S5, E4 | Heartbreak Hotel Beneath an Open Flame

“Who’d you draw?” Lou wonders aloud, continuing to carry his rebar staff as paths cross with Elsie, whose hair has been removed from their braids and thoroughly washed, wearing the water that begins to freeze into ice within her individual strands. “Darnell and Christina, whoever the fuck they are” the blonde replies, crumbling up the slip of paper in her hand before tossing it into a nearby barrel fire, “what about you?”

“No one. Sebastian said I was gone long enough yesterday and Terry said he wasn’t letting me leave again” Lou replies, watching the woman in plaid roll her eyes and pat him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you around, bud” Elsie concludes, the brief and friendly interaction ending as quickly as their paths had crossed, similar well wishes afforded to the woman who prepares to enter the forest with her intentions set on returning home with a feast.

Carrying on with his morning, Lou travels another few metres in the direction of his tent before stopping in the middle of the snow-covered path of dirt, his eyes falling upon a woman with her arms hanging by each side, her face taking toward his own. Without uttering a word to the man she hadn’t seen since he stormed off nearly a day and a half prior, Ally stares at the man who reciprocates the same, attention-stolen reaction as she does, their minds fighting to put that evening behind them.

“We’ve clearly seen a lot while we were apart. I know you don’t really trust Val yet and I should’ve respected that” Ally explains, dipping into the man’s tent as he holds the vestibule open for her just moments after their paths had crossed. “I didn’t walk off because you told Val, I walked off ‘cause it took me by surprise” Lou confesses, the curveball throwing his girlfriend’s assumptions for a loop.

“I don’t really care what he knows or how much you trust him, I just didn’t expect you to be so open with him” the man continues, trying his best to clarify what he’d meant, “I don’t share the same comfort with your people that you do, and that’s not something I’m used to.” Standing for a moment without much of a reply to make, Ally keeps her eyes stowed upon those of her boyfriend before suddenly hanging her head, forced to shift the tendril of hair that falls over her face.

“I’m not used to it either” she admits, a conclusion that the man had already come to, though can’t fully understand in the same way that his own discomfort is felt. “We’ve spent more time apart over the last few months than we have since we started high school” the woman continues, her breath clouding the air that stands between them, “the two of us might have changed a lot more since we got split up than we have anytime before.”

“Well, it’s not like we had much of a choice. We both did up getting stuck on an island in an entirely different country with no way to know where the fuck we were” Lou comforts, not wanting his girlfriend to feel as though she’s alone in this belief. “I don’t know what you’ve been through since then anymore than you know what I have been” he doubles down, speaking to a truth they both understand, “but we’ve never let anything get between us before. That’s something that doesn’t need to change.”

Instantly gratified, Ally wears a smile that leads her into the reach of her boyfriend’s arm, his hand coming to a rest on the woman’s hip. “Is that so?” she whispers seductively, resting her palms on the shoulder at either side of the man’s neck, leaning in to press her lips against his own before their bivouac’s nylon exterior is tapped against as audibly as the fabric will manage by an unknown set of cock-blocking knuckles.

“We’re kind of in the middle of something. What do you want?” Lou wonders back, passing the question to the still-unknown figure on the vestibule’s opposite side. “Val says he wants to talk to you as soon as you get the chance” Bruno responds, addressing the man whilst looking in the direction of the leader’s tent across the camp, “he’s feeling under the weather and you’ve been gone for quite a while. I wouldn’t make him wait very long if I were you.”

Eyes falling, Lou shakes his head with disappointment before being gestured to lift his chin, sights taking themselves toward the woman who guides them upward. “We can continue this, and a whole lot more, when you get back” Ally remarks, her warm breath colliding with the survivor’s face in a way satisfying enough to urge a smile across his visage, the man’s hand giving his girlfriend’s side a gentle squeeze before pulling away with the rest of his body.

