Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters or story lines. I do own my OCs and a computer.

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all enjoy this one. This is my first Walking Dead fic. The rating may go up later due to language and sexual content in later chapters, but I have't made any concrete decisions about that yet. Also, this chapter may be a bit slow, but I promise things will pick up very, very soon!

The corpses were everywhere, a great swell of them pushing through the street. Their loud groans and scuffling, dragging feet drowned out every other sound as they reached out with rotting fingers, desperate to satisfy their craving for flesh.

An arrow swished past her head and she felt her heart quicken as it drove itself into the skull of a corpse.

"Jesus, girl!" she heard her uncle Daryl behind her. Maddie shook her head and hefted her bow up as her uncle came to stand beside her, shooting another arrow from his crossbow and taking out another corpse. Maddie nocked an arrow, quickly aiming and fire and knocking down a corpse a fraction of a second before Daryl hit his third target.

"This is a waste a' arrows," Maddie shouted. She heard gunshots on her other side and didn't have to turn to know her daddy was there, rifle raised, taking down as many of the rotting, used-to-be-humans as he could. As they kept firing arrows and bullets and curses the dead kept coming. For every one that was brought down, another two shuffled forward to take their place.

"Get down!" she heard her daddy yell and in an instant she was on the ground, the rough pavement cutting into her open palms, her bow caught underneath her. She turned slightly to see her father's boots crunch along the gravel, his rifle poised in his hands, firing over and over again. She looked to where he was firing and saw even more of those….things coming towards them. Daryl saw them, too, but left them to Merle as he continued firing at the corpses ahead of them. He'd shouldered his crossbow by now and was firing a pistol, his mouth silently moving over numbers as he counted how many bullets he had left.

Maddie hastily pushed herself up, scraping her knuckles as she picked up her bow. She pulled an arrow from the mounted quiver, glancing around as she loaded her weapon. She shot a corpse that was closing in on her daddy and when he felt the rush of wind from her arrow he glanced back at her, and then past her.

"Fuckin' go!" he shouted suddenly. Daryl whipped around at his words. He followed his brothers eyes and nodded. Maddie chanced a look over her shoulder; the woods, that's what they were looking it. That's what they were telling her. They each took off at a sprint towards the trees, their home away from way long before Hell began spitefully spitting out the dead.

Something went wrong, though. As they scrambled to their safe haven, a few straggling walkers followed them. Merle, being the closest to the walkers, stopped dead in his tracks and whirled around to face them.

"Daddy!" Maddie shrieked, but her uncle had grabbed her wrist and was tugging her with him while her daddy was telling her to just shut up and go, god-fucking-dammit, run!

"Keep runnin'," Daryl huffed and Maddie just grunted, nearly tripping over her own feet to keep up with him. Then she tripped for real, over a tree root of all things, and Daryl stumbled in front of her, fighting to keep himself standing.

"I'm fine," she said, rushed, when she saw his look of concern, and with her words he looked more annoyed than anything as she forced herself to her feet. In a way, though, it was a blessing that she'd tripped, because if she hadn't she wouldn't have seen the corpse that was crawling towards them, its legs awkwardly dragging behind it. There was another behind it, this one walking, ambling towards them at a quicker pace. "Uncle Daryl!" Maddie shouted, pointing, and he pushed her behind him as he took out one.

"I'm outta rounds," he ground out. "You keep runnin' now, we'll catch up to you," Daryl ordered, swinging his crossbow around the front. "Don't just keep standin' there, Maddie Grace, get yer ass outta here!"

Maddie didn't need anymore encouragement than that. She ran, sprinting and stumbling and tripping over herself and the roots of the streets, leaves crunching underfoot, until her legs just wouldn't carry her anymore. She found a quiet place to stop and sat herself beneath a tree, dropping her rucksack and bow on the ground beside her. She fished out a bottle of water out of her pack and took a generous swig before popping the cap back on and waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

She carefully unfolded the paper, wary of the deepening creases that threatened to tear at any second. Her eyes flitted over the tally marks she'd already made before she pulled her stub of a pencil from the pocket of her jeans and added another shaky one to the lineup. She counted them again: fifteen. She'd been on her own for fifteen long, grueling days and along the way she'd seen corpses and squirrels and mosquitoes, but not once had Maddie Grace spotted another human being. She folded up the slip of notebook paper again and stuffed it and her pencil into her pocket as she rose to her feet. A cool breeze blew past her as she adjusted her rucksack on her back. She scanned the sky, chewing on her lower lip as she realized that she only had a few more hours before the sun dipped down below the horizon.

