Dead Weight/Issue 19

**Issue 19** is the nineteenth issue of Dead Weight. It is entitled '*Savages’*. It is the first issue in Arc 2 of Dead Weight.

## Previously on Dead Weight

Flake’s camp was overrun with the dead, forcing the inhabitants to evacuate, losing some people to the horde. The group, now split, must survive the harsh elements of the outdoors. Who knows what dangers lurk in the shadows?

## Story

“You all know why we’re gathered here tonight.” Connor starts, knowing many eyes from The Specifics are on him as he stands in front of them. “We do this almost all the time. It’s the rules, if the rules are broken.... You know what happens.”

Below him, Alison stands, looking up at him as he speaks, taking in every word as she stands with her hands behind her back, her hand around her wrist. She stares at him, her face full of disgust as he continues.

“When you all came here… All of you knew the stakes this community had. We strive to make the world a better place. It’s only the strong that survive.”

Flake pushes through the trees, Sabrina right behind him as they reach a clearing, a farmhouse just in front of them now. Behind them, Tanya, Mark and Abreham. Carlos and Melissa trailing behind.

Flake pushes open the gate into the long, path driveway.

“Do you think anyone is inside?” Sabrina asks as they adventure up the gravel walkway.

“Doubt it. The farmland would be in use.” Flake tells her, gesturing his sword towards the overgrown ferms and decomposing crops.

“But there’s no dead?” Sabrina questions, looking around at the rather beautiful surroundings, excluding the occasional dead body and dead ferns.

“It’s well fenced off, I’d presume.”

“Mmm, well, let’s hope nobody has taken what’s inside.”

Melissa stops, turning after she notices Carlos no longer by her side. He is down on one knee, tying his shoelace.

“Hurry up?” Melissa tells him, her voice like asking a question as he jumps to his feet again.

“Don’t want to trip when I’m running.” Carlos tells her, jogging to her side as she continues walking again. Carlos looks around breifly. “This place is cozy.”

“I guess.” Melissa replies, tugging her tank top slightly as she struggles to stop sweating in the late summer heat.

“D’ya think we could live here?” Carlos asks.

“Doubt it. We can’t live anywhere without it being fucked up, apparently.” Melissa tells him.

“Well, don’t be like that. It wasn’t my fault that the garage failed, or the apartment.”

“The apartment was your fault. If you hadn’t fought Darryn, we’d probably still be living there.”

“How?! He came at me with a hammer!”

“Mhm.”

“Well, whatever it’s fine.”

The group reach the farmhouse porch, the door shut and each window boarded up. Flake approaches the door, carefully pulling his sword out as he wraps his hand around the door knob. He pushes the door open, banging against it as it doesn’t budge, locked or barricaded.

“Now what?” Sabrina asks as she unzips her fleece and casually drops it on the floor. Abreham shuffles over, throwing himself on the porch steps, along with Tanya who follows behind him and sits beside him.

Flake steps away from the door, throwing his sword into it and hacking against the fragile wood. Sabrina rolls her eyes, turning on her heel and walking along the house’s wall.

“Where are you going?!” Carlos asks, passing by Melissa and following Sabrina.

“What does it look like?”

“It looks like you’re goin’ to get yourself killed.”

“When have I ever done that?” Sabrina asks, instantly regretting it and turning towards Carlos. “Don’t answer that.” She tells him.

She travels around the corner and comes across a backdoor, sitting upright besides it, leaning on a rocking chair, is a rifle. She skips forward and picks it up, inspecting it as Carlos watches.

“Do you know how to use that thing?” Carlos asks. Sabrina just shrugs,

“Nah.” She tells him, pointing it towards an undead stumbling in the distance. “I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”

Grace stumbles through the foliage towards a dying deer, looking down at it as she slips her gun away. She looks around as Robbie, Jessica and Molly casually follow behind her.

“Is this necessary? I’m sure we’re just a few hours from the nearest store.” Jessica says as she tries to discretely hide Molly from Grace as she kills the deer.

“We’re all hungry. We’re not going to starve if we have the resources to feed ourselves.” Grace tells her. “Let’s go back to the fire and then we head to the gas station.”

“Why the gas station?” Robbie asks.

