S4, E11 | Right Now

“Now!” Terry exclaims, joining Lou, Jenn, and Jules on the front line of defence as the front doors to a drugstore are pulled open by the hands of Elsie and Josie. Armed with a baseball bat, Jenn swings at the first corpse that steps through the now-open entrance before Jules steps ahead, plunging the blade of his knife into the skull of another roaming corpse as the field ahead lessens.

Marching forward, Lou thrusts the pointed tip of his staff through the eye of a much more bloated corpse as Terry follows suit, pressing his back against the one-armed survivor’s own as they proceed onward. “Next up!” Elsie calls out, turning back to the dark confines of the building where the lack of sunlight is more than apparent, watching Rudy and Sonya emerge from within to take over for them.

Returned to the forefront, the tomahawk-wielding girls move to different sides of the storefront and aid in the rest of their group’s efforts of clearing a path to the truck. “We’re good!” Sonya exclaims as she and her father barricade themselves behind the glass doors, keeping them propped open for the rest of their group to advance forward. With an ice chest carried between the two of them, Sebastian and Courtney step into the open first whilst the others remain behind.

With Jenn and Jules providing them cover, the reunited couple storm past a fleet of undead roamers and quickly lift the heavy container into the bed of their escape vehicle. “We’re clear!” Courtney exclaims, climbing into the truck as Sebastian follows suit, their fight taken to the corpses that near the other side they had not climbed aboard from. 

“Next up!” Jenn calls out, watching Marta and Adrian lug a second ice chest from the abandoned storefront, one father-daughter pairing soon followed by another. “We’ve got a path to the truck!” Sonya shouts in the direction away from where she currently hurries toward, prompting Elsie and Josie to retreat from their battle amongst the dead in an effort to return to the safety of their truck.

“Lou! Terry!” Rudy soon calls out to the only men still waging battle in the field, helping Adrian and Marta drag the ice chest aboard as the rest of the group provides them cover. “We’re good out here, just let us know when we’re ready to roll out!” Lou shouts back, dragging his staff through the forehead of another corpse before thrusting it through the bridge of another’s nose, Terry’s quick succession of stabs just behind him making it clear that his blindside is covered.

As the dead in the surrounding area continue to take notice of the group’s presence, more corpses make for the rundown pharmaceutical storefront the band of survivors currently defend from their ranks. Mostly covered in litter, blood and the remains of the undead, the downtown city street the group currently ventures down is illuminated by the first set of clear skies the group can remember seeing overhead in a long stretch of time, keeping the air clear and chilled.

“We’re ready!” Josie exclaims, risking her safety to disembark the vehicle from the horde-surrounded side, slipping through the door to the driver’s seat with plenty of room to spare as she turns the keys in the ignition. One by one, the rest of the group floods back into their getaway vehicle as Lou and Terry follow suit, taking their preferred seats in the truck bed and backseat of the cabin respectively.

“Step on it, Josie!” Sebastian calls out from the back of the truck, sitting directly across Lou as his hands press tightly into whatever his fingers can reach, bracing for the sudden momentum as the truck speeds off with its tires dragging along the ground. Struck with a cold rush of air, the group in the back of the vehicle remain vigilant of the dead that surround them, keeping themselves as out of reach as they can manage as the overrun street passes them by.

After a few minutes, a passing look through the window he sits beside prompts Terry to call out a question for those familiar with the area to answer, “where are we?” With one arm stretched out along the truck bed’s inner wall, Sebastian takes a good look around the many cars they cautiously slither through and the area he can barely make out from over the main road they navigate through.

“I’m not a hundred percent confident, but if I had to guess-” the man remarks, squinting his eyes to make out every last detail his sights happen to set upon, “I think we’re in Kelowna?” Sat on the opposite side of the truck’s back half and rolling his eyes, Rudy leans into the furthest corner with an arm draped over his bent knee. “We’ve been driving for almost two days, it’d be a problem if we weren’t” the man responds, his large frame dressed in a grey sweatshirt.

Keeping to themselves as the sun continues to beat down on them, the group mainly keep to themselves as the journey progresses onward, another few minutes passing before the obstructions in the road become too much to contend with. “We’re gonna have to take this exit and get back on the road in the next town over” Josie calls back, the vehicle moving slow enough for her declaration to reach the ears of every passenger without repetition.

“We might as well find someplace to settle in for the night then” Lou replies, aware of the descent the late-afternoon sun begins to take, “we’ll figure out where we are, where to head next and find some gas if we’re lucky.” Following through on the suggestion, Josie’s foot inevitably presses gently upon the brake pad as they slow to a stop in the middle of a mostly-empty parking lot, the dead only numbering in the low double digits between themselves and their destination.

“Jenn, Adrian, Rudy, Sonya on the supplies. Terry and Jules get a good look at the place. Everybody else, get to work” Sebastian remarks, the first to hop off the truck and set his sights on the dead. In very different directions, the group dissipates in favour of handling their respective tasks, one portion of the survivors handling the monsters that roam freely whilst the rest begin preparing their camp for the evening.

Within half an hour, Sebastian and Terry successful barricade the entrance to an activity centre the rest of the group seeks refuge in, each survivor huddled closely together in the lobby as they gather their bearings. “That should hold them for the rest of the night” Courtney remarks, jostling the leather belt the men had tied around the handles with very little give presented to her, an eye paid back to those she travels alongside.

