FOUND LANDS.

chapter six, tell a lie once and all your
truths become questionable.
[ season five, episode five ]

CRASH.

THE BUS FLIPS. Cole's head slams against the window. His vision fades in and out. The music still plays.

"Cole!" A voice frantically exclaims. He blinks several times until the face is clear.

"Maggie?" He slurs. His vision doesn't stay clear for long because blood drips down his face. He sees red.

Glenn and Maggie help Cole to his feet. He stumbles against the man. "Eugene!" Abraham shouts, desperately making sure the savior of them all is alive.

The scientist is okay, shaken but okay.

Cole is in the worst condition of them all. Glenn and Maggie hand Cole over to Tara. As Maggie and the others exit the bus to fight the walkers outside, Tara and Eugene practically drag Cole from the bus.

They prop him against the bus and Tara tells Eugene, "don't let a walker get to him. Okay? You got this."

Eugene stands in front of Cole with a terrified expression on his face. The small pocket knife is clutched desperately within both hands.

Cole is groggy when his eyes peel open in the light. Eugene is standing in front of him. The others are fighting walkers.

And while Eugene is supposed to be protecting Cole, Cole is the one that does the protecting. Even with a huge cut on the side of his head and blood still pouring, he stands on two wobbly legs and stabs his axe into the skull of an approaching walker.

Eugene whirls around at the sound of the squelching flesh. Cole sends him a sarcastic smile and slurs, "thanks for the help."

Then he collapses.

The walkers are all dead and their only problem is an unconscious Cole Tanner and the bus that is currently on fire.

Abraham carries Cole over his shoulder until they are far enough away from the bus. He crouches and gently sets Cole against a tree.

His eyes are squinted. "Red hair?" He says confusedly.

"Jesus," Rosita runs her hands through her hair.

"I think he has a concussion." Maggie says as she kneels beside her friend. "A pretty bad one."

"We can't let him sleep," Rosita states. "No more passing out, Cole. Unless you want us to water board you."

Glenn's brows shoot upwards at the threat. Cole's hand lifts up with shaky thumbs up. "Let's get him up," Abraham pulls the younger man to his feet.

Cole stumbles into the man. He pulls back and pats Abraham's pecs. Abraham rolls his eyes at Cole actions.

Cole's walk isn't straight. He stumbles and trips into his people who are quick to hold onto him. Maggie and Glenn help him walk a couple times.

As night falls, they find a bookstore in a small town. They make it theirs for the night. They put sheets of paper over the window and Glenn moves bookshelves to keep things outside from seeing inside. Eugene and Maggie make a fire with ripped out book pages. Tara boils toilet water. Abraham sits still as Rosita stitches up his hand.

Cole is put on "bed rest." He rolls his eyes at that. He browses the shelves like he would have years ago. Not that he was a reader back then. He isn't much of one now but what else is there in this world to entertain you?

He comes to a stop when he reads the title of a book. He is reminded of his mother and Odessa. Speak. It doesn't take a genius to guess why the book reminds him of those two women.

Odessa who was tortured by a man she didn't know. And his mother who was brutally raped by her own father. The man who was supposed to protect her from men like that.

It started for Angela when she was eight. Her mother was out with friends. It was just Angela and her father home alone. He came into her room drunk.

He laid beside her and covered her mouth as he tore her puppy dog printed pajama shorts off of her small body.

At only fourteen years old, his mother delivered Cole's older brother. His grandfather made her give him up for adoption. He didn't want the townspeople to see the resemblance between them.

Angela's mother hated her for getting pregnant out of wed-lock. She threatened to send her away. She believed she had sex with a neighborhood boy but in reality the monster wasn't her daughter. It was the husband she laid in bed with at night. The husband she made love to.

It took years for Angela to tell her son about the horrors of her childhood. Cole didn't understand. He didn't understand many things about. How could her father do that to her? He ruined her for years.

It wasn't until she was thirty-two did Angela Tanner finally accept it wasn't her fault. She realized she was more than a victim, she was a survivor. She survived her rapist father. She survived the many miscarriages she endured because of his constant physical and sexual abuse. She survived the three children she had to put up for adoption from the ages of fourteen and eighteen.

She went to schools and told her story. She warned little girls and little boys of predators their parents didn't. Not the ones on the internet, but the ones in their own homes or in their family.

The high schoolers were always in tears at the end of Angela's speeches. She even had some girls come up and tell her what was happening to them under their roofs. There were even a couple boys who approached her, saying, "please believe me." Angela Tanner always believed them. She was with them in the hospitals and police stations.

