S7, E1 | Twelve-Nineteen

Season 7 Premiere

Pulling her head back, Charlotte lifts her right leg over her left, her non-dominant hand sitting over her right wrist as she relaxes into her seat, melting into it like chocolate on a marshmallow. Lips kept together as her malevolent grin subsides, eyes kept fixated upon the figure that’s grown bulkier and more confident since the last time she’d laid sights upon him. Remaining silent, the lady positioned at the wheel of power in Nova Scotia’s ranks allows the tension to bubble.

Though they’d initially sat upon it flat, Emilio’s hands now curl toward each side of the desk he’s seated at, the sides of his hands resting against the hardwood finish whilst his palms remain faced toward the seat. Looking into the face of a familiar foe he now finds himself on the same side of, the man finds an absence of the vigour he would’ve anticipated being met with if better prepared, unaware of how obvious his expression of awe is presented.

“You didn’t expect me to be here, did you?” Charlotte wonders, eyelids pressing incredibly close for just a moment as she tries to read the visage sitting across from her, only able to come upon one conclusion. “It might’ve been something that crossed your mind every once in a while, but I’m starting to doubt you ever truly thought I’d have made it back here in one piece” she persists, watching her newest arrival bow his head slightly, “you thought I got ripped apart out there, didn’t you?”

Looking back toward the woman as she finishes her thought, Emilio keeps his lips pressed together for the time being as his hands slowly glide toward each other, coupling together a few short inches away from his chest. “By all means, don’t be afraid to spill the beans here. If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t have expected myself to still be alive either” Charlotte confesses, shrugging her shoulders and passing a glance to the side, “I expected nothing less than the same with you.”

“With all that’s happened in the last few years, I can’t believe you still like hearing yourself talk just as much now as you did back then” Emilio murmurs, looking toward the ground as his eyes roll, back pressing into his seat as the commander across from him chuckles. “What do you want me to say? I’m exactly as advertised” Charlotte retorts, her right leg bouncing atop the left it sits atop, “besides, this is supposed to be my opportunity to gloat! I’m still alive and- well, we’ll get there.”

“No, I didn’t fully expect you to be dead” Emilio responds, circling back to answer the woman’s initial question, partially out of a hurry to prevent himself having to hear her gloat. “There was a part of me that kept refusing to believe you were here- even with all the evidence I had to prove otherwise- because I didn’t know how it’d be possible for you to be” he proceeds, speaking through the silence his adversary offers him, “but I just really wanted to believe this would be different.”

“And by this you mean me?” Charlotte inquires, quickly offered her rebuttal by the man whose bushy facial hair repeatedly earns her passing squints. “No. I mean Nova Scotia” Emilio replies, keeping himself quiet for a moment before his coupled hands slip from the desk and fall into his lap, joining him in leaning back against his seat whilst his eyes take to the room’s shattered windows.

“It hasn’t been long enough for me to forget about what you built the old New World Order to do. The rules you put in place and the way you saw the people” Emilio explains, crossing his left leg over his right as his tongue presses against the grooves of his teeth. “We’ve been out there for years looking for a home we’d never have to leave. We’re tired of running” he continues, shaking his head gingerly with a deep-rooted disappointment.

“We’ve taken down two communities, and nearly saw a third- the best one we’ve seen so far- go down just the same” the scruffy-bearded survivor confesses, his head slowly roaming back toward the woman seated miles above him on the compound’s rank of command, “part of me just wanted to hold onto the belief that this would be an actual fresh st... Will you quit staring at my beard!”

“I’m sorry, you just look so much like a lumberjack” Charlotte replies, shaking her head in playful awe as the subject of her interrogation is ripped from the genuine place of desire his words were taken from, “I’m not kidding, the resemblance is un-fucking-canny! It’s honestly like you always expected to end up in Canada and just wanted to make sure you looked the part upon entry.”

“What the hell is happening!? Are you supposed to be questioning me or eye-fucking my facial hair?” Emilio rebukes, having anticipated that the woman would reply quickly, though her considerable pause thwarts that expectation. “Is both an option?” Charlotte soon replies, watching her citizen's rolling eyes and taking them as a disappointing answer, “alright fine, you tease! We’ll go back to doing the no fun stuff.”

“Is this supposed to be a game to you?” Emilio wonders aloud, watching the woman sit slightly further upright as her arms fold at her chest, “I thought this was the last remaining pillar of society- or whatever the hell they sold it to us as down in Cumberland.”

“For fuck’s sake, I pulled this same shit with John years ago. If anyone should know how I roll, you and his wife are amongst the first people I’d expect that from” Charlotte retorts, watching the man’s face drift away from her, concealing his visage from her eyes. “Besides, it gets real quiet up here from time to time. There isn't much in the way of heads to hunt when everyone’s trying to maintain their best behaviour” the woman confesses, “and none of them have the track record we do.”

“You mean they don’t threaten to run you out of power every other week?” Emilio jabs back, the quick rebuttal he’d anticipated earlier finally arriving. “No, most of the people here don’t let morality cloud their judgement and take the walls down” Charlotte quips back, the crossing of her arms deepening in appearance, “believe it or not, they don’t have much of an issue with deciding who does or doesn’t get inside when they have food, protection, and a roof over their heads.”

Bowing his head and obstructing the view of his face even further, Emilio keeps himself concealed from the woman across from him, who finally picks up on his restrained posture for what is hidden within it. Her sarcastic and arguably affable demeanour falling aside, Charlotte’s eyes narrow and she focuses on the disheartened expression her once-adversary wears and lowers her humoured presentation, voice falling back to the stifled tone she’d entered the room with.

“How did he go out?” the woman wonders aloud, finally watching the man’s eyes drift toward her direction in their corners, “I have a count of who did and didn’t come in. You’ve got a couple of people I’ve never seen before, and a whole lot of people that I was expecting to see but didn’t. I know Cowboy’s not here, so how did he die?”

Returning his eyes to the side of the room, Emilio remains stoic and stiff, reserved in his posture whilst the leader of his new home continues to watch on, not intending to end their interaction until what’s shared suffices her interest. Letting out a sigh the woman across from him can easily make out, the subject of the interrogation sits upright in his chair just slightly, eyes still held toward the ground as his lips part.

“He got stabbed after we started heading for Providence. We were cornered by a group we’d run off from, and he sacrificed himself to buy us time” Emilio confesses, his remarks interrupted by the sound of a voice calling through a nearby radio. “Courtney to Nova Scotia, I need Charlotte on the line” a woman’s voice emerges through the device clipped onto the leader’s hip, soon taken into her hand and carried up to her soft lips.

“This is Charlotte. What’s the need, Courtney?” the leader responds, pulling her finger off the red button on the device’s side whilst waiting to hear back from the other end. “We’re narrowing in on Toronto. We should be in position to launch an offensive by midday, but we’ll be better suited to take the compound over if we go under the cover of night” Courtney replies, hunched over a desk in the corner of a rundown sushi restaurant.

“Are you aware of any occupants in the camp from where you are?” Charlotte wonders aloud, her finger pulled from the button once more. “Negative. We should know within the next six hours, but we’re still working off the intel from weeks ago” Courtney replies, pressing her back into a wall lined with chipped paint that only grows worse for wear by each passing day, “we have enough ammunitions to last us a few days, but any fight stretching four would push our resources.”

