Surviving the End of the World (The Walking Dead fic)

Chapter 1: Atlanta Has Fallen

"We need to hurry up, before the refugee center gets too packed," mom says as she shoves M.R.E's on top of canned food. I shove my way out the front door with our suitcases of clothes, my dad putting our large bag of guns into the back seat of his beat up red truck. It's the middle of the day, and the Georgia sun is hammering the heat.

I throw the suitcases in the back of the truck, the last few that we needed to pack. Dad closes the door to the back and helps me with the tarp, covering the bed of the truck. He sighs as he finishes bungee chording the tarp, "I still think it's a mistake going. Atlanta will be the first to go, and it'll be the most dangerous."

"Tell that to your heart condition," mom scolds as she walks towards the truck, struggling to carry the bags of food. I jog to her side and take the heaviest of the few, "Go ahead and set this in the cab, on the floor."

"You know how to deal with that stuff, we can just ransack a hospital and be fine," dad huffs.

"Dad!" I give him an aghast look. He raises his arms, "What?!"

"People are still in the hospitals, it's not like they're just abandoning them!" I slam the rear passenger door.

"You watch it! Look, if Atlanta is supposed to be a refugee center, they'll be flying patients there as their first priority. That means that hospitals will be empty, and we can take whatever is left."

I pinch the bridge of my nose, "It's still not the right thing to do, they need that stuff."

"We can talk about it on the drive, get in the truck!" Mom orders, tired of the argument. My dad scratches his half-bald head, but listens to mom. I do the same, and we both hop into the truck.

"Crazy how we've been wanting to do a road trip and this is it," I joke cynically. Mom gives me a hard tap on my knee before reaching into the seat behind her to grab the stacks of maps we have.

"It'll take us like an hour to get there," dad says as he starts the ignition and puts the truck in reverse, backing out of our long driveway. The tree cover over it was always my favorite. The sun speckles through the leaves, making the house as welcoming as it good be. I won't know how long it will be until we see this again.

Pulling out of the woodsy property, we start our trek on to the highway, towards Atlanta.

~•~•~•~•~•

"You can't tell me this is the line for the refugee center," dad says as we slow down as we reach a stopped, long line of cars on the interstate. It's starting to become sundown and the city has yet to be seen.

"I'm sure they're just being thorough on the people coming in, it probably won't be that long," mom tries to comfort.

"Mom, this line is miles long. Something feels wrong," I say as I lean forward to see the scene better.

Mom runs her frail fingers through her greying, short, curly hair, "Lauren, sweetie, can you hop out and ask about what's going on? We'll listen to the radio to figure out."

"I could use a stretch anyway," I push open the door and step out, arching my back to stretch it out. My legs cramp from being stuck in a tiny back seat for a while. I take a look around. The line doesn't seem to be moving at all. People begin to get out of their vehicles as well. Two different families come out of the cars right in front of us. The first family to come out is an annoyed, retired military looking man with his fragile looking wife with short gray hair, and a little girl with blonde hair in a bob. The other family is younger looking, the dad having short, curly black hair, and the mom is tall and lanky with black, frizzy hair falling to her lower back. Her son stays close to her, his black hair covering his forehead.