Two Winters Past

EXT. HIGHWAY. MORNING.

CHLOE ISIS and VALENTINE are looking over the guardrail.

VALENTINE: He broke his neck.

CHLOE ISIS: I don’t think the Cooleys will follow us far. No one seemed too fond of John Chango. He was big and mean, and that’s what they needed. Like Popper, but without the humanity.

VALENTINE: It’s a straight shot to Parlor City from here.

CHLOE ISIS is not listening.

VALENTINE: Did you know Popper well?

CHLOE ISIS: He’d come a couple months before we arrived at the house. He’s the only one that talked to me more than a sentence or two.

VALENTINE: How’d you get out of the house.

CHLOE ISIS: I saw them coming. The Cooley boys were herding those zombies.

VALENTINE: Did you warn the Lembeks?

CHLOE ISIS: Do you think they listened? I told them there was trouble, and I got the fuck out of town. The Lembeks didn’t move their fat asses until the first monster hit the porch. Cooleys will go in a day or two, take whatever supplies they will find. This isn’t the first house they’ve attacked.

VALENTINE: We’ll see war come back as the first institution of civilization.

CHLOE ISIS: It was only a matter of time.

VALENTINE: I know some people in the city that might be able to help.

CHLOE ISIS: Help with what?

VALENTINE: Supplies, maybe ammunition. There are dealers in the city.

CHLOE ISIS: Look who wants to go back now.

VALENTINE: Something has to be done. This is injustice!

CHLOE ISIS: So we take up arms? Fuck these rednecks. Let them build their kingdoms. I came to stop the monsters. When I leave this place, I’m never coming back.

VALENTINE: I wish Chango could have died here so I could take his boots. You wear my shoes.

CHLOE ISIS: I can’t...

VALENTINE: I insist. We’ll come to a house soon. There has to be something that will fit, or at least be big enough to fit in. We’ll get new clothes there too.

CHLOE ISIS: (taking his shoes) Thank you. (Puts them on.) I can walk I think now. Are you okay?

VALENTINE: I’ll be fine.

They walk out of shot down the highway. Camera pans down to the dusty asphalt.

An ominous shadow creeps on-screen.

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