I brushed a flick of hair behind my ear as I approached the door. There's always a small moment between my hand reaching it and opening it that scares me, the not knowing if there's a walker behind it and this could be my last few seconds. But what if there's food and medicine in there...see I always way up the pros and cons. I steadily pulled the handle back and brought my left hand up to my chest with the tip of my knife facing infront of me. I smoothly side stepped to the counter and pushed the metal lever on the tin bell, a tiny ring could be heard as it echoed around the refrigerators and through the aisles. Nothing, clear this time. I started a slow walk down the end of the rows looking down each one to scan the contents, I eventually stopped at the second to last and laid my eyes upon the few boxes of painkillers and antibiotics they had. Without hesitation I shoved them deep into a pocket of my bag and kept on searching. Within a few minutes I'd found 5 water bottles all sealed, three tins of beans and spaggetios and a tiny pack of matches. Not a bad find, I'd definitely had worse.
An hour later, I sat out front on the small ledge of a pavement digging into a tin of beans, they were cold but honestly in the apocalypse there's no time to be picky. I watched the horizon dip beneath the corn field opposite the gas station, only a small trail of blood red stained the sky. I sat peacefully, occasionally thinking about things that would've been different but I tried hard not to do that. I was so deep in thought I didn't realise the stranger oncoming from behind, before I could turn to face whom it was a sharp click came from the handgun embedded in his palm, I felt the barrel push into my hair but before I could speak a gravely southern accent flowed from his mouth, 'who are you?' he calmly asked. I placed down the tin of beans beside my bag and raised my hands beside my head, 'my names Maddie. Who are you?' I said it lightly back, I could tell he didn't want to say, it was a force of habit keeping yourself hidden in the apocalypse not from the dead but from others who might want you dead. 'how many people you killed?' he carried on. But from some reason that question rang an extremely large bell in my head, I took a breathe before realising where I knew it from. 'Daryl?' I said under my breath, 'what'd you say?' he sounded frustrated expecting me to answer his original question.
'Daryl Dixon' I said wide eyed, he kept extremely quiet and steadily tightened his grip on the gun.
'who's asking?' he said it through gritted teeth as I tried to think of a way to make him recognise me.
'erm, Maddie... You know from.. Well ages ago, I knew Rick and Lori and Carl... And er who else.. Maggie, Hershel... And Glenn! I knew them' I frantically said hoping he wasn't readying himself to pull the trigger. Instead he pulled the barrel away from my head, I turned slowly as I got up and looked at the scarred face that I once knew. His hair was so long, and his eyes were full of pain but before I could ask him anything he pulled me into a hug as tight as I'd ever felt.
'you look different' he said as he pulled away, 'well I turned 17 a month ago. It's been a while since I saw you' I looked as his worn cheeks as he spoke up, 'we all thought you was dead. Shane... He said you died. But you're okay?' he picked up my bag and started walking to the pumps of the station, 'I'm okay, how's everyone else? And where you taking my stuff?' he sighed and clipped it onto his bike, 'I'll talk to you about that later, for now you're coming back with me we found a place. It's real nice' I watched as he sat on his bike, I debated whether to go or not. I sat myself on the back of the bike and wrapped my arms around his chest and leant on his back as he pulled the throttle and drove us to this new place they'd found.