“As long as you know to wait them out and spare the goods, we should be fine” Charlotte replies, her finger- its nail painted with a light blue polish- again pulling from the red button. “We’re well aware. We just want this over as quickly as possible and without mass casualty” Courtney replies, peering around the nearest corner to the troop-lined Ontario street just a short few metres from her, “we’ll call back shortly.”

“Understood” Charlotte replies, ceasing the call and returning the radio to the clip on her side as the man across from her finally lessens his restrained demeanour. “What’s the good that Toronto’s gonna do for you?” Emilio inquires, a squint in his right eye as he watches the woman latch the device to her hip, “I thought I heard the word ‘compound’, so I’m going to assume you’re talking about the one you never got off the ground.”

“Even if I wanted you to know, you’re far better off being as uninformed as possible” Charlotte replies, flashing the man a smile before leaning forward, folding her hands atop the desk once more, “what happened to the others?”

His line of questioning lasting just as long as his confident demeanour does, Emilio falls back into his seat once more and looks off to the side, visibly displeased with having to venture down this line of thought. “Tyler went-” he begins to answer, only for Charlotte’s voice to catch his ear, halting his remarks as a more declarative tone is taken in her cadence.

“For fuck’s sake, are you a teenager that just got called on by the teacher in class? Pick your damn head up!” the woman commands, watching her subject’s eyes lift toward her direction as he pauses, “we’re some of the fortunate few that’ve made it this far since everything went to hell. Pick your chin up and act like you belong here, damnit.”

Slightly irked at the demand, though more irritated at the child-like orders that’ve been made of him, Emilio parts his eyes the regular way and lets his bottom lip hang just two inches away from his top, the man’s chest lining up with that of Nova Scotia’s commander in chief. “The people in Sheol- a camp we were at- beat Janice to death” the man replies, a slightly disappointed look carried in the face of the woman seated opposite him, “Tyler and Reggie went down when we went back for revenge.”

“Alright, well at least I know there’s one person that I won’t have to worry about trying to kill me somewhere out in public” Charlotte retorts, a squint carried in her right eye, “though Mr. Burn Victim being gone might get in the way of me making friends with Jackie-boy and his girlfriend. Or is Lauren his wife? Oh, fuck it- who cares?”

“She’s his wife and he’s still not going to like you” Emilio reassures, continuing to think hard to himself as he recollects the laundry list of the deceased that have come to pass. “Meghan got bit, Troy and Cameron got taken out when we were ambushed, and then John died a while after that” Emilio proceeds, “Katie left of her own volition before we got into Cumberland, and I’d rather not get into the Callis’ and Heather, so let’s just say they all died leave it at that... please.”

Though slightly tense, Charlotte’s shoulders begin to lower as she looks into the man’s eyes, his non-verbal plea to let the discussion end there viewed fully and clearly. Bowing her head momentarily, the woman lets the man’s words settle before wiping the top of her nose with the tip of her finger, trying to pull herself toward the questions that intrigue her more to seek an answer to.

“Is this place going to fall apart?” Emilio wonders aloud, watching the woman’s eyes quickly lift from the ground and dart toward his direction, caught by surprise at the inquiry. “Everywhere we’ve gone, and anything we’ve tried to do so we could just settle down and try to live- they’ve all fallen apart” the man clarifies, watching the woman’s shoulders lower more naturally this second time around, “we’ve taken your home down before. If we can, someone else can. Tell me that won't happen.”

Eyes calm and firmly placed upon the curious man across from her presence, Charlotte lets a breath leave through her nose as the question sits within her, taking a spot within a deep recess of her mind. “No. This community will not fall” the woman responds, her answer both honest and optimistic, “If Nova Scotia cannot live in this world, then nothing can. I have many responsibilities, but keeping this place alive is the priority. Nova Scotia cannot fall, and I cannot let it.”

= Rise is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 3 onwards =

Staring off at the setting sun with hands on her hips, Courtney stares at the open road that remains just a few metres ahead, clear of the Nova Scotian soldiers and artillery that adorns the street behind her. “They can’t see us, right?” a pale man whose face is covered with dirt asks aloud, calling out to the men he prepares to take up arms alongside, though his answer comes from the woman stationed at the forefront of the front lines.

“This wall faces the compound's rear. The pulley system to open the doors just across that bridge weren’t finished by the time people started losing faith in the system” the woman replies, adjusting the flaps of her leather jacket before letting her hands fall to each side. “Unless they got creative, the people inside don’t have a way to pry those things open without doing it manually” she continues, stepping back to join her fellow guardsmen, “there’s a reason we’re attacking from this side.”

“I was just making sure!” the man chirps back with a grin, presenting the woman with a dose of sarcasm strong enough to strengthen her own grin. Shaking her head, Courtney takes a tie and fastens her hair into a ponytail, dipping back into the rundown storefront before reaching back toward her hip, though it’s the one on the opposite side of her talkie.

“I know there’s no way to find out for a fact, but how highly-rated do you think this place was before the shutdown?” a black man with a receding hairline wonders aloud, leaning against the table a long-range radio is stationed atop. “Is this a trick question?” Courtney inquires, retrieving and beginning to wear an red baseball cap over her head, fitting her tied hair through the hole in the back, “it sounds pretty straight forward, but I know how Donnie is with his playful gags.”

“Can’t a man ask a question without having the worst assumed of him?” the man quickly wonders aloud, hands lifted at each side whilst a third man chuckles, staring past his light grey t-shirt and at the flashlight he loads with batteries. “Of course he can, but you’re no ordinary man-” Courtney retorts, her right palm pressing into the hardwood table her colleague sits behind, the same grin worn that she’d carried through the door, “-you’re an amusing little cunt.”

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” the third man inquires, watching the woman’s amused eyes turn toward his direction. “If you think that’s harsh, you don’t know the first thing about me, Ethan” Courtney rebukes, her finger lifted toward the man’s direction, only earning a further giggle from the pre-occupied soldier.

“Cough it up, I wanna know what you’re hiding” she playfully commands Donnie, curling her fingers toward her own direction as she waits for his relinquishing of whatever information he may be hiding. “Again, why must you just assume that-” the subject of her inquiry retorts, passing off a look of unconvincing defence before folding, incapable of finishing his thought before forfeiting a stack of papers, “-okay, fine. The owners printed out the reviews and kept them in the back office.”

Yet again filling the air with subdued laughter, Ethan shakes his head as he struts up to the nearest table, taking a seat for himself whilst Courtney ventures past, stepping up to the front counter where multiple stools reside. “That might’ve been your worst attempt at a gag yet” she mutters aloud, dragging the wooden legs of the seat across the dirt-covered tiled floors, “I’d say it’s even worse than that time you tried to convince Ethan that New York was part of New England.”

“Hey, I thought he was talking about England propper” Ethan quips aloud, this time his voice being the one to spark laughter from Donnie, though Courtney’s mind is set elsewhere. “Ethan, that not only doesn’t make it better, but that actually makes it worse” she rebuttals, watching the defensive demeanour come over the subject of her humour, the background filled with heightened laughter of the radio’s controlman.

“I thought he was talking about before the colonies broke off! Like when the Dutch settled there and called it New Amster-” Ethan ripostes, eventually throwing his hands up and allowing them to collide with his legs as they plummet back toward earth, a heavy slap ringing through the air as he confesses defeat, “-oh, screw it. I don’t know why I bother, the two of you are never gonna let me live that one down.”

