I remained seated against the tree as night slowly descended, covering the forest in darkness. The only time I moved was to grab my machete and Shane's gun. I tried figuring out why I'm still in the woods after all this time but nothing came to mind. Sure, the fact that I killed someone with my bare hands is shocking to the core, but my gut is telling me that there's something more.

Two sets of footsteps pulled me from my trance of staring at the two, unmoving bodies that lay within my field of vision. I slowly lifted myself to my feet and readied my weapons in each hand, ready to a attack. As the footsteps grew closer, I silently moved around the tree to keep out of view.

"Looks like there was a pretty big scuffle right 'bout here." The familiar Southern drawl of Daryl's voice caused me to sag in so much relief I almost dropped my weapons.

"Do you think it's from Shane and Randall?" Glenn asked in a worried voice.

There was silence for a moment before Daryl responded to him, "Doubt it. Randall's over there and Shane," A somewhat dim, white light lit up the ground near the tree where Shane's body laid. "There."

"So if Shane killed Randall, who killed Shane?"

"I did." I stepped out of hiding with both weapons at my side. The light flashed over to me and Daryl's crossbow was raised, ready to shoot. "Gotta say, he did put up a fight unlike the kid. Never got a chance to 'fore Shane snapped his neck."

Daryl lowered his crossbow with an angry glare on his face. "The hell you doin' out here?"

"I went out for a walk and I came upon Shane and Randall. Followed 'em for a bit. Shane tried to get information about Randall's group, tryin' to leave yours... He didn't get what he wanted so he snapped the kid's neck."

"And Shane?" I looked over to Glenn. He had a look of concern and fear on his face that made me feel a little uneasy. "You said that you killed him, why?"

"He lost it. After he killed Randall, he started smashing his face against a tree. He found me hiding and 'cause I saw and heard shit I wasn't supposed to, he was gonna kill me too."

"You killed him." Glenn's words sounded more like a question than a statement to me.

I nodded. "Yeah, but I feel like I'm forgettin' somethin'..." Before either one of them could say anything, growling and moaning filled the air. Randall's body slowly stood up from it's spot and moved towards us. "Oh. That's what I was forgettin'."

The walker lunged towards Glenn. He frantically tried to push the walker away from him, but it had a tight grip on his sweater. Daryl shot a bolt at it but missed. It pushed Glenn so hard that he landed on the ground next to my feet. The walker quickly turned it's attention to Daryl, going after him instead.

Daryl pushed against the walker with his crossbow as it pushed him against the tree I was thrown against earlier. I quickly pulled my machete out of its sheath and swung it into the walker's head. It slumped against Daryl and Glenn was quick to pull it off of the redneck.

Climbing to his feet, Daryl grabbed his flashlight and shined it down on what used to be Randall. All three of us stood around the body, looking down at it. Glenn, who still had his blade in his hand, quickly turned around and slammed it into another growling walker's head when it came up behind him. Shane's dead face stared at us before the body fell to the ground when Glenn removed his weapon from the skull.

"Nice." Daryl gave a single pat to Glenn's stomach. He looked between the two walkers before turning to look at me. "You didn't say nothin' 'bout them bein' bit."

"That's 'cause they weren't."

Glenn looked at us both. "If they weren't bit, how is it that they turned?"

"Vesper!" Maggie was the first one to reach me and pull me into a hug when I walked through the front door with Daryl and Glenn. "We were so worried about you. You were gone all day!"

I squeezed her tightly and I did the same with Beth when she wrapped her arms around us both. "Sorry 'bout that. I was dealin' with some shit."

"Shit like what?" I turned my head to look at Andrea without pulling away from my cousins "You aren't the only one who's been gone. Shane and Randall have been too."

Lori moved towards me. Her arms were wrapped around her midsection, almost as though she was trying to hold herself together. "Did you find Randall?" She turned to look at the men that came in with me. "Where's Rick?"

"He ain't back yet?" Daryl asked as he moved further into the living room.

"No. Do you think he found them?"

With a quiet sigh I pulled away from Maggie and Beth. "I don't know where Rick is, but the other two are dead."

