Right, so because I'm new to this whole publish thing, I'm going to state a couple of facts. 1.) This is annoying, but it needs to be done.
2.) I don't own anything familiar, AMC does. And the people who actually wrote the comic, Robert Kirkman , Toby Moore and Charlie Adlard. (Though I have taken slight creative license with Merle)
3.) Thank you to xMissDarylDixon, my darling, darling friend; for editing, and keeping me straight with the characters. And thank you for the Cover Image! You're a doll!
AND
4.) This is my very first post. Please be gentle, but do tell me what you think. Welcome all feedback.
ENJOY
I wake with a frustrated groan; eyes flickering open as the suffocating heat gets to me. There's no hum of the fan, which is odd, and the sheet is sticking to my body. I kick it off sluggishly and look around for a better understanding of what's going on.
It's not my room. There are car seats, a dashboard and a steering wheel. I blink, hoping it's the fading image of a dream. But no, it doesn't disappear. It's the inside of a van.
What the hell!
The panic starts. Blood rushing through my ears, heart pounding and hot flushes mixed with cold sweats fall at once.
It's the shifting of a body next to me that catches my attention and gives me reason to force my anxiety down enough to focus. Despite the situation, and not having any expectations, I'm dumbstruck to see Daryl.
My best friend who should be in AUSTRALIA!
Panic rises again; and it's not so easy to push away this time, but I do, in hope of taking in my surroundings. The van is bare except for the ratty mattress we're on, and the sheet. There might be stuff under the seats, but I'm blind without my glasses. Searching the area my glasses are found and I shove them onto my face.
The sunlight streams into the only two windows, which are at the front. There are double doors at the back, plus the passenger side and driver side. The windows aren't down, hence the airless heat.
My gaze settles on Daryl again, taking in her pale, oval face. It really has been too long since I've seen my best friend. To be nice, I gently prod her bare arm. She murmurs sleepily and rolls over, facing away from me, and softly moans, "Oh, Norman." Then she turns back and throws an arm around my leg to cuddle into.
Roughly shoving her, with a sharp call, her eyes flutter open. Her dark eyes are glossed over with sleep, but after a moment or two they come into focus and she tenses when she realises she isn't in her own bed alone. She slowly pulls away from my leg and her eyes travel to my face. A shrill scream erupts as she throws herself away from me.
"Nice to see you too, D."
With no idea how this happened, we choose to ignore it in favour of catching up. It's been ages since we last saw each other, going on a year now. I've missed her. We're so busy chatting and giggling that we don't hear it until it's too late. A deep guttural moan and thunderous pounding against the side of the van.
We pause and stare at the side of the van. It continues and with dawning horror we realise what it is. Instinctively I grab hold of Daryl. There's only one thing that sounds like that, and it's something that we'd never, ever dream of encountering. Forcing myself to let go, I crawl to the passenger window and peer out.
The thing…the walking corpse is grotesque, it's face covered in blood and gore, lips mostly gone. What had once been a head of thick brown hair, is now a threadbare mess, the strands that are left are greasy and matted to the decaying skull. Its rotting flesh hangs off in places and it's obvious where it's been gnawed on.
"Oh GOD!"
I flinch, not realising that Daryl snuck up behind me; we both stare. A sinking sensation starts in the pit of my stomach, which evolves into a bout of nausea. As we continue to gape I don't know if I'm too hot or too cold. I slink back to the mattress, curl up, hug my knees, bury my head into them and cry. Daryl settles next to me, sniffling as well and we sit there, listening to the thuds and groans.
After awhile it stops, though we wait a little longer. "What do we do?" I ask, voice thick with tears.
I can feel her head shake, "I don't know. I really don't know."
"We can't stay here."
"So, we have to leave the van?"
I nod, feeling my throat is closing up.
"It'll get us." Daryl's voice shakes.
"Possibly."
"We kill it?"
