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Tommy stumbles off the tour bus, blood covering his hands and spattered on his face. He's paranoid that somewhere he's got a cut, and that Monte's blood is somehow going to turn him into... into... "What the fuck were they?" Adam's right behind him, and once they're on the road, on real pavement with both feet, Tommy drops to his knees and throws the fuck up.
Three days ago, Lisa had complained that at a signing, someone had bit her, and how fucked up is that, honestly? Then she'd gotten sick, feverish; Monte had looked after her, and from there, delirious, and Tommy had made jokes about Linda Blair, and Lisa puking up pea soup. Except when Lisa had gotten sick, it hadn't been soup of any kind. It had been the sort of sickness that ended with them waking up this morning, the bus deserted of its driver, Longineu dead as fuck, and both Lisa and Monte being these... things. "I'm sorry," Tommy husks, wiping his mouth against the back of his wrist. It's an apology to Adam, to Monte, who'd ended up with a kitchen knife jammed in his neck, to Lisa, who Adam had dealt with. "I need to wash my hands. I gotta. It- it smells fuckin' bad."
"We have to move. Get up." Adam is yanking at his arm, getting Tommy to his feet. "We have to go." He'll panic later. He can't now, not when he can still see that look on Lisa's face, the way her hands were claws as they reached for him. "Tommy, we need to run. We have to find ... someplace. Somewhere to hide."
Tommy spits to clear his mouth, and nods. They have to get away. What if the knife wasn't enough? What if-? He grabs Adam's hand out of desperation, out of the need to know that Adam's alive, human, and that Tommy is, too. "This way. I think... I think I saw some houses back there." He's played Left 4 Dead, and was just getting into Left 4 Dead 2 (with Monte, and don't think Tommy doesn't see the irony there), and the first thing he thinks of for supplies is... "We need guns, or something. Or like... something to protect ourselves. And food. And-" He shivers, wiping his free hand against the thigh of his pants. He's still in his fucking pajamas, for fuck's sake. "Clothes. Okay? Come on."
They are somewhere along I-80; Adam doesn't have a clue, but Tommy's right; they have to find something, someplace to hide. While the sun's still up. He knows from the movies that when the sun goes down, they need to be ready. So they run.
It's a gated community they find first, which is weird, but he doesn't question it. They go up to the first one, a McMansion and peer into the window, sweaty and panicky as fugitives. "... what do you think?"
"I think we try the shed first. See if there's anything we can use as weapons." Tommy's out of breath, sweating, all of his senses as sharp and tight as razor-wire. He knows what a deer in the headlights feels like, he thinks, flush with adrenaline so that his heartbeat feels like it's as fast as hummingbird wings. "Bet they've got food and stuff, too. And if, um. There are people inside, not like..." Lisa and Monte, "...then maybe they'll let us stay. Maybe something'll be on the news. This is like fuckin' Night of the Living Dead." Tommy explores around into the backyard, and behold, a shed! He pulls his shirt off to wrap around his fist to punch out a window, and leans inside. "Chainsaw, axe, and I think those are rifle bags. C'mere and gimme a boost in."
"You probably set off an alarm. God, Tommy!" Careful of the glass, Adam laces his fingers together boosts Tommy up. "Be careful." If nothing else, at the moment what they need is shoes. He's pretty sure the soles of his feet are never going to be the same.
"Do you alarm your shed?" Tommy wrangles his shirt back on and steps into Adam's hands, climbing through the window and only managing to scrape his shoulder a little, far away from where Monte's blood is dry on his hands. "HAH! Locked from the inside! And there are spare keys." Which could mean a vehicle, a place to lock themselves into, whatever. Keys mean safety. Tommy snaps the deadbolt open on the door of the shed and invites Adam in. "I'm so fuckin' scared I don't even know what to pick up, you know?" One of the rifle bags is laid out carefully on a workbench, and Tommy unzips it with a low whistle. "You know how to fire a gun? 'cause I'll, I don't know. Take the chainsaw or something if you want the gun."
