Painful Memories, and Painful wound

[Erik POV]

'I really shouldn't have fucking insulted Lady Luck!' I thought while bobbing and weaving through a massive collective of biters, one of many hordes I've come across in the past day or so.

As I continued down the road, I couldn't help but wonder what was causing all of these biters to migrate around in large groups like this, did these dead fucks still have some sort of pack mentality or something.

Even then that raises the question, how can these things have a mentality if they're supposedly dead?

Better yet, how the hell can they move?!

"Shit!" I exclaim as a random biter lunges at me almost grabbing my shoulder, causing me to stumble a bit and fall down a ditch on the side of the road.

Picking my shit back up, I sling the back around my shoulders again and grab my AR-15 that I've been sparsely using to help minimize noise, but from how it's looking right now I'm going to have to let off at least an entire mag if I want to escape my predicament.

*Bang*

*Bang*

I shoot a couple of rounds into the nearest biters as I finally get off my ass and begging running down the drainage ditch to gain some space between my attackers and myself.

After taking almost an hour to shoot enough of these things and make some distractions to get the horde off my ass, I finally was home free, or at least I was walking down the road again nearing a town named East Point.

On my way down the road I encountered a family who were driving away from Atlanta, at first, I had my gun ready in case they attacked me like those idiots at Talliposa but thankfully they didn't, they even shared some of their water with me and told me to avoid Atlanta at all costs.

When they told me about how the government carpet bombed the place I was, to say the least, extremely shocked, hell, why wouldn't I, During my whole journey I had yet to come across something like that, not even a large populated area like Austin was bombed so why Atlanta?

And to add insult to injury, apparently, the bombing did fuck all since the place according to their words was, and I quote, "A shithole filled with those dead bastards running around in massive groups."

So, deciding to follow their advice, I decided to forget my plan to visit Atlanta and just head straight to the Greene Farm, hoping they were still alive, especially Maggie.

Hell, the only reason I was going to Atlanta in the first place was maybe to connect with some family and friends from when we lived here but knowing now what I do, I highly doubt they made it out, if they did then I hope I can see them, but I'm not holding my breath.

'Speaking of Maggie.' I thought with a sigh as I kept walking down the round into town while thinking about all of the dreams I've had lately.

Apparently, it seems that my consciousness wishes to fuck with me in the worst ways possible now.

every night for the past week or so, I've had this consistent dream, where I was with Maggie, we never had our falling out and I didn't leave Georgia to go to Texas.

While not that wild of a dream considering I've had ones like that dozens of times since I left, what really has struck my nerves is one new addition to my dream.

Our unborn child.

Sigh, I remember like it was yesterday, and considering it was only almost three years ago, it might as well have been.

[Flashback, Erik POV]

[December 13th, 2007]

I had just finished College earlier that year, having only needed three years to get my undergraduate, since then I had come home and had been working with my dad at his company and spending as much time as I could with Maggie.

Whether that was intimately or just hanging out I didn't care as I just wanted to be with her as much as possible since we had gone from seeing each other every day the first two years to only during breaks after she dropped out of college to help Mr. Greene on the farm.

"Mom I'm back!" I call out as I enter through the doorway to our house.

Making my way to the living room, I see Mom sitting on the couch while watching an episode of General Hospital.

"I don't know how you can watch this show for so long, I mean, it's been on for years," I say with a chuckle as I hug my mom

"Oh hush, I like watching it, plus it makes for great background noise as well when I'm doing something around the house." She says with a light smack on my head, nothing too hard just her messing with me

"Uhuh, whatever you say, oh Dad told me to tell you that he'll be back in a couple of hours or so, he had to stay back and deal with some administrative crap," I tell my mom

"sigh, of course, that man needs to slow down and not work as much." Mom sighs since Dad spends more time at work than a man his age should, especially since he owns the damn thing, there are people to handle some of this stuff

As I was about to go upstairs, Mom told me something first that had me worried.

"Oh, Erik Sweetheart, just to let you know, that girlfriend of yours has been up in your room for a bit now, she showed up around 17 minutes ago looking for you so I told her she can wait up there," Mom told me, a hidden tone of displeasure leaking out, something that Erik caught since both his parents are bad at hiding their thoughts.

"Hmm, thanks, Mom," Erik said this time with a more dead tone since he has long been tired of his parent's thoughts on Maggie, hell they've been together since junior year, damn near six years and they still don't think she's good enough for me, just because her dads a farmer.

As I walked up the stairs, I couldn't help but wonder what Maggie needed to tell me in person that was so important, usually she'd just call or text, but most times if it were really important she'd ask me to drive down to the farm instead of coming up to Atlanta and driving for an hour.

She'd used to try and do that but I told her I'm more than happy to drive down there since frankly, I need space from my family every now and then.

Making it to the top of the stairs, I walk down the hall passed Lukas' room which, from the sounds of it, was getting beat in that new game he bought, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Chuckling to myself as I hear him yell out some random curse words in German, I keep walking until I get to my door.

As I grip the handle, I could not help but feel something wash over me, it was almost like, I knew something bad was to come.

Shaking off the feeling I open my door and sit on my bed, holding some papers and tear stains on her face, I see Maggie sitting there.

