Chapter Text
It starts like this, basking in the light of the post-apocalyptic sun. Light bathes the lush city, more with plantlife than civilisation. Where nature heals and claims the dead that do not rise again.
The heat is unforgiving yet the afternoon is calm, sans the shambling undead that are stuck reaching for Tommy’s ankles, frigid limbs outstretched desperately for a meal they are unable to take—their rotted skin and exposed muscle wet to the ear as they move around, grotesque in a way that no longer bothers him. One of them, a taller brunette in a vintage wife beater, groans alongside the others, before reaching out further and swiping at Tommy’s feet.
However, the teen isn’t all that concerned, tucking his feet to himself with a huff. The unfinished balcony creaks under his full weight, and when he leans back, the plywood bends with his movements.
He sighs, combing grimy fingers through equally grimy hair, and squints at the glaring sun.
He isn’t all that high up, only a couple feet above the ground despite being on the second floor. Truthfully, he’s never been higher than a couple stories anyways. He spots a towering building in the distance, and briefly wonders what it might be like to see the world from such a height. Alas, all those tall structures have been off-limits for years, unless you have a death wish—each construction a ticking time bomb of rubble and overgrowth. Their foundations have long been, and continue to be, claimed by nature, and although they might be pretty to look at, it's best to keep your distance.
It isn’t uncommon to hear the creak and shriek of corroding metal, or the distant collapse of a building. So, most find themselves perusing less risky areas.
Tommy isn’t particularly familiar with the North side of the city, but duty calls, and he can manage. It was a long way to get to the tiny, abandoned complex, and the trip is urgent, but Tommy would like to think a little break wouldn’t hurt.
Scratching absently at the bandages wrapped around his arms, the blonde steadily rises to his feet. It’s extra humid today, and the sweat that builds between all the layers of clothes he has to wear makes him itch.
He would say he feels gross, but that would imply there were days he didn’t feel gross, and of everything Tommy was , he wasn’t a liar.
The walkers continue to groan and grasp for him, and though that alone is grating to his exhausted mind, the stench of rot left out in the sun is absolutely worse.
Adjusting his grip on his weapon—a rusty, steel pipe and sharp blade savagely put together—Tommy kicks at the offending fingers at his toes, bringing his makeshift staff back and stabbing downwards.
The hollowed out end goes straight through the eye of what looks to be an ex-office lady, coming out the other side with crunch and squelch.
Blood splatters all over his socks, and the woman slips off the bloodied pipe into a heap as he pulls it back.
Tommy flips the pipe in one hand, letting it slide down his palm slightly so the sharp end points downward. He uses his other hand to grab the platform’s wobbly, metal supports, leaning down and reeling his arm back, bringing the blade down in one large swing.
It knocks the two other undead on their ass, and while he admits it’s definitely not enough to kill them, he would say that he did it just to get them to fuck off anyways.
“Fucking losers…” He chides, scoffing with a half hearted grin. “-Disturbing my afternoon stroll like that, mother ain’ raise you right.”
The undead slowly try to rise up to their feet again, no doubt to try and take a bite out of Tommy again, and so he decides that now is the best time to get back to his goal.
The blonde teen turns and hops up, careful of the staff in his hand, and latches onto the roof of the establishment, pulling himself with a swing of his legs. The metal roofing sheet groans as he lands, and he dutifully slips the staff into a loop on his backpack as he scales the rooftop.
He grins as he catches sight of an opening in the center, just about big enough to enter and exit, and quickly shuffles towards it.
Looking down briefly to check if it's safe, Tommy huffs, sitting on the edge of it. He hopes this goddamn trip is worth it, and then he jumps in.
Almost immediately after dropping down, the teen is assaulted by a cloud of dust, kicking up from where he landed.
His face scrunches up as he waves it away, cursing while fighting back a sneeze.
“God, fucking-” he mutters, pulling the handkerchief tied to his neck closer to his face. He already knows there’s cobwebs or rat shit all over him, and Tommy can only shake off what he can like a disgruntled dog.
The place smells of moss and the beginnings of mold, though it's not amongst the most unpleasant things he’s ever smelled. A buddy at the survivor camp swore there were good supplies in the area, and Tommy was going to take his word for it.
He digs in his backpack’s side pocket with one hand, grabbing at the trusty flashlight within it. The room is relatively dark besides the sliver of light that shines from the hole he dropped down from, so he lights up the abandoned storage room.
There’s an assortment of discarded wrappers and old advertisements scattered on the ground, pressed flat to the floor over time. The beam of his flashlight makes it clear to see that he’s alone and safe up here, and absolutely makes his day as the light gleams off of something shiny.
Semi-stocked shelves line the room, filled with dusty stacks of canned goods: Beans, nuts, olives- “fucking score!” Tommy exclaims, the haul looking more and more exciting as he walks through the aisles.