“No. No, we are not” Courtney replies, shaking her head with a grin from one ear to the other as she comes to a rest leaning forward, the base of her palm pressing against the stool’s seat. Letting her head hang, the woman’s smile naturally fades as a content grin remains upon her face, the air within the room beginning to settle as Donnie’s finger rolls the nearest dial, flipping through the channels he’s afforded the privilege of listening into.

“-off and on” a voice emanates through the radio, sparking a slight interest out of the room’s inhabitants, though the tone is too fuzzy to make out. “Do your thing, Donnie” Courtney chirps, not needing more than the faintest sound of a voice belonging to forces other than her own to be compelled by the dialogue unfolding before her.

“Well, no one here pays you to be shotty with your deliveries. You either have what we’re looking for, or you don’t” the second voice responds, heard much clearer by the trio listening in beyond his awareness with the knob’s slightest turn. “We do, but we can’t just replace the cows out of thin air” the original reflection replies, every word quietly picked apart for meaning through the silent on-listeners, “we have to let the field repopulate naturally. The runs are bound to be smaller.”

“George, we’ve got thirty people in this camp- how much do you think we’re gonna need?” the second man chirps back, challenging the remarks he’d seemingly been fed from the other end of the line, “we’re the easiest group for you to supply!”

“The second guy sounds like he’s inside the compound” Donnie quips aloud, his eyes turning to gaze at the company he shares, “it’s hard to hear, but his voice is coming in a little bit clearer than the other. He’s closer than the other one is.” Trusting the man’s expertise, Courtney nods back to the man at the helm of the goliath-sized communication device and remains hushed, not wanting to miss what’s spoken on the other end.

“If that’s the rationale you want to operate on, it also makes your camp the easiest one to cut off completely. Instead, we’re giving you the same percentage as everyone else” the initial, apparently more-distant voice retorts, receiving a sigh from the deflated figure he speaks to. “We’re already starving as it is, G” the grizzled voice assumedly presenting itself from within the nearby compound’s walls retorts, “the sparsity of these deliveries could be what break us for good.”

“That’s leverage” Ethan murmurs aloud, eyes colliding with those behind the face of the woman sitting between himself and the other man, “they’re spread too thin. We approach them with an offer and they’ll fold like a house of cards.”

Nodding, Courtney passes her eyes back toward the ground as the apparent delivery man speaks once more, his words forcing the woman’s stare to dart toward the behemoth machine.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. We’re hurting just as bad as you are- if not worse” the first man rebukes, the sound of his voice making it sound as if he were shaking his head amidst a sigh whilst on the conversation’s other end of the line, “you’re just gonna have to make due, Lou.”

Firing like a brass jacket from the propulsion of a gun’s barrel, Courtney’s eyes lock onto the machine whilst her contemporaries continue to listen in, not paying any mind to the dialogue that they hadn’t before. “But you will be here on Sunday, right?” the second man- now afforded the decency of being called by name- replies with the faintest of hope, “I don’t know what we’re gonna do if you don’t.”

“Yeah, we’ll be there on Sunday” George retorts, ending the conversation just as it had begun, only this time with a larger audience than he realises, “just hold tight until then. We’ll get you enough to make due until we show back up.”

“Alright” Lou concludes, a clear and resonant exasperation held within his response, the discontent he wears on his chest refusing to hide itself for those listening in, “we’ll see you Sunday.”

Going dead, the communication ceases, returning the massive radio to the dead airwaves that had littered its presentation throughout the majority of the day. “If that other guy is coming through on Sunday, that gives us three nights- including this one- to get a foothold in that compound” Donnie remarks, a visible optimism carried in his widened eyes, “if we play our cards right, there might be a supplier out there that we can slip our way into.”

Sharing his colleague’s line of thought, Ethan bobs his head in agreement toward the man before redirecting his gaze toward the woman seated between them, immediately put off by her rigid and shell-shocked demeanour. “You good, Courtney?” the man wonders aloud, the question he raises prompting Donnie to also look in her direction, finding the same troublesome glare in her eyes.

As if just confronted with the sight of a ghost, the whites of the woman’s eyes take toward the flashlight-wielding soldier to her left, soon dragging themselves across the room and onto Donnie no different than she’d dragged the legs of the stool she sits atop across the floor. “Do you feel alright?” Ethan doubles down, beginning to lift himself out of the chair he occupies before watching the woman he poses the question toward step off her hardwood chair.

“We have to make peace with those people inside the camp tonight” Courtney mumbles, just loud enough for both men to overhead as she steps back onto the soldier-littered road beyond the front doors. “Everyone, listen up!” the glassy-eyed woman with a handgun in the waistband of her jeans remarks, calling to attention every man that stands by, counting down the hours before they are to march into action.

“I’m adding extra emphasis on the peaceful takeover orders tonight” Courtney declares, watching both Ethan and Donnie stagger onto the adjacent sidewalk, as curious toward her reasoning as the fleet of soldiers that guide their eyes toward her. “Under no circumstances can we be the first people to shoot!” the woman barks aloud, her dominant hand aiming a finger at the ground she occupies, “if we can manage it, I want the priority to be not firing a single goddamn bullet tonight, understood?”

At a complete loss, the stationed guards pass looks toward each other briefly before joining their fellow men and women in barking their understanding retorts toward the mission’s overseer. “Yes, ma’am!” the fleet soon take to the sky, filling it with their voices one after another, finding themselves within a united front, one that moves at the orders of their overseer.

Bowing her head for the briefest moment, Courtney quietly nods at her group of armed Nova Scotians before releasing the deepest sigh she’s freed in months, putting one foot in front of the other in her retreat within the strewn-apart restaurant. As at a loss for words as each other, Ethan and Donnie gaze upon each other and shake their heads, the faintest shrugs speaking volumes toward how clueless they are of whatever’s inspired such a shift in their overseer’s command.

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“You find that funny?” Emilio wonders aloud, his confidence returned for the most part as he leans against the top of his desk, an eyebrow raised. “Of course I do” Charlotte responds, shaking her head as her body dresses toward one side of the desk, her right arm draped over its top whilst her left sits limply atop her lap whilst gesturing throughout any duration of the woman’s various remarks, “you tore apart my home, ended countless lives! It’s only right that you have to take your lumps.”

“We weren’t taking our lumps, we were fighting for every last second we had out there!” Emilio grunts, clearly aggravated at the amused tone the woman takes with him, “I’m not saying we were always morally right, but taking humour in hearing what we had to go through? It’s-”

“It’s deserved” Charlotte interjects, finishing the man’s thought on his behalf, though not using the conclusion he would’ve otherwise provided, “I was the only woman in the entire country it seems that had the wherewithal to know that shit was falling apart behind the scenes. The government was scrambling like chickens with their heads cut off while I was building fortresses, preserving what fragments of society I could. And you came along and threatened to kill all of it.”

Shaking his head as he throws himself back against his chair, Emilio stares off at the window whilst the leader of the compound he now inhabits continues to speak. “Sorry, Governor. You don’t get to just walk around here getting to pretend that you were always the good guy in this equation” Charlotte continues, speaking to the side of the face the man presents her with, “I said it before, and I’ll keep saying it for as long as you’re in my presence... I’m a bitch, but I’m right.”

