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tommy looks up at the shop in front of him— the light fron the exposed roof is the only thing lighting this place up at the moment. tommy csnt make out the word— not because he cant read or anything its just missing letters scattered about its pretty clear this place was full of shirts and those creepy guys in the window of every clothing store before the zombies. He decides not to dwell on the before peoples weird tastes and b line it for the real reason he’s here.
Tommys not just searching for anything— no no no he knows exactly what he’s here for. he wnats— needs a pretzl more than hes needed anything in awhile.
The first time he ever ate one was the day he met sam. he was still all wrecked frpm the stuff he saw happen to his mom; Sam gave him a bag to calm himself down and he’s had a craving ever since. he forces his foot out from the weird sludge of zimbie brains , rain water, and mud. its fine, when he gets home he’ll just scrub his shoes off again with sam. he’ll definitly get another lecture about going to far from the city but you know that happens any time he goes out.
Tommy keeps going he passes a few more stores mostly just clothes— there was one that was just dedictated to shoes and another that had a bunch of girls with pratically no clothes on and the creepy not people guys looked skinner than him. those were the only two stores that stood out everything else was basically the same. Finally tommy gets to a store that looks like it could be worth the effort of going. the letters are big and green.
tommy comes in. hes passed the part of the shooping center with all the sludge but its still kinging onto his boots making weird squshing noises everytime he takes a step— its fucking annoying but its whatever. this store has always treated tommy well nobdy seems to try and loot the shopping center anymore and pretzls dont seem to be the most sought after item right now so even though tommy isnt allowed to bring his favorite snack into his compound without inspection — the guards taking your hard earned food with no repercusions — he can always count on them being saftly tucketed away.
Tommy makes his way through the shelves of expired food from god knows hoe long ago in search of his holy grail. theres not really much left in the store the bag of chips that are always on the counter have sudden changed to being and on the floor which. ok. this place has rats or the zombies are on a potato chip diet like some sort of undead unhealthy irish guy from th potato fhama but none of that really matters to him because tommy — being the biggest smartest man alive — thought ahead and stashed all his pretzls away in a safe place. he walks behind the counter and freezes
theres a guy there— his hair is shoulder langth a weird veriation of light brown to a color just a little darker than tommys his eyes are green theres some promitit yellow mixed in the middle as well hes all huddled up in the corner with his shoulders pratically up to his ears biting down on bits of his nail like a nervus wreck and to top it all tommys pile pertzls are sat in front of him amost all already opened except for a single remaining bag.
fuck
tommys breath his stuck in his throat he takes a steo back his eyes wide from the probably zombie and his sudden lack of pertzls and he decides to make the brilliant decsion to bolt without looking at his ground. immeditly falling flat on his face
mister pertzl theif was quick behind him he can he the guy stumbling to get up and than pratically towering over tommy with his weird freakishly long proportions. tommy — still being a genius scrambles away as fast as he can move his limbs and the guy chases after him. tommys still pratically tripping over his feet. he runs passed that one clothes store with the noticable lack of clothes and falls face first on the ground two stores down at that one shoe place. before he can scramble himself back up the guy fucking tackles him. his sharper nails digging into tommys upper arm and shpulder with a kind of mean amount of force “hey hey wait calm down im—im not infected” the guy tries to ressure letting go of tommys arm and swinging his own arm around to show no bite.
it kind of helps not really by much the dude could be bitten in amillion other places for all tommy knows but at least he knows right now hes not gonna get his face eaten or something— not that he believes the guy isnt infected he just knows the guy definitly corrently a face eater “get the fuck off me man—” tommy groans but it comes out more like a whimper
“okay— okay yeah sorry—” he moves himself off tommy whos still trying to catch his breath he can feel something running down his faces and upon licking