Serum Seventeen ▷ The Walking Dead [UC]

one

I sighed as I walked threw the woods, following behind Dominic. My legs were sore, blisters were forming on my heels, and my stomach was growling. "I'm tired, Dominic. Can we stop for five minutes, please?" I begged, leaning against the tree to my left.

"Stop?" Dominic huffed, "Do you realize that we just stole all of that camps supplies, right? Don't be stupid. Keep walking."

"What's five minutes? You want to get back to Atlanta, right? How am I supposed to get there if I'm dead?" I crossed my arms, staring at Dominic. The bark of the tree scratched my back but not putting me in any discomfort to move.

"Fine. Five minutes, that's it! For all we know, the people we stole from are tracking us right now." Dominic leaned against the tree across from me and let out a sigh.

"Well, if you really don't want to be tracked, you'd avoid the woods. We've been leaving footprints in the dirt. If someone's tracking us, they know exactly where we are. Besides, the camp looked like it had been abandoned for awhile. They probably got bit and turned like everyone else." I shrugged, scraping my back even more.

"Oh, yeah? And when did you become an expert at tracking?" He snapped back, looking at the ground where we had previously stepped.

"My uncle taught me when I was younger," I simply stated. "If you don't want to be found, we should be on the road."

"I think I'll take my chances in the woods. We don't know what kind of people are out here. We can hide if someone comes, but we can't in the open road." Dominic pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.

"How do we know the CDC will even be there? The radios have been dead for years. We don't know if anyone is even trying to find a cure." I said, trying to continue a conversation for longer than three minutes.

"Come on." Dominic said, continuing to walk forward, ignoring my question. I had a feeling he often thought about that but didn't want to.

I huffed and started following behind Dominic, dragging my feet. My hair was falling out of my ponytail onto my face making me scrunch up my nose at how dirty it was.

"I don't think we should go to the-" I started to speak but was cut off by a voice in the distance.
Dominic grabbed my arm and pulled me down behind a tree. "It can't be the people from the camp, It looked like it had been abandoned for months!" I whisper shouted at Dominic trying to find the source of the voices.

Dominic raised his hand for me to be quiet as he tried to listen. "How many do you think? Two? Three?" One voice said in the distance but it was constantly getting closer. "Two, now shut up Dan. We don't know where they are."

I looked at Dominic to see if he had a plan but his face was blank. He looked at me, clearly angry that I made us stop for even a minute. "Damnit Jo, I told you someone could be following us! Stay down, maybe they'll pass us or go back. If not, wait for a clear shot and run. They could be dangerous." I looked to where the voices were coming from and back at Dominic. "I think if they were friendly they wouldn't be tracking us. We should just make a run for it now!" I insisted, not liking how close they were starting to come. Dominic just shook his head in response, lips in a straight line.

"The tracks stop here." The voice said. It belonged to a middle aged man with tattoos on his neck. "What? Are you sure you know how to track?" The other said, he was smaller with round glasses but had a scar on his face that would make anyone shiver. The taller man punched the other ones arm and looked around. "Yes you idiot. They're around here somewhere. Find them"

Dominic looked at me and mouthed for me to run. I shook my head and insisted he came with but he pulled his knife out and pointed in the direction for me to run. I was scared, I didn't like the looks of the men trying to find us and I didn't like leaving Dominic. Even if he was forcing me to go to the CDC, he had became family. With a final look, I ran in the direction he pointed to and stepped over the fallen branches as Dominic stood up, aiming his gun at the two men.

"There!" The smaller man shouted, I wasn't sure if he was yelling about me or Dominic, but I didn't look back. A gun went off which instantly brought tears to my eyes. I knew it wasn't Dominic who shot the gun as we were out of bullets. He was using it as a scare tactic, it had worked before in the past, but luck eventually runs out. I tried to run faster, pushing my legs to the maximum but it wasn't much faster. Just a second after, someone grabbed the back of my backpack sending me backwards to the ground. It was the man with tattoos on his neck. He smiled at me, but not in a friendly way as the other man ran up, clearly out of breath.

"What do you want?" I squeezed out, trying not to show fear but was clearly failing. "We were just going to kill you like the boy but you're just too damn pretty." He yanked me up and pushed me against the tree we were by. I ignored his comment and continued to speak. "If this is about the supplies we took, take them back! We didn't know anyone was living there."  Tears were starting to fill my eyes as the man just looked me up and down. "No, I want-" he was cut off by a bullet to the head, and slumped over on top of me. I thought the smaller man had killed him at first but he soon fell to the ground as another gun shot rang through the air.

His lifeless body fell and I pushed the man off of me onto the ground. I shot my head up, fearing I was about to be shot in the head as well but none came. I looked at the person, a boy. It quickly registered in my mind that I knew him. "Carl?" My voice was quiet and small as he stepped forward." "Jo?" Stepping over the bodies, I ran forward wrapping my arms around his neck. "What are you doing here? I thought all of you would have been dead!" I huffed out, squeezing a little tighter. "Not all of us and I could ask you the same." He said as he pulled away from the hug. Not answering, Jo remembered what had happened and ran back to where she left Dominic.

Tears pooled in her eyes and fell almost instantly as she saw Dominic laying on the dirt with his gun still in his hand. She ran forward and fell to the ground beside him. "I'm sorry. How long did you know him?" Carl asked, coming behind me. "I don't know. A year? Or two? He helped me survive, even though he was a pain in the ass most of the time." I said, tears still running down my cheeks. "We can take him back to Alexandria and bury him." Carl said and I wasn't unfamiliar with Alexandria. I had come across a man who spoke of it and said I could come join the community but turned him down. "So it's real?" Carl raised his eyebrow and shook his head. "You know about it?" "Vaguely. Some man, I think his name was Aaron told me about it but I didn't believe him." I said as I closed Dominic's eyes with shaky hands. "Aaron is the one who told us about it. My dad didn't believe in it either but we decided to see anyway and sure enough, It was real. My dad will be excited to see you." Carl looked at me with a sad smile and I stood up. "Dominic told me if he died not to bury him. He said it was stupid. I don't know why he thought that but I'm going to go by it if it's what he wanted." Carl nodded and motioned for me to follow behind him and I did, looking at Dominic once more as I picked up his backpack from beside him. "I'm sorry." I whispered and ran to catch up to Carl.

•
first chapter, yay. first part of the chapter belongs to @elenagilberts (glberts) again, thank you for the wonderful plot!

Not edited , published on August 1st 2017
Edited (kinda) May 21 2019