S5, E8 | Four Shot Slaughter

“We’re not moving” Jules replies, standing two metres ahead of his friend with both hands raised, a calm and unimposing tone carried through his voice. “Don’t talk either... Not unless I tell you to” Dawn responds, watching the men look away from her with different expressions of displeasure, their tongues pressing against the roof of their mouths and lips parted slightly with the subtle shake of their heads.

“This isn’t the way you want to do this, woman” Jules continues to speak, disavowing the order that he was paid by the seemingly hobbled gun woman in favour of trying to talk sense into her. “I told you to shut up” Dawn remarks once more, stepping away from the heavily damaged exterior of the hatchback with a noticeable limp.

“The others will have heard the crash” Jules carries on, shrugging at the direction of the visually disgruntled survivor, “if they walk out here and see you pointing a gun at us, that’s not going to be a good look fo-”

“If I have to warn you again, I’m gonna pull this trigger” Dawn interjects, growing tired of hearing the foremost American’s voice beyond the point she’s willing to stand it. “What’s going on!?” Adrian whispers toward Sebastian, watching as the man hurries back into the condo building itself in a hurry. “Dawn’s group tried to take one of the cars!” the man retreating with Courtney’s hand held in his own proclaims, dashing to their shared room in search of aid.

“No we didn’t! We’re right here!” Darnell proclaims, stepping through the door to his group’s own room with Ally and Christina not too far behind, their appearance initially surprising Sebastian. “Marta and Lou just got back. Dawn’s car rammed into theirs” the man explains, releasing Courtney’s hand to allow the woman to hurry back to their room before turning toward the now concerned father.

“Marta’s fine, but I’m pretty sure Lou’s in a bad way” Sebastian explains, looking at the relief that strikes Adrian’s face before patting him on the shoulder and passing by, “she’s got Jules and Terry at gunpoint right now.” Hearing the comments that are made, Ally stands in the hallway whilst Darnell and Christina race in the same direction that the other group departs from, running off to address the actions of their fellow group member whilst their third wheel stays behind.

Looking around the mostly-empty lot, Dawn inspects her surroundings to find little of use, the only things catching her eye being the undamaged car she’d passed over and the running Wrangler she’d mangled. “You, the black guy in the back, go get that other car and bring it to me... Slowly” the woman explains, keeping herself as close to the damaged hatchback as she can to avoid whatever secondary attack the unified group she’d attempted to do wrong may launch.

“I’m gonna need to go get the keys off of Sebastian. He’s the one who has them” Terry answers, presenting the woman with a dilemma that she finds very little ways around. Snarling, Dawn scans the area for another moment before looking toward the Wrangler, seeing the damage that was done to its back half before glancing at her damaged hatchback, comparing the two before stepping forward.

“Get out of the car!” the woman proclaims, taking aim of her weapon toward Marta before finding her sights becoming immediately blocked by Lou’s body, which climbs over the centre console to shield his protege. “Look in the backseat” the wounded, one-armed figure remarks, preventing the woman behind him from speaking as he comments, noticing the eagerness in which Dawn limps toward him.

“Get out of the car!” the woman barks again, only to receive just as much hesitation from the man as she received the first time around. “Look in the backseat” Lou repeats, paying no mind to the weapon that’s held at him, one that eventually becomes the only subject of interest from the attempted thief. “I’m not gonna tell you again” Dawn remarks, stopping her progression toward the vehicle and steadying her aim of the weapon, ready to pull the trigger if not given what she wants.

“Let her take the car, Lou” Marta remarks, wrapping her arms beneath the man’s own and pressing her hands against his chest, trying to pull him as far away from the firearm as she can manage. Agreeing with the vehicle’s passenger, Dawn nods her head approvingly as she takes a lone step forward, “listen to the girl and give me the-”

*pop pop pop pop*

Struck by bullets twice in the lower back, once in the shoulder and a single time through the neck, Dawn hobbles forward and immediately loses her grasp on the pistol, her face having scrunched instinctively once splattered with blood from her own exit wounds. Crashing into the Wrangler for a second time, the woman’s body leaves streaks of gore across the vehicle’s damaged shell before dropping to her knees and collapsing to the ground.