“It’s a point of interest. Sabrina might go there.”

“Where we met? Why would she go there?” Jessica asks.

“I don’t know?! Where else would she go?! I’m not a fucking psychic.” Grace says rather aggressivly.

“Sorry.”

Molly tugs on Jessica’s hand slightly, Jessica looking down at her as she looks up at her rather upset.

“When can we go home?” Molly asks.

Grace’s eyebrow raises at Molly’s question, looking over her shoulder as Jessica bites the inside of her cheek, thinking of how to reply.

“Not now, we can’t go home.”

“You haven’t explained it to her yet?”

“Help me pick up the deer, Grace.” Robbie tells her, Grace turning to take her attention back to the deer.

“But I wanna go home! I wanna go home!” Molly cries out, two single tears falling from her eyes.

“I know you do… But, It’s complicated.”

“We don’t have a home anymore,” Grace comments, “Nobody does.”

“You can’t kill me. WE’RE INLOVE.” Allison screams out as she backs away from where Connor stands over her. Cannor looks down at her, tapping his fingers against the wood before nodding.

Sally watches, her eyes squinting as though she’s watching a horror movie as Bri stands close by. Bri doesn’t appear to be paying attention, her gaze shifting from Sally and back towards Allison constantly, folding her arms as everyone around her mutters incoherently.

“We should leave.” Sally tells Bri. “Should we do something?”

“Like what?” Bri asks her.

“I caused this. I need to help her.”

“There’s nothing we can do for her, Sally. Don’t say anything.”

“But--”

“Don’t.” Bri says, grabbing Sally’s upper arm to stop her from moving as she notices her slight hesistation. “I have to get back to work.” She tells her, letting Sally’s arm go as she pushes her way through the gathering crowd, leaving through the doors and disappearing down the corridor.

Connor squints down at Allison, like she was some sort of disgusting bug that he wanted to stamp upon. He turned towards a man who stood only a few inches to his side. “Tell them to do it now.” He tells him as he turns back towards the crowd, looking over, catching Bri rushing out of the door.

“Where did you find that?!” Mark asks as Sabrina and Carols come back around the corner to the front of the house, Sabrina swinging the rifle.

“‘Round back, there’s a backdoor we could try and get in.” Sabrina says as she watches Flake trying to get inside the door.

“Why don’t we just smash a window?” Tanya asks in a small voice, cuddling her knees to her chest.

“They’re boarded up,” Flake says, “We’d have to bust through the boards.”

“Do that?” Tanya merely says, “I want to lie down.”

“Yeah.” Flake makes his way towards the window, Sabrina rolls her eyes.

“I said there’s a backdoor!” She repeats.

“Give him a minute.” Carol tells Sabrina as Flake busts through the already partially broken glass on the window and shattering it, the glass smashing into millions of tiny pieces. Melissa moves over to the porch steps, sitting besides Tanya and Abreham and slipping her hand into Tanya’s, squeezing it reassuringly as Tanya sits with her head leaning against the stair’s banister, her eyes half closed. Tanya lets out a loud sigh, squeezing weakly back.

Flake attempts to bust the wooden boards off of the window, but finds no luck.

“Flake, my friend. Excuse my rudeness but you are absoluetly awful at that.” Abreham comments, rising to his feet and going up the few stairs to meet Flake at the window.

“Can you do better?” Flake asks, his eyebrows raised in curiosity. Abreham holds out his hand, eyeing Flake’s sword that he’d been using to try and get in. “Oh… No, no.”

“Come on, just give me it.”

“Here, take this.” Sabrina says, jumping up and handing the gun that she had found to Abreham. “He’ll only part with that thing when he dies.”

“Like that’s ever going to happen… The parting with it, I mean.” Flake says as he turn sto watch Abreham approach the window with the gun, using the butt of it to roughly slam against the wood, causing one of the panels to come loose and fall to the floor with a thud. Carol smiles smugly on behalf of Abreham. “I loosened it. You saw.” Flake tells them, Abreham laughs.

“Hurry up!” Melissa urges as Abreham manages to get a large enough area to reach through and unlock the door, it slowly swings open as Abreham pulls his arm from the window, accidentally giving himself a small cut on the upper arm.

