Walking Dead OC

Kate Watch

Gunslinger 

"Hey, I'm Kate but you can call me whatever you like as long as it ain't doll or baby. I'm 24 years old and I am originally from a tiny town you wouldn't have ever heard of. When all this started, I mean back when everyone thought it was a nasty case of the flu, I knew. I mean it was pretty friggin' obvious to anyone who knows anything about zombies right? To start with there were just a few reports here and there about people eating other people. They blamed it on mental health or drug abuse of course. Who wants to believe zombies are real right? Well I started to stock up on everything and to fortify my place. Neighbours thought I was mad. They'd never liked me living there and there'd even been a few half assed attempts to get the land lord to boot me out. That made it so much easier to ignore their screams for help as the dead over ran our suburb. Anyway, I stocked up on water, canned food, bullets and a few weapons like my trusty ***find out name of gun*** here as well as a selection of knives, machetes and a cross bow. Not that I know how to use a bloody cross bow but you never know when it might come in handy. I also bought a shit load of fuel. In every zombie related whatever I've ever seen, people get eaten trying to find fuel. I reckon I've got enough to fuel around 15 cars about 5 times each before I run out. Not bad eh? It took all my savings but who's laughing now? Me! I'm one of the only people still alive after all. I've got a few walkie talkies, a ton of batteries and torches and lots of matches. Even bought a fancy survivor kit with a swiss army knife, tent, sleeping bag, rope and shit like that. I know I can't stay in this house forever and sooner or later I'll need to head for the trees or something. Maybe I'll even try to join a small group. God knows there'll be people out there who could use someone like me. Since this thing started, I reckon I've killed about a hundred undead. Headshots mostly but a few close calls gave me a reason to try out my little knife here and it was straight through the eye and into the brain. Not bad considering before all this happened I was a librarian. Just goes to show it ain't about what you've done in the past, it's about what you're capable of doing in the future."