Staring back at the lady through the corner of his eyes, Emilio listens to her rebuttal as it proceeds, beginning to watch the shadows of trees plaster themselves against the wall to the woman’s back as the sunlight casts them, continuing to age just as the day does. “I’ve always been right. I don’t think that’s ever been more clear than by the fact that it’s you that’s now come crawling back to me” Charlotte concludes, crossing her arms as she sinks into her seat, “be grateful I’ve let you in.”

“There it is again!” Emilio sighs, both his top and bottom teeth presenting themselves through parted lips, incapable of hiding away as he’s returned to perhaps his greatest question, “maybe I can wrap my mind around the idea of you having some twisted, morbid way of looking at us as old friends catching up, or something along those lines- maybe. But I still can’t tell why- for the life of me- you agreed to take us in.”

Unlike other inquiries, Charlotte fails to come up with a quick retort to answer the man with, that oversight alone enough to make her adversary privy to the murky waters residing beneath the surface of what she presents, though his hand is thwarted from submerging itself at every chance the woman has to prevent him from doing so.

A steady breath taken in through her nose before delicately fluttering back outward, Charlotte’s chin drops as her upright-seated posture begins to slouch ever-so-slightly. “Like I said, you- and your group- aren’t special here. You’re not close confidants, you’re not high-ranking executives, and after we’re done here, you’ll likely never see me apart from special occasions” the woman proceeds, “delicate information is for me to know- not you. The only thing you lot are here are citizens.”

Turning his head off to the side, Emilio sports a visible look of disinterest in the answer provided, his voice remaining quelled as the woman he speaks to continues on. “Everywhere you’ve gone, you and the rest of your group have been like folk heroes. John was my puppet in New York, and the rest of you were right there with him” she proceeds, nowhere near being finished with her thought just yet.

“You took out that camp on the lake and installed a puppet government that barely lasted, what? A week? Then you mess with Sun City for a little bit and run off into the countryside” Charlotte advances, still yet to near her conclusion, “you get to Cumberland and eventually weasel your way into Jade’s inner circle. And if that’s not enough, the rejected half of you managed to weasel your way into that old fart’s inner circle, blow up my ship, ruin my port, and nearly spark a civil war!”

“Are you done yet?” Emilio questions aloud, receiving his answer as quickly as most of his responses are handed, the Nova Scotian leader’s vehement refusal and spiteful shake of the head answering him in ways her words fail to see the need to. “Now, all of you- or what’s left of you for that matter- have snuck your way into the ultimate prize! Play nice, and you’ll have finally found a home!” Charlotte spits aloud, clear vigour in her rebuke.

“It sure doesn’t sound like we’re being accepted with open arms, does it?” Emilio wonders aloud, his half-hearted, sarcasm-laced quip falling dead on arrival as the spiteful tone of Charlotte pushes past it, pretending the words themselves don’t exist as she carries on with her declaration. “I am not going to sit here and let you think that you, or anyone that you brought here with you, will be anything more than tolerated here” she progresses, “and fuck you if you thought any different!”

“Are you directing all of this energy toward me because I deserve it, or is this all because John’s not alive for you to give it to him?” Emilio proceeds, still not fully taking to heart the declarative cries bellowing from the lungs of Nova Scotia’s founder. “Here, Governor- let me offer you the truth. If John were here, it’d be really tempting to toy with him for all that I could” Charlotte responds, her most devious grin worn to date, “but I would’ve shot him before he even got off that bus.”

Nodding to himself, Emilio bows his head toward the ground and accepts the words being spoken by the woman that sits across from him, clearly fed up with the brunt of her contempt. “Call it Nova Scotia, call it New Brunswick, call it the New World Order- I don’t care” Charlotte furthers, “but make no mistake about this, it is mine. If you so much as speak out of line, I will have you killed quicker than anything that’s nipped your group in the bud thus far.”

“I understand” Emilio quickly responds, dropping the defensive presentation and accepting that it’ll take him nowhere, instead opting to offer himself as willing and abiding as he can manage. “I really hope you do, because this is the only second chance that I’m going to give you” Charlotte doubles down, a snarl in her face, “I will kill you. I’ll feed Alicia’s baby to the biters outside the fence. I’ll shoot Franklin dead, I’ll gut Jack in front of Lauren- all just to prove a point.”

“Again, I understand” Emilio nonchalantly replies, accepting his position in the compound’s hierarchy once more, though it’s still yet to suffice the woman whose order he now falls under once again. “And I really, really hope you honestly do. Because I will execute you all faster than you can blink- look at me” Charlotte proceeds, urging the man to look her in the eyes.

Jutting his chin forward, Emilio cooperates with the demand of the woman seated opposite him, leaning forward slightly to cement his eyes upon her own. “I will be sure to make you all suffer at each other’s expense to such a degree that morality becomes impossible to even remember” Charlotte sinks in with vigour, “I’ll kill you quicker than the dead took Meg, quicker than John threw himself on the sword that he, himself stood upright, and quicker than your husband put himself down like a dog.”

The steady focus his eyes had worn up to that moment now fading into a stoic, stone-cold and unwavering stare, Emilio drives daggers into Charlotte’s eyes with his unmoving pupils alone, the motion in the hairs that rise on the back of his neck more noticeable than the movement of his face.

Silent and patient, Charlotte waits for her subject to respond at his own discretion, the motionless stare she presents closely comparable to a hunter’s cautious approach of recently gunned-down prey. As if frozen in time, Emilio’s lips remain pressed together, the soft cushions of flesh that sink into each other soon parting, the only movement shown through his entire body, and all with the intention of speaking just one word.

“Understood.”

Remaining positioned just as she had been throughout the stare down, Charlotte reads through the man’s soul as she peers into his eyes, able to hear the rustling of leaves in the mid-summer breeze just outside the room’s shattered windows. This exhale louder than any sigh she’d breathed into existence thus far, the Nova Scotian leader slowly leans back in her seat and lets her facial muscles settle, their tension-like lockdown easing before she shoots up to two feet.

“Welcome to Nova Scotia” Charlotte grumbles as she throws herself out of the desk, rounding her seat and making for the front door she leaves through, the stoic and rigid posture presented in the man she leaves behind not ceasing once she departs. As if he could still picture the woman’s visage in the seat he remains fixated on, Emilio’s eyes burn a hole through the chair that now sits empty and warm, relieved of her presence whilst focus of it remains.

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“How far out are we from moving in?” a man standing beside a stop sign wonders aloud, positioned near the front of the armed militia with eyes firmly placed upon his overseer. “Two minutes and a few seconds” Courtney replies, taking a glance at her watch whilst her eyes burn a hole in the massive metal entrance they prepare to march through, adjusting her ball cap with her free hand before turning to her side.

“Donnie, I want you to be the one that negotiates with them when we’re in there” she confesses, handing him the bullhorn that she carries at her side, “we’ve done this plenty of times before, you know what to say.” Pulling back with hesitation, the subject of her plea lifts his hands and refuses the gesture, keeping his distance from the device.

“I’m not in charge, I can’t take that” Donnie refuses, watching the woman’s head bow at the sound of his answer. “Donnie, please just take the megaphone” Courtney responds, again pleading with the man to follow through on her request, “I don’t even care who takes it, I just need someone else to negotiate with them. Just be grateful that I chose you.”

“I know you told us not to worry about it, but I’m going to disobey those orders right now” Ethan interrupts, a hand held toward the woman’s direction, “are you sure you’re alright? I mean, are you able to go through with this?”