“We should check the place out- make sure it’s safe” Jules remarks, keeping a knife in hand as he stares toward the dark, yet lively interior they prepare to make themselves at home in for the night. “Alright, we’ll stick in groups of two” Sebastian replies, undoing the top to one ice chest to retrieve a sealed plastic bag filled with flashlights, “Courtney and I will stick together and Rudy will go with Sonya.”

“I’m going with Lou- sorry dad” Marta remarks, watching the man bob his head in a playful display of mockery. “I’ll go with Jenn since the others are gonna pair together” Adrian replies, watching Elsie stick beside Josie whilst Terry and Jules pair themselves without hesitation. “And I’ll go with Adrian because I don’t have much of a choice” Jenn retorts, passing a look at the already clustered-together group members she’d been numerically left out of.

“Adrian’s not that bad” Lou jokes from the head of the group, bowing his head at Sebastian as he graciously accepts a flashlight. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me” Adrian replies as he pries a metal bar protruding from a skeeball machine it’d become dislodged from. “I meant every word of it, pal” the ‘Silver Slayer’ responds, watching the passive shake of the head Marta’s father present back to him precede a smirk.

“Let’s not get too cosy before we’ve made sure this place is safe” Jenn remarks from the back of the group, dragging the ice chests to the corner of the room for them to return to later. “Everyone keep from getting an itchy trigger finger if you’ve got one, shout if you need help, and don’t leave any of these dead slow pokes alive for someone else to stumble upon” Terry doubles down, he and Jules the first to split away from the group, “we’ll see you when we see you.”

Following the lead their friends take, Elsie and Josie venture off without a word whilst Adrian and Jenn do much the same. “You guys can handle yourselves, right?” Lou asks to the pair stood across from them, the older gentleman and his younger daughter replying with exactly what he’d hoped they would. “We’ll be fine, the rest of you will be too” Rudy replies, snapping his fingers as he struggles to recall what the younger man had once told him, “what’s that thing you used to say?”

With his head tilted to the side, the rebar-wielding man looks toward his elder in confusion. “The thing you said you did when we all first met” Rudy replies, slowly jogging the memory of the younger man across from him, “the thing you used to say to keep yourself calm, what was it?” In a sudden turn, Lou’s face widens as he finally locates the man’s train of thought, “everything’s going to be okay” he responds, nodding to the man that’s now been reminded, “I still do.”

“Good, because it’s true” Rudy replies, nodding to the man as he peers back toward Sebastian, a promising look of hope worn on the face of the man slowly coming into his own, “everything will be okay.” Smiling back at her father, Courtney leans in and kisses the man on the cheek, giving her sister a fist bump before pulling off to follow Sebastian down a long stretch of walkway along the building’s side.

“We’ll see you soon” Lou assures, he and Marta pressing their knuckles against the father-daughter pair’s own before travelling into opposite directions, their departure from each other dismantling the final few shreds of the group still left together. In the concrete jungle just beyond the walls of the building, additional corpses begin to swarm at their own slow pace, drawn to the sound of the collective groans that join those already aware of the living’s presence beyond the front doors.

= RISE and REVOLT is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series from Season 1 onwards belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 =

“Is it a bad sign that we’re the ones left out from the rest of them?” Adrian remarks with genuine intrigue, casually strolling along Jenn’s side as he shines his flashlight at the cavernous ceiling towering above their heads. “I had my own auto-partner for a while back there. She’s dead now though, so I have an excuse” the woman remarks, the dry sense of humour in the wake of a tragedy she’s still only a few weeks removed from starting to become a staple of her personality, “what’s yours?”

Casually strolling onward with the metal rung he’d stripped from the arcade machine moments prior, Adrian remains quiet for a moment as he lets the woman’s comment settle. “I don’t really have one” the man responds, looking to the side of the woman’s head as she continues to place one foot in front of the next, expression unchanged from the utterance she’d made, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you.”

Eyes turning toward the man, Jenn squints for a moment as if confused, waiting for the clarification her visage would provoke. “About your girlfriend- I didn’t mean to remind you of- well, you know” Adrian explains, his voice softening as he looks away, bowing his head apologetically as the woman he shares his company with realises what he’d been trying to speak to.

“Don’t worry about it” Jenn replies, shaking her head as she continues to step forward, “it’s not the first time I’ve lost someone, and I doubt it’ll be the last.” Squinting, Adrian returns his sights to the woman with slight puzzlement, “what do you mean?” he asks innocently, watching her face turn to his as if confused by the question. “Which part are you lost on?” she asks back, the shrug provided to her preceding the answer the father gives, “both.”

Nodding as she stares forward, Jenn tucks one hand into her pocket whilst the other slowly sways the baseball bat at her side. “I was dating this guy back when everything shut down. He wasn’t always the most dependable person I’d met” the woman explains, her remarks casual in spite of the heavy weight held behind them, “he was a good person, but he wasn’t much of a good boyfriend if that makes any sense? Anyway, he died a few days after shit hit the fan and life moved on.”

With his head slightly leant back, Adrian continues to walk alongside the woman with his flashlight held forward, keeping the verbal door open for her continued discussion. “Without going too much into detail, it wasn’t long after that before Halston and I got together” Jenn continues, turning her head toward the hallway that emerges around the corner they now step past, continuing about their intended journey, “it didn’t take long for me to feel ways about her Wyatt couldn’t get out of me.”

Subtly nodding, Adrian keeps his eyes forward as the flashlight is redirected toward the dark corridor they’ve still yet to traverse, “and the other part?” he asks, “-the part about her not being the last person you’ll lose?” With a smile coming over her face, Jenn stares straight ahead as she shrugs her shoulders, gently tapping the head of her bat against the carpeted floor every few steps.

