Chapter 1

The road was completely empty.

Sure, there was the occasional vacant car or flock of scattered litter or even a few gruesome red-turned brown stains on the dry pavement. But Bilbo had noticed, as the weeks went on, that he saw less and less signs of people every time he drove down this stretch of highway.

The food had been running out, too. At first, he'd been able to get by scavenging from grocery stores, then from school cafeterias, and finally from abandoned houses. But his efforts, and the efforts of other survivors, had eventually drained the resources from the buildings surrounding the apartment complex where he'd been living since it had all started. As the food had dwindled, so had the people.

These trips down the highway to adjacent towns had become something of a weekly routine. Bilbo glanced over at the wire shopping basket in the passenger seat and frowned. Three hours of searching, and he'd only managed to find a couple boxes of pasta, a few canned soups and beans, and one packet of chips.

He'd mapped out the nearby towns in an increasing radius from his home—though it was really more of a semicircle, as he tried his best to avoid the city. That had been one of the most important messages the radios had been able to get out before they stopped broadcasting entirely—stay away from the city.

So he'd keep hitting suburb after suburb, ten, twenty, thirty miles away, until those ran dry too. And once he couldn't find any more gas…

Bilbo shook his head. He should have left weeks ago, tried to find a safer place—perhaps one of the quarantine zones the military had supposedly set up in some of the northern cities. But the thought of leaving his home, the place where he had grown up, was something he just couldn't consider just yet.

As usual, the lot was mostly empty when he arrived. He parked his car and grabbed his basket of supplies. Though the building was almost entirely empty, he took care not to let the cans rattle too much as he took the four flights of stairs up to his apartment.

The first sign that something was wrong was the noise coming from the door on the left. Mrs. Greenfield had turned during the first week of the outbreak, and had spent the next scratching on the door and growling. It was part of the reason Bilbo preferred to move so quietly.

But she had calmed down after that, and only really got agitated when there was a storm or some other loud noise. If she was scratching at the door now, that meant someone had passed her recently—that someone was here.

Bilbo scanned the hallway, which was lit only by a window at the other end. He began moving towards his apartment, avoiding the creaky floorboards as he went. His door, 417, was at the end of the corridor.

As he got closer, he realized with horror that it was open.

He reached into his jacket pocket, fingers closing around the grip of his handgun. He'd pilfered it from the remains of a shootout a while back, and while he had absolutely no idea how to use it, he'd figured it would come in handy if he ever had to persuade anyone not to shoot him first.

Holding the gun with both hands, Bilbo crept towards the door and pushed it open with the barrel, like he'd seen actors do on TV.

The living room looked untouched for the most part. His books were stacked neatly on the shelf, family photos still arranged on top. A map of the county was still spread on the coffee table, his empty mug of tea next to it. He went to pick it up to bring it to the kitchen to be washed, then remembered he was supposed to be looking for intruders.

The sound of crinkling plastic sounded from the kitchen, making him tense up. Bilbo raised the gun again and continued into the next room.

The pantry door was open, and a growing pile of empty wrappers sat next to it. Two figures were sitting on the floor, partially hidden behind the open door. Bilbo edged into the room and realized the two were children—a split second before they noticed him. One of them raised his hand, something flashing orange in his grip, and Bilbo cried out as something hit him in the eye.

"Kíli, come on!"

Momentarily stunned, Bilbo could do nothing as the two pushed him and ran from the room. With one hand cupped over his eye, he looked down and saw a bullet on the ground—of the foam variety, or else he'd be half-blind and dying on his kitchen floor.

He glanced at the gun dangling uselessly in his hand, then decided it would be of very little use in this situation. He left it on the kitchen counter and dashed back out the door.

The two children were already nearing the other end of the hallway. The taller of the two, with blond hair, was wearing a blue sweater with Ered Luin Junior High emblazoned on the back.