“I’m fine, goddamnit. Somebody please just take this damn thing away from me” Courtney jolts back, eyes widened as she stares at the heavens for a moment, watching the pale blue clouds begin to ring in the sound of another evening. Giving into what’s asked of him the second time around, Donnie claims possession of the bullhorn and watches his overseer step past him, returning to the patio of the rundown restaurant with a can of spray paint in her hand.

Pulling in a deep and heavy breath, Courtney eases herself to prepare for the advancement she’s set to take part in, shaking the paint canister at her side before spraying splotches of orange on the building’s brick facade. “Focus, Court’” she whispers to herself, plastering a star along the element-exposed concrete, its lines crossing over each other before being tainted with a hurried streak, the line of paint slashing through the amateur shape from the top left to lower right.

Alongside her troops, Courtney watches men join each other in manually prying the corroded and unmoved metal doors from their closed display, tearing up the roots of weeds that had spent years of non-attendance growing around them. “Can anyone get a clear view of what’s going on inside?” the woman wonders into the receiver of her talkie, turning her back to the soldiers and staring off at the nearby range of residential towers they’d recently come from.

“Negative. But when you get those doors open, you’re gonna have to fight through some shrubs and such” a voice responds, the Asian man who offers his reply pressing a pair of binoculars against the dust-covered window of his room. “There’s about thirty yards of overgrowth when you get in” he proceeds, stepping away from the window to retreat further into the room, “after that, you’ll see some pavement that’s covered in grass. The warehouse this place was built around blocks anything else.”

“Have you seen anyone come through there since you got- well, wherever you are?” Courtney questions aloud, staring in the general vicinity of where her discourse intends to reach. “Negative again. I haven’t seen so much as a light come from inside the warehouse since I got up here. I’m not even sure that thing is being used” the man replies, lowering himself to a knee on the floor beside a sniper rifle and an open window, “you’re quite literally entering through their backyard.”

“We’ll be mowing their lawn soon enough, don’t you worry about that” Ethan quips from the side, remaining joined with his half-smirk-wearing overseer close enough to overhear the conversation. “I really don’t think I’ll be able to supply you guys cover from here. Once you get inside, it’ll probably be a matter of seconds before I can’t see any of you either” the prepared, yet-pessimistic sniper remarks, “I’m afraid you guys are gonna be in the dark from here.”

“If this thing turns out to be a fight, it shouldn’t last very long” Courtney responds, offering her own way of implying the man keeps his spirits high, “you’ve done plenty already, Li. Thank you.”

“You’ve got it, Court’” Li concludes, pulling his finger from the red button on his talkie before setting it aside, wearing a frown as he presses his eye to the scope of the weapon he now lays beside on the ground.

“You’re staying behind after we take this place, right?” Donnie wonders aloud, turning around a few steps ahead of the mission’s overseer with a curious mind, the visage he receives at first sparking uncertainty. “I don’t know yet” Courtney answers, clipping the talkie back onto her hip as she removes the baseball cap from her head, returning it to her side as she prepares to adjust her hair, “I might have some business to catch up on- one way or another.”

Incapable of offering much more than a nod, Donnie turns back to centre his focus on the group’s attempts at prying free the locks along the compound’s wall, their effort increasing with each new soldier added to the task. Wrapping her hair around itself, Courtney ties her hair into a tight bun and reclaims her hat, her thumb pressing against the strap on its back before slowly pulling away, allowing the woman to stare at the cap’s interior.

“12/19/18” the black marker scribble on the inside of the cap’s strap reads, its appearance enough to bring a smile over her face alone, though she has little time to revel in the subdued pleasure. “We’re in!” a single voice calls from beside the door, pulling the entrance open just enough for two soldiers at a time- standing shoulder to shoulder- to squeeze through.

“It’s showtime” Ethan murmurs, watching Donnie unholster his pistol with one hand whilst carrying the bullhorn in the other, an intense focus worn on the face of the woman that returns her hat to her head. “Let’s go then” Courtney replies, pulling her firearm from the waistband of her bands before stepping forward, overtaking Donnie as she joins her group in advancing upon the unfinished compound.

“What do you see, Court’?” Ethan wonders aloud, standing beside the woman who occupies the front of her armed forces, the eighty-five men and women that await her orders all remaining in suspense as she peers around the corner of the decrepit warehouse. “I see a barrel fire and some tents, but not much else” she whispers back, looking past the concrete building’s massive exterior with a squint in her eyes, “I don’t see people, but I’m pretty sure this is where they’re supposed to live.”

“Is there anything out there we can take cover behind, or is it all just more open field?” Donnie inquires, the arm he carries the megaphone in bent just slightly, ready to be lifted toward his lips. “It’s not a field as much as it is a parking lot. There’s a massive space that’s just open. There’s some grass and weeds growing through the cracks, but it’s just an empty plot of asphalt” Courtney answers, turning back to shake her head at the man, “I think this is the best we’re gonna get.”

Aware of his orders, Donnie steps up to her side and keeps himself shielded behind the wall they hide behind, letting free a long sigh before lifting the bullhorn to his lips. “Attention residents- we are armed and ready for combat in the event that you do not cooperate” he speaks aloud, continuing as Courtney lowers her head and shuts her eyes, hoping for the night to end peacefully.

“If you step out into the area with your tents and barrel fires with your hands in the air, we will not attack you” Donnie continues, staring toward the unimportant distance as he awaits whatever response he’s bound to receive, “we will not be a threat to you as long as you prove not to be a threat to us.”

Peering around the corner, Courtney inspects the limited vantage point that she’s offered, unable to see any sign of life from beyond the wall she and her unit reside behind. “We are inside of your camp. We mean you no harm, and instead wish to have a peaceful conversation. This world is bad enough, and no one should have to die over what we can solve amicably” Donnie continues, unable to see the result of his proclamation unlike the mission’s overseer.

“We’re aware that there are a little over thirty of you inside this camp. We’re aware that you're limited on resources and can assure you that we have more than enough to sustain you” he carries on, still unsure of what reception he’s receiving. “I know how likely it is that you’ve heard this said before, but we sincerely mean you no threat” he explains, his leader-like reflection slightly subsiding in favour of the genuine optimism he’s trying to keep intact.

Eye still holding toward the camp, all Courtney can see are the nylon flaps on each tent gently swaying in the breeze and the flames that emanate out of the barrels, not a response to be had from the community settled within. “We’re only here because this compound is a point of strategic emphasis for our community” Donnie confesses, tempted to step forward and look around the corner for himself, “all we want is the camp- not bloodshed. Please cooperate with us.”

As he finishes his plea, Donnie finds the bullhorn’s top gently pressed against by Courtney’s palm, her extended efforts guiding him to lower it from his face. “I want you and Ethan to stay behind” the woman declares, bobbing her head in the direction of the corner they’d yet to venture around, “I’m gonna walk out there and try to earn their trust. If they open fire, that’ll be your cue to attack. Got it?”

“Please tell me this is just a joke, Courtney” Ethan responds with a straight face, his head shaking as his eyes drift toward the side, already conceding himself to the woman’s answer. “If I were in their shoes, I think a man proclaiming orders through a bullhorn and hiding behind a building would make me a little defensive, Ethan” she responds, her voice loud enough to catch each ear of the first few soldiers, “I’d much rather see someone like me walk out with my hands up, wouldn’t you?”

