to him and stood to his right, I saw Will. He was barely alive, his stomach had literally been ripped open. It was so hard not to gag on the sight and smell of everything. Right when I was sure I was gonna hurl, Jess' voice caught my attention. "Daryl. Are you two okay?"

He ignored his question, however, as we both stepped closer to him. His entire focus was on his dad now and I couldn't stop myself from feeling pure sorrow as I watched him. His eyes were wide, his mouth hung open like a fish trying to catch it's breath. None of us could believe that any of this was real. "Dad-oh. Dad, no. We can-we could-" It's impossible, right? This can't be real.

But Jess' voice once again proved to me that this, this was really happening. Daryl had already crouched down by his father's side and Jess leaned in to look him in the eye. "Daryl, he's too busted up. Nothing can be done now except...ease his suffering." My hand immediately clasped onto my mouth. This is just crazy. This is just...it just can't be happening. Daryl's head hung low as his uncle spoke to him, we both knew what he meant.

Daryl shook his head briefly as he reached for his gun, not believing in this situation either. But he took in a sharp breath and cocked his pistol as he got to his feet. He pointed the barrel toward Will's head, who was barely able to keep hold of his breathing. His aim shook, however, and his face was tore up with pain as he fought hard to keep from weeping. He can't do it. His head dipped even lower as his arm dropped to his side. My heart fell as I watched him look away. So, Jess took the gun as Daryl glanced up at him for less then a second before backing away. He was slowly making his way towards me and once I saw Jess aim the gun once again to his half-brother's head, I decided that I had enough too. "Daryl." He looked up at me for only a moment before his hand coverd his eyes, his shoulders slacking from the weight of losing his father.

All I could think to do was wrap my arms around his neck. His forehead slammed into my chest as I gripped his head into my hands. I know I was crying, but Daryl...his body just shook as he continued to fight it. That's when I closed my eyes and listened to Jess' last words to William Dixon, my body jumping when the gun shot finally rang. "Sorry, brother." BANG!

As soon as we got back to the cabin, Daryl immediately headed for the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him. I wanted to go and comfort him more, but I knew that he needed some time to himself. Not to mention that there are more important things to do right now. As Jess was locking the door, I decided to express what I think our first steps should be. "Hey, Jess?"

He sighed as he finished securing the door and pushed the keys back into his pocket. "What is it, girl?"

Looking at his arm while he cradled it in his other hand, then glancing around the cabin, I knew for sure what needed to be done. "We got enough wood pallets, we should barricade the windows. Just in case more of 'em head this way." He looked around and nodded his head in agreement. "We also need to take care of that arm of yers. I got a first-aid kit in my backpack." This is crazy and I know me and Daryl 'trained' for this exact event. But...part of me is still letting the reality of it slowly sink in. Deep inside I know, and I'm sure Daryl does as well, that Jess could very well turn into one of those things as time goes on. I keep trying to rationalize it though. There's no way that a bunch of geeks and Hollywood assholes was able to predict this. What if you don't turn from a bite or a scratch? What if those people turned because of something else? I ain't no scientists or doctor of any kind, but what I do know is...we're gonna have to keep our guard up around uncle Jess.

We quickly made work of nailing boards over the windows. The entire time I kept my quiver and recurve bow on my back. My gun stayed nuzzled into its holster on my thigh and my knife attached to my belt. Luckily I came on this trip wearing; ankle high boots, black jeans and a short sleeved camouflage t-shirt. My backpack had enough clothes to last me a week, a first-aid kit, some snacks and a case of extra bullets. There's still a little bit of room left in there in case we have to pick up some things along the way. Daryl and I decided to just leave our cell phones at home, so I wasn't able to even attempt calling for help.

As I cleaned and bandaged Jess' arm, I realized how long Daryl has kept himself locked up in that room. I felt so bad for him. He's told me how much of a dick his father was to him growing up, but that's just it. The man was still his father. No matter what our parents do to us, it's literally in our DNA-our genetic code to love them. We just can't help it. Same thing with my daddy. I try to convince myself all the time that if I ever saw that bastard again, I'd probably kill him. But the truth of the matter is, I have no idea what I would do. How I would react.