They reached the end of the hallway, and Bilbo immediately recognized with a wave of dread what was about to happen. The stairwell door, which looked quite a bit like the rest of the doors in the hall, was not at the very end of the hallway, but the one to the left. The boys, apparently having forgotten this, were heading for the wrong door.

The boy with the blue sweater opened the door to Mrs Greenfield's apartment, and she fell on him with a snarl.

"No!" Bilbo was sprinting for them before he even knew what he was doing. He cursed himself for leaving his gun back in the kitchen, but there was no time to go back.

Mrs Greenfield had turned frail from lack of food in the weeks after her death, her pale skin sagging from her cheeks. Both she and the boy toppled to the ground, and her stringy hair moved aside to reveal the bite mark on the back of her shoulder, and the brown bloodstain on her cashmere sweater.

She snarled and scratched at the boy with ragged nails, teeth clacking as her head jerked downwards. He let out a cry of terror and shoved at her shoulders, though this was only enough to push her up a bit.

The other boy, who had backed against the wall at first, now darted forward and slapped ineffectually at Mrs Greenfield's head, fear making his movements clumsy. "Fíli!" he shouted, sounding tearful.

Bilbo finally managed to reach them. He grabbed Mrs Greenfield by the back of her sweater and heaved her off the boy, sending her with a strength he didn't know he possessed back into her apartment. She gave another snarl and lunged again, but he managed to slam the door shut just in time.

With her growls and scratches muffled by the wood, he leaned against the wall and let out a breath in an unsteady whoosh. His legs were shaking so badly he could barely stand. The boy who had been attacked, the one named Fíli, was trembling just as badly. The other one sat down next to him and began to cry.

Half a minute ticked by, and Bilbo realized that someone had to take control of the situation. He knelt down next to Fíli and looked him over. "Are you all right? Did she bite you? Scratch you?"

He shook his head, wide eyes locked in a rather blank stare.

"Come now, it's all right." He touched his shoulder, ready to help him sit up.

At this, Fíli jumped into action, fingers locking around the orange dart gun in his hand and delivering another foam bullet to Bilbo's chest.

"Um." He looked down as the projectile bounced off his shirt. "You know those don't actually do anything, right?"

"Gave us time to get away," the other boy, Kíli, said, wiping tears from his cheeks.

Well, he couldn't argue with that. "Nonetheless, that was very dangerous, what you did. I could have shot you when I came in."

Fíli glared at him and stood up, placing himself in between Bilbo and Kíli. He aimed his dart gun again and looked around, as though trying to place which door would lead to the stairs and which one had more dead ones behind it.

"N-Not that I would have." Bilbo stood as well and held up his hands in surrender. "I'm not going to hurt you. You two just surprised me, is all."

The dart gun lowered an inch or two.

"What were you doing in my apartment, anyway?" he asked, though the answer had already crept into his mind. Both boys were incredibly skinny, their clothes hanging off them more than they should. He thought back to the pile of wrappers on his kitchen floor. "Were you just looking for some food?"

Fíli kept glaring and said nothing. For his part, Kíli seemed content to peer at Bilbo from behind the other's shoulder. The rumbling growl that issued from his stomach, however, was answer enough.

"Look here." Bilbo glanced back down the hallway at his abandoned basket of food. "I've just come back from scavenging some food. I have more than enough to share, and if you would like, I'll make some soup for you two." He tried for a smile. "Think of it as an apology for my neighbor, um, attacking you."

Behind the door, Mrs Greenfield growled.

Fíli still looked as if he wanted to riddle him with foam darts. But he glanced back at Kíli, then nodded and lowered his weapon.

"Right, then. Feel free to follow me." Bilbo set off back down the hallway, pausing to collect his basket of things. The boys followed him at a distance, but they made it all the way back into the kitchen.

Bilbo set his things down on the counter, and after a moment's consideration, took the gun and put it on top of the fridge. He did not want to see what trigger-happy Fíli would do if he got his hands on it.

The boys came and sat at the kitchen table, and watched in silence as he took out a couple of soup cans, poured them into a pot, and lit the stove.