And finally when Cole was born, she warned him about those monsters too. Cole grew up cautious of everyone. And he worried that's what his paranoia stemmed from. The disease he hated came from the actions of the woman he loved more than life itself.

"You okay?" A voice asks. Cole looks behind him to see Glenn.

Cole shrugs. "I guess."

"How's your head feelin'?" Glenn then questions.

"Like I have a concussion." Cole says.

"Well, your sarcasm is back. That's a good thing." Glenn nods. Suddenly, both men are cut off by a moan. A look of disgust crosses Cole's face. Glenn's eyes widen.

"Abraham wasn't lying when he said he was going to get some ass." Glenn says. Cole snorts. The two men laugh together while the sounds of Abraham and Rosita's activities drown out.

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When they wake up the next morning, Cole is awake from not being allowed to sleep all night. Maggie sends him a look. "Did you sleep any?"

"No," he quickly shakes his head.

Maggie's eyes narrow. "Lies. You did."

"How could you possibly know that?" Cole quips.

"I woke up to check on you, dipshit." Maggie rolls her eyes.

"Oh." Cole says and keeps his lips in an 'o' shape for a second after he says the word.

A few minutes later, the group walks across the road to a fire station where a fire truck is parked.

After the first try, Abraham gets the engine going. They all pile in the back, save for Eugene and Abraham.

The barely get ten feet before the fire truck stops. Cole groans as he and the others climb out.

"One damn time!" He hears Abraham growl.

"We'll find another ride." Glenn assures him.

"If there was a ride worth a shit in this town, we'd have seen it." Abraham tells him. "Thing's done some crowd clearin'. Right up into the air filter. Which means we've got an air filter filled with damn human remains."

Cole nods his bandage wrapped head as Abraham continues. "There is no damned corner on this damned Earth that has not been ducked hard beyond all damned recognition." 

He snatches a bag off of the ground and begins to rip dead walker hamburger meat out of the fire truck. "Abraham?" Rosita says.

"What?" He snaps.

"That feeds the radiation. The intake for the engine is actually on the roof." She informs him.

Abraham looks at her and then the roof of the fire truck and then back a her. Cole's brows furrow when he hears a noise. He looks behind him to see a single tire roll past them.

"What the fuck?" He whispers. That's when a stack of tires fall towards them. Walkers stumble from the building. "Really?" Cole groans.

Glenn calls for Tara and Maggie as Cole unsheathes his axe. He brings it down on the skull of a walker. He kicks the chest of the walker and it falls back into another.

Suddenly, a spray of water greets the walkers. Cole gets soaked. Once all the walkers are down, they all look up at the top of the fire truck.

Eugene stares down at them.

"I have been to eight country fairs and one goat rodeo. I never seen anything like that." Abraham states.

Eugene just smirks down at them and climbs down. "There was a Goodwill over there by the bookstore. It's pretty blown up, but there might be some supplies, some dry clothes, maybe?" Glenn suggests.

"Not necessary. I can clear that intake in two shakes. Then the engine will get some wind and so will we. You'll air dry. We roll on." Abraham tells them. Once he's on top of the fire truck, he starts to laugh. Hard.

They all look back at the ground behind them.  In big bold letters, it says, SICK INSIDE LET THEM DIE.

"What?" Abraham laughs. "This shit is screwed up!"

They leave the town. They travel over night until the come to another stop the next day. Cole gripes as he gets out of the vehicle. He kicks it and mutters, "piece of shit."

They stand around for several minutes until Glenn exclaims, "Woah, what the hell is that?"

"What?" Maggie asks.

"Wind's pickin' up. You're about the smell it." Glenn states. As soon as he says it, the smell hits Cole.

"What the hell is that?" He repeats Glenn's words.

Abraham gets out of the fire truck. "Whatever's makin' that stench, it ain't nothing nice. We're not stoppin'."

"Uh," Tara looks around at them. "We're stopped."

The group of seven walks up the road until find what exactly is causing said stench. Cole comes to a stop when he sees it.

In front of them are thousands of walkers. "Uh, no. Not doing that today." Cole turns and starts to walk away. The rest follow.

Everyone except—

"Hold up." Abraham says.

"We gotta go." Maggie tells him.

"No, we don't. They can't hear us and they can't see us. Not from here. We're fine." The veteran tells them.

"Yeah, this is the definition of "fine."" Tara pipes.