“Fucking hell, this sucks” Val murmurs as his tent’s entrance is opened, stepped through by the man who he’d requested to see. “Thanks for the blue balls, trigger fingers. What do you want?” Lou greets, still armed with the weapon the sickly gentleman had mistaken for a simple walking stick. “Do you really still need that thing?” the community’s leader queries with a squint, extending his arm toward the staff in his visitor’s hand.

“I’m willing to trust that you won’t stab me with, or use in any way against me, this thing if I hand it to you” Lou proceeds, extending his sharpened-edge, taped-handle, balanced extension of building material to the defiantly-healthy shot caller opposite himself. “What is this thing?” Val wonders curiously, gently tapping the tip of his finger against the pointed edge before gradually lifting and lowering the weapon he’s been temporarily offered.

“It’s a piece of rebar. I wrapped tape around it every few inches and sharpened the edge to a point. I like to think of it more as a bo staff than anything else” Lou replies, running his newly-freed fingers through the lengthy hair he wears. “It’s balanced and versatile. I can stabilise myself with it, hit things with it, stab things with it, tuck it under my arm, the whole nine yards” he continues, earning an impressed nod of approval from the figure who returns it to him.

“It’s advantageous... nice” Val remarks, freeing his possession to take toward the bottle of liquid, daytime medicine for assistance in persevering past the bug he fights. “Well, you kinda need something you can work with when you don’t have both arms anymore” Lou shrugs, giving the weapon a brief spin before tucking it beneath his arm once more, “it serves its purpose and serves it well. Give me a rock and I’ll keep this thing in use for as long as I’m on the move.”

“You pick it up along the way or have you had that thing since you were in the ‘States?” Val wonders, pouring himself a cap full of medicine as he presents the inquiry, trying to solidify ground worth building upon with the man he hadn’t had an easy introduction to. “I had one on the boat, but I lost it when we were trying to escape. I picked this thing up not long after I beached on Vancouver Island” the man answers, “I’ve been touching it up along the way, why?”

“I’m just asking. If you and your friends are going to be around for a while, I might as well start trying to get to know you all” Val answers, downing the medication with a sour frown, “I don’t know if there’s anyone better to start with than you.”

“So that’s why you called me here? To try and socialise?” Lou queries, only for the opposite man’s head to shake, refusing the conclusion as being that plain and simple. “Not necessarily. I don’t mind getting to know you and your friends, but there’s still more serious shit we need to all take into consideration” Val corrects, watching as his new contemporary leans his head to one side, quietly awaiting the man’s continued speech, “I’m tired of worrying about those artists finding us up here.”

“Like I’ve said before, we can all leave” Lou responds, unwavering in the stance he’s decided to firmly set his feet within, “this place probably won’t even be very sustainable by the time the weather gets better.”

“I’d like to hear what you’d suggest we do” Val reassures, allowing the man to present his point before explaining himself, not wishing to interrupt, “from what Sebastian, Terry, and Jules have told me, you were the one that presented them with the Calgary option when no one else would.”

“I was trying to find Ally. Calgary was a shot in the dark that got very lucky” Lou retorts, his claim immediately falling upon dismissive ears uninterested in devotions of luck. “What’s important isn’t the place you suggested or the reason, it’s that you made the suggestions. Others couldn’t when you could” Val responds, extending his arm in the direction of what remains of his community, “most of the people in our group would be lost without Bruno or I calling the shots.”

“What’s your point?” Lou responds, clearly remaining just as uninterested in unnecessary back-and-forth as he was nights prior, crossing his arm-and-a-half. “My point is that your friends trust you, kid. They went along with what you proposed even if it was just out of the hope that you would find Ally. You made a call when it was needed, and that’s got to count for something” Val quickly restates, placing credit where it’s due.

“I don’t know why a bunch of grown adults and high school teenagers put so much faith in you, but I’m willing to try and figure that out” the community’s ill-health leader doubles down, leaning against a table stocked with ammunition, “I’m asking what you’d suggest we do. Lay it on me.” Becoming the centre of Val’s attention, Lou stands in the open for a brief moment without reacting, his eyes eventually taking to the sides of the camp as he processes what’s been asked of him.