Tanya instantly stands, wrapping her arms around herself as she enters the house, Carlos just behind her to check for the undead. Flake stands, wandering towards the door and being stopped by Abreham.

“Don’t be jealous.” Abreham jokingly says, Flake chuckles.

“Trust me, I’m not.” Flake replies, pushing past Abreham with a small smirk on his face.

“I-- I love you-- Please don’t do this… Conn-- Connor.” Alison mutters as she watches a man, the one Connor had spoken to just before, open a gate. Alison stared, defeated, as several of the undead stumbled through the gate. The man closed the gate over again, catching one of the undead’s arm in it and snapping it.

“Michael!” Connor snaps, watching the arm dangle by a thread from the undead’s body as it breaks free from the gate. Michael locks the gate and moves back upwards to where Connor stands.

“Sorry, boss.” He says, adjusting his rolled up sleeves as he takes his position next to Connor.

Alison stumbled backwards slightly, watching three of the undead head towards her. They groaned, their bones showing. One of them had their ribs exposed due to lack of food and decomposing. Alison’s breathing became heavier as she felt bile rising to her throat, the smell of the dead rising to her nostrils as her whole world began spinning.

“P--Please… Jesus… God… If you’re listening--” She began, but was cut short by herself as she threw up in front of her. A disgusted groan coming from the crowd who watched her, the crowd who knew her who were now watching her meet her death.

Sam pushed his way through the crowd, making his way to the front and spotting Alison. He sighed heavily, he watched as she clasped her hands together and silently began praying, enclosed in her hands was her golden, cross necklace. She slowly stopped backing away and instead slowly began going down on her knees, her eyes closed as she continued prayer. Her lips moved ever so slightly, but no sounds escaped from her lips.

The dead toppled on top of her, one of them mimicing her position and slouching down to their knees, grabbing at her. One of them tugged her hair, allowing her to let out a loud scream as it bit down into her chin, another using the advantage of her head being tugged back to bite into her neck.

Sally turned away, almost bumping into a man as she does so as she bites at her fist, listening as the crowd makes noises of both disgust and nonchalant, not caring.

Sam turned, his eyebrows furrowed as he looked confused, disgusted that this had happened. He was trying to process what he’d just watched when his eyes land on Sally, standing across the room, looking back at him. Sam storms off.

Vicky slowly cleans a scalple of blood, her eyes slowly following the cloth as it rubs over the sharp edge. Bri watches from the other end of the room, holding two bottles of pills in her hands, swallowing rather sharply as she waits until Vicky stops as she had already tried to get her attention twice.

“Vicky?” Bri says again, walking towards her as she places down the scalple beside her other medical supplies.

“I’m sorry Bri, I must have been… Somewhere else,” She smiles, turning to face Bri and taking the bottles from her hands. “Thank you.” She puts one bottle on a tray in the second level of the trolley in front of her, opening the other bottle and knocking one pill from the bottle on to her empty hand.

“Are you okay?” Bri asks as Vicky knocks the pill to the back of her throat, swallowing it without water and sighing. Bri hops up on the doctor’s table, knocking the towel that was laid on it backwards, wrinkling it below her weight.

“I’m fine, thank you. I’m just worried that we won’t have enough pills to last through winter.” Vicky admits, putting her hand to her forehead as though she was checking her own fever.

Bri nods, opening her mouth to speak but cut off by the sound of the door opening, Connor walking through.

“Good afternoon, ladies.” He says, waltzing inside and closing the door over until it was just slightly ajar.

“What can I do for you, Connor?” Vicky asks, slipping the bottle of pills into the trolly next to the others and standing straight. Bri hops off of the doctor’s bed and looks at Connor.

“I’m not here for a checkup. I noticed you hadn’t attended the ceremony this morning?” Connor questions, looking at Vicky and then trailing his eyes over to Bri, addressing her also.

“We have alot of work to do here. Cleaning, cleaning wounds… Rationing.” Vicky tells him, putting severe emphasis on her last word. “It’s going to be a rough winter.”

Connor sighs quietly. “You always say that, Vicky. You’ve been saying that for the last two months,” He tells her, “Why don’t you do something about it?”