As soon as I was finished dressing his wound, my body automatically jumped at the sound of glass breaking in the other room. Inside I knew that Daryl had broken the mirror. "Good job Dixon, now you're addin' seven years bad luck to the mess." I said this mostly to myself, but I noticed the concern written on Jess' face.

We were standing by the table in the middle of the main room when Daryl finally joined us. Jess already getting to business before Daryl could even fully shut the door. "Daryl, come here. We gotta work up a plan."

Daryl took in a large breath before slowly letting it out, trying to push back his emotions to concentrate. As he made his way in front of us, he held his gaze on me. The look he was giving me was a silent, 'This is really happening.' All I could do was give him a look of pity and slightly nod my head, then he became more serious has he addressed his uncle. "Have you ever seen anything like that?"

Jess just shook his head while unconsciously rubbing his now bandaged arm. "If you told me about it I'd call you a liar."

That's when we heard the grunts, growls and scratches coming from outside. Damn, they found us already? Daryl looked around for a moment before speaking again. "Listen! There's more of 'em comin'."

Jess' body language became frantic as he immediately said, "We gotta go."

But, Daryl being Daryl, argued back with, "The only thing we gotta do, is kill every last one of 'em."

I turned towards the table and threw my backpack on over my quiver, then grabbing hold of my bow. I knew that silent weapons would make things a lot easier against those things, too bad Daryl doesn't have his crossbow. Right when we need it the most. "That's not an option macho man." Turning back towards Daryl, I made sure to give him a stern look to help get my point across. "You know damn-well there's too many of 'em out there for just the three of us to take."

Daryl scoffed, but Jess tried to reason with his nephew. "Daryl, I know you're upset, but listen. Kelsi's right, that sounds like a whole lot of 'em. We need to go. Now! Both of you, gather up as much as you can and meet me at the truck."

I nodded my head while Daryl let out a sigh before agreeing. "Let's go then."

Daryl swung his backpack onto his shoulders and as we was making our way towards the door, Jess added, "Daryl! Kelsi! Remember what we learned about 'em. Head trauma. Attack the BRAIN! Remember. Only thing we know that kills 'em. And be QUIET sneakin' out the back door. Don't let 'em see ya."

I smiled and assured him, "We know. Don't worry, we got this."

Daryl nodded. "We're gonna get the jerrycans. See ya at the truck."

Walking out the back door, we both slightly crouched to keep our footsteps light and quiet. I had my bow drawn and an arrow notched and laying on the arrow rest. This way I could quickly pull it back and be ready to aim at any target. But not even five feet out the door, there was already a geek waiting for us. It was crouched and munching on what was left of a racoon, it's back facing us. I pulled back my string and tried to aim for its head, but the way it was sitting I couldn't get a clear shot. Daryl saw this and quickly pulled out his knife. He crouched low to the ground and slowly made his way over to it. Grabbing its shoulder to keep a good grip on it, he immediately shoved the sharp blade into the back of its head. A low 'crunch' came along. This made my stomach churn a little. I've killed plenty of animals, all for the purpose of eating them, but never a human. Then again, are these 'things' even considered human anymore?

Once Daryl was back at my side, we made our way toward the back of the cabin, heading for the open shack that's used to hang deer as well as hold tools. I spoke to him in a low whisper. "Daryl...I hate to say this, but...you know it's possible that Jess could turn into one of 'em. Right?"

He kept his knife drawn and stayed on his toes as he answered me. "Yeah, I know. Stay with me, don't be alone with him until we know for sure."

Keeping my gaze on my surroundings, I answered him with a quiet, "Alright." Now that we're on the pathway, I can see the two open sheds. There's one on the right of us housing a broken down car, and one right in front of us at the end of the pathway. Almost midway through, one of those 'things' caught sight of us and started limping its way toward us. Its arms stretched out just waiting to grab one of us. We needed to hit this thing while it's still a distance away. "I got 'er." I quietly informed Daryl as I took aim. It took maybe five seconds for that thing to drop from the time I first pulled my arrow back. My arrow slapped that bitch right in the middle of her cold, dead forehead. Once we got closer to the now unresponsive body, Daryl made sure to pull the arrow from her head for me. He found the 'cleanest' spot on her jeans and wiped the arrow tip on it, essentially getting all the blood and brain matter off. When I retrieved it from him, I put it right back into position so I would be ready for the next dead mother fucker to hobble my way.

