Two Winters Past

INT. WAR ROOM. NIGHT.

Room is lit by half a dozen candles on the large table. Flames waver in the drafts that blow through the room. TURNER is seated at the table. Maps are spread out before him. Edges are held down by stones, but still they are blown about in the drafts. A half-full whiskey bottle is before him.

BLYTHE enters. BLYTHE salutes.

TURNER: At ease.

BLYTHE: Good evening, Sir.

TURNER: Sit, John.

BLYTHE: How did you like the bike?

TURNER: You ain’t told me how you come by it.

BLYTHE: Triangles grabbed me, taking me back home. I got my hands around Drake Daniels’s neck and didn’t stop squeezing until he didn’t need that bike no more.

TURNER: That be a problem.

BLYTHE: Yes, Sir.

TURNER: I got a job for you.

BLYTHE: Anything, Sir.

TURNER: Conner came back. He saw the zombies that hit the Cooleys, and they are moving south, following the Tioughnioga. Conner says at least a thousand rippers.

BLYTHE: I ain’t saying the Cooleys done something like that…

TURNER: I ain’t saying nothing like that neither, and quite frankly, I don’t care where a thousand rippers came from We got to deal with that.

BLYTHE: There is nothing that will bring them up here.

TURNER: Tioughnioga goes into the Chenango, and that goes right by Northgate.

BLYTHE: And that’s where the bullets are.

TURNER: (proud) You heard about the bullets?

BLYTHE: I did, Sir.

TURNER: It’s a big operation, we can’t move it here. Someone would hit us en route.

BLYTHE: Some of the men think you’re planning to attack Parlor City, Sir.

TURNER: Attack? What is there to attack? We’ve been at Northgate six months now and not seen any opposition but a bunch of guidos pretending they are gangsters. We found a Home Depot that was hardly even looted. The building itself is the size of what we have here, plus all the empty buildings around it. This has been the plan all along, Blythe. If everything goes my way, we’ll be living there by the end of the summer.

BLYTHE: Then why the hell am I digging trenches if we’re moving?

TURNER: Because you pissed me off disobeying orders, but you brought me that motorcycle, so I couldn’t hang you. That, and I don’t like Randy.

They laugh.

TURNER: Tomorrow I want you to go up towards Kilawog and see what we can do to help the Cooleys.

BLYTHE: Help them?

TURNER: Your friend, the Swordsman was here. He says there’s Christians down in Deposit, and Muslims coming up from Pennsylvania. They going to want what we got up here, last we need all the friends we can keep.

Continued tomorrow