"What do you mean, 'dead'?" Andrea questioned.

"I mean that they died, both as a human and as a walker."

"How do you know?"

"I saw it." My voice kept an even tone as I bluntly and truthfully answered. "Shane killed Randall, then I killed Shane." All but Daryl's and Glenn's eyes snapped to me. The air became thicker as the seconds passed by.

"You-you killed Shane?"

A stinging pain radiated on my cheek before I could answer. Lori's glare held the heat of a thousand suns, but I wasn't scared of her. If anything, I was angry. The only reason why her boy-toy is dead is because he killed someone first then tried to kill me.

"Hey! The only reason Vesper killed Shane was because he tried to kill her." I softly pushed Glenn away when he tried to move between me and the crazy lady. "I mean, look at her! She looks like shit! No offence." Glenn quickly added the last part when he looked at me.

"None taken." I waved him off, used to hearing those words. Daryl, on the other hand, didn't look too happy at Glenn's statement. "Look, Lori, what I did wasn't of faint heart. It was either him or me, and at those odds, I will always choose me."

With one last glare at the brunette, I walked away from the group in the living room and walked out onto the porch in hopes to see where Rick was. I might not be the biggest fan of Lori but Rick hasn't done wrong by me.

It wasn't even a full minute that I walked out when Daryl, Andrea, and Glenn stood behind me. I didn't even spare them a glance because my eyes were too focused on the horde of walkers that were coming towards my home. Everybody else was quick to join us on the porch when Glenn beckoned them all outside.

Uncle Hershel looked behind him and told Patricia to turn off the lights in the house. I barely registered Andrea's voice when she said that she would go get the guns. My hearing became muffled in the way that they would before I walked into a rinky-dink fighting ring. I brushed by Daryl and the others as I ran up the stairs to my room to grab my hand gun and my bag that I packed a few nights ago. There was a feeling building in my gut that I couldn't shake, and it turns out that the oncoming herd was the reason for it.

When I came back downstairs, I came face to face with Lori. "Have you seen Carl?" She asked with a panicked look on her face.

"He's not here, is he?"

"No. He was supposed to be upstairs and-"

"We'll find him." Despite the fact that she was about to put the beat down on me just moments before because I killed Shane, I was more than willing to set aside some issues for the kid.

"How bad is it lookin?" I asked Daryl when I came back outside.

He shook his head, "I got the number, it's no use."

"You can go if you want." Uncle Hershel said to the redneck while loading a shotgun.

"You gonna take 'em all on?"

"We have guns." Uncle Hershel cocked the gun into place. "We have cars."

I placed my handgun in my waistband before taking a shotgun from Maggie. "We kill as many as we can, then we either lead the rest off or call it the Georgian Alamo."

Everybody except Lori, Carol, Patricia, and Beth sped off the porch towards the cars. I followed Maggie and Glenn to theirs, not wanting to take my eyes off another cousin of mine.

"Mags..." The words I thought about saying died on my tongue when I saw the look of fear in her eyes. A look that I never wanted her or Beth to ever have. Deciding that there were no right words for what was happening, I settled for placing one of my many knives in her hand. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do and be safe. The both of y'all."

With one last glance at the lovebirds, I made sure that Maggie was buckled in and slammed the door shut. I turned on my heels and ran to where I last saw Jimmy and the RV - which was at the old raccoon barn.

The barn was up in flames by the time I reached the fence that led to it. All the ammo from the shotgun had been used up, leaving me with the minimal ammo that I had for my handgun and my machete. The last thing I saw before I was surrounded by walkers was Rick and Carl jumping onto the roof of the RV. As much as I wanted to run toward them to help, the dozens of walkers that blocked my path kept me from doing so.

A/N:

I hope y'all are enjoying reading Bones so far! It's been so fun to write and it's definitely been a new and different take on my writing abilities. Please leave a review and tell me what y'all think!

My co-author, Salem, has a message to share with y'all as well. She has a hard time with saying how she feels as she would much rather show them. So even though her message might not make sense to many, the few who truly understand the language of cats will know:

45555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555

''''''''''''}