“You know I’m not capable to go outside the walls, I’ve discussed this with you multiple times,” She tells him, moving from her uncomfortable position in front of him towards the sink, turning on the tap and cleaning the small dots of blood from her hands.

“So find someone else who is capable? You know we can’t allow slackers here, Vicky.”

Vicky’s eyes flick upwards to stare at Connor’s reflection in the mirror above the sink, her temper rising at his words.

“Slackers?” She questions, turning the tap off and shaking her hands dry, turning back around to face Connor as Bri watches on. “I’m the nurse, I don’t have time to slack.”

“Well you better think of something to do or this won’t work anymore.” Connor says, his voice raising higher than her increasingly raising one, his vibe threatening and cocky.

“I’ll do it.” Bri pipes up, Connor turning to stare at her along with Vicky, who shakes her head. Bri takes a step forward, “I’ll go out and get the meds you need.” She tells them, speaking directly to Vicky rather than Connor.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. It’ll save me being here.”

Connor takes a step back, wrapping his hand around the door handle. “Sort it out. Tell me by tonight,” He tells them, turning to open the door and stepping out into the hallway. “And don’t forget the ceremony next time.” He says before taking off down the hallway, allowing the door to slowly swing shut again until it bounces off of the wall and stays ajar again.

“Thank you.” Vicky says, sitting down.

“It’s no problem…” Bri smiles lightly.

Sabrina sits, staring at the burning fire inside the fireplace as she pulls a blue blanket around her, only her head visible as the rest of her body is tucked away. She sits, thinking, as the flames flicker orange, red and yellow. She doesn’t notice Carlos who quietly walks down the stairs, being careful not to make a sound as he makes his way to the living room area to start night watch. He’s startled to see a large ball sitting in front of the fire and almost lets out a cry.

“Sabrina?” He questions, squinting his eyes as he notices the long black hair tucked deep inside the blanket. She jumps, her body shaking as she whips her head around to see Carlos at her side, standing just a few feet away in the arch of the door. “I didn’t mean to scare you, sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She says dully, returning her gaze to the fire as he moves across the room, sitting by the window that they had earlier broken that was now covered with a blanket to try and stop the cold air escaping into the room.

“Are you feeling okay? Why’re you awake?” Carlos asks after a minute of silence, nothing but the sound of the fire and the fall wind blowing outside. Sabrina thinks for a moment, opening and closing her mouth to say something but no words forming.

“I’m not sleepy. I haven’t slept much for the past few days, why start now?” Sabrina tells him, looking at Carlos breifly before turning back towards the fire.

“I get it. That’s why I offered to do watch early than I usually would.”

“Really.” Sabrina says, almost like she wasn’t interested in what he had to say, but nonetheless he continued speaking any way.

“It’s good to stay up and think about things, I think. I mean… A better way would be to talk about it.” Carlos says.

“What do you want to talk about?” Sabrina asks, already knowing the answer before it comes from his mouth.

“We haven’t really spoken about… That day.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that...” Sabrina says, trailing off as her voice turns to sadness, although it’s overshadowed by the angry look that plasters across her face.

“I didn’t mean to bring it up, It’s just been on my mind recently,” Carlos tells her, “Do you think about it?”

“Of course I fucking think about it,” Sabrina snaps, her voice raising slightly before she realises what she was saying, letting out a rather defeated sigh as Carlos just sits and waits for her to continue. “I’m sorry, It’s just… I think about it alot, Drake, I mean. The camp being overrun… That I can deal with, but not that.”

“I understand.” Carlos tells her, he goes to say something else but is instead cut off by Sabrina continuing her thoughts.

“But what’s done is done,” She continues, looking down to the floor as she speaks, “We can’t-- I can’t erase what happened. So I don’t see why dwelling on it will bring anything but torture.” She tells him, beginning to feel angry at the topic. “I bet you’ve done things you’d rather forget. We’re all savages who have done terrible things. What don’t you talk about that eats you alive everyday?”

“I--”

“It was a rhetorical question, dumbass.” Sabrina interrupts lowly, sinking into her blanket more as a single tear spills from her eye. Carlos pauses for a second, a frown fixed on his face.

