Richie was in the middle of knocking over a convenience store, shotgun in hand, when he first saw a walker. The owner was behind the desk, Richie’s barrel pointed straight at his chest, as he grabbed bill after bill and shoved them into the duffle bag that had been thrown at him across the counter.

He was distracted and kept peering out the windows, checking to see if the cops were nearby. The owner moved to zip the bag up when Richie demanded he put cartons of cigarettes into the bag as well. He was shouting at the owner so he hadn’t heard the shuffling and groaning from the back room. The owner, having now spotted what was his shelf boy, screamed in terror as the kid lunged at Richie from behind.

If it weren’t for his vest, Richie never would have made it out of that store. He swung an elbow round and clocked the kid square on the temple, knocking him into a magazine rack. That didn’t stop him for long. Turning round now, the shotgun facing towards the kid, Richie threatened him and told him to step off. The kid didn’t listen. Richie didn’t want to but he had to. The kid lunged at Richie again and the shot rang out in the store. The shot hit the kid from about a foot away and knocked him back a few steps.

He didn’t stop coming. His chest was fucking mincemeat! The kid was snarling and clawing at the air as he ran towards Richie again. He had no choice. Richie aimed higher and shot the kid square in the face. The kid smacked backwards onto the ground. Blood and brain matter had sprayed everywhere. Richie turned round, grabbed the duffle bag and made a run for it out of the store and didn’t look back.

He was born in a place called Prattville, Alabama. His dad was a drunk, his mother didn’t give a rat’s ass. His big brother raised him and took care of him. Thomas was only five years older than Richie but he seemed much older. They were lucky not to be taken away by social services but no one around Prattville even cared. They were all the same; drunks, junkies, whores, wasters and criminals. No one cared about anyone but themselves around there.

As kids they basically got themselves into all sorts of shit and ended up running with the wrong crowd. Richie was always into his cars and motorcycles and stole more than his fair share of each, breaking them down for parts and building them back up again. Richie also grew sick of relying on his brother for protection when he got into fights so he began weightlifting at around age fifteen.

He even managed to make his first real friend after beating him up over a game of baseball. His name was Tony. They got on like a house on fire and were pretty much inseparable after that. Tommy actually got a little jealous until he got to know Tony too and the three of them became quite a team until the worst came to pass.

Tony and Richie were bored one day and decided it’d be fun to ride one of the motorcycles through some disused fields. It’d be fun, Tony said. So they made out and began messing around; Richie driving and Tony as the passenger.

Richie decided to go through a field that led towards the forest edge. He shouldn’t have done that. There was a rabbit burrow that the front wheel ploughed into it and sent Tony and Richie flying forward. The next thing Richie knew, he was in a hospital bed. He could barely move, it hurt to breathe and his vision was blurry. When he was fully awake and not high on pain meds, Richie found out that Tony was dead. He’d killed his best friend, even if it was an accident it didn’t matter, that weight rested on Richie’s heart heavily.

He was in hospital for six months healing and had to go through a long stint of physical therapy. Tommy was there for him every step of the way. Richie didn’t get charged with vehicular manslaughter because it was a complete accident. Richie was seriously lucky not to be arrested for what happened.

As time moved on they got in with an even more disreputable sort that said he could set them up in NYC and get them a decent job. Thus Richie’s life as a goon for hire began. They worked minor jobs, ripping stores off, collecting debts that hadn’t been paid; the sort of shit you’d see in any generic gangster movie.

He was good at what he did and earned a decent amount of money doing it but most of that was squandered on booze, cigs, gambling and whores. It wasn’t much but Richie enjoyed his life.

After leaving the store he’d just hit, Richie found his brother Tommy and told him what had happened. Tommy figured they had to get out of town and they packed up and hit the road. It was then that the news began spreading about this infection.

They made their way out of NYC as quickly as possible and drifted from place to place, avoiding busy areas, sticking to the woods as much as they could manage. They hunted for food and it was a good job that they knew how to. They’d had to learn after years of feeding themselves since their folks didn’t give a flying fuck. But food soon became harder to hunt as walkers at anything with a pulse.