“First thing’s first, I wouldn’t stay out here much longer. The weather’s getting too rough, and it’s snowed more times over the past two days or so than I’ve seen for weeks” the young man replies, running down the bullet list he’s formed internally. “This camp’s already on bad terrain, and it just gets worse the more snow that piles on top of it” he continues, speaking to a leader who remains quiet, “aside from making game difficult to hunt, it fucks us if those savages come looking for us.”

“Where would we go and when would we leave?” Val quickly asks, keeping the experienced traveller on his toes in an effort to challenge his reaction time. “I saw an old block of buildings up that mountain while I was in the woods. It looks like a ski resort and I’m not sure anyone’s gone up there for shelter yet” Lou responds, not needing more than a pair of seconds to formulate the solution, “if you don’t wanna go through artist territory, we can hike up there until it gets warmer.”

“What if that’s not an option? What if the artists come looking for us, or a fire starts while we’re up there?” Val again queries quickly, keeping the conversation rolling and on-point. “The resort’s easier to defend than this camp is. The terrain’s easier, we’ll be more familiar with our surroundings than they’ll be, and we can push the treeline back a few dozen yards” Lou again replies with ease, “if that’s still not a good enough option, our only choice is to go back the way we came.”

“Into artist territory? Alright, what do we do when we get down there?” Val hurriedly questions, raising the wonder aloud as the tent’s vestibule parts without Lou taking notice, the figure that enters allowed to do so by the community’s leader without disruption. “Try to find a ride. If you don’t want to go down there all at once, we can send a team out to see if they can commandeer a ride for all of us” the lone wanderer responds, “it may not have worked for you before, but luck can change.”

“And where do we go if luck falls in our favour?” Val proceeds to snap with, not waiting any noteworthy amount of time for his answer just as the rest of their discourse had run. “We can make for the border, head into Washington and start looking for empty land if you want to head south” Lou responds, watched on by the third party who just now enters the camp, “if you’d rather stick to the guns my friends and I decided on, we head east as far as we can manage for Calgary.”

“Alright, kid. What do we do for food and defence in the meantime?” Val carries on, watching as Ally steps past her boyfriend to approach the man, her eyes looking into the face of her boyfriend, who’s not surprised to see the woman he’d already noticed the reflection of in a chrome toaster beside the community’s leader.

“The easy answer would be to attack the artists and take what we can get off of them. Other than that, we scavenge what we can whenever possible” Lou responds, tucking his rebar weapon under his arm as he continues. “It’s very likely some people would starve if we didn’t stop every few dozen miles to see if we can pick off a moose or a deer along the way” the man proceeds, shrugging with a slightly disappointed look in his eye, “the same would be true for the border plan too, though.”

“Making the call of who goes hungry and who doesn’t is tough. Who’s going to wear that responsibility if we follow through with that plan, kid?” Val queries, taking two steps to the side so as to keep distance between himself and Ally. “I’ve made the choice to kill people before. I’m sure I’ll have to make that choice again so long as I’m breathing, and I don’t see why this would be any different” Lou confesses, finally uttering something that surprised the sickly leader, “I’ll wear it.”

Finally meeting the survivor with silence, Val inspects the man’s demeanour for the uncompromising certainty that it wears, shaking his head with refusal after a few moments without a reply. “You won’t have to” the man concludes, puckering his lips before looking to the ground, staring at it as he wanders, wanting to follow up on his remarks before finding it impossible to do so.

“Val, can you hear them!?” Bruno proclaims, hurrying through the flaps in the tent’s vestibule to the surprise of those who occupy the area, unsure of what’s meant by the question. “What’s going on, Bruno?” Ally questions back, as out of the loop as both her boyfriend and leader are, their confusion mimicked through her. “There’s something going on back in town and I don’t know what it is...” the large man replies, cluing those he visits abruptly, “...but there’s a ton of gunshots going off.”