Bracing for dear life, Marta finds herself crammed into her seat by the body of her mentor, who had upped his efforts the second rounds had begun to fire off, pushing himself against his protege to take whatever gunfire may be headed her way. Kneeling close to the ground without anything to defend themselves with, Terry and Jules throw their arms over their heads before watching Dawn’s body collapse in the near distance, triggering the end of the sudden gun battle.

Gasping for air as he throws himself against Marta, Lou watches as his attempted assailant plummets into the earth, dropping dead exactly where she stood without a clue as to how it happened. Joining their Wrangler-seated friend in inspecting the area, Terry and Jules direct their line of sight toward the front-facing windows of the rear-most flat, taking notice of the face that hides behind the smoking barrel of a rifle.

Collectively averting their eyes from the scene of chaos, Lou and a cover-emerging Marta join the men that stand in the open parking lot in staring at the soul who’d spared them from looming danger. Pulling her finger out from the trigger guard and letting the aim of the weapon’s barrel fall toward the ground, Ally pulls her sights away from the victim she’d considered a friend just hours prior, locking them onto those in the Wrangler before guiding them toward Terry and Jules.

Clearly disgusted with what she’d done, Ally lets out a sigh that makes the frown she wears appear to fill with a slight assurance. Having taken a seat on the window sill to clear herself a shot on the woman who’d attempted to leave them all behind, the apparent leader of what now becomes a group of three ducks back into her room as quickly as she’d leant out of it, pulling her gun through the open glass panes before closing the window outright without offering more than the exhaled breath.

= 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 =

Holding the end of his shortened arm with the freed hand on the opposite one, Lou spends the waking moments of a new day leaning against the condo’s painted siding and watching the remaining members of Val’s community dig a pair of graves. Having done his part in returning the body of the pair’s leader to them for a proper burial, the present, yet distant-minded survivor instead sits with the thoughts that cloud his mind, aware that there is one woman missing from the gravedigging.

Watching the work be done without having any intention of helping out, Lou instead finds his motivations carrying him elsewhere, following the lead that the rest of his group had hours prior to the sun rising. Returning to the building’s insides, the man’s captivated mind draws him past the room that the majority of his group occupies, paying not one word to Josie, who stands in the open doorway and watches him stroll along without interfering.

Knocking upon the door at the far end of the corridor, Lou waits out the seconds that proceed, hearing the footsteps within draw closer to the room’s entrance. Wearing a pair of sorrowful eyes and a dejected visage, Ally stands before her boyfriend’s figure without uttering a word, her thumb and palm wrapping around the wooden obstruction’s side as she stands by, patiently expecting the man across from her to speak first.

Without doing so, Lou carries on into the room, stepping past his girlfriend and granting himself entry that the woman doesn’t argue against. With an equal hush, Ally pulls in a deep breath for whatever interaction is bound to proceed before closing the door. “Why?” the man wonders aloud, only allowing his voice to fill the air once he hears the entrance’s mechanisms shut into place, assuring him that the conversation that they’re bound to have will be heard only by themselves.

“That’s a stupid question” Ally answers without much in the way of emotion within her tone, walking through the foyer she’d stood beside and into the adjacent kitchen. “She was your friend and you shot her dead” Lou retorts, a conclusion that the woman had already come to without the need of bringing it up.

“Would you have rather I let her shoot you?” the visibly irritated survivor wonders aloud, wrapping her hands around the kettle that she’d seated beneath the sink’s faucet. “You know what my answer to that is” Lou quickly responds, watching as his girlfriend’s face lifts toward him, her hand guiding the container she carries toward the stove. “I know the answer to your question as well as I’m aware of what I did” Ally rebuttals, “I don’t need a reminder.”