“I was… I’m sorry. I just thought…”

“Just leave me alone, will you? I’m tired of it.”

Carlos looks down, not sure what to think as he takes a deep breath in and out. He nods, Sabrina’s eyes looking over to him for a second as he does so and then looking back towards the fire, her eyes growing heavier through the night as the two sit in silence for the next few hours.

“My name is Nancy, I have a report I want to share with you.” The woman said across the phone, biting against a pen. She furrowed her eyebrows as the person on the other end of the phone replied. “No-- No wait don’t hang--!!” She grumbled as the phone fell dead, throwing it over the couch as she shoved her face into her hands, letting out a loud groan in her living room. Her eyes flicked up as the news came on, a story about a young man being arrested for suspected murder. Her eyebrows raised, in morbid curiosity as she pulled over her laptop.

A door opens, out steps Tanya, wearing nothing but a robe and black lingerie. Her eyes are barely open, looking as though she’s squinting towards Nancy, who doesn’t even notice her as the soft glow of the laptop takes up all her focus. Tanya clears her throat quietly, causing Nancy to jump, her head whipping upwards to see Tanya flicking on the light to the living room, lighting the room up.

“Oh, hey!” Nancy grins, pushing the laptop lid down a little, “Did I wake you up?”

“Nance… It’s past midnight, what are you doing harrassing people at this time of night?”

“I just… Wanted to share this story I found!” Nancy says, half enthusiastically and half sadly. “Sorry, go back to bed.”

“Well, I’m up now so I guess I’ll stay up.” Tanya says, making her way to the couch and sitting down next to Nancy as she pulls the laptop lid back up, clicking out of the news story and instead onto her spotify playlist and pressing play, the song “I Want You To Want Me” by Letters to Cleo turning on. “Oh come on, you know this is my favorite song.” Tanya groans, leaning back on the couch.

“Well, what a coincidence!” Nancy giggles, pushing the laptop away before turning to Tanya, giggling.

“What?” She smiles, tilting her head in curiosity. “You look exhausted.”

“You look beautiful.” Nancy smirks, leaning forward to kiss Tanya. They kiss, Tanya pushing Nancy’s hair out of her face before she pulls away.

“We should probably--” Tanya looks on in confusion as Nancy disappears from beside her, her hand where Nancy’s head used to be but instead it’s just floating in the air. She feels herself suddenly thrust forward, being knocked by a man running past her as she looks around, suddenly ending up in a ruined street. It’s early morning, Tanya looks around as she sees people running, spraying graffiti and looting from stores.

“NANCY?!” She calls out, confused and scared as the cold wind blows across her body. She looks down the street, spotting Nancy coming towards her down the crossroad. “Nancy!!” She calls out.

“Tanya!” Nancy calls back, making her way towards her girlfriend, Tanya picking up her pace when suddenly a bus pulls up behind Nancy, almost knocking her over as the door opens, a man reaching out and pulling her inside and the doors closing again.

“NANCY?!” Tanya screams, watching as the bus disappears in smoke. She reaches the crossroad, looking where the bus came from and seeing several of the undead coming up the street. She starts running in the direction of the bus, her whole world going dark and then, suddenly…

Tanya’s eyes open in a flash, sitting upwards with one large jolt of her body. Her whole body shaking as her hair settles over her face, messy and knotted. She tries to compose herself but she’s unable to stop the stream of tears falling from her eyes and running down her cheeks.Her breathing is heavy.

“Hey--” Abreham says as he sits against the wall by the window, spooking Tanya. “Sorry. I didn’t-- Are you okay?” He asks as he gets off his perch, moving over to her as she wipes her eyes with her blanket.

“I’m fine, don’t worry-- Don’t worry about me.” She mutters, her voice quivering and breaking. Attempting to hold back her tears, she slid back down under the blanket, lying back down on the floor as Abreham knelt over her.

“Sure?” He asks, he could barely see her but he knew she was in pain, although he didn’t know if he should persue comforting her or not.

“Y-- Can you just--” She sighs, wiping her hand down her face as she doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m just across the room.” Abreham tells her, standing up and wandering back to his spot at the window, avoiding accidentally stepping on Mark as he makes his way back.