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

“So, that’s our story. Not much more to it than that” Elsie replies, wrapping the thumb of her left finger around the strap that holds a knapsack against her chest whilst looking at the black man and pale white lady she and Josie travel alongside, “what about you?”

“I’m from Penticton. I joined up with the others a few miles north of the border” Christina responds, her red hair tied into a bun that sits halfway between the top and back of her head. “What about you, big guy? You Canadian too?” Josie queries, watching their lone male acquaintance look to the ground in a semi-sheepish manner, a smile worn on his face as he refuses.

“I’m from Seattle. My brother and I were heading up to the border to visit our mom when everything started going bad” Darnell replies, pressing the base of a prolonged piece of steel into the rocky terrain they climb, preventing his balance from giving out. “How far did you make it?” Elsie calls back, continuing the small talk they’d been encouraged to participate in throughout the journey, yet to reach steady enough land worthy of hunting upon.

“Farther than I would’ve expected. She moved to Edmonton when we moved out, so we hopped on the first train that’d take us there” Darnell responds, offering more of a story than his fellow resident of the compound has. “I wanna say it was a couple hours into the ride before we had to make a stop. The track that would’ve actually gotten us into Canada had issues, so we got off at the station in Bellingham” the man continues, remembering the events vividly.

“I’m gonna take it your brother didn’t fare too well?” Josie queries, following behind the man recollecting his story whilst he follows Elsie, who in turn follows Christina at the lead of their adventure. “No. It turns out the issue with the track was that the train ahead of us had hit someone they didn’t realise was a zombie” Darnell confesses, taking shame in the way their travel had found itself falling futile.

“But they’d already reported the issue when they went out to check on him. The conductor got bit and no one warned the people that went out to help” he continues, a depressing end to the travel having been found. “The train never started up again and we went out to look for a new way into the country” Darnell concludes, their collective defeat leading to one event after another, “my brother got bit, we got split up and I found Val and the others not too long after.”

Nodding, the girls unfamiliar with him and his pale-skinned comrade accept the honesty of his story as they carry on, little choice other than to take the man at face value afforded to them. “Are you ever gonna follow through with going to Edmonton?” Christina questions back, looking over her shoulder as she prepares to scale the next boulder the foursome stumbles across, its flat and smooth surface appearing all too intriguing to not journey toward.

“Probably not” Darnell replies, his tone taking on a much less hopeful reflection than the one that had been presented throughout the retelling he’d voiced, even its less-pleasant moments. “Oh, don’t convince yourself of that, champ” Josie replies, offering her newly-antiquated fellow survivor with a greater shred of hope than she genuinely believes in, “we were setting our sights on Calgary before we ran into you guys. If we can convince ourselves we’d make it there, you can too.”

Humoured, Darnell follows the lead of the ponytail-wearing blonde woman ahead of him as they climb around the stone Christina now ascends, finally reaching a less-elevated stretch of mountain. “It’s not that I don’t think I’ll make it there. I’m sure I could as long as I kept my eyes out for the dead or the artists along the way” the man confesses, leaving his newest acquaintances unsure of why he’d take on such an otherwise conquered intonation.

“For a start, I know nothing about Canada. I know we’re in some place called British Columbia, but not much more than that. My mom only moved back here ‘cause it’s where she grew up” Darnell replies, shaking his head at a loss for words as he reaches level ground once more, “I don’t know where Edmonton is. More than that, though, I don’t know what’s going on there now.”

“It’s probably overrun. Just like everywhere else” Christina grumbles, shaking her head with the same dissatisfaction that the rest of her travelling bunch do, taking a seat upon the stone’s seat and gazing toward the southern side of the mountain they climb. “Exactly. I don’t want to get my hopes up to the point I’d trek across a country I know nothing about to just get disappointed like that” Darnell quips, a conclusion none of his peers can fault him for taking.