“I want to know why you did it” Lou hastily questions back, having entered the room empty handed and with a clear wonder hanging over his head like a rain cloud over a small town. Wearing her frown the way a survivor of war wears the wounds that their conflicts had scarred them with, Ally turns the dial on the appliance’s top and steps away, keeping her eyes from the figure of the man who questions her motivations.

“She was your friend. You knew each other before we’d found each other, and-” Lou doubles down, continuing to ask the question that his girlfriend appears very disinterested in answering, her distant eyes accompanying the walk she takes past him and into the nearby hallway. Stopping himself from talking as Ally ventures past, the empty-handed visitor watches the flat’s only tenant dip into a room near the end of the passageway without letting him finish.

Hanging his head, Lou listens to the sound of a bag’s zipper being adjusted in the distance as he makes an attempt at keeping his cool, aware of the distance that his girlfriend places between himself and the inquiry he raises. Trying his best to convince his better intentions to sit with the uncertainty that her actions had left him with, the man’s mind fails to persuade the man to exit the same way he’d entered, his need to know why she’d act as she had proves too strong to dissuade.

“You didn’t waste a second to pull that trigger. All I want to know is why” Lou remarks, rounding the corner to find his girlfriend folding a small pile of t-shirts, tucking them away into the open bag that sits on the ground. “I’m not interested in having this conversation, Lou. Don’t bother me with it” Ally rejoinders, continuing to keep her line of sight from the man at her door, “unless we’re gonna fuck, there’s no reason for us to be in the same room as each other right now.”

“Unless you want to hit the open road being unable to look at each other without feeling like there’s a massive elephant in the room, then yes, there is” Lou retorts, hearing the violent breath that his girlfriend lets fire through her nose before continuing to receive no reply. “You gave me this entire talk the other night about how these people are like family to you, only to shoot one of them dead nights later” the man continues, his refusal to let the talk die driving his girlfriend mad.

“With how persistent you are, it’s starting to feel like you’re asking to be the next person I kill” Ally comments, focusing her attention squarely on the task she’s set for herself, giving little care into the rebuttals she offers now. “Would you?” Lou almost instantly asks, watching as his lover’s eyes fire toward him, her attempt at angrily folding the final shirt of the pile ceasing just as the final syllable of the inquiry is raised.

Disgustedly extending her bottom lip farther than the one above it, Ally stares at the man who’d asked her such a vile and insulting question with the disbelief she believes is warranted. “How could you ask me something as sick as that?” the woman counters, frozen in a look of bewilderment at the unchanged expression her boyfriend wears.

“Because, had one of the people in my group been in the place that Dawn was in, I wouldn’t have opened fire on them like that” Lou responds, shaking his head with a shrug of loss, becoming aware of the hurt that his inquiry had caused only after voicing it. “I get that she was waving a gun around, but that didn’t stop me from trying to reason with her” the man continues, the uneasiness that he feels within his core motivating him to try and best backtrack on the disparaging quandary.

“Well then, I’m so fucking happy that you’re such a smarter and more compassionate person than me, Lou” Ally calmly quips back, justifiably throwing the man’s claim back into his face out of a place of pure bafflement. “That’s not what I meant” the man responds with a lowered face, knowing it not to matter now that he’s already dug himself into the hole he occupies.

“I don’t give a fuck” Ally rebuttals, locking eyes with the man who quietly makes the call to not speak any further, her voice continuing to come across with a poised respect that hadn’t been duplicated exactly as presented by the one-armed stalwart. “She stole the car. She went out, stole the car, and tried to leave. She didn’t just leave you and your little Canuck buddies, she tried to leave Darnell, and Christina, and I as well” she speaks further, discarding the shirt into the luggage.

