Fear the dead

"Tobias Grant"

Arthur's note: after two episodes of "Fear the Walking Dead" I am beginning to get a feel for this story. With spin-offs and reboots there always remains the question, "will the new work be as good as its parent"?

Up to this point I am happy with "Fear the Dead" so far...and too, I have taken a little time to construct a story about a character (which now it is unknown if we will ever see him again...at least as a living soul)... one, Tobias.

I like Tobias; he seemed to be one of the few persons who really had their head together about what was coming.

People may sometimes seem to be loons, that is, until what they've been spouting from their lips seems to present that they knew exactly what they were talking about. Still, we live in a cautious world, and sometimes it takes more than just a few moments of time for realities to sink in. However, by then it may be too late...

Tobias had been warning people about what was coming, but did they heed, did they listen? He watched the "feed" off of the internet and knew that this was not something of a fan creation...that it had some basis in reality. Still when he spoke, mentioned an upcoming apocalypse, his words more proclaimed him as crazy.

All he could think of in his mind was...was the world prepared for what was about to happen?

***********A Pillar of Salt ***********

Tobias still remembered the day that he had closed Mrs. C's car door (that fateful time whenever she had dropped him off in front of his residence whenever the city had started to go to shit).

She had told him that he could go with her, with them. Evidently she and her family had made plans to evac the city, and for a moment he had considered her proposition. However, he knew that he had responsibilities. He had to deliver his own family from the apocalypse, to see that they were cared for...His mother and others that lived with them under the same roof. They all may be in panic mode by this time. He had to see to their safety, even with all the cruelty they had bestowed upon him.

Some of his family and friends had told him that if he continued along this path that there was a psycho ward awaiting him at Pescadero Institute, right next to the room where Sarah Conner was boarded (the woman who saw robots invading our future).

Tobias had dismissed their ridicule. He had been warning people for weeks that there was something going on, but no one cared to listen. They had spoken that he was spending too much time on the computer. Some of his family even had said that he needed to get a real life. One not tied up within a fourteen inch screen monitor. It was determined that he should not believe everything he saw on-line.

Well, his answer...he didn't. He didn't believe everything he saw on-line, but there were some things that did possess a "ring" of truth about them.

One was a video he'd witness from Laredo, Texas. The image seemed to have been recorded on a cell phone...and the documentor seemed more interested in getting away than standing there to watch her boyfriend get eaten alive...

(Tobias Grant had decided some time ago that his true calling was to become a film-maker, to become involved in the movie industry. The people around him had laughed.

"Yeah, like you're going to become the next Steven Spellberg or something."

Tib didn't even acknowledge that they had said Spielberg's name wrong. He was used to criticism. Humor had often been poked towards him about his weight, or the numerous red splotches upon his face, few people took him seriously. Even so he studied what was coming across the internet, and he knew that he could determine what was constructed, from what was genuine. He had been studying My-Tube videos for a millennia (well that was a bit of an exaggeration), however he felt that he had become well qualified to determine what was real, from the manufactured).

Anyway, there was a certain grittiness about that raw footage from Texas, a spontaneous reaction which implied that what was being witnessed was real.

The footage which showed some girl recording her boyfriend being attacked by...well, some kind of creature, and it looked to be no fake. He had studied the image a thousand times...

Tobias walked up the steps and opened the door to his residence. He stood just inside the doorway for a moment. He called to the people that he knew should be there, inside. He got no response.

Where were they? He turned and looked back out of the glass door which was the first barrier to his home. Where was his family? Maybe he should have taken Mrs. C up on her offer. His house seemed awful quiet. He reached down and felt his pocket for the knife Mrs. Clark had returned to him...back at school. Then he remembered that he'd left his blade buried within Principal Artie's chest. Now he realized that he had no protection at all. What was he to do?

END PART 1