Richie decided to go out and scavenge some while Tommy rested. Richie found a camp of other survivors sleeping in their tents. They had supplies of food just… laying there. Richie couldn’t help himself. He went back to Tommy with his haul as fast as he could, but didn’t think to cover his tracks well enough for a tracker to not be able to find him. What would the chances be of a tracker being in the group anyway? Especially with the world being the shit show that it now was.

Tommy congratulated Richie on his haul but stopped when noises came from the direction that Richie had. Tommy told Richie to hide up a tree, quickly and quietly, while he dealt with this. Tommy bent down and did his boot lace up.

The survivors weren’t happy, they were a bunch of big guys, angry and mean looking. Tommy tried to diffuse the situation, saying he had nothing but what was on his back and that he was alone. They didn’t believe him. They began to beat on him, Tommy fought as much as he could but was overpowered and outmanned. Richie was too afraid to do anything. He was rooted to the spot in fear. His need for self-preservation won out over his love for his brother. Tommy was a beaten, bloody pulp on the ground.

The guys stole Tommy’s leather jacket and his boots before laughing and making their way off, looking for their stolen goods hidden in a tree log somewhere. After a short while, Richie climbed down and went to Tommy. He wasn’t going to make it. Tommy asked Richie to kill him, he didn’t want to lay here and bleed out, and he didn’t want to become Walker chow while he couldn’t do anything to stop it. The sheer thought of it was terrifying. Richie eventually agreed, albeit reluctantly, to kill Tommy and save him the horror and pain. After all was said and done, Richie grabbed his stuff and left Tommy’s body lying on the forest floor.

Eventually, months later, Richie happened upon the same group that had killed his brother. He recognised his brother’s jacket on one of the fucktards. He decided he wanted them to suffer. He worked his way into the group, he became trusted and part of the group. He hung around with them for a couple months, waiting for the right opportunity.

It finally came in the shape of a herd. The group was aiming to be quiet and avoid drawing attention to themselves. They were hiding in abandoned cars on the highway but Richie had slipped away and hidden up a tree. He had a small bottle of whiskey that he’d been nursing for a month now. He’d planned to drink it when these fuckers were dead but this would be worth it.

He made a makeshift Molotov out of it and threw it on one of the cars near where the rest were hiding. The flames did the rest. The walker herd descending on the men and ripped them apart. This was his life now. Richie knew this was how he would live. Other people were good for nothing but cannon fodder after long. He would use them to get what he wanted and move on. Simple as that.

This routine repeated a lot over the next couple years. Although one particular group really stood out to him. There was a group of three women; one had a fucking katana, one had a blasted bow and the other little one had a fucking AK-47. These were a good, but possibly difficult target. He found them in a wooded area in Georgia.

It took a lot of convincing, especially since the chick with the katana had a serious stick up her ass, but eventually Richie convinced them to let him join their band of merry women. They travelled together for a fortnight and in this time, Richie noticed that the one with the bow had a lingering eye on the katana lover at times. There was a challenge, besides, women couldn’t be queer. It was just a phase.

The katana one, Lauren or Laura or some shit, said he and the bowman were to go on a run for supplies. This was his time to make a move. When they got there, Richie made his advances on her but was soon shot down. No way was it going down like that. He persisted until she had had enough and they began to fight. Richie figured he’d have the upper hand there but the noise of their fight was drawing walkers their way.

A few shuffled into the shop and made towards them both. Richie and Mary, Marie, Maria… something like that, let go of each other and started fighting the walkers off but more kept coming. It was then that Richie realised this was going to end badly for him. He decided that she had to die. Her necklace had got caught on his cuff while they were fighting. As he “struggled” with a walker he let a shot off that grazed her leg. She’d soon be eaten. He popped another round off into the head of the walker he was holding onto and then made a break for it out of the back door.

He made his way back to the other two chicks and told them what happened. Showed them the necklace. The katana chick decided to snatch the necklace away and started telling him to leave. So he did. He took his gear and he left the same way as he’d came. He was a little disappointed he hadn’t been able to land one of them but such was life now. He’d find another, he always did.

He eventually ended up forming a group with some people he seemed to constantly see from a distance and sometimes from nearby. The group grew little by little and eventually became nine. There was nothing but fights and disagreements. This was going to be fun.