Adam feels his stomach turn over almost in slow motion and he gasps out a sound that better make up for not throwing up. "I've never fired a gun. If you have, take that." Which leaves him with the chainsaw. Fuck.
Tommy bobs his head in a nod, checking out the mechanisms on the rifle. "I gotta find ammo or something, though. Gimme a sec, and keep an eye out if anything's... weird." Searching the shed further, Tommy finds a box of ammo, and he loads the gun, careful to keep the safety on. "I can't- I just... I can't believe. That Monte. And Lisa. And LP, I just felt... so bad for leaving him there." Not that LP would have even minded, since he wasn't exactly amongst the living and feisty anymore. "You think it's just random? Or, like... do you think it's everywhere?" He nods for Adam to follow him, because if Tommy's got the gun, then he's going first. "Time to hit the house. Ready?"
They'll talk about all of that. Later. Adam is holding a chainsaw, something he's never thought he'd do. And it's heavy and he tries to brace it right and he follows. "I'm wishing I'd played those stupid video games of yours now," he gruffs and any other time it would sound ridiculous, but fuck if it isn't true.
"Stay behind me." With the gun in his hands, Tommy's adrenaline rush of fear is replaced by shocked, numb calm, and he starts walking toward the house, keeping an eye out for anything that could come over - or through - the fence. Safe is as safe does, and when they reach the back door, Tommy taps on it, then steps back, gun held up.
No answer. That's... pretty bad. It could just be that they're at work though, right? He taps again before motioning for Adam to unlock the door so they can go inside. The house is quiet and unlit, and it makes Tommy think again that they could just be at work. It could have just been something random. Then they both hear a groan. "Fuck, get behind me. Where did that come from?" Next, the scrape of wood against the floor, and shambling footsteps toward them. "Adam? Get ready. I think it might be-"
A woman, a mother, a wife. Or that's what she had been. There's an obvious bite on her calf, black and bruised and as bloody as her fingertips and the skin around her mouth. "Holy fuck!" Tommy's first shot misses entirely, punching a hole in the ceiling, but the second sends this thing that was a woman not that long ago flat on her back, feet twitching for a moment before going still. "Holy god, I just shot her."
"Quiet!" There might be more. Adam steps up, hand on the barrel of the rifle. When the ringing dies down, they can listen. (God, who knew a gunshot could be so loud.) "We should get her out of the house," he says after a moment, looking near, but not quite at the woman. "... I'll do it. Just ... cover me, I guess." With a deep breath, he sets down the chainsaw and bends down, grabbing the woman by the straps of the shirt she'd been wearing and he starts to pull. She's heavier than she looks. Dead weight, he realizes and breathes through his mouth.
"It's okay," Tommy finds himself repeating. "It's okay, it's okay, I've got you covered. She was sick or something. Whatever it was that Lisa had. And Monte. Oh my god, we killed them. I'm sorry." To them, again, looking for forgiveness where there's no one to listen or answer. His head turns back and forth, thinking he hears things, footsteps, the creak of floors, but it's nothing. Nothing. "Adam? Say something, huh?" What if when Adam comes in, he's empty-eyed and bloody? Would Tommy be able to shoot him?
"We need to shower."
That's what Adam says.
"And we need to find clothes and a car and we need to keep moving." He goes to the sink and tries the sink and water still runs. He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, before he glances over his shoulder. "Tommy. We have to keep moving. It'll be all right." Though the words even sound empty.
"I'm gonna lock the doors and search the house, okay? Come with me?" Just in case there's a husband to go with that wife, or worse, kids. "Bet a place like this has an alarm system. Not the shed, idiot. Who alarms a shed?" The words are completely Tommy even if the tone isn't, flat and strange. "We'll take turns. You shower, I'll keep watch, and then you do me. My feet hurt." Tommy clicks the safety back on and looks at the smear-drag of blood on the floor before grabbing a dishrag to try and clean some of it up.
