Finding Sophia (The Walking Dead Fanfiction)

Five: Treehouse

The end of the world didn't mean the end of owning things. I owned my machete, my car, my hatchet, my guns, my clothes, my houses, and of course, my name. No living person would take these from me, and a group of geeks would have to overrun my houses to take that away from me.

I try to use my car as little as possible. Not only does it make noise, but I like to conserve fuel as much as possible, because I don't think people are just gonna come back and dig for oil. I sure as hell don't know how to.

So Sophia and I walked to my next house. I only have three, the ones I've raided and really liked. The first was my house, the one I was in when I found Sophia. The second was this little cottage in the middle of nowhere I found toward the beginning, where there were no geeks. That house saved my life. And then, there was a treehouse.

It wasn't very big, maybe large enough for three adults to fit in, but I was always small for my age, and me and Sophia could fit there comfortably. It's been my goal for months to clear out the house the treehouse belongs to, but every time I open that goddamned door, there always seems to be another one.

That was the practice I was going to give Sophia. She and I were going to clear that house, and ultimately raid it and move in, at least for the night. There weren't too many, I don't think, but enough that I couldn't do it on my own.

"Where are we going?" She asks me as we walk down the street to the new town.

"Not too much farther now."

"But where?" She pushes, trying to get me to spoil the surprise.

I smile, "You'll have to guess for yourself, chipmunk." She pouts and I laugh.

"At least give me a hint." She asks.

I think about it a moment, "Okay, it's another house, and we can live in it, but it doesn't live on the ground." She furrows her eyebrows at my riddle and I laugh, looking at the sidewalk ahead.

"That doesn't make any sense, Andie."

"Just wait until we get there. It's only a few blocks now."

She smiles and we both keep walking. She has a pistol on her belt and a knife in hand. I have my pistol in my left hand and my hatchet in the other. If you hadn't seen us before you heard us, you'd expect we were just taking a casual stroll down the road. Then you'd see we were packing more heat than we should've been able to.

"Were you ever married?" She asked me.

The question hits me like a pile of bricks, and I lose my breath for just a moment. "No." I answer, my voice laced with venom. I didn't want to scare Sophia off, about the things I did, the things I had to do after I left, even the things I did before the world fell to shit. So I prayed silently she wouldn't press on.

"Why not?" She asks, looking at the knife in her hand.

"I never found the right guy, I guess." Before she can respond, I tell her, "I had a boyfriend when it all went down. He and I split up about four months ago and I've been on my own since."

"Were you afraid?" She asks.

"No...not so much afraid as nervous. And he didn't really propose, so..." I shrug. She stays silent, and finally, we stop, "We're here." I explain. Instead of leading her inside, I brought her around back to the treehouse.

"A treehouse?" She asks. "Oh." She drags the 'oh' out, hinting she finally understood the riddle.

I smile and climb up the ladder. "I've been wanting to clear that house for months. There's a few inside, so we'll clear that tomorrow morning. We'll stay up in the treehouse tonight, and this neighborhood will be ours." She's only killed one geek, and that was on the way over here, and it was just a crawler. But, I really think she's ready. In the short time we've been together, she knows how to use both knives and guns. We don't really have time for much else, unless you count hunting and scavenging.

"What happens when we find my mom?" She asks as I pull her up to the balcony of the treehouse.

"I don't know." I answer honestly. "You get to see your mom." I didn't want to tell her that when we found her group, I would probably be out of the picture. They lost Sophia, not me. But I couldn't tell her that. Not now, at least. "It's gonna be getting cold soon." I tell her, looking up at the dreary grey sky. I sigh. I really hate the cold.

Sophia gasps, and I turn around quickly, thinking the worst, and she simply asks, "Did you do this?"

The inside of the treehouse is covered with murals, things I did at night when there was nothing left to do except curl into a ball and wish for another nightmare filled-sleep. I figured chalk drawings would be not as bad. On one wall, there was the Bourbon Street sign, just because I've always wanted to visit New Orleans. Then there's something way more gruesome. On the far wall, there's the 'hanging tree'. A little girl is watching on, clutching onto a little teddy bear. Then, the third wall was the last, a green sign reading 'Welcome to Hell'. The first two words were written normally with white lettering, but 'Hell' was written in orange letters, with fire emitting from them.

"Yeah." I muttered, looking at all of them. I smile softly, looking at the small bag of art supplies in the corner. No ones touched it. No ones raided my things. I'm good, at least for now. We're good.

But then I see the piece of paper on the ground. While Sophia was looking at my mural, I picked it up.

She's mine. It read across the whole page. I didn't know if it was for me or for anyone I knew, either me or Sophia, but I didn't know. I only want to keep her alive.

And I was going to by any means necessary.