“It could just be our luck, but we lost three of our friends within the first few weeks. Even though no one died, we got split up after the boat sunk” Jenn explains, “before we found each other, we’d lost three more and we’re still looking for one more.” Unassuming and blank, the drywall that lines the corridor they continue through presents them with very little stimulation, the grey carpet along the floors and undetailed ceiling many metres overhead keep their minds from wandering elsewhere.

“I know you haven’t fully experienced it yet, but the day will come when you lose people you care about” Jenn continues, not holding back from the rather sorrowful line of dialogue she speaks into existence, “whether it’s ‘cause they die or ‘cause you get split up from them, that day will come.” With his eyes low, Adrian continues to follow the woman’s every step with one of his own, remaining quiet in the wake of her conclusion for just a brief moment before replying.

“We lost two people back at the cabin” the father remarks, prompting the woman- who accompanies him down the lengthy passage- to turn and look at him, “I killed one of them.” With a slight widening of her eyes, Jenn nods to herself as she looks ahead once more, inspired to ask one rather important question. “Should I be worried that it’s just you and I out here, or are we good?” the blonde-turning-brunette inquires, the question waved aside and declined by the man questioned.

“It was an accident, but it could’ve been avoided if I hadn’t been-” Adrian begins to respond, pausing as his mind temporarily wraps around the same regret that it had been enamoured by in the wake of the incident, “-if I hadn’t been so stuck in my ways.” Taking her opportunity to fall silent, Jenn bows her head and lets the man continue to speak, invested in hearing his rationale whilst also feeling the need to hear more of someone she’d yet to personally know.

“For a while back at the start, there’d been people stealing from the storage unit we had just outside of the cabin. They were taking our food and whatever else they could smuggle in the middle of the night” Adrian explains, “I had set up bear traps just outside the unit for the next time they came until Lou found us. He started sleeping in the thing to keep an eye out since he figured the traps would hurt the people stealing. We didn’t know who they were, so he figured they could be you guys.”

Turning the nearest corner, the pair begin making their way down yet another passage, this one lined with dark walls splattered with various paint colours manufactured to glow in the dark. “One night, he ended up falling asleep in the cabin. So, I went to set up a trap now that no one was in it. Since I woke up early, I figured I could go out and disarm it before Lou woke up and could step in it” Adrian continues to speak, his voice falling faint as he follows-up, “it got someone before that.”

Squinting, Jenn instinctively thinks about which turn the story could take from that moment as the man beside her keeps his eyes straight, following the light he aims within his hand. “At the end of the day, I went out and confronted Lou. I started talking about how he was a problem and needed to go, but that didn’t get me very far” Adrian proceeds to confess, “he dragged me back into the house and tried to make me put the kid down. I said no, he did it for me and told me to bury him.”

“From what I’ve seen since he found me, I’d say that feels pretty on-brand for him” Jenn replies, nodding along with her humorous remark as she tries to shed light on a conversation she can sense the downward trajectory of. “Well, I wasn’t too fond of it and spent the whole night packing bags for Marta and I. I didn’t know where we were going to go, but I knew we couldn’t stay there” Adrian begins to conclude, “Sebastian tried to stop me, we wrestled over a gun, and it went off.”

Nodding, Jenn continues to keep her interjections to a minimum so as not to disturb the man’s recollection, too invested in hearing more from a man she’d only ever heard little from. “I ran off, Theo found me and took me back to the camp. Lou and Marta came down, took me back and they locked me in the storage unit until we were forced into the camp” Adrian proclaims, “we found out the kid was part of Lee’s camp after a little bit and Lou covered for me.”

Her stroll remaining casually paced, Jenn lets the man’s side of the conversation fade with its finale, taking the opening she knows sits just around the corner to speak once more. “He may be a hard-ass, but Lou’s got a heart where a lot of other people wouldn’t even have a conscience. It’s part of what makes him so difficult to not like” the woman explains, turning her face to the older man as they remain moving forward, “I’ll take it you saw him differently after that?”

“I saw everything differently after that” Adrian corrects, briefly looking back at the woman before turning his sights back, “I knew I was as good as dead if he hadn’t done that. So, when he said he was giving me a second chance at life, I figured it was time to try and get right.” Squinting, the woman’s interest proves to peak once more, “why?” she inquires, still looking at him as each step matches his.

“Because if the old world was still around, my mind wouldn’t have instantly thought ‘this is it- they’re gonna kill me’” Adrian answers with a shrug, “in the old world, you went to jail. If my first thought is ‘you’re an eye for an eye’, then this clearly isn’t what I’m used to.” Shaking his head, the man continues to walk the multi-coloured walls with a much less-heavy chest than what he’d carried with him only a matter of weeks ago.

“Something inside my head just clicked. Like I realised I shouldn’t still be here, but I am” Adrian proclaims, incapable of describing exactly what recognition had come over him, but able to accept that it had, “so if I was gonna keep being here, I guess something needed to change.” Nodding, Jenn shares the next step in their collective journey by rounding the nearest corner, eventually finding another flashlight approaching directly ahead of them.

“I don’t think anybody can make it nowadays if they don’t change” Jenn replies, trying to offer whatever words she can to alleviate the melancholy ambience that seems to fill their immediate surroundings. “We all have to accept that some things we used to do need to be left behind. I can grieve over Halston all I want, but I can’t just shut down ‘cause she’s not here anymore” she continues, “the world didn’t stop when Wyatt died, it didn’t stop when she did, and it won’t when I do.”