The rest of the house is empty, with one master bedroom, a couple of guest bedrooms, no kids (thank god), and a bathroom that they could get lost in. It reminds Tommy a little bit of Adam's own place. "You wanna go first, or can I?"
"You go first. I'll cover you and make sure that there are clothes." And shoes. Preferably boots. But before Tommy goes too far, Adam catches his arm and just looks at him and for a moment, Adam looks fragile before a mask falls into place. "Be careful."
Tommy nods, hands dropping to squeeze both of Adam's, and says quietly, "Lock the bathroom door, okay?" He hands the rifle over, showing Adam where the safety is, and then strips off his pajamas to step into the shower. He feels cold, numb, disgusting, and he's sure he looks just about the same. Maybe when they're done, they can turn on the TV or the radio, check the internet, see what's happening. Tommy had heard something on the news a couple of weeks ago about some dangerous strain of rabies that had jumped the species barrier, but the government was working on a vaccine for it. Bullshit.
Don't tell anyone (especially Adam), but once the water can drown him out, Tommy cries, eyes pressed to his forearm. Is his family okay? Are they safe? He can only hope the same for Adam.
The thought about the TV occurs to Adam about the same time it does to Tommy and he sits on the edge of the bed in the master bedroom and holds the remote and flips channels between news stories. None of it's good and it only takes a few minutes for him to click the TV back off and go into the closet instead.
It seems the man of the house is a big guy. There are jeans and sweatshirts and Adam grabs a few of each. Then it's trying to find less feminine clothes in the woman's side and even then, they're going to be too big for Tommy. But he has some for when he hears the shower go off. Adam stands by the door with them in one hand and the gun in the other. "I have clothes."
Tommy's just standing on the bathmat, looking forlorn and drippy, but at least he's clean. "Okay," he answers. "Just gimme a sec to dry off. Did you find anything out?" A towel's wrapped around Tommy's waist and he opens the door for Adam to come in where it's warm and steamy. "I was thinking... we gotta get supplies. Backpacks and shit, you know? For food and stuff, in case we've really gotta get out of the city. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be around half a million people who could be... like that."
"We need to make sure that we can get out of here first. Maybe these people like to camp, I don't know." Adam sets the clothes down on the toilet and leans against the vanity, feeling like he doesn't feel anything. "We can check out the garage after I shower." He drags his eyes up to Tommy's though, and just says, "The TV works, you can see. It's ... " Like a Michael Bey movie. Like nothing Adam's even dreamt about. "I won't be long, okay? Then we have to move." He can't imagine ever sleeping again. He starts to pull off his clothes.
"Just a sec." Tommy stops Adam's hands from where they work to undress. "Just a sec." The gun's resting against the vanity, so Tommy can take a second and hug Adam, and tell him, "I'm really fuckin' glad that you're alive." He doesn't even notice that his hands shake when he takes the clothes and leaves Adam to have his shower.
The clothes are... not super, but they're better than being in his pajamas, and there's something else he wants to remind Adam about - stopping somewhere to find things that'll fit them both properly. Especially shoes, because they don't know how much footwork they're going to have to do. "Why couldn't it have been like The Stand?" Tommy mutters to himself, pulling on a t-shirt with a smiley cat-face on the front, and a pair of what have to be yoga pants. Hell, at least they're stretchy. And not girl jeans. Once he's got socks and is perched on the edge of the bed with the rifle, Tommy turns the TV on to see exactly what Adam saw. Bad news, and lots of it. Now and then, he peers out the window, then goes to the bathroom door to listen for Adam and make sure he's okay.
In the shower, Adam moves automatically, not even thinking, doing as he does in the shower before he steps out and starts to put on the clothes that aren't his. That are baggy and fine quality, but not the greatest and never something Adam would wear. He even starts to do his hair before he catches himself. What's the point? Though he does rifle around until he finds the woman's make up bag and he steals her eyeliner pencil, stuffing it in the pocket of the Calvin Klein jeans he's wearing.
