Author's Note:
Thanks to a bunch of exchanged headcanons with Tumblr user the-alchemist-exorcist, I got an idea for a mini-series. Probably just a collection of one-shots and they'll be skewing canon just a little - not the main plotline but timeline details and one particular character's development.
Dunno how quickly I'll get them written. Ask anyone, I'm the worst at getting things done in a timely fashion.
But anyway.
He couldn't remember when he had last spoken out loud. He knew it had been three years since the outbreak – someone had written on a wall about the anniversary somewhere he'd been scavenging – but he wasn't entirely sure how long he had been out with his dad before…everything else. Maybe it had been a year, maybe more, but all Tommy knew for sure was it had been a very long time since he'd actually spoken.
There wasn't really reason to speak. He travelled well alone, knew how to hunt to get food, and his gun was a large enough model that people usually didn't take the ammo from the gun shops he found. There wasn't any need for bartering or trading, and his interactions with other people tended to involve watching them from a distance until they were safely out of range. It wasn't that he assume everyone was out to kill the first other survivor they found – it was just that there were definitely a few people like that, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to tell them apart.
Tommy ended up wandering after his dad had died, circling the nearest mountain, heading west for a bit, and then doubling back. There wasn't much of a method; it was just a daily pattern of getting food, finding somewhere to sleep, and waking up the next morning. He watched. He listened. He did so silently.
It wasn't complicated; it was just surviving. Just like he'd been taught.
At some point he found himself back in the city, some place called Sleepy Hollow, and took the opportunity to pick through the remnants of the buildings for anything useful. The place was relatively quiet; he took out the few zombies that wandered by with his knife, not wanting to risk the report of his rifle drawing in a crowd.
There wasn't a ton left; after three years, that wasn't surprising. He did manage to fill up his plastic gallon jug with rainwater from a fountain and set off to find somewhere to set up a fire so he could get it boiled clean.
The first place with a decent vantage point looked like it used to be a high school. There was a car crashed through the bay door, seemingly recent as the engine was still ticking, and a good number of bodies littering the sidewalk outside. Tommy skirted around all of it to the back alley, using an old rusty fire escape to scramble up to the roof, and set up camp.
He got a small fire going, got the first part of the water heating in the pot he had crammed in his bag, and settled on the edge of the roof to wait. None of the zombies in the area seemed interested in him, which was a pleasant surprise. There was a bunch of them flocked around what looked like a small cage, but the crowd made it difficult to actually see inside. Some people used captured animals to lure the zombies into traps, so it didn't seem too unlikely that whoever got driven out of here had done the same.
It was a little surprising to see a truck roll up, and even more so when an extremely varied group of people piled out of it. Tommy ducked out of sight immediately, taking up his usual habits; watch, listen, don't be seen.
He could pick up only snippets of the conversation – a lot of it tense – and didn't feel it too important to try to get more.
He watched them extract a young woman from the cage, somehow remarkably alive, and vaguely wondered who she'd managed to piss off to get put in there.
He watched them start to get overrun.
Tommy generally had a very strict rule of not interfering with people he didn't know – which, granted, was everybody. If they'd survived this long they could take care of themselves, and he didn't need to draw attention. So he watched, occasionally through his scope, and started planning the best route out of there.
Then he saw the old man get grabbed, watched the others circle trying to find a shot that wouldn't risk hitting the guy, and suddenly Tommy found himself centering in on the zombie's head and hearing the crack of the rifle a fraction of a second before the skull exploded.
The old man froze, looked up, and Tommy immediately ducked back down behind the ledge out of sight.
They knew he was there now. Maybe if they were like most people they'd figure it was military – or maybe that wouldn't be good, as one of the guys had been dressed in uniform. Maybe they'd just assume he was with another group and head off without question. That would be ideal; that would be the easiest route by far.
He was still kicking himself, though, as he hurriedly packed up his gear, stomped the fire out, and slid back down to the alley. It wasn't that he was sadistic or anything; other people were just too much of a variable to deal with. He knew how to keep himself alive, and that didn't involve anyone else.
It wasn't exactly a waste of a bullet, though. He'd hit the zombie, got one more mark on his count, and he'd kept a guy from having his face eaten. As long as he could slip out again, no real harm.
More gunshots sounded behind him as he walked, but after a few minutes of silence Tommy figured they had either been totally overrun or gotten out clean. It was another few minutes before the sound of tires on gravel answered that for him. Dumb idea to take the road, of course they'd take the same road out…
Tommy kept his head down, shoulders a little hunched, and made sure to walk quickly and deliberately enough that he wouldn't be mistaken for dead. An unexpected sort of fear worked its way into his gut when the tires slowed and the black truck pulled up alongside him.
"Hey! You're that kid who saved my ass!"
The voice was strange. It wasn't like he hadn't heard people talk, but it had been a long time since they'd talked directly to him. He looked up a little warily, meeting the eyes of the guy driving. The rest were in the truck, though the windows were tinted enough that he couldn't actually see their faces.
"You want a ride?"
Tommy caught himself frowning for a moment, eyes narrowing as he forced the words to process. It took a little longer than it used to, and once they sunk in, he eyed the truck warily. Immediate concerns came to mind – which way they were going, whether anyone was going to shoot him for some reason, if they really just wanted his supplies and planned to use him as bait – but figuring out some way of addressing these wasn't coming easily.
Instead, against every instinct and every intelligent thing he'd done to stay alive so far, Tommy shrugged once and pulled himself up into the bed of the truck. Two quick taps on the roof got them moving again, and he frantically tried to rationalize this decision, but the muffled voices from the cab were distracting him.
They were talking, at least one of them arguing, and though he couldn't make out what precisely it was about he had a few good guesses.
These people were talking – likely about him, at least partially. Suddenly, and for the first time consciously, Tommy realized one thing that might complicate things until he was back on his own:
He had no idea how long it had been since he'd last spoken out loud.