Aware of the disappointment he takes in having to hear such a truth acknowledged by a woman as young as the one he walks beside, Adrian refuses to speak to such a fact, accepting the world for the ways in which it now operates. “I appreciate the people I have now while I have them. I won’t have them forever, and I want to take comfort in knowing that I do right now” Jenn explains, looking at the man in the eyes as he looks back to her, “and I’m happy right now.”

|

“How much you wanna bet I’ll make this?” Jules calls back, carrying a basketball in his arm as he walks to the opposite side of an arcade hoop. “I hope you know that you’re not doing our people any favours right now” Terry replies, setting his flashlight down to light the floor between his friend and the target in question, “the world has been taken over by zombies, and while everyone else is out making sure the place is safe, our black asses are shooting hoops.”

“If a black man can’t shoot hoops, was equality ever really achieved?” Jules quips back, immediately met with the raise of just one eyebrow from the man across from him, “alright, maybe that was a little too far, but c’mon! Live a little!” Rolling his eyes, Terry’s crossed arms begin to lessen as he shakes his head. “Fuck it, let the white people do the work” Terry responds, giving into his friend’s calls for a reprieve as the ball flies through the air.

Missing badly, the grey basketball with silver lining bounces off the ceiling and strikes one of the metal posts that sit at either side of the hoop, chased after by the steadfast survivor. “Oh, it’s the biggest choke since the Warriors!” Terry exclaims, rebounding the off shot and taking it back as Jules leaps to the call for defence, nodding his head as his eyes keep upon the ball.

A subdued thud ringing through the spacious room with each dribble, Terry steps to the left before cutting back to the right, his attempt at hitting the lane in stride thwarted with Jules’ excellent coverage. “Congested like the flu, boy! You ain’t going nowhere!” the confident defender remarks, watching his friend step back with the ball in tow, creating separation as he takes into concern his next step forward.

“Don’t be scared, I’ll make this quick!” Jules remarks, watching the smirk shine through his friend’s lips as he meets each step with his own. Moving to the left immediately, Terry takes a half step and spins back, letting his friend follow through with his attempt at poking the ball free as nothing but open floor is shown ahead. Dashing forward, the hoop-eying man casually tosses the ball toward the net with no one to defend him, watching it float through the air.

“And he-” Terry proclaims, watching the ball prepare to go in from off the backboard without the ability to stop his own momentum, his hip crashing into the machine and jostling it back as the ball reacts accordingly, “-no!” Shaking with the weight of the survivor’s body crashing into it, the hoop moves away from the ball’s path with the rest of the machine and keeps the point from being collected, allowing the ball to bounce out and eventually back to the floor.

“In the home of the Raptors themselves, York makes like Lowry and chokes away the win!” Jules shouts, leaping up to catch the ball as he takes his turn to set the game in motion. “You reached, I got ready to preach, baby boy!” Terry barks back, hurrying up to the top of the key with his eye on the ball, following it with each bounce along the floor as his friend prepares to make him pay for the costly error.

“Ally’s folks better have a hoop in Calgary, otherwise this trip is off!” Jules proclaims, ducking close to the ground as he keeps his left side presented toward the man on defence, dribbling with his dominant hand. “They’re white folks that stay in Canada, you’ll get lacrosse and you’ll be happy!” Terry replies, earning a quick chuckle from the man before the game provokes his return to serious competition.

Pressing his arm into the ball-handler’s side, Terry keeps his friend at bay as a few feigned attempts at breaking forward are taken, each failing as hard as the rest. “Streetball ain’t make no bitches I see” Jules replies, prodding back at the man prepared to hold him back from scoring with sights set on redemption. “Momma ain’t raise no bitch, baby boy” the defender retorts, finally giving into the man’s advancements as he bites on a half step.

Spinning back just as his friend had, Jules cuts back and opens the floor for free usage, watching the man tasked with defending him turn back with shattered ankles, giving chase. “Lay his ass down, he can’t keep up! He can’t keep up!” he shouts, confidently leaping into the air to fire the ball forward, not needing the backboard to aid the shot in finding nothing more than net, the score made off the back of Terry’s costly error.

“He can’t fucking keep up! Momma ain’t raise no bitch, she raised a bum!” Jules continues to declare, gesturing the brush of a broom with his hands, “go home, bum! This ain’t your home, get off the court!” Playfully shoved back, Terry wears a defeated grin as he stares off at the ceiling, moving with each push until the winning man returns to the knife he’d placed near to the machine, moving it aside to take a seat atop the centre console.

“Remember when we used to do this shit after class?” Jules wonders aloud, wiping his brow of the small amount of sweat that begins to form upon it. “You mean when we used to skip class and sneak into the gym to play ball?” Terry responds, watching the man across the room from him chuckle, “yeah, I remember. I also remember having to make a break for the locker room every time the janitor would walk in once he heard the ball dribbling through the doors.”

“I did try to get the ‘no dribble’ rule going, but you kept calling me ‘Jules Harden’, so I don’t know what you expected” Jules replies, sharing the laugh that the man now taking a seat upon the end of a skeeball ramp joins with. “I don’t know how we didn’t get detention more often” Terry replies, pressing the sides of his hands against his lap as the turn of their shared amusement into steady recollection becomes a yearning for better days.

