….Aaaand we're back! I missed these two! This picks up right where my other story - Post Apocalyptic DATING Survival Guide - leaves off. I admit, this starts off a little slow-paced, but the action picks up around Ch 6. :)

With the stereo blasting, wind in my hair, and gorgeous early fall day, it was easy to forget that we were embarking on what was very likely the dumbest adventure I could possibly have conceived. I glanced over at Daryl, his hands drumming on the steering wheel in time with the music. I stared out the back windshield of the truck and could barely make out the front gate of our home, the self-storage facility, shrinking in the distance. The excitement that I had felt mere moments ago had begun to congeal into a lumpy mass of dread in the pit of my stomach. Daryl must have sensed my change in mood because he put his hand on my leg.

"Don't forget: Zen. Gotta be Zen, Funny Girl," he tried to reassure me.

I sighed. His optimism about our mission was pretty surprising. Even though we'd only been together for about six months, I thought I had him pegged pretty well. But he was the one with all the confidence that we would find what we were looking for, not me.

The fool's errand we were running was an attempt to locate what was left of my family. The reason it was a fool's errand was because the world was currently populated largely by zombies and, according to Daryl, assorted egomaniacal whack jobs who were trying to take control of what was left of civilization. Putting my hand on Daryl's, I thought that if I was going to be undertaking this kind of insanity, he was probably the best person possible to have as company.

Eight years ago, when the Zombie Apocalypse first started, I, along with my best friend in the world Marie, managed to find ourselves at a self-storage facility where other survivors had taken refuge. I'd come to find out, as more refugees arrived and we heard their terrifying travel accounts, that we had gotten incredibly lucky to land with a group of strangers who weren't fueled by delusions of grandeur or even just general criminal interests. Those people very quickly became like family to us.

Eight years later, I got very lucky again (in multiple senses of the word!) when Daryl and his group showed up at our gate. After almost having resigned myself to spending the rest of my days alone, it shocked the hell out of me how quickly I fell for him. Well, within days, I had quite literally fallen for him - tripping and landing at his feet - but shortly thereafter, I was completely smitten. And speaking for Daryl, I would say the feeling was mutual.

So into this newfound bliss, a complication naturally had to arise. Daryl had managed to peel back the layers in which I'd wrapped my past, and allowed me to rediscover the fact that I was still desperately needing to find out what had become of my family. As the world started its rapid demise, my dad and my brothers were going to try to make it to the farm where I was living with my husband, Ty, and Marie. In late night conversations, Daryl and I figured that if they made it out, they would be somewhere between the farm and Lexington, where my family started out. We realized that we could make it there and back on one tank of gas, with some to spare.

We went back and forth for months, debating the pros, cons, and utter insanity of making the trip, and came out on the side of, "It's worth a shot." Even though gas was in extremely short supply, the town leaders decided they could spare it under the condition that we did some scavenging while we were out in the wider world. The people in town went out on scavenging missions from time to time, but after seven years within a distinct radius, there was not much left to pick.

And much to the chagrin of our friends at home, here we were, out on the road. Our route had us taking back roads, under the assumption that if my family had joined up with a group of survivors, it would be somewhere off the interstates. Besides, the interstates were generally pretty clogged with empty cars and assorted rubble left behind by humanity's mad dash to get the hell out of Dodge, wherever Dodge happened to be.

My farm was about twenty miles from the self-storage facility-turned-town where we were living, and so was within the fifty mile radius that we kept to when scavenging. It had been picked several times over, and I was grateful not to have to start off our journey by revisiting the horrific memories of what went down the day Marie and I left.

"So tell me 'bout your family again, since I'm gonna be meetin' them real soon," Daryl said, interrupting my thoughts. "Wanna make a good impression, 'specially on your daddy."

I smiled at him, marveling as usual that someone who looked like such a badass was actually so very sweet. "Oh, come on, I've told you all about them already."

"Tell me again. Maybe I forgot."

I knew he was just trying to take my mind off my anxiety, but I played along. "Well, Dad would be about fifty or so now. His name is Dominic, but everyone calls him Nic. He's...well, he's pretty fucking amazing. When Mom left us, he didn't even even stumble. He managed to work full time, keep us fed and clothed and all that, all the while making sure he didn't miss out on any part of us growing up. He was at almost every game, recital, play, or whatever that we were in." I smiled at the memory of Dad sitting out in the audience of my band concerts, cheering inappropriately loudly at the end of each song. I would have liked to crawl under my chair at the time, but now it just made me miss him even more.

Daryl looked over at me, as I'd fallen silent again. He took my hand and kissed it, and then asked, "So was he real hard on the boyfriends you brought home?"

I laughed. "Only if he liked them. If he's really polite to you, you'll know he's not a big fan. When he gives you shit, and especially if you can give it right back, you're in like Flynn."

"OK, it's a good thing if he gives me shit. Got it," he said, as if he was making mental notes. "How 'bout your brothers?"

I paused. My brothers were a little more complicated than my dad. But then I realized that Daryl had heard this all before, so it wasn't like anything I said would be a big surprise. "Henry is eighteen and Louie is twenty-one. Henry is complicated, but he is totally awesome." Thinking about him made me smile, too.