Hanging his head with hands on his hips, Donnie joins Ethan in refusing to argue the woman’s claims, accepting that their attempts at talking her out of the plan won’t change the outcome she proceeds toward. “Charlotte’s going to have us decapitated if you don’t come out of there alive, Court’” Ethan prods, slightly facetious in his remark, though aware of how poor it would look to return home without their trusted overseer.

“You’ll be fine as long as you remember my burial request” Courtney replies, easing the tension in her body as she prepares to follow through on her plot, eyes falling upon the men standing before her. “Yes, bury you with the hat on your head. Got it” Ethan replies, pressing his back against the concrete wall as his chin is kept steadily toward the darkening sky above, not wanting to catch a look at the woman with any room to assume that it would be his last.

Satisfied, Courtney nods her head and steps forward, entering an open corridor situated under the warehouse’s apparent ground floor, entry to the open and empty lot granted. Walking carefully and with her hands held a few metres away from her sides, the woman makes sure to keep her pistol’s barrel pointed at the ground as she steps forward, her lips parting to speak for those she’s yet to see.

“We understand that it might be hard to trust us, so I’m going to show you that- when we say we’re not a threat to you- we’re being honest” Courtney calls aloud, her voice carried farther than usual with the strong echo that bounces off the walls she’s surrounded by. “She’s gonna get herself killed one of these days” Donnie whispers aloud, the only ear close enough to hear belonging to the man he shares the woman’s inner circle with.

“Why do you think she’s had us memorise her funeral requests?” Ethan responds, eyes still firmly cemented upon the cloudy night sky, the humidity that had left him sweating throughout the day now replaced by a slow, chilly breeze. Disheartened, Donnie shakes his head in disappointment and reclaims the woman’s spot against the wall, peering around the corner to keep his eye on the woman’s progression.

“My name is Courtney. If something happens to me, the people that I brought here won’t hesitate to hurt you, but I don’t want this to come to that” the woman speaks aloud, yet to stumble upon the empty lot that resides at the other end of the short tunnel. “I’m walking through this corridor alone. I have a gun in my left hand, but I am pointing it at the ground” she continues, one foot slowly placed in front of the other, “please, don’t let this get violent.”

Standing with his front facing a small crowd of tents and flame-containing barrels, a man with an automatic rifle stands at attention with his ear held toward the woman’s direction, listening to her speak with a gathered crowd of hushed people behind him. “We listened into your conversation with the guy on the other end of the radio earlier- you were talking to George” Courtney advances, now halfway toward the answers to her curiosity, “we know you’re hurting for food right now.”

Unbeknownst to the advancing soldier, the man standing on guard and awaiting her arrival takes his barrel toward her direction, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. “When I make it to the other end of the tunnel, I’ll put my gun on the ground and kick it over to you to show you that I mean no harm” she persists, nearly three quarters of the way through her brief journey, “you’re outnumbered, and I can promise that we have you beat in regards to fire power. Fighting is just unnecessary.”

Unmoved by her claims, the man that awaits her presses his eye to his rifle’s top, keeping his aim steady and finger on the trigger guard. “We’re from Nova Scotia. We have numerous camps throughout Canada and the U.S. This was supposed to be one of them, and we’ve had our eyes on it for a few years now” Courtney proceeds, now a mere two steps away from finding daylight- as limited as it is at this hour- at the passageways opposite end.

“We have food, water, medicine, shelter, whatever you can imagine. We- and all of our integrated communities- have whatever aid it might be that you need” Courtney explains, her foot placed forward once more, nearing her one literal step closer to the conclusion of her venture, “all we’re asking for is this compound back. If you help us by letting us reclaim it, we can help you never have to worry about where your next meal might come from.”

With her hands held out by each side, Courtney takes the plunge of yet another step, emerging on the corridor’s other end with her head guided to the left, eyes falling upon a mass gathering away from the passageway’s line of sight. Frozen in place at first, the woman remains one step away from the same tunnel that had offered her temporary shelter, able to return the way she’d come at an instant.

Bowing her head, Courtney gently sways the gun in her hand before lowering herself to the ground, placing the piece on the weeds-covered asphalt before kicking it a few metres away. Still as unsure of how he should respond as he was when the uncertain voices were first heard by himself and the small community he’s amassed, the gunman keeps his prepared posture intact, standing before a group of thirty survivors, almost a third of them being innocent children.

With his finger hovering over the trigger guard, the man keeps his eyes forward, not relenting in his demeanour in the slightest. “Which one of you is Lou?” Courtney soon wonders aloud, eyebrows lifting as she stares at the man whose face is blocked by the weapon held at her, waiting for just one voice to emerge from the core. “He is” a soft, young voice replies from the huddled-together population sitting behind the man at their forefront, affording the woman the reply she’d sought after.

Within a crowd of vehement hisses to guide the child into hushing down, Courtney collects her information and keeps both eyes placed upon the man with the gun, his rigid presentation appearing to lessen. “Lou?” she repeats aloud, this time with her eyes solely focused on the man across the lot from her, the few seconds that pass allowing the survivor to warm up to her presence and lower his weapon.

“That’s me” the man replies, one hand resting beneath the weapon whilst the other holds it by the grip, his blend of grey and blonde hairs flowing in the wind that rushes past the natural blockade the warehouse serves as. Her hopeful look fading away, Courtney’s visage sports a disappointed frown as her shoulders sink, the momentary lapse in her pleasant demeanour replaced with a feigned smile as she resumes her role as overseer, speaking to the man she’s never seen before, “can we talk?”

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Poking his head through the entrance of a tavern, Emilio peers into a half-filled bar room to see a pair of men in flannel shirts playing a round of billiards whilst the counter remains relatively unattended. Deeming the environment to be suitable enough to occupy for a fair amount of time, he steps through the door and begins slowly approaching the counter, the most affable expression he can conjure up presented in his face.

“Are you drinking?” the older woman, dressed in a white shirt with long, black sleeves inquires, wearing the wrinkles of a woman in her late-forties rather well. “No, I just figured you could use the company” Emilio replies, watching her hands press against the stainless steel counter she occupies, a squint in her eyes as she tries to read into the man. “You’re not from around here” the lady replies, not needing much time to inspect the man’s cadence.

“You’ve gotta forgive her” a man proclaims from the pool table, rolling up the yellow flannel sleeves of his shirt, its buttons unattached to display the white t-shirt he wears beneath, “we only get regulars around here. Newbies can’t stand her awful cooking and never come around for a second go.”

“Fuck you, Troy” the bartender responds, flipping the distant man off whilst brushing off the amused chuckle her newest patron affords her. “Is your name Troy?” Emilio soon asks aloud, watching the man he questions nod his head silently to respond, again earning a chuckle from the newest resident of the community, though this time with more of a sigh hidden beneath, “that takes me back.”

Amused, the bartender shakes her head and fills a mug with beer, topping it off with just the right amount of foam before placing it across from the new resident. “New people don’t usually assimilate as quickly as you seem to. This one’s on the house” she responds, taking a rag from off to the side and wiping her hands off with it, “but if you’re getting all sentimental about the good old days, the two of you will get along just fine it seems.”

Gesturing to turn toward the woman seated one seat over to his left, the bartender has Emilio pan his eyes toward the disheartened survivor he can make out the familiar face of beneath her red baseball cap. “Courtney?” he mutters aloud, watching the woman gaze toward him with a slight surprise before lifting a glass of beer to her lips.

