Chapter 1: The Outbreak

Millie was at the hospital when everything went down. She was being treated by one of the remaining nurse's that still tried to help people, for a couple bruises and a nasty break to the ankle on her left foot. Millie's now ex-boyfriend led an abusive life, especially when he had a bottle of Jack in his hand. Of course, she made up an old excuse of falling down the stairs, but the nurse knew better than to believe her. Yet before she could confront her about it or tell the injured woman that she needs to get out of here now that she was fixed up with a boot, screams filled the halls of the evacuating hospital, grabbing her attention and pulling her from the room. The nurse didn't expect this part of the hospital to be taken over so soon, especially with patients still in their rooms. When the nurse didn't come back in five minutes like she promised Millie, the hurt woman jumped down to the ground and limped her way to the door.

The door was suddenly pushed open by the now moaning nurse, her jaw snapping at a wide eyed Millie. She looked into the nurses discolored eyes before taking in the woman's used to be white outfit now covered in her own blood, the awful torn flesh of a bite mark on her neck, and the scratches on the woman's arms Millie hadn't noticed before. Millie gasped as the dead woman stepped closer to her, the woman's hands swinging slightly as if affected by a breeze. The nurse's hands reached out and snared around Millie's upper arms, the moaning and gurgling of the woman caused Millie to let out her own scream, mingling it with the rest of the ones still carrying out in the halls. Millie pushed the woman back away from her, the force of the push causing the woman to let go of her arms. She shuffled around the nurse who was trying to get back up on her feet, yanking the door open while keeping her eyes locked on the struggling corpse.

Millie looked down the hall to see a cop, a sheriff's deputy, retreating down the hall. "Hey!" She called to him; he never turned to her as he never came back around. Millie looked across the hall at one of the rooms with a gurney stretched in front of it. It was probably a good hiding spot unless someone locked a bunch of those things inside the room. Millie guessed there was only one way to find out for sure as more walking bodies came down the hall, moving towards her slowly as she limped painfully towards the gurney. She moved it only enough to slip through and opened the door. She found a man lying on the hospital bed, but was uncertain if he was actually alive or a walking corpse. The groaning of the nurse filled Millie's ears before she looked back and saw the dead woman opening the door, looking right at her, the jaw still snapping. Millie opened the door wider, turned her back on it and pulled the gurney forward again to hopefully block the creepy nurse from this door. Millie slammed the door closed and locked it before settling her eyes upon the man again. She could probably take him if he reanimated, she just needed to find something to beat him with.

The man didn't look like a corpse because of the normal, healthy looking tone to his skin, but who was she to decide if he would turn or not. She tried to shuffle as quietly as she could towards him, feeling his neck for a pulse as she often did to her boyfriend, whom she was now hoping had been bit in one of his drunken stupors, which seemed to last twenty-four hours seven days a week. The man had one, granted it was a bit faint. She put her head to his chest to make sure he had a steady heartbeat, which apparently was also faint, but it was there. Then she sat on the floor by his bed, praying this man would wake up soon and is able to get them out of there, though from the bandages on his side, she figured she was going to be taking care of him until he did wake up.

Millie was curled up on chairs that were in Rick's room. She discovered his name after looking at his chart located at the foot of his bed. She was curious to know what landed him in the hospital in the first place so she read through all the paperwork. She glanced at him then, noting that his shaved face was starting to thicken with dark stubble around his face that would probably thicken into a scruffy beard if he let it go. He hadn't woken up yet and Millie wasn't sure he would anytime soon with the wound he had. She got up quietly from her spot between her chairs, sneaking quietly towards the cabinets to get more gauze for Rick's wound, knowing that he needed them changed every once in a while. She heard moans on the other side of the door and froze, not wanting to draw the things attention. She was still until she was sure it was gone before grabbing the bandages and tape and working quickly to remove and replace Rick's bandages. When the job was done Millie went back to her chairs and hunkered down to watch the door for the night, just in case one of those things were smart enough to figure out how to move the gurney and open the locked door.

Millie wasn't going to take any chances and kept a tight grip on the only weapon she could find in this room; a scalpel. There was a spot for a drill under the cabinets but she couldn't find one anywhere in the room and didn't think it would be smart to use something that creates a lot of noise. She had found out a few hours ago that any loud noises would attract the corpses to the hall and she had kept quiet ever since. She would have to do something about them soon, but for now she would just stay in this room with Rick and enjoy the night. Or so she thought.

