The Dead World/Issue 111

Night had fallen in the camp and mostly everyone was asleep except for Karen and Anthony who sat in the truck giggling at something but kept their eyes peeled for trouble still. Anthony had managed to fix the RV but by the time he had it had gotten dark so they were forced to stay where they were.

"you know its going to be new year at the end of tomorrow" Karen whispered into his ear as she moved to basically sit on his lap while he chuckled and rubbed her back, keeping his eyes on the outside while she seemed to be more interested in him.

"oh?, and who will you be kissing at midnight?" Anthony asked playfully finally turning to look down at her while she grinned and licked her lips as she pretended to think about it making Anthony chuckle.

"hmmm well Will's not an option because Bella has him, Morgan's a bit too old for me and Jamie is to young so I suppose that leaves me with you" Karen said with a fake sigh but raised an eyebrow at his response.

"well who says I'm not going to be kissing Angelica tonight?" Anthony asked with a smirk but she just scoffed as she leaned back onto her own chair beginning to smirk herself as she lowered her window.

"if you want to die be my guest" Karen said with a mock "I don't care" voice making him give her a puppy look which she tried to ignore. She couldn't beat his puppy looks and he knew it....smart ass.

"you know Will told us not to do anything in the car" Anthony pointed out playfully gesturing to the cigarette she had gotten out of her pocket making her raise an eyebrow and laugh lightly.

"you know Will smokes too" Karen pointed out in turn causing him to smirk as he watched her look through her pockets for the lighter which she couldn't find before she sighed and held out her hand for the lighter.

"very funny" she stated as he went through his pockets and grabbed the lighter before giving it back to her, sticking out his tongue resulting in her sticking out her own tongue at him before she lit her cigarette.

"you know now I think about it, I think I'd rather kiss you at midnight" Anthony admitted playfully as she took a drag of her cigarette before turning to raise an eyebrow at him with a certain look.

"you think?" she parroted making him shift on his feet as he chuckled and nodded thinking of something "sweet" to say but just as he opened his mouth to say something he had come up with, she placed her finger to his lips.

"don't even try to say something "sweet" Mr. Romantic" Karen told him causing the two to burst out in laughter while Karen flicked the cigarette out of the window before leaning over to him and kissing him fully on the lips causing him to blush thinking about how lucky he was to have Karen as his girlfriend.

However due to the two of them playing about they both failed to see a silhouette moving about in the forest around them, watching the group with his crossbow in his arms....

The next morning the group's "little camp" on the road was buzzing with activity as people gathered around for the food again like they did every morning. This time Emily was the one handing out the food and she was happy to make people smile due to getting their bellies filled.

Smiling as she gave some food to Will who gratefully took it, Emily turned to look around to make sure she had given everyone food because she would hate herself if she missed someone out and during this saw what everyone was doing.

Maria and Jamie were chatting about something, drawing probably and Bella was sitting next to Will having a "playful conversation" which made her smile even more. The two of them really were perfect for each other.

Karen and Anthony were in the RV resting a bit but Emily had already gave them their food earlier, no one got left out and Annie and Angelica were sitting alone, Annie in the back of the ambulance and Angelica on a chair on top of the RV, keeping watch. Looking around at them all realized she hadn't offered food to Morgan, he was a member of their group now after all.

Looking around for said man, she saw him sitting on the floor away from everyone else while digging his shovel into the ground lightly, obviously waiting for the group to announce that they were moving on.

"hey Morgan, would you like some food?" Emily asked walking up to him causing him to finally turn to look at everyone else but when he did he saw Angelica showing a face of disgust as he was offered food making him think about the offer for a moment.

"No thank you" Morgan replied with a thankful smile and a nod of his head causing Emily to be confused as she bit her lip, unsure why someone would be turning down some food. Maybe he didn't want to intrude? or he didn't feel like he was part of the group yet?

"you sure?" she asked again but before he could reply Angelica let out a loud sigh as she looked down to Emily who raised an eyebrow at her, unsure why she was sounding annoyed at this.

"he said he didn't want it so don't force him to eat it" Angelica snapped at Emily causing everyone to go quiet and Emily to be more confused as she glared up at Angelica, working out that the woman must not want Morgan here.

"what's your problem? he is a member of our group" Emily stated a little more coldly that she intended making her a little shocked but she still stood by her statement, Morgan had given up his home for them, the least he deserved was to be able to stay in their group.

However before Angelica could respond, no doubt with a smart ass comment or something that was going to be mean, Morgan stood up and slung his shovel over his shoulders as he held up his free hand to tell the woman to be quiet for a minute which they did, everyone turning to look at the older man.

