The streets were silent as Rick navigated the ghost town of Cynthiana, the occasional Walker stumbling towards the road as he passed, faces twisted in feral, hungry grimaces. It was not the dead that disturbed him the most, though they were plenty unsettling. The silence got to him. The pervading quiet that had accompanied the death of everyone he knew. Those suburban noises that he had been so accustomed to: the beeping of a car horn down the street, the mower from next door, the rubbish truck running its rounds. All of them gone. It was unnerving to know that those noises may never be heard again in the same context. That those sounds were no longer commonplace.

He swerved sharply to avoid a zombified grandmother as she reached out to scratch at the blue paint along the side of the car with her blunt, filthy nails. Rick banked onto the onramp of the highway, noting the abandoned cars piled to the side of the road.

The speedometer hit 30 mph, and Rick wasn't game to push it any higher for fear of hitting a Walker and doing irreparable damage to the car while simultaneously becoming Walker Bait. Rick was lulled into a meditative state consisting of dodging parked or crashed cars and lumbering Walkers.

"What the…?" Rick muttered, as he spotted an unusual sight ahead.

A young teenager, not much older than Carl, was jogging along with his left arm stuck out, his thumb raised to the sky in the universal signal for hitchhiking. Chasing him were half a dozen shuffling cadavers, all of which the boy ignored blasély. A black backpack was slung casually over his shoulder, a baseball cap backwards, covering a mop of blond hair.

Rick shook his head in amazement, as he swung in to pick the kid up.

The kid barely stopped, not bothering to check who it was that was picking him up. He opened the car door, swinging his backpack into the footwell. He stepped in and slammed the door behind him.

He turned to Rick, looking him up and down, noting his uniform.

"Hey," the teenager said causally, "Thanks for picking me up."

Rick gave the kid an unimpressed look as the dead started scratching at the passenger side door, salivating at the proximity of their meal. The kid unflinchingly ignored them, even as their nails screeched against glass. He continued to smile at Rick, until Rick turned with a snort back to the wheel. Gunning the engine, the car sped away from the growing herd.

"What the hell do you think you were doing, kid?"

"Uh… catching a ride. Thanks for that, by the way." The kid said awkwardly.

Rick glanced down at the backpack sitting in the passenger side foot-well, noting that it was covered in colourful Sharpe, spelling out various expletives.

"What are you doing out in the middle of nowhere by yourself? Where are your parents?" Rick inquired. He knew the world had been turned upside down, he wouldn't be too surprised if the kid was the only survivor in his family, or if he'd been left for dead.

"Just travelling, you know. Heading for Atlanta at the moment," the kid answered evasively.

"And your parents?"

"Dead."

The kid was so calm about it. It was a statement of fact, rather than an expression of grief. He wondered if the teenager had dissociated himself from his emotions in order to emotionally shield himself from his parent's death. Silence hung awkwardly between them.

"Uh… They died ages ago, not like, you know, right now," the teenager clarified vaguely.

"Oh, alright," Rick said, knowing full well it wasn't, but at loss of what else to say," So, what's your name, kid?"

"Alex."

"Why you heading to Atlanta?" Rick asked.

"Nowhere else to go. At least, not where I really want to go. Atlanta is close so, whatever," Alex murmured.

The kid was really starting to peeve Rick off. It was almost like he was incapable of answering any question straight.

Rick had a dreadful premonition that this was what Carl would be like in a year or two.

"Well I'm going all the way to Atlanta, so we can travel together if you'd like," Rick offered, banishing the sense of impending dread. He didn't even know if Carl was still alive, and he'd more than willingly sacrifice a few years to teenage angst, if he was.

"Yeah, sure. Sounds good," Alex agreed.

Rick sighed. If seemed like it was going to be a very quiet trip to Atlanta.

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They sat in silence for over half an hour, before coming across a multi-car pile-up that blocked the whole inbound lane. With a sigh, Rick turned the ignition off to save fuel, before clambering out.

"Come on, you'll need to help me clear these cars," Rick said, as he walked around to the trunk, to get a gun.

Alex stepped out of the car, slamming the door noisily behind him, before calmly glancing around. He walked towards the pile-up, not bothering to check that the cars were empty before he reached through a broken window to let off a handbrake.

"What the Hell!" Rick exclaimed with anxiety, as he rushed over, shotgun in hand, "Be careful, there might be Walkers in the cars!"

"Yeah, Yeah, whatever," Alex dismissed airily.

He placed his hands on the rear window before bracing his legs and pushing. The car rolled off the bitumen, into the ditch on the side of the road.

Rick sighed in frustration, running his gun over the interior of a car, he smashed the passenger-side glass with the butt, and reaching through the window to release the handbrake.

They continued to work, clearing over a dozen of the cars and leaving only three partially smashed vehicles partly blocking the road. At that moment they heard a scuffling noise from behind them. Rick spun around, spotting a figure ducking behind his police car. He pulled his gun up to look through the sights.

Alex stood still, watching silently as Rick held somebody at gunpoint, entirely unprovoked.

"Come out with your hands up," Rick said loudly.

There was no response.