He steps out, into Tommy and jerks back before catching himself. Touching his face in apology, but without speaking, Adam heads back downstairs, getting the chainsaw before heading for the door they know leads to the garage. Right by that door is a rack of keys. He takes the one with the Honda keyfob and opens the door.
A Honda Pilot. "Shit," Adam whispers. "Please let it have gas." And he looks around the rest of the garage. If they have rifles, he figures, this must be kind of an outdoorsy family.
"Adam." Tommy's voice is flat and quiet. "There's someone coming. Get that fucking truck started." He shoulders the rifle, not knowing how well he's going to be able to aim. In that kitchen, he'd done a pretty good wounding shot on the ceiling before hitting the woman, and Tommy isn't even sure if this person's infected or not. Until it focuses on them and lets out a shrill, hungry sound. "Adam start that truck now." At the very least, the Pilot would mow this thing over, and why is it so much cooler, so much easier, when it's on a TV? They can deal with this right now, and then stop and look to see what else this family might have, that they could take with them.
"Goddamnit!" Hands tight on the wheel, Adam starts the engine and for a panicked moment, can't figure out how to open the garage door. It finally starts to open and he puts the car into reverse and shouts, "Get in the car, Tommy!" If he's fucking going to run something over, he's not going to do it alone.
Then there's no more time for thinking and he's got the engine in reverse and feels the crunch and the whump of the body under the tires even as he hears it. "Come on!" He shouts. If there's one, there's more; that's what CNN was saying. Adam and Tommy will stop later. "Tommy!"
Tommy barely remembers to flick the safety back on the rifle before he's clambering into the back seat of the truck, yanking the door shut behind him. "Hit the locks." And then he's pressing his mouth to the inside of his elbow to stifle the way his stomach's going hurk-hurk-hurk, hearing the crunch of bone and feeling the bump-bump of wheels over something that was alive, not that long ago. When his stomach settles, he asks, hoarse, "It's dead, right? You killed it? Where are we going now?"
Sure enough, Adam was exactly right. Where there's one, there's more, and when they pull out of the driveway and back into the community, they're on the sidewalks and standing in the street, except for a cluster of them that are crouched down, eating something.
"Fuck," Adam whispers, only looking at them when he absolutely has to. The Pilot handles extremely well at high speeds which is a plus and within ten minutes, they are back on 80 and heading west, not slowing down to under 100 unless traffic snarls require it and not stopping until they're in Iowa. He pulls off the freeway at a picnic stop and climbs out, walking a few steps into the trees so he can scream at the top of his lungs for as long as he has the breath. He bends over, hands to his knees for the equivalent of two breaths, then he's back in the car, shutting and locking the doors and taking off again, back onto the freeway. He doesn't look at Tommy.
By this point, Tommy's in the front seat next to Adam, the rifle lying across the back seat, and he rests a palm on Adam's thigh. "It's okay," he says, low and quiet, trying to soothe Adam as if he's a frightened animal. "It's alright. Do you have your cellphone? Do you wanna call your mom or Neil or your dad?" Holy shit, there might even be some kind of bluetooth thing in the truck, right? Tommy searches the dashboard for something that might work. "You gotta do what you need to do." Even if it's just screaming, just to let it out.
What Adam needs to do is drive. And when it gets to where there are miles and miles between exits with nothing but what looks like farm land, then that's when Adam pulls off the freeway, turns right onto a county road and they end in a place calls Maysville, population 150. "We'll stop here," Adam finally says, and it's the first thing he's said in two hours, after he dialed his mom's number, then Neil's, then his dad's and gotten no answer, not leaving a message.
Tommy doesn't say anything until they pull over, and even then, what he says isn't vocalized, but said in the way he pulls Adam into a hug, a hand on the back of his neck and the other between Adam's shoulderblades, feeling Adam go stiff in his arms for a moment before loosening and hugging Tommy back.
