A/N: So all are aware, this work is being revamped on another fanfiction website. New name, new face, revamped, but it's still me. 7/16/20.

Title: The Stranger

Rating: T for now

Summary: A narration of the events in season 2's 'The Collector,' followed by a twisted alternate outcome for the boys. Murphy and 10K find themselves held captive by a cruel, heartless showman. 10K learns he doesn't hate Murphy as much as he thought, and Murphy realizes he wants 10K to be alright.

Warnings: Will contain some one-sided, predatory slash. No sex, no hardcore. No like=no read.

Chapter One

"Prisoners"

10K crossed the street in a crouching run, his gun held tightly against his front, his eyes sweeping his surroundings carefully as he went. A 'Z' staggered along the sidewalk a hundred yards away, too far to notice 10K was nearby, and the boy hugged the wall of buildings when he got to them, staying as silent as he could. There was no sign of Murphy anywhere, but he hadn't expected the man to float out of the woodwork. If Murphy didn't want to be found, 10K was willing to bet it would take an army to find him, and even then they might come up empty.

He crept along the sidewalk, eyes sharp. Ahead of him, a Z had made its way up the front steps of a residential building. The creature was flailing his arms against the glass pane of the door, growling and snarling the way most Z's did. As quietly as possible, 10K approached the stairs from behind, raising his rifle in front of him. To his surprise, the Z didn't notice his presence in the least, and in two quick steps he had climbed the stairs and delivered a sharp blow to the back of its head, sending it to the ground. 10K breathed deeply, watching the Z for a moment to make sure it wouldn't move again, and then he looked up through the glass pane to the interior of the building, shielding his eyes against the light to try and see inside the large house.

To his great astonishment, he caught sight of a person inside, sitting on the stairwell. The man had seen him too, and 10K went somewhat still, his caution getting the better of him for just a moment. He saw the man place a hand behind his back, and the action sparked a higher level of caution in his mind, but he didn't move as the man inside made his way slowly down the stairs toward the door.

He shifted his weight, watching the man until they were standing close to each other, with only the wooden door and the glass between them.

The stranger widened his eyes demandingly. "Yes?" He said abruptly, staring at 10K.

10K found his voice. "I'm looking for a friend," he explained, loud enough to be heard from the other side of the door. His eyes flicked up to a fresh bruise forming on the stranger's left temple, and back to the man's face.

"Haven't seen anybody," said the stranger with a tense shake of his head, still eyeing 10K beadily.

Feeling a sense of disappointment, 10K gave him another strange look before turning to leave. That moment an intuitive feeling struck him, and he turned back to the door, looking once more at the fresh bruise on the stranger's head. "He's a tall guy—kinda weird, bluish skin…?" he pressed further, studying the man carefully.

"Bluish fella? Is he ill?" the man responded, seemingly casual, but there was something about the way he stood there, and the way he looked at 10K, that made the boy's skin prickle. He hesitated, glancing behind him to the street, and back at the man.

"Is there anyone else in this town?" He asked, frowning slightly.

The man shook his head slowly. "Nobody."

10K stared at him, now definitely put on edge. There was something going on here… something was wrong.

"Anywhere else my friend might've gone?"

"Sorry…" the man replied, still watching 10K with that strange expression. "Good luck…"

10K gave a short nod and backed away, jogging down the stairs turning the corner, moving out of sight of the door, but he didn't continue down the street. He turned to look at as much of the building as he could see from where he was now, biting his lip as he drew closer to the wall. Something was wrong here… but he didn't know what it was.

