Chapter Text
fences hum dully as if they would conk out at any moment- leaving the entire compound unprotected from the dead and undead alike. for now, though, the electricity flickers along the barbed coils on top of them, a last gasp of pre-apocalypse power. both a warning and a promise.
Mal tightens her grip on her crowbar, boots crunching through the gravel as she approaches the survivor checkpoint. her clothes are torn, her hair matted, her limbs moving on instinct alone.
she has been walking for days.
no food. one water bottle left, less than half full. no hope.
but the compound is real.
someone shouts from atop one of the many towers as they spot her below.
"living! we've got a living girl out there!" their words rouse her out of her stupor as she looks up from her dragging feet in time to avoid being lunged at by a zombie that couldn't be past a few days gone. she hadn't smelt the rotting of a corpse- it had sneaked up on her.
she blinks back the fatigue she's feeling and assesses the situation. she isn't able to make a run for it. the gate wasn't open yet, and this new of a zombie would be able to catch her once it got its bearings. she had to kill it.
she watches as it stumbles from being tripped up, but rounds back on her, arms out and mouth chopping down on nothing but air.
lifting her crowbar, she steps back, her knuckles going white as she grips the crowbar as tight as she can, then swings it as the zombie lunges again. its blood and brains going everywhere.
guns rise from the towers as people make it to the gate. a siren whoops once- sharp and echoing.
Mal doesn't falter as she continues on. doesn't flinch. her hunger and dehydration pushing her forward.
when she gets within the first gate, a medic rushes to her and does a full scan on her for bites and other signs that she isn't healthy or a danger to the compound. everyone keeps a wide berth of her until the medic checks her eyes for the fog that overcomes people who are starting to go crazy from the isolation, starvation, and kill routine of the world outside communities like this, and announces she's clean. somehow.
they wave her through the second gate. and just like that, she's inside.
the world shifts.
there's talking. children. fires. the scent of something cooking.
safety.
her knees almost give, but she grits her teeth. keeps walking. she doesn't cry. she barely even breathes. not yet.
a woman hands her a blanket and some water. you'll be okay now, sweetheart."
Mal almost laughs. she hasn't been okay since the sky turned red.
she's halfway to the medical tent, the medic at the gate pointed her to when she hears it.
his voice.
sharp. smooth. that familiar mocking lilt like a blade wrapped in silk.
"no offense, but if she were bitten, i'd like to know before she breathes near me."
Mal freezes.
she turns, heart in her throat. and there he is.
Billy Loomis.
alive.
standing by the firepit with that same half-lidded stare, arms crossed, smirking like the world never ended.
and next to him...Stu. laughing too loud, eating something off a skewer, hair wild and sticking up in every direction.
she stares like they're ghosts. and for all she knows they are. this wasn't the first time she had envisioned them so realistically.
but then Billy's eyes meet her across the yard.
his smirk drops.
and Stu chokes on whatever he's eating. "holy shit."
Billy drops his cigarette. his voice comes out near a whimper- one she doesn't hear- low and unbelieving. "Mal?"
she says nothing. can't. not with the world tilting and her vision getting worse.
they move at the same time. no hesitation.
she drops the bloody crowbar.
Billy pulls her into his chest before she hits the ground. his grip is like a vice.
Stu wraps around both of them with a sound dangerously close to a sob.
"i thought you were dead." Mal breathes out. her voice hoarse from the lack of water but also for not speaking for days. "i thought-"
"we thought you were," Stu says, voice shaking. "we looked. we-fuck-we tried."
Billy's arms tighten. "don't ever leave again."
Mal buries her face against his neck, where his skin is too warm and too still. she doesn't notice the faint rot beneath his collar. not yet.