Chapter Text
The tool shed is a cold place to sleep in.
It’s not quite as cold as the outside, for sure, but you still wake up with your fingertips numb. If you could take the past few hours back, you would keep yourself in the house. You shouldn’t have wandered out here to look for a new weapon.
Because now you’re locked in a tool shed. Oh yeah, and there’s a zombie trying to get in.
You aren’t one for reflecting on the past. Your past has been nothing but bad things: bad childhood, miserable adolescence, and now you’re stuck in the literal zombie apocalypse. Alone. Things could not get worse for you, you think, before looking back down at your legs.
Oh yeah. That’s right. They always can.
Your left leg is fucked. If you found a doctor, you know they would look at it and tell you it needs to come off. It’s no longer bleeding, thank god, but a large chunk of it is missing. You managed to wrap your leg before you bled out, but there was nothing you could do to replace the large chunk or fix the snapped bone. You’re no medical practitioner, you remind yourself, it’s a miracle you even kept yourself alive this long after you foolishly stepped into a bear trap.
In your defense, there was no fucking way you could’ve seen it. Why a bear trap was even set up in a tool shed is beyond you. You assume the owner set it to kill any zombies that stumbled in.
You’re very tempted to call them Walkers, but zombie fits the bill better.
You had been walking for a while. Three weeks, you think, but your high-tech watch is inside the house you were going to take refuge in, along with your other things-including your food, water, and a really warm winter jacket you wish you had grabbed. If money was still a thing, you’d be placing bets on how fast someone would steal your bag if they found it. As for recovering it, the odds of that look…slim.
What do you have? You have one garden rake sharp enough to kill a zombie with the right kind of swing and strong enough to hold one back should they burst in. You have multiples tools, none of which you can use apart from melee weapons. There is a shotgun in here, but no shells. Various supplies that would be more helpful for building things than fixing you.
You have one pistol. Two bullets. One, you have decided, is yours if anything breaks in. The other is for the first son of a bitch that comes through that door.
In the distance, you hear a scream. Another unlucky soul probably being eaten alive. Better them than you, right? Wrong, probably. You don’t exactly amount to much. You’re a scrawny guy who knows everything there is to know about computers, but in combat you’re pretty worthless. Maybe that’s why the group you were with kicked you out.
You shake your head. You know why they kicked you out. One snarky comment about killing the team leader so you could be in charge, and you’re kicked to the curb. How were you supposed to know the rest of them were family? They looked nothing alike-you think. Just like their names, their faces are forgotten to you. Just as well.
There are gunshots. Wow, those are loud. You hope it’ll draw away the small group of zombies that have gathered outside the tool shed. You wish there was some way to know, other than listening for various undead groans. There are windows, but they are all fogged up. Or just dirty. You can’t tell.
Things just got quiet. There is no sound out there. No undead groans, no shots, nothing. Maybe whoever it was did drive them away from you. Thanks, stranger.
There is no choice now. If you don’t want to die in this shed, you have to get up and get back into the house. You have to get your shit back. Putting all your weight on a helpful box, you roll until your right leg holds you up at an angle, then push to get straightened out. Standing is awkward and painful. Pistol is in one hand. Rake in the other. You can do this.
You open the door as quietly as you can manage. A short distance forward, and you’re screaming.
“Fuck!” you yell, not because your leg has given out, but because it has given out and you are floored and there was one zombie left in the backyard. Of course there was one. It turns and starts lumbering towards you. You start frantically pushing yourself along with your one good leg, sliding across the lawn to avoid sudden death. “Fuck!” you yell again when you realize the only place you can go is back to the tool shed. Luckily for you, this son of a bitch doesn’t walk fast at all. You easily push yourself back into the shed and look for a solution to this. Pistol. Two bullets. Garden rake.
The garden rake is held out towards the door with both hands, and when the zombie turns its ugly head, you swing it up and immediately back down, lodging it in the stupid thing’s head. You were hoping to hit a spot with more leverage, but so long as it holds the zombie back you don’t care.
Pistol. Two bullets. Where is it? Oh yeah. You set it down to swing the rake. You start patting the area around you with a shaky hand. Where is it?
The zombie growls. Its arms reach forward, and its jaws snap a few times.
Where is your fucking pistol?
The rake wobbles. The few metal bits lodged in its skull are stretching beyond capacity.
WHERE IS YOUR FUCKING PISTOL?
The rake snaps. The zombie falls to the floor. You yank your legs back and curl into a ball, pushing yourself into the wall with both feet, tears brimming in your eyes at the shots of pain running up your left leg.
As the zombie gets up, you find your pistol. You fumble with it, disengage the safety, and when the zombie lunges you yank that trigger as hard as you can. The bullet goes through the zombie’s jaw, popping out from the back of its neck. Please, god, let that be a kill shot.
There is a long moment filled with your heavy breathing. In the distance, you hear someone rummaging through something. Sounds like someone is in the house. Of course.
Before you can reevaluate your plans, the corpse before you starts rising. You can’t help it, you scream.
Pistol. One shot. It’s supposed to be yours.
The zombie recalibrates itself, and suddenly your eyes are locked with dead ones. You scream again.
One shot. You aim for this asshole, preparing for the shot. You won’t waste this shot.
A bullet is fired. The zombie falls.
Your trigger has not been pulled.
“You alright?” A lumbering shape hangs in the doorway. You readjust your glasses to look at them. Short, fat, and dark, a figure stands in the doorway. They look concerned.
“I-I’m fine. Thank you.” You manage, lowering your pistol to your side. They smile.
“Names Grif. Dexter Grif. What’s yours?”
“Simmons. Dick Simmons.” You wish you could sound less breathy, but you are wide eyed and coming down from an adrenaline rush. Plus, there are tears going down your face. You’re bloody, bruised, and covered in dirt. So is he. So is everyone.
“Nice to meet you, Simmons.” He says, reaching out with a hand to help you up. You reach for it, grab it, but when he pulls you up you realize you forgot about your leg somehow and you just…fall. You fall right into his arms, awkwardly sputtering out apologies when you straighten back up.
“Jesus, your leg-“ he starts, “that’s…not what I think it is, is it?”
“I-it’s not a bite! It’s not! I swear! I got it caught in a trap, it’s not a bite!” you say in a near panic. Grif says nothing for a long moment, his eyes locked on your leg. You swallow. It echoes through your head.
“Are you with a group?” he asks, looking back up at your face.
“No. I’m alone. Have been for a while.”
“Well, Simmons, how would you like to come join up with mine? We have a doctor, maybe he can do something about your leg.” Grif offers with a pointed head nod to your left side.
It has certainly been a while since you’ve felt positive emotion. You nearly forgot what relief felt like until right now. The fact you don’t know him doesn’t even bother you, you nod heartily.
You smile for the first time in months as you hobble out of the tool shed, your weight held up by someone else who smiles. Maybe things won’t be so bad after all.