Without waiting another moment he shrugged his rifle off his shoulder and laid it against the wall behind some hedges, drawing a handgun from his belt. Holding the gun out in front of him, he took off at a careful jog around the corner of the place, searching for another way in. Before long he spotted what he was looking for: a side door. Testing it, he found that it was locked. He quickly pulled a small pin out from his pocket and set to work picking the lock. It only took him about five minutes before he heard the familiar click as the tumblers fell into place, and the side door swung inward. Stuffing the pin back into his pocket, 10K slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He cast around the large expanse, noticing a stairwell against the opposite wall and keeping his gun held firmly before him as he made his way silently to the stairs. At the landing there was no other option but to continue upward into the darkness of the second floor hallway. He crested the stairs and made his way toward the only point of light he could see, which shone out from under a closed door in the darkness. He tested the handle, and found it unlocked. On the other side of the door, he came out into another hallway, smaller and more cramped, lined on both sides with metal shelves and a few sinks built into the wall. Beyond them the hallway opened up again into a spacious area, decorated with real stuffed foxes and other dead wildlife on tables. He passed a few posters that seemed to have been set up to decorate this area of the house, posters of movies, and sideshows, all of them hung with care on fresh-looking easels.

"Murphy?" 10K hissed, moving silently.

There was another staircase ahead, and, keeping an eye around and behind him the entire way, his hands tight around his gun, 10K started up the second set of stairs. At the top, he found himself on the outside of another unlocked door, the first door he came to. Carefully he twisted the handle and the door swung open so 10K could duck inside. Immediately, he stopped walking, staring around in confusion.

The room was lit red, filled with layers of shifting smoke that hung lightly in the air. He passed through the smoke, overly cautious, and his eyes settled on something that made his heart hammer in his chest.

A Z was standing up on a platform, in front of a gray back board that seemed to be decorated by small plaques with writing on them. A thick, black collar was tightly fastened around the creature's neck. The Z made a lunge toward 10K, who levelled his weapon to the creature's head, but there was an electric buzzing and the Z fell back, unable to leave the platform on which it stood. Staring at it in shock and confusion, 10K lowered his gun slightly and continued further into the room, past another Z on another platform. He barely noticed this one as it tried to lunge at him but was held back by an invisible force. 10K's eyes were fixed unblinkingly ahead of him now, his confusion and wariness growing more pronounced with every passing second.

Ahead of him, slumped in a chair beside a bag of thick blood, and secured by a white band around his middle, was Murphy himself.

"Murphy…?" 10K breathed, moving closer, his eyebrows drawn together in bewilderment. As he got close enough, he saw a sign pinned to the front of the platform that read 'The Murphy.' "Murphy!" 10K said more loudly, drawing even closer, "You okay?" His eyes cast around them at all the dozens of Z's, each on their own platform, all of them watching with hollow, dead eyes. "What is this?"

His eyes snapped back to Murphy, who was looking at 10K as though he barely had the strength to open his eyes. Murphy's mouth opened and his lips moved, like he was trying to form words, but no sound came out.

At that moment, the back of 10K's neck prickled and he whirled around. He didn't have time to raise his gun before a metal rod was being thrust into his stomach. He tried to yell out as surges of electricity coursed through him from head to toe, but he had dropped his gun and he was falling. Everything around him was fading quickly to black.

He returned to consciousness slowly, not remembering where he was at first as he tried to turn over. When he saw the platforms spread throughout the room, and the zombies standing on them, hovering and growling, his memory came flooding back to him. He struggled to sit up and see where Murphy was, his eyes falling on the bag of blood beside the blue-skinned man, and the stranger he'd spoken to earlier was wheeling himself toward them in a wheelchair.

"You bleed slowly," the man complained to Murphy, stopping his chair and looking up at his captive. "Anyone ever told you that before?"

10K looked at Murphy, who seemed a little stronger than before but still looked quite weak.

"Yes," Murphy growled at the stranger.

"Well, look who's Mr. Agreeable all of a sudden," the stranger said, with a note of amusement in his voice as he stood up out of the wheelchair. The man moved to the foot of Murphy's platform and bent down, picking up a thin piece of cardboard on which something had been written, but 10K couldn't see what it was.

The stranger cleared it up for him. "The Murphy, and his amazing 'Zombie Boy!" he crowed with a huge flare of showmanship, now breaking out into a full sneer.

Murphy's eyes closed and his jaw twitched. 10K stayed silent, trying to wrap his head around what was going on.

"I want to see what happens when you bite a human," the stranger continued in a lower voice. "Quit lying to me, and SHOW ME." He lowered the sign, his eyes flickering down to 10K.