As he was waiting for the soup to heat up, he glanced at the wrappers on the floor. The kids had managed to finish off an entire family-size bag of chips, two sleeves of Oreos, and had picked out most of the M&Ms out of his trail mix.

"You two must have been hungry, hm?" Bilbo glanced at them. "How long have you been on your own?"

Fíli kept frowning at him. After a moment, Kíli said, "We're not supposed to talk to strangers." The elder turned, looking as if he wanted to protest even that answer, then seemed to decide it was acceptable and said nothing.

"I could tell you a bit about myself." Bilbo leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. "Then I wouldn't be a stranger anymore."

They shrugged in unison, which he decided to take as an affirmative.

"My name is Bilbo Baggins. This is my apartment, and I've lived here all my life. I've been living here by myself since the outbreak. I thought I could stay here and, I dunno, weather the storm." He cleared his throat, realizing he'd strayed into a rather dark topic. "I like to read. I, um, was actually writing my own book before...all this, though I doubt I'll ever finish it now."

The manuscript was in the desktop computer in his office, but he hadn't been able to access it since the power had gone out.

"We were on the bus," Fíli said, then clamped his lips shut as if he hadn't meant to speak.

"The school bus?" Bilbo prompted, glancing at his blue sweater. To his knowledge, Ered Luin was a few miles west, a bit closer to the city. "What grade are you in, then?" He hoped a more mundane question might help him relax a bit.

"Seventh grade. Kíli's in second grade."

Bilbo turned to stir the soup to hide his grimace. They were both far too young to be on their own, especially when the world was filled with roaming corpses and god knows what else.

"We were on the bus," Fíli repeated. "And all these cars started coming, so we had to wait in traffic for a really long time. And then everyone got out and started running, so we started running too."

He could picture the scenario all too well. The highways leading out of the city had clogged up as soon as the outbreak happened. Soon after, the tide of dead had followed and driven everyone away, leaving hundreds of empty metal husks on the road. The image, described in detail on the radios before they went out, had kept him up at night.

"We went back home, but nobody was there." Fíli's chin trembled. "So we were looking, and we got hungry, and—"

"You ended up in my pantry," Bilbo said with a slight smile, to show him that he wasn't angry. "Why did you choose my apartment, anyway?"

"We saw your plants," Kíli said. "But I don't like tomatoes."

"The ones on the fire escape?" He'd planted a mini-garden outside his window a few years back, with some cherry tomatoes and basil that he sometimes used for cooking. It wasn't enough to sustain him, unfortunately, but it was more of a hobby that anything.

"We thought you might have snacks inside," Kíli said, averting his eyes.

"You climbed up the outside, then." That explained why they hadn't known where the stairs were. "Well, you're both growing boys, and you can't just be living on chips and cookies." He took out a couple of bowls and spooned out some soup, making sure to save a little for himself.

The next few minutes passed in complete silence, save for the slurping noises as the boys practically inhaled their food. Bilbo bent down to scoop up the mess of wrappers on the floor, and glanced into his pantry with a frown. His usual amount of scavenged food wouldn't do, not if he was going to be cooking for three now—

Where on earth did that come from? He didn't know anything about these boys, or whether taking them in would even be feasible. But he cut off his doubts before they could take root. There was absolutely no way he could turn two children away from his door to face starvation or, even worse, another attack from one of the dead.

That settled it, then.

Bilbo stood and turned to face his guests. Their bowls were already empty, and Kíli had his bowl up to his face and was unabashedly licking the bottom, though he froze when he realized Bilbo was looking. Fíli muttered something under his breath and pushed the bowl back onto the table.

A little bloom of fondness appeared in his chest at the sight. The boys clearly had manners, foam darts notwithstanding.

"You're welcome to stay here," he said. "You would have food, and you would be safe, as long as you don't open the door at the end of the hall."

