Dead Weight/Issue 2

## Summary

Robbie and Jessica have been travelling for hours. A quick pitstop puts them in a position which could change their lives for better or for worse.

## Story

Robbie, Jessica and Scrap ran through the forest. Ducking and diving around the trees and jumping over stray holes in the ground.

“Robbie--” Jessica puffed, stumbling towards the ground only to be pulled up by her older brother.

“Come on.”

“We’ve been moving for ages.” She mumbled, pushing Robbie off of her so she could slump down behind a nearby tree. Robbie looked around, wiping the sweat off his forehead as he let out a long sigh. Scrap, the dog, tumbled down next to Jessica almost like he was mimicking her actions.

“I’m sorry.” He finally broke the silence, pulling out his knife and sitting on the ground next to her. He keeps watch out as he waits for everyone to catch their breath.

“I think we should stop.” Jessica tells him, adjusting herself in her seat so she’s as comfortable as she can be.

“Why?”

“We don’t have to keep moving. We’re far enough away that if anything was following us has lost us.”

“Maybe.” Robbie sighs, scratching the back of his head. Jessica places her hand on Robbie’s, wrapping her fingers around his hand and using her other hand to scratch Scrap’s head lovingly.

“Listen. We should go back, but--”

“Back? Are you crazy, Jess?!” Robbie interrupts. “We can’t. Did you see how many there were?”

“I know… It’s just we need to know our friends are okay.” She tells him, tucking her hand under Scrap’s chin and scratching, the dog flopping down and resting his head on Jessica’s lap.

“We’ll find them eventually, but not now. It’s too dangerous to go back.” Robbie tells her, standing up and offering her his hand. She grabs his hand and he helps her pull herself up.

“I’m not used to this. Still.” Jessica tells Robbie as she turns to Scrap, patting her leg for him to follow her.

“I don’t think anyone is.” Robbie says as they adventure further into the forest. “I mean, you’re right, we need to know if everyone is okay, but not now.”

“What if we never find out?”

“Life has a way of surprising you, Jess.”

The trio continue walking until, finally, they come across a road. It’s a long highway that stretches straight in each direction across the horizon. Robbie and Jessica exchange glances before turning to walk down it.

Eventually, as the sun continues to lower further and further into the sky, they stumble across a gas station.

“Look.” Jessica said rather breathlessly, pointing her pointer finger into the distance. Robbie squints, spotting a red truck sitting at the gas station. It looks abandoned, the driver’s side door open and nobody in sight.

“Yeah. Maybe it would be a good idea to drive the rest of the way.” Robbie says, jokingly. The three quickly make their way towards the car, as fast as they can. “You check the shop, I’ll check the car?”

“Hell yeah.” Jessica smiles, high fiving her brother as they slowly split ways as they approached the area. Scrap toddled behind Jessica, happy to be under the shade of the roof to the gas station as Jessica slowly pushed open the door, the emergency lights still on inside. Scrap began sniffing around the store, looking for any treats for himself.

Jessica wandered towards a shelf as she pulled out her gun, picking up a knocked over box of crackers. She shrugs to herself, taking it and turning around, only being met with a gun to her head, gasping in shock.

Robbie looks at the truck, taking hold of the driver’s side door and pulling it open wider. He climbs inside and sits in the driver’s seat, wrapping his fingers around the steering wheel. He sighs, happy to sit down for the first time in awhile today. He reaches up and pulls open the visor, papers falling into his lap.

“Put your hands up,” A girl’s voice comes from outside the other side of the car, Robbie jumps out of surprise and puts his hand to his gun only to realise the girl is holding a large rifle towards his head, through the window. “Don’t try any funny business.”

“Woah-- Woah, calm down. We’re not here to hurt anyone.” Robbie tells the girl, her dark brunette hair hanging over her eyes.

“Get out of the truck!” The girl demands, gesturing upwards with her gun. Robbie immediately obliges, climbing out of the truck and throwing his hands up in the air.

“We didn’t mean to steal your truck. We’ve just--”

“What do you mean we?”

Jessica raises her hands above her head, the box of crackers falling to the ground.

“Who are you?” The woman questions, holding the gun towards her forehead.

“N-nobody. My name is Jessica. My brother and I were just looking for a car or somethin’.”

The woman squints her eyes at Jessica.

“He out there?” The woman asks, her head gesturing towards the door behind her. Jessica nods. She gestures again to follow her outside. The woman turns her back to Jessica and opens the door to the shop, exiting it. Jessica follows behind and looks at the scene in front of her. Robbie standing with his hands raised as a petite girl holds a rifle up to him, which looks bigger than her actual body.

“Sabby, put the gun down.” The woman says, the brunette furrows her eyebrows in confusion, lowering her gun. “What’s your name?” She asks Robbie.

“Robbie Starn. This is my sister, Jessica.” He tells her, she nods, playing with her gun slightly in her hand.

“I’m Grace.” The woman tells them before gesturing towards the smaller girl, “This is Sabrina. My sister.”