“Dawn made her own goddamn call. Who’s to blame for it? I’m not sure I really give a damn, Lou. At the end of the day, she tried leaving us all out to dry” Ally concludes, stepping away from her bag with her finger pointed toward the direction they’d both entered from. “I made the call that I made. I saw someone who chose to not be with us threaten someone I love” she doubles down, looking into her boyfriend’s face as she draws closer to him, “so, like the traitor they were, I killed them.”

Repulsed by the way in which he’d approached the conversation, Lou hangs his head in shame without knowing how to reply to the woman’s answer, feeling a sickened revulsion in his stomach that ties itself into knots. “I didn’t mea-” he attempts to comment, only for his voice to be dominated by the continuation of his girlfriend’s own, her finger holding firm in the direction of the condo’s communal space.

“I don’t want to look at your goddamn face right now, Lou” Ally bites, her face wearing a furious glare of contempt for the way in which his accusation was levied, one that the man understands entirely. “You’ve got your answer. But the fact that you’d even suggest that I’d...” she clarifies, a tear falling down her cheek as Lou forces himself to look her in the eyes.

“...Just get out” Ally finishes, ceasing her point before turning away from the man and retreating back toward her luggage sorrowfully, hoping that the man she wishes to leave will find it within himself to do as she pleads for him to. Pressing his eyelids shut, Lou lowers his face with shame and pulls out from the room, walking to the flat’s exit as he’d been requested to whilst his girlfriend stays behind.

Trying to fight off the pain that she’d been left to stew in, the woman who’d spent the final hour of the prior day ending the life of her own friend struggles to keep herself contained for as long as necessary. Only giving into the distress that suffocates her mind once she hears the flat’s door close shut, Ally crumples over onto the bed and buries her face into the mattress, shoving it as far into the cushioned support as it takes to silence the open sobbing that she can no longer hold back.

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“I was grasping at straws with the hatchback alone. I wasn’t convinced that thing would’ve made it very far on the tracks” Sebastian explains, shaking his head in refusal at the damage done to the vehicle Dawn had attempted to steal. “That means we’re down to a truck and blind hope in Josie’s abilities to get the Wrangler road-ready again” Adrian responds, his arms crossed and eyes squinting into the distant, cloudy skies whilst Terry stands beside him.

“If Josie can’t get it done on the Jeep, then we’ll be stuck here until more people start getting picked off” the American side’s leader comments with a sigh, provoking a disturbed shake out of Adrian’s head. “I don’t even want to think about that after the shit that bitch tried to pull on Lou and Marta last night” the father responds, a conclusion that the once cabin-owner doubles down on, patting his friend on the shoulder as he steps past.

“How is it looking?” Sebastian queries, leading the men along a trail of tire tracks that lead to the vehicle with a mangled back half. “Well, it won’t look too pretty, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much structural damage aside from the shell” Josie answers, speaking from beneath the vehicle that she shines a torch light around the underbelly of, “the axle is out of alignment, but there doesn’t seem to be too much more damage than that.”

“Can you fix it well enough to drive?” Adrian inquires, not needing to understand the issue to know what the collective hope is. “I can take a chance and hope that Val’s people and the artists in town are all dead. Scope out the place for a garage I can snatch some shit from and fix this thing up” Josie answers, crawling out from beneath the messed up vehicle, “that’ll take a day or two at least if all goes according to plan.”

“Is there any choice we’ve got that will let us leave today?’ Sebastian questions with a squint in his eye, watching as the woman dusts herself off once returning to her feet. “I mean, yeah. We could all pack into the truck and hope to find another car in driving shape between here and that train station we’re headed to” Josie answers, not finding it to be as unreasonable as some others have made it out to seem, “but, as far as the Jeep’s concerned? It wouldn’t be safe.”

Placing his hands onto his hips, Terry turns away from the woman whilst the men he’d approached alongside take on their various expressions of displeasure. “I’d rather not take any chances with whatever’s going on back in town” Sebastian responds, aware of the same conclusion that Josie’s shrug indicates. “I guess we’re gonna have to learn how to get along then” the mechanic replies, looking the Canadian decision-maker in the eyes as she speaks.