"Henry is the one who has, uh, autism, right?" Daryl sounded a little nervous even saying the word. We'd talked several times already about what Henry was like, but Daryl was still anxious about meeting him because, as he said, he'd never even talked to anyone with autism before. I had reassured Daryl every time that it would be fine, and I was totally confident that it actually would be.

"Yeah, but he's pretty high-functioning. He does tend to get kinda fixated on certain things and will talk your ear off about it, if you let him. He doesn't like much physical contact, although sometimes he will totally surprise you with a big hug. He doesn't like to look people in the eye. He loves computers, legos, and the weather, especially tornadoes. He always said he was going to become a storm chaser." I stopped for a second to think, "I wonder what he's into now." I paused again. I was thinking about how Henry had worshipped Ty, and I was worried about his reaction when he found out Ty was dead. "I really hope he's OK. He always felt better when he had a routine to follow and changes to it stressed him out. I can't imagine how he dealt with all the shit that happened because of the outbreak." Daryl still had an uncomfortable look on his face, so I squeezed his hand. "Seriously, when you meet him, just be cool and let him make the first move. That shouldn't be too hard for you," I teased.

Daryl gave me that sexy half-grin that was one of the first things that drew me to him. Well, that and his smoking hot body and gorgeous face. I must have built up some seriously good karma somewhere to have snagged this guy. "OK, now what about Louie?"

I frowned. "Louie and I didn't really get along. He was always such a jerk to Henry. He blamed Henry for Mom leaving the second time. I mean, I guess that's why she left - because she was a fucking flighty-ass bitch - but it wasn't Henry's fault." Mom had left us once when I was about five, and then returned when I was nine. She stayed a few years, long enough to have Louie and Henry. When Henry was about two, and she figured out he wasn't a "normal" kid, that was enough of an excuse for her to hit the road again. Even though Dad tried to get me to understand that Mom had bigger "issues" that caused her to abandon her family, I never did forgive her for leaving. I looked at Daryl again and saw a faintly bitter look on his face. I knew I didn't have to explain my animosity towards my mother. He was familiar with that feeling.

"Seven years is a long time. Maybe he's grown up," Daryl suggested.

"I guess we'll see," I sighed.

Looking out the window, I noticed that we were approaching the outskirts of a small town. I ran my finger down the route that Daryl had colored on our map, but whatever the town was, it wasn't big enough to merit a name on the map. As we got closer, Daryl slowed a bit, and my stomach clenched up again. We both kept our eyes peeled for any sign of human inhabitants, but there was nothing. No sign of life - or the living dead - at all. We quickly passed through, and Daryl sped up a little. The roads were in pretty bad disrepair so driving involved a lot of dodging potholes, which meant we kept to about thirty-five miles an hour, even on the open stretches. So far, the constraint didn't seem to be bothering Daryl, at least not yet.

I realized that the CD we were listening to had started over, so I flipped through the small pile of other CDs that we had managed to scrounge up before we left. "Um, so do you want to hear Guns 'N' Roses, Hank Williams, or the Pixies?"

"What I'd like," Daryl replied, "is t'hear you sing somethin'."

"Just...sing something? I don't have my guitar or anything," I protested.

"Don't matter. I wanna hear that song you sang for me back at the party a coupla months ago."

"Seriously? You make me sing that for you all the time."

"Hey, no girl's ever written a song for me b'fore. Can't help it if I like ta hear it a lot." He was grinning as he said that.

I made a big production of sighing but then cleared my throat and did as he asked. When I got to the last line: I need you to mend my heart, he said, "Love ya, Funny Girl."

"Love you, too, babe," I replied and and went ahead and put the Hank Williams CD in so I wouldn't have to be Daryl's personal jukebox. Then I leaned my head contentedly against the open window frame, letting the wind blow my through my hair. A short time later, we started seeing some decrepit houses again, as opposed to fields of grass and wildflowers. A rusty signpost announced that we were entering "niont". I looked again at the map. "Uniontown," I told Daryl, unnecessarily. He slowed the truck again, and again my stomach twisted into knots. I wasn't sure what I was most nervous about: finding my family, not finding my family, or finding a colony of walkers. Probably all of the above.

We turned off the state road we'd been on, onto Main Street. Once again, I searched for movement or any indication that people were living there. Daryl brought the truck to a stop in the middle of the road, and I glanced over at him, alarmed. "What are you doing? Did you see something?"

"Hey darlin', relax. I haven't seen nothin' yet, but I think we should go for a look-see." He got out of the car and popped open the cap on the truck bed. He slung his crossbow over his shoulder and grabbed my hatchet. Seeing me still rooted to my seat in the cab, he called through the open back window, "Well, c'mon. Get out 'n' stretch your legs. Feels good to stand up. And don't forget the .38."

Reluctantly, I popped open the glove box and took out the pistol. Slowly, I walked back to where Daryl was waiting for me and traded him the gun for the hatchet. "Aw, don't look so glum. Where's your sense of adventure?" he chided me.