"now, now don't fight over it, your woman not little girls that cry because they don't get what they want and more importantly your members of the same group, if you argue things aren't going to go well for the whole group so get over it and move on, we're all in this together" Morgan stated wisely.

After he said this he walked away to be both left alone and also in hopes of not causing any more arguments amongst the group and they all knew the old man was right. The day they started fighting each other was the day no hope was left in the world....

Rooting through her medical supplies for what was probably the tenth time, Annie sighed as she rubbed her forehead just wanting a break from all that had happened to her in her apocalypse life.

Coming across the next set of supplies to go through, Annie found herself holding one of scalpel's she had, the sharp blade shining in the light that was surrounding her and it, making her think about how easy it cut into human skin.

How easy it would cut through her skin....

"hey Annie" Maria called out softly as she began entering the back of the ambulance making Annie quickly snap out of her thoughts and hide the scalpel somewhere before turning to look at the little girl, hiding her previous feelings behind a small smile.

"hey Maria, while your here I'd like to apologize for me shouting yesterday" Annie said softly as she kneeled down in front of the girl but Maria just shook her head smiling as she held something behind her back.

"its ok, your going through a lot I understand....I wanted to give you this though" Maria admitted shyly as she took her hands from behind her back and revealed that she was holding a drawing.

"aww thank -" Annie began saying on instinct but when she took the picture carefully and looked down at it she was speechless. On the picture it was her with Jamie and Maria but that wasn't what got her. What got her was in big letters it said "we forgive you".

"don't cry, I didn't want you to cry..." Maria said worriedly as Annie raised her hands to her eyes and began crying, trying to say that she wasn't crying because she was upset but she just couldn't form the words resulting in Maria suddenly coming forward and hugging Annie tight.

"you don't have to be sorry, your not a mean person....your the nicest person in the world" Maria claimed as she allowed Annie to cry into her shoulder as if she was the adult and Annie was the little one, showing how much she had matured since the apocalypse began.

"thank you" Annie finally whispered as she held the little girl tight, her crying beginning to slow down. She realized now that she may have been through a lot and she may be feeling down but she couldn't give up, she had to do whatever she could to carry on and protect the people she cared about.

WHATEVER she could....

Packing up the food supplies she had used to give the group their meal, Emily frowned as she took in the amount of supplies they had, She thought they had more than that but she soon just shrugged it off and closed the box.

She was just getting a little paranoid, she had to keep reminding herself that much of the supplies had been stolen meaning they had much less supplies now than she thought they had. It made things hard but there was not much she could do about it for now.

She just hoped that they got to this "safe zone" before they ran out of supplies....

Picking up the box, Emily was about to head back to the RV when she saw Angelica getting off the top of said vehicle now that Bella was sitting up there before she began walking off away from everyone causing Emily to take a deep breath before putting down the box and jogging to catch up with Angelica.

"hey Angelica, I wanted to apologize for snapping at you earlier" Emily said softly as she caught up to Angelica and began walking by the woman's side but Angelica just shrugged and continued walking.

"its fine but yeah, I'm sorry to" Angelica said and despite knowing Angelica didn't fully mean the apology, Emily appreciated it anyway. She always preferred being friends with everyone rather than arguing with one.

"its just I don't like being on people's bad sides, you know what I mean?" Emily asked but surprisingly Angelica just scoffed as she turned to look at Emily with a "are you serious?" face but when she realized Emily was serious she just shook her head and continued walking.

"yeah I get it, don't worry your not on my bad side" Angelica told her before going over to Will to talk to him leaving Emily to watch her go before sighing as she went to go back to the box of supplies, they may not really be friends but at least they wasn't against each other either.

Sitting on the top of the RV now instead of Angelica, Bella kept a look out as she held her rifle on her lap. She had decided to let Angelica take a break from watch so she could talk with Will about what their plan was to move on.

Either way she didn't really mind. As long as they all got to this "safe zone" in Charleston safely she would be totally happy, however for some reason she felt like something was going to go really bad for them soon....

"h-hey Bella?" Jamie spoke up suddenly as he came out of the RV causing her to look down at him, putting on a smile like she always did. It wasn't that she didn't like talking to people like Jamie but she just felt like she didn't know him enough to make her smile properly.

"what can I do for you Jamie?" Bella asked being patient with his stutter knowing he couldn't help it. Inside she felt sorry for him. She had a friend in school who had a stutter and the only one that didn't actually bully him was her.

Ever her damn father and brother acted as bullies to her friend.

"I-I was wondering I-if I-I could ask a q-question?" Jamie asked and Bella smirked as she put her rifle to the side and leaned down to look him in the eyes before opening her mouth to say one of her usual smart ass comments.

"you just did" Bella pointed smirking even more causing him to shift on his feet, a little embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his head, grinning a little which made her laugh a little as she gestured for him to ask the question.