Kate peered out the window, her nose pressed firmly against the glass. Down the road from her house was a family under attack. Walkers were everywhere, surrounding the screaming neighbours as the dead tried to find a way to breach their pathetic defenses. "Idiots" muttered Kate as the wife let out another ear piercing scream. Everyone should know that they're attracted to sound she thought. Making no move to help them, Kate sighed as the first walker managed to put a small crack in the window at the front of the house. More screaming from the wife attracted the attention of another 4 walkers who ambled over to the house and began to throw themselves against the already cracked glass. Not long now. If only they'd listened to me. Kate had done a letter box drop weeks before, warning her neighbourhood of the impending doom. Everyone had thought her mad and laughed in her face as she prepared herself for what she called the zombie apocalypse. Kate knew they'd regret not listening to her but none of them were the sort of people to apologise for how they treated her. A bit of movement across the road caught her eye and with a gasp she recognised the person hiding behind the bird of paradise. It was Mickey, a skinny little geek who was a frequent visitor the the library where Kate worked and it looked like he was going to attempt a rescue. He was only 14 years old but Kate considered him to be almost a friend due to the talks they used to have during the more boring days at the library. Kate rocked back and forth indecisively. She had a set of rules that she stuck to no matter what to ensure her survival of the end of the world. Rule number 5 was simple. Never put yourself at risk to help someone else. It may seem harsh but in the new world, you couldn't afford to risk getting bitten or anything if you planned on living long. Everything was a risk. Going outside, doing a food run, or even just going to sleep at night. Kate had been sleeping during the day since night is when the walkers are the most active and so when her neighbour had started screaming her lungs out, Kate had woken up, gun drawn, knife halfway out the top of her boot, and once she had ascertained there was no immediate danger, had crept over to the window to have a look. And now here she was, seriously considering breaking her own rules to help out an idiotic friend who was probably going to get himself killed anyway. Kate growled and flailed, pacing angrily around the room before racing back to the window to see where Mikey was now. He was about 5 houses away from the neighbours under attack and from what she could see, all he had for protection was a baseball bat. Adrenaline surged through her body, making her hands and feet tingle and her heart race. What she saw next made her decision easy. Mikey had stopped. He was standing behind a fence, with his eyes closed and his chest rising and falling with exaggerated movements. He was having a panic attack and trying to calm himself the way Kate had taught him to on that rainy afternoon when he opened up to her. "Dammit Mikey!" Kate huffed as she hurried into the kitchen to grab her gear. She grabbed one of the larger knives from the kitchen and put her pistol in its holster around her waist. She put on her reinforced gloves and retied a loose shoe lace before grabbing one of her smaller machetes and threading that through her belt too. Mentally egging herself on, Kate ran upstairs to the guest bedroom and climbed out the open window. Hurry quietly she told herself as she carefully made her way off the roof and into the garden bed below. She ran swiftly around to the front of the house and scanned the area for any sign of movement. There! she thought as she saw a bush rustling just one house down from where she had last spotted Mikey trying to calm himself. As she raced across the front lawn, what she saw stopped her in her tracks. Mikey was actually 2 houses away from the group of walkers trying to break the window and eat the family inside. What she had thought was Mikey in the bushes was actually a huge walker, the biggest one she had seen for a very long time. It must have gotten tangled in the hose and fallen, that's why I didn't see it before. Kate let out a quiet cry as she realised there was no way she could reach him in time. She tried to telepathically warn Mikey to look behind him but he seemed so intent on the family's cries that he forgot to look at his surroundings. Suddenly she had an idea. Grabbing a rock from the garden, she hurled it at the sports car across the street. She missed. Letting out an exasperated cry, she grabbed another rock and tried again. This time she smashed the passenger window and was rewarded with the piercing sound of the car alarm going off. She grinned and whooped, confident that the alarm would block out almost any noise she would make now. She stared at Mikey, waiting for him to run home where she could then approach him. Instead, he seemed to decide that he could make it to the neighbours house while the walkers were distracted by the alarm. "No!" Kate cried but it was too late. As the walkers stumbled towards the noisy car, Mikey jumped the last few fences and was knocking on the front door of the house. Kate could only watch in horror as her friend became more and more desperate with his pleas to be let inside. Suddenly, the car alarm went silent, probably thanks to a flat battery and the sound of Mikey banging on the front door echoed down the street. The walkers all turned and as a group, made their way back toward the house. Mikey was trapped now. He had nowhere to go but into the house. He yelled this to the family and Kate could hear the fear in his voice as well as the muted replies of the man inside. "I'm sorry, we can't!" shouted the owner of the house from somwhere behind the door. "Please! You've got to let me in, they're right behin- arrgh!" Mikey's cry was cut off as a walker ripped out his throat. Kate fell to her knees in shock, unable to take in what had just happened. Why hadn't they let him in? He was trying to save them and they just let him die. Kate blinked away tears and forced herself to stand. There was nothing she could do for her young friend now. In a few hours, he would turn into one of the monsters that killed him and then he would be just another threat that Kate would have to deal with. She slowly crept back around the back of her house and made her way up the make shift ladder to the second story window. She climbed back in through the window and collapsed onto the bed. Grief overwhelmed her and she cried for her friend and everyone else she had lost to these monsters in the past few months. When her tears subsided, she slowly made her way downstairs to watch the family that had killed her friend. She hoped that the walkers would soon smash their way in and kill them all. Not before eating them alive first though, she added maliciously. Soon, afternoon turned to night and with no sound coming from the house, the walkers all went back to stumbling up and down the street, wandering aimlessly in search of innocent people to maim and kill. Too upset to bother with dinner, Kate just sat by the window and waited for the family to stuff up. She wouldn't rest until they had suffered the same fate they bestowed upon her friend. She settled into her old arm chair and watched, the rage taking over all other emotions. Suddenly Kate awoke. Not realising she had been so exhausted, she had passed out in her chair and had terrible nightmares about Mikey eating her alive, piece by piece whilst begging tearfully for her to save him. Enough is enough, she thought and decided to take matters into her own hands. Grabbing some rope and her usual gear, Kate once again made her way out the window and around the front of the house. Although night time was dangerous it was also in a sense, easier to sneak around. She darted across the road, managing to distract the closer walkers with a quickly thrown rock and ducked behind some flower bushes in a neighbours yard. She quickly scanned the area until she spotted what she was looking for. Mikey's reanimated corpse, torn throat and all, was stumbling around in the dark just a few hundred meters from her position. Choking back a sob, Kate steeled herself for the horrendous task in front of her and made her move. She raced from yard to yard until she reached the one closest to her old friend. Then, with a soft  "Mikey!" he was headed straight for her which is exactly what she wanted. As he reached her, Kate knocked his feet out from under him and quickly threw a lasso over his head, pulling it tight. she also stuffed a bundle of cloth in his mouth to stop him from biting her. She tied him to the fence post and proceeded to initiate stage two of her plan. Calling out softly until a nearby walker heard her, she quickly dispatched it with her machete and cut it open, letting the decomposing innards become decomposing outards. Then she draped the intestines and other lovely bits over her shoulders and arms, careful not to get any on her skin. This was her least favourite way of blending in but also the most effective. Finally she untied Mikey and away they went, stumbling toward the house where Mikey had died. Kate moaned and groaned like the walkers did but really, it was unnecessary. She just did it for fun because whenever she did this, the adrenaline rush was amazing and if she was honest, scarily addictive. As she reached the front of the house, she tied Mikey to the porch and made her way to the front door. The door was, unsurprisingly locked so she tiptoped around the back of the house to try the other door. That was surprisingly unlocked. "Idiots," she mumbled quietly as she pushed the door open and made her way inside. Creeping into the family room she saw them, the Richardsons, all tucked up in their sleeping bags and dead to the world. A smart family would have a lookout but the whole family was accounted for and Kate was able to banish any feelings of guilt that threatened her plan of vengeance. She told herself they wouldn't survive much longer being this disorganised anyway and it made what she was going to do next, that much easier. She ran out the door and around the house to where she'd left Mikey. Untying him, she dragged him around to the back door and shoved him inside. She quickly untied him and shoved him forward toward the sleeping family. Luckily they didn't have any childen or this whole thing would be a bust as another of Kate's rules was to always do what you can to look out for kids. Finally she shut the back door and shoved an old bit of timber against it, making it impossible to open from the inside. As she made her way back to the front of the house, the first scream made her jump. As the rest of the Richardsons awoke to find themselves under attack with no way out, the screaming kicked up a notch. Kate took no pleasure in it until she saw the man of the house banging on the window, calling out to her for help. It was then she allowed herself a sadistic smile as she shook her head and called through the window "I'm sorry, I can't." She would return the next evening to scavenge their supplies and put Mikey out of his misery. She left the Richardsons as they were, after all, they'd been monsters while they were alive, would it really make that much difference being undead?