Nodding, feeling just as terrified as she sounds, we look towards the front of the van and reluctantly crawl over. The two of us search under the seats, coming up with a water bottle and a crowbar. I take a tentative sip of the water, making a face at the warmth, but chug a bit more before handing it to Daryl. She looks at it warily before drinking the rest, clutching the crowbar in her hand.
"Now what?" I ask, staring at the weapon with fear. It's not the crowbar that scares me, it's what has to be done that does.
"I'll do it."
My eyes find hers, "D…"
"I've got this." She forces a smile, but the tension in her eyes, and her shaking give her away.
"Daryl, no."
"Will you do it?"
I pull back on reflex. "I can't."
"Then I will."
She crawls over the driver's side, quietly opens the door and slips out of view. There's a soft hiss and I follow worriedly. Shame pours through me; nothing could get me to face that…thing. Obviously not even my best friends safety, but she won't be out there alone. Trailing after, the pain of the burning road on my bare feet gives me pause. Ignoring it for now my gaze locks on her as she cautiously pokes her head around the van, gripping the crowbar with white knuckles.
Daryl takes a deep breath, then starts sneaking up on the corpse. I can't believe she's doing this, and neither does she if that face she's making is any indication. It changes though, her lip curls, nose wrinkles and she leans back a little. Oh god! It's turning! Its head twists first then the rest of the body. Daryl pauses and it makes a grab for her, she jerks back but then swiftly slams the crowbar down on its head. Repeatedly. As she shrieks and cries.
Blood splatters onto her clothes and skin, the squishing, squelching sound a horrible thing to listen to. When she stops, she's breathing heavily, her shoulders rising and falling. It doesn't cover up the groaning from behind. I swing around to see two more coming our way.
One's a female child the other possibly her father. They're both skeletal, decaying with obvious gnawed upon areas. The young one, she's limping with a broken ankle, blonde hair dirty, greasy and matted. The male, he seems even worse, no lips, nose chewed off and a torn bloody stump for an arm.
They're close, crossing the broken divider and locked on me. It's the smell that hits me first and hard; worse than that one time I found old rotted meat in the fridge. This is everything rank I've smelt put together and I gag. They aren't running, thank God, but they're still getting closer and I can't move. Paralysed with fear.
"Loz!" Daryl tosses me the crowbar.
I catch it, taking a hard swing at the male, hitting him in the ribs causing him to stumble back and fall. Without delay the hooked end goes into the head of the girl and she drops. Pulling it out, old congealed blood splatters onto my clothes and face. There's no time to be wasted as the other one's getting up; the same hooked end goes right into the eye.
I stagger back and drop to my knees, shaking. The smell, the brain matter and blood is too much and I violently heave. A hand on my shoulder and I'm rolling away, ending in a crouch, gripping the crowbar. Wow, do I feel ridiculous. I slump against the nearest car, willing my heart to stop beating so hard.
"Sorry."
"It's fine." I mumble, taking my glasses off to wipe the blood and sweat from my face. I slip them back on.
She comes to my side, it's probably better if we go back to the van for safety, but my legs are like jelly and my arms heavy. We survey our surroundings, taking in the three corpses we killed, the abandoned cars, trash and debris littering the road.
It's a nightmare this can't be real. How are we going to cope living in a world where the dead try to eat us? I could hardly watch movies about this stuff, but actually living it… I'm not going to survive.
"How…" I croak, mouth dry.
"I, I don't know." Daryl mumbles, leaning her head against the car.
"What do we do?"
"We need food and water, we can't survive without them; especially in this heat."
"Scavenge?"
She nods, and turns to me. "What choice do we have?"
"We should use the van as a base."
"We should start."
I nod, but neither of us moves. In fact, we spend another ten minutes sitting on the ground staring into nothing. My thoughts haven't stopped, though. It seems odd, but the highway looks familiar. I'm not much of an adventurer, so the only place that I would have seen it would be on television and the only show that's about a zombie apocalypse is 'The Walking Dead'.
"You know where we are right?" I ask the brunette, pushing her bare foot with mine.
"Yeah," she smiles somewhat. "Atlanta, Georgia."
