DECEMBER 2013

For days the stray walkers have grown in numbers. Until one night, the window panes break and they attack. In panic everybody runs. This is the point where the group splits up. Mia and Inferialis escape to the woods. Gera with her son and the Prof make it to the town. The twins go missing altogether. Gerard has not been back, he is still somewhere on an exploration.

Inferialis and Mia find another empty house, close to an abandoned farm. Gera and the Prof struggle to survive in the town but the Prof, still weakened by his illness, is attacked. As he dies he begs Gera to shoot him. Under tears and devastated, Gera shoots him. For her, this is especially hard since she is the one who still believes that the infected should be cared for and that they might be cured if one day a miracle happens.

Meanwhile Mia and her mother try to get back some sort of routine in the new shelter they found. They hope the rest of the group has survived and they wait for their return.

New shelter

 One night a man called Alasdair finds them. Inferialis is suspicious first but soon learns that Alasdair is a blessing. He is strong and has experience with weapons. A former army man he knows everything about survival. He also carries ammunition and most important, medical supply. While Inferialis and Alasdair talk upstairs, Mia busies herself outside when suddenly they hear her screams. A zombie has attacked the girl while she was in the yard. They find her downstairs in the kitchen, crying and hiding her hand. In a split second Inferialis and Alasdair realize that she has been bitten. Inferialis desperate to save her daughters life, cries to Alasdair to hand her his army knife. He throws it over to her and she hacks off her daughters hand. Only because of Alasdair's skills and knowledge they succeed to stop the bleeding and while the teenager sleeps upstairs, heavily bandaged and filled up with antibiotics, Inferialis thanks the man under tears and asks him to stay with them.

Alasdair

Two other survivers find the empty weekend house by lake, that the group escaped from. They come from very different walks of life. The two men meet at the empty house on coincide and stay there for some days. One is the young musician Ludger, the other is Blake, a one eyed man in his forties. Eventually the house is attacked again by the walkers who have made this place their territory and the two men lose sight of each other. Each one thinking, the other must have been killed.

Winter storms blow over the land. Mia and Inferialis are on their own a lot because Alasdair is a restless soul and gone most of the time. So Inferialis has to make trips to the woods and town on her own. Luckily she's found a car, which makes it easier.  She has to leave Mia in the house to cure her wound, the girl is brave and soon learns to use her left hand, making up for the missing right.

One of those days when Inferialis is out, Mia sees a man coming towards the house. She hides, pointing her gun at the man. He comes inside. One eyed, an axe over his shoulder he scares the girl when they come face to face. After some initial suspicion they start talking. His name is Blake, he says he only needs a rest before claiming back his house. Tresspassers have left the gates open and his place is flooded with zombies.He needs to clean his place. It turns out that "his house" is the county prison. He offers Mia to take her and her mother there, as it is a lot safer in the prison. Mia desperately  yearning for a father figure, decides to go with him to check it out. Before they leave, Blake tells her to leave a note in case her mother comes back earlier. Mia wants to stick it on the fridge but Blakes tells her to leave it on the table where it will be noticed easier. They leave the house and make it to the prison. Here they find that most of the zombies have ventured elsewhere, propably because they run out of living meat to feed on. Carefully the clean their way in. Section by section. Always careful to close one gate before opening the next. By sunrise they enter the safe walls within.  Mia sees cells with dry warm beds, showers and food.

Mia : *holds onto Blake* I....*sniffs* I haven't felt this safe since everything went bad...
Blake  nods with compassion
Blake : I know exactly how you feel
Blake: i felt like this too when i found it
Mia holds onto him tight, craving the hugs her father once gave her*
Blake : Mia look
Blake : the sunrise
Blake: look what a beautiful clear day
Mia leans up to look out the window and watches the sun slowly rise over the horizon and closes her eyes as it washes over her and she shivers* feels warm...
Blake  holds her small shoulders and whispers to her:" This is the first day of your new life, Mia"
Mia smiles brightly for the first time in months* I can't wait for my mom to see this.
Blake : I bet
Blake : we will fetch her tomorrow
Blake : maybe i can get that pickup truck to work
Mia slides her hand into Blake's and cuddles close to his arm*
Blake : smiles and squeezes her hand
Mia stares out as the sun rises* Did you kill the walker that hurt your eye?
Blake : Yes I killed that walker, I killed them all with my bare hands"
His mouth contorts, giving his face a mad dangerous expression for a moment:" with my bare hands" he repeats in a whisper before he snaps out of it, smiling  at Mia like a father" all will be fine"
Mia holds his hand* do you think this will ever go back to the way it was before?
Blake : No. But i will turn it into something new, something good. I promise you"

When Inferialis returns, she finds a a note in Mia's handwriting saying:
"Dear Momma, I met a new survivor today. His name is Mr. Blake. He has an eye patch because a walker hurt him just like me. He says he lives at the prison that daddy used to work at and said that if I go with him he'll come back for you too. I think it's gonna be safer this way momma. He seems really nice. Kinda like daddy. He says he'll come back to get you when you get back from the supply run. I love you very much momma. Mia XXX
Inferialis, upon reading the note leaves for the prison to find her daughter.

