Dead in the Water

"Big John…" the wiry, bald man that exits the car calls up the road. The large man dealing with Billie-Faye turns to answer his partner. "… we got a fucking prob…" the first man starts as a question, but quickly lets out a grunt of pain.

The rest of you back up the road watch, as the lanky, mop-top Owen comes racing around the front of the car, and throws himself against the open door.

The rain comes on heavier, and the sound of it almost masks the pained oomph the man lets out. Owen watches as the pistol he had been carrying slips free of his grasp, and skids under the back wheel of the vehicle.

"Oh, they know who I am. Do they know you assholes, is the question. Ladies, is this a fucking set up?" Big John barks out at the two women. He pulls his hand out from behind his back, and you see that it wasn’t a gun he had. That was a bluff. Still, he holds a nasty looking hatchet in its place instead.

"You draw us out here so Madonna and the fucking Golden Girls could get the jump on us?" he says, getting visibly angry and taking a threatening step towards Billie-Faye.

Down the street, the man looks for his weapon for a second, before giving up on it and turning his attention to Owen instead.

"C’mere, boy!" he spits, getting low and ready to spring on Owen. "That’s gonna cost ya! Ain’t nothing free these days! No, sir!" he barbs, before lunging at Owen with a fist.

Do you accept THIS for payment?…
Owen croaks, as he brings the machete across the man’s middle. The older man scoots, shoving his arse back as fast as he can to try avoid the swipe.

All for nought. The thing slices clean through the man’s clothes, and sinks into his flesh. He goes back and then down, hands immediately clasping at his gut. Not a moment later, and blood is coming fast, pooling into and then over his hands; quickly dropping down onto the road, before being diluted by the morning’s rain.

The man mouths something, but the words don’t come. Only a shocked expression and pained whimpers can be seen or heard by Owen, as the man fumbles about, now on the ground. He sees his pistol then, but his hands are busy holding his insides in. Owen can see something lumpy and bulbous starting to slip through the cut the young man had made: the stranger’s guts.

The man regains some of his bluster the further down the road he goes; now that he’s out of the range where Richard was almost-sure to hit.

"Boy, you folks really have your shit together, don’t ya? I don’t know if I’m coming or going. Mixed messages like that’ll get a fella killed.

I’d love to stay and dosey do with you fine people, but…" he goes on and on, as Richard watches over him, watching as he gets ever closer to Owen.

---

"There’s a camp…" the younger woman starts up out from behind the taller woman, hurried and through a wet nose. Billie-Faye takes a closer look at the duo and notices that the thing balled up inside the woman’s hand and sleeve looks an awful lot like a grenade.

The woman looks Billie-Faye dead in the eye, having seen the woman notice, and says:

"For him… or for us." she says, with a stern voice. She shrugs then, as if she had been found out in something terrible.

"We won’t go back!" she says, softer then.

"…a camp, and they’ve got a whole lot of people locked up.

They say they’re getting ready for Tomorrow, but all they’re doing is…" the younger woman says, her words cutting off as she begins to cry into the back of her protector.

---

"Your boy down here is looking mighty green around the gills. Why don’t you put your weapon down, big hoss, and come get him before he falls down?" Big John calls to Richard, stepping further and further towards his vehicle, like the man with the gun commanded.

The woman straightens her arms down her sides, and you notice that there’s a grenade in each hand. You wonder for a moment if she’s going to let them fall to the floor.

Would that be alright?…

Even from here you can see she’s shaking like a leaf. Maybe she’s allowing herself that much, now that others have intervened, and the chase is finally over. Slowly, she raises her hands up to meet Billie-Faye’s. Her eyes are meeting Billie-Faye’s too; checking to see if this woman was on the level.

A moment later, and the two grenades are sitting, cupped in Billie-Faye’s hands.

"Eva…" she says, clearing her throat in an attempt to swallow down some of the big emotions surely running through her.

"And this is…"

"Selena. Lu is fine, too." she offers. You’d heard that name used out on the road, before you’d jumped from out of your hiding spot.

"Sisters, if you can’t tell." the younger one says, her voice a littler firmer than it was just a moment ago.

"Who are you? I mean… All of you." she asks, and then Richard’s gun barks, sending a jolt through everyone again!

Richard matches each step Big John takes with one of his own. Steadily, they make their way towards the car, and the bloody mess waiting below.

Richard, with anger in his heart, pulls the trigger, and the bullet crosses the space in the blink of an eye. You’re suddenly conscious of just how loud that must have been way out here.

Would Martin be rallying the others to investigate at this very moment? What about walkers?…

As for Big John, the man goes over to one side, and his hand is up clutching the side of his head in an instant. He grunts, and shouts at once; pain mixing with fear and surprise in an instant.

He looks back at Richard, with blood streaming down the side of his head. The bullet hadn’t killed the man, but it had driven a nasty ridge into the side of the man’s head, that’s for sure. He begins to rub his eye, as blood seeps into it, half-blinding him.

"You fucking…" he growls. Were the gap closer, then maybe anger would beat out self preservation, and Big John would try to twist Richard’s neck. Instead, he turns and runs for the car.

He barrels down the road, and Owen watches as a trail of blood is left dripping behind him. When he reaches his man, Big John simply looks down at the gasping man on the road, and steps over him, fumbling for the car door.

The dying man’s eyes leave Owen’s for a second, and then return. Did he even register that he had been abandoned? Blood leaks from the sides of his mouth, even as his physical efforts to keep his insides in become slower and less intense.

He’d be gone soon…