Didn't See That Coming | The Walking Dead(1)

Prologue 3 (A Death and a Welcome)

CJ didn't dare to open her eyes and she felt her right arm shake from the aftereffects of the recoil from the shot. 

He was gone.

With her glassy eyes still clamped shut, her grip on the gun loosened, and the weapon dropped to the floor. She felt her knees give out and she let out a loud, pained cry, aggravating the growls of the dead behind her even more. 

She was alone.

Tony was dead. She was alone without her home. And it was all because of them. The dead.

CJ forced her sobs back, a physically painful action. She had finally let the prisoners out, only to lock them up again. She still held her eyes shut as she turned on her heels to face the doors.

Her pale face relaxed, becoming almost emotionless. The hot tears on her cheeks dried up as she took a deep breath. In.... and out.

She opened her eyes, and as if the two actions where somehow connected, the walkers finally manged to break down the barricade. The mixture of metal and wooden furniture collapsed over one another, creating loud creaks and crashes to echo through the room. The groans became loader, and CJ was finally able to put faces to the unholy noises.

She unsheathed her knives from her sides and began to slowly walk towards the herd ahead of her.

As though her body were on autopilot, she fought her way through the few walkers that had made it through the gap in the doors. Keeping quiet enough that the rest of the dead stayed outside.

She stepped outside with the same emotionless, empty expression on her face as she looked around and estimated about forty dead ones, all with their vacant eyes on her.

CJ made eye contact with the first poor soul that came over to attack. She kept her gaze as she quickly and harshly brought up the knife in her left hand and drove it into the temple of the corpse. Yanking back the blade, the walker dropped to the ground as if in slow motion.

Hearing growls from a second dead behind her, she dropped to the ground in a crouch and swung her right leg around, knocking the dead woman down before stabbing her second knife through its forehead.

Then the rest came. But the lonely, angry, heartbroken woman did not give up or give in. She would not let herself fall.

A blur of grunts, growls, kicks and throws proceeded. The blood from Tony's bite was buried by multiple layers of the thick, old blood from these dead strangers.

Any doubts she once had about the walkers still being people were pushed to the back of her mind and buried away. She did not give a shit about them or who they once were. These bastards killed her brother.

One more.

The final walker was approaching her from a bit of a distance. This gave the 33-year-old a chance to breath. To take a break. The realise how tired she was...

She was exhausted.

The anger and adrenaline from before dissipated dramatically and her head began to pound. Her vision was blurry, her hearing became muffled, and her body began to sway on the spot.

But the walker was still coming.

Her small body begged her for rest, and CJ's eyes began to flicker shut, despite her best efforts to fight against it.

Suddenly, the walker was right in front of her, reaching out to grab her. She felt herself being pushed to the concrete ground. She was lying on her back holding back the geek by its shoulders at it tried to reach for her face, growling loudly in the process.