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“How long?” Sonya wonders aloud, stepping through the hallway that leads to the flat’s living room. “Darnell said about an hour, so we shouldn’t be staying here for much longer than that” Josie replies, loading protein bars, rolls of tape and other small supplies into her knapsack whilst Elsie watches on. “I'll let the others know” the younger Golden sibling replies, sliding her second arm into the strap of her own bag as she makes for the door, leaving the room to only the pair of inhabitants.

Already having packed her own small bag, Elsie traipses into the kitchen and does a final check of the cabinets and drawers whilst her friend hangs back, tossing her compiled belongings onto a chair in the corner of the room. “So, we’re all going in one car, huh?” the blonde inquires, watching as Josie approaches the window at the back of the room, its vantage point affording her a look at the snow-covered, rolling hills that sit beneath a rather gloomy Christmas day.

“We don’t have much of a choice but to get along now” the mechanic responds, clapping her hands as they swing by each of her sides, the time between the present and their departure not being capable of running out fast enough. Nodding in the background, Elsie continues to look into one cupboard after another with a lone question on her mind, one that she’s not quite sure how to bring up, but has all the opportunity to do so in the moment.

Occupying the room in silence as they attend to different responsibilities, the girls take toward the hush over the room in separate approaches. Whilst Josie waits out the clock that ticks down to their withdrawal by taking in the scenic surroundings she will likely never see again, Elsie endures the uncomfortability that comes with her desire to ask one inquiry that has sat itself at the front of her mind for the last few days.

“Do you remember that hike we went on with Darnell and Christina the other day?” the blonde comes out and wonders aloud, watching as the person she raises the question toward turns back with a lifted eyebrow. “Yes?” Josie replies without certainty, finding the question that’s raised to be rather odd and unbefitting at the moment, “it’s kind of hard to forget something that literally happened the other day.”

“I know, I... Yeah, I know” Elsie stammers, leaving her knapsack to rest just beside the sink, the blonde marches around the corner and leans against the bunk beds situated off to the side. “When Darnell was talking about his mom, and about what happened to his brother, I noticed this look on your face” the woman continues, watching Josie’s eyes begin to fall at the recollection of the conversation that had taken place that night.

“I don’t mean to intrude or anything. It’s just that I think there was something about it that caught your mind a bit” Elsie explains, seeing the nod that her friend initially reacts to her with, “I just wanna let you know that I’m here for you in case you want to talk about it.” Parting her lips with a smile, Josie laughs at the offer that’s presented to her, knowing it to be true, but finding it almost as cliche as anything can be.

Looking toward the ceiling as her smile remains, Josie thinks about the words she wishes to use as she draws her mind back around to the tale that Darnell had fed them along their journey, unable to fully convince herself that it was true. “My brother was a mechanic. He opened up his own shop back home maybe a decade ago. Bought an old garage a few blocks from where we grew up” the woman confesses, confident in the trust she has with the woman she speaks to.

“Whenever I didn’t want to go to school, I’d pretend to be sick and my mom would drive me down a few streets so my brother could look after me” she continues, wearing a grin as she remembers fonder times than the ones she endures in the present day. “She said that if I wasn’t interested in getting a good education, I should go visit my brother and see how the uneducated lived life” Josie laughs, leaning against a wall opposite the side of the room Elsie sits on the bottom bunk of.

“My brother wasn’t a very good student. So, when he was old enough, he got a job in a shop on the other side of town. He learned a bit, worked his way up, and saved enough to buy his own shop” she continues, allowed to speak freely without fear of interruption. “No matter how hard my brother worked, mom always thought of him like he’d never accomplished anything. He may have bought his own shop, but he never walked out of school with a degree. It never sat well with her.”

