Too Cool for You

Real life.

Why the hell would I want to do that? Nicole looked at Karen and the other survivors, who kept stabbing the walkers against the prison fence.

By now she had learned a few things about this place and one was that everybody had to help in some way. Nicole rolled her eyes as Karen gestured for her to come closer. She knew she had to help, but killing walkers was not what she had envisioned helping with.

She had also learned that this was not a dream. Three times she had fallen asleep in this place and three times she had woken up in the same uncomfortable bunk bed and facing the same cold concrete walls.

Nicole tried to stab one of the walkers with the rusty pipe Karen had given her, but only managed to make the pipe get stuck in the dead’s eye socket.

Nicole sighed. Three days down, countless more to go.

“Hey, beautiful.” She heard Tyrese speaking to Karen as he approached them.

“Hey yourself.” Karen smiled at him and handed Nicole her weapon, a cane that had been transformed into a spear.

Tyrese pulled her to the side and they started to talk as Nicole once again tried to kill another walker. She hadn’t intended to overhear their conversation, but once she heard Tyrese speaking about going on a run and not linking to kill the walkers on the fence, Nicole had to step in.

“I hate it too.” She blurted out. The two stopped talking and stared at her. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but hear it. I want to go on a run too. I might not be good with weapons or at killing these things, but I’ll never be if I don’t practice, right?”

Tyrese seemed somewhat unsure about what to say. Karen looked at him and shrugged. “Why not?” He finally spoke and Nicole smiled, handing back the makeshift spear to Karen.

“Be careful out there.” Karen kissed Tyrese and resumed to her place by the fence.

***


Tyrese was loading the Hyundai with supplies for the run when Nicole joined them. A lot of people were going and Nicole wasn’t surprised to see that Sasha, Glenn and Daryl were also going. She had heard many people talking about today’s run and she knew now that they were going back to the place where they had been on the day they found her.

That was another reason why she wanted to go. She wanted to travel that road again, make sure that it was real and that she had really woken up in Georgia without any traces of her old life.

Nicole was fixing her borrowed knife in its sheath when Bob’s voice made her turn around.

“Hey.” His smile was big and his attention mostly towards Sasha. “I'd like to start pulling my weight around here.”

Sasha leaned against the car door. “Bob, it's only been a week.”

“That's a week worth of meals, a roof over my head. Let me earn my keep.” His gaze shifted to Nicole. “Besides, she’s been here for what, three or four days? If she gets to go why can’t why?”

Sasha seemed to think for a while. “You were out on your own when Daryl found you.”

“That's right. And wasn’t she as well?”

“I just want to make sure you know how to play on a team.”

“We ain't gonna do it unless it's easy.” Daryl said as he walked by. “If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t be comin’.” He pointed his head towards Nicole before walking away. She felt the urge to say something in her defense, but she didn’t know what. She’d never experienced indifference from anyone before in her life and now it was clearly getting to her.

***


The trip had been quiet, at least for Nicole. She still felt out of her element, a fish out of water. Her friends from her old life wouldn’t recognize her now. The fun, people person they once knew just stared at the passing landscape without opening her mouth once.

Her old life. Nicole tried to catch a glimpse of her old life as they crossed another road. Was that the one where she had been found? She didn’t know, they all looked the same with nothing but forest surrounding them.

They parked the car in front of a large store that seemed to have been turned into a military outpost a long time ago, as it now looked empty and abandoned.

“Army came in and put these fences up.” Daryl told Bob, who had ended up coming with them. “Made it a place for the people to go. Last week when we spotted this place, there was a bunch of walkers behind this chain-link keeping people out like a bunch of guard dogs.”

Nicole closed the car door and looked around. Apprehension invaded her, as this was the first time she was outside the prison walls. She didn’t know what to expect. Well, actually she did, she knew what kind of dangers existed in this world, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready to face them.

“So they all just left?” Bob asked.

Sasha looked at him. “Give it a listen.”

Everybody stood silent for a second. Music echoed in the distance and Nicole recognized it immediately. It was the same music she’d heard coming from the woods when she had woken up in the middle of nowhere.

“You drew them out.” Michonne spoke.

Sasha nodded. “Put a boom box out there three days ago.”

“Hooked it up to two car batteries.” Glenn added.

“All right, let's make a sweep.” Daryl entered the fenced area through the large opening. “Make sure it's safe. Grab what you can.”

Everyone else followed him expect Nicole. She still looked around, knowing that it was best for her to follow them, but her feet not really wanting to.

She grabbed the hunting knife before crossing the fence. The smell of death leaked from every inch of that place. She was supposed to look inside the tents, search for supplies, but she couldn’t. One look at the body found inside of the first one she’d peeked inside, had made her sick to her stomach. The decaying flesh. The flies around it. The acid smell that impregnated her clothes and left a foul taste in her mouth. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand. Maybe she couldn’t do this.

She followed the others to the store entrance, still trying to hold her breakfast in. Daryl, Zach and Michonne stood by the doors, waiting for the walkers to appear after Daryl had banged on one of the windows. Nicole hoped none were inside.

Zach was once again playing his game of trying to find what Daryl did for a living before the end of the world. Nicole had heard him trying to guess it yesterday, and the day before and it was getting pretty tiring. She already knew what he did. Nothing. It seemed pretty obvious to her, actually, someone who acted like him and talked liked him could only be a nobody.

“What about you?” Zach’s attention shifted to Nicole once he understood he had failed at his guessing game again.

Nicole smiled. She had always felt proud of what she did and of what she aspired to be. “I was an actress.” Her voice oozed confidence.

No one said a word. No one seemed surprised or at least curious. Nicole’s smile dropped. “You know, just like -”

A loud bang against the window, followed by groans, made her jump and stop midsentence. There they were. The dead. Tyrese dragged a body to the store entrance.

She was about to say it, Nicole suddenly realized. She was about to say she was just like them. Actors and actresses.

“All right, we go in, stay in formation for the sweep.” Nicole heard Sasha instruct, but her brain didn’t register much.

She wasn’t like them, because this wasn’t a show anymore. This was real life now.
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Sorry for taking so long to update this. My computer has been acting stupid for the last few days and I couldn't access the file with the chapter and post it. Hope you guys like this. :)