All of Us (The Walking Dead)

Chapter 1

I pounded my fist against the glass doors of the convenience store, waiting for the telltale sounds to indicate that the interior was overrun by the dead. I waited for a few moments, but when there was no movement, I slowly turned the handle on the door until it clicked and the door inched open. I cautiously opened the door and stepped inside.

I looked down the aisles, seeing that most of the contents had been picked over by now. Figures. I hadn't been expecting the shelves to be stocked; after all this time, I couldn't be picky. But I was hoping for something. 

I walked down the aisles, my footsteps echoing in the silence. I looked around in the dark store, only a bit of light coming through the dingy glass windows after years of being untouched, and picked through what was left. There wasn't much here, unless you knew where to look.

When I made it to the end of the aisle, I got down onto my hands and knees and peeked under the bottom shelf, finding a few forgotten food items stuck between it and the floor that had been lost.

"Hah!" I said out loud, excited to see what I found. I reached in and pulled out a couple of cans, a granola bar, and a bottle of water. Not bad.

I had just finished stuffing them into my backpack and zipping it up when I heard muffled voices outside the store. I froze, hoping the people would pass by the store I was in, but when the voices started to get louder, I realized I needed to hide.

I swung my head back and forth, looking around me for a place to hide. Staying on my hands and knees, I grabbed my backpack and shuffled backwards towards the checkout counter. I crawled around behind it and scooted as close as I could against the counter to hide myself.

I stopped moving, trying to bring my breathing under control. My heart jumped when someone banged loudly on the door to the store I was in, probably checking for biters like I had. Any hope I had had of them passing by vanished.

The door slowly creaked open as I heard the people whispering back and forth to each other.

"Come on, let's check it out," one of them whispered. A man.

I froze in place, praying that I would go unnoticed. I opened my mouth and calmly breathed in and out, so slowly that even I couldn't hear myself breath. The only thing that I could hear was the sound of my heart beating wildly. While I knew logically that they wouldn't hear that, I was so scared that I became worried they would hear it pounding against my chest.

When all of this started and the world turned to shit, the biters were really the only threat. It was the living against the dead. But now... the living were sometimes just as much, if not more, of a threat than the dead. With the biters, you knew what to expect. But the living? This world had turned good people bad and had brought out the worst among some of them. Maybe these people were good, but it wasn't a chance I was willing to take. I had been in my share of groups over the years, and I had seen more bad groups of people out there than I could count on one hand. I had seen what the people in this world did... I had lost my friends, good people, to those bad people. I wasn't going to let what happened to them happen to me. Even if these were decent people, I didn't want to be in a group anymore. I didn't want to lose more people that I cared about. I was better on my own; I'd survived this long, hadn't I?

I could hear the people walking down the aisles, picking through what was left. I could hear at least two people, maybe three.

"Hey," a man called out to one of them. "Check behind the cash to see if they have a first aid kit."

No. I looked around quickly, trying to see if there was any place to run to, to hide, but there was no way out. Unfortunately, there was a wall behind the checkout counter, instead of a door to another room like I wished there was. All I could do was flatten myself against the counter more, even though I knew it was useless. There was no way he wouldn't see me.

I heard someone get closer to where I was and knew that I was in trouble. I grabbed one of my knives from where it was tucked away in my jeans and held it up, getting ready. The man suddenly rounded the corner and jumped when he saw me.

"Put the knife down!" he yelled as he quickly raised his gun and pointed it at me.