"Do you know where the survivors are?"
"You want to go find them?"
"Not yet, we have to acclimatise ourselves. From the looks of it, we're a few months into the end of the world. We try to find them now, there's going to be too many questions we can't answer."
She nods and sighs, pulling herself up. "Come on, the sooner we start the better."
Heaving myself up using the car and looking around, we glance at each other and sigh simultaneously. "Alright, we take this slow and cautiously." I murmur. "No running to cars, no opening them until we're absolutely sure there's nothing that'll pop up and eat us."
"Right." She nods, but then looks at the crowbar in my hand. "Who takes it?"
"Whoever's on look out duty?" I shrug.
"You or me?"
"Rock, Paper, Scissors?"
We hold out our hands, and start moving them accordingly, "Rock."
"Paper."
"Scissors." We say together. I've got my fist clenched in 'rock' and she's holding the symbol for scissors.
"Right," She clears her throat, "so I'll go searching through the cars." Biting her lip and rubbing her hands down the sides of her cotton bottoms, there's no way that she wants to do that.
"Switch?"
"Please!"
I hand over the crowbar then take my time looking into the interior of the car we were leaning against. The back door opens with little force and I reel back due to the heat and smell. God, that stinks.
My search is thorough, leaving nothing unchecked. There's mostly baubles and knick-knacks, nothing of actual use. Climbing out my eyes drift to the trunk. "I'm going to open the back, be prepared for anything."
She nods, and tightens her hold on the crowbar, standing just to the side of the boot. I hit the button by the wheel and watch as it lifts a little. After a few moments of no movement we both cautiously lift it the rest of the way.
"Wow, would you look at that." D whispers as we eye the basket and cooler.
I move the cloth from the basket and open it, making a face at the mouldy bread. We pick through the things we don't want then take the basket. Next we go through the cooler. At least now we have food and liquids for the rest of the day.
The rest of the day is spent doing this. Sometimes we find nothing, other times we find something of use; even if it's just a drawing book we could use in the future. It's not all easy sailing. Though most of the cars are empty, some of them have real dead rotting bodies in them, which is a bitch to search around; they smell and they're gooey. Probably from the heat. We stop and retch, frequently. That's not the worst of it. No, the worst is when there 's a Walker.
When the sun's starting to set we've got a couple of bags and another cooler. There are clothes, a couple of day's worth of food and water, a large hunting knife and a bat. In the van we change into the new clothes and settle in for the night. We drink and eat a little.
Of course it's not until it's dark we both have to go to the toilet. Neither of us have ever, used the forest for a bathroom. After an awkward and nervous laugh we both grab weapons and cautiously slip out of the van. Fortunately for us, there's nothing around at the moment and so we get to do our business in safety.
The next few days are easier and yet harder. The isolation is hard to cope with, apart from our conversations, birds and the Walkers, the silence is deafening. We're both paranoid that any sounds cause us to tense and then spend the next few minutes scouring our surroundings. We do find more provisions and more weapons. D also finds the keys to the van. I don't know why, or how, but it still runs. I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
It ends up taking us over two weeks to adjust. We no longer jump at every sound, although the Walkers are still terrifying and utterly repulsive. We've also stopped gagging and panicking when we see them. Or hear them. We won't cope with a horde after us, but small groups are fine.
D's gotten use to the heat, me, not so much. It's not a huge deal; we're up before the sun, searching cars before it's at its worst. There are a few hours during midday in the van or shade, and the last part is spent going through a few more cars. We both have tans now, D more than I. Tans don't work well with red headed white girls; D at least has some Maori blood in her, even if it's only a little.
By now we're long gone from where we started. If my directions are right, then we've gotten a little closer to the city, not that we'll ever go in. But the cars on the highway should be the most useful. By the time the third week has passed the van's chockfull.
We come across a large green army truck; it's faded and rusted, the two colours melding together. Blood stains the sides, distinguishable handprints and smears; the corner of the back canvas covering is saturated. The smell is not as powerful as it would have been a week or so ago, but there's still a scent of iron in the air.
