Love Bites ~ Craig of the Dead au ~ Tricia x Karen fan fiction [COMPLETE]

23

After driving for what feels like an hour, we turn onto the street that leads to the churchyard.

I can imagine that this was once a respectable neighbourhood, with perfectly mown lawns and beautifully bloomed flowers in window boxes, with kind, loving neighbours living inside of each gorgeous house. However, it has been reduced to an awful looking area, with overgrown lawns and dead flowers, zombies crawling around the piles of rubble on the hunt for flesh.

"This is it!" Phillip announces, "my group are living in here. They turned the churchyard into their base."

"Do you think they'll let us in?" Karen asks, worriedly.

"Without a doubt," Phillip smiles at her, "we need all of the help we can get. Our crops need more farmers and our animals need more attention that we can't give them."

"Animals?" Karen repeats excitedly, "You guys have animals?"

"Oh of course! We've got cows, chickens, a few pigs, some sheep, a dog, a couple of cats and even horses!"

"That sounds wonderful! I can't wait to meet them all!"

"Most of them are going to get eaten, little firefly," Henrietta points out, "You're best off not getting too attached to any of them."

With a frown, Karen nods sadly, "I guess you're right."

Standing tall and boldly in front of us are the churchyard gates. They are closed and sensibly locked, preventing any intruders or zombies wandering in. Much to our disappointment, nobody is sat beside the gates to let us in.

"What do we do now?" I ask.

"One of you will have to go out there a-"

Henrietta cuts Phillip off by slamming her hand onto the horn. It honks obnoxiously loudly and, despite the risk of attracting the attention of any nearby zombies, it is successful - within seconds, a trio of armed teenagers run out to see what all the noise is about.

"Henrietta, what the fuck was that for?" Phillip demands.

"It worked didn't it? Jesus Christ, calm your tits."

As the two of them argue about whether or not it was the right call, the armed teenagers point their guns at our truck and cautiously approach the gates. They're not as young as me, Firkle and Karen, I'd have to say they're more towards Henrietta and Phillip's age.

They talk amongst themselves, deciding what to do.

"Phillip, you need to go out there and tell them that you're with us, they'll let us in if you do that." I interrupt their argument.

"You know I can't stand on my own." He whines.

With an eye roll, I lean over him and open up the door. The armed trio cock their guns.

Firkle opens the passenger-side door and slowly exits the truck, leaving their hands where the group can see them as they help Phillip out of the vehicle. There's a confused mutter from the armed trio as the two of them approach the gate, but, to our luck, they don't shoot at them. They have most likely realised that it is Phillip and they don't want to hurt him.

Eagerly, Karen opens up her door and jumps out of the truck. Though she keeps her hands visible, I'm still worried that her eagerness to see the alleged animals will get her hurt somehow. She skips to Firkle and Phillip, who are almost to the gate now.

"Screw this, I'm going with them," I shuffle across the back seat to the door, "Stay in the truck so you can drive it in when they open the gate."

"Yes, Captain." Henrietta rolls her eyes.

Raising my hands, I quickly catch up with the others. We're less than five feet away from the gate and, from this close up, I can definitely tell that the people behind the gate are in their early twenties. They look pissed off, not welcoming or happy to see their friend as I had expected.

"Traitor!" One yells.

"Thief!" Adds another.

Uh oh. This doesn't sound good.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, coming back here after we exiled you?" A tall blonde demands, holding her gun up to us threateningly.

"What does she mean, exiled?" I hiss.

Phillip swallows nervously. He can't meet anyone's eyes.

"So I kind of took some things from these guys and they don't seem to realise it was a good thing. I mean, if I hadn't taken them, a young girl would've starved!"

"You stole food from them?" Karen gasps.

"You fucking idiot..." Firkle mumbles.

Phillip staggers forwards a little, getting as close to the gate as he can on his injured legs.

"I need to talk to the leaders. I have some information they'll be interested in." He pleads.

The blonde girl glances over at one of her friends then back at Phillip, an irritated look in her eyes.

"What kind of information?" She asks, one of her eyebrows raising slightly.

"I'd rather discuss it with someone of higher authority, no offence, Mercedes."

The armed people at the gates mutter amongst themselves for a moment, most likely debating what to do in this situation. If I was in their shoes, I would probably give us to the count of five to get the hell out of here before shooting. There's no way I'd let him and a bunch of strangers back into the group, especially not after he stole from them.

But, these guys don't seem to share my opinion.

Reluctantly, Mercedes turns to one of her friends, "Ferrari, go and get the leaders."

"What?"

"Go!" Mercedes snaps. She turns to the other person, "and you, keep an eye on these guys. Don't you dare put that gun down or you'll find it up your ass when you wake up tomorrow morning."

Ferrari, a tall brunette, rolls her eyes at Mercedes and glares at us through the gates before running towards the church.

When Ferrari's back is turned, Mercedes flips her off before flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and flouncing off towards where all of the gravestones are.

Mercedes' other friend, a short red headed boy with round, scratched glasses, shifts the gun around in his hands. It's clearly too heavy for him, especially since it's probably almost as tall as him, but Mercedes doesn't look like the kind of person you can argue with, so he just holds the gun uncomfortably.

"Dougie, since when were you on lookout duty?" Phillip asks.

"Since you left," The red head mutters, "you've really fucked things up around here. Nobody's gonna be happy to see you back in here."

"I screwed up, I know, but were we really going to let that poor girl die out there?"

"Yes, because she isn't our responsibility. We look out for ourselves around here. It's every man for himself!" Dougie meets my eye and he clears his throat anxiously, "Every person for themself."

In the distance, I can see Ferrari coming back with the leaders of the group. The three of them are all male, annoyingly. Two of them are blond and the other has black hair.

Karen suddenly gasps and grabs onto my arm.

"Trish, look!" She exclaims, pointing excitedly at the leaders, "It's them!"

"What? It's who?"

"Our brothers!"