“I miss it. I don’t know how those became the things I wanted back, but they are” Terry confesses, turning to look at the man who shares a similar longing, “I miss getting in trouble. I miss playing hooky and giving the teachers a hard time.” With a smile, Jules looks back to the ground with the handle to his weapon still grasped tightly within his hand, a subtle nod taking over his head as he voices his agreement, “I do too.”

|

“I just hope wherever our next stop is has something better to sleep on” Courtney replies, her rifle kept pressed against her chest as the man beside her aims the flashlight in one hand whilst carrying a fire poker in the other. “That’s just another way of saying ‘I hope the next place we stay is a hotel’” Sebastian playfully retorts, picking fun at the woman with humorous mockery, “if that’s your goal, no problem. After the last ten nights, I could use a good night’s sleep.”

“Honestly, just give me a blanket at this point. Something to sleep on other than the floor could do the trick” Courtney replies, continuing to walk forward without realising that her boyfriend had come to a sudden stop a few steps back, “I feel kind of guilty admitting this, but the floor doesn’t actually feel that bad anym-” Looking to the vacant side next to her, the woman’s eyes drift back to the man a short distance behind her, a red cap held in his hand as he drops himself to a knee.

With a pause, Courtney watches the man take the tip of a pen to the inside band of one cap as he uses the top of his bent knee as a makeshift desk. “I think proposals are usually done with a ring, not a hat” the woman remarks, aware that the man’s not intending to do such a thing in spite of what it would look like. “Your father would already know if that were my plan” Sebastian remarks, pressing his tongue gently between each row of teeth as he scrawls along the inner fabric.

After a few seconds, the pen begins to effectively press ink into the rather durable material, allowing him to write with a reasonable amount of effort. “What are you even doing?” Courtney inquires, aware of what he’s trying to accomplish, though completely clueless as to its reasoning. “I’m writing down the date on the back strap” Sebastian replies, finally finishing the effort on one cap before turning his attention toward the other.

“Okay, yeah, that makes so much sense. Whenever my friends would go out drinking, the preferred pastime was always to write down the date on the inside of our baseball caps” Courtney remarks, taking her turn to poke fun at the man just as he did her, “though, in all seriousness, I think it’s their own name that people write on their property.”

“Yeah, I guess ‘return to the nineteenth of December, 2018’ doesn’t help accomplish much, does it?” Sebastian replies, playing into the woman’s mockery with a double-down of his own. “Alright, seriously- what are you doing?” Courtney giggles, watching the man stand upright once more and extend one cap out to her, “you look like a character in a video game trying to finish one of those secondary tasks.”

With appreciation, Courtney casually takes possession of the man’s offering, looking at the back of the hat to read the exact date written across it. “When Jenn and I were talking in that souvenir shop the other day, she said she’d forgotten what day it was” Sebastian replies, holding his own red ball cap with the same date scrawled upon its back strap, “she told me the day would come where I’d forget it too. So, I figured it’d be easier if I made it a point to lose track by choice instead.”

Confused, the woman looks back to the man stood before her with a smile as he places the cap over his head, turning its brim to the side so as not to obstruct his face. “You look like a middle-aged rapper when you wear it like that” Courtney murmurs, chuckling with him as she adjusts the cap accordingly, the tip held out at her as she follows suit, placing her own atop the frizzy hair that falls over her shoulders.

“I wanted to write the last date I’ll remember on a pair of hats. I don’t know why, I’m not even sure it’s very romantic if I’m being honest” Sebastian confesses, “but if I’m gonna lose track of time, I’d rather you be the one that I lost track of it with. So, I guess that’s my explanation for the gesture.” Smiling big and wide, Courtney places her hands around the man’s neck and leans in to kiss him, keeping her lips pressed to his for a good few seconds before their romantic display is cut.

“Aarrgghh” a lone corpse groans, staggering around the corner and catching sight of the coupled pair, who pull their faces apart to watch the figure groggily stammer toward them. “Do you want to get that or should I?” Sebastian inquires, not receiving his answer by the time the woman pulls away from him and pulls free a hammer, aided by the man’s flashlight as her weapon’s claw bury themselves within the softened skull of the undead loner.

“We were in the middle of something, asshole” Courtney remarks beneath her breath, kneeling to the ground with the zombie as it falls before pressing her boot upon its head, freeing her weapon from the hole within its cranium it had created. “Look at that door” Sebastian mutters aloud, speaking through the quiet air as his eyes take to the same thing his girlfriend’s do, the one beige-coloured door just a few metres away wearing a bloody handprint around its knob.

Squinting, Courtney stands to her feet and joins her boyfriend in advancing upon the intriguing sight, yet to present her mind toward the various explanations that could await their discovery. “What should we do?” the woman inquires, watching the man’s fist reach forward, tapping its knuckles against the entrance without an answer, “alright, great talk.”

“Sorry, I-” Sebastian replies, apologetic for his lack of response before falling immediately silent, both he and his girlfriend able to hear the faintest sigh coming from within. “Is that a zombie?” Courtney whispers, unable to make a definitive answer as she steps back, her hammer prepared to swing forward as the man’s hands press against the blood-covered handle.

Bobbing his head in the woman’s direction, Sebastian lets her prepare for whatever offence she’ll need to partake in before opening the entrance, shining a light toward the inside as Courtney immediately pauses. With a squint in her eyes, the hammer-wielding woman looks in at the decrepit interior with uncertainty, finding the body of a woman with a gun on her lap slumped against the wall below a standing sink, the body of a young boy laid upon the ground beside her.

