Chapter Text
When the virus spread they told everyone that it was just a temporary sickness that would be over as soon as flu season was gone.
Then hospitals were overtaken by infected. Bodies lined the street corners, businesses went dark, the law makers were at a loss for what to do, the military got involved and bombs were dropped in various places across the world.
Then, the Rotters were uncontrollable, wrecking havoc everywhere a living person might dwell. A good portion of the earth's population of humans had died out. Now, more than half of the world was made up of them.
Benson remembers the day the world ended.
He can recall the smell of death wafting through all corners of the street as he drove home, blood on his shirt. He'd nearly become one of those fucking things.
When he had arrived for his morning shift, he had been the first one through the door.
An occurrence that wasn't unusual for him. He was normally always the first to arrive, mostly because he was the only one Hardy trusted with the store keys, Chris was a moron and Jess was often too wrapped up in him to care much about anything else; so, Benson was by default, the only responsible one left.
A title of which, he's sure his teenage self is cackling hysterically about as we speak.
It wasn't an abnormal morning, at least not that he could pinpoint at that time. He had left the radio in his car off, he hated mainstream music as it was and the current events of the world were starting to make his brain melt more so than usual these days with the virus going around. The roads were bare, which he would admit was a bit strange for a monday morning at six a.m. However, at that time, he remembers not giving much of a fuck about anyone else.
He had parked in his normal place, mind mulling over the same usual, boring thoughts as everyday. He smoked one cigarette before he turned the engine off and stepped outside the vehicle. He'd crushed the butt under his boots as he walked across the street to the restaurant.
This was where things started to…occur to him.
The door, he'd realized when he went to fish around his uniform pocket for the keys, was slightly ajar…okay, maybe Chris forgot to lock it down last night. It wasn't unusual, it had happened before, though Benson couldn't deny the intense bout of dread that had seemed to sprout itself unannounced within his gut.
He gently pushed the door opened, walking inside rather cautiously, uncharacteristic for himself, but almost subconsciously aware that things appeared to not be the same.
It was dark, the overhead lights weren't even turned on and the more he went about, the more things felt eerie. A quietness that seemed to dwell unnaturally within the place, the kind of silence directors for horror films capture the essence of when the final girl walks through a forest alone at night.
Benson vaguely reminded himself of the shotgun he kept in the trunk of the car outside.
Typically when he arrived, Hardy would be the only one here. Holding himself up in the office, smoking weed or watching one of his many porn videos he had stashed away on his computer. But today, it seemed that Hardy wasn't here. Benson remembers his car outside though, but usually, you could hear the other man mumbling about.
However, he heard nothing.
Just when he thought he was getting used to the silence, a loud crashing sound brings him to halt. It sounded like a glass cabinet shattering suddenly, or maybe some pans falling in the kitchen. Benson had ventured towards the direction of the sound, his heart pounding in his chest the whole way.
The place was a mess. Food dumped all over the floor, utensils and napkins strewn about, dirty dishes from the night before piled high in the double sink, if he tries hard enough he thinks he can hear the faint buzzing of flies.
Chris was shitty at lockup on the night shift but this was entirely too much. Benson, on a normal day, would almost have been giddy at the thought of the man getting his ass chewed out by Hardy. Though, as it stood, he couldn't quite shake the feeling that something hadn't been normal.
Another noise is heard.
This time, Benson can pinpoint exactly where the loud slam was coming from.
Hardy's office door. It sounded like someone had busted their whole body into the thing, as hard as they physically could.
If there was one thing that Benson felt he understood better than most, it was how to be prepared in situations that had seemed unpredictable. He owed it sincerely to his mama and the doomsday prep she had done before her death. All the survival shit she had banged into his head a good number of times over the course of the years.
Benson walked back outside and retrieved his shotgun from the trunk.
If he was going to investigate beyond that door, he sure as hell was gonna come prepared.