Blake and Mia are at the Prison for several days now. Blake cares for the girl, sees to it that she gets sleep and food, lets her pick out her own cell. But sometimes he leaves her for hours. When he comes back from a trip he asks her if she stayed in this cell block.
Blake:"you did not venture out? Its not safe until all has been cleared"
Mia :  I found a room with computers and stuff. but I promise I didn't go outside. Just like you said"
Blake  stares at her for a moment, dead silent.
Blake : ok...but you didn't go into any other..rooms?
Mia : *I swallow hard and slowly whisper* I only went out once, but it's just because I thought I heard my moms voice…"

Blake is strict with her, commanding that she obeys the rules for her own safety. He scares Mia with his coldness. Then again he seems caring when he tells her that he observed the house and it seems empty. He assumes Mias mother has gone to find her. Mia and Blake are worried but he encourages the girl, promising her he will find her mother and everything will be ok.

NOVEMBER 2013

Gera feels alienated from the group after a talk with the Prof and Inferialis. Whereas Inferialis and the Prof are determined never to take any chances and are convinced an infected person should be killed immediately, Gera believes there might still be hope for a cure. She knows that she could never kill her little son, should he become infected and feels forsaken and detached from the others.

Mia has learned to use the gun of her missing father. Because she is a good shooter she becomes cocky and careless. While the adults are preoccupied fixing a fence and she is alone in the house, she teases some stray zombies until they follow her. In her panic she forgets to close the gate and one of them enters the house.

one entered the house...

Luckily she can destroy him. Inferialis catches her when she cleans up the mess and strictly forbids her to leave the house at all after that. Later, Mia is still guilt ridden when Gerard walks in.

Gerard: "You're okay?"

Mia jumps a little at the sound of his voice* I'm fine.... you closed the gate when you came in right?

Gerard narrows his eyes" Yeah, I did...why? something wrong with the gate?"

Mia shakes my head* m...Momma says we always have to close to gate. Says I cant forget again...

Gerard  takes a double take at that:"Again?..."

Miai's  face turns pale and she go silent.

Gerard looks at Mia with a stern expression

Gerard : "You forgot to close the gate?!"

Mia: It was an accident...I put them down though... I had to throw out my clothes because they were all bloody... Momma was mad at me...

Gerard  presses his lips together:" Your mother needs to watch you better. Damn! You  put us all at risk. She was mad at you, hu? Well wait until she is back and i show her mad!"

Mia's lip quivers and she shoves him* Leave my Mom alone!"

The group of children is growing when the twins Uia and Talim find the house. Gerard jokes he feels like Mad Max Beyond the thunder dome with a trail of kids following him everywhere. 

"Mad Max beyond the thunder dome" with the twins and Mia

Ulia does all the talking while her twin always stays silent. When asked about their parents, Ulia answers:"Both are dead, dead a few weeks ago" she says coldly showing little to no emotion. Yes, we also came across some living, but I made short work of the ones how tried to take our supplies. After killing them, I just add their supplies to our, they didn't need it were they were going" she says darkly.

In the last week of november that weather turns colder and snow sets in. Inferialis and Mia take a trip to the town for supplies because Gerard is off to one of his solo trips and Gera and the twins stays home with the Prof who is ill with a bronchitis. While they stuff their bags in the  Walmart, a group of zombies collects at the entrance and they have to shoot their way through, running out. Suddenly Inferialis hears her daughter scream "Daddy" As she looks around, she sees in horror how Mia runs towards her zombified cop father. Inferialis can drag Mia away. They escape. Back home she comforts her deeply distraught child.

"Your daddy was a wonderful loving man. Its heartbreaking  that his ...body is now animated..but its not him, he is free of all pain now and watches us….and we will survive, daddy wants us to survive."

OCTOBER 2013

A new man joins the group for a short while. Mr. Fhang. He tells him he worked for the NSA. When the outbreak happened, he was in a bunker interrogating a suspect. They all were fine and protected until one day a guard came back from visiting his wife and he was infected. He bit several others and everybody in the bunker turned or died, expect Mr. Fhang. When Mia comes in and learns that Gera and the Prof found Fhang in town, she ask Gera if she saw her dad. Gera denies it.

Mia

Mia picks up a piece of chalk and marks another line on the door frame for another day he hasn't come back. Later Gera tells Fhang:" Her dad was killed in town, we believe he is one of them dead cops but the child must  not know". During the evening Fhang tells the group that the army and the government are in pieces and that the only important thing now is for as many people as possible to survive to start over.  When alone, Fhang tells Gera that she is probably the key to their survival as a race, she is the future. Gera realizes that Fhang is deranged, dreaming of producing a new race with a harem of women. She is therefore relieved to find him gone a few days later. He has left without a trace.

SEPTEMBER 2013

Two weeks since the outbreak. A small group of survivors have found a small weekend house by a Lake, the nearest town is an 6 hours foot march away. The group consists of a retired teacher whom everybody is calling "The Prof", a single mother Gera, Gerard, only son of a rich family and eternal student, Inferialis and her teenage daughter Mia. Mia's father, a cop has gone missing since the outbreak. The story starts with the group welcoming back Gerard who was on one of his trips to the out skirts. He has problems integrating into the group, is reluctant to work in the team and take on responsibility. He justifies his solo escapades with his concern that the house will not withstand an attack by the undead, and that he is searching for a better shelter.

Infi and daughter Mia

Gera and "Prof"

Mia is missing her father

Mia and Gerard in the town

One day Mia convinces Gerard to take her to the town to search for her missing father. The teenager is upset that nobody has made an attempt to look for him, her mother is evasive on the subject. Gerard and Mia travel to the town, which is infested with the dead but they don't find her father. Gerard suspects that the others, especially Mia's mother never searched for the man because they already know he is beyond help. He does not tell Mia about his thoughts but this trip makes them closer.