After the Storm [1]

1 • Glenn Rhee

The sun was hot on her neck as Maevys gave another failed attempted at opening the doors of the convenience store, a cooler of unopened water bottles taunting her from the other side. The frame of the door shook as her fists slammed against the glass frustratedly, pushing her blonde hair out of her face with the back of her hand. She was being reckless, that much was clear as three goons came shuffling towards her, snarling menacingly.

"Oh for fucks sake," she sighs as she unclips the machete from her belt. The first of the three was a woman in a yellow dress, the entire right side of her was face missing, likely having been gnawed off. Maeve brings her machete down over her head, the blade entering and exiting the goons skull in one swift motion before the body hit the ground with a sickening thud.

"Aw sweetheart, bad day?" she taunts the dead man sporting a blood stained tuxedo in her thick southern drawl. It reached for her with a lunge, and being quite taller than the short woman, it was difficult for her to get a good shot at its head. That's what you had to go for, the brain. Maevys spun out of its reach before kicking the back of its leg, bringing the goon to its knees. She used the momentum of her spin to bring the machete around. The top of the dead man's skull slid clean off, dark blood and decay dripping down his face as he slumped the rest of the way to the dirt.

In the moment it took her to turn around, the next goon was on her. It shoved her to the ground, knocking the machete from her hands. Mangled jaws attempt to sink into her flesh as the rotting body collapses on top of her. With one arm Maevys holds the living corpse away from her, and with the other she slips out the knife she kept concealed in her cargo pants. She drives it deep into the goons temple with a shout, showering her chest and neck with sticky brown blood.

"Fuck," she groans as she shoves the heavy body off of her and pushes herself to her feet, looking down at her now ruined t-shirt.

This was how life was now, always fighting to stay alive. She'd been here before, but the stage was different this time. Instead of a uniform and sand she had reanimated corpses and the remaining pieces of civilization to remind her of everything she'd lost.

"That was impressive" a voice calls out and Maeve turns on a dime, quick to pull the small hand gun from the back of her jeans. She stares down the barrel at the scrawny Asian man in the baseball cap. His hands instantly fly into the air, panic on his face.

"Whoa whoa! I'm not trying to hurt you I promise!" He says and she scoffs humorlessly.

"Honey I don't think you could if you tried," she drawls, refusing to lower her gun. "What you want?"

He gulps, keeping his hands raised slightly as he looks her over. "I saw you trying to get into the store, figured you might need some help."

She lowered her arm slightly, keeping her finger on the trigger as she studied him. He didn't seem to have anything but a knife on him, but Maevys didn't trust easily.