Chapter Text
The day Hawkins, Indiana fell wasn’t much different from all the days before. Even with the news of a virus trickling in from the coasts, Starcourt Mall was bustling with people shopping and eating and socializing. There was no stocking up on supplies or reinforcing of walls or even the tossing of theories. The town was heavily infested with denial; it was denial that led to the infestation of the dead.
No one knew where exactly they’d come from; no one stopped to question it. When the dead shoved through the doors and started taking down mall patrons, the only thing that mattered was escape. You heard the screams from the food court, but didn’t think twice about it until the crowds made it to the middle of the mall, hopping over counters and pushing through back doors, desperate to escape an enemy you couldn’t yet see.
The screams and panic couldn’t cover the moans that filtered into the air, their broken voices a sickening chorus that sent ice down your veins. Only then, without even knowing what the source of the sound was, did you run.
It would be eight months before you stopped running.
-
Melvad’s General Store, nearly taken out of business by Starcourt, was a surprisingly safe place to hide. In the year since Z Day - the silly nickname you’d dubbed the day of the fall with - Melvald’s remained the only place in town with food. You’d scavenged what was left in the others, and homes in town, in the first months. Only when all those taps had run dry did you break through the boarded-up doors of the general store and find a fully stocked shop.
You hadn’t seen another person - a living one, at least - in a year, since before you’d locked yourself inside the store. Starcourt, from what you could tell, was the heart of the epidemic, taking the most out the fastest. You’d spent a day trapped in a broken freezer before spending another week pushing through town in search of the evacuation party. When you reached the high school, the military was gone. Everyone was gone. All they’d left were a few flyers taped to the brick announcing the evacuation route and urging survivors to reach the outskirts of Indianapolis for the next set of evacs.
Before, you’d have hopped in a car and made it in hours. Now, the road between you and the city was full of the dead, the dying, and scavengers. There was no promise of survival in the city. In Melvald’s, you could survive for years.
So, you stayed. Alone, but alive. Alone, but safe.
The days in the store were the same. Inventory for a few hours. Rechecking of the chains on the doors and the boards on the windows. Once a week, you slipped out the back door - the only door that still opened - and went out front to check on your ‘security system.’
Though there was no one to salute your genius, you gave yourself a pat on the back for coming up with it. The only thing that kept hungry survivors out of a place that might have supplies were the dead. And you banked your survival on that fear.
With a dozen corpses littered in front of the store and twelve infected chained to the doors, the only way into the store was through them. You’d nearly gotten bit getting the first half into place, but seeing as you hadn’t had a single attempted break-in since the first few weeks in the store, the rewards outweighed the risk.
But, as everything else decent in your world did, it came to an end.
They came at night, the sound of weapons cracking into skulls and the rattling of chains tugging you from sleep. You weren’t sure if you’d dropped into REM sleep in over a year, always on the edge of consciousness. Those few seconds were the difference between a bullet in a Z’s brain or an infection in yours.
But the noises were too contained - too cautious - to be anything but human. The corpses you’d risked so much for hit the concrete, the chains were unwound, and, eventually, the door creaked open. Anger flared inside you and you pulled a diving knife from your shelf of weapons - all scavenged and stolen, of course.
It was too dark to make out the faces, but four people stepped through the doors with weapons raised; a baseball bat studded with nails, a shotgun, a pistol, and a machete. They split off in four directions, the baseball bat headed your way.
You tucked yourself into one of the shelves, kneeling in the dark, and waited for them to reach your aisle. Their steps were silent - these people had spent the last year surviving too, and you had no way of knowing if they’d done a better job of it - and slow, but they eventually reached you and walked past.
The moment they passed you slipped from beneath the shelf and grabbed them - a boy - from behind, knife pressed to his neck.
“Scream,” you warned in a whisper, “and I slit your throat.”
