Chapter Text
Bill had lived in the quaint town of Lincoln almost his whole life. When the infection came, and the new world was born, he narrowly managed to get himself into the Boston quarantine zone. No friends or family in reach, not that he'd had any he valued in the first place.
He quickly learned something. The only life you'll have now is brutal and often short, and if you're set on anything else you're a fool. Therefore, he took up a position in the underground smuggling net. It was a quick way to prosper, as essential resources were thinly distributed in the QZ, as made evident by the frequent uproar.
It wasn't exactly legal, but that didn't concern him. Not anymore. Survival comes before civility, and smuggling fit him well. Combat and scavenging were commonplace in the job, and those were valuable skills. The smuggling community was large and loosely knit, and if you ever did acquaint yourself to someone, it was probably for the worse. But Tess and Joel were alright. Unlike him, they'd come all across from Houston and Detroit, respectively. Less rooted to the area, and real smart folk.
He came to group up with them seeing as they were a consistent team for those ten-something years, but when tensions in the QZ arose with a faction known as the Fireflies and he messed up a job with Joel big time, he knew it was time to move elsewhere. Back home. And so, Lincoln was home again. Bill carved out a string of safehouses and caches, yet it was never completely void of the infected. In a way, they worked as a defense. The forgotten inhabitors scared away most groups looking to settle or loot, and protected him from rivals and hunters.
"Why hunt, when you can catch 'em this easily?" His father's voice echoes through his childhood memory, rigging and dismounting traps in the forest. Never a pleasant one, but he taught Bill his ways. Hunting, trapping, foraging. Resources from his smuggling, electrical knowledge and paranoia built up quite an impressive arsenal of deadly defenses around his homestead.
A fool he is, but he's survived just fine. And now, it seems there's a bigger fool somewhere in his town. And he just won't have that. Fresh bodies of the infected, a few blocks from the fence. They seem to have been beat with a blunt object. Bill would never be this sloppy, nor would he leave them laying around. The bodies he leaves are disposed of routinely, and he hasn't been in this part of town for long. Hordes keep coming from further inside, so it's quite impossible to secure.
Bill takes a step back, anger festering in a deep breath. He steadies the grip on the shotgun in his hands, considering the situation. It must be someone smart enough to bypass his traps, but stupid enough to walk right into the gaping mouths of the infected. The hunt is on, now. If his traps hadn't sufficed, he'd have to find the intruder by himself. The simmering wrath in him grows as he turns and walks back the way he came, to prepare for what may await him.