Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. I only partially own Annie. The original idea belongs to xsoppysofax, who you can find on YouTube and whose vids inspired this fic will be peppered throughout this fic. She'd been gracious enough to let me write the fic for her vids but, after years of silence from her, I believe she's orphaned the character so I'm rewriting it to continue on my own. Read on and enjoy!

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Annie stood frozen in the middle of the street, uncertain and scared.

To her immediate left, on the corner where the bus always picked up and dropped off kids for school, there was a walking corpse feasting on someone. She couldn't remember her name, but Annie did remember that she was the one who always brought the terrible casserole that nobody ate to book club. Annie hadn't really even liked book club. Sitting in some sweltering house in the middle of summer, listening to someone pontificate about the symbolism of the color of some man's tie or the significance of a woman wearing pearls at the beach? She loved to read, but she had better things to do on a Saturday. Like reading quietly alone while doing her laundry. But no, she'd been roped into book club. Paul had told her that she had to make nice with her neighbors. Her only friends couldn't be her brother about six-hundred and fifty miles away and the grease monkey thugs she worked with. She'd argued but he'd been firm. Normally, Annie was always the type to be firm, insistent. But this time it'd been Paul. Younger brother worried about her being all alone, she supposed. So he was very insistent that she have friends that were...well, boring, was how she described them, but Paul had said "good". But Joe and the guys at the shop were perfectly good friends in Annie's book.

Regardless, Annie had never particularly liked anyone in her neighborhood. And the woman with the terrible casserole from book club? Her intestines were currently spilled out on the sidewalk. Car horns were honking, alarms were blaring, and people were screaming all around her. One of the people shouting was Hannah. Annie didn't know the woman very well, just enough from book club gossip she overheard that Hannah was a divorced mother of two. Annie recalled seeing the two kids riding their bikes up and down the sidewalk every afternoon. They weren't bad or good kids in her opinion. Just kids. Jaime would come around and ask her about cars from time to time, and she never minded teaching him a thing or two. Wasn't like she had any kids of her own to pass the knowledge onto. Apparently, those two kids were missing. Hannah was running up the street screaming for them.

Jaime. Billy.

Jaime!

BILLY! JAIME!

Annie turned around, looking up the street and let out a frightened, shuddering breath. She didn't know what the hell was going on. All she knew was that she needed to call Paul. She had to call her brother, they had to make a plan. Quickly. She rushed back into her house and, the moment the door was slammed shut and locked, her phone rang. Ripping it from her back pocket with shaking hands, she sighed at the sight of Paul's name.

"Paul, have you seen what's happening?" she immediately questioned. "People, they're...they're eating each other!" she exclaimed incredulously, still not quite believing what she'd just seen.

"It's happening in Atlanta, too? Shit!" Annie put a hand to her forehead. All hope that what was happening outside her house was isolated to her area were quickly dashed. It was in DC too. "Okay. Okay. Just take a breath and stay calm. Take a breath, sis, come on, I wanna hear it." Rolling her eyes, she did as instructed and let out the breath loudly so he could hear.

"What's the plan?"

"You're asking me? Oh boy, we're really in trouble," he joked. Annie grit her teeth in frustration.

"Paul, be serious! People are turning into cannibals!" Looking out the window in her living room, she watched the chaos unfold. "My neighbor is being eaten at the bus stop!" Paul mentioned seeing some of that on the Metro and she immediately panicked. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Paul assured her. "As fine as one can be, considering," he amended. "Some guy grabbed me but, you know me, I'm quick." Annie started to close her curtains when a car swerved out front to crash into a parked car. Another car soon joined the pile up.

"Fuck." Paul questioned what was happening. "Car crash out front. People are going crazy. Crazier," she corrected. Just before she closed the curtains, she saw someone reach into one of the cars. She hoped they were helping but, based on the shrieks, she guessed another cannibal had struck. Screaming, even more people were screaming. This wasn't fucking real. There was no way this was fucking happening.

"Doesn't look so great here either. I'm definitely not getting out of my apartment anytime soon." She could hearing a lot of things over the phone; muffled shouts and screams, bangs, chaos reigned everywhere it seemed.

"I wouldn't risk it here either. We should stay in," Annie advised, "for a few days at least. Wait for things to calm down."

"You seriously think this is gonna calm down?" Paul questioned skeptically.

"I don't know, Paul, because I don't know what the fuck is going on!" she snapped irritably. Paul sighed on the other end and, before he could say anything, she took another deep breath and let it out. "Okay, here's the plan: we stay in for a week. Can you do that? Are you good to do that?"

"Did the monthly grocery trip last week, I'm golden. I'm assuming the same for you?" She agreed. A habit drilled into them by their father, grocery allowance: set aside enough money to get enough food to last a month. Anything you need after that is superfluous. "All right, we stay in a week, two if things don't look better. Then what?"

"If this hasn't passed, we can meet at Fort Munroe." Paul chuckled in her ear.

"Family reunion at our childhood tree fort! If it's still standing. I like it."

"Just because of the farm was sold doesn't mean the new owners walked the whole property. They probably never found it and, if they did and trashed it, we still know how to get to the spot. You still remember, right?"

"I'd never forget," he promised. A loud banging echoed through the phone. "Hold on, Ann." Minutes passed and all she could do was pace her living room, biting her nails as she listened to whatever crumbs her phone picked up. Shouts, bangs, scrapping. What the hell was happening in DC? "I'm back! I'm back! Someone tried to break into my apartment."

"What?" she gasped. "Seriously? You all right?"

"I'm good. Barricaded the door. Perk of an apartment on a high floor? Only one entrance," he laughed. She couldn't believe he was laughing about this. "Maybe you should do the same? Suburbanites can be worse than city dwellers."

"Ain't that the truth," she muttered, her mind already buzzing with just how she'd secure her home against a potential break in. She had triple locks on her front and back door and a gun because she was single woman living alone. But windows could be broken, and how long would it take the police to arrive if someone let themself in? What if there was more than one person? Could she shoot to kill people? Annie hoped she wouldn't have to find out. Fuck, she'd have to secure her windows somehow, block them with more than just her curtains. "Yeah, yeah, good idea," she complimented nervously.

"So two weeks max, then pack up and hit the road to meet in Virginia," Paul reiterated. He let out a low sigh and mumbled, "I'll see you soon, sis."

"See you soon, baby brother." Both sincerely hoped that was true."Stay safe."

"I always do."