"We have to find a place to stay," Adam says as he pulls back. "Someplace isolated." And they have to get gas, which is where they are. "I'll pump, you cover, okay?"
"I think with the population, it'll be pretty isolated. Maybe a farmhouse?" They get out of the truck and Tommy circles the vehicle first before going into the little variety store to make sure it's clear. It's not quite clear, but the gas jockey doesn't look like he's getting up anytime soon. "All clear!" he calls to Adam, grabbing a handful of chocolate bars and a few vitamin waters before trotting back to the truck to dump it. "You see anything while I was in there?"
"I think there's someone over there." Adam points across the road, at a corn field. "I hear something, and then look over and there's nothing there." The gas tank tops off and Adam looks to Tommy. "We should get extra gas. Get some gas cans and we'll fill them. Then we should go." He turns back to watch the corn field.
"You get the cans. I'll look at the field. I'm covering you, remember?" Tommy's eyes are dry and sore, and he nods toward the variety store. "There's a real dead guy in there. But there are gas cans, too. Just... don't look. Okay? I'll-" He goes unfocused for a moment, the muzzle of the rifle dipping toward the ground. "I'll keep you safe, okay?"
"Just a little longer, Tommy," Adam tells him, both as warning and what he hopes is comfort, though it sounds hollow.
Five gas cans later and another box of food and they're back on the road and heading into Maysville.
The city center consists of a library and a cemetery, so he turns at an intersection and starts looking for houses. All are set back from the road and seem to have backyards made of farmland. It's flat and goes on for miles.
That sounds about right.
Feeling his heart rate speed up, Adam chooses one and goes down the half-mile dirt driveway and up to the house. Then he turns off the engine and he listens and he waits. It's quiet. "Okay," he says to Tommy as he gets ready to get out and grab the chainsaw. "Let's go."
"Back to back, huh? That way we're covered on both sides. We can cover each other." The afternoon sun is hot, making Tommy feel sticky along with scared-numb, and since the coast is clear for the moment, his free hand hooks fingers into Adam's beltloop at his hip. Just to hold on. "It's gonna be okay." Until they get up to the house; the people inside aren't quite like the ones at the first house where they'd gotten the Pilot. These ex-people don't rush Adam and Tommy. No, they're standing facing the walls, rocking slightly from side to side, and Tommy has a brief flash of the Blair Witch Project before patting Adam's hip to warn him. "Quiet. Let's see if we can get them before they see us."
Swallowing against the bile in his throat, Adam nods. He's never actually started a chainsaw and that will be noisy, he has to think. He taps the gun barrel. Let Tommy get who he can first, then he can hope this thing starts. There's an irrational resentment that wells up in him. Why can't he just wake up and have this all be some shitastic dream?
Tommy chambers a shell, and one of the ex-people twitches, turning toward them. "I got it," Tommy whispers, half a second before pulling the trigger. Nothing. The fucking safety is still on! Oh Jesus Christ, it takes a second to flick it off, but it's enough time for the girl, about seventeen, with stringy brown hair and blood from her mouth right down to the front of her shirt, to start moving toward them, her expression at once hungry and vacuous. Tommy's shot takes her in the side of the throat, the sound deafening in such a small room. And look, he's alerted the parents, who are greyish with foam around their mouths and blood on their fingertips. "Adam, fire that shit up, I need a hand." Because it takes a moment to shuffle the bolt-action, and Tommy's not even sure he'll hit either of them if he fires.
For the first time in his life, Adam tries to start a chainsaw and if he were thinking, he'd thank whoever Mr. McMansion was because it starts right away and it's deafening right along with the gunshots and he's not aware that he's snarling as he holds it out, daring them to come forward.
What he guesses is the father does and Adam has to widen his stance to brace himself as he swings.