“I never saw my brother die, but I know what happens after you get bit. We’ve had a few get really sick until their hearts just gave out” he confesses, shaking his head as they come to a break in the trees, looking out at the scenic view of a pretty world thrown into such ugly chaos, “I never had to see my mom die either. I don’t need to go all the way up to Edmonton just to see what I’m sure has already happened.”

“You can’t know for sure that she’s dead. She might’ve gotten lucky” Elsie replies, apparently taking up the unfamiliar mantle alongside Josie of the group’s optimists, “we’ve all gotten luckier than others. Maybe she’s not still in Edmonton, but that doesn’t mean she’s not still alive.” With a smile in the corner of his face, Darnell takes appreciation in, whilst still refusing to buy into, the reassurance that he’s provided, the ending he devotes himself to not being capable of budging.

“Even if she managed to roll with some good people, I’m never gonna find her. Your boy back at camp got lucky, but that doesn’t mean we all will” the man confesses, a point that is just as difficult to argue with from the perspective of his accompanying hikers as the others he’s made. “Besides, at this rate, I’m not so sure I’d want her to be suffering in the kind of world this is” Darnell continues, dropping to a knee at the edge of the stone Christina occupies for a quick breather.

“Even if she were still going through it, or if she were still in Edmonton, and we met up somewhere along the way... What am I supposed to say to her, y’know?” Darnell questions, staring into the distance whilst Josie and Elsie quietly watch on, Christina’s eyes taking toward the man from just over her shoulder.

“Hey, mom. I’m still alive. Steve, well uh... He died, mom. I’m still going, but my brother... he didn’t make it” the man recites, speaking as if he were looking his mother right in the eyes, a soft and remorseful undertone carried through his voice as it begins to crack, leaving those within his company to find themselves returned to the reality of a bleak world they’d otherwise opt to march through with blinders on.

“He didn’t die quick, either. He got really sick and probably dropped dead off in the woods somewhere if he hadn’t already gotten shot by a bunch of psychos with shotguns and rifles losing their minds” Darnell carries on, his comments bringing a heart-dropping discomfort over the already bone-chilling winter air. “If mom’s still alive, I hope we never meet. I’d never...” the man concludes, hanging his head as not even the Canadian forest can bring his mind peace, “...I could never handle that.”

Hanging her head, Elsie looks toward her right with a frown, expecting to lock eyes with her well-acquainted friend, only to find the woman’s eyes directing themselves off into the distance. “You good, Josie?” the woman wonders aloud, prompting the members from the community to turn back curiously, watching the woman in question try to quickly regain her composure, wiping the tears that had come to form in her eyes.

“Wh-? Oh, fuck... Yeah, I’m good. Um...” Josie stammers, shaking her head quickly so as to dismiss the emotion that had welled within her, hastily looking to carry on with anything capable of dragging her mind from the gutter it’d stumbled into. “We should get moving again. There’s not, uh... Let’s not get caught in the dark” she proclaims, leading the charge that the seated Christina surrenders to her by default, continuing the march west from the community they represent in their voyage.

|

“What the hell do you think is happening down there?” Sebastian wonders aloud, standing with his arms crossed as he stares into the distance of the downtown they’d run into their fellow members of the community in, still hearing the distant gunshots scramble through the air as the day turns to night. “Not something I want to be a part of, I’ll tell you that much” Adrian answers, remaining interested in the flurry of disaster beyond their view whilst others have returned to other matters.

“It’s been hours. What the hell could they still be shooting at?” Sonya questions back, taking the blade of a knife toward the end of a stick she’s fitted with some string and carved into a pointed tip. “What else would still be coming after them after this long?” Courtney calls into question, raising the concern that she answers with absolute ease, “the only thing they could still be firing at would be the dead.”