We can already see another geek crouched inside the shed at the end. It was missing an arm and snacking on one of Jess' deer carcasses. Before we got too close, Daryl nodded toward it and whispered, "Go on KJ. Use ya knife and hit it hard enough to go deep."

My face scrunched up at that. "What? Why me?"

But obviously, he wasn't having it. "Because you're gonna have ta get use to it anyway Kelsi." The usage of my real name and how angry he sounded when he said that, I knew that he was still pissed. But when he spoke again, it seemed like he was mostly saying it to himself. "We ALL have to."

I let out a quiet, aggravated sigh. Deep down, however, I knew he was right. I WOULD have to get use to it. So, I slipped my arrow into its quiver and pulled out my hunting knife. I handed my bow to Daryl as I shimmied my way over to it, trying my best not to gag. The sound it was making as it devoured the remains of that deer, it was like someone chomping their lips as they ate in a quiet restaurant. Only fifty-times worse. And the smell, the smell is just sickingly unbearable. But I mentally told myself to suck it up, and thought back to how Daryl had handled the first one by the cabin door. I wanted to be fast, so I quickly and harshly grabbed hold of the back of its neck and shoved my knife into his skull as hard as I could, burying the blade all the way to the hilt. Before it could drop, I placed my left foot in between its shoulder blades and used that as leverage to pull my knife out, quickly wiping the blade clean once it was.

It did bother me for a second, but as Daryl handed my bow back to me and gave me a quiet, "Nice one KJ." I knew that I can't LET it bother me. These people aren't alive anymore. And the way I see it, I'd hope that someone would put me to rest if I had turned. While Daryl snatched the jerrycan from the table, I sheathed my knife and notched another arrow into place. Daryl shook the jerrycan a little bit to determine how much fuel was left in it. As soon as I saw his face, I knew what we'd have to do. "It's maybe 'bout half full. We're gonna have ta get the other one by the fire-pit."

"Kay. Lead the way Dixon." He nodded his head toward the pathway we came from. Luckily we didn't run into anymore of 'em on the way, but as soon as we got close to the fire-pit, we had to duck behind a pile of chopped wood. There was at least ten of 'em wandering around aimlessly, most of 'em were close to the walkway we gotta take to head back to the cabin. Daryl was on the left side of the wood pile scoping out the area, while I was on the right. I could see the other jerrycan sitting close to the fire-pit about, fifteen feet in front of me. Even if I tried to make a run for it, however, those things would surely spot me. Covering myself completely behind the pile and resting my back against it to help calm down my ever growing irritation, I saw something that gave me an idea. There was close to, five empty glass beer bottles sitting right in between us. I couldn't help but smirk as I sheathed my arrow and wrapped my bow over my shoulder. I picked up one bottle in each hand while getting Daryl's attention. "Psst. Hey, numb-nuts."

He looked back at me a little aggravated, but more confused once he saw what was in my hands. "Aw, c'mon KJ. Now's really not the time for yer drinkin' problems ta be risin' up."

I just shook my head and chuckled a little. "No, you dummy. It's a distraction. I'm gonna throw 'em away from the pit and our yellow brick road outta here. Get ready ta run."

At that he nodded, finally understanding what I was doing. He moved to my right and put his knife away, so he would be ready to grab the other can. I tried to aim high, so I could get it right where I needed it. Once I threw the bottles and we heard the shattering, we watched and waited for 'em to take the bait. And they did. As soon as the last one made its way over to the group to see what all the fuss was about, we took off. Daryl ran for the other jerrycan and quickly swiped it from the ground, while I re-quipped my bow and arrow. But as soon as we started running toward our pathway, the sound of a horn started going off. The both of us couldn't help but freeze up as the horn just kept going. We were literally shocked stiff. 'Why the hell would he start honking the horn?!' It didn't take long for our attention to be back on the current threat. The entire group of geeks were now turned around and making their way toward us and the noise. Daryl immediately jumped back into gear. "We gotta go! C'mon! Now!"

