You Me & the Dead

I snapped my head up just in time to have my face splattered with blood. "Mom, no."

My voice came out in a whisper as the walker ripped out her throat and clawed at her body. I quickly grabbed the butcher knife from the front seat of the SUV and slammed it into the temple of the walker and it released its hold on my now withering mother who fell into her own pool of blood. I placed my hand over her neck wound trying to stop the bleeding, thinking - preying even that the inevitable could be stopped.

"Mommy, no. You can't leave me," I cried. Her eyes rolled up and she stared at me for a long minute. I thought she was already gone and then she spoke once more for the last time.

"Alexandrea, be brave." And then she was gone.

+++

I sat there on the highway for a long time. I didn't know what to do now. I knew people saw what happened; that my mom had been bitten and died and we all knew what came next but I just didn't have that in me. I couldn't.

I started to stare off at a group that was close to where I was sitting and knew they had been watching me. I could even hear them. It was a huge group, ten or twelve, maybe less and it was a mixed age group. I could fit in there easily. As i cast my eyes around them, one in the group caught my stare and stared back, hard.

He was by far the most handsome man I had ever saw and not in the obvious "look at me" way. He was country, rough, hard... And coming my way, what?

I shook my head to clear myself of my thoughts about this stranger as he and another man walked towards me. When they were within five feet they introduced themselves. The other man, he had a graying beard, introduced them,
"My name is Rick and this is Daryl."

I stood up wanting to be eye to eye with the both of them and shook their hands. As my fingertips touched Daryl's I felt a shock and we both jerked back and he mumbled an apology.

"My name's Alexandrea but please call me Lexi,"

Rick nodded to this and I assumed from this whole interaction that he was the leader of their group and Daryl was the muscle, "Lexi, we saw what happened with your mother and we're sorry about it but you know what has to happen next but we'd like to invite you to join our group if you would be interested."

I thought about his offer of joining their group. It looked nice and Daryl certainly did too. I shook myself on that thought. I looked back down to my mom's body and sighed, "Okay."

I grabbed my backpack filled with food and two guns and my knife and walked ahead of Rick and Daryl towards the group knowing that if I turned back around I wouldn't be able to keep moving.