Tanya pulls the cover over her head, sending her into pitch darkness as she lies, awake, for the rest of the night.

Scrap growls towards an undead man as he stumbles towards him, his teeth showing and his whole front covered in drying blood. Scrap lets out a loud bark as the man stumbles down, grabbing at Scrap’s collar viciously, their mouth opening to take a large chunk out of Scrap’s head when a gunshot fires, spooking Scrap as a bullet flies through the dead man’s head, knocking him to the floor and causing Scrap to jump away.

“Hey little guy…” A woman coos from the outskirts of the forest, looking between the trees at Scrap as he sniffs at the dead body. She holds a lead, which has a dog by her side as it barks, almost viciously, towards Scrap. “I’m not going to hurt you…” She says as she inches inside the forest, putting her gun away as she continues to approach Scrap, knife in hand. She ties the lead to a stray branch that hangs from a tree, the large german shepard watching as the woman moves away from him. “Pig, stay.” She commands, the dog instantly sitting and making a low whimper.

Scrap looks up, jumping slightly at the sudden presence of the woman.

“It’s okay little guy. Don’t worry.” She continues to coo, her voice soft as she reaches Scrap, who sniffs her outstretched hand curiously. “Yeah, you like me don’t you.” She smiles softly, “You really do like me.”

She raises her hand slightly to pet against Scrap’s muddy fur, scratching his head lovingly and stroking down the side of his face, scratching under his chin before taking his collar in her hand and reading it.

“Scrap, huh? That’s a nice name for a big boy like you.” She comments to herself, reading over the address and phone number on the collar. “I’m guessing your friends aren’t here anymore, huh?” She goes silent for a moment, as though she’s awaiting for Scrap to respond to her, although he never did. “My name is Scarlette,” She mentions, taking her bag off of her back and unzipping the front. Scrap’s nose immediently diving inside to sniff around.

“Hey you! You must be hungry.” She takes out a can of food, reading the label briefly. “I hope this is safe for dogs, but I guess it doesn’t matter.” She shrugs, pulling open the can and holding it towards Scrap, who instantly tries to take the can into his mouth. She puts the can on the ground and looks around, wondering if there’s anyone nearby. “Good boy.” She says quietly, standing again and zipping the bag back up, throwing it back on her back and approaching Pig, the other dog who sits patiently by the tree. “Good boy.” She repeats, but to Pig, untying the lead and letting Pig off.

Scarlette approaches Scrap as he finishes eating the remaining contents of the can, scratching his head softly before clipping the lead to his collar. Pig trotting over to Scrap and giving him a sniff. Scrap sniffs Pig’s bottom curiously.

“Enough. Pig, walk.” Scarlette commands, prompting the dog to start trotting along the dirt towards the road as Scarlette leads Scrap alongside her.

## Cast

### Main

* Drew Van Acker as Robbie Starn
* Melissa Benoist as Jessica Starn
* Allie Lewis as Grace Berry
* Brooke Hyland as Sabrina Berry
* Imogen Poots as Sally Middleton
* Liam Hemsworth as Flake
* Josh Pudleiner as Carlos
* Melissa Kirk as Melissa
* Andrea Boehkle as Bri
* Jackson Rathbone as Abreham

### Supporting

* Q'orianka Kilcher as Tanya
* Ariana Greenblatt as Molly
* Noah Schnapp as Mark
* Billy Burke as Connor

### Also Starring

* Janel Parrish as Haley Reed
* Antonia Thomas as Vicky
* Troye Sivan as Sam
* Jennifer Lawrence as Alison
* Tobey Maguire as Michael

### Guest

* Alyssa Diaz as Officer Scarlette
* Unknown as Scrap
* Unknown as Pig
* Katie Findlay as Nancy (Dream Sequence)

## Trivia

* I changed the changes section to a poll section because fukc idek
* Scarlette was in the original but she’s gonna be cooler this time idk
* When Connor says "We strive to make the world a better place, it is the strong that survive.”, Haley said the same thing in Issue 11.
	+ wow i love parallels
* The beginning of the Tanya and Nancy dream scene was originally going to appear in a Flake centric issue in arc one. However this idea was scrapped, so it was turned into a nightmare scene.