Watching on with a slight squint in her eyes, Elsie leans forward with her arms draped over the tops of her thighs, looking in the direction of the woman who continues to carry a smile toward the ground that her sights lock onto. “My brother didn’t care, though. To him, he’d earned the right to consider himself a made man. He made good money, knew good people, and that was what mattered” Josie concedes, finally looking across the room, “I wanted to be the same thing one day.”

Curling her lips upward, Elsie’s pleased demeanour begins to fall into one of uncertainty as she watches the light in Josie’s eyes begin to falter, falling along with the woman’s pupils. “Whenever my mom would send me down to him, he’d teach me, little-by-little, the skills he’d learned since he started working. After about three years, he started trusting me to do the smaller jobs. Oil changes, standard checks... the basics.”

Though she speaks of accomplishments, Josie’s face fails to wear the pride that would seemingly accompany the remarks made, instead sporting a dejected hanging of her spirits. “Then he died a few years ago. It was pretty much how you’d expect a story like his to end in the movies” she concludes, shaking her head defeatedly, “a young black man makes something of himself, gang violence takes over the neighbourhood, and the young black man catches a stray bullet in a gunfight.”

Surprised at the haste in which her friend’s retelling concludes and in the manner which its end if composed of, Elsie lifts off of her knees and holds her apologetic expression toward a refusing Josie. “I know, I know. I haven’t told many people that, but I’ve gotten the same ‘I’m so sorry’ from all of them” the woman remarks with a forced smile, not having opened her vulnerabilities for the purpose of drawing sympathy, “just do me a favour and...”

“I wasn’t going to say that” Elsie responds, shaking her head as the woman across from her remains silent. As opposed to finishing her thought, the blonde lady returns to her quietude, having assured her friend that the same reply would not be given and leaving it at that, a correction that puts a renewed smile on Josie’s face before it bows toward the floor once more.

“Anyway. I got home and my mom broke the news to me. She said he’d been in trouble with some local guys and they went after him purposefully” Josie explains, shrugging off the declaration as one she knew had not been true as far back as when it was first made. “I asked her last year why she lied to me, and she said she didn’t know how else to tell me what happened” the woman concludes, seemingly less affected by the lie than it seems she should be.

“I’d moved to a different state a few months after it happened, but I still came around for holidays and birthdays” Josie recalls, guiding her eyes toward the peaceful hills that bare the weight of the Canadian winter atop them. “When I asked her why she’d lied to me, she said it was the safest way she knew how” the woman confesses, letting out a prolonged sigh as she watches the sunlight break through a slight gap in the storm clouds above.

“She thought that, if she told me he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, I’d get really down in the dumps over it. She worried I’d think less of life if I knew it could just be taken away without doing anything wrong” Josie explains, finally returning her sights to the woman seated across from her, “I held a bit of resentment toward her until then for making my brother out to seem like a thug. But after, I appreciated her a lot more for trying to just make sure I kept my head up.”

Mustering the ability to return a faint smile, Elsie watches her friend reciprocate the expression and shrug, unsure of what more can be said. “That’s it. That’s my story” Josie concludes, waiting for a moment for the blonde to stand out from her seat and cut across the carpeted floor, walking up to the survivor and pulling her in for a hug, their arms taking each other into the embrace and lifting their collective morales.

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Pushing their various crates of food and goods toward one side of the truck bed, Lou and Marta make room within the rear side of the vehicle for Adrian, Sebastian, and Courtney to join them. “How’s your neck?” the lone Simard child wonders aloud, watching her mentor wince in pain at every prolonged movement, his sigh of relief flooding the air once he earns the chance to sit down and settle in for the ride ahead.

“Not in a bad enough shape to keep me from moving” the lone wanderer responds, passing the woman an appreciative grin, the nod that he receives from her assuring him that the answer is fair enough for her to accept. Crammed against the door just behind the driver’s seat, Ally looks toward the truck’s bed through the corner of her eye, seeing the warmth shared between her boyfriend and his protege whilst Darnell’s frame leans against her, making room for Christina and Jenn to join them.

