Life after the dead.
Chapter 1.

It had been three days since she had made a run, or even gone outside the gates for more than an hour. The house she had occupied wasn't running out of supplies or anything but she knew she had to move soon, get out there again. She just hadn't been able to bring herself to step outside her gates. She had found the place a few weeks ago and fortified it to the best of her abilities. The windows were all nailed up, she had set up fences with nails and stakes to prevent the dead from coming in. In the surrounding woods she had dug holes and laid out traps for both walkers and wildlife, though she had not cleared them in a few days and she suspected that whatever edible she had caught had now long perished.

If she was really honest with herself, the place was way too big for her. Though she had always dreamt of having a house like it, ever since she was small, the house or mansion in fact was huge and hard to keep secure, the place had a bloody courtyard for fucks sake. She had counted over twelve bedrooms and four functional bathrooms, though all the water was cold. She had thought to check the pipes and the boiler, and maybe try and macgyver a fix, but she had never been particularly good with plumbing. She hardly knew how to unclog a toilet, let alone mend a boiler.

She had secured the place, killed the dead she found inside and buried them far from the property, knowing that would keep the bodies from contaminating the soil. She had thought to grow something there, after all there was lots of space around the building and she had set her fences up at quite the distance. The fences were made from stray wood, half a brick wall which she guessed was left from an outbuilding of some description, barbed wire and plywood. She had basically used anything she could find that was sturdy enough and had proved a defence against the dead.

Still, even with all her precautions they had broken through two times. Big packs of at least two dozen, which had taken her hours to clean up. She had to guide them and lure them all through the house, jamming sharp objects into their skulls at every turn. Once she had even resorted to chugging one through the window, which she hated herself for later, as she had admired the woodwork and its stained glass. She had recovered the shards after the clean up, but there was not enough left to mend it.

After the last encounter she had felt raw and disillusioned, she had only barely made it out alive and the constant silence around her was starting to get to her. She had settled in his ginormus house so that there would be enough room for a group, and it would be protected enough for them to stay there, but she hadn't seen another decent living being since her escape. Since she found the place she had been searching for people, the kind that she could trust, or at least trust enough that she could sleep without getting gutted.

She had never been particularly good at making friends, and even less so at keeping them. She was an angry person, it was practically engraved in her face. It carried a constant knotted brow and she couldn't recall the last time her lips have ever been tugged into a smile. Her forehead was constantly folded, leaving lines in her unhealthy skin that remained even when she relaxed. Beneath her angry and unkempt eyebrows rested even angrier eyes. They had been reduced to slits and were sharp as a knife. She would like to have blamed her hardened exterior on the end of the world and the crap she had gone through since, but if she had been this way since childhood.

The last three days she had done nothing but sit in the courtyard or the room she had claimed as her own, and worked on her fletching. She enjoyed being outside after spending so long behind bars, kept far from the sun. She had been making ammo out of branches and suitable wood she had found on a previous trip. Her preferred weapon was the bow and she had made several in her time, her latest and most proud creation was a recurve. She had once seen one like it in an Egyptian exposition in the local museum and she had thought it to be the most beautifully crafted weapon she had ever laid her eyes on. This one, she had carved from memory and she couldn't wait to paint it.

She swept up a rucksack and threw it over her shoulder, fastening the strips and taking up her weapon. She attached a leather wrap of arrows to her belt, took up a few more in her hand and headed out the door. It was time to make a much needed run.

Her feet carried her with speed and confidence, digging into the dirt with purpose. She took in a deep breath and quickened her pace as she eyed a ghoul on the far side, who seemed to be stuck on a stake, growling violently, pawing at her like a child begging for a teet. She rolled her eyes and swiftly planted an arrow in it's socket before heading out the gate. She would clean it up later.

Being far from civilisation had its perks, seeing as it made it hard to find but also made it harder for her to find it again. She had gotten lost the first few days, but had set up markers through out the woods to help her find her way back, but she hadn't covered every direction yet. The people that initially had the place built must have been keen on getting away from people, as that was exactly what they achieved. It had amazed her that the place had actually been overtaken, and that the people inside had been long gone, as it must have taken ages for them to even get wind about what had happened. A home built for so many, they would surely have had the numbers to defend themselves. Or perhaps it had been a retreat, for the holidays and nobody had been there to begin with. The place had been fairly clean of blood, and it hadn't been trashed in struggle till she got there. She didn't feel guilty about that in the slightest, places like this were meant to be used, a home without people was just another building.

Finding her truck hidden, she took to unveiling it and swiping the left over leaves off her ride. She had hidden it, in case she had to make a quick get-away, someone wanted to take it, or in case someone was looking for her. She did not want to be found. She wanted to be with people, sure , but she had to be the one to pick them. Not the other way around.

She slipped into the front seat, and gently placed her bow beside her, and flung her pack into the back, which made a loud flop. "Jesus!" she cursed at it, turning in her seat to scold it. "Calm down" she ordered, pointing her finger angrily at the baby vomit coloured sack. "Okay, so what do we need?" she asked, to which she quickly answered. "Canned fruits, we don't want to get yellow fever. Bandages, if we can. Nails and pliers. Lighter fluid if we can find some"

She made a mental note, nodding, "of course if we come across something for the stash, we take it." The girl had been making a stash, supplies and desirables for when she found people. Not things they needed, but things they liked, things that people didn't think twice about back in the day, but were considered a luxury now. She sighed to herself a second later as she turned the key in the ignition. She had been talking to herself ever since she got out, and now it was starting to worry her. Was it normal for people to talk to themselves after the turning?