“Small world” she mumbles, sitting in silence as the man nods in agreement, caught by surprise at finding the faintest amount of casualness in a scene as new and untouched as the one he sits in. “Yeah, I’ll say” Emilio responds, trying to shrug off the surprise before he claims possession of the mug sitting in front of himself, taking a small sip from the beverage gifted to him, “wait, weren’t you in Toronto earlier today?”

“Yeah, is that a problem?” she responds, narrowing her eyebrows as the man vehemently shakes his head in refusal, lowering the mug back upon the counter. “No, I just didn’t know you could make the trip back so quickly” Emilio rebukes, his right arm resting a short distance away from it, “and, if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t have expected one of your first stops back to be getting a beer taller than any I’ve ever seen before in some random bar outside of town.”

“I’ve had a long day” Courtney replies hastily, lifting her eyebrows this time as the exhaustion in her face becomes greatly noticeable, “it’s nice to sit down and drink your troubles away after a hard day- or really any day for that matter.” Walking off for the kitchen, the bartender giggles to herself and disappears into the backrooms, leaving the pair to the ears of the men at the pool table paying no mind to their discourse.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Emilio inquires, watching the shake of the woman’s head and taking it for the answer she soon voices aloud. “Is there a point to talking about it? Is it going to change anything? Is it going to make my troubles any better?” Courtney rebuttals, crossing her arms atop the counter and sliding her beverage away from where she could potentially hit it on accident, “would I be getting anything off my chest or would I just be wasting my breath?”

“It probably won’t change what happened, but what comes of it is ultimately up for you to decide” Emilio replies, the brow over his right eye lifting as his eyes take toward the set of booths on the opposite side of the room from the billiards tables. “I can’t promise that I’ll be able to say anything worthwhile, but I don’t suppose there’s any harm in trying” he continues, the warm and welcoming tone he speaks with doing just enough to comfort the recently returned aviationist.

Pressing her tongue against the roof of her mouth, Courtney turns her head toward the door the bartender had stepped through a few moments prior, considering the man’s offer half-heartedly. Soon pressing her teeth together, the paramotorist looks back to her drink before taking it into her hand, pulling a swig from it and sighing in relief as it slides down her throat, moistening her mouth as her eyes fall back upon the community’s new recruit.

“I thought I had found someone I haven’t seen since the first few months of the chaos” Courtney confesses, her left hand pressing against the side of her face whilst her right sits on the inside of her elbow. “I don’t know why I didn’t think there’d be someone else with the same name as him, but I’m not too sure I was thinking at all in the first place” she continues, the words she utters purposefully left uninterrupted by her apparent drinking buddy, “I just couldn’t stop to take a breath.”

Sitting in silence as the man across from her continues to stare, Courtney’s eyes begin drifting toward the window just a few metres to the side of the pub’s entrance, eying the neon sign of a burger joint across the street just as it powers down for the evening. “It’d just been so long since I’d felt that optimistic about something. I couldn’t come down from this high I had and just- just stop to think for a second” she persists, visibly disappointed in the words she speaks, “-just dumb hope.”

Eyes falling toward the ground as they pull away from the signage one street across, Courtney wallows in her own silence before the question uttered from nearby prompts her to speak once more. “What is he like?” Emilio inquires, met with the silent stare his fellow patron returns toward him, using it to clarify what he’d meant, “the person you thought you’d found, what is he like?”

Looking away, Courtney’s gaze takes toward yet another corner of the pub, the distance it creates between herself and the man whose query she ponders noticed with ease. Remaining patient as the earliest hour of the morning dawn upon them, Emilio takes the beer into his hand and sips from it, coating his taste buds with the confusing taste of what he can only describe as chilled piss.

“He was a good man. He was someone that I didn’t need very long to know was the answer to a prayer I had been asking for every night” Courtney sighs, leaning into the back of her seat as she crosses her arms, “he was a tough egg to crack, but he wore his heart on his sleeve.” Aware that the man will continue to remain silent until she’d spoken all she had to offer, the paramotorist sinks into her chair just slightly, trying to get comfortable as the day turns anew.

“My old boyfriend had a cabin up in the mountains. We stayed friends after we split up, and he took my family in- me, my dad, and my sister” she continues, briefly pulling her hand out from the cross to adjust the flaps of her cosy jacket. “A few others were there as well, but for the most part- they just rode out the first few months of the insanity like nothing was wrong” the woman proceeds, shaking her head with a pouty lip, “but, after the first month or so, I knew that wasn’t sustainable.”

“Well I don’t know about that, a cabin in the mountains seems pretty sustainable to me” Emilio quips, watching a subdued grin come over the woman’s face as she holds back a laugh, her shoulders lifting slightly in a way where her amusement cannot be hidden. “Yeah, well that changes when the cabin’s built on a mountain that’s prone to avalanches” Courtney replies, watching the grin and nod of her companion’s head as he concedes defeat on his rebuttal.

“And of course we weren’t lucky enough to avoid that for long. But, for better or for worse, Lou found us in the knick of time” Courtney replies, shaking her head as she shrugs, staring at the floor, “he got separated from his friends not long before and stumbled upon us while looking for them. He saved my ex’s life along the way, so we figured he’d earned a warm bed and a hot breakfast- even if he spent the first few weeks choosing to sleep in a storage unit during winter in Vancouver.”

“He sounds like a real catch” Emilio jokes once more, this time earning a more noticeable smirk from the woman who simply takes pleasure in reminiscing. “Marta sure seemed to think so. Hell, that girl reminded me of a younger version of myself, so I’m sure I would’ve thought so too if he was a little older” Courtney responds, immediately sparking the first interjection of their conversation.

“Woah, woah, woah- a little bit older?” Emilio questions aloud, leaning forward just slightly knowing such a remark can only mean one thing, “who is this casanova you speak of?” The third time being the charm that sent her over the edge, Courtney’s restrained demeanour falters as she lets out a distinctive laugh, her tense arms loosening in an instant and falling out of their collected presentation.

“Believe it or not, he was a high school senior out of Los Angeles” Courtney responds, lifting her hand into the air as if to offer it as a show of honesty, “he got on a ship around the first few days of the chaos and it went down off the coast. That’s where he lost his friends and when our paths were set to meet each other.”

Lower lip hanging apart from that of his upper one, Emilio stares off into the corner of the bar as his acquaintance nods with a wide smile. “Oh yeah. Not to mention, you could pick him out of a crowd with ease” Courtney continues, speaking whilst the man settles back into his seat and takes another sip of his beer, “he lost his lower left arm a few days into the chaos and had a bear as big as- well, as big as yours. And he always used this sharpened piece of metal they use in buildings.”

“Rebar?” Emilio wonders aloud, watching the woman’s enthusiastic nod find its way toward him, “not the most durable of weapons, but I’m sure if you knew how to balance it, it’d make due well enough.”

“He knew how to use it, let me tell you that. And if that wasn’t enough to make him stand out from the crowd, sometimes he’d cut through the hordes with this thing he called a gorecoat” Courtney continues, every other remark she makes now containing half of a smile, “he’d cover a raincoat in some of the zombies’ guts, and he’d wear it whenever he went into cities. The moment he’d put it on, it’s like he’d be invisible to anything that wasn’t alive.”