The worst is the rotten body in the driver's seat; it's a sour, fattening, greasy stench that even now still gets to me. My lip curls, nose wrinkles, and I cover my nose and mouth. The passenger side door is wide open. We sneak towards the back and keep an ear out for any sounds.
It's taken time and experience, but we've come to the conclusion that these things can smell us. It's why I don't mind moving so much, I'm worried that if we stay in one spot too long our scent will carry and bring more.
Slow movements and guttural groans come from the back of the truck. It sounds like there are a couple of them, but I'm not going to be stupid and lift the flap to find out. Much safer if they come to us. We prepare ourselves; D has her bat out and a hunting knife easy to reach, and my crowbars are at the ready.
We watch with bated breath as the shuffling gets closer. The canvas moves as the first Walker stumbles into view. It trips over the edge of the truck and face plants onto the ground. The other four follow suit until they're just a mess of tangled limbs.
We glance at each other, chuckling, and it's easy pickings; it's only a matter of stabbing them in the head. Unfortunately our laughter has caught the attention of others. There's four of them stumbling our way. D takes two and the others are mine. I jam both straight ends of the crowbars into their eyes. She swings the bat at one, knocking it to the ground, and then slams her foot into the stomach of her second sending it sprawling. She takes her knife and stabs them in the head.
"I know we never come across more than we can handle, but I'm so getting the hang of this." D laughs as she wipes the gore off her knife.
"Who would have thought that this could be fun?"
"You just have fun stabbing them."
"Hey!" I pout cleaning my weapons and glasses. "I'll have you know, there have been plenty of people I've wished I could do this to, back home, I'm just imagining that these things are them."
"That's my point." D smirks, folding her arms across her chest.
Blinking at her and shrugging." Oh, well in that case. I'm having lots of fun."
She shakes her head but goes back to the truck, climbing in to search it; while I stand guard. It doesn't take long, and she's back lugging a couple of packs with her. We toss them into the van to be sorted through later and continue on with scavenging.
As we settle in for the night, sorting through our finds of the day I take a sip of water. "I think it's time we went in search of the Survivors."
"Really?" D asks, looking up from her loot and grinning.
"Yeah, I mean, we've got our cover story in case they ask questions, we've adjusted as much as we can, and we don't have to worry about being burdens; considering we've taken care of ourselves for the past three weeks."
"That, or we're Mary-Sues." D smirks as she pulls out some clothes from one of the army packs.
"I hope not." I mutter with a curl of my lip.
"Knowing our luck…"
"With our luck I'm quite astounded we made it this far."
"Loz, don't say that."
"Sorry." I offer an apologetic smile.
When morning comes, instead of getting ready to head out, we laze about chatting and dozing. Once we've eaten, we climb into the front seats and head back the way we came. The van has done exceptionally well with petrol. Granted, in the last few weeks we've had to siphon gas from the other cars, which was not easy. Like, at all!
At about midday we stop for a break, eating lunch in the shade of a tree, weapons ready just in case. It's times like this that it feels like a dream, or an odd picnic vacation. The sky's blue, the birds are chirping and the smell isn't so bad anymore. The only time I really notice anything is when we're facing them, or our head is in the humid, smelly cars.
When night falls we stop and make camp, there's no point continuing. It's hard to see and I won't risk putting the headlights on. We try for an early night, but we both end up lying awake listening to the sounds of outside, until sleep claims us. We never talk, both still apprehensive about making too much noise.
Another lazy morning and after breakfast we carry on. Unfortunately the gaslight comes on. It's always a hit and miss when it comes to getting more petrol and it takes so long that neither of us can be fussed to do it.
I glance from the light to the road. It's not good. If we don't get gas, or get to the Survivors, we'll have to decide what to take and what to ditch. We can't carry it all. To our luck, a white van pulls out of a side road some hundred feet in front of us. As we get closer and slow to a stop, the other does as well. For safety reasons, we don't get too close. D and I glance at each other before slipping out of the van. The guy does as well.