Survivors- The walking Dead fanfic

Unhinged

After four days on the road, we finally had found cabins that were abandoned and emptied near the shore of an ocean. Jim and his daughter and their dog, Buddy, had taken the one near the edge of the woods while I shared the other with Carol, Katy, John, and Alison. Rick and his family, along with Shane, took the third cabin. Jim and I had grown close over the time but it would soon end.

Everything, even if for a moment, seemed to be peaceful. The chaos surrounding us seemed to cease. Everyone was happy and everything seemed normal for once. We had food and shelter. People had actual beds to sleep on and showers. Familiar faces were seen smiling and laughing while the children ran around playing. Everything was civilized and it was almost too hard to believe.

Early one morning Jim walked over with his daughter to the cabin I was staying in and knocked on the door. I was in the kitchen making some breakfast for the group so Carol answered the door. Jim's daughter and Carl were about the same age and while they ran off to play upstairs Jim walked through the house looking for his friend. I smiled when I saw him enter into the kitchen.

"My brother's not giving you a hard time now is he?" Jim asked.

He flashed me a toothy grin and leaned against the frame of the doorway. I laughed and shook my head.

"No, but you are."

It was strange how suddenly everything seemed normal again. Others grew curious at seeing Jim and I so close and often secretly talked about it behind our backs.

Later that day as the sun set, I was out walking along the rocks when I looked up to see Jim and Rick out trying to fish. I smiled and gave a small laugh seeing Jim almost fall into the water when he attempted to toss the net.

Loud screams drew our attention, abruptly breaking the peaceful tranquility of the moment, as we ran over to see what was going on. We found Jim's daughter and Carl running towards us with a frightened look on their faces while they rambled on, pointing to something behind the cabin. We ran around the backside of the cabin to see what it was. It was a walker.

It's back was turned to us and it was chewing on something but I couldn't see from where I stood. Jim, however, saw what it was. He grabbed the gun from Rick's hand and pointed the barrel of the gun to the walker's head. Jim shot the walker in the head repeatedly, yelling in anger. When I saw that he was clearly outraged and was out of control I ran up behind him and grabbed his arms to make him stop firing. I cursed under my breath when I noticed what had set Jim off on the walker. There in front of us lay the poor golden retriever named Buddy with his stomach torn wide open. He was dead.

Jim kneeled down beside the dog and gently ran a hand through it's blood stained fur. Tears welled up in his eyes as he hung his head.

"I'm sorry,Bud." He whispered softly.

Rick, me, and Daryl helped bury the dog behind Jim's cabin. Before we poured the dirt on top of the dog's corpse, Jim's daughter came running from the cabin over to the grave with a letter in her hand. She kneeled down and laid it next to the dog's corpse. When I had asked her why she had written a letter, her reply made me immediately regret asking.

"I wrote a letter for Buddy to give to mommy when he meets her up in heaven. That way he can tell her we're okay, right daddy?"

It broke my heart to see her look up to her father with such hope. But Jim didn't answer. I looked over to see his back was turned away from the grave and from the group. He was hunched over, leaning on the handle of the shovel sobbing. When I went to gently touch his shoulder Jim lashed out in anger at me, yelling on about how he blamed me. Tears were streaming down his face as he hollered and pointed at me. Luckily Rick stepped in and held him back. I could feel my breathing quicken and my eyes well up with tears as my mouth hung slightly open in shock. My heart raced and I could feel my body betraying me as it trembled in fright. I didn't know what to do. I just stood there frozen with the same repetitive thought racing across my mind. What did I do?