Dropping my stuff on the floor near my desk I rush to Maggie's side and wrap my arms around her as I sit down next to her.

"Maggie! Are you ok, what happened, come on Meine Prinzessin talk to me." I say, calling her 'My Princess' in German, something she always playfully says she doesn't like but I still say to mess with her

"Maggie?" I say again, this time hugging her I can hear her sniffing as some tears fall on my shirt.

"E-Erik, she says as she wipes her eyes, I'm so sorry, I-I... I should've told you sooner," she says as she sits up out of my arms and looks at me, showcasing her red eyes, something that hurts me to see since she's always been so strong.

As the words sink in, I can't help but get worried, thoughts like, did she cheat on me? Is she leaving Georgia or something? what's going on?

Before I can spiral more into my thoughts she hands me the papers she was holding.

Reading over them, I can't help but frantically read the papers multiple times over, still not being able to believe what I'm reading.

"Maggie, this... is this true?" I say slowly, shock and pain evident in my voice

*Sniffle* "Yes." she says as more tears come down.

"You... you're pregnant?" I say again slowly, still in disbelief.

As she sits there, more tears coming down, she shakes her head and hands me the other paper. "I... I was."

Those words, the second they sunk in, something cracked, whether it was my heart or even my soul I don't know, all I know is I felt my face getting wet.

"Huh?" I lowly mutter as I feel my cheek, tears coming down, something that hasn't happened in years since I had a mental breakdown, an event that cemented Maggie and my relationship, but that's for another time.

"You. What. I." I sputter reading the paper that says she had a miscarriage, 15 weeks in, meaning she lost the baby just before she would've started showing.

"Why didn't you tell me you were even pregnant to begin with?" I asked in a low tone, shock, and sadness still eating at me, tears steadily falling from my eyes.

Maggie looked up at me, tears still falling but thankfully slowing down. "Well, I was scared," she said as her head hung down again before I lifted her face and gave her a quick kiss as I wrapped my arms around her and brought her closer into my embrace.

"Why would you be scared? I would've never been made or anything like that, I love you Mags." I said, still lightly crying and hugging her tighter as she also finally let out all she was holding in and started balling in my arms.

[End of Flashback]

'Sigh, if only we could've moved on from that easily' I thought sadly while reminiscing about how we ended up going through some problems, my parents being a major part of that.

Despite still loving her, and I hope she still loved me, we still broke up later on, leading me to leave for Texas to get my Master's Degree.

"I can't believe it's been over two years since then," I said out loud to no one as I couldn't help but wonder what life would've been like with a kid.

If only I had handled the situation better, no, maybe not, who knows what I could've done to make things better?

I just hope that if I do make it to the farm and they're still there, that she hasn't forgotten about me.

'Ha, well, even if she still loved me, her father would be a major obstacle.' I thought since the man wasn't very happy when he found out, sure he grieved for his daughter but being as religious as he is, he was less than pleased about this happening before we got married.

Sitting at my campfire a little longer I couldn't help but think. 'Marriage, huh.'

Just as I was about to get ready and hit the hay, a loud bang rang out, the noise of a bullet being shot, and what do you know, said bullet just had to be hurling for my shoulder.

*Bang*

"Gah!" I exclaimed in hellish pain as I fell back off of my seat

Without having any time to catch my breath and figure out what the hell happened, another shot rang out, this time barely missing me and landing on the ground close to my head.

'I need to get the fuck out of here!' I thought grabbing my shit and slinging my rifle across my good shoulder which thankfully was my dominant side, my left.

Getting up, I started booking it down the road, more shots hitting around me, one even grazing my left arm, while it hurt, it wasn't anything serious.

What was serious however was the bullet wound leaking blood in my shoulder, if it wasn't for an insane amount of adrenaline I probably would still be on the ground or even worse, dead.

As I kept running, bullet after bullet hit around me, until after what felt like forever, the shots stopped coming.

Deciding not to test my luck I kept moving, at least until I could find some building to hide out in and fix myself up, hopefully sometime soon since I was in the middle of nowhere right now.

(Else Where)

[??? POV]

"Shit, he got away, well guess we can't expect this to always work now can we Sammy." a middle-aged man wearing a sleeveless cut flannel shirt said toward a younger man who looked to be around his mid 20's who wore a similar outfit with blue jeans as well and a mullet

"Guess yer right pop, well, at least we got that other couple earlier, with how big they were we'll be eating good t'night!" The younger man said with a heavy southern accent while laughing creepily as he spat out some tobacco dip on the ground

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Authors Note:

Hey guys, hope you enjoyed the chapter, I decided to finally add some more background to the MC and Maggie's relationship while they broke up.

Now that we're getting closer and closer to getting on with the story, I wanted to finally lay out some minor AU elements in the story, however, right now all I will say is Maggie has been aged up just a couple of years to fit with the MC so they're both 24.

Pretty much the only major AU detail in the story is surrounding Glen and who I decided to have him be with since Maggie is already taken, you will find out what I decided on once we finally get to the farm so stay tuned for that chapter!

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P.S: the two rednecks arent some big bad that will be brought up again, just a plot device for the next chapter or two