This is an idea I had for a little while, planned as a puzzle prompts entry for LiveJournal, sadly I didn't get a chance to enter it in time. (Here's hoping I make the next!) I must admit, I quite enjoyed writing about Bill, and learned a lot about writing very anger toned third person. One of my Survivor's Guilt regrets, is that I didn't write more of Bill during the early AUs, so this should make up for it a little bit. (I hope.) Thanks for reading.
In case there is any confusion with the cover, that is actually a screencap of that main street Joel and Ellie first properly explore in Lincoln. A rotted out old car from there, to be specific.
GET OUT & DON'T COME BACK
How long had it been since Frank had died? Heck, how long had it been since he saw another human being who had actually walked away from Lincoln to tell the tale? Last being his so called "friend" and the little brat. Friends were nothing to him but a inconvenience. Bill staggered around the dark old church, with the last bottle of whiskey. He couldn't be bothered to go out an salvage some more. Besides, it'd be rude not to finish this one off.
The moon was already out, casting weird shapes of the stain glass windows on the wooden floor. Why did he ever pick this place again? Oh yeah, the large basement, and it was better than the dump he used to live in.
He'd already cussed out everything in his room, even the shadows on the wall. Looking for something else to cuss out, he staggered out the open door, and tripped over a box. Ugly Hawaiian shirts tumbled out. Why the fuck were they there again?
Oh yeah, a week after those two left, he decided he never wanted to see another Hawaiian shirt again, and searched the town for any shirt he could find. They had sat there in the way ever since.
Perfectly good whiskey spilled on the floor, because those damn boxes got in his way yet again. Bill set the bottle on the ground, careful not to spill a single drop. It was like nectar from the gods, and he was going to savor it. Or just drink himself into oblivion. Either was good. Second was easier.
Bill flung the window open, sending box after box tumbling down to the yard below. He grabbed the bottle, drained the way the last of it. Oh yeah, good stuff. Bill climbed down after the shirts, and had to gather the hideous things all over again. Drunkenly heaped them up in the burning pit—and kept forgetting were exactly that was. Piling them up may have taken him an hour or two longer than necessary, but hey, it was done.
Setting fire to them wasn't satisfying enough. Just heap them up, douse them in gasoline, flick a match into them, and watch them burn. Those ugly shirts were gone, but he wasn't. Frank, the SOB, who didn't even have the guts to say it to his face. Just like Frank. Scurry away and die, never knowing or caring if Bill will ever find him.
"You think I'm going to let you rot in my town, Frank?" Bill muttered to himself. How cared if he spoke out loud? There was no one around to hear him, and if an infected came by, it would join the shirts on the bonfire. This was his town, and he'd made damn sure of that. Nothing could change that.
And, the rest of the night was a complete blank.
He woke up on the tatty old mattress in his room, cradling an empty bottle of whiskey—apparently he had more than he had assumed, since there were the glass shard remains of three empty bottles. Bill vaguely remembered setting the shirts ablaze, and flipping off a tombstone to an open grave, but nothing else.
His head pounding like a thousand nails being hammered into a brick wall, he had to drag himself out the church. There were infected that needed to die, and people to be warned off from even stepping a toe in his town.
Frank's body had to get the fuck out of this town, and he felt the determination burn within him like the very bonfire he had lit the night before.
"Write a dear John to me, huh, Frank?" he shouted, staring down to the ground. After what he did, he'd be looking up right now. Rotting in hell.
Who the fuck does that? Who stabs you in the back, ups and dies, then writes a letter like the injured party? Frank, that's who.
Lucky for him, he didn't have to trek through that infected part of town. The very open grave he cussed out the night before was Frank's. After a stupid low moment, just after that idiot and the kid came through, he took out as much infected as he could, and brought the body back to the church. Picked out a nice coffin. Carved his name into a tombstone—that can fucking go with him too. Good riddance to Frank, his grave, and the shitty thing he did.
That wasn't the only stroke of good luck either. As brazen as they liked, a military truck drove through main street, smashed through one of his barricades, about three weeks back. All it took was a single arrow to the head of the driver, and the other ran afoul of a pack of runners, that cost him a couple more arrows to boot. The truck crashed into an RV, and was still sat there.
Armed to his teeth, with literally as many guns, arrows, and knives he could carry, he headed out to the graveyard. Took him over an hour to get the coffin back out the open grave. That was the easy part. He had to lug the thing all the way to main street. His nail bomb traps got rid of most of the infected, which he had to waste time rebuilding. It was all worth it, 'cause he could sleep well tonight on his beaten old mattress, knowing that he was free of his backstabbing ex.
Not to mention the return trip, because he was that pissed off, he forgot to bring tools. Moments like this, he wished the radio still worked. Crank up some punk rock music, and fuel his already building anger. There were certainly plenty of bodies in his wake, that would need burning later.
Bill got in the cab of the truck, and slammed the door for effect. He didn't care if any infected heard him, the mood he was in, he would have loved for a reason to shoot something, that wasn't considered wasting perfectly good ammo. How good would that feel right now? Just vent on infected.
A whole lot of driving later, including not bothering to drive on the "correct side of the road," slamming into cars, and shooting any runners or clickers he saw, he pulled over right in the middle of the road near the "welcome to Lincoln" sign. He had to change that. Maybe paint it to say "GET OUT & DON'T COME BACK." Yeah, that would be good. Perfect. In fact, that would go nice on Frank's grave.
Bill grabbed a shovel from the back, walked about three paces outside the town line, and begun digging. "You want out of this town, Frank? Hate my guts, do you? Well, you fucking got it," he said, angrily.
The anger helped him dig. The hole itself wasn't pretty, and it certainly wasn't rectangular, but it was deep enough. Just above that, he dug another hole to hold the tombstone in place. After all that, his rage subsided after he put the coffin in the ground. Looked at the tombstone. All it had, was the name "FRANK." Using a chisel and a hammer, he added R.I.P. Only he would know that meant "rot in peace."
Bill was hurting now, but he knew it would go away eventually. He fetched a marker pen from the glove compartment—why did the military need those? Who the hell knows. On the stone, he wrote "Get out, & don't come back." Rain and time would fade it eventually.
"Is this how you wanted it?" he asked the grave. "Well here it is. You steal my shit. Don't have the guts to tell me to my face. Well, Frank, I'm finally free of you." Using the shovel, he filled the grave in with soil. Patted it down.
Remained standing there for a few moments, feeling a cool breeze wash over him. Listening to the brush of leaves, and calls of birds. Solemn, and respectful.
"Lucky bastard," Bill muttered. "At least you had someone to dig you a grave."
Who would dig a grave for him? Unless he stood over an open grave, and waited to die; no one.
Bill walked away from the grave, and Frank, leaving some of the anger, frustration, misery, and pain, got in the truck. Did a u-turn and headed back into town. There were a whole lot of dead infected to burn, a new barricade to build, and no one else would bother to do it, if he didn't.