“It’s good to meet you.” Robbie says, holding out his hand. Grace raises an eyebrow, locking hands with him and shaking firmly.

“You got a home?” Grace asks as she pulls her hand away, wiping it down on her jeans and pushing a stray blonde hair behind her ear.

“We did. It got overrun with the dead. We’ve been moving for hours.” Robbie tells the girls, Jessica crosses her arms and sighs quietly to herself, biting the inside of her lip.

“That’s too bad,” Grace says, stopping for a moment and glancing at Sabrina, who is staring at Robbie and hasn’t stopped since Grace came outside. “We have a camp.” Grace continues.

“Really?” Robbie asks.

“Yeah. It’s not that grand but it does have a thriving community. You could fit right in.” Grace smiles lightly at the twins, Sabrina turning her gaze to Grace, her face scrunched with confusion. Grace appears to ignore her younger sister. “Are you in?” Grace asks.

“Yeah.” Robbie grins.

Robbie climbs into the back of the truck along with Jessica and Scrap. He hits the side of the truck and the engine starts, Grace hangs her arm out the window with her other hand on the steering wheel. She begins driving down the road.

“Try and hit that one comin’ up just a few feet ahead of us.” Grace says, turning to look at Sabrina who appears to be sulking in her seat. “Sabby.”

She gets no reply, just a pathetic sigh from the brunette. Grace rolls her eyes and swerves the car slightly, knocking the dead far off the side of the road and blood splattering on the front light.

“Did you see that?” Jessica whispers to Robbie, who looks in amazement as the dead immediately stands back up again.

“I sure did.” He replies, running his fingers gently through Scrap’s fur.

“They’re mad. I tell you.” Jessica stretches out her legs slightly, feeling the open breeze on her face as the car speeds along the road.

“I mean, she’s kinda cool.” Robbie says.

“Who? Grace? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Don’t judge them until you get to know them.” Robbie smirked.

“That’s exactly what you’re doing, though!” Jessica retorts.

“You can’t ignore me the whole drive home.” Grace pipes up, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel of the car.

“I can if I try.” Sabrina tells her blandly, leaning forward in her seat to turn the radio up, dead static filling the car.

“Oh? Really. That’s real mature.” Grace says angrily, reaching immediately back over to turn it down. “You know how much I goddamn hate that noise.”

Sabrina scoffs, rolling her eyes.

“I know you hate when we let new people into the group--”

“That’s not why I’m mad.” Sabrina says, annoyed. “It’s obvious you have hots fo--”

“Oh, please don’t even go there.”

“I wasn’t going to say him.” Sabrina interrupts, sitting up. Grace sighs, a silence filling the air for a hot minute.

“You’re an idiot.” Grace says playfully, reaching over and poking Sabrina in the side, getting a small squeak from her.

“Okay, well. You taught me how to be like that.” Sabrina smiles, looking over at Grace. “This doesn’t mean I forgive you, though.” Grace smiles, looking out to the open road ahead.

The car pulls up outside a large, fortified area. Large logs standing upwards, pushed together to create a very strong looking fence. Grace leans out of the window, looking up. Jessica and Robbie turned to look up too, following Grace’s gaze until their eyes met with a man standing on top of a rather small, wooden platform. The man points a sniper down at the car.

“What’s this?!” He mouths, Grace gestures with her hand an opening motion. The man rolls his eyes and climbs down the platform, disappearing until the large wooden gate starts to trundle open.

Grace drives inside until the truck is all the way inside, stopping. The man shuts the gate again before approaching the car as Grace and Sabrina jump out of the front, slamming the doors behind them.

“You’re late.” The man says, he seems rather pissed off as he holds out his hand towards Sabrina. She rolls her eyes and hands over the rifle, shoving her hands in her pockets and wandering away.

“He’s your problem.” Sabrina says as she departs from the group, heading into the camp, towards a wooden house.

The man circles the car until he reaches Grace, she pulls her pistol from it’s holder and hands it over, unstrapping the holder after and swinging it over his shoulder.

“You know, If you didn’t take our guns every time we came back, you wouldn’t have this problem.” Grace teases, heading towards Jessica and Robbie as they carefully get out of the back of the car, their legs wobbly. Scrap jumps out behind them.

“Who’s this? Ya’ know, Flake isn’t going to be happy that you--”

Grace holds her pointer finger up, shushing the man.

“We took a detour. We ran into some folk. Flake could use all the help he can get, don’t think too fast, Drakey.” Grace tells him. “Where is the guy, anyways? Thought I’d give my new friends, Jessica and Robbie, a delightful introduction sooner rather than later.”

“He won’t like that you’re late.” Drake tells her, again. Grace rolls her eyes in frustration.

“Then stop wasting my time.”

Drake scoffed, “He’s in his study.” He tells her.

Grace smiles warmly at him, patting him on the shoulder. “Thank you!”

Grace turns to Jessica and Robbie as Drake adventures off to put the guns away. “Follow me!” She smiles.

