The Walking Maze

three

~

Shay

I stare into the muddy brown eyes of the blonde teenage boy and point the knife at him as my hand drifts down to the gun on my belt. It isn't loaded, but he doesn't need to know that. "How many of you are there?" I ask, grabbing it and aiming it at his chest. My voice sounds a little more panicky than I wanted it to, but I manage to keep a stern face.

"There's only three of us, including me," he says calmly, a British accent weaved into his voice. Wow, I think. Haven't heard one of those in a while.

"Guys or girls?" I ask.

"We're all guys."

"Weapons?" I ask, hooking my knife back on my belt and closing both hands around the handle of the gun.

"I don't have any on me," he says, looking me in the eye. I raise an eyebrow challengingly and he rolls his eyes and raises his hands up.

I saw the hilt of the knife sticking out of his boot before I even asked the question. I step directly in front of him, us being only a few inches apart. I shoot him an annoyed look and sense him tensing up as I kneel down and pull the knife out of his boot. I stand back up and stick it in my back pocket. "Did you really expect me to believe that you went outside after all that racket without something to defend yourself?"

"Well," he says sheepishly, running a hand through his hair, "I was hoping."

"C'mon Blondie," I say and walk behind him. I hold the cold gun to the back of head and nudge him forward. "We're going inside."

~

Charlotte

Glenn, Maggie, and I step into the house, leaving Shay on the porch. I take a deep breath, but it doesn't smell like death in the air, surprisingly. I do smell a warm and happy scent, but that can't be right . . .

I stop in my tracks and sniff again. The smell is still here. "Does anyone else smell-"

"Cinnamon?" Glenn finishes my question. "Yeah."

"I smell it too." Maggie says, southern drawl really prominent. Her hand floats towards the gun in her belt as she walks into the kitchen. I follow close behind her, Glenn bringing up the rear, gun out and pointed.

No one is in the kitchen, but the smell idcoming from the oven, which was working. It looks like cookies are baking.

"This doesn't make any sense." I say, holding the bar on the oven.

"Hello!?" Someone shouts from the next room. We all take our guns and raise them at the people that run in suddenly.

There are two teenagers that look a bit older than I am. One boy is Asian with really surprisingly amazing hair and the other boy is okay looking and really confused.

The Asian one raises his hands up and nudges the other boy to do the same. "Whoa whoa whoa, take it easy." He says.

"Who are you people?" The confused one says. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm Glenn," Glenn says. "This is Maggie, and that's Charlotte." He points at each of us in turn. "We're on a supply run. We're really sorry, we didn't know someone was holed up here."

"We didn't know there were other people out there." Someone with a British accent says from behind us. Everyone turns around to see who the new voice is. A blonde kid walks in with Shay pointing a gun behind him.

"Well isn't this fun." I mumbles. The okay looking always confused kid laughs.

"There are lots of other people," I say, "And maybe you could meet some, if you can answer a few questions. And- of course- if you wanna come."

Shay scoffs. "You can't be serious," she says, but I shush her and turn to face the Asian one again.

"Uh, sure." The Asian one shrugs.

Glenn and Maggie haven't said anything. I rarely talk this much on runs, and they don't know what would happen if they tried to stop me. Nothing, of course, but they don't know that.

"I'm going to ask all three of you the same questions and answer them honestly. Asian, you answer first. Then Always Confused Kid, then Big Ben. Got it?"

Everyone nods, either startled by my approach or offended by my nicknames.

"Okay, let's get started." I walk over to the counter in the kitchen and gesture the newcomers to sit in the three island chairs. They do.

"How many walkers have you killed?" I say calmly.

Always Confused Kid starts talking. "I'm guessing you mean those things-"

"It's not your turn." I say sternly. I turn my head away from him and lean across the counter to glare at Asian. "Go right ahead."

Asian shrugs. "Too many to count, for all of us." The other two nod their heads in agreement.

"Alright . . . " I look down and pause for a moment before continuing. "How many people have you killed?"

As soon as the words leave my lips, the air suddenly gets thicker and all three boys look extremely uncomfortable. Asian and Always Confused Kid slowly turn to Big Ben in the middle, who looks down sadly. I raise an eyebrow. "Well?"

"One." Big Ben says somberly, almost as soon as I said well.

"Why?" I counter. We're talking like rapid fire.

"Because he asked me to." Big Ben doesn't say a thing about it after that, and neither do I. A thick silence wells around us, slowly moving, like molasses.

I noticed that Shay quickly averted her gaze and stared down at the floor, but I didn't understand why and I never thought I would understand.

I swivel around. "I say they're good to go." Glenn nods.

"Alright boys. We're gonna take you to your new home now." I say, starting towards the door.

"Wait." Maggie blurts. I turn around. "Can we stay for the cookies?"

Shay scoffs. Glenn laughs. The boys just look confused.

"What? When was the last time you had a chocolate chip cookie?" A timer goes off and Maggie rummages through a few drawers until she finds oven mitts to take the cookies out. None of us complain as we sit around the dining room table eating our cookies in silence. Shay has that look of distrust in her eyes, so she refused the cookies and stood with her arms crossed in the corner of the room, watching everyone closely.

She's actually the one to break the silence. "I already know his name, but who the hell are you guys?" She tilts her head in Big Ben's direction.

"Well," Big Ben starts, "I'm Newt, but you already know that. Asian is my good friend Minho and Always Confused Kid is my other good friend Thomas."

"Thominewt." Always Confused Kid mutters under his breath. He's on my right and at the corner of the table so no one else hears him but me. I can't hold in my laugh but I stop almost as soon as I started. Glenn and Always Confused Kid raise an eyebrow at me.

All of a sudden, Shay dashes out of her corner in a flash and at the window. She opens it and sticks her head out, then quickly comes back inside.

"What's wrong Shay?" Glenn asks anxiously.

"Walkers." Her are were wide. "A shit ton of them."

~~~

Ayyye it's Brenda and I just wanted to say that in case you didn't notice...

Charlotte is played by Sabrina Carpenter and Shay is played by Marie Avgeropoulus (Octavia from the 100)