“Not necessarily” Adrian replies, standing behind his daughter for the time that he watches on, pulling away in favour of following suit with others, offering a solution as he prepares to depart, “they could be turning on each other.” Looking at the way in which the Simard father retreats, Courtney takes the claim into consideration before locking eyes with her boyfriend, his stare meeting that of her own.

“They are savages according to what Val and the others say” Sebastian replies, not finding the possibility beyond the point of reason, “they could’ve found the people Lou killed and assume their own had something to do with it.”

“Maybe we should tell Lou and the others?” Sonya proposes, the conclusion not one worth striking out inherently, “if Val and the others are hesitant to leave, this might be enough to convince them to move out.” Nodding, Marta allows the suggestion to find its way into her attention, surrounding it with the potential outcomes that may arise from it.

“I’d rather be back on the road for Calgary than in this place, that’s for sure” she concludes aloud, turning away much like her father had, a hand tucked into her pocket as she ventures off. “I’ll be back” she proclaims, wandering off into the night just as so many others had throughout the day, given a salute from Sonya’s knife whilst the others she’d stood beside take a dismissive note of her retreat.

Leaving her footprints in the loose, fluffy snow between herself and the camp’s depths, Marta travels the minimal distance between herself and the tent that her mentor occupies, closing in on the distance that separates them before suddenly coming to a stop. Ceasing her journey, the young woman watches as the vestibule parts, her eyes having locked into place upon her destination in time to watch Ally step through, redoing the buttons of the pants she just now puts on.

With messy hair, the woman of relatively equal age walks off without noticing her boyfriend’s protege, her eyes taking toward the side of the compound that her tent resides in without looking elsewhere. Unable to move at first, Marta watches Ally’s journey lead her elsewhere before remaining put for a few moments, quickly trying to subside the dissatisfaction that builds within her, naturally taking a hold of her motor functions before her time to react draws to an end.

His long strands of hair moistened with sweat, Lou adjusts a white t-shirt that he’d just thrown on as he follows his girlfriend’s lead, stepping out of his own tent before coming to a stop just beyond its entrance. Not intending to follow after the woman he’d only reunited with days earlier, the one-armed stalwart instead begins to step in the direction he knows his peers to be, reserving his focus for a few seconds to properly fit his clothing into place before looking up.

Unable to wipe the taken aback expression from her face in time, Marta looks toward her mentor with a surprised visage, not one of pleasure or easily-discernible dismay, but instead, one that doesn’t appear comfortable in nature. Finding his friend standing between himself and those who continue to watch over the distant sound of gunfire, Lou silently stares whilst remaining frozen, not moving from the place his journey had come to a temporary stop in.

Not close enough within the woman’s range to speak cordially even if he were able to, Lou instead remains looking toward his protege without being able to mutter a reply. Aware of the feelings that his friend has for him that not even Ally is privy to from what he’s aware of, the thick beard-wearing survivor simply remains standing without a reply to offer, watching as Marta’s face gradually returns to the state in which it normally rests in as the sky turns a bright orange.

“Holy shit!” a woman screams a short distance away, reacting to the same ball of fire that leaps into the heavens, its appearance earning Lou’s undivided attention and prompting Marta to spin around. Having nearly made it to her bivouac, Ally’s feet cement themselves into the snow as her eyes are stolen by the same centre of awe that those belonging to residents in all directions of her are.

With the slightest edge of high ground afforded to them from the treeline they’d pushed back, the compound’s remaining inhabitants watch an explosion take shape in the direction they know the artists to be, a seemingly catastrophic end to the gun battle they’d hoped for a preferable resolution to making itself undeniable and unavoidable.

In sheer shock and awe, the residents watch on with collective fascination and captivation as the destruction turns from an all-engulfing ball of orange to a barely-visible and demonically dark cloud of smoke. Frozen in time for just a few seconds, the camp and all of its present members stare in horror as the bullets that had just flown mere seconds prior come to a sudden and horribly placid end, sentencing the ordinary, British Columbia town to a grim and grizzly silence.

== RISE and REVOLT ==