“Got it,” the boy retorted, stiffening. Far less afraid than he should be. You increased the pressure on the blade and felt the moment it broke the skin - not much, but enough. The boy did his best not to squirm, but you felt his heart rate quicken beneath your arm.
“Okay, okay,” he said. You pushed him forward and into the front of the store, his frame blocking you from any shot.
The other three noticed you, then, and were in front of you and the boy in seconds. The moon cast light over two of their faces - faces you’d never expected to see again.
They lifted their guns at the same moment you dropped your knife, pushing the boy away from you. At the moment he turned, you reached out to flick the lights on - the generator was for special occasions only, but you figured light was the only way to keep a bullet out of your skull.
Nancy Wheeler. Jonathan Byers. Robin Buckley. And Steve Harrington. Not the way you’d known them - the intentioned outfits and put together appearances were replaced with dirt and armor and weapons strapped every which way. Hardened and scarred since the last time you’d seen them. Robin and Steve behind the counter at Scoops Ahoy, Jonathan and Nancy heading into the movie theater.
“Holy shit,” Robin said, first to break the stares and silence. She tucked her pistol away and crossed the floor, wrapping you in a hug.
You stiffened in her grip, the first human contact in…you weren’t sure how long. But a long time. Long enough to make it foreign.
She stepped back, brows furrowing, taking you in.
“Holy shit,” she said again.
“How the hell are you alive?” Steve asked, setting his bat down on an empty shelf.
“I could ask you the same,” you said.
“Turns out we’re all pretty hard to kill,” he said.
“Lucky for us,” said Nancy. You met her gaze with a smile - another thing you hadn’t done in a long time - and let her hug you, though the sensation was still unfamiliar. It was incredible how quickly such normal things became foreign. Talking, being touched.
“The Z’s out there,” Jonathan said, “those are yours?”
“Free security system,” you said with a shrug.
“It worked. We’ve gone past this place a few times. Only came in because…” Nancy said.
“Yeah, that’s my bad. I looted the rest of the street.”
Steve surveyed the place, hands on his hips.
“Looted? This is borderline hoarding.”
A blush rose to your cheeks - the traitor - and you averted your gaze with a shrug.
“Is it just you?” Nancy asked.
“Just me.”
“You’ve been here the whole time?”
“Not the whole time,” you said, stomach-churning at the thought of all those months on the streets, “I was on the run for a while.”
“You didn’t go after everyone else? The evacuation parties?”
“I was too late. And by that point, the roads were clogged. Wasn’t worth it,” you said, “I’m guessing that’s why you’re still here.”
Only the girls seemed interested in the conversation, Jonathan and Steve’s attention grabbed by your weapons shelf. All looted from gun shops, homes, and even the dead, your collection was fairly impressive. Two shotguns, a revolver, an AK-47, and your pride and joy: a sniper rifle. And those were just the guns; you had a pile of various blades and two machetes. Even a lone grenade, which you were saving for a special occasion.
“Paws off,” you snapped as Steve’s hand strayed a little too close to the grenade. He jumped back, sending an embarrassed look over his shoulder. It was the first trace of the Steve you’d known that you’d seen since they came in. The boy you’d known had been carved away into something hard, something you didn’t quite know.
But, then again, all your curves had turned to edges, too. You weren’t quick to laughter, nor did you even smile all that much anymore. There wasn’t much to be happy about; there was no one to share it with.
“We’re trying to get North. We heard over the radio there’s an encampment,” Nancy said.
“That’s where our parents are,” Robin said, “at least, we hope.”
“It’s just the four of you?” You asked. They exchanged glances, secret communication only learned through a year of fighting together passing between them.
“You broke into my house,” you reminded them.
Nancy relented, shoulders relaxing.
“The kids are holed up across town. In Hopper’s old cabin.”
“That’s safe?”
“It’s rigged to the heavens with booby traps,” Robin said. “But nowhere is really safe anymore, you know?”
“Where did you get all these?” Steve asked, nodding to the weaponry.