The last thing he expects is how the blood spatters and it makes him gag later, when it's quiet again, even as he's scrubbing at his face and hands with a wet rag to get it all off. They've dragged the bodies outside, far away from the farmhouse and it's getting dark. They talk in whispers.
"We need to ... build defenses," Adam says. As if he knows how to do that. "Like ... traps."
Tommy's still got dots of blood on him, on that stupid fucking cat shirt he'd put on at the McMansion, spattered on his face like freckles, and his hands rest limp in his lap, eyes blank and dull. "Drain-O's supposed to work," he murmurs. "Are they still people? Or are they zombies? Why do they attack us? We need... more guns. Smaller ones. We need to stock up. Bar the windows?" He's monotone, shocked, having not been able to get a hold of his own family, either. The electricity still works, thank god, and the phones. But for how long? "I'll stay awake if you wanna sleep."
Setting down the towel, Adam scoots over to where Tommy sits and he pulls the smaller man close, his head fitting just under his chin. He doesn't close his eyes; if he did, he would pass out; they can't do that, not yet. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm just so sorry."
Adam doesn't say more though; the thickness of his voice gives away how close he is to breaking down. "You sleep," he says, kissing Tommy's hair as he sits back. "I'll watch. Tomorrow, you can teach me how to fire a gun."
"Don't be sorry." One of Tommy's hands finds one of Adam's, lacing their fingers together. Hold on. Just... hold on. "I'm not tired, though. You go first. I'll wake you up when I get tired. And tomorrow..." His eyes fall closed for a moment, something much harsher than grief on his face. "...I'll teach you how to use a gun. I'm gonna go find something for you to eat, okay? Bet they've got awesome preserves." Blankly, Tommy gets to his feet to peer out the window into the creeping dark. "I don't see anything else out there." Not yet, anyway. But they shouldn't have lights on, just in case.
No, no lights.
Unwilling to let Tommy out of his sight, Adam trails after him into the kitchen and the dry pantry where there are shelves and shelves of food and it's in there that Adam looks around, realizing, "We should sleep in here tonight. We'll hear anything that's coming." He reaches for a box of saltines, pulling it open and drawing out a sleeve of crackers as he hunkers down on the floor. "Sit. We can close the door and ... wait." For morning to come.
Tommy drops like a well-trained dog, and the minute that his ass hits the floor of the pantry, something in him breaks, and he pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes. "This can't be happening. This can't be real. I'm gonna wake up and be in my fuckin' bunk on the bus and Lisa'll have just had the flu or something and this won't be real." And if they pick up the phone, family will easily be on the other end, with Leila lecturing Adam about getting enough sleep, and Tommy's mom telling him not to look so glammy all the time. Arguments that Tommy would look forward to, if he knew he could talk to his mom. "Just- you- you go to sleep. I'll stay up. I'll listen. I can't sleep, okay? Don't make me." He gets in front of Adam so he's closer to the door, and in the dark, he fumbles for his rifle to make sure he can protect Adam.
Monte's wife and babies, Longineu's fiancee, yeah, Adam's thinking of them all. An arm around Tommy's shoulders, he eats some crackers, handing every other one to Tommy, too, for a few minutes before he leans his head back and closes his eyes. He doesn't so much sleep as pass out.
When morning comes, Tommy's asleep, curled up against Adam's chest, the rifle blocking the bottom of the door. His head's tucked under Adam's chin and he's curled up with his knees nearly to his chest. Beside the rifle is a pile of uneaten crackers, stacked neatly so they can maybe be eaten in daylight. The space outside the pantry is still silent, but that doesn't mean it's empty; Mr. and Mrs. Farmhouse and their daughter had been quiet when they'd come on the house.
Adam jerks awake, startled at the silence and it takes him a minute to remember where he is. Where they are. it's not a dream. "Shit," he whispers, arm tightening around Tommy as he looks down at him. He has to pee like mad and is sore as hell from sleeping sitting up with shelves digging into his back. "Tommy," Adam whispers. "Wake up, baby." He pets through his hair. "I can't pee by myself."