“Turn off... the light” the clearly-exhausted woman sighs, her voice prompting both survivors to immediately leap into action. “Are you okay?” Courtney exclaims, attempting to come to the woman’s aid before the wave of the near-death survivor ushers her away, both she and Sebastian only able to look on at the woman within. “I’m bitten” the wounded survivor sighs, her head kept away from the body that sits beside her, a bite wound worn on her right bicep.

“I don’t... wanna see him... like this” the woman groggily murmurs, shaking her head as she keeps her stare away from the deceased child, a tear running down her sweaty face. “What happened to you?” Courtney inquires, unable to keep herself from splitting her attention between the clearly-distraught mother and her apparent son. “We couldn’t get away... fast enough” the bathroom-bound woman replies, sniffling as best she can as her breaths become sparse.

“They bit my... boy... before we could... get in here. I... locked the door... and stayed quiet until... they left” the woman continues to speak, each word clearly taking great amounts of energy out of her. “He got... so sick... but... I just... I couldn’t” she continues to explain, paid the decency by Sebastian of the light being kept away from the young boy’s body, “he turned. I had to... do it when he came back, but... he got me first.”

“Are there more of the dead out here?” Courtney wonders aloud, already able to fill in the blanks of what the woman’s trying to get at. Shaking her head, the wounded mother spoken to powers through the infection quickly taking its toll on her in order to nod, “there’ll be more... if they... find you.” With a look toward each other, the coupled survivors pass each other a look before the man with the flashlight turns back.

“Before who finds us, the dead?” Sebastian questions back, an immediate rush of concern running through his veins as the woman shakes her head in refusal. Parting her dry lips as her eyes begin to shut, the woman’s voice fades as she replies, “the people... with blood... on their faces.” Kept parted, the woman’s lips remain open as her lower jaw falls and remains that way as her head tilts back, the small amount of life she’d retained until the last seconds fading into non-existence.

“The people with- what?” Courtney replies, looking to her boyfriend at an absolute loss for words before turning back the way they’d come, following the light in the man’s hand down both ends of the hallway, each direction as empty as they’d left it. Shaking his head, Sebastian places the light into the woman’s hand before reaching toward the newly-deceased body and retrieving her pistol.

“Look away” Sebastian remarks, trying to keep the woman from having to watch him distribute mercy amongst the newly-departed, the end of his fire poker driving through the woman’s skull as he groans, trying to drown out the sickening sounds his weapon produces as his teeth press together.

|

“Good to see you again” Elsie remarks, letting her flashlight fall to the side as she and Josie reunite with Jenn and Adrian, their journeys taking them to the same stopping point as each other, the sound of collective footsteps within their own near distance prompting them to all turn back. “Which ones are you?” Jenn calls out, waiting for a moment as her voice travels to the souls that draw nearer.

“The alive kind” Lou shouts back, he and Marta reuniting with the majority of their group as their flashlights soon appear around the corner. “That could mean anything. Prove that you’re who you say you are!” Elsie sarcastically responds back, waiting for a moment for the man to return her proof. “I never said who I am” the one-armed man replies, unable to see the satisfied reaction the woman gives him back.

“I’m sold- that’s Lou” Elsie retorts, hearing the faintest chuckle be offered back by the woman who travels with the subject of her inquiry before their figures appear from around the corner. “Put an end to any of the dead along your travels?” Jenn inquires, watching the shake of Lou’s head provide itself back toward her. “I was hoping to see a really freaky-looking thing, but instead I just got spooked by a pinball machine” Marta replies, prompting the man beside her to call that into question.

“Spooked by, or did you bump into the thing, gasp, and put your fist through the dust-covered plastic cover the game was concealed under?” Lou wonders back, gently reaching for the girl’s hand and lifting it up to present a gash running along the back of her hand. “Oh my god, Marta. Are-?” Adrian begins to wonder aloud, stepping ahead to approach the girl before her nonchalant voice subdues his obvious look of concern.

“I’m fine, it’s not deep” Marta replies, the proof held within the limited amount of bleeding for such a length wound, “I’m more surprised the thing was so easy to break.” Nodding to himself, Lou presses his back against the nearest wall and watches the group reconvene, a few stares in every direction paid as they await the rest of their group’s arrival. “What do you think the others are doing?” Elsie inquires, tying the string of her tomahawk to the belt loop on her waist.

“Terry and Jules are probably playing basketball” Josie responds, immediately humoured by the woman across from her. “Why? Because they’re black?” Jenn queries, placing her hands against her hips in a mocking fashion, “that sounds awfully racist of you Josie.”

“I’m black. You say racist, I say knowledgeable” Josie retorts, squinting her eyes as she looks toward the sky, passing a glance to the man just off to her side as he wears a similar visage. “I don’t know if that’s how that works. Not even ‘cause it doesn’t sound like it was put correctly, but because I never took them to be big into basketball” Lou responds, watching the woman that looks toward him respond by matching Jenn’s posture, both hands placed to each of her sides.

“What? I always thought they were into baseball! At least, I thought Terry was into baseball” Lou responds, passing a look back to Jenn, “don’t you remember that Orioles cap he always used to wear in freshman year?” Looking into the distance for a moment, a look of sudden remembrance comes over the expression of his once-classmate, her finger lifted as her hands finally disembark from their hip-adjacent stance.

