Living Like You're Dead

The streets were teaming with the dead. Adeline looked up at the sky, and pulled her body out from a pile of rubble. She looked around and saw that her fiance Alex, was missing; which was a good thing.

She believed she didn't have much time before the walkers heard the crash of the helicopter or a lot of time until Alex found her. She grabbed a backpack filled it with some supplies and ran.

The zombies in America - they were slow. At least most of them were. In France they had come so close to a cure - however things turned for the worst when the disease infecting everyone realized something could destroy it, so like any disease it changed. This virus had found a way to change itself - make itself stronger so it could live longer.

Hopefully she hadn't brought it here, with Alex.

The woods were thick. Mountains, unlikely to house walkers, but that assumption depended on their food supply near by. The map she had didn't make a whole lot of sense to her; if only she had a GPS to enter in coordinates. She wasn't sure where to go, where to be safe. She decided following the nearest road could benefit her, finding someone - a car something. By nightfall the area where the helicopter crashed would be teaming with dead. The food in her backpack might get her through the night and most of tomorrow, but where would she hide?

Adeline pushed herself through the thick bushes and trees. What weapons did she have? A knife? Well... a BIG knife. Not the best for cracking skulls - but decent.

"Pick up your feet." she said to herself. "jeûneur"" Addie knew she had to find cover before nightfall. Before they were everywhere. Then, she heard it. A twig snapped somewhere maybe twenty yards behind her.

She didn't spin around like all women in horror movies, instead she calmly kept walking.

She slowly lifted her large bowie knife to attempt to see what was following her. Casually she glanced at the reflection.

A walker, that she could handle, Alex she couldn't. But she saw nothing. Which inclined her to think that it was more than likely to be Alex. He would be trying to trap her, lure her, capture her. Addie picked up the pace, she felt watched, stalked.

And sure enough after a few more steps, Alex was in front of her. His bloodshot eyes were glazed over and glassy. However his broad chest and muscular arms were in an agressive position. His fists were clenched, almost as tight as his teeth were. His mouth was stained with blood - no doubt that he had found some animal near by to feed off of, next it would be her.

Turning on her heel, she ran. Feet sprinting away from the monster she once knew, she once loved. She let her adrenaline control her movements. Alex was a big man, he had more weight to run with than her, so she knew she could get away. If she didn't trip.

She leaped over mossy logs, and bounded over boulders nearly half her size. Her agility was great. Someone so petite as her should be able to allude a large creature like Alex.

She came up on a river, deep? Maybe. She saw a branch from a near by tree dangling across the river, she let her feet carry her over a tall boulder and her arms grabbed the branch that spread across the length of the river, she shimmied over the rough bark and landed on the other side of the river with a few scrapes on her hand. She couldn't see Alex, had she lost him?

Then she saw a road. Not many yards away. A caravan of cars. Maybe they could help her navigate this unfamiliar territory to her. She ran down the slope out of the forest. Her boots ripped out some of the soft grass when she slid to a stop. They were passing her - and quickly she ran out into the street, maybe they'd stop.

Of course they didn't.
They thought she was a walker.

And she was hit.
________________________________________________________________________

Adeline Mimieux born and raised in Paris France grew up with her grandfather, although biologically not related, they still considered one another a member of their family. Her grandfathers name was Alderic Moreau and he worked as a genetics physicist in the Center for Disease Control.

That was how her mess came to be. The entire city had been on lock down - streets kept clear by the army. Citizens were shot in random locations, and at random times. Adeline didn't understand until she met her grandfather at the lab that day. The CDC had recruited him and some of his best colleagues and students and given them jobs. Something bad had happened that day in the CDC. Everyone had fled. Windows were smashed. And as she walked into her grandfathers room she felt her heart fall through the floor. She discovered his dead body - torn to shreds.
"Mon grand-père" she whispered. With tear in her eyes she could see what he had meant by saying there are monsters in this world - bad men - and a worthless God.

The files scattered on his desk had visual maps of human bodies - results of tissue samples. Images - horrible images of those who had been infected by the dead, their glazed stare, their yellow leathery skin. And the worst part? The lust in their eyes for the man holding the camera snapping the picture. One of the attempts to cure the disease made the disease simply stronger, and infecting them differently. Like Alex.

She stuffed any important files she could into her bag, and undearneath it all she found a letter, addressed to her. It was attached to a manila envelope and inside was a map - and a photo of a gray house. There was a fence surrounding the property - it looked like a castle. The walls seemed to be made of large brick, a stronghold. This was where she was to go.

Her mind flooded with images of Alex. Her fiance. His family. Her new family. She went home that day to take them with her. Sadly only able to find Alex, after an attack on his home - it left only him. Alderic had the map and they keys to his home that his family had owned for years. A large piece of property - purchased in southern America sometime long before the Civil war. This was the place she was headed - a place with stone walls, and rooms she could fill with supplies and survivors.

When they strapped themselves into a military helicopter they took off. The chopper was filled with enough fuel to carry them across the ocean and enough supplies to help them survive. Alex told her she was silly and reckless for saving him - and trying to fly across the entire ocean to get to a simple house.

And when they were nearly there - Short of a hundred miles - Alex turned to her, eyes filled with the same bloodlust she'd seen in the photos on her grandfathers desk.