We ran as fast as we could to the truck, trying to stay out of their reach and dodging the few that were popping up in front of us. As we ran, I put my arrow into the quiver and at that point, we heard Jess' yelling over the horn. "Come on! Get in the truck! Hurry it up!" Once he was close enough, Daryl threw the cans into the bed while I hopped in the middle seat. He jumped in that truck so quickly, he was laying damn near on top of me. Jess took off before Daryl could even get the door shut and all you could see behind us was a shit ton of dust. As he flew down the dirt road and Daryl and I both re-positioned ourselves more comfortably in our seats, all I could think about was, 'Damn...this is only the beginning.'

For a while, the three of us was silent as we rode the back roads, until Jess decided to end that silence by turning on the radio. Nothing but annoying static came through and I could tell he was getting more and more frustrated with each station he tried. Harshly turning the radio back off, he finally spoke. "Not a damn thing. And my phone ain't workin' either." It was quiet once again, only this time, you could feel the awkwardness before Jess opened his mouth back up. "Hey...about your dad?...I don't know what to say."

I guess Daryl, however, didn't wanna talk about the sensitive subject just yet. His words came out quick at first and was like venom to the ears. "Then don't! Leave it be." He wiped the sweat from his brow and continued once he had calmed down some. "We gotta tell Merle what happened."

I knew that was on his mind. It should've been obvious that he would want to go after Merle. Assuming the asshole survived being locked up in that Police Station. Seems like Jess had other plans, however. "Yeah. I suppose we do. But, we ought to warn people first."

I started to say, "Are you serious-" but Daryl interjected.

"What? Go to the cops? Please. We gotta go get Merle."

Jess kept his focus on the road, but it seemed like he was deep in thought. "Merle...he's...well, he's just not right."

Uh-oh. Daryl's anger was quick to come back. "What'd you say to me old man!? Merle's ten times the man you are!"

My hand gripped onto his forearm to catch his attention. "Daryl! Jus' calm down, alright?"

I could feel his muscles relax a little bit as Jess tried to defend himself. "Alright, alright...Just seems you boys turn hay into shit when you're together."

After driving for a little while, we came up on the town of Sedalia. They had road barricades lining the street from one building to another, a pile of cars were also stretched across it like a make-shift fence. Jess turned the truck off and we all hopped out with our backpacks and weapons ready. The three of us surveyed the place for a moment, before Daryl spoke up. "No driving through that, we're on foot from here."

I nodded my head in agreement, but I noticed Jess nervously rub his wounded arm with his head hung low. "Ah, boy. Bet them psychos came through here, too."

Daryl glanced around once again before addressing his uncle. "Yeah, maybe. Town circled their wagons, ya see? Looks like a DMZ."

Jess and I looked to where he was pointing, then the wounded man nodded and added, "If there's any gas, it'll be at Lucky's."

Daryl and I both knew then, that it was time to move out. I readied my bow and notched an arrow as Daryl pulled his knife from its holster. I took one last look at Jess' arm and nodded to it. "If ya feel up to it, try to locate some food while we do the rest." I quickly scurried to the bed of the truck and opened the black duffle bag, pulling out a hammer. Making my way back to the front of the truck, I handed Jess the hammer and said, "Here. Just be careful and don't over do it. Try not to even make contact with 'em, if ya can. We don't want that arm gettin' any worse." He nodded his understatement. I got back into my stance that said, 'I'm ready to shoot any dick head that tries me' and made my way back over to Daryl. "Ya ready sexy?" I couldn't help but laugh at the dirty look he sent me.

What stopped that laughter, however, was when he leaned in and whispered, "Don't make me have ta pounce on ya while we're out there Kelsi. I got a lot of damn anger pent up and I don't wanna hurt ya." And with that, he walked away.

Great. How am I supposed to fight off dead folk now when my vagina's all tingly? Stupid Daryl and his stupid sexyness.