“Yes! And then Mr. Gnervo kept telling him not to come to class with it on his head, so he ripped a hole in it and started wearing it as a bracelet!” Jenn shouts with a smile, watching Marta tilt her head in confusion amidst the recollection. “Wait, he ripped a hole in the hat?” the young woman inquires, both the man she stands beside and the woman he converses with nodding along with each other.

“Terry was a petty motherfucker. If you told Terry to do something that Terry did not want to do, Terry would make you question why you chose to get into teaching” Lou replies, the smirk that forms in the corner of his mouth suddenly falling aside, “that’s how Terry got into our inner circle.”

“That’s how almost everyone got into our inner circle” Jenn corrects, placing her eyes back into Marta’s direction, “if someone was funny, they were welcomed. If they had balls of steel, they were practically a legend.”

“I heard someone say ‘legend’, why are y’all calling me?” Terry calls out, his feet sifting across the rug as he and Jules become the fourth pair to reunite with the survivors. “What did you do with that Orioles cap?” Lou wonders back with a smile, his index finger pointed as the rest keep themselves wrapped around the rebar staff he holds outward. 

“The one Gnervo kept getting pissed at me for?” Terry queries, a quick glance taken toward Lou and Jenn before answering, “I lost that thing somewhere in Israel on summer break last year.” Snapping his fingers, Lou spins back toward Marta as Jenn continues to provide answers to the claim she’d made earlier. “Vinny was the legend that hid booze in the music room, Terry was the jokester, Jules was Terry’s friend and I guess sort of funny.”

“Watch it, blondie” Jules warns with his finger pointed, the declaration of humour given all in good fun. “Lou was the guy everyone liked, Ally got in at first ‘cause she was Lou’s girl. Wyatt did everyone’s homework, and I got in ‘cause I was his girl” Jenn continues to recall, slowly beginning to draw blanks, “Margo got in by being Vinny’s girl, and Halston got in by accidentally catching us sneaking in booze and not ratting us out.”

“You bribed her with entry to the group so you wouldn’t get told on?” Josie inquires, quickly finding herself corrected. “No, she chose not to rat on us, and that was more than enough to be let in” Jenn responds, “once you’ve proven you could be trusted, entry wasn’t too far behind.” Puckering her lips and nodding, Elsie begins to step back and lean against the wall as she acknowledges the sense behind the rationale the group voices their once commitment to.

“It’s a pretty good quality to have, ain’t it? To just be able to trust someone ‘cause they’re trustworthy?” Marta inquires, being met with an abundance of nods by those she seeks an answer to. “It’s a quality that’s hard to come by. It sticks out ‘cause fewer people have it now more than ever” Lou responds, gently tapping the sharpened tip of his staff against the ground as he presses the back of his head against the same drywall Elsie does, “rare or not- it’s still good to have.”

“It’s what this group is built off of” Jenn replies, watching Lou nod his head as he stares off at the ceiling, patiently waiting for the rest of the group to come together so as to confirm the coast is clear. “If none of us could trust each other, we wouldn’t have lasted more than a few hours together” the woman slowly becoming more of a brunette by the day continues, “if you can’t trust people not to stab you in the back, then you’re better off sticking it out alone.”

*pop pop pop*

Subdued by the distance between themselves and the gunfire, the group’s eyes immediately turned toward the direction in which Terry and Jules had arrived from, the friendly banter ceasing as the imminent danger posed put their survival instincts to the test. “Is that one of us!?” Adrian calls out as Lou marches forward, the first to pull away from the rest of the group and ready for a fight.

“It doesn’t matter, let’s go!” the staff-wielding survivor proclaims, Marta and Jenn the first to follow as the rest they leave behind inevitably fall into line. Dashing through the arcade, the eight survivors call out the names of those they’d yet to be reunited with, drawing closer to the scene of supposed chaos with every step.

*pop pop*

Hitting the ground just a few metres away, two bullets nearly connect with Lou as he dashes forward, coming from around the corner as a small group of men flood into the building. Mostly concealed within darkness, the sudden attack prompts the survivors to dart for cover, hiding their flashlights as best they can to avoid detection. His eyes widening as he stands at the centre of danger, the ballsy one-armed survivor calls out to the rest of the group as a set of lights draw near.

“Get down!” Lou screams aloud, urging the few yet to do so to seek refuge anywhere they can. Led by the first few corpses to gain entry through the shattered glass of the building’s entrance find themselves splattered against the asphalt by the group’s truck, which burns rubber against the asphalt as the cement block placed atop its gas pedal sends it tearing through the now splintered and destroyed front of the building.

Falling off the accelerator, the foot-mimicking block topples out of the open driver’s side door as the truck crashes into the nearest wall, flipping onto its side in the same arcade the group finds itself caught in. Accidentally slamming into someone he’s not certain of the identity to, Lou dives toward the ground and loses the flashlight he’d tried to press the head of against his chest, letting it roll onto the floor.

Hearing a grunt, Lou realises the man he’d fallen into was likely taken to the ground alongside him, though he’s still unsure of whether or not there’s much cause for concern. Reaching through the darkness, the man reclaims his torch and flashes it into the eyes of a man that pulls his arm over his face, shielding himself from the sudden burst of light before lifting the barrel of his handgun with the other.

Knowing the soul ahead of him is unfamiliar, Lou pulls the handheld lantern away and thrusts his staff forward, immediately hearing the splatter of blood come from the man who audibly falls back.

*pop. pop pop. pop. pop pop pop. pop*

“Marta!” Adrian calls out from just a few metres behind the woman’s mentor, earning a response from across the room.