He didn’t know how long Hardy had been in there or when he had gotten infected. But he had speculated that it had to have happened some time the night before, Chris's body rotted in the corner of the office, gunshot wound to the head, Hardy's pistol lying on his desk.
Poor unfortunate fuck. If Benson hadn't hated his vey guts, perhaps he would've felt at least a little bit sorry when he loaded his gun into Hardy's face; he didn't.
Five years had passed since then. Five years since the pandemic. Five years since the world ended, five years since everything everyone had known had seemingly disappeared.
And five years since Benson's world had significantly gotten better.
He had always hated people. Hated being around them, loathed hearing and engaging with them. And besides his mother, he learned that he had no use for the likes of them. Even in high school when everyone was pairing up and hanging out at the cool guy's house, getting drunk and stoned, Benson never cared.
If he wanted to drink, he'd do it by himself and if he wanted to get high he had a guy for that and if he wanted to have sex…well, he knew people. And it was like that for most of his twenties up until the day his Ma passed. After she left Benson couldn't see much of a point in anything having to do with life outside of his childhood home and place of employment. And after that was gone and everyone but himself had turned into Rotters, he seldom left.
You see, Benson's Ma was what one might call a conspiracy theorist. She had been like that for as long as he could recall. After Pa up and left her for a gas station girl when Benson was seven, she had spiraled.
Coming home after work each day, with box after box after box. Filled to the brim with an overabundance of food, toiletries, different types of knives both for food and for hunting. She had bought several different books on survival and how to's on how to use electricity and gas in case a situation where they would have none were to occur. She watched tv and listened to the radio a lot. The men on the stations would bark about end of the world nonsense, saying how they had to be prepared and how all the government did was lie.
His Ma was obsessed and it didn't matter what he said to convince her to slow down, she resisted every single time he attempted to discuss anything about her behavior. And after a while, Benson stopped prying, leaving her be and letting the house clutter up with what appeared to be psychobabble nonsense.
Benson was more thankful, at least now anyways, that she never listened to his advice.
The small suburbs felt as if they began to belong solely to him after a while.
In a way, it kinda did. With no other living human being there but himself and the Rotters, Benson supposed it was his turf now. A prideful feeling that notion gave him was all encompassing sometimes.
He sanctioned off the street about a week after the world went completely to shit. He didn't want anything getting In or out, himself included for that matter. Though, if you were a skilled enough climber he guesses one very well could get in. If you were alive that was. But the likelihood of an actual human with a still beating heart out there was slim. Never none, but slim.
No matter, Benson figured, if someone trespassed they'd meet the same fate as any Rotter, after all was there truly a distinguishable difference between the two? To Benson there was not.
The fences around his yard were laced with electric wires, if something so much as nodged it, it was game over. Though, one could probably very easily find ways around if you truly wanted to.
He'd dug a hole behind his house, covering it with leaves and other such trash, if the Rotters happened to maneuver all his traps, he was betting on their inability to crawl out of it.
The property was lined with trap after trap that only Benson knew how to get out of, the books his mother had purchased all those years ago had proved to come in more handy than he ever thought possible. His pantry was stocked with food, he had electricity, and water, Benson was completely content. The world had ended but it was almost like it didn't phase him at all, he would simply just come up with other ways to survive and had.
On this day in particular, however, Benson had awoken with a start. Heart pounding, perspiration flowing down his forehead as he tried to regulate his breathing. The dreams were nothing if not persistent, a flurry of memories. Things he's tried not to think about too much. Whenever Benson chooses to reflect on the child of himself, he forces himself to see the zoo and the giraffes instead.
But he won't see anything else. Just that trip and the beautiful, majestic creatures that had eaten from his hands. So big and towering, but gentle at their cores.
It's only when he slept did he remember more, his subconscious torturing him nearly every time he closed his eyes. It was a dance he had been doing since and over time, he’d grown accustomed to the feelings, to the sickness, the uncleanness all over his body when his eyes opened.