Which is singularly the most ridiculous thing he's said in such a long time that he would laugh. Except that he doesn't much feel like laughing.
"Huh!" Tommy wakes up with a start, hands grabbing for his gun like it's a reflex. "What! You. Oh." When Tommy realizes where they are, and more importantly, where he is, he moves off of Adam's lap to let him stand. "I'll, yeah. I'll make sure, if you wanna pee. I should... maybe I should have a shower." He probably doesn't smell particularly great, when he couldn't get himself together enough to clean up properly last night. "I didn't mean to fall asleep. I shoulda stayed awake." He pauses. "...do you hear anything out there?"
Shaking his head, Adam works himself to his feet. It feels like unfolding a rusty lawn chair and he aches all over, hissing out a breath. "If it's clear out there, after I pee, I am so making us eggs." Eggs sound amazing. Of course, he realizes, there may be twenty or thirty not-dead people out there, or fuck, the whole population of Maysville. No eggs, then. He gestures to the door, for Tommy to be ready, before he reaches for the knob, turns it and pulls.
Nothing. No one. Tommy holds the rifle up just in case, peeking out the windows as they move through the kitchen and back up the stairs. "There's like, seven of them out there. Neighbours, maybe? I can- if you wanna pee, I can..." He makes a little gesture with the gun. "I'm not hungry, so don't worry about me. Maybe they've got cereal or something. We... we should maybe move again. I bet in a place like this, they've got a gun shop." He stays close to Adam, because that's what they have to do. Even if they don't know where they're going or how it's going to end up. They have to stay together. Until they reach the bathroom. "Give you some privacy, huh."
"It's not like you've never seen me pee before," Adam tells him and he leaves the door open as he does it, then washes his face and hands and doesn't look in the mirror. "I don't think we should move. I think we should stay here. We can see for miles around us, no one will come to some place like this." He looks at Tommy straight on. "We stay here. It's already September. Winter will be here, soon. We want to be settled and safe by winter." Assuming they survive until then. Adam doesn't even realize how much his thought process has shifted in less than twenty-four hours. It doesn't bear pondering.
Tommy can only nod, and he trades places with Adam in the bathroom. "I'm just... I'm gonna shower. And then I'll show you how to use a gun." The stupid cat-shirt is stripped off, and Adam can see Tommy's reasoning for wanting a smaller gun: there's a shadowy bruise on his shoulder from the butt of the rifle, because it's not like either of them have ever had any real hands-on experience with a real gun. Tommy played a lot of Silent Scope as a teenager, so he knows how to use a rifle, knows the principle of it. But a handgun will be easier for both of them. "Winter." He closes his eyes for a second, and when he opens them, they're glassy. "My parents are dead, I think. And my sister. I just-" There's a hitch to his chest and he turns away to kick off his pants and get into the bathtub. "Stay in here with me."
"I'm not going anywhere." Adam picks up the rifle, feeling it in his grip as he sits on the vanity. He never thought he'd hold a gun, either. There's no point in thinking of the probably dead, though he does; Kris and Katy? Drake? Brad? No, he can't.
"We should get a dog," he says, instead, over the hiss of the shower. "A couple of dogs." After all, that's what they do in the movies. "Rig traps. Store up a lot of food that won't spoil." Figure out a way to heat the house if the electricity goes out for good.
There's paranoia waiting, right around the edges, but he pushes it away.
"They said it came from dogs." Tommy starts the water without closing the curtain, just so he can see Adam, can talk to him, can know that he's right there. The soap is something heinous like Camay, and it leaves him smelling like rosewater, but at least he's clean, and once he gets out, can maybe find something that isn't a shirt with a cat's face on the front to wear. "I'll teach you shoot from the window." If Tommy can even do it, that is. "And then... we can find a store and get supplies. And water. They set traps in The Hills Have Eyes. We could do something like that. A warning system." He wipes his eyes again, unsure if he's crying again, or if it's just the water. "And we'll blockade everything we can. We." His feet slip out from under him and he lands on his ass in the tub. "Winter. I'm sorry, Adam. About your family, too. About all of this."
