Amy On Her Own

As it turned out, falling asleep during the apocalypse was a very dangerous thing to do.

Amy Harrison opened her eyes and looked around the forest. It was peaceful, deserted except for a few birds and some squirrels. One dropped a nut that almost hit her on the head. She wasn't sure if it was aiming for her or if it was an accident. Either way she decided she'd leave the little creature to its tree in peace.

She hadn't meant to fall asleep. All she'd wanted was to rest a moment, after miles of walking with their group. They were trying to find somewhere safe to make a camp and so far they'd had no luck. Walkers were always everywhere, a never ending threat they just couldn't completely escape.

"Andrea?"

Amy headed back the way she'd came. She'd had no luck finding water. Her jug was still empty, her body was itchy from mosquito bites, and her head throbbed from the heat. She'd kill someone for an hour under some air conditioning and a big bottle of icy cold Pepsi…

"Andrea," she whispered again.

When she failed to get a response from her sister Amy's heart started to pound. Where were they? She looked around and came to a horrible realization-this wasn't where she'd left the group. In fact, she was sure she'd never seen this area of the woods. She should've been back by the road by now.

"Oh, no," she whispered. She was lost. "Fuck!"

She hadn't felt this scared since that time when she was six years old and she'd gotten separated from her parents at the grocery store. She'd gone off on her own to look for toys and when she went back to where she thought her mother had been, only to find her gone, she'd panicked and started crying. Back then her mother had also panicked, had hurried off to find her, but they'd missed each other.

While she was an adult now, and her mother was god only knew where, probably dead, she was just as scared as she'd been on that day. It wasn't like she was in a shopping center and gotten separated from Andrea, could call her on the phone, or text her with a quick, "Hey, where are you?" No, this was much different, and much more dangerous. When she'd been a child some pedophile could've snatched her up, taken her off, molested and then killed her, though she hadn't been aware of such dangers at the time. Now she could very well get eaten by a hoard of animated corpses. She'd seen what being bitten, and eaten, was like. She didn't want to die that way; out there in the woods, alone, hot, covered in mosquitos, only to be devoured by the dead.

In her panic Amy couldn't even remember which direction she'd just come. When she finally hazarded a guess she saw that the area was so generic, just trees and dappled sunlight, and little woodland creatures, she may or may not have come in that direction. She felt the waistband of her jeans. Her knife, a good, long hunting knife that their friend Dale had loaned her so she wouldn't be defenseless while she went looking for water, rested on her hip.

She pulled it now, and started forward, cautious, listening to the forest for sounds. Who was she kidding? She didn't have the first clue what to look for. She was about as survival savvy as her battery dead iPhone. That didn't stop her from trying, from straining all her senses to detect danger.

Maybe she should stay still, wait. She'd heard that somewhere. That if you got lost in the woods you should just stay put because wandering off could make it harder for a rescue party to find you. Then again, how many people had followed that advice just to have search and rescue miss them, repeatedly? It wasn't like someone was gonna fly over in a helicopter, looking for her, and she could wave them down, and she didn't trust Shane Walsh not to write her off and abandon her for the 'greater good.' She hated that son of a bitch with a passion, though she was pretty sure her sister was hot in the panties for him.

A sound caught Amy's attention. She held as still as she could but it was hard to hear over the thunder of her pulse and the raggedness of her breathing. Then she saw it. A walker. It meandered along, unaware of her presence. She held still, wondering what kind of senses the things had. Could they smell life? Could they tell the difference between a living person and their own on sight alone?

Apparently they could easily spot a living person because the walker came right at her as soon as it's eyes found her. She looked around, wondering if there were more. She didn't see any, but then she was so scared she doubted she'd notice until they were on top of her.

Okay, I can do this. Shane showed me how.

Where was that bastard when she needed him? Amy lifted her knife as the thing reached for her. She brought it down, hard as she could, into its skull. It was a lot more difficult than it looked to stab something in the head, but the knife went in and the thing dropped...taking her knife with it. The hilt pulled from her hand since the blade stuck.

"Damn it," she cursed. Amy worked the knife free and looked around. There weren't anymore, thank God.

She doubted her group was in the direction the walker had come from. Surely one of them would've killed it. She looked around, wondering which direction she should go, when she saw two more walkers. They looked fresh, too, almost human, like they'd died in the last couple of days, or maybe even that morning. The fresh ones were fast, and strong, and she knew she was dead if she tried to take on two of them alone.

With no other direction to go, Amy moved straight ahead, not going in the direction the walker she'd killed had come from, not heading back, the way she'd just explored. She moved straight ahead and prayed to whatever would listen she found someone.

…

An hour passed when Amy quit running. She heard the sound of water and spotted a creek. She nearly wept with relief. The heat was unbearable and she was dying of thirst, feeling dizzy and weak from lack of water. She filled her jug and then laid down in the water, soaking her clothes, her hair, and then threw caution to the wind to drink. She could go a long time without food but she couldn't go much longer without water.

She spotted a tree that had sturdy branches and climbed into it, praying all the while that she hadn't just filled her belly to the brim with tainted water. She settled down and waited, listening for the sound of either the living or the dead. A few walkers meandered past but after a few hours she heard something else. A voice, speaking.

Someone calling her name.

"Amy?" it said cautiously, almost too quietly for her to hear. Then again, she knew it wouldn't do to go yelling her name in the woods, not with walkers around.

"Here!" she said, a bit too loudly. She toned it down. "Here."

She jumped from the tree and nearly landed on Glenn Rhee.

"Glenn!"

She'd never been so happy to see another person in her life. She threw herself into his arms and then kissed him full on the mouth. He blushed so hard his whole head turned red. She didn't care. She was just glad to see him.

"Everybody's out looking for you," he said, and began rambling in his embarrassment. "Andrea's about to go crazy. It'll be almost dark before we get back to camp. Sure glad I found you. I mean, you know, glad somebody found you. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "I killed a walker. Then I had to run because two more were coming."

"Good job," he said. "I spotted a few myself. We'll have to dodge them. Come on."

She hooked her arm through his and they started back toward camp. No matter how prepared she thought she was for a situation from now on, she vowed she'd never wander away from her sister again.