Nothing But Dead (The Walking Dead Fanfic) Book 2

Life In Woodbury

As a resident of Woodbury Lucas had access to many things. Air conditioning, running water, plenty of food and even electricity. A normal person would love these things. She didn't care for these objects or these benefits of life as the Governor called them. She would rather be with her friends, if they survived the winter.

The Governor had given Lucas her own apartment. It was a small, one bath, one bedroom and a kitchen and a living room that were combined into one. The items were that of a college student most likely. Living on their own for the first time.

She threw many of the pictures in the trash that were left by the pervious owner. As badly as she wanted to fill the place with her own memories, she couldn't, she didn't have anything. Instead of filling her apartment with pictures or art of some kind. She filled it with books.

Books that she would find when she would sneak out of the gates of Woodbury in the early morning hours of the day. She also looked for her friends on occasions, but couldn't pin point where she was and couldn't find any signs of living life outside the walls of Woodbury, at least for 3 mile radius around the town.

The books that she would find would be ones that she had read before, and books that she wanted to read. It didn't matter to her. She needed something to fill the void that was empty inside her, this seemed to be working.

She poured herself into the pages for long hours during the day. She scoured the books. She read until she was almost cross-eyed and the words merged into nonsense. She lived each page in breathless rapture. The characters leapt out at her. They took her to another world. A world far away from here.

Her bookcase was nearly overflowing. She remembered the winter, when Kenny and a few of his guys brought it up the stairs for her. The bookcase was hewn from a cedar. The shelf had no back, so they had fastened it to the wall and let the wall be the back. It reached all the way to the ceiling and even had a little ladder on coasters and a rail that would slide too and fro to let you reach the top books easily. She was extremely thankful for Kenny and the others that helped.

Her swords were put away, she stored them in the closet. The only thing she kept out was the small dagger. She stored it in her tall black boots, which she only took off to sleep.

The only thing she participated in in the Woodbury community would be the Walker cage fights. She enjoyed watching the best fighters in Woodbury show off their skills and kill Walkers for the fun of it in front of a crowd of people. The crowd would hoot and holler as the skulls of Walkers were literally in some cases, bashed together.

Other than the cage fights, Lucas rarely traveled outside, she never had too. On multiple occasions when she did travel out of her apartment she would be mistaken for a new person. She didn't care and she went along with it. Sometimes Clayton would come along and he would have a bad of food with him to give to her. Then she wouldn't have to go out for an entire week. He would try to get her out of the apartment just to come and hang out, but she rarely did.

Deanna came over every week to check on her. They would have lunch, chat about different things that happened during the week. When Deanna would bring up the topic of the others, Lucas stayed oddly quiet as if trying to forget them. As if they never existed.

She closed her book as she heard a knock on her door. "Who is it?" She shouted not getting up from her couch.

"It's Clayton." The voice on the other side of the door answered.

"It's unlocked." She gave him permission to enter her apartment. 

Clayton came in and closed the door as he walked over to her window and looked out of it. "You coming to the fight later?"

"Probably, do you know whose fighting?"

"Merle I believe." He said walking over to her. "Kenny too, he'll be first."

Merle, the man that murdered Connor. Lucas never forgot what he did. She smiled as Clayton told her who was fighting. She smiled at the fact of watching him be torn apart by Walkers on chains. He deserved it.

"I saw you the other morning." Clayton began to talk taking her concentration off of Merle. "I saw you climbing over the fence." He wasn't sure what to say.

"You haven't told anyone, have you?" She questioned him.

"No I haven't." Clayton looked down. "You can't keep going out there like that."

"I have to, it's who I am." She wasted no time in answering him.

He shook his head in disbelief. "What do you go out there for anyways?" He waited for an answer but she didn't give him one. He glanced over at the bookcase, he had witnessed it grow over the last few months. "Don't tell me that you go out in search of books either." He paused yet again to wait for her to answer, but she didn't.

Clayton wasn't the type of person to get pissed off. In fact she had never witnessed him be mad at all. His character started to change in front of her as she remained seated, he stood up and began to pace the floor in front of her.

She knew he wouldn't stop until she told him why she kept going out there. "I look for my people." She said softly.

"Your people?" Clayton questioned as he stopped pacing the floor. "You don't even know how far you are away from them....If they didn't have a place like this, a wall to protect them, they could have died during the winter."

"You take that back!" Lucas snapped at him. She tried to control her anger.

He saw that he walked over the line. But he just didn't care. "Lucas, I care about you."

That's when she stopped everything. She stopped her emotions, her mind went blank from everything. She just stared at him. She remembered the way William acted when he lost his girlfriend, she also remembered the heart break it gave Mitchel when he lost Torri. People were a liability, she couldn't afford to care at least not anymore. 

He placed a hand on his forehead as his head began to pulse. Clayton didn't mean to blurt it out like that. It was the truth though, he did care about her. He brought his hand back down to his mouth and covered it as it was open. He ruined everything he thought to himself.

"I'm....." He paused as he uncovered his mouth. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." She blankly stare back at him.

"I...I should go." Clayton didn't look at her as he moved quickly for the door.

As he placed his hand on the door knob her voice stopped him. "Wait." He stopped, but he didn't look back at her. "Will I still see you tonight?"

It about took all his strength to say, "Yeah." He looked and gave a nervous smile and went out the door.

Lucas sat in her apartment alone now. She was scared and excited all at one moment. She rarely felt this way. She didn't even have a word to describe her feeling. A smile formed on her face, even though she thought this feeling would be a liability, she needed him.