"Tommy, shit." The minute he starts to fall, Adam is moving, half under the spray of the water and he pulls him up to his chest. "Shit." He can turn off the water with one hand, then he just kind of rocks Tommy for a long time after, until they're both chilled and have to move.
~~
Adam stands at the window and aims at one of the neighbors who is still just standing there. They all are standing there, in a line, as if waiting for some kind of signal. They're so still that he tells himself they aren't real. He lines up the sight like Tommy's showed him and he's got it cocked and his finger is on the trigger.
He fires before he can think anymore about it and the one just ... falls down as if the air's been let out of him, but the others immediately look up. "Oh. Shit. Fuck." He fires again and again.
Adam doesn't know whether to be happy or go insane that it seems he's a really good shot. He tosses the gun across the floor as if it's poison.
"You did good. You did really good. There's..." Tommy's stomach clenches up, thinking about it. "There's a henhouse out there, I can get eggs and a ch-" He swallows, fighting against the idea of actually killing an animal to eat. "Chicken. We gotta get some real food." The news reports are sporadic now, but they're still saying the same: these people aren't dead, not in the traditional sense, but the mutated virus strain has reduced them to little more than brain-dead and hostile toward the uninfected. Defend yourself in any way possible, and do not let them infect you with bites or scratches. "Do you think you can cover me? Or do you want me to cover you?"
He moves up closer to Adam, resting his hands on Adam's biceps, trying to get him to look at Tommy. Adam had given Tommy comfort in the shower earlier, and now he's returning it, as much as he can. "You did really, really good. Just... just think, it's defense. That's the only way I can do it."
"There's a reason I never played video games," is all Adam says. But when he moves to fetch the gun again, he squeezes Tommy's hand. When he holds the gun again, it's differently, more familiarly than he did before. "I'll cover you."
"'kay," Tommy answers, pausing for a second, as if wanting to say something else, do something else. Then he's going downstairs and outside, talking to himself the entire way, so Adam knows where he is and that he's okay. As okay as he can be.
"Still clear," Adam hears, once, twice, three times, and then he sees Tommy come around the back of the house to duck into the henhouse, and the noise he makes, though disgusted, is aimed at the chickens instead of anything else that might be inside. There's clucking and fluttering and a squawk from Tommy himself before he emerges with two bags and a basket, left inside the doorway from the owners. The basket has eggs, the bags have chickens, and there's a long scrape on the back of his forearm. "Thought chickens were stupid," he aims up at Adam, and then it's back inside where Tommy snaps the locks shut. "Got food if you want some? You can come down." Pause. "Please. Come down."
There would be something beautiful about this land, Adam thinks as he steps back from the windows and starts for the stairs. He's just not in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. "I've never," he tells Tommy, "actually had literal farm fresh eggs." Which again, is a stupid thing to say, but true. "We should go find a store." A glance out the window then he takes the basket from Tommy. "Get ... supplies."
"Gotta do something about these chickens first. But we can go and like, clean out the IGA or something. Everything we can get into the truck. There might even be other people alive. Like us, I mean." Tommy holds one of the bags out to Adam. "Just keep it closed, huh? I'll-" Once Adam's hands are around the top of the bag, Tommy squinches his eyes shut and finds the head of the chicken through the canvas, and gives it a good sharp wring. "Fuck. I can't believe. I just want a Whopper." For all his claims of not being hungry, it's psychological, and Tommy's stomach growls. "Gotta do the other one, and then we can go. Are you- are we gonna be okay?" In the middle of Iowa in the midst of some fucking viral outbreak, preparing for winter.
At that, Adam stops. And he shrugs. "Do we have a choice?"
They both know the answer. If they aren't okay, well, there will be a whole lot less to worry about, won't there.