Don't Look Back - A Carl Grimes FanFiction

Chapter 1

Rayne's pov

When mom got home, she went upstairs and got into her comfy clothes. She walked downstairs and started cooking a fawn I had accidentally caught in one of my traps. It wasn't worth selling and skinning, I would only get a couple dollars off of it, so I decided to keep it for us. Mom also made some mashed potatoes to go with it. When it was done, I got some and sat down at the table, getting some milk for mom and I. We ate in silence until I spoke up.

"I caught a deer yesterday, a nice 10 point buck too, I was wondering if we could go and sell it today?"

"Yeah, that sounds good,  how much money do you think you'll get off of it?" She asked enthusiastically.

"It's really good quality so I'm thinking around $100.00"

"That's great! You might get more because of the shortage of deer lately."

"Let's just hope we get $100.00 for it." I let out a short laugh and shoved a forkful of mashed potatoes in my mouth.

She laughed a little, got up and gathered our plates and put them in the sink to wash later. We got our shoes on and I grabbed the meat and fur and headed for town, we couldn't afford a car so we had to walk. 

We reached the farmers market and I set my stuff down on an open stand and waited for people to come make an offer on it. Within two minutes there was a guy, offering me $200.00 for the meat and skin. I gladly accepted and me and my mom were more than happy with the outcome. We started to head home when we heard someone scream and started to run. We shrugged it off as kids playing and went home.

When we reached home. We sat on the couch and turned our little t.v. on and the first thing to come on was the news. I left it there to see what was going on in the world. As usual, you have the freak accidents, the good Samaritans, and the missing kids. I was about to change it when the screen went black, and then rainbow color blocks. The cameras came back on, and the news anchor was there, but the televisions in the back were all turned off. The news anchor kept making uncertain eye contact to the camera and then back at the camera crew, he cleared his voice before shakily saying,

"We were just informed that there was some type of rapid spreading disease in Atlanta. We advise you get out of the town immediately and not come back, the hospitals are not safe. As of right now, Georgia is in a state of emergency." And then the screen kept looping the same message.

Mom and I both looked at each other in stunned silence. 

She took action first and started grabbing duffel bags and shoving clothes and food inside them. I grabbed my jacket, Nike's, hunting knife, Vortex with all of my arrows and we headed out. We had no idea where we were going, we just knew that Atlanta wasn't safe. We didn't even know what the disease did, what to look out for.

We were in the woods, heading South, when I heard a branch snap. We stopped and I loaded my Vortex, unsure of what would protrude in front of us. There was a person walking towards us. I put my bow down, still loaded and walked over to the person. The person moaned and started scratching at me. My mom was behind me, and I figured that was better, because I had the weapons. The person got close to me and tried to bite me. I pushed it away, and it kept coming, making incoherent groans. He stumbled towards me again, and I shoved him away again, what in the world was going on? Is this the disease?

The person started coming at me again, snapping it's jaws, clawing at me. It grabbed me and almost bit me when I shoved the arrow from my bow into its head. I had just murdered someone, and out of pure impulse. But then again, it was trying to murder me, I think.

 I sat there in disbelief, but I quickly shook the feeling off, pulling out my arrow and wiping it off on the person's shirt. We have to keep moving, I don't know where to, but we have to move, there may be more of those things.

We walked for another hour and it was getting dark, those things are still out there and we can't let them get us, we can't build a fire either, it would attract too much unwanted attention.

"Mom, where are we going to sleep?"

"I have no idea. We could sleep in the trees?''

"No, that wouldn't work, one of us would probably roll over and fall." I said, eyeing the tall branches.

"Wait, you climb a tree and look where we are, Beth lives to the South of us, hopefully we're close"

I grabbed the lowest branch of a tree and started climbing. I stuck my head out of the top of the tree and looked around, I saw a big, red barn about three minutes away as the crow flies. We could get there and stay the night. I carefully climbed down the tree and landed on my face, I tripped over the last branch and face-planted.

"Are you ok?"

"Yes mom, there's a barn about three minutes that way. I think it's theirs." I said, pointing in the direction of the barn I saw, I couldn't see if there was a two story white house or not, because if there was, it would be Beth's house, and I know for sure they would let us stay. We started walking towards the house and I spotted another person, I raised my Vortex with an arrow in it and waited to see if the person was a diseased one.

I walked up to it and noticed the milky eyes and the blood-stained clothes, this time I only hesitated once before firing the arrow into the person's skull. I pulled my arrow out, wiped it on the person's shirt and continued on. I saw the barn right in front of us and then noticed a two story white house, we had found Beth's house, it was nothing short of a miracle.

I raced up to the house and started pounding on the door.

"Beth! It's me, Rayne, open up, please!" I said hoping they were still home.

The door opened and Beth was there looking at me like I had gone mad.

"Rayne, what are you doing here? I thought you never came this far to hunt."

"That's not why we're here, have you seen the news?"

"No, we don't have cable, it shut off. What's going on?"

"There's people, but they're not normal, I killed two in the woods. Listen, they tried to bite me, they don't talk, they groan and moan, they can't even walk properly, they stumble and fall. I saw one with no arm, and it didn't even seem like it was in pain, it wasn't bleeding, it only had dried blood on its shirt, they're not people, let us in please." I said almost to the point of tears. Just this morning the world was safe, and in the matter of twelve hours, everything has went wrong.