Little Thom - that undead freak

I'm well into the game now, but I've been meaning to ask this for ages. I'm pretty sure that on one of the early Ascalon missions (The Red Cloaked Deserter) I found Little Thom's cold, dead corpse, and left it to rot in the wilderness somewhere near Fort Ranik.

But lo and behold, I reach Yak's Bend, and there's Little Thom standing there waiting to be hired as a henchman.

Have I confused two different characters? Have I missed a plot point? Or is Little Thom some kind of undead freak?

well if you kill the char fast enough you may actually see little thom alive --i did

That guy you found was a guard who won Thoms badge before he died.

You missed a plot point. The only thing that gives you a clue to the corpse being Thom's is his pin. Upon returning to Farah Cappo she tells you that means nothing and he probably just faked his death.

Jazzy and Andy - are one or both of you serious? Can someone provide some sort of evidence resolving this?

Mitsu - sorry, posted while you were typing. This helps, thanks! (Although I think I'll continue to regard him as an undead freak!)

Aside from the game npc telling you that it's sure it's a fake. You see Thom in presear, the Thom you find looks totally different from the beer guzzelling Thom of presear