“Are you sure this thing is gonna be able to make room for three more people?” Terry inquires, inspecting the vehicle that Josie and Elsie occupy the front-most seats in, seeing very little room to work with. Looking around, the passengers of the vehicle survey the interior for room that doesn’t exist within the back, the variety of goods that line the entire side opposite those in the flatbed leaving room there sparse as well.

“Hey, Josie. How far do you think that Wrangler would be able to take us?” Jules calls out, preferring not to wrestle for room through a journey that they expect to take days at the very least. “If you treat it like a lover, it could take you the entire way to Calgary” Josie answers, calling back from the Silverado’s driver’s seat, “but it’ll give you one fucking hell of a fight. That shit’s not something you’re gonna want if we’re crossing a bridge or driving over some ice.”

“How about this. If you were one of us having to squeeze together and make room, would you rather spend the whole trip crammed up like we are or take your chances with the Wrangler?” Sonya questions aloud, watching Josie quickly unbuckle her seatbelt and free the driver’s seat for anyone else to claim. “I trust myself more than I trust most of you behind the wheel of that thing” the mechanic proclaims, throwing her thumb in the direction of the open seat.

“Since I’m sure we’ll end up carrying this bag of ass as far as we can anyway, I’ll drive the Wrangler and someone else can lead the way in the truck” she proclaims, watching an eager Jules lift his hand into the air, volunteering to take over. “In that case, I think Courtney and I should go in the other car with Sonya” Sebastian remarks, a conclusion being drawn that not a single vote of opposition is cast toward.

With the groups appearing to be set for departure, Terry begins following Josie toward the Wrangler before stopping halfway, looking back toward the truck as Jules climbs into the driver’s seat. “Hey, hold up just a second!” the man proclaims, catching the attention of those both in the truck and heading away from it. Having drawn the attention toward himself, the American side’s leader pauses for a moment before looking toward the Wrangler, struggling to bring himself to say what he’d intended.

“I, uh... I think I’d be more, uh...” the man proclaims, pressing his hand against the back of his head as a flood of guilt comes over him for holding up the departure for the reason he does, “...I’d be more comfortable if Darnell or Christina went in the Wrangler too.” With eyes from both the flatbed and the truck’s front seat taking toward the bench between them, the pair of survivors called out look toward Terry for a moment before a reply is offered.

“Why should w-?” Christina wonders aloud, looking back toward the man through the parted window before falling silent, gestured to do so by the hand of the man beside her. “No problem, I’ll come with you guys!” Darnell proclaims, taking it upon himself to set the example for his side of the group in playing nicely, “after what happened last night, it’s totally understandable!”

“You shouldn’t have to go with them just ‘cause of what D-” Christina rebuttals, finding herself interrupted by the man that doubles down on setting the precedent. “It’s only for the car ride and we’ll be right behind you guys. It’s only fair” Darnell responds, beginning to move toward the exit that Ally momentarily climbs down from, freeing a path for her friend to depart.

Being passed by the man without a word uttered to her, Ally steps back into the vehicle and passes a momentary look toward Christina, who glares at her with disgust that’s given no verbal explanation. Accepting the sourness that she’s stared at with, the brunette settles back into her seat and prepares for the truck to begin moving whilst Darnell journeys across the lot, joining the survivors that split away from the Silverado as all appears to fall into place.

Slowly rolling out of their parked positions, the pair of vehicles descend upon the mainroad and officially begin their journey toward the home they wish to make for themselves, knowing the distance between where they start and where they’re meant to end to be vast and unrelenting. Collectively unsure of what’s to be expected now that their sights have been locked upon the Canadian prairies, the divided groups settle in for the long haul, hoping for the adventure to pay off accordingly.

== RISE and REVOLT ==