A second later he heard the engine gunning. Rick ran towards the car, waving his shotgun wildly, as he tried to intimidate the thief. The car sped by the crash site, driving fearlessly through the field of broken glass. Alex watched motionlessly as the car with his backpack sped away.

It skidded to a halt a few hundred meters away, near the tree-line. Three other figures bolted out of the trees, diving into the car, even as Rick lined his shotgun up at the distant targets.

"Don't," Alex said calmly, "The noise will attract them, and there is nothing we can do at this distance."

Alex didn't feel the need to clarify who the 'them' were.

Rick hissed in frustration, "That's my car!"

"That's my backpack," Alex responded, "Doesn't change the facts."

Rick glared at the teenager, his jaw working as he swallowed a crude retort.

"Well, we've still got to get to Atlanta, so we should start walking," Alex suggested.

With an irate growl he swung his shotgun onto his shoulder, and stalked passed the remaining wreckage.

Alex followed in his wake.

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They walked through the hot muggy afternoon for more than half an hour. The heat of the tarmac rising up, and causing the road to shimmer, distorting their vision.

They noticed ahead, beyond a slight rise, the silhouette of a car and several people. Alex and Rick exchanged subtle glances before beginning to jog, daring to hope. They were soon close enough to recognise the familiar blue and white of Rick's police sedan. They also noticed that one group had guns trained unerringly on the other group.

As the first bullet rang through the air, the birds in the surrounding forest took flight with indignant squawks. Alex and Rick flattened themselves against the burning tarmac. Rick hoped desperately that the slight upwards bulge of the road, and the heat distortion, would conceal them.

The first bullet heralded the others, and for an instant the world shuddered with gunfire as dozens of bullets flew through the air.

The hot bitumen against Rick's cheek was painful, yet he didn't dare to move. Alex lay beside him, and his calm doe brown eyes met Rick's frightened blue ones.

Alex soothed Rick calmly, "Don't move. Movement attracts the eye, they'll leave shortly."

It seemed that Alex's words were precognizant, as moments later the survivors turned and piled into the car, leaving behind four dead carjackers.

The familiar sound of Rick's car driving away at high speed made the Sheriff's Deputy swear colourfully. Alex raised an eyebrow at him drily, an amused smirk dancing across his lips.

They stood up cautiously, as the engine's roar became distant. The noise of gunfire had attracted several unfriendly Walkers, and Rick ushered Alex along, "Hurry up kid, we can't stay here, it'll be crawling with Walkers in a few minutes."

Alex didn't deign to respond, instead he began to stride quickly towards the downed bodies.

"What are you doing?" Rick asked, as Alex leant over one body that had a neat circle in the centre of its forehead, and a chest full of shrapnel.

"What do you think, idiot?" Alex asked, as he dug his hands through the corpse's pockets to fish out a pocket knife and a set of knuckle dusters.

Rick turned nervously, vividly aware of the moaning from the tree-line that had been increasing in tempo and volume since the shooting. The first Walkers cleared the trees, and Rick grabbed Alex's shoulder and pulled him away from a now twitching corpse riddled with bullets, just as the teenager freed a machete attached to a sheath and belt.

"We have to go!" Rick insisted, pulling the boy with him.

Alex didn't resist.

He and Rick ran from the site of the massacre, just as the main body of the attracted herd cleared the trees. Alex tied the machete belt to his waist as he ran, and Rick swore as he saw just how many Walkers had been called by the dinner bell.

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By the time that they slowed their pace, Rick was bent almost double, his face twisted in a grimace of agony as he clutched his half-healed bullet-wound. Alex was hardly out of breath, breathing lightly he checked their six o'clock.

"Looks like we got out of there quickly enough to avoid attracting most the herd. There are only about a dozen following us."

Rick looked up, still gasping for breath as he concurred with Alex's assessment.

"Yes… Just have to… Loose the… Rest," the man panted.

Alex nodded, with a quiet hum of agreement.

"We can't use your shotgun, it will attract the rest of the herd. The only weapons I have are the knuckle dusters, the pocket knife and the machete." Alex pointed out, "Have you got any knifes?"

Rick shook his head, unable to answer verbally.

"Well the knuckle dusters are useless. I don't know about you, but I don't want to get that close to one of those things," Alex said drily. "Our best bet is if we string the group out, and every now and then I'll drop back to remove one or two."

Rick shook his head, gasping for breath he said, "No… I'll do it."

Alex snorted, "A little bit of running has exhausted you. You're clearly injured. I'll do it. I'm perfectly capable."

Rick glared, recognising Alex's facetiousness as teenage arrogance.

Alex gave him a cool look of indifference.

"Fine," Rick bit out, "I'll look for transport while we move."

Alex bowed his head slightly in acquiescence.

They began to jog again, at a more relaxed pace as the small herd moan and groaned behind them.

Before long, Alex judged that the Walkers had been spread out enough, and dropped back.

Freeing his machete from his newly acquired sheath, he swung it experimentally. He'd never used a machete before, but he imagined that it would be a very effective weapon against Walkers.