He spots some packaged dried fruit, and jerky, even seeing some toppled over—but still sealed—protein powders. Whoever used to live here knew their stuff, and Tommy could kiss whoever left this for the taking—if it weren’t for the fact that whoever it was is probably very much dead, and it would be very unpleasant to kiss a husk of rotting flesh.
Respect of the dead aside, the blonde drops his backpack on the ground, zipping it open swiftly and opening it up wide. He places the end of the flashlight in his mouth, and uses his arms to gather a section of the canned goods.
He looks around. It isn’t a ridiculously large amount of supplies, with stock clearly having been part of someone else’s survival—Tommy wouldn’t say the place was overflowing with food.
However, it is a lot, and it's a good lot, and it does not look like it’ll fit in his backpack.
Despite neatly packing some cans and packaged goods in his bag, there’s still an amount left on the shelves. It was a pretty dangerous day trip to get here, and this amount of food is too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Call him greedy, but Tommy thinks that this supply could save the compound from another run for at least a couple weeks, and while he has no more space in his backpack, he’s also the biggest fucking man on the planet.
Going through the front pocket of his bag, Tommy quickly fishes out a folded up drawstring bag.
He laughs in triumph as he jerks it open, laying it neatly on the floor as he begins to put the remaining goods from the shelf in it. Flakes of color fall off the now indecipherable logo on the bag, yet the rest of its material is sturdy as it accommodates the bulk of food put in it.
He pulls the drawstring closed once he’s finished, satisfied with his packing job and swings the first backpack back on. Dusting his hands off on his pants, he then brings the drawstring loops together and over his head onto the opposite shoulder.
It isn’t the most comfortable, and he knows his back is going to fucking ache after this, but it’s the most secure way he know how—and it would be arguably worse if he lost his balance over a horde.
With a flashlight in hand, Tommy makes his way down a set of stairs on the side, settling for the moist scent of decay in order to hold his weapon in the other hand.
The first floor resembles a rather barebones flat, with dirty mattresses and kitchenware spread about. There’s some monoblock chairs around an old TV, overtop a tacky ass rug. It’s clear evidence that someone had to have lived here, but the settled dust everywhere suggests that whoever that someone was is long gone.
Tommy looks through the cabinets and drawers downstairs, shuffling through old receipts and paper plates. He’s able to pocket some cash he finds under an empty bottle of gin, and pockets some good batteries he picks out of some of the remotes. There isn’t much else to see downstairs though, with the stuff being either too much to carry or absolutely useless.
Having satiated his curiosity, Tommy briskly makes his way to the exit—a door in the back of the kitchen. He peeks out a barred window on its right, checking for any zombies in the immediate area.
Most of which are a good distance away, and with that observation, Tommy has his try at the door.
It’s locked, unsurprisingly, but it was worth a shot.
He’s going to have to kick it down, and though it’s not his first time, he still wants to make sure he does it right. The teen jumps a little in place, preparing himself to absolutely rock this door’s shit. He does an experimental kick, slowly tracking his trajectory to the space next to the doorknob.
Tommy keeps his eyes on the prize, lifting his leg up, then kicking forward.
The door flies open with a crack, and Tommy scrambles to catch the door before it slams the wall. He already made enough noise as is, so he didn’t want to make it any worse.
Some of the undead in the distance seem to have heard him, slowly shambling in his direction, and he’s certain the one’s he left in the front are probably going to make it around the building. Thankfully, however, they’re still quite a distance away, and he has a clear path to hop his way out of here.
With a sigh of relief, Tommy swings over the fence, and runs off towards another building.
The area is pretty flush with buildings, all tightly put together and probably a product of poor city planning. Tommy uses his running head start to push himself up a chain link fence, steadying himself on its edge briefly before launching off onto the roof of a small shack.
The cans in the bags bounce slightly off his spine, and Tommy winces knowing what a bitch those bruises are gonna be to deal with later.
Right ahead of him is a rundown apartment complex, and his reference point to get back home. It’s a couple stories tall, with an exterior lined with aging bricks. Pieces are missing here and there, falling apart to reveal bits of framing within the building. The structure looks like a messy gradient, where the burgundy bricks become off white and sorta green as it reaches the roof. (Tommy didn’t even know bricks could turn white).
On it, the building has a surprisingly sturdy set of fire escape stairs, and Tommy doesn’t hesitate to leap for it.
He latches onto the grill of the handrails, pulling himself over before swiftly making his way up the stairs. He’s careful of every broken window he passes, not wanting to get pulled in like some poor sod in a horror flick.
At the top of the stairs, Tommy doesn’t enter through the door. It doesn’t take him where he needs to be anyways. Instead he jumps over the rail again to reach for the pipe lining the side of the building, latching onto it with semi-practiced ease and scooting his way up, and finally settling on the complex’s grass covered roof.