A sound outside caught her attention but she only stared out the window and saw helicopters fly in waves into the city. She widened her eyes as she watched them pass by. Then Millie almost screamed out in horror as she saw the orange red glow light up the sky. The helicopters were dropping bombs all around the city, the light outside drawing the corpses like bugs. Millie watched the ones closest to the hospital leave and move towards the mushroom clouds in the sky. Her and Rick were safe from the bombs as far as she could tell. They were bombing more into the city as there were more corpses located there. She didn't let her eyes wander from the window and kept her ears open and alert in case one came through the door.

She refused to let herself sleep but when the early morning light streamed through the windows, Millie had passed out. She woke with a start when light scratching came from the window, causing her to jolt up and out of her chairs. She saw the corpse trying to claw his way inside, his face smashed against the glass. Millie relaxed a little knowing that it couldn't get in. She waved to it as she pulled the blinds down, cutting off its view of her and Rick. He still snarled a little bit but other than that, he lost interest and was quick to move on. Millie looked at the supplies in the room and chewed her bottom lip, something that she did when she was nervous. She would need to run for supplies soon. She didn't want to go out there, knowing those things could tear her apart in a few seconds flat but Rick wasn't going to heal properly with his wounds if she didn't do something about them.

She needed food too. She hadn't ventured out in the halls at all since seeking shelter in Rick's room. It had only been a day but still. Millie just wanted to curl up in a ball and stay in the room forever. She didn't care, for now, about food. At the moment she would rather starve herself than go out there into those halls. But then she thought about Rick and how she couldn't let the poor man starve to death. Besides, he would need someone to tell him what was going on in this world and since she had done a little steak-out in his room, it had to be her.

Millie needed to grow a backbone in her life and she needed one now more than ever if she was going to survive, especially if she was going to survive long enough to at least tell Rick the new dangers of the world.

Millie was struggling to overcome her fears from the past, where the world wasn't full of corpses trying to eat the flesh of the few survivors. A part of her missed that world and missed all the people she loved, but a small part of her hated that world because of the people in it. For example, her ex-boyfriend whom she screamed and yelled at yesterday morning for hurting the one person she cared for most in the world; her own child. Yet when she got in the way, he only threw her down and kicked her ankle, breaking the fragile bone before going back to her child, hurting him over and over again.

She had taken her son into his room, keeping his head down and away from her as they made their way down the small hallway. After a minute or so from watching his slumbering face she tucked him into bed, kissing his forehead once before leaving for the hospital. She felt awful for leaving him there with that bastard of a man, but she needed to help her ankle. When she came back, she would take her son away from everything and take him somewhere else, away from all this. But she never went back.

Millie left Rick for the hundredth time since being trapped in the hospital, and went back into the eerily quiet hallway, the only noise coming from the crutch she carried with her for her ankle. She moved the gurney back in place in front of the door as she stepped quietly over scattered papers, pens, clip boards, bed sheets, and other random objects strewn throughout the hospital. She ran out of food yesterday and had made plans to finally hit the cafeteria a few halls down. The only reason she hadn't was because the vending machines a few doors down from Rick's room were plenty of food for her to eat on her own. Plus, she was never sure when Rick would wake up and made sure to leave some for him each day until her stomach would rumble so loud that she had to eat it. Unfortunately, she stole the last few packages of Lays Barbeque Chips from the vending machine yesterday. Millie had barricaded quite a few doors that had a surplus of walking corpses that were too many for her to handle by herself and walked past them to make sure she and Rick were still safe, even for another few hours. Millie wound up making a backup plan for her and Rick if things became too bad. She had pulled together a line of sharp, piercing objects in front of the doors, just in case the chains wouldn't hold on the doors. Millie promised the unconscious man that she wouldn't leave him behind no matter what. She didn't even know why she had promised him that. She would try her best because she would want someone to do the same for her but she also didn't want to be alone out there, beyond the hospital.

Millie snuck around the cafeteria with her only weapon. She hated that she had to get close to the Snappers, something she liked to call them now, but she had no other choice because she sucked at long range practice and there was no way she was good enough to kill them in the brain from a distance with the tiny instrument and she needed her crutch to lean on. She went behind the counters first, checking to make sure the lunch ladies weren't hiding in the fridges. She gathered the snack packs in her arms before swinging her makeshift backpack around her shoulders to stuff the goodies inside. After she gathered quite a bit of the food in her bags, she snuck out and went to a little storage department a yard away from the cafeteria. She ransacked the area, grabbing bandages, painkillers, boxes full of first aid supplies, and anything else that might be useful to Rick for when he wakes.

On her way back to the room, Millie checked the exit she secured for them should anything happen. The sun hurt her eyes for a blinding minute, but the smell of all the dead and wrapped bodies that littered the ground had been the force that made her go back in the dim, flickering lights of the forgotten hospital. When she got back, Rick wasn't in his bed. She froze where she stood, thinking he died and had gotten up without her noticing, but when she heard the familiar noises of the sink turning on, she let out the breath she didn't know she was holding in.

