By the way you're looking at me I can tell that you're wondering why I'm even talking to you. Why I'm telling you my story if I so obviously despise sharing it.

Honestly I don't really know myself. Maybe I'm just losing my edge. Maybe there's just something about you. I don't know. But as long as you're willing to listen, I'm willing to talk.

Maybe I'm just fooling myself, thinking that this will help you any. I sincerely hope it does but that's really up to you.

Anyway. I guess I should get started.

By our best estimation it's been, what? It's been like two years since the world ended? I don't suppose it really matters anymore.

It had been fast, just like in the movies. You know, you see a weird story on the news, then all the sudden the cities were overrun with the dead.

I blame sentimentality. Maybe that's harsh but I also have some pretty solid evidence backing me up. Like the massive number of dead people.

People just couldn't do what it took. They stood and let their dead husband or kid or mother or whatever get close enough to take a bite. And then it was too late.

The disease spread like wild fire and then there was no way to stop it. No way to contain it or control it or study it. We were just done and survivors were trying to pick up the pieces.

But I guess you already know all that.

I was lucky, if you want to call it that. I don't. I don't really believe in luck. Just in my abilities and the ability of my group to keep us alive.

When it started I was on a Navy base. Before everything went to hell, I'd been a physical therapist working with wounded vets and when the news hit, the base shut down.

But anyone who knows zombies knows no where stays safe for long. The dead got in and what had once been a haven had turned into a death trap.

From what I've gathered you know that all too well. You were in a safe place. It stayed safe for a long time. You are what I would call lucky. You went from one safe haven to another. Good for you.

Honestly I wouldn't be here, telling you all of this, if it hadn't been for Shane and Kyle.

Shane Moore had been a patient of mine. A Marine who'd caught a crap load of shrapnel in his leg and side somewhere in the Middle East, Shane had long been one of my favorite patients.

I mean, come on, you've seen him. You were probably scared of him the first time you met him, right? Your face is asking if you should be scared.

The short answer is only if you threaten him or me or any of the handful of people we love. You're here with us, but I'm still not going to say no, you shouldn't be scared of him. 

You should be scared of him.

Me? I'd always been attracted to him.

The guy is just twelve different kinds of tough.

He's smart, funny and when I was just his doctor it didn't hurt that he was a little over six foot and built like ... well, a Marine. He's a little skinnier now.

He never bitched about the exercises or treatments I had him do and always carried himself with this quiet dignity that was purely magnetic. It still is. You just haven't given it the chance to work on you.

When everything locked down, Shane insisted that I stay with him and his brother Kyle at their on-base apartment.

Kyle had been in the Navy as an intelligence officer. The guy is off-the-charts smart but a little shy and it had taken him a while to warm up to me. He probably seems like a complete bastard to you.

Anyway, it helped that we all watched the world end together. When the base had been overrun, we had escaped, taking as much as we could grab, leaving in Shane's truck.

We picked up people along the way. None of us really had any family so we weren't trying to really get anywhere except away from the dead.

Now Kyle is like a brother. Which you probably think is kind of weird considering that Shane is, well ... boyfriend really isn't the right word.

You're giving me that look again. That look like you can't understand why I would be with a guy like Shane and now I know for sure that you're scared of him.

On second thought. Scared isn't right, is it? No, I think it's more like, I don't know, like ... you just... Oh. I've got it now. It's just that you think he's too savage. Like he's not any better than the bad people we've run into. The ones that just take what they want.

No. It doesn't offend me. Shane is, well, he's what this world has made him to be. He's never been sheltered from the horribleness of the world and now he can just lash back out at it when it comes for him and his. Maybe eventually, as you listen, you'll understand why he is the way he is. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to become like him.

So back to those people we picked up.

The first ones we ran into were Sacha and Viktoria Socolovich. A brother and sister who had been hiding in a pharmacy we raided. Yes, they are just as Russian as their names would lead you to believe.

After them was Danny Speirs and Cassidy Pierce. We picked them up separately but now you would mistake them for sisters.

Aaron Foley was the most interesting addition. By that face you just made I think you don't like him just as much as you don't like Shane. I trust that you'll do me the courtesy of withholding your disdain until you learn more about this man.

Aaron had started out as part of a group that tried to take us for everything we had. He'd flipped and killed some of his own group members when they'd discussed doing some rather unpleasant things to the women of our group. Especially Viktoria who had been only thirteen at the time.

It hadn't been easy convincing Shane that Aaron was okay but, well, he'd literally killed for us.

Aaron is a good guy. He'd just fallen in with the wrong kind of people.

We've been a core group ever since as I'm sure you've noticed. You can't blame us for being clannish. We know everything about each other.

These were the people I'd do anything for.

We had more. They're all that's left.

And I know that you're thinking that our group collectively has more than seven people.

What you need to understand is that I only love those seven people.

I'm still not sure that you're group is going to survive even with us around. That's why I've kept my distance. It has nothing to do with you. I just get tired of watching people get killed.

Though as you sit here listening, I start to have a little more hope for you. But just a little.

The fact that you're with us, that was mostly due to accident. And it might have been our fault that you're out here to begin with. I'll let you decide who's fault it is. I know you were new to their group too, before everything happened, so I hope that you'll listen to my side of this.

We were just trying to survive. So were they.

That's what we're still doing, right now.

But maybe it's better to start from the very beginning.