The Walking Dead - Dixon Bloodfall (A Walking Dead ff)

Chapter 14 - Bound by Fate

How long had she been running?

Feet pounded against the floor, crunching against pavement. With each thud of her sneakers against the ground, sparkles would light up. She bore a cheap brand of generic shoe, ones that her father had picked out for her birthday. He said she could wear them early because her old ones were worn out, and now, the were the only present she’d ever see. It was only when the groans and growls behind her silenced, and the sound of her heavy breath was heard, did she falter in her speed, and collapse onto the ground. Her hands scraped against the ground, grating off a minor layer of flesh, and what followed was a choked sob, which bled into a whine.

 Whatever Mom had become, Dad had quickly dispatched of it with a nice, splattering clock to the side of her head with a wrench. Dad didn’t look too good himself, but he kept the situation under control. Held her close that night, so they could face the new day together - or at least, that’s what he had said.

 What was there in the morning wasn’t Dad either. When she woke, she was in the corner of the room, with nothing there but the blood stain her mother’s corpse had left, stained deep into the olive colored carpeting, that in itself had seen a fair share of disgusting. It didn’t take much effort to find her father, he was downstairs, hissing and growling, tied by the wrists to a door. Morning light offered her the chance to see a crimson, but fading, chunk missing out of her father’s upper arm, and on the door itself, a message, written in what must have been his own blood.

“I love you.”

At that point, Quinn had broken down into a nervous panic attack. She had no idea how to comprehend any of this, how to react, how to do anything, and so she screamed for what felt like the longest time. When that subsided, because her lungs and throat burned intensely, she began to wheeze, hands wrapping her knees tightly against her chest, and rocked herself. Eventually the growls that erupted from what was what her father’s voice became too much and she clamped her hands around her ears, sobbing violently, and in between those sobs, begging her father to stop. Begging for it, for all of this, to stop. The emotionally distraught child wanted desperately assistance, but what came to her was not rescue but more danger. Her cries had rang the proverbial dinner bell, bringing about a horde of the monsters that, she realised, shared her parent’s affliction. Six or so had clamored in through an undisclosed entrance, and were bee lining towards her fetal positioned body. Instantly one of her screams filled the once abandoned factory, and she scrambled to her feet, shoving the door closest to her open and running.

That was, if she counted the hours right, eight days ago, and believe you me, the entire world had ended up like her parents. Whatever it was, whatever Mom and Dad had managed to shelter her from, had enveloped the entire globe in it’s wrath. Sneaking in between empty cars, snatching snacks and items she deemed important as she escaped certain death, she managed to watch a man try to kill one, unsuccessfully. These things didn’t just die, no matter what you did. Arms, legs, you could rip them in half and they’d keep coming. It was horrible.

When she left Atlanta, or at least, the more ‘populated’ part of the enormous city, it had been at least fourteen days. Or maybe sixteen, she was struggling to count. In any case her rations, candy bars and half of a gatorade bottle, had fulfilled their purpose. She was without sustenance for several days now, and as a once financially privileged child would find out, a lack of food was dangerously detrimental. She had been hiding in garbage cans and alleyways for most of this venture, but the depleted food source had forced her out.

That’s why she had been running, until her body finally gave out. Tired and growing increasingly sick and irrational from her poor choices of homing and non-existent hygiene, Quinn figured she’d be able to toss a brick into a window of a CVS that’s doors had been blocked, and reward herself with whatever she could find inside. She figured wrong. What greeted her instead was the largest group she had ever seen coming in from the streets; it looked like a thousand of them were converging on her from their own hiding spots. Surely they would’ve made a meal of the small, plump girl, had it not been for some idiot on a horse.

A man, and a horse, in the middle of all this. She couldn’t catch his face, and obviously not his attention, as she had shouted after him when the rider when gallivanting by, but it got the monster’s. He looked like a cop, a cowboy almost, and rode right on by. He dove off into the streets on his giant beast, and Quinn was safe - or at least, allowed a moment of security, and she scrambled through the shattered window. Shortly after, she scrambled to whatever food she could get and dined on the finest of foods; candy bars, chocolate cakes, and downed water after water bottle.

Something was wrong. Despite these foods being naturally unhealthy, there was something deeper. She hadn’t been feeling good for days now, but this, this was horrible. Her body rejected the food and she expelled every bit of it back onto the linoleum floor, clutching at her stomach as she writhed in pain. Suddenly she was aware of just how cold and clammy she had became, just how much her body ached. The pain and the fear culminated into the decision to rest in the empty pharmacy slash general store, and so she did, for several hours, until the sounds of gunshots brought her out from her ill sleep. Hands crept through shards of broken glass until she saw it, a man, on the roof opposite street of her, shooting at the evil creatures below.