The first Walker quickly reached him. It was a young woman, who might have been very pretty several weeks ago, but now lacked part of her jaw, and most of her intestines. Her arms were outstretched in morbid mimicry of a hug, her hands curled like claws. Alex side stepped her, swinging his machete up before she could turn towards him again. The blade sliced through both of her outstretched arms, hitching only very slightly as it passed through bone, and her hands fell almost bloodlessly onto the hot bitumen, with a sickening thump. She snarled, and the others shuffled more energetically towards their victim.

Alex, now free of the concern of being scratched by her sharp polished nails, stepped inside the reach of her bloody stumps, and embedded his blade in her skull. It caught on the bony crown of her skull, and for a terrifying second Alex feared that he wouldn't be able to yank it free. Adrenaline coursed through his veins at the thought of being defenceless against the hoard of dead.

With a violent wrench, he jerked the blade free. The woman fell, like a puppet with her strings cut.

The next Walker had almost reached him, and he retreated quickly, to return to Rick's side. The man had stopped several metres ahead of the Walkers when Alex had begun his attack, turning to watch the young man's seemingly emotionless execution of a once-human. He watched cautiously as the teenager stepped up beside him.

Alex noticed his look, "What?" He asked.

Rick just shook his head silently, and they continued their unhurried jogging pace, ignoring the hungry moans of the dead trailing behind.

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Alex fell back periodically to behead the herd, sometimes quite literally. He continued his pattern of disarmament, and execution, but was more cautious in the retrieval of his blade. He quickly realised that if he tried to pull the blade out at the same angle that it went it, it would catch, as if suction had built in the skull. But if he twisted his wrist slightly as he pulled out, the blade slid free easily.

Rick continued to check every car that they passed in the hopes of finding a potentially functional vehicle. They had no luck.

Alex, being preoccupied by their posse, didn't notice the disturbance up ahead until Rick pointed it out.

"Alex, look!" Rick exclaimed, "The car!"

Alex turned around to spot the cursed blue and white police car side-along the concrete barricade around the central island. The doors were open, the car was empty.

They both began running towards the car, before Alex came to his sense and grabbed Rick's arm, "Stop, there's something wrong. Why is the car like that? Where are the people that stole it?"

Rick's eyes widened with fear, he glanced around guardedly, but the empty highway didn't harbour many hiding places.

"This is a bad place for an ambush," He pointed out, "There's nowhere for them to get the drop on us from."

Alex nodded in agreement, "Careful," He cautioned.

They crept towards the car, sticking to the right-hand side of the concrete barricade, using it as cover. When Alex reached the car, he realised something. The dark splotches on the fabric interior were wet, and his hand came away red.

"Blood," He hissed to Rick.

Rick nodded, and poked his head around Alex's shoulder. There, still in the ignition, sat the car keys.

Alex crept around to the passenger side, he peaked inside and spotted his black backpack sitting untouched in the footwell, graffiti and all.

Exchanging glances, they simultaneously swung themselves inside, slamming the doors behind them. Rick gunned the engine, dropped the handbrake, and they roared away.

They sped off at a break-neck pace, swerving dangerously as a lone Walker turned to lumber towards them.

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Alex's hands clenched the seat, his knuckles white.

"You can slow down now, you know. They can't ambush us here," Alex pointed out.

Rick gave him a filthy look, but eased off the accelerator.

They sat in contemplative silence, as they dodged the occasional abandoned car.

"What the actual fuck?" Alex asked the air.

Rick Grimes let out a chuckle which turned into an almost hysterical laugh.

"I don't know what the actual fuck, but my pants are wet, and it wasn't me," He said drily.

Alex gave him an unimpressed look.

"So, what now?" Alex asked, "We just continue to Atlanta and hope nothing else happens along the way?"

Just as he said that, they heard violent thumping from the rear end of the car.

Rick glared at him, "Why did you have to say that? You jinxed us." He moaned.

Alex didn't bother to respond, pulling his machete from its blood-soaked sheath.

Rick pulled to the side of the road, cautiously removing the keys from the ignition as he stepped out of the car, closing the door behind him.

Alex did the same on the other side.

Rick swung around to the trunk, placing the key in the lock.

He looked at Alex, who nodded to him, machete held at the ready.

The key unlocked the trunk with a click, and it swung open.

The growl of a hungry undead, now unhindered by the insulation surrounding the trunk, reached their ears.

A well preserved, tattooed hand was the first thing Alex saw. He swung down unhesitatingly, removing it from the rest of the corpse. It hissed at him, it's purple tailored suit clashing horribly with its spiky green hair and the red blood that seeped from its mouth. Rick took a step back as it lunged forward, intent on eating its fill.

Alex stepped forward and neatly decapitated it.

Without talking, they each grabbed a shoulder, pulling the well-dressed dead man from the car.

Rick slammed the trunk shut. He turned and opened his door, sliding back onto the blood covered seat with a faint grimace.

Alex slipped back into the passenger's seat with a sarcastic quip, "I hope that he wasn't in there before. Is there something I should know?"

With a sigh, Rick started the car again, and they sped off. Only for the car to chug to a stop a few hundred meters later.

"What now?" Alex asked fatalistically.

"No Fuel."