Dead Souls

Chapter One

She listened to the wind, the way each thrust of air caused the branches to creak. The way the boards on the house shuttered with abandonment. This is it, she thought. This, right here, was the closest she would ever get to peace. Peace. What does the word mean? To each their own, they might say. But to Meredith Grace Karn, peace was the sound of wind without the attachment of blood curdling screams, the absence of growls that escaped the walking dead, the lack of amunition fired in mid day. She may be alone, she may not know what tomorrow brings, but this is a day of peace.

As Meredith walked the long gravel path leading up to the house, she chanced a glance over her shoulder. Over her shoulder lay a large expanse of grassland. Fields of hay the color of sun kissed skin. This place could easily bring her more days of peace. If only she didn't have a God complex. What about the people who don't know the signs of an infestation? Or the families that have made it this far into a post apocalyptic world? Meredith had been fending off the wicked for three years now. Three years of never knowing if today would be her last. Three years without her parents or her sister. Three years somehow feel like three centuries when you're fighting for your life.

Meredith reaches the wrap around deck of what appears to be an abandoned farm home. One might say it used to be filled with love and laughter, filtering out the windows on a warm summer night. Now, it appears to have been abandoned for a couple of years. Dust covers the inside window frame, paint is peeling in spots along the trim. Gutters are spilling over with debris from the great oak tree placed in the side yard. Yeah, a good couple of years at the very least, Meredith thinks.

Meredith walks up the steps cautiously, aware of every creak, checking for any give or rot that might have found its way into the boards of the deck. Calling out these days is not wise. The Unalive tend to gravitate towards sound. No one knows quite for sure what attracts them. Meredith learned long ago that keeping to herself and minding her own would keep her alive. She couldn't say the same for her parents. Her heart aches at the memory of their faces, warm with love as they sat with one another each night at a dinner table. Each member discussing the happenings of their day.  Suddenly, this feels like a lifetime ago and she can't allow herself to go there. Not now, she thinks. She pushes the memory to the back burner of her mind, and makes a silent promise to revisit it after she settles for the day.

Meredith approaches the door and peaks in the front window to check for any life within. After a few silent minutes of watching, she decides the coast is clear and she can enter.

As she turns the knob and pushes on the door, it gives with a slight creak. Meredith covers her mouth and nose quickly with her arm to avoid coughing profusely from the dust cloud unleashed. After the dust clears like a fog on an early fall morning, Meredith takes in her surroundings. To her right is a living room with a beige couch facing away from the front room window. Lined on the walls are portraits of small children caught in action. A lamp rests in the corner of the room. To her left appears to be a family room containing a piano and other outdated furniture. Straight ahead is a staircase, leading to what she would assume are the bedrooms of the home.

All in all, this home is intact and livable. As long as no unalive have found their way in. There are typically signs of the unalive; rotted corpses being one of them. From what Meredith can see, this place was abandoned with the hope of finding salvation from the doom of the world. She decides to send up a silent prayer to whoever still manages this universe, for the family who inhabited this place once. She prays they found an alternative to being on the run and encountered a refugee camp. Meredith hadn't had any such luck in the last three years of this new world, so she wasn't holding her breath. But up that prayer went nonetheless.

Meredith decides to follow the family room past the dust covered piano to a dining room that happens to host a mirror. Walking up to the mirror, Meredith hardly recognizes herself. After living in a post apocalyptic world for the past three years, appearances tend to not factor into survival. Looking at herself, Meredith admires her long, wavy dirty blonde hair. It nearly flows to her waist now. She had noticed the length weighing down in a pony tail, but hadn't stopped to consider truly how much longer it had grown from the short cut she used to sport. As a 17 year old, Meredith has aged quite a bit since the unalive first made their appearance; both physically and emotionally. 

Glancing back at the stranger in the mirror, Meredith peers at her button nose, broad cheek bones and lush full lips. Her baby blues peer back at her behind thick lashes. She takes a minute to truly look at herself. How? She questions the more she looks. How did she go from a dependent teenager obeying all the rules to a now young woman risking it all to survive? Not that rules truly exist in a world like this one. There's only one rule that continues to stand out in bold- SURVIVE.

Taking a deep breath, Meredith decides to continue her trek throughout the house, keeping her movements slow and thoughtful. She remembers a time when her mother would call her 'flat footed'. Little did her mother know that she would later become rather stealthy. Meredith rounds the corner entering an 80s style kitchen when she stops dead in her tracks. At the far end of the kitchen, is a door with a four square window leading to a patio. What stops Meredith in her tracks, is the door wide open with bloody prints across the window and door handle. One thought; Shit.