But on this day, Benson doesn't have too much time to dwell upon his nightmare, the faintest of sounds in the background startling him. Underneath the soft swell of the chirping morning birds, he hears a noise.
It's soft, a barely there echo that you wouldn't hear unless straining your ears or if you were somebody who lived in a state of alertness, of which Benson happened to be.
He grabbed his shotgun, which he kept beside the bed before cautiously making his way towards the direction of the sound.
From his backyard window he could see the hole in the earth more clearly, the trash and foliage having been disturbed. Thoughts would indicate a lone Rotter had somehow gotten in, but Benson knew that Rotters couldn't call for help, they could only grunt and occasionally scream in distress. The voice coming from the pit was neither, it had depth, it had tone and most importantly, he could understand what it was saying.
Help me.
He aims his gun outwards as he steps slowly towards the hole. His finger resting on the trigger. The voice grew louder the closer he got.
“Hello? Anybody…somebody, please!” It was male, that much he could decipher. Soft voice, strained by panic, he sounded young Benson noted.
Upon further inspection, Benson notices a head of blonde curls, greasy and disheveled. His clothes are torn and dirty, the blue backpack seems to weigh him down. His face is stark and pale. Benson grips his gun tighter aiming down the pit at the boy. He watches the boy’s face change, hands flying up slowly in surrender, going whiter if that was even possible.
“Who are you?” Benson asks in a thin voice.
“I…Uh,” the boy stutters, trying to think clearly.
“I…uh, my…my name…it's..”
“I don't got all fuckin’ day, man. Who the fuck are you?” Benson raises his voice, the boy winces.
“R-Randy. My…my name's Randy.”
“Well, you're trespassin’ Randy.”
Randy's eyebrows furrow in slight confusion.
“What?”
Benson just eyed him, hard and mean.
“This is my property and you're fuckin’ trespassin’ now, what the fuck are you doing here, are you dumb?”
Randy shakes his head, gulping. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I just, I've been looking for shelter and I thought this place was vacant.”
“The fuckin’ barricades told you it was vacant?” Benson has to laugh, albeit humorless.
“I thought it was from the military,like one of their abandoned sites. I'm sorry.” Randy explains, his breaths growing more frantic, body starting to tremble.
“But…” Randy presses on. “Do you think you could help me out?” Benson raises an eyebrow in confusion.
“I…It's been days since I ate. The Biters invaded my last camp and I had to relocate. Look, if I can just get something to eat and maybe rest for a minute I'll be out of your hair, I promise.”
He rushes out as if Benson will just shoot him before he finishes his sentence. For a few moments, Benson doesn't speak, just continues to stare down the younger man in the pit, who is gazing back up at him, pleading in his eyes.
He should tell him to fuck off. Put a bullet between his stupid eyes and be done with it. That would be simple, easy even. Don't give him the chance to get one over on Benson. Though, he finds himself considering, did the guy have the balls to try anything smart? On a surface level? No. That much was apparent. He was skittish, shaking like a terrified leaf. Benson wondered how old he was, the kid didn't look above the age of twenty, still wet behind his ears and barely fucking suviving.
If he did try something, Benson was assured that he'd be able to handle it, no questions asked, that wasn't the problem.
Benson didn't want anyone in his house, eating his food or using any of his essentials, call him selfish, he'd own up to it, but given their current situation, it was kinda hard not to be. He didn't know this Randy, so why should he give a shit about what happened to him? All Benson really knew was that he wasn't the only survivor in the area. Well, uninfected that was.
“You clean?” He asks through gritted teeth. He surveys the momentary bewildered look on Randy's face, a second later, it morphs into understanding.
“Y-yeah, not bitten. You can check if you want..” Randy's eyes widened at his own words, face showing color for once.
“If you're fuckin’ lyin’,” Benson lowers the gun. “I'll kill you where you stand.”
Randy nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Lemme go get you a rope.” He sighs, turning and heading back to the house.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”