10K felt his heart freeze in his chest as he realized what was being said, and the last fog of the electrocution left his mind. "Murphy, you don't have to do this—" he said, and his voice was more of a croak than he'd thought it would be.

"Yeah, he does," the stranger contradicted sharply.

"Do not let him turn me into one of those things!" said 10K more loudly, now appealing to the stranger with a sense of sudden desperation.

"One of what things?" The stranger demanded, sounding delighted, looking up at Murphy.

Murphy leveled a hard gaze on the stranger. "I don't know what he's talking about," he claimed in a low voice.

The stranger raised a hand and pressed the button on some kind of remote. Murphy stiffened and 10K collapsed back to the floor as they were both with volts of painful electricity. 10K let out a pained half-shout, landing on his back and scrabbling at his neck with both hands. There was a very heavy black collar there, the source of the shocks, and he couldn't pull it off.

Just as quickly as the electricity had begun flowing it stopped, and 10K was able to breathe again. He took deep breaths of air, trying to struggle back up to his elbows.

The stranger was glaring dangerously at Murphy, holding the remote in front of him, and a handgun had appeared in one of his hands. He gesticulated toward Murphy with it impatiently. "Patronize me again, and you will limp for the rest of your undead life!"

Murphy opened his mouth. "I'm too weak." He clasped both his hands into fists on the arms of his chair, and closed his eyes, drawing in a deep, angry breath.

The stranger pointed the gun into the air and pulled the trigger. 10K winced at the sound of the gunshot and worked even harder to sit up, looking around him for anything that could be used as a weapon.

"That was just a warning shot," said the stranger, his voice calmer now.

10K shook his head, his eyes scrunching shut. "Just kill me—" he pleaded, scared now. "Just shoot me in the head!"

"I want to see what happens," said the stranger in a chillingly calm, and almost amused tone as he turned to stare down at 10K, "When Mr. half-zombie man bites a living, breathing human being. And it's gonna happen now—" he turned back to glare at Murphy, "Or I'm gonna start putting holes in people!"

The stranger stepped up onto Murphy's platform and reached around behind the chair to undo Murphy's bindings. With a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, 10K forced himself to climb shakily to his feet, facing the two of them as Murphy stood slowly out of the chair. He looked heavily over at 10K as he lowered himself off the platform and past the stranger. "There's nothing to fear," he told 10K in a low voice.

"I don't fear you…" 10K bit back, though his voice trembled a little despite his best efforts. "I hate you. If you're the key to mankind's survival, we should all just go to hell." He swallowed hard.

"Finally, something we agree on," said Murphy in a slightly lighter tone, watching 10K as 10K stared back at him.

Their moment of frozen indecision was cut by another sharp surge of electricity as the stranger leveled his remote in their direction. Both of them stiffened and fell back a few steps, away from each other.

"I'm working here!" Murphy growled, turning to glare at the other man, who raised the remote threateningly, looking between Murphy and 10K with excited impatience.

Murphy turned back to look at 10K, slowly straightening up, his expression a mixture of coldness and heavy reluctance. "It won't be that bad," he told 10K in a low voice, taking a step closer to him.

"What you did to Cassandra was worse than death," 10K replied shakily, shifting his weight as Murphy drew nearer.

"Just let it happen, kid…" Murphy was now only a step away. "You won't be afraid anymore."

10K stared at Murphy, caught between wanting to run away and stand his ground. A split second later electricity struck him again, radiating from the collar around his neck. It was enough to send him collapsing to the floor on his back, leaving Murphy standing over him, seemingly unaffected. Without another moment of hesitation, Murphy had stepped over 10K's hips and bent down, straddling him so the boy couldn't move in either direction, bending so close that 10K could smell the man's clothes.

"No, please—Murphy, don't!" 10K struggled, trying to grab onto Murphy's hands and push them away, but Murphy was pushing down on both his shoulders with too much weight. His face was only a foot away from 10K's now.

"Don't bite him on the face! Don't bite him on the face!" The stranger's words stopped Murphy, who glared coldly over his shoulder.