"well K-Karen used to teach me to s-shoot but s-she has other things o-on her m-mind so I was wondering if y-you could t-teach me?" Jamie asked and for a moment Bella thought about it before saying her honest answer.

"well at the moment I cant, we're all too busy so I suggest you just do what you can to help" Bella said lightly and Jamie nodded bowing his head knowing that what she was saying was true but Bella soon spoke up again.

"BUT if we all get to Charleston safely, yeah sure I'm game" Bella said with a genuine smile this time making Jamie smile himself in a thankful way, glad that she didn't think he was just some useless teenager. He did do his best to help where he could.

"g-great and...t-thanks" Jamie admitted quietly and Bella gave Jamie a nod but before she spoke up again she heard rustling coming from the forest making her instantly go on guard as she aimed her rifle around.

"w-what I-is it?" Jamie asked nervously as he hid against the RV but Bella just remained silent and watched the forest carefully as her finger got ready to pull the trigger at a seconds notice....

However after a few minutes she soon realized there was nothing out there so she lowered her weapon and told Jamie it was all clear but still looked around curiously as to what made the noise. Normally she would've brushed it off as an animal but the loudness of the sound made her think differently.It was too loud to be any normal type of animal in these forests.

What she didn't know was it was the same person as earlier watching them, still armed with his crossbow....

A little while later Will was alone as he stood in front of his truck, looking down the empty road, taking a drag of his cigarette. The rest of the group was getting ready to go but he was keeping watch while they did.

They had all decided that it would be best to just go straight past Pine Ville due to it being empty like Morgan told them but for some reason he felt like something was going to go wrong soon, he just didn't understand why....

"bang, your dead" Morgan joked but with no laughter as he came up to stand beside Will but the man himself just shook his head as he dropped his cigarette to the ground and stomped on it to put it out.

"how funny" Will stated with no emotion as he wrapped his arms around himself to keep himself warm as he turned to look at Morgan with a questioned face "what do you want?" Will asked not bothering with trying to start a nice conversation.

"well your a happy man today aren't you?" Morgan asked with a smirk this time but Will just growled and began walking off leaving Morgan to watch him go for a moment before he put his shovel to the pavement road to make a noise drawing Will's attention a little as Morgan leaned on his weapon.

"your group isn't going to survive much longer you know" Morgan stated as if it was obvious but Will just turned around to look at the man with a glare as he began walking back to Morgan angrily.

"what the fuck did you just say?!" Will asked in a colder tone than he had before but Morgan didn't even flinch and just stood his group and looked Will in the eyes as he opened his lips to say it again.

"your group isn't going to survive much longer, you know?" Morgan repeated shrugging as he did making Will shake his head as he ran a hand through his hair, pacing about a little trying to resist getting annoyed at the man.

"son of a fucking bitch" Will cursed at him, finally stopping his pacing as he turned to glare at Morgan again but said man just chuckled and shrugged, obviously not caring what people thought about him.

"look whatever your feelings about me are, you'll want to listen to the point I'm trying to prove to you here-" Morgan started but Will interrupted him by putting up his hand to silence the older man while Will began speaking himself.

"If you think we're not going to survive much longer then why the fuck you still here?" Will asked coldly but Morgan just leaned on his shovel further as he shrugged, truth be told Morgan didn't really care where he was....

"because I have no where else to be, but I still think what I think and you want to know why?" Morgan asked and this time Will remained silent so Morgan took it as a chance to say what he wanted to say so he opened his lips and said it.

"your too nice for your own good because you let me, a complete stranger into your group just because I gave you my engine. I could've easily killed you all while you slept and half of you aren't even prepared if you need to survive on your own, you have a young girl learning to draw instead of shoot, you have a teenager that's nearly completely useless and you've all failed to realize that your doctor wants to die, I'll be surprised if any of you know what your doing anymore''

Hearing this, Will just stood there in shock as he realized all that the man was saying was true. The kids were not even prepared to survive on their own. They were always arguing and even Will himself didn't realize until now Annie wanted to die....they were completely fucked if this safe zone turned out not to be true.

"look I know this is making me sound like an asshole but....if that safe zone turns out not to be real then all of you are going to be screwed and I've seen enough people die like that already" Morgan admitted quietly and a little sadly before he sighed and put the shovel on his shoulders again beginning to walk away but at the last minute he stopped and looked Will in the eyes.

"your a good group and God knows you deserve that safe zone but don't let yourselves get killed, be prepared because none of you deserve to die" Morgan said sadly as he laid his hand on Will's shoulder briefly before he walked off again, leaving Will to watch him go.

Now less mad at the old man and more feeling sorry for him....