Episode 2, Chapter 1 - Pete
Run, Scout!
I had dropped the spear. When? My hands were empty. Scout! The pines seemed to reach out to me with their needle-like limbs, catching me once across the face and making me gasp. Pete! I ducked a walker too late, went flying to the earth. Desperate hands caught me beneath the arms and hauled me up, throwing me forward. I landed on something cold and hard. Flat, tempered steel. Pete!
The doors of the truck slammed shut.
For hours Pete and I languished. The sun began to set; I watched the rays recede across the floor through the truck's tiny windows, thankfully too high for the walkers to reach. They pounded incessantly upon the sides, their moans mere white noise. They couldn't get to us. But I was in the cage with a monster.
Pete. For all that time he said nothing, just breathed, adjusted his leg, breathed. Then the breathing became slower, labored. He lost the color in his face and then his eyes began to fade. I stared at his mangled ankle from across the cargo hold, clutching my knees to my chest.
"Go on..." he muttered, just barely making a sound. "What?"
I lowered my legs until I sat cross-legged, cradling my bad arm and staring at him. I knew what. He knew what. Saying it wouldn't have helped anything. I thought, well, I would have beat feet a long time ago if not for the walkers outside. But then, I could have swung that hours ago. Not now. Why hadn't I gone?
Pete craned his neck upward robotically. I followed his eyeline to a shelf, where a hacksaw lay haphazard.
"Hand me that saw," he whispered hoarsely.
"It won't work," I replied, unmoving. Pete stared, eyes blazing with pain, and I had to look away.
"Ah, fuck," he sighed, slumping forward. "I couldn't cut my own damn leg off, anyway..."
Ignoring my frazzled mind, which was rampantly yelling time bomb time bomb time bomb, I stood. "Lemme look around. See if there's anything that can help." I turned to the cabin area, taking a seat on the driver's side and checking out the ignition. No keys.
"Check the sun flap," Pete murmured. I obeyed, pulling it down. Some loose papers, a set of golden keys, and a matchbook fell to the floorboards, some landing atop a half-crushed cardboard box. I took the keys into my palm, looking again at the ignition and shaking my head. Pointless. The truck was probably out of gas and revving the engine would only draw unwanted attention. It wasn't even the walkers I was concerned about, really. The guys who shot up the riverbed, though, they could still be out there. I grabbed the matches, swept the papers aside and ripped the tape back.
"What's in there?"
I couldn't help the grin, withdrawing a carton of cigarettes. The box was full of them.
"Oh, man..." If Pete could have perked up, that would have been his moment to. "Gimme one of those."
I peeled back the shrink-wrap and popped the carton open, ignoring my own salivation. I hadn't had a cigarette in ages. I knelt next to Pete, setting one between his lips and igniting it with one of the matches. His pupils were gray against the flame's glow.
Pete coughed as the smoke filled his lungs. "Camels," he muttered. "That tastes about as bad as it smells."
I scoffed, humoring him. Cigarettes were cigarettes. I took a seat, withdrawing one for myself and lighting it.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Pete tried to sound stern, but his veracity was fading fast, along with everything else. I took a long drag, turning my head to let the smoke free. He shook his head. "World's gone to shit and you're gonna die of black lung."
"Well, if you gotta die of something."
Despite everything, I got Pete to laugh.