Among the Dead

Carrie

Carrie 

Carrie had never been as scared of the living as she was with four burly men standing around her. 

Two looked like twins with matching snarls, matching eyes and both sandy blond hair, a larger man with a scar that ran down his face, dark stubble on his chin and a buzz cut and the sorter man with green eyes a black hair; their leader wasn't as old as the others but he thought he knew everything there was to surviving. 

Patrick; or Rick to everyone who knew him had told Carrie to stay in one of the bedrooms for the night while the rest stayed down stairs. Every time she poked her head out her door to see if they had left or if she could make a break from them, she would find Rick sitting outside her door. 

In the morning, Rick woke her at the crack of dawn and dragged her into the kitchen as soon as she was decent enough to be seen and sat in front of other men who quickly bombarded her with more questions until she started asking about their own camp and group. 

He told Carrie that their group had only ten people as they had taken a great loss at their last base. 

"We were staying a little further north from here; outside of the city," Rick explained as the sun started to peek through the curtains and turn the kitchen golden. "There was twenty-five of us to begin with; all of us living on a farm. We lived there for nearly a year, growing our own crops and keeping animals. You won't believe how bliss it was to be able to do those things without the dead disturbing us." 

"What happened?" Carrie asked and looked around the group; the looks on the twin men's face; Tom and Lewis she remembered, what had happened at their camp still left gaping holes in their hearts from the people they had lost. 

"A stupid girl got herself knocked up," the last member of their group answered in a growl; Dean, Carrie would never forget his name, he scared her more than the others in the small group. The scar from his eye socket to his lip moved when he spoke and her eyes were glued to the tear drop tattoo under his eye. 

"Knocked up?" she stammered, unfamiliar with the term. She shuffled uncomfortably under his gaze; she didn't want him looking at her any more.

"Yeah, somehow no-one noticed until she started to scream her head off. Stupid girl brought the dead to our door."

"I'm guessing you didn't like her," Carrie muttered. 

"Are you saying I don't like women?" Dean demanded and jumped out of his seat towards Carrie before the others caught him and restrained him. 

"That's not what I'm saying," Carrie stammered and scrambled away behind Rick who held his gun out towards his own man. 

"We've been through this before," Rick growled, "No-one is saying you're gay or straight; she was asking if you didn't like Polly." 

Dean didn't seem to listen and tried to pull away from the others. 

"Remember what we spoke about when we found you," Rick reminded but again Dean tired to dive at Carrie. 

"Don't make me put a bullet in your head," Rick threatened and pulled the hammer down. 

Doors rattled as if they were chained and someone was trying to get through. 

The group froze at the sound and listened intensively. 

"Did any of you put a chain on the door?" Carrie asked quietly. 

All men shook their heads slowly. All the tension from the room was replaced by fear; no-one cared who had said what any more. 

"That's not coming from the door," Rick hissed, his gaze followed the noise to the large pantry door in the corner of the room.