*pop pop*

“Everyone shine your light in the direction we were running!” Lou orders those within his group, watching the sparse torch lights eventually appear from behind overturned tables and the closest debris able to set out for. Not given much to work with, what little sight is offered provides the man with more than enough clearance to set forth toward, his flashlight tossed to the ground as he steps out of hiding.

Pressing his teeth together, Lou nears the closest man and quickly sticks him in the back of the head with his staff, turning his sights toward anything that moves. Taking the stag as a one man show, the survivor directs his sights toward the front of the heavily-damaged room as the dead begin to shuffle in, aimlessly wandering at first before their sights fall upon the man in the room’s centre, a scattered assortment of three burning light bulbs to his back.

Standing his ground, Lou begins to wail on the dead that approach closer, demanding the souls that continue to occupy the room behind him keep their lights steady. “They’re leaving!” Jules calls out from behind cover, his own light shaking gently as he speaks, both eyes watching the men responsible for uprooting their night and turning it into a fight for their continued survival beginning to dash through the army of the undead they’d purposefully allowed entry.

“They’ve got something!” Marta calls out, her voice immediately prompting Lou to beg the question to her, putting a momentary stop to the zombies that draw closer. “What do they have!?” the man calls back to his protege, swinging his staff upon another deteriorated skull as the woman shouts back.

“I don’t know, but why else would they do this!?” Marta calls back, admitting that her declaration was made out of speculation, though it’s more than enough for her mentor to begin using the display as pieces to a puzzle meant to be reunited with each other. Remaining silent for a moment, Lou puts down another corpse as it wanders near, cycling whatever reasonable answer could dawn upon him as another set of cars take off in the near distance.

“‘Cause they’re shackling us” the man mutters beneath his breath, looking off to the side as he realises they’d been played, screaming out at the group that remains behind him, continuing to seek out cover. “Everyone with a light, keep it aimed at me- everyone else help me fight them!” Lou barks out, swinging at the dead with amplified force as a number of feet run out from cover, joining him in battle before a path forward presents itself.

“Everyone follow me!” the man finally calls out, spending a few seconds putting down whatever corpses draw nearer before dashing through the front lobby.

*pop pop*

Forced to seek cover once more, Lou and the group duck as they approach the gaping wound worn in the building’s facade, a set of gunshots continuing to be fired from beyond as another wave of the dead nears. “Son of a bitch!” Adrian exclaims, slamming the metal post he’d ripped from the nearest machine against the wall as he cries out expletives, “they took the fucking coolers!”

With a clear path back to his group, Sebastian walks up confidently with his hand extended, holding Courtney back as he rounds the corner. “Sebastian, get do-!” Lou exclaims, watching the man lift his dominant hand up before shielding his ears.

*pop pop pop pop pop*

“Ah!” a man calls out from beyond their shattered entrance, falling to the ground with his weapon still in tow. Unphased, Sebastian continues to move forward as Lou steps out from cover, dashing through the entrance to aid in putting down whatever threats remain. Without a bullet fired, the air grows quiet from the side of the enemy as the scruffy-faced survivor leads the charge, following the tiremarks that plague the parking lot without much to show for it.

“Not today!” Courtney exclaims, running up to the bullet-wounded foe and kicking the pistol away from his hand, disarming the man responsible for the attack on her friends. “Who the fuck are-?” the woman barks, getting close to the ground and pressing her knee upon the arm of the man left stranded behind, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt before her question falls silent, the look she takes in his eyes forcing the hairs on her arms to stand.

“What the fuck do we do now!?” Josie calls out, kicking the hubcap on a long-abandoned car as Courtney stares into the face of one man responsible, his cheeks and forehead smeared with red paint as he angrily looks back at her. “Dad, come on!” Sonya cries out from within the building, sprinting ahead of her father as he jogs after her, clearly at a loss for breath as they finally reunite with their peers.

“The fuckers stole our shit!” Elsie calls back to their as-of-yet uninformed contemporaries, the man’s eldest child keeping her sights locked onto the silent man beneath her. “Kill this fuck!” Terry shouts, marching forward before Sebastian takes him by the arm, holding him back from doing something he can’t take back. 

“No, we’ve got bigger plans for this asshole” the man whose hand wraps around his bicep replies, looking Terry in the eyes as a pause ensues, the pair of men standing in silence before the soul calling for such an execution bows out, nodding his head in agreement. Standing out in the open amidst the wake of chaos that surrounds them, Lou looks out at the pair of tire tracks that lead through the nearest exit, watching the dead continue to pile up in numbers.

“I’ll ask the question again, what the fuck do we do now!?” Josie shouts once more, met with silence from the rest of her group, which all stand by at an equal loss for direction. Catching his breath as he leans against the nearest car, Rudy watches his youngest daughter pull away to rejoin with her older sister. 

With his hand placed atop his daughter’s shoulder, Adrian and Marta remain standing just a short distance from Terry and Sebastian, whilst Jules, Elsie and Josie huddle together. With one knee pressing into the asphalt, Jenn holds her head in the palm of her hand as the air remains quiet, not a reply to the question still left unanswered to meet her ears. 

With his full arm hanging by his side, Lou stares out at the distance he knows the people responsible to have gone, a squint in his right eye held in their direction. One after another, the group slowly turns their attention toward him, waiting for the answer they’ve come to expect of him. Having proposed the initial destination of Calgary, the foremost survivor remains standing without a word to offer back, unable to provide direction now that they’ve been thrust off course.

== RISE and REVOLT ==