Is This Real? (Nick Clark X OC) Fear The Walking Dead

Crying On The Inside

        After an hour of waiting a couple of soldiers walk over to where Travis, Nick, and Frankie are sitting. They roughly grab them up and guide them over to the wall opposite to the tile wall piled with bodies. They also grab two other strangers being held captive and sit them next to the three.

       Frankie still sits unmoving and silently in a dazed state, staring at the wall in front of her. Nick grabs her arm and tries to turn her gaze away from the corpses and at him. She ignores him entirely.

      "Frankie? Frankie?" He groans and looks back to Travis. "What do we do?"

        "I think I saw a sewer system when they pulled me in here. If we can overpower these two guys then we can probably make a run for it." Nick nods his head. "I just need to distract them so they don't expect an attack."

        "Those two." A soldier points to the two people sitting next to them. They grab them and pull them to the other tile wall. Two gunshots ring out into them. Frankie remains unfazed. A few minutes of uncomfortable silence passes.

         "Hey, what's up with the dead outside? Travis breaks the silence.

          "Lowercase dead or capital "D" dead?" One of the soldiers laughs.

          "The, um... the corpses in the front yard."

          "Force field. Troy discovered it."

          "What? Really?"

          "Yeah. See, the infected have senses... sight, smell, taste, we think. They won't eat anything that's dead, so smell dead, taste dead, they avoid you. Depot smells like death, ergo they stay away."

        "So, how many died for that little tidbit?" Travis's tone shifts to a darker tone.

        "It's for our betterment."

       "You're sick. What you're doing is criminal, but it doesn't matter."

       "It matters. Someone dies, it matters how long it takes to resurrect. Before you put a bullet in their dome? How long you can sit with your loved ones... Put steel in their brains...before they come back."

      "Come on, what you're doing is pointless. You, you, you're pointless." Travis raises his voice.

      "Better to know than not." The soldier brushes off his argument.

      "Oh, yeah? Do the rest know?"

      "What rest?"

      "The ones who don't come down here. Do they know what you're doing?"

      "They know, but it's on a volunteer basis."

      "So, why? Why don't they volunteer?"

     "Cause they're afraid of what they don't know. Come on, it's the goddamn dark ages out there. We're just trying to shine a little light."

      "No, they just don't get off on it."

    "Shut up!" The soldier yells at Travis. Nick wraps his arms around Frankie from behind and pulls her away from the argument. Travis continues to poke at the soldier, despite his demands.

      "Hey, why are you doing this, huh?"

       "Science."

       "Murder for science, huh?"

        "Yes. Not a new concept." They both chuckle. The other soldier speaks up.

        "Come on, be honest. Since this whole thing began, you haven't killed? You haven't murdered anybody?"