Millie set the supplies down on the white tiled floor and looked into the bathroom. Rick was up and splashing water on his face until he finally noticed her standing there. "Hi, I'm Millie." She started. He went to open his mouth for a reply but she beat him to it. "I know your name, Rick. Here," Millie spun away from him and pulled out a bag of chips for him to eat. "You're probably starving." He nodded and took the bag from her. "So once you're done eating, I figured we could try and find you some clothes to wear and go find a new place to stay. I haven't scavenged through all of the machines yet in the cafeteria but with the Snappers trying to break through the chains I have on the doors, I don't think this place is going to be a safe place for much longer."

Rick looked at the disheveled woman, eyeing her dirty clothes and face before finally looking at the boot around her left foot and ankle. "I need to find my wife and son. And you look like you could use a doctor, let me call someone for you."

Millie shook her head at him, "No one will come, Rick. I think you and I are the only ones left alive in the hospital." Rick frowned at her. "You've been in a coma for quite some time now. I'd say for maybe a month. I've been in here with you ever since the hospital got overrun. I actually thought you were a Snapper until I felt for a pulse."

Rick looked puzzled at what she was saying to him, but when she motioned for him to follow her; he took a few steps forward until he started to collapse. Millie immediately went to him and put her hands on his shoulder. "I can walk." Rick mumbled, but she ignored him and helped him up, pushing him gently on the bed.

"Well until then, I have a little gift for you." She slipped out the door into the barren halls once more before rolling in with a wheelchair. "I figured you wouldn't be up to much of anything when you finally woke up, so I prepared." She gave him a shy smile. She was probably guessing that he thought she was this weird woman who took up part of his private room with him. Of course, him being a cop, he had probably seen worse.

Rick looked at Mille before finally sitting in the wheelchair. She pushed him through the door after setting her crutch against the wall—figuring it would be better for her to lean heavily on the handles—letting him move the gurney from the outside of the door before moving him in the halls. He looked around at the mess and realized that Millie had been right. They were possibly the only ones left in the hospital. "What happened here?" Rick hoarsely asked me.

She looked down at him before silently wheeling him through the flickering halls. They passed by one of the double doors Millie had chained closed and spray painted that the dead were in there. Rick slowly got out of the chair and walked towards the doors. The groaning started right when he touched the chains, hands slipping through the little opening, trying to grab for the flesh just beyond their grasp. She touched Rick's shoulder and pulled him back to the chair. "The outbreak happened here. I don't know all the details, but when I was here for my ankle, the nurse and I heard screaming in the halls. She investigated while I stayed in the room, but when she came back, she was a Snapper, as I like to call them." Millie shrugged; she looked him in the eye finally. "I left her in the room and found yours. I have been in there ever since. Only leaving when I need food or more bandages to address your wounds and rewrap my ankle. I kept busy after a while, making fortifications around the halls, blocking off the majority of the Snappers."

"Thanks for taking care of my wounds." Rick smiled at her as she nodded.

Millie looked back down the hallway. "I think we should gather as much as we can from this place and get on the road." Rick nodded his head before she pushed him back to the room to gather a few things before they scavenged the rest of the cafeteria and storage rooms for extra supplies.

"I need to find my family, Millie. My wife, my son…" Rick choked back his silent sobs as he looked at her.

She met his gaze full on. "We will, Rick. That's the first thing were going to do once we get out of here. Let's just focus on this task first." He nodded his head, grateful that he met this woman.

"Wait, Millie, what about your family?"

She didn't meet his gaze this time. She didn't even know if her ex-boyfriend was still alive and quite frankly, she didn't care about him anymore. She had done a lot of growing up since being stuck in the hospital fighting off those Snappers. She had finally grown a backbone and was ready to face her demons, or really, her boyfriend. "I actually don't have anybody, at least not worth remembering." He looked as if he wanted to ask but then realized he wasn't a close friend to Millie, at least not yet, and didn't want to intrude upon her life.

"I'm sorry, Millie."

The woman shrugged, "I used to be, but now I'm not."

"Let's just get the stuff and find your family, Rick." She pulled the make-shift backpacks on her shoulders, filling it with the supplies in the room before snatching her crutch off the wall and disappearing down the halls.

AN: Hey all, what did you think? I'm sure some of you will probably hate me because I'm going to stick to the TV show... But I will be adding my own twists and things like that! Especially for the 7 month break between season 2 and season 3. Also my chapters are really long so I decided to break them down into parts! This is part one of chapter one, I hope that's okay with everyone! Please review guys, it means a lot to hear what everyone thinks!