I had had very little contact with the world outside the gates of our little town since I'd settled there. I was quite comfortable within its confines as I knew what to expect and had the reassurance of guards patrolling the perimeter 24/7. So it was safe to say that my sense of adventure, if I ever really had one, was in hibernation, if not completely dead. I just gave Daryl a look that said it all and fell in step behind him.

Every unexpected noise made me jump. When we disturbed a bird who was nesting in the doorway of an abandoned storefront, I about shit myself. Try as he might, Daryl wasn't able to hold back a laugh, and he got a punch in the arm for it. My muscles were coiled, my hands were sweating, and I expected at any minute a flood of walkers would storm through the door behind us. I backed into a half-empty rack of yellowed greeting cards and sent it clattering to the floor, letting out a shriek of surprise. Daryl turned with a smirk, but when he saw the expression of abject terror on my face, his face softened. He grabbed my shaking hands. "Hey, shhhh...calm down, darlin'. Look at me." I forced myself to look into his amazing blue eyes, my face warm with embarrassment. "Have I ever let anythin' happen to you?" I shook my head mutely. "Do ya trust me that I'll keep you safe?" I nodded. "OK, well there ya go. No worries." I was still shaking like a leaf, so he wrapped me in his arms for a minute. I couldn't help but feel better after that. I got a quick kiss from him and then he let go and looked around what was left of the store.

There was a tremendous amount of dust and cobwebs. Clearly mice and birds had taken over now that people were gone. The shelves had been picked over, and there wasn't a whole lot left of value. It seemed like the place had been a junk shop back in the day, and what was still left behind definitely fit the description of "junk." Daryl, however, was inspecting the joint like a detective. "Someone's been through here recently."

"How the hell can you tell that?" I asked incredulously.

He motioned for me to come over. "Look," he said, pointing to a layer of dust on the shelf.

"What am I looking at?"

"Stuff was taken off this shelf not too long ago. There's no dust here and here." He pointed to a couple of places where there was a clear outline where things had obviously been removed in the recent past.

My pulse quickened, and I felt hope surge through me. I had no way of knowing if whoever took the stuff was my family or had seen them, so I tried to tamp down my enthusiasm a little. Struggling to keep my voice even, I asked, "How long ago, do you think?"

"Eh, hard t'say exactly. I think we should leave one a' your notes, though." Before we had left, we had written the same message on about a million sheets of paper, so that we had a "calling card" to leave to let my family know we were looking for them. Forgetting my fear for a second, I dashed back out to the truck and grabbed a sheet from my backpack. Back in the store, I looked around for a conspicuous place to leave the note, settling on the front window. I didn't have any tape or anything like that, so I slid the edge of the paper in between the wood and the glass at eye level. The note read:

My name is Stella, and I am looking for my father and brothers:

-Dominic (Nic) - 52 years old, approx 6 ft tall, brown hair, brown eyes

- Louie - 21 y.o., red hair, brown eyes

- Henry - 18 y.o., red hair, blue eyes, high-functioning autistic

If you have seen them, plz leave any info re: their whereabouts. If you are one of them, first of all, I am alive & well! Second of all, leave a note re: where you are & don't go anywhere. We will be back this way within a week.

We went on to explore the few other shops in the town, and there were more signs that people might be nearby. I wanted to plaster the town with my notes, or maybe go farther off the main road to look for them, but Daryl reminded me that this was just the first stop of many and we had no way of knowing where those people might be, so we had to just stick to the original plan. When we were ready to leave, I went back to each place where I left a note, just to make sure they hadn't fallen or otherwise slipped out of sight. Daryl indulged me, but I could tell he was getting antsy to get back on the road.

"Hang on, I gotta pee," I told him and slipped around the corner to take care of my business. A minute later, I came back around and was face to face with the nastiest, foulest, rotting-est walker I'd seen in ages. I reached desperately for my hatchet, only to discover I had left it with Daryl. Before I could even let out a shriek of alarm, the hatchet was lodged in the zombie's head and it collapsed at my feet, revealing Daryl behind it. "What'd I tell ya 'bout trusting me?" As he reached down to yank the hatchet out of the walker's skull, he said, "But it'd do ya some good t'keep this on you."

My excitement about the possibilities the day had hinted at completely deflated, and I ducked my head sheepishly as I took the hatchet from Daryl. "Yeah, sorry. That was stupid of me." Dejected, I climbed into the truck.

Daryl climbed in behind the wheel and put the key into the ignition. He paused before he started up the truck. "Look, Funny Girl, I know it's hard but ya gotta keep your head on straight all the time," he said gently. "It's been a long time since you've been on the road, so I get it. But ya can't get carried away is all. 'Member, I promised your friend Mouth that I'd bring ya back in one piece. I know I don't wanna get on her bad side."

He succeeded in making me smile, especially since he used his very apt nickname for Marie. "Yeah, she'd probably rip your head off and play soccer with it."

Daryl started up the engine, and we pulled away. Just in time it seemed, because several more walkers came shambling up the road, as if they knew there was fresh meat available.

I might not be updating quite so often because I've got something else I'm working on right now, but I will try not to go too long between chapters.