Hi all, I have more to give. S7 threw me off, so I thought I was done. I've decided to keep this as a divergent fic that follows the gap in comic events with TWD TV characters. And in true TWD fashion, an OC bottle chapter below.
Dakota Collins didn't turn his attention away from the departing truck of salt seekers until he could no longer make out their truck on the long sandy trail toward the mainland. For the past year, he thought he was the last breathing person on earth. Well, not the very last person, but his stranded colleagues and he had done the math. The rate of infection and the population size of coastal Virginia in September meant they knew the likelihood of ever seeing another living person again was infinitesimal and grew only less likely as the years wore on.
In the many months since that tragic night he lost Mason, his last surviving companion, Dakota had accepted his total solitude. And then just as suddenly reality was overturned by the impossible. Weeks ago, Dakota was walking back to the NASA research base, his home, from the marsh where he liked to dig for his daily meal of clams. He saw two forms walking down the former road. He could tell by their upright posture and sturdy gait that they were alive and not walking dead.
Dakota had panicked, ran back to the base, grabbed the rifle he had never fired, strapped on the bulletproof vest from the security guard closet and swiftly ran toward the approaching living beings. Later that fateful night, when he was cleaning his gunshot wound, he berated himself for the rash decision making and approaching these bandits. Injured and weaponless, he should have stayed in the base and tracked their actions from afar.
Now, that he had the island back to himself he thought he'd feel happy, secure. He had learned a lot from Carl Grimes and his fellow enterprising bandits, but he was scared of them and all they had seen and done. He could not keep his mind from wondering what kind of people were they? How many were they? Carl only mentioned Alexandria, where he was from, and not-Alexandria, where the companions were from. In several weeks it would be the Not-Alexandria salt seekers who would be back.
He needed to prepare for their return, practice being brave, as Carl had instructed. His first act of courage would be to acknowledge his present situation. As long as his undead colleagues roamed the entry floor of the compound he called home, he never felt alone. If he accepted the once improbable reality, that he was going to live with other alive humans again, he would need experience. Experience facing his fears. Experience fully grieving. Experience "handling himself."
He closed his eyes and exhaled. He let the sun warm his eyelids as he mustered the fight within him that had kept him alive. It was time.
Dakota slipped into the guard closet and suited up in his thick replica NASA jacket. These jackets had been framed and on display around the building in administrator and senior employee offices. It was Mason's idea to use them when the auxiliary power could not keep them warm on particularly cold week almost two years ago. It felt like such a big adventure at the time, sleuthing through the compound where even a year into the ZA the last remaining survivors still felt like intern guests. They'd find the framed artifacts, smash them and claim the prize. Each man raising his NASA jacket into the air like a trophy, like knights of a dead dream. All undead now.
Dakota grimaced at the memory and the task that lay before him. He then slung the strap of his heavy black rifle over his shoulder and went to set his trap. The layout of the entry floor was an exterior set of double glass doors, a small enclosed lobby with a security desk, closet room for security supplies, and an interior set of double wood doors that led into the main lobby of the building. He secured open an exterior entry door with a small bolder from one of plentiful riprap walls. He then grabbed the waste bin from under the security desk and stuffed it with paper and twigs and set it atop the security desk as eye level distraction. He stood in the security lobby silent for a moment, a second bolder at his feet ready secure open the interior entry door and a lighter in his hand. Once he opened that door there was no going back.
Three. Two. One. The next steps were a blur of adrenaline as the wastebasket lit up and exterior light flooded the front main lobby of the building for the first time in 3 years. Dakota bolted outdoors, set the rifle on his shoulder and unlocked the safety.
After an eternity he finally heard their groaning sounds as they headed into the light. The bait worked as they made their way toward the small fire. He lined up the rifle sights and fired. Dakota's head kicked back in shock at the explosion at his ear. He didn't know how loud a tactical rifle was. He tried to get his barrings and focus on the target. He saw one body on the floor as the undead turned toward his noise and away from the fire. Dakota lined up the rifle again.
The first walker out of the door was Mason. Dakota's breath hitched. He still recognized his friend in the gray fleshed monster. Even after a year, he was well preserved. Dakota fought against the sting in his tear ducts as he lined his sights toward Mason. The gunshot erupted in his ear again and Dakota couldn't help but flinch. He missed as the bullet cut a mark on Mason's cheek as it sped by. Realizing he missed, he felt the grief and fear drain from his body and a numbness took over. He set up his shot again and exhaled as he squeezed the trigger. The bullet struck Mason in cheek and the back of his head exploded red mush into the air. The body slumped to the ground.
The numbness suppressed Dakota's pride at making the shot. The elation was buried wherever the fear and grief had gone. He pressed his cheek against the gun, waited, and fired at the next walker. He focused on improving his aim with each approaching single file target.
When it was all over, he dug a trench in the sandy soil and piled in the bodies. He added more paper and sticks and tossed in the embers of the wastebasket. He turned and walked away as the bodies caught fire. When he returned from his belated clam dig in the marsh, he passed by the trench. The bodies had sufficiently burned, so he grabbed the shovel to fill in the ditch. As he worked, he tried to ignore the intact NASA jackets on his former fellow survivors. The fire retardant fabric a defiant reminder, "we were all you once."
As the sun set behind him, Dakota sat on the shoreline roasting his clams over a fresh campfire. His hearing slowly returned as he focused on the crackle of the driftwood and the lulling roar of the ocean. He was alive and alone. Unlike his deafness, the numbness had not faded. He sat wondering how long it would take for him to feel again if he could feel again. Dakota Collins, the lone intern of NASA, would be ready for the Salt Seekers when they returned.