"I'm tired," growled Murphy, "You took all my blood."

"Bite him on the chest. Just like yours." The stranger's face broke into a sadistic smile as he placed his own hand over his chest.

Murphy continued to glare for a moment, then turned back to look down at the boy while 10K continued to struggle under him. "It'll all be over in a second," he said quietly, staring at 10K's eyes. The boy stared back, his fingers still pulling fruitlessly against Murphy's hands on his chest.

Murphy bent down in one quick motion, placing his mouth against the fabric of 10K's shirt over his chest. He pressed his teeth lightly so that 10K could feel it.

10K lost control and struggled for his life. "No—no, no!" He gasped, turning his head to the side and trying to get out from under Murphy's bulk.

Murphy hesitated. 10K hadn't felt any skin broken when Murphy looked over his shoulder at the stranger, his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Is this what you want?"

The other man laughed with sadistic excitement, nodding fervently. "Yes! Show me what it feels like to be a zombie!"

At that moment, 10K caught a glimpse over Murphy's shoulder of a Z approaching the stranger from behind. He froze his movements, watching the scene unfold.

Murphy did not even look at the Z as it approached the stranger, who had not noticed its proximity in his excitement.

Murphy glared for only a moment more. "Done," he snarled, and pounded a fist into the floor beside 10K's face. At Murphy's movement, the Z launched itself onto the other man. The stranger let out a furious shout as more Z's rushed in, knocking him to the floor. The growls and snarls echoed through the room as Murphy raised himself off of 10K, his eyes still on their captor. With one hand he reached down toward the boy, and after a second, 10K took his arm and felt himself hefted back to his feet as though he weighed nothing at all.

But suddenly there was a ferocious yell from the midst of the pile of Z's, and the stranger spun out of their ranks, wielding a heavy looking, steel-ended weapon. He put it through the skull of a Z, and then a second one, using a foot to shove a third backward to the floor where he piked it, leaving it dead. Two more Z's closed in behind him, but the stranger doubled back and piked one of them, yanking the weapon out of its skull and bringing it around in a fast arc to crush the skull of the fifth.

Murphy had begun to move forward, probably to help the Z's, and 10K started after him on instinct, but they had waited a split-second too long.

The stranger turned on them, weapon in one hand and remote in the other, holding the latter out toward his captives as a raging, sinister smile twisted his face. "That was very, very stupid." He told them, kicking aside one of the dead Z's.

He pushed the button on the remote, and both Murphy and 10K staggered backward under the force of waves and waves of electricity. 10K gasped, trying to lift his hands and pull the collar loose from around his neck, but his muscles began to seize. The electricity did not relent, and 10K found himself flat on his back again, unable to draw a breath or move, except to thrash from side to side as the foreign energy crackled through the fibers of his body. He was vaguely aware that Murphy was on the floor now, too.

"Very stupid," came the sinisterly quiet voice of their captor.

The electricity ceased.

10K drew in breath after gasping breath, gripping the collar with white-knuckled hands. His vision swam in front of his eyes but even so, he tried to raise himself up to see the stranger as the man approached them.

The stranger looked winded, but pleased, and the expression on his face sent a steep shiver down 10K's spine. He risked a glance sideways at Murphy. The man was lying on his back, eyes closed, breathing, but not moving at all.

"Murphy…" he tried to say, but his voice cracked. He let go of his collar to reach over and give the man's shoulder as sharp a shake as he could. "Hey… Murphy?"

"I think he'll need a minute," the stranger said cruelly, moving to 10K's feet and standing above him, eyes glinting. "I probably shouldn't have shocked him that badly after tapping so much blood, but what can I say? That was so dumb. I would've gone easy on you, all I wanted was to see him bite you. Now… neither of you will ever get out of this."

"We—we have friends, they'll find us," 10K ground out, still struggling to sit up but finding it very difficult. All his muscles felt like they were on fire.

"No," said the stranger, shaking his head with another cold smile. "No, they won't. No one knows you're here. You really stepped in it this time, kid."