"We need the map. There's gotta be a detour." Glenn says.

"I'm not doin' it. We detoured and detoured and detoured from Houston to Georgia. I'm not playing that game anymore." Abraham watches the walkers.

"We are not going through this, okay? It isn't gonna happen." Glenn walks forward.

"You got a shitstorm behind door A and storm of shit behind door B. If you're lucky, it's walkers or a shot-up truck. But sooner or later you get cornered. You won't up stayin' and you wind up killin'. We don't go back. We can't go back." Abraham says.

"I'm not talking about going back. Just south a few miles." Glenn explains.

"No!" Abraham snaps like he's talking to a bunch of children. When in reality, Cole thinks Abraham is the one acting like a man-baby.

"We already hit a full stop cause of an air filter compromised by innards. That will happen again." Eugene tells him.

"Then we'll hit 'em with the hose." Abraham compromises.

"The tank is empty, Abraham." Rosita groans.

"If we floor it—"

"We still hit them, they still slow us down, and then they stop us." Cole steps up.

"I'm not sayin' we just go straight." Abraham argues.

"That's the way the road goes." Maggie informs.

"Abraham!"

"We can get through!" Abraham yells. "I know it! And that means we are not going south, going around, or going back!"

"No." Rosita says. "They're right."

Abraham looks away from her and back at the walkers. He then marches towards them and grabs Eugene's arm.

Then it's all yelling and shoving and Rosita falls. Cole snaps and pulls his gun out. Abraham gets in his face, screaming, "what're you gonna do with that, huh!?"

The madness doesn't stop until Eugene cries, "I'm not a scientist! I'm not a scientist!"

Abraham lets him go in shock. The other stare at him, all shocked and confused.

"I lied. I'm not a scientist. I don't know how to stop it. I'm not a scientist." Eugene tells him. 

Cole's jaw drops a little. Theo and Odessa were right to be skeptical of his purpose.

"You are a scientists. I've seen the things you can do." Rosita stands.

"I just know things." Eugene says.

"You just "know things?" Cole asks him.

"I know I'm smarter than most people. I know I'm a very good lair, and I know I needed to get to D.C." Eugene admits.

"Why?" Maggie asks.

"Because I do believe that locale holds the strongest possibility for survival, and I wanted to survive. If it could cheat some people into taking me there, well, I just reasoned that I'd be doin' them a solid, too, considering the perilous state of the city of Houston, the state of everything." Eugene tells them truth.

Abraham slowly crouches down.

"People died trying to get your hear." Rosita's voice is chocked up from tears.

"I'm aware of that— Stephanie, Warren, Pam, Rex, Roger, Josiah, Dirk, and Josephine." Eugene then glances at Maggie and Cole. "Bob. You see, I lost my nerve as we grew closer, for I am a coward and the reality of getting to our destination and disclosing the truth of the matter became some truly frightening shit. I took it upon myself to slow our roll. Find time to finesse things so then when we got there... but at this moment, I fully realize there are no longer any agreeable options. I was screwed either way. I also liked about T. Brooks Ellis liking my hair. I do now know T. Brooks Ellis. But I did read one of his books, and he seemed like the type of guy that wouldn't blink twice at a Tennessee Top Hat." Eugene says.

Cole stares at him. "Slow our roll? The bus?"

Eugene nods.

"You almost killed us. You almost killed me!" Cole gets in Eugene's face.

"Cole," Maggie says his name quickly.

"You really are a fucking coward. My friend died to get you here. A girl was raped!" Cole screams.

Cole slams his fist across Eugene's face.

"Cole!" People shout. Abraham is up a second later and sends his fist across Eugene's face twice. Eugene hits the pavement face first.

Cole stares down at him while Abraham walks away from them. Cole's eyes move away from Eugene and they turn to Abraham.

He collapses on his knees.

And only then does Cole realize how important this was to Abraham.

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word count: 2,563

angela :(((((((. i am so sorry. remember, if anything of the soft has ever happened to you, you are a SURVIVOR and you are so brave.

so guys, eugene has admitted he isn't a scientist and cole let his anger get the best of him for the first time in a long time.

anyway, one punch was enough. but then abraham haddddd to go and over do it.

so, cole, of course, got a pretty bad concussion and was all loopy. it would've been funny if he didn't almost die yk.

anyway, we are one chapter away from THAT chapter. y'all are not prepared. you guys are not prepared at allllllllll. i'm actually already way past that episode. i'm already writing episode twelve of season five and wow, so much has happened and is going to happen.