Dead But Not Gone

Supply Run

"Alright Derek wake up," a soft soothing voice awoke me from my sleep.
I groaned a little bit, opened my eyes, and saw Hazel standing in the doorway. "Already?" I haven't had a proper sleep in a while.
"Yup, you're gonna go on the run with Aless and Michael."

Just fucking great. I'm basically gonna prove my trust with a gun pointed to the back of my head 24/7. My eyes followed Hazel as she walked out of the room. She's one good looking chick, I thought to myself. I snapped myself out of it. I couldn't have friends or a relationship anymore. I have to be alone.

I walked outside and the sun was beaming. It was early spring, or at least I remember that. A tall white guy with freckles all over his face came up to me.

"You Derek?" He wondered.
"Yeah, now who are you?" I quizzed back.
"Mike. Or Michael, or Mickey, doesn't matter, it's all the same anyway."

I gave Mike a long hard look before he walked away to meet up with Alessandra. Alex was walking around, making sure everyone was settled in their homes and then she walked up to me.

"So how was your first night?" She asked me with a smile.
"Well I wasn't sleeping on the floor, so that's a start to a good night." She chuckled along with me and studied my face for a long time.
"How old are you?"
"23"

Alex's face flushed a bright red and she quickly turned away with a huge grin on her face. "I'll see you later Derek. Don't die!" And she walked away.

Mike called me over with Alessandra and gave me a small pocket knife. Alessandra shot him an icy glare but he completely ignored it.

Knife in hand, and bags over our shoulders, we set out to prove my loyalty.

As we walked down the gravel road, I thought to myself, I'm just staying here for a little bit, then I'm back on the road. Don't get attached to strangers. I had that goal in mind for a long time and I certainly wasn't going to break it now.

It was a silent walk, so I decided to break the silence by talking to Alessandra.

"Hey, Alice so I-"
"Don't talk to me so calmly. And its Aless." She cut me off without looking my way.
"But that's what I just said?" I replied obviously sure of myself.
"Oh dios mío, maldito gringo," she said in Spanish, "its Ah-less. Not Al-is."
"What the fuck I'm not a gringo! I just never had the time to learn, that's all..." I said obviously hurt.

Michael laughed and kept trudging forward.

We arrived in a small town, Maywood, and raided the stores. We hoped and prayed nobody ransacked everything and to our surprise, a decent amount of supplies were left over. We started to put the things in our bags but then a gunshot echoed off the store walls. Aless and I turned around to see Mike drop to the floor, clutching his left shoulder.

"Put the shit back now!" A man yelled from an unknown location.

Aless pulled out her pistol, and aimed it around the store, looking for a sign of where the shot could've came from.

I thought I had my pistol on me, but then I remembered I lost it when a dead one knocked me into the water under the George Washington Bridge. I survived but lost a bunch of shit because of that fucker.

"Where the fuck are you asshole?" Alessandra shouted back.

More bullets came into the store. I ducked for cover and made my way to Mike.

"Mike, mike are you okay?" I nervously asked.
"Yeah I'm fine," he assured me, "take this" and handed me his gun.

Aless saw this, her face snarled but she didn't bother trying to argue. This was life or death.

And a time for me to prove my loyalty.

I saw where the shots were coming from after the next hail of bullets came storming in.

I fired back and heard a cry.

"Holy shit it worked." I whispered to Aless.
Impressed by my feat, Aless asked, "who taught you that?"
"My brother. He was in the military so he taught me some things if I ever needed to use them."

Our chat was cut short when two people came running in. Alessandra and I split up so they couldn't find us easily.

I heard the crunching of glass get closer and closer to my position. When the time was right, I took out my knife and stabbed him in the neck. His eyes widened as his blood drained out of his open wound. He fell to the ground but his buddy didn't notice.

"Get the fuck off me!" I heard Alessandra shout.

I turned around and saw a larger assailant on top of her, slapping her when she tried fighting back. I charged at him, and pushed him off her.

We started throwing punches, and I managed to get behind him. However, he figured out my trick and tripped me. I landed on a piece of glass, screamed in pain, and the attacker kicked me in the stomach. He grabbed me by my hair and threw me onto the counter top. His fist pounded into my face repeatedly until I had enough and moved out of the way. His fist came crashing down onto the hard wood counter.

While he was stunned, I punched him in the jaw and knocked him down. I took a piece of glass and went to stab him with it. There was a struggle as he mustered all his strength to keep the sharp blade away from him. After what seemed like forever, the glass cut his hands open from the pressure and he let go. The glass cleanly entered his skin and blood gushed out of the man's chest.

I tiredly fell off of him back onto the floor and coughed up a little blood. I looked up and saw Aless with Mike offering me a helping hand up. Our hands held onto each other as she hoisted me up.

"I guess I should say thanks, huh?" She asked jokingly.
"Nah its okay." I replied as I wiped blood off of my face.
"Well too bad. Thank you."

I smiled at her and then we continued to grab the supplies in the store. We ended our run early because Mike was injured and it was too dangerous to stay around after all the noise that was made. Sure enough we ran into a couple Deads on the way back to Gunther but it wasn't anything too bad.

We got inside the gates and quickly brought Mike to Alex's office.

I went back to my room covered in blood. Star came in and saw me sitting on the newly washed sheets.

"Really man? I just spent 2 hours washing those. Go take a shower in Xander's house. I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

Without objecting, I got ready and walked to his home.

"Don't get attached Derek. We're better off alone. Nobody will have your back better than you. I learned the hard way."

Author's Note: So I wanna say thank you to whoever's reading this. Its been a long time since I've felt this passionate about writing. My friends keep me going, and I'm glad this is going out well. If you'd like to be a character in the story, feel free to DM me with character traits, a name, and past job. I'll gladly make you a part of this growing community :)