The hardest part is over, no more sprinting wildly through unfamiliar terrain. He’s got the whole route from here memorized, and if he was able to get here, he should be completely capable of heading back. Though, he still has a long way to go from there, and based on the spreading ache in the specific part of his back where the canned goods rest, he is not looking forward to it.
The space is covered in trash and debris, with crates, palettes, and flattened out cardboard boxes thrown haphazardly on the rooftop. There’s a ripped up mattress in the center, most likely infested with bugs and stinking of something Tommy wants to keep unidentifiable.
He avoids it like the plague, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the thing actually was the plague, stepping on a crushed pack of cigarettes in the grass as he approaches one of the turned over crates.
Tommy kicks it over, revealing the water bottle wrapped in plastic that he left here right before he went scavenging.
He grabs it, twisting open the cap as he takes a deep breath of fresh air, relishing in the success of the journey.
“That’s fucking right-” He takes a gulp of water in between words, “-Another win for Tommy, the best damn runner ever seen!”
The blonde wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, taking in the scenery for a brief moment.
He can’t stay for long, otherwise the sun will begin to set and he won’t be able to make it back to the camp before nightfall. However, he can spare a few minutes to take a breath, and so he admires the blue sky and shining sun, noting the slight pink that seeps in from the horizon—
Tommy pauses.
Someone is watching him.
He didn’t notice at first, didn’t see them with how vast the area is, but there is someone definitely looking at him from several rooftops away.
They’re far enough that the details of their appearance are relatively vague, far enough that you wouldn’t see them if you weren’t looking. Except Tommy is quite perceptive if he does say so himself, so he notices— and what he notices is someone really fucking weird.
His apparent watcher is perched dangerously close to the edge of the faraway building, their posture reading as relaxed and nonchalant as they’re leaned slightly back.
Tommy makes the effort to make it seem like he hasn’t noticed them, and thus the details of their clothes are further blurred by his peripheral vision. Although it’s clear their attire is entirely dark, which Tommy thinks is kind of stupid if you plan on lounging outside in the heat to watch some other stranger also lounging outside in the heat.
Even stranger than that, the person is wearing a gas mask—The kind that obscures your entire face, with filters on either side and a means to speak in the center.
It doesn’t make any sense that they’re wearing it besides the intimidation factor, considering that the whole zombie disease isn’t airborne anyways; that or they’re incredibly paranoid, and honestly, who could blame them?
Tommy takes another drink of water, so as to not tip the stranger off that he noticed them, trying to turn his head to maybe get a better look at them.
He catches a glimpse of what seems to be blonde hair, but doesn’t seem to get much else. Tommy can’t see the man’s—or what he thinks is a man’s— eyes through the goggles, as if they’re tinted.
How long has he been there? He thinks to himself, questioning when they started watching, how they got there, how long they’ve been…observing him.
Does the fucker realize how rude it is to stare? Actually, wait— is the stranger even a person? What if Tommy had been shitting on a defenseless zombie guy that literally didn’t have the facilities to do anything other than stare at him? They could just be another undead dreaming of gnawing at his lanky frame, or maybe some corpse that was just unfortunately posed right before their death—
Tommy’s thoughts are interrupted by the person in the distance waving . They have their hand raised high above their head in an obvious greeting of some kind, and the blonde teen can’t help but be wide eyed, because apparently he was shittier at pretending not to notice them than he thought he was.
He can’t read the dude’s expression through their ominous fucking mask, and thusly cannot tell whether that wave is friendly or otherwise. He freezes as he lightly panics, unsure of how to respond. Tommy honestly malfunctions as he thinks of what to do, wondering what the fuck they want from him and why they’d been watching in the first place. It’s not everyday you see someone new in the apocalypse, but that’s not to say his social skills are deteriorating by any means. He’s a social butterfly he’ll have you know—
Okay, he’s getting distracted now.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Tommy does half a turn as he makes a decision on what to do, downing the rest of his water until he can crush the plastic in his grip.
He tosses the ruined bottle into the grass, because fuck mother earth, just this once, and he-and he waves? He waves back. At the stranger.
Tommy fucking waves back with a hesitant hand, smiling at them with an expression that is more of a grimace than it is a smile, eyes looking everywhere except at them.
This is probably the worst interaction he’s ever had in his life. What if this dude’s a part of some fucking cult or something?
This is so stupid.
The tension Tommy feels lasts beyond the wave, oppressive as he turns away from his unashamed stalker. He doesn’t know how he got to this point, waving at freaky masked people in a post-apocalyptic world. He’s a little afraid of what he’s getting himself into, if he’s getting himself into anything at all, but he honestly doesn’t want to find out.
And with that final thought, Tommy jumps to the next rooftop and gets the fuck out of there.