Kíli looked at his brother, who shifted in his seat. Bilbo suppressed another grimace. Fíli was far too young to be having to make these kinds of decisions, and to be the sole caretaker of someone even younger. He wanted nothing more than to take that burden from his shoulders, but that would require trust on the boy's part.

"We were going to our uncle's house," Fíli said, shifting again as though he were about to stand. "Maybe our parents went there."

"Well, that's certainly another option as well." Bilbo nodded. Rather silly of him, to think of taking them in when there was the possibility their parents were still out there. "And where is your uncle's house?"

"In the city," Kíli replied. "One of the 'partments."

"The city?" Bilbo schooled his face into a more neutral expression. The city streets were crawling with the dead. If their parents had ended up there, they were likely dead or trapped. "We...We'll have to see about that."

Fíli's brows drew together. "We're going to our uncle's house."

He opened his mouth, several arguments and warnings running through his head, but stopped himself once more. He'd known Fíli for less than an hour, but it was clear he was a scrappy young boy who was prepared to do just about anything to get himself and his brother back to their family. Any warnings he would give might just result in the two of them climbing back down the fire escape in the middle of the night.

"If that's the case," Bilbo finally said, choosing his words carefully, "then we'd best take my car. We'll be able to get there faster, and it will be much safer. How does that sound?"

Kíli brightened at that, and Fíli relaxed a little.

Bilbo glanced out the window. Orange light was spilling onto the dining room table. It would be no good going into the city now—the only thing that terrified him more than running into a dead person was running into one at night.

And there was a good deal besides that to think about.

"We'll talk about it more tomorrow," he said. "I think you both deserve a good night's rest." He leaned over to take their empty bowls, then realized he had made nothing for himself. "I think I might make myself some pasta. Would you like some as well?"

They nodded, and Bilbo smiled slightly as he turned to heat up some water. It was nice to be cooking for others again. Obviously none of his friends and family had come to visit since the world had ended, and even before, visits had been few and far between.

Since the phones had gone down, and the frantic calls had stopped, Bilbo couldn't really remember the last time he had talked to anyone.

Not that it would have been much better had he ventured to find companionship. The dead weren't the only ones killing people. The bodies left with bullet holes instead of bite marks had told him as much on the occasion that he found one during one of his supply runs.

He glanced at Fíli and Kíli. That two boys could have been alone in that mess was unthinkable. "I hope you haven't had any trouble, out there on your own."

The crackle of the pasta package being opened broke through the silence like a firecracker, and Bilbo wondered if he should have said anything at all.

"We had trouble." Fíli poked his dart gun, sounding as if that should have been obvious.

"I-I meant with anyone who might have wanted to hurt you." He bit the inside of his lip. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"Nobody ever hurt us," he said, his gaze falling to the table. Kíli, too, had gained a distant look in his eyes. Even if that was true, Bilbo supposed it was too much to ask for that they hadn't seen something they didn't want to talk about.

"Well, that is good to hear. I would feel terrible if something had happened." He went to stir the pasta into the boiling water, then glanced back at them. "And I will do whatever I can to help you find your family."

He meant it, but the magnitude of what he had said didn't hit him until later. They ate in silence, and Bilbo offered them the big bed in his room (though he insisted that they wash up first).

After they'd settled down, he made himself comfortable on the couch. As the house fell silent, and he had only the ceiling to stare at, his thoughts came flooding in once more.

He'd made a commitment to those two boys, not just with food and shelter, but with the promise to go out with them in search of more than just canned goods at the back of a grocery store.

Bilbo didn't know if they'd ever find the boys' parents or uncle. But the events of the day had made it clear that it wasn't possible to simply sit in his home and wait this out.

He turned his head and stared at the moonlight redness of the tomato plant outside his window.

It was a long while before he eventually found sleep.

Yeah, the title is a reference to "the new world's gonna need Rick Grimes" :) After years of being a useless zombiephile, I finally decided to do something about it and wrote this down. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please leave a comment if you'd like me to continue!