“I told you. I looted.”
“You’re where all the food went, then,” said Jonathan.
“Most likely.”
“Does that mean…” Steve said. “You’ve got food? Like, real food?”
While the four were certainly stronger looking than you’d last seen them, the hunger had clearly set in. Muscled, but thin, eyes slightly lidded, cheeks a hint sunken. You felt a surge of guilt about the stores of food you had tucked throughout this place.
So, even though the action still felt strange, you smiled, and said, “Welcome to the buffet.”
The kids weren’t expecting anyone back until the next day - the day was dangerous, but the nights were worse - so, after pigging out on canned fruits, stale chips, and only-slightly-expired candy bars, everyone settled in for the night. You’d set up a makeshift bedroom in the employee’s lounge - the couch was old but far preferable to the floor - and Steve and Jonathan blew up a few air mattresses, dragging in sleeping bags and settling around the room.
It was an odd sight, all that life jammed into one place. You’d gotten so used to being alone that you forgot how much you missed company. Just the sound of breathing gave you comfort and a sense of safety - though false - you hadn’t felt in a long time.
You slipped out of the room after the others fell asleep and grabbed the sniper, headed for the front door, double-checking that it had been properly relocked. It was comforting and normal, part of the routine you’d fallen into. The last few hours - while exhilarating - were also exhausting; you hadn’t used your voice that much in a year. You needed the quiet, just for a moment. The unbroken silence.
Dropping onto the scuffed linoleum in front of your improved lookout point - in the front right corner, a rectangle cut into the wooden slabs, barred in front of it - and set the gun beside you. The street was quiet, as it often was these days, but if you didn’t look closely at the lumps on the ground you could pretend it was before. The world went silent at night back then, too. The only difference was no one woke up and filled the day anymore. An endless night.
A tiny squeak on the tile behind you had your rifle in your hands in a blink, but you relaxed at the sight of Steve coming down the aisle, hands raised in surrender.
“Sorry,” you said, relinquishing the gun once again.
“We’re all a little jumpy these days,” he said and sat across from you, knees drawn to his chest with his arms slung loosely around them. A long scar traced a line from his elbow to his wrist atop his forearms, and you wondered what shades of hell he’d seen through these months. Everyone had their own version of the horror story, you guessed.
“I’m sorry about earlier, too,” you said. “For threatening to kill you.”
“Trying to kill me.”
“If I wanted you dead, you would be,” you said.
“I really don’t doubt that,” he said. Your lips quirked up ever so slightly.
“How long have you been in the cabin?” You asked. The question behind the one you’d posed was clear: how long did you spend out there?
“Pretty much since the beginning. Me and Robin, we were trapped in Scoops. It was Dustin and the kids who helped us out. El said Hopper would know what to do, so we went to the cabin to wait. But he never showed up. And we never left,” Steve said. “What about you? This place wasn’t tricked out last time we hit this part of town.”
You dropped your gaze to your sneakers; one of the rubber toes was starting to rip, and if you nudged it with your big toe, a speck of sock showed through.
“Two months. I think.”
“And the rest?”
“I was out there,” you said. “I jumped from house to store to…whatever. Anytime I thought I was safe, they showed up. I don’t think I slept until the first night I got in here.”
“Jesus,” Steve said, shaking his head, and you lifted your gaze to his.
“I didn’t know anyone was still alive in this place,” you said.
“Neither did we,” he said. “But I’m glad you are.”
Your chest swelled with happiness, the force of it overwhelming. Just being with another person, talking, listening, breathing, anything but the constant violence and blood that had plagued you for the last year. It was intoxicating to simply live with someone else. Nowadays, humanity was a rare commodity. To find a little bit - the last of it in Hawkins - with people you remembered, people you’d believed to be dead, was a miracle. You’d given up on miracles - on hope - a long time ago. But it was hard not to believe, just a little bit, right then.