A man sits slumped in his seat, a gleaming sword sitting on display on his wall behind his head. He writes a letter or some sort of poem on a piece of paper behind a desk. A large “Mother” scrawled at the top, denoting the title of the piece. The only light source being from the window, where the sun sets and the candle sitting on the desk.

A small chap comes from the door. The man sits up, taking the piece of paper and pencil and sliding it into one of the compartments.

“Come in.” He says, sitting back in his chair.

Grace opens the door, pushing it open. The man raises an eyebrow as Jessica, Robbie and Scrap come into his view.

“Ah.” He says to himself.

“Flake! Drake said that we were late, just wanted to check up on that and make sure everything is fine!”

“Yeah. You’re just a little late.” Flake says, standing up behind the desk and leaning against it, both hands resting against the wood of the desk. “Who’s this?”

“Yeah… So we’re fine! This is Jessica and Robbie.” Grace tells him, stepping aside as the two carefully make their way inside the cabin. Flake is silent for a few seconds.

“Explain?”

“We went on a detour. Runnin’ out of gas. We ran into these two.” Grace tells him.

“It’s good to meet you, Flake. We were hoping to stay.” Robbie says, holding out his hand. Flake looks down at Robbie’s hand, finally reaching forward to shake it.

“... And by we, that means Sabrina and I, too!” Grace says.

“Sure. They can stay. We’re running low on helping hands, anyways.” Flake says. Grace grins. “Can you give us a minute?” Flake requests. Robbie’s eyebrows shoot up slightly.

“Oh-- Of course we can.”

“I’ll be with you in a second. Try and find Sabrina!” Grace tells the twins as they step outside the cabin, Grace slowly swinging the door shut until she leans against it.

“What’s up?” Grace asks.

“You know how much I love your help around here, Grace.” Flake starts.

“Are you going to lecture me? I swear, I had no intentions of having more mouths to feed. Hell, I didn’t know they had a dog until we agreed to take them back.”

“I’m not going to lecture you, don’t worry.”

“Oh! Okay then. What were you going to say?” “You need to recruit one of them for a mission. See what they’re capable of. You know?” Flake tells her.

“Ofcourse!” Grace smiles, walking up to the desk and sitting down on the chair in front of it. Flake nods.

“We can’t end up with another Ethan.” He tells her.

“Or another Drake.” She jokes, Flake exhales from his nose sharply, rolling his eyes at the thought of Drake. “Was Ethan even his name? I can’t recall.”

“Yeah. Something like that.” Flake says, staring past Grace’s head into space.

“I’ll get them accustomed and we’ll see what we can do. Don’t worry, boss, your Utopia is under no threat!” Grace says, standing back up and pushing her hair against her ear.

“I hope not.” Flake tells her.

Grace inhales deeply and smiles at Flake before turning on her heels and heading towards the door, turning the handle and opening it.

She wanders out, skipping down the stairs and meeting Robbie and Jessica at the bottom.

“I hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long.” Grace says, gesturing with her head towards some cabins further into the camp. “Follow me! I have a perfect place for you.”

The trio, joined by Scrap, make their way up the darkened camp.

“Where is everybody?” Jessica asks, rubbing her hand against her opposite arm as the cold air begins to hit her.

“We kinda have a curfew sort of deal going on here.” Grace explains. “Don’t worry, you can meet everyone first thing tomorrow morning!”

The group finally stop at a cabin at the end of one row and she opens the door.

Sabrina looks up from her bed and sighs as the cold air hits her room. She slides off the top of the bunk bed and makes her way into the front room, grabbing a hoodie and pulling it over herself as she goes.

“Are they staying here with us tonight?” Sabrina asks. Jessica looks around rather awkwardly.

“It’s only temporary, Sabby.” Grace tells her, ruffling her hair annoyingly. Sabrina groans as she pushes her hair back to normal.

“You guys can sleep on the couches for the night.” Grace suggests.

“Thank you. Really.” Robbie smiles, “It means alot.”

“Don’t thank me! Maybe a little, but, thank Flake!”

“I will first thing tomorrow.” Robbie smiles. Jessica sits slowly down on the single seat, resting her legs again.

“I’m goin’ to hit the sack, anyways. It’s been a rough day if I’m honest.” Grace says, pushing her hair out of her face and rubbing along the bottom of her eye with her thumb. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Let me know if you need anything at all.”

Grace backs up until she’s inside the bedroom, closing the door and turning the lock behind her. Sighing as she presses her forehead against the door.

“You like them, then?” Sabrina asks, sitting on top the bunk bed.

“They’re nice people. You don’t come across them very often.” Grace tells her, sitting on the chair opposite the bed, looking up at Sabrina.

“Everything keeps changing and I don’t really like it.” Sabrina admits.

“I know. Listen, though, sometimes change is good,” Grace tells her, looking towards the door. “Maybe these people will bring some good to the community.”

## Cast

* Drew Van Acker as Robbie Starn
* Melissa Benoist as Jessica Starn
* Unknown Dog as Scrap
* Allie Lewis as Grace Berry
* Brooke Hyland as Sabrina Berry
* Harry Styles as Drake
* Liam Hemsworth as Flake