Fight or Flight

Janie was running through the woods again; all the trees were pressing in on her, getting closer together and making it harder for her to advance. She could hear the walkers groaning and stumbling after her. She reached down to grab the tire iron from her hip to prepare herself for the eventual fight that was to come, but it wasn’t there.

“Janie…”

She whipped her head around to where the voice came from; Jake burst through the trees, gun in hand, and fell in step behind her.

Keep going, a voice inside her kept saying. Keep running.

“Janie.”

Suddenly, up ahead she could see a clearing. She saw two familiar figures standing there; arms open, waiting for her…

“Janie.”

It’s them! she thought and her heart leapt with joy. As she drew closer, their features became clearer: dirty blonde hair fell in one’s freckled face, the other had died his brown, like their eyes…

Taylor, Andrew, I’m coming.

She saw the smiles on her brother’s faces as she threw herself into their arms and they embraced her as she took a second to let it sink in that they were there, that they were alive.

She pulled back to look at them again. Their faces had changed; their brown eyes were glazed over and bloodshot; the skin on Andrew’s cheek was missing, leaving behind a mess of gore and teeth; Taylor’s mouth was open and slobbering. They tore into her, ripping her flesh from her arms. She screamed, looking around for help; Jake was coming up behind her, staggering with broken fingers stretched out towards her, which wrapped themselves around her throat and he –

“Janie!”



Janie jerked awake. Looking around, she saw she was in her tent; the sun was streaming through the mesh window, Jake’s bedding was rolled up on the opposite side of her, and her own bedding was strewn about and tangled in her legs.

“Are you okay?”

She looked up to see Jake standing over her.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Janie said “just a bad dream.”

Janie watched as her brother’s face adopted a look of concern; she found it strange how much the dynamics of their relationship had changed over the last weeks. Before, it had always been Janie watching over Jake and acting worried. Now, however, she could tell that he was looking after her more than she was for him. She saw how much he was stepping up in the new world they found themselves in; it saddened her.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Janie shook her head as she stood. “No, it was nothing.” That’s a lie. I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin.

“Okay,” Jake said and turned to leave. “I’m heading down to the quarry with Amy to fish some.”

“Alright. Jake,” she called just as he stepped out of the tent.

He poked his head back in. “Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

He rolled his eyes at her. “Duh.”

Janie started rolling up her bedding; the idea was that hopefully it would stay clean as they traversed in and out of the tent. It was how she started every morning now. She was amazed how easily she – and everyone else at camp – had fallen into a routine, especially given the circumstances of the world now. Folding all her bed things into a stack seemed normal now. Janie supposed that was one of the points of the camp: to bring back a sense of normalcy to the chaos.

The original point, of course, was survival. The cop she had met on the highway, Shane, and the people with him had decided to start the camp outside of the city. Janie and Jake had decided to stay with them – partly due to the lack of anywhere else to go. Since then, others from the highway had joined them. Even the Dixon brothers had stayed, but Janie hadn’t spoken to either of them much since the night of the bombing.

Just the briefest thought of that night sent a tremor down Janie’s spine.

Janie followed Daryl back to the truck, practically comatose; the only conscious decision she made was stepping in this man’s footsteps as she walked behind him.

“What happened? What’s going on?”

She looked up. Jake was looking at her with what she now realized was the first worried look he had directed at her.

“They’re dead,” she whispered. “They’re all dead.”



When Janie emerged from the tent she was dressed in denim cutoff shorts and a green tank top. Even though it was still morning, she could tell it was going to be a hot day; just like day before, and the one before that, and before that. The sun’s hateful rays seemed to be the one constant in their world.

“Good morning, Janie,” Carol said as Janie walked up. “I’m sorry, but we just finished cleaning up from breakfast. You could probably –”

“It’s okay, Carol,” Janie assured the woman, “I’m not hungry. Let me help with that.”

Janie took some of the dishes from the overflowing crate Carol was carrying and followed her down to the quarry.

“Is there anything happening today?” Janie asked as they sat by the water.

“Just chores,” Carol said and they began washing dishes.

Chores. Janie was getting restless. The everyday, normal tasks were getting under her skin. Doing laundry and washing dishes hardly seemed important in this world.

“Ahh!”

Janie was brought out of her thoughts by Carol crying out. She was leaning forward slightly, cradling her left side. Janie’s eyes narrowed. She had seen the bruises that covered Carol’s arms – several of the survivors had, but none of them had done anything to stop what was causing them.

After a moment, Carol sat up and reached for the dish she had been washing. Janie just observed her for a moment; her arms were shaky, and her breath was slightly ragged. Janie grabbed a dish and began cleaning it before she spoke.

“Does it hurt to breathe?” she asked in a low voice, trying to keep from being overheard. Carol didn’t answer. “Carol…”

The woman sighed. “Yes,” she whispered, “and it hurts to move; I can’t lift my arm all the way.”

“It sounds like your ribs could be cracked or even broken,” Janie said. “You should let me take a look –”

“No,” Carol said immediately.

“Carol, this could be something serious –”

“What y’all ladies talkin’ about?”

Carol’s eyes widened at the sound of her husband’s voice. “Nothing, Ed,” she assured him before Janie could speak. “I was just telling Janie that she doesn’t need to help me with the dishes; that’s all.”

Ed looked from his wife to Janie. “You heard her,” he said gruffly, “get.”

Janie looked at Carol, who wouldn’t meet her eyes, so Janie stood up. I can’t help you if you won’t let me, she thought; she shot Ed a glare and then walked towards the tree line, away from everyone else, and plopped down on the ground, resting her back against a tree. She sighed and placed her face in her hands with her palms pressed against her eyes and her fingers tangled in her dark hair, which was down and falling over her face.