She glanced around, peeking into the car she'd been hiding behind. A few times during her travels she'd broken into cars, but the last time she did it she hadn't been alone. Her uncle had backed her up, disengaging the alarm before the corpses heard it. That was the one main thing she'd learned about them- corpses worshiped sound. They seemed to possess dog-like hearing, a useful adaptation for a creature whose only purpose was to kill and devour everything that moved. But she could see a water bottle resting in the cup holder, and she'd just finished her last water bottle a good half hour ago. She wasn't sure when she would be hit another store that hadn't been completely wiped out of the stuff, or when she'd stumble across a creek to fill up the empty bottles that were now only taking up space in her pack.

Maddie sighed heavily and swung her bag around to the front, fishing through it for something to break the window with. She produced a can of peas that seemed to be her best bet and dropped her bag to the ground, where it landed, slumped, beside her bow, and gripped the can tight. She thrust it towards the window, wincing as the glass shattered. She waited, dreading the moans and groans of the dead, but none of them drifted to her ears. Satisfied, Maddie dropped the canned peas back into her pack and reached into the car, a bit of broken glass slicing the tender skin of her forearm as she struggled to unlock the vehicle.

"Fuck," she cursed under breath as blood started to drip down her arm. She finally got the lock to release and swung the door open hastily, grabbing at the water bottle before reaching across to the glove compartment. Inside the glove box was a small first aid kit, just big enough to fit inside a ladies' purse, and she snatched it up along with a plastic baggie of goldfish crackers that she found on the back seat. She pushed herself out of the cramped sedan and stuffed her findings into her bag. She let out a long breath that she hadn't noticed she'd been holding as she swung her rucksack over her shoulders and picked her bow off of the ground. She started making her way away from the main street, towards the rows of little houses where she hoped to find a place to sleep. And then she heard it- the shuffling feet, the labored breathing, the pained groans that clung to every shaky breath. Without thinking, Maddie plucked an arrow from the mounted quiver of her bow, nocking it with ease, and drew back the bowstring, swinging around and, as quickly as she could, lining her pin sight up with her target's glassy, dead eye.

Maddie let the arrow fly, but her hasty preparations had failed her and it clattered on the pavement beside the rotting, used-to-be-Converse sneakers of a corpse that was once a teenage boy.

"Wha' the hell," Maddie scolded herself, reloading and aiming for the head. Her second arrow buried itself in the skull, just shy of hitting the corpse right in the eye. Maddie couldn't help but smile to herself as the thing fell in a heap on the ground. She raced up to it, kicking it so that it was on its back and using all of her strength to yank the arrow free from its head. She wrinkled her nose at the gore that dripped from it and wiped some of it off on her own jeans before reaching over the dead-again corpse to retrieve her failed arrow. She replaced them both on her quiver and quickly scanned the area. When she saw no more corpses, she turned back and continued on her way.

It didn't take Maddie long to find a little two-story colonial to hunker down in for the night. The street sign on the corner, which had been knocked down and trampled on, read, under a layer of grime, Maple Ave, and every house on the block resembled the one beside it, the only variations existing in the hues of their siding. Maddie picked a pale blue one with garden gnomes tipped over on the beds of abused flowers. They'd probably been crushed by the corpses, Maddie figured, or maybe they'd been destroyed by the pounding of a hundred sneakered feet as the town's residents raced each other to the refugee centers. The worn wooden boards of the porch creaked under her feet and when she came to the door she jimmied the handle first, just to be certain that it wasn't locked, before nudging it open with her boot.

The house smelled like death. Maddie gripped her bow tight, pulling an arrow from the quiver just in case she might need it. She walked slowly, careful not to trip over the pairs of shoes and the few coats that littered the floor of the mudroom. She stepped into the main house, coming across the source of the awful stench in the plainly decorated living room- a decaying corpse slumped over in arm chair. Maddie nocked the arrow she'd been holding, her fingers poised on the bowstring as she circled around the chair. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a bullet hole in the thing's skull.

And then her heart dropped into her stomach, where she could feel it beat like a war drum. She glanced around, seeing a note on the table beside the armchair that simply read "I'm sorry"- a two word suicide note- but she didn't see a gun. Not on the table or on the floor or in the dead man's lap.

"Shit," Maddie muttered. "Aw, fuck."

She straightened herself up and drew back her bowstring, moving swiftly and quietly through the house. She silently cursed herself when the floorboards moaned under her weight but carried on, pointing her weapon around every corner before she dared to turn it. The kitchen was clear. The tiny dining room was empty save for the dying sunflowers in a hand-painted vase on the table. She used her foot to open the closet in the hall, only to be startled by the tumble of linens that fell out at her. Maddie quickly regained her composure, adjusting her grip on the bow as she turned toward the staircase.

She ascended narrow stairs awkwardly, having to run sideways to fit herself and her loaded bow, and when her foot hit the top step and she paused to right herself she heard the click of the lock on a door. There was someone else in the house. If her suspicions were correct, they were armed with whatever firearm the man downstairs had used to end his life. Who knew if they had other weapons on top of that? And what she dealing with one person or more?

