Exploring the Wasteland.

Day 35 (Present Day)

After breakfast, it was time for Colby and I to go and check the traps we had set the previous day. We left the bus and walked for a little while in the safety of the perimeter before coming to a line of cans tied to a string. It wasn't enough to keep anyone out but it was enough to let us know they were there and take away their ability to sneak up on us. We stepped over the string and walked down the grassy bank into the woodland that sprung up beside the highway. We walked in silence for a little while before Colby broke it, he always did, he couldn't handle long periods of silence and I was yet to find out why. "So how does a makeup artist know how to snare a rabbit?" He asked earnestly.

"My mum taught me, a long time ago" I smiled. My mum taught me everything I knew about the world and how to survive in it. It was like she knew that one day I was going to need to survive without her... I swallowed to stop myself from choking on the lump that was forming in my throat.

"Where is she now?" Colby asked hesitantly.

"She died a long time ago, along with my Dad they were in an accident, I was 8 at the time. That's how I ended up in the US, I was sent to live with my aunt in Huntington Beach" I sighed heavily.

"Siobhan-Rae I'm so sorry, I didn't know, I would never" He was stumbling over his words in an attempt to apologise for dragging up my traumatic childhood experience.

"It's okay, it was a long time ago. When my aunt passed a few years ago I moved to Los Angeles for a fresh start, but then Jake and Brennen found me again" I laughed. "If it hadn't been for Jake and Brennen I don't think I would've made it through that year." I looked at Colby, he was stood looking at me so intently I thought he was in a trance. "Dude are you good?" I reached out and touched his shoulder. He met my gaze and I could see all the pain, fear and anger in his eyes that I saw the first day we met in the store. I shuddered when I remembered Maddie's brains repainting the floor. "What about you? You've been with us a month now and I still know nothing about who you were before all this" He took my hand and held it. He looked at the ground and then back at me, but he wouldn't meet my gaze. "Colby, look at me" I lifted his chin gently so I could look into his eyes once again, but the emotion was gone.

"What? I'm great" He grinned at me like it was his birthday and I'd just given him what he'd always wanted. It was as if he could put all his pain away in a box so he couldn't feel it anymore. In a way, I had done the same thing with my parents' death, but then I had 10 years of expensive therapy courtesy of my aunts' insurance. I learned that burying feelings only means they will fester and then eat you alive from the inside. We had come to the clearing where Colby and I had set the snares yesterday morning. It was a good day, all of the traps had caught something. I touched my St Christopher and said a silent thank you to my Mum. I know she probably had nothing to do with the five rabbits now caught in our traps but I felt that somehow she might be. We collected the rabbits and we put them into our bags we'd deal with them back at the camp. One of the most important rules of surviving these days was keeping time outside in the open to a minimum where possible. The less time you were away from the camp the less time there was for something to go wrong. We had always been lucky when we'd left the camp, never seeing more than one walker at a time. Today our luck had ran out and across the clearing I could see a herd of 15 undead lurching into the sunshine.