Janie felt like she was going to lose it. The mundane domestic activities were boring and, more importantly, were not distracting her; she would give anything to be back at the hospital, picking up extra shifts in the emergency room, being in the midst of the hectic order of making snap decisions and saving lives. She would kill for anything to distract her mind, to keep her from thinking of her dead brothers.

“What are ya doin’ all the way over here?”

Janie looked up. Appearing to have just emerged from the woods, Merle and Daryl were standing over to her left. Merle had his rifle, and Daryl had his crossbow slung over one shoulder, along with a few squirrels on a rope; they had been hunting, apparently.

“Let’s go find som’in to eat,” Merle said, clearly not interested in hanging around the troubled girl.

“You go on.”

Merle looked at his brother, surprise clearly etched across his face. Then he smirked. “If ya wanted privacy all ya had to do was ask. But it’s still pretty open right here; ya should probably take her further in the woods ‘fore you start goin’ at –”

“Shut up,” Daryl interrupted Merle’s crude remark. He tossed the line of squirrels at Merle. “Go skin these.”

Merle threw them back. “Gut ‘em yourself,” he sneered and then walked off.

Daryl looked back down at Janie, who still hadn’t said anything and was just looking at her hands in her lap; he watched as she absentmindedly traced the fingertips of her left hand with a finger from her right. Daryl hadn’t actually spoken to her since the night they got to Atlanta, and she hadn’t been in a very reachable state that night. It seemed to him like she was in that same state again; lost in her head and unresponsive.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

“Don’ seem like it.”

She looked up at him then, her eyes slightly narrowed, angrily. “What would you know?” she hissed.

Daryl stepped back and then his eyes narrowed, too, and became cold. “Apparently nothin’. Ain’t gonna help if you’re gonna bite my head off.” He started to walk away.

A flash of regret went through Janie. “Daryl, wait,” she said and got to her feet as he turned back around. “I just,” she started and looked up at him with her green eyes which were wide now with what seemed to him like panic. “I… I keep thinking… I –” She looked back down at her hands again, and the rest came out in a whisper. “I need a distraction.”

Daryl looked her over for a moment. Her bright, green eyes were dull and tired. It seemed like something was about to snap inside her. She looked up at him as he approached her, her expression changing to quizzical as he held the strung up squirrels out to her.

“Ever skin a squirrel before?”



“Like that?” Janie asked.

“Yup,” Daryl said as he watched her follow his directions correctly. He had shown her how to skin the first squirrel and she had just done the second one by herself. She grabbed another and began to work on it; there were only three left; it hadn’t been a very successful hunting trip.

“Ain’t girls s’posed to think this is gross?”

Janie rolled her eyes. Daryl could tell that whatever had come over her earlier had passed and she seemed better; she seemed more like the person that he had seen around the camp, helpful and talkative, and there was a spark back in her face.

“I’m a surgeon, remember?” she said. “Blood and guts don’t gross me out.”

“Not even when you see one o’ those things tearin’ into somethin’?” Daryl realized that probably wasn’t the right thing to say as he watched her face fall and she went silent again.

“Don’t you have another knife?” Janie eventually asked. “I thought you were going to teach me how to do this; not make me do all the work.”

Daryl’s mouth almost twitched up into a smile as he watched her grab her third squirrel. He pulled another knife out of his bag and started on a squirrel, skinning it and the last one before she finished hers.

“How did you do that so fast?”

Daryl smirked at her. “Practice.”

Janie rolled her eyes at him. “Show off. What do we do with them now?”

“Cook ‘em.”



The rest of the day passed by, uneventfully. The sun had just started to dip behind the mountain when everyone gathered around the fire for their dinner of squirrel and what little remained of their canned goods.

“We need more supplies,” Shane announced after everyone was done eating and they were just sitting around the fading embers. “Jake, Glenn, you up to making a run into town tomorrow?”

Janie frowned. She didn’t like how Jake had become the group’s errand boy, even if it was an important role to their survival. The thought of Jake in the city where she had lost her other brothers terrified her. He and Glenn, however, seemed to have no qualms about it and agreed.

“What do y’all say to taking a group with you this time?” Shane asked. “That way you can carry more supplies back and maybe we can wait longer before we need to send you guys back in.”

Everyone generally seemed to be in support of the idea, and soon several people were volunteering to go.

“I’ll go,” Janie spoke up.

“Nah, there’s enough goin’ already,” Shane told her. “If any more people went it would just slow them down and put them in more danger.”

Who is he to tell me what I can and can’t do? Janie clenched her jaw but didn’t say anything, but Jake, who was sitting next to her, could tell that she was mad.

“Hey, he didn’t mean anything by it,” Jake started to tell her, quietly. “He’s just trying to look out for the group.”

“Whatever,” she huffed. “I’m going to bed.” She stood and began making her way towards their tent.

She had felt so much better after her afternoon with Daryl; she had felt like their activities that day had actually benefited the group by helping supply them with food. Shane had just dashed that. She felt useless again.

“Whoa, watch it,” a voice said as she collided with someone.

Janie jumped, startled; she had stopped paying attention to where she was going, and in the world they lived in now, especially in the dark, that was not a good habit.

“You should watch where you’re goin’,” the voice, which she now realized belonged to Daryl, reiterated. He noticed the look on her face; she looked distant again, like before. “You okay?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

Daryl was confused, wondering why that mattered. “Goin’ huntin’. Why?”

“Can I go with you?” she asked. “I can’t stand staying around here another day. I need something to do; I need to help.”

Daryl looked into her deep green eyes that kept captivating him each time he looked in them. They were pleading.

“Fine,” he sighed. “But you better be up early, or else I’m leavin’ you.”