His eyes widening as she continues, Emilio lets the piece of information pass along as if unimportant, not wanting to impede on the higher spirits he knows her to now be amidst. “No, he was just- he was a good dude” Courtney proceeds, nodding to herself as spirits return to normal, though better off than they had been upon returning to the compound, “my father didn’t last long after that, but he got farther than he would’ve if it weren’t for Lou.”

Lifting his chin just slightly, Emilio’s eyes squint in a way that’s barely noticeable as the bartender finally returns from the kitchen, walking past the pair on her way to delivering a plate of nachos to the men playing pool. “What happened to him?” the man finally wonders aloud, watching the more lively eyes of his pal take toward him, “I happen to notice that you keep referring to him in the past tense.”

Her mouth forming a half-smile and half-frown at once, Courtney’s eyes fall to the ground amidst her pause, only looking back up as she resumes speaking. “The worst part about it all is that I have no idea what happened to him” she confesses, visibly disheartened in a fact that she seems to be fine coming to terms with, but sometimes struggles to live with, “after a while, he sort of became the de facto leader. If he set his sights on something, it didn’t take much to get everyone to go along.”

“He seems to be one of those ‘exceptions to the rule’ types- so that math adds up” Emilio retorts, bobbing his head as his humour wins out once more, the troubling thought not powerful enough to keep the woman from finding amusement like it had been minutes before. “Well, eventually we found what he wanted us to head east for- just a lot sooner than we’d anticipated” Courtney admits, shaking her head as she casually reaches for her beer as the bartender passes them once more.

“We settled in with a group for a little while. They had this issue with another group- it’s all too much to get into for now” Courtney explains, waving off the unimportant details before proceeding with her initial train of thought, “long story short, we eventually started heading out for this one place out east again when we ended up running into a big group of the dead along the road. Our car got caught up in them and we had to hurry out on foot.”

Visibly disappointed to find himself capable of guessing how the story is set to end, Emilio reaches back for the beer he still doesn’t care for the taste of, using it as a passable way of filling in the silent pauses within their discussion. “I heard some gunshots and some screams, but the further I walked- the more all those voices I could recognise got quieter” Courtney explains, obviously shaken as she pauses mid-sentence, looking at the ground as if it triggered poor recollections.

“Lou, Sebastian, my sister- it was the last time I’ll ever see them” Courtney progresses, pulling in a deep breath before taking a pause, returning the drink to her lips and taking seven big gulps. Whilst sitting through the uncomfortable silence that he embraces having to bear through, Emilio rests his right arm against the counter whilst holding the beer he periodically sips from in his left, waiting for the discourse’s continuation.

“I didn’t have my ‘chute or a fan at the time, but I found a shop nearby that had one. It’s not like I never tried to find them- I stayed in town for another two weeks” the woman explains, following a satisfying sigh as the last gulp hits the spot, numbing her to the sorrow just slightly, “but after that, I started to lose hope. I flew out to where they’d been talking about going, but it was empty. I holed myself up in one of the houses for a few months before I came to my senses... moved on.”

As his eyes fall, Emilio lets the woman sit with her thoughts in lieu of offering her a reply she’s likely heard countless times before, only lifting his head when the bartender returns with a burger and a side of fries. “Also on the house” she preempts, placing the platter on the ring his mug of beer had left behind, a glass of water soon being freed from the woman’s grasp to join it, “welcome to Nova Scotia.”

Turning back for the kitchen, the affable bar’s owner passes a wink toward Courtney and carries on with her evening, watching the paramotorist lift her glass as a salute of acknowledgement. “They’re still out there” Emilio suddenly quips, re-earning the woman’s attention with his remark, “I mean, I don’t know that for sure. But I lost a girl from my group just before I was taken into Cumberland. She chose to walk off and I’ll never see her again either, but I’m certain she’s still out there.”

Amused and quietly conceding that she’s likely seen less strife through the post-apocalypse than the man beside her has, Courtney sits quietly with her amusement before the man doubles down. “You can consider it false hope if you please, but knowing for sure that Charlotte’s still alive after all this time- they’re not dead until I see a body” Emilio proclaims, setting his beer down and lifting the glass of water from the plate’s side, “and it sounds like this Lou doesn’t go down easily.”

Her lip curling upward to conceal the smile she’s become too tired to show entirely, Courtney lets her index finger slide down the condensation-covered exterior of her tall beer glass whilst her friend takes the spoken-for burger off the plate. “Even if that’s the case, I’ve got too many responsibilities here to go out on some massive search for someone I haven’t seen in three-and-a-half years” she confesses, displeased, but remaining realistic, “the world’s too big anyway.”

Now taking his turn to subdue a chuckle, Emilio begins leaning in to take a bite from the first meal he’d taken part in since departing for society’s last-standing pillar, “it can’t be too big and too small at the same time” he chirps, sinking his teeth into the food as Courtney turns to look at him.

“What?” she asks simply, watching him take a small sip from the cup of water before waiting for him to finish chewing, his hand covering his mouth whilst he does so. “You said ‘small world’ when you saw me a little while ago” Emilio responds, shrugging his shoulders as he gently lays the burger to rest back upon the plate, “the world can’t be too big and too small at once.”

Her ability to speak thwarted, Courtney looks at the counter as the man’s rebuttal sits with her, quietly lingering on her mind before he speaks up once more. “And clearly- if you were as suddenly hopeful as you claim to have been- earlier today proved that the part of you willing to hope for a miracle is still alive and well. It’s just trapped somewhere deep down in that heart of yours” Emilio expresses, wiping the grease from the corners of his mouth, “just let that hope guide you.”

“It’s not that simple” the woman replies with a smile, shaking her head in refusal, though more in a way that refuses herself than one that dismisses what she’s being told. “Sure it is. If I followed the story as well as I hope I did, I remember you saying something about him ‘finding what he went east to look for’” Emilio concludes, staring at his burger whilst the woman stares at him, “assuming you’d have to go toward Vancouver to do so, maybe you’ll find what you’ll go west to look for.”

Slipping a fry into his mouth before leaning in to take another bite of his burger, Emilio fails to notice the heartfelt stare that his buddy holds upon him, her eyes nearly watering at the response he proposes. Carrying an undeniable smile, Courtney jostles her head and pulls a deep breath through her nose, trying to keep herself from tearing up as she takes another few gulps of her beer.

Wiping his chin with the knuckle of his right thumb, Emilio listens to the woman’s stool slide out from the counter, his eyes taking toward her direction to find her hand gently falling through the air to pat his shoulder. Without the words to speak at first, Courtney lets her hand rest beside the man’s neck as he looks up at her, just unsure of what the interaction is meant to get across as the man whose upper body her hand sits atop.

“You’ll, uh-” the woman murmurs at first, yet to have fully processed what she’d wanted to say and instead settling for the first thing that comes to her mind, “-you’ll be here tomorrow night, right?” Covering his mouth as his tongue shuffles the chewed-up food to one side of his mouth, Emilio frees himself enough room to speak the briefest responses, “I can be.”

Nodding with a reassuring smile, Courtney follows through with patting the man’s shoulder before letting her hand fall to the side, “good. Drinks- and food- on me” she concludes. Swallowing the bite of burger he’d so hastily thrust against his cheek, Emilio watches the woman turn for the exit and step onto the oddly busy streets of Nova Scotia, the manual clock that sits over the door reading a time of nineteen minutes past midnight.

== Rise ==