Shadows ♠ Carl Grimes

[1]

"Good thing I stayed home sick today," Ashley said with a laugh.

Alex smiled back at his sister. His hand was clamped over mine, as if to make sure I was still there. He was always kind to me, even if it was uncool for him to hang out with a girl my age.

"We need to get my mom," I stated.

"We will. I just need some stuff first, like a gun, knives and most of all more food. Then we'll get your mom from the hospital," Amanda said as she drove, swerving every so often to avoid whatever was outside on the road.

"Why do we need knives?" Ashley asked. No one responded but I kind of knew why. We didn't want to end up like that girl at school, all mangled and bloody. We got all the stuff we needed, then got my mom from the hospital. 

Amanda said her husband wouldn't be going with us. I knew why too. I couldn't tell the two teens, I wasn't even supposed to know.

Amanda's husband, Ashley and my closest friend, Alex's father had killed my dad.

We drove for what felt like hours down the highway, and away from Atlanta. A stone cottage came into view after driving down a dirt road for a good ten minutes.

There was a fence, even a lake to one side of the small clearing.  We were safe, for now.

—♠—

A truck engine blared down the dirt path to the cottage from a distance. Loud music roared along with it. Sounds that I almost never heard anymore.

It was a day like any other spent at the cottage. It seemed like years we had been here, and we never had many problems.

Not like today.

I was sitting at the kitchen table doing the math work mom always made me do.

Ashley was in the living room reading one of her romance novels with her mother, Amanda.

Alex, Ashley's brother was out cutting wood for the fireplace so we could cook supper.

"If things were to get bad Deanna said-" my mother stopped mid sentence, as she noticed the truck too.

I tore my eyes away from my textbook just as the white pickup parked just outside of the fence. It wasn't often we got visitors. Well, living ones.

"Son of a cunt." My mother spat as she stood, setting down her tea.

"Mom. What's going on?" I asked hurriedly.

"Dad!"

Ashley tore out of the living room and out the front door, towards the truck.

"Ashley! Stop! He's not who he was!"  Amanda called after her, and ran out too after grabbing the shotgun from beside the door.

"This is the end." My mother said as she pulled me into a tight hug.

"What are you-" I began.

I watched from over my mother's shoulder.  Behind the blinds on the big bay windows of the kitchen, Ashley dropped to the ground. A bang of gun fire rang in my ears.

Not short after Amanda joined her. The sound of the gun shots were muffled by the walls between me and outside.

Outside, the hell this world had become.

My eyes pricked with tears as I saw the two women laying on the grass. They were probably dead.

A man swung out from the driver's side of the massive truck. He wore a blue ball cap with bold white writing I would never forget. Atlanta PD chief, it was my father's hat.