Two Winters Past

INT. CELL. DAY.

DARKNESS

FADE IN to low light on an improvised prison cell. Bars are cut from saplings and securely lashed across the front of a bathroom, hanging on heavy hinges and padlocked to a metal frame. VALENTINE is curled on the floor in front of the toilet. He wretches.

VALENTINE struggles to see into the empty room beyond, but there is not more than a desk. Light comes from several small windows at the top of the wall, but is fading as evening comes. 

VALENTINE stands. He shakes the bars.

VALENTINE: Hey! Hey! I'm down here! I'm awake! Hey! Can anyone hear me? Hey!

VALENTINE sits for some time. We hear the ghost of a voice in the distance. VALENTINE shouts again, to no avail.

VALENTINE sits. He shuffles. He closes the toilet seat.

CHANGO enters. His beaten face has been washed and bandaged.

CHANGO: I hear I got a friend down here.

VALENTINE: Where is Chloe?

CHANGO: She likes it here. I already introduced her to some of the other girls.

VALENTINE: Let her go!

CHANGO: I don’t know if you’re still living in the old world, but you keep a woman as long as you can hang on to her. I don’t plan on letting this one go.

VALENTINE hesitiates.

VALENTINE: You gonna kill me?

CHANGO: I don’t know. Someone is gonna need to plow fields. Lembeks said we keep slaves, maybe it's time to start.

VALENTINE: I'll tell them you killed Remmy, you abandoned him to die. 

CHANGO: Remmy alive last I saw him, told me to go on and take the girl to safety. As far as myself and King Elijah are concerned, Remmy Cooley is still out there.

CHANGO laughs.

VALENTINE: Hey, fuck you!

CHANGO: Buddy, only reason you ain't dead already is them sickos you brought with you. King got bigger problems, and he's been up on the wall with his brother all day.

VALENTINE: You can't hold us prisoner like this.

CHANGO: Want to walk out the door? Those things surrounded the compound right after they brought you in. Already killed two men that tried to break the line. You want to give it a shot? I'm sure King Elijah will be happy to oblige.

Exit CHANGO.

Time passes.

COLE enters with a candle. He does not look at VALENTINE as he goes to the desk. COLE busies himself at a table with his back to VALENTINE.

VALENTINE: You got a name? (Waits.) You’re a Cooley? (No answer.) Are the cannibals still outside the wall?

COLE: My brother was Remmy. John Chango tells me you were acquainted.

VALENTINE: So you do know who I am?

COLE: Says you did in Remmy when they was rescuing that girl from you. My brother went back to finish you off while John Chango came back here with that girl. 

VALENTINE: He told you it was me? 

COLE: I would have thought Popper would blast the shit out of my brother, but  apparently it was you.He definitely would not lie about someone the size of you murdering Remmy Cooley. 

VALENTINE grins.

VALENTINE: I found your brother collapsed on a game trail, right where Chango abandoned him. I hacked him to death with that machete right there. It was mercy.

COLE: It was Chango that left my brother to die? 

VALENTINE: He begged Chango to save him, but he took my friend Chloe instead. 

COLE: I knew it! I fucking knew it.

COLE unlocks the padlock and yanks open the door.

COLE: My uncle was in with Chango to have my brother killed. We're going to talk to my father.

COLE puts his hand on VALENTINE's shoulder. VALENTINE knees Cole in the stomach and knocks his face into the toilet.

Before COLE can recover, VALENTINE gets outside the cell. He slams the door on COLE's hands as he tries to follow.

COLE cries out in pain. One wrist is clearly broken.

VALENTINE retrieves his machete.

VALENTINE stabs COLE through the stomach with the machete. COLE breaks away, looking down at the blade still sticking in his belly.

COLE: HELP!

VALENTINE grabs the empty rifle and bashes Cole in the mouth with the butt.

COLE calls weakly for help. VALENTINE gets down on his knees and strangles COLE until he is quiet.

When COLE is still, VALENTINE pulls his machete. The blade is stuck in the body, and takes great strength to remove.

VALENTINE approaches the door, listens, opens it, and looks out. There is an empty hallway with stairs leading up. .

He closes the door, locks it, drags Cole’s corpse into the cell and wipes off his machete on Cole’s clothing.

In the mirror by candlelight, VALENTINE does his best to wipe the blood off his own face.

He exits the room and goes up the stairs at the end of the hall. He is in a dark house, standing in a well-provisioned kitchen.

The walls have windows all around, and they are opened with screens. Outside there are shouts and gunshots. VALENTINE goes outside.

EXT. COOLEY COMPOUND. NIGHT.

Pan up from VALENTINE until we can see above the house and the sheds and barns. COOLEYS line the catwalks around the compound. Some are shooting over the wall.

Continue pan up, until we see above the wall. The Compound is surrounded with monsters banging fists and heads on the aluminum walls.