Starting Over... |Daryl Dixon| |The Walking Dead|

Chapter 2: Watching From Afar

Throughout our journey of survival, our group had its shares of ups and downs, just like any other group of people trying to face this everyday hell together.

For the first few months that the five of us were struggling to transition into a world overrun by walking corpses, we were brutally tested by life, both physically and emotionally. Trust and loyalty within the group were strung thin, we were at each other's throats, and there were times when each of us wanted so badly to just give up and give into our seemingly inevitable fate... to walk the Earth with the undead, as one of them.

But after a lot of inner searching, we all found the will to live deep inside of our souls. We stuck together like glue, and vowed to fight to the death to protect each other. Ultimately, we were a force to be reckoned with.

Each of us had our close encounters with walkers, hanging onto our lives by a dangling thread, as well as our moments of heroism. Through experience and trial and error, we discovered things about the walkers that gave us extreme advantages. We learned the things that attracted them the most, loud noise and the smell of blood; The things that repelled them, fire and the odor of other rotting flesh; Their weakest points, the skull and the base of the neck; And most important to our survival was the fastest way to kill them; destroy the brain.

All of our hard days and nights of grueling traveling, scavenging, and walker slaying had brought us to this day about a year and a half after the deadly outbreak, in this spot where we camped in a lush wooded area. We used Zach's Cherokee as our main form of shelter, since we could simply grab what we could and take off if we had to... which had happened more than once.

We left the doors open and used them as anchors for a blue sheet that created a sort of canopy. To the right of the Cherokee was a decent sized fire Danny and Zach had built that morning, crackling and smoldering away. On the opposite side of the jeep was a clothes line strung up between two tree branches. Hanging from the line were everyone's second pair of clothes, almost dry enough to wear. Pajamas and everyone's first pair of clothes were already in our wicker laundry basket and ready to be washed.

Behind the Cherokee, we had a solar powered camping shower hooked up so it was a bit more private. I had scored the shower with Jessie when our group stumbled upon an abandoned and raided camping ground about a month back. When we all split up to find supplies, that shower had been our big prize of the day. It was solar powered, so all we had to do was let the shower sit in the sun for a day, and it would have enough energy for all five of us to take about a seven minute shower. Not too far from the campsite was a fresh stream, so we all had plenty of water for showers to go around. That luxury wasn't always available, so hot showers were a huge treat.

We had a good sized area roped off around us, and dangling from the ropes were random pieces of chopped up walkers; ears, hands, feet; this kept other hungry walkers out of our campsite. But, there was always the chance of one of those undead freaks slipping by under the radar, so we were always alert. It was pretty much instinctual now.

Danny, Tina, Zach, Jessie and I had been posted in this spot for three days now with little trouble from any lurking walkers... But we knew it wouldn't be safe for long. If you were out in the open, you were vulnerable. When walkers got hungry enough, they always found a way to their next meal, even if it killed them.

It was my turn for a shower, so I quickly grabbed my clothes from the clothes line, including my lacey pink bra and thong, and black socks. My orange towel was the last thing I snatched up before disappearing behind the Cherokee. Within 30 seconds I was stripped and enclosed in the zip up chamber, pulling the drawstring that activated the hot water.

I breathed out a long sigh of content and closed my eyes as I felt the soothing water wash down over my body, soaking through my long auburn hair. A hot shower was so simple but so amazing, and in today's world you definately learned to appreciate the little things.