For a fleeting second Maddie considered just turning around and finding another house. But it was pitch black out there by now, and whoever was in here might come after her, so she pulled on the bowstring a bit harder, lining her hand up with her jaw just like her daddy had taught her, and resolved to keep moving forward. She walked painfully slow, heel, toe, heel, toe, down the dark hallway. The door to the first two rooms she passed, one on either side of her, were slightly ajar to a reveal a bathroom and bedroom respectively. There was one more door on the left, swung fully open, that looked something like an office. The last door on the right was shut tight.

Maddie breathed heavily. She stared down the door as though she were trying to burn it with the sheer intensity of her gaze. She tensed when she heard light footsteps on the other side- heavier than her own, but it sounded like the person was trying to make themselves quiet- and the door handle wavered slightly from the weight of a somebody's hand.

The lock clicked.

The door knob twisted.

The seconds passed at a glacial speed and Maddie was beginning to wonder if maybe her overtired mind were just playing some stupid tricks on her. After all, she'd spent her first week in the woods sleeping with one eye open in the branches of trees (a few times she'd fallen out of them, accounting for the blacks and blues that lined her back and hips). The second week was spent in truck beds and store fronts and houses like this one, but never in her fifteen days of lone traveling had she ever really let herself relax.

She was pulled from her thoughts by the squeaking of hinges as the door slowly opened. A semi-automatic poked out slowly, so slowly that at first she only saw the muzzle, then the tiny bump of the front sight before the full barrel slid into view. She could vaguely make out the shadow of fingers poised over trigger.

There she stood, an arrow aimed at an opponent she couldn't see, unable to tear her eyes away from the little droplets of long-dried blood on the barrel of the gun.

"Ya gonna do somethin' with that?" Maddie growled impatiently. She almost flinched when a finger twitched over the trigger.

"Depends," a male voice replied.

"On what?" Maddie demanded.

"What're you going to do with that?"

Maddie weighed her options for a minute before lessening the tension on her bowstring.

"Why don't you come out here?" she tried.

"Why don't you stop pointing that thing at me?"

"I don' see you droppin' yers," Maddie snarled. There was a moment of hesitation before the gun disappeared from view. "Alrigh' then, come on out," she coaxed. The man cleared his throat. She rolled her eyes at the shifting shadows, assuming that he was motioning towards her bow. "Fine," she complied, gently releasing the tension on her the string until she could safely free the arrow from it.

There was another moment where nothing seemed to happen and Maddie half considered loading the damn bow and shooting whoever this was where he stood. Then the shadows moved again, and there were footsteps coming closer, and then she wasn't looking at shadows anymore but rather the face of a young man. He seemed like he was not too much older than her, perhaps early twenties at the most, with short brown hair and a smooth face.

"You gonna tell me what you're doing here?" he asked, looking her up and down with dark brown eyes. Maddie eyed him carefully. He stood at least a head taller than her and had a muscular build. The gun he held now nonchalantly and unchallenging at his side fit his hand all too well.

"Lookin' fer a place ta crash," Maddie answered honestly. The man considered this.

"What's your name?" he asked eventually.

"Maddie," she replied. "Maddie Grace Dixon."

The man nodded, as if he were considering.

"Don't suppose you got a name?" Maddie pressed.

"Dylan," he replied. "Dylan Brenner." He tucked the gun into his belt when he noticed Maddie's eyes kept flitting towards it, removing the threat. She chewed the inside of her cheek, twirling her arrow between her fingers before retiring it to the quiver. "So," Dylan continued. "You need a place to crash?"

"Jus' fer a night," Maddie reasoned. "Then I'll be outta yer hair."

Dylan just kept watching her. He looked between Maddie and her hunting bow a few times before pointing it. "You any good with that?" Maddie shrugged.

"Not bad," she said almost defensively. A smile spread across Dylan's face.

"You a good hunter?" he asked.

"Good enough," she said. "If yer askin' fer payment or somethin', I got some rabbit meat from my last kill. I ain't been huntin' fer a few days, but the meat's still good if ya want it."

"No payment," Dylan said. "But maybe a partner? I've been on my own for a while now, and to be honest I'm getting sick of canned shit every night."

"What d'you mean partner?" Maddie asked. "Like a travelin' partner or something'?"

"Yeah, a traveling partner," Dylan confirmed. Maddie thought it over- after fifteen days on her own, she was feeling tired and run down and rusty. It wouldn't be terrible to have somebody else around. They could sleep in shifts, she figured, and maybe, if he was quiet enough, he could cover her back while she hunted. "What do you say?" Dylan asked. What her father do?

Deck 'im, Maddie thought almost immediately. Her daddy didn't take help from no one. Maddie sighed. She knew she could survive on her own if she had to, but Dylan was right there, holding out his hand for her to shake.

"If ya ever scare off the game then I'm cuttin' ya loose," she warned, but she took his hand anyway. Dylan smiled at her.

"Somehow, Miss Maddie Dixon, I don't doubt that."