THE LONG ROAD AHEAD

S1 EP2 "Heroes and Idiots"

                             Season 1
                    "Heroes and Idiots"

Jacob woke up encapsulated in a bright shaft of morning light from the giant hole in the ceiling. He could see that the rest of the group was already awake and active.
Dick continuously barked orders to everyone. He'd assign scavenging groups to a section of the store. These sections were mainly the ones where light was shining down on it.
"Hey, friend!" rejoiced Tony.
Jacob waved in reply as Tony came in closer.
"How'd you sleep?"
"Well, for being in an apocalypse, pretty damn well."
Tony smiled his signature idiotic smile.
"That's great to hear cuz you have to scavenge with Marshall over there."
Marshall glanced at Jacob and once their eyes met, he looked away quickly.
"You can't go with him?" asked Jacob.
"Naw, Dick wants me to go with him. You'd really choose Dick over Marshall? Shoot! You is askin' for trouble."
Jacob shook his head and got up.
"There's no more food, Jacob. That's why we're searching." explained Tony; his voice trailing off as he went to rejoin Dick.
Jacob watched Marshall approach him.
"Alright, Jake. You're with me. We'll be checking the staff lounge. Hopefully we'll find someone's lunch."
The two walked off together with a good amount of space between each other. Jacob knew that Marshall was mentally sizing Jacob up; he was seeing who exactly Jacob Ryan is.
Marshall cleared his throat. "Um...so, the staff lounge is the darkest area. I brought this oil lantern with me. I got it from the camping department."
Jacob felt awkward considering Marshall didn't leave anything up for conversation, so Jacob decided to take that up on his own.
"What's Dick's problem? Who made him leader?"
"He's had it tough. Everyone in his family has died while he was young."
"That's no excuse for being such an ass."
"Believe it or not Jacob, he's worried about us. He's worried that he can't take care of us as much as he'd like to."
"Then why doesn't he take charge? All he does is bitch about people."
"Look, why are you so intent on showing us how he is? I'm known him for years. I know how he is. Everyone else knows too, I told them."
Marshall dropped his bag on the door hinge of the staff lounge.
"Alright, search the lockers and see what you can find. This was a big store, so there might be at least a hundred of them."
Jacob and Marshall immediately set to ransacking the lockers; using pliers on the ones that had a padlock.
12...13...14...15...
Jacob was on his sixteenth locker, and still he found nothing but a family photo, some lipstick, and a wallet.
"Any luck, Marshall?"
"No! Nothing yet! You?"
"No!"
The number of lockers seemed to dwindle down.
I should have found something by now! thought Jacob.
"Got some potato chips, Jacob!" exclaimed Marshall.
"Great! I've got nothing."
Other supplies Jacob found were a condom, lipstick, and a two-month notice. Still no food.
Jacob gave up. There weren't anymore lockers to search. He turned around.
"Shit!"
Marshall was behind him, as silent as the winter.
"Sorry about that," he apologized. "Let's go back. There isn't shit here."
The two left the lounge, Jacob carrying nothing and Marshall carrying a bag with new potato chips.
After a minute of walking, Marshall spoke again: "Dick thinks there's more out there."
"What?"
"Dick things that this apocalypse is the result of something more than a few quakes."
This sounded ridiculous. "So, what? Zombies? Aliens?"
"He doesn't say. But it makes sense. You really think that earthquakes were the only thing that caused the world to fall?"
"Well, it's rational."
"You're an atheist." This wasn't a question.
"Agnostic. God hasn't really worked in my favor."
"Excuse me! I didn't realize you were on such a high pedestal."
"What're you? Catholic?"
"Jewish."
The two continued to walk in silence, with a bitter, stale taste to the air. Jacob was about to say something when all of sudden they heard yelling.
"FUCKING DUMBASS RED-NECK!"
"No! Sorry! It was on accident! I swear to my momma it was!"
"MY ASS IT WAS!"
It was the unforgettable voices of Dick and Tony.
The sound of a palm hitting the side of a face was heard, and it made Jacob and Marshall run to see what happened.
In the middle of the aisle, Dick was kicking a downed Tony. After seven kicks to the body and head, Dick went down closer and went to punch Tony.
Jacob ran, lifted up Dick, and punched him so hard, he spun.
Dick's eye was red and bleeding.
Dick retaliated and punched Jacob on the nose. The sound of cracking bone was heard as well as the moaning of a pained man.
With a bloody and broken nose, Jacob went in to punch Dick again but was grabbed by Marshall and thrown into an aisle.
The force of this knocked the aisle down and created a domino effect. Each aisle landed on top of the other with a colossal thud.
Jacob got up and saw Marshall dragging Dick back towards their sleeping area. He immediately went to Tony's aid.
"Get the fuck up. Get up!"
Jacob propped Tony up and wiped the blood from his face with his shirt.
"Thanks Jake, you're a good man."
His voice sounded awfully muffled due to the blood in his mouth.
Knowing this, Tony spit a giant helping of blood on the floor.
Jacob picked up Tony on his shoulder and dragged him back to the others.
"What'd you do Tony?"
He coughed. "I...I...there was some jerky...I...I moved the cabinet and the whole damn ceiling came crashing down and crushed the jerky."
"So it was out of your control?"
"No. I didn't have to move the cabinet. I'm scared man! Dick's gon' kill me! He's gonna kill me!"
"Shut up! He's not gonna kill you. Damn fool."
They arrived at the camp and saw Amber and Drake huddled together by the fire.
"Is everything okay?" asked Drake.
Jacob didn't answer but instead found Marshall moving his and Tony's sleeping bag far away from everyone else.
"Hey! Hey! What the hell are you doing?!"
"Moving your things far away. Y'all need some space, I think that's self-evident."
"No! I'm not moving away just cuz that pussy lost his jerky!"
This time Tony spoke: "Jacob, just let it be. We'll move."
"This is bullshit. This is fucking bullshit! FUCK YOU, DICK!"
Jacob hoped Dick could hear him.
He realized that there probably was no point in fighting anymore, so he took Tony to the new camp.
Jacob placed Tony on his respective sleeping bag and flopped on his own, trying to shut the world out.

                                    ***

"Hey." It was Amber's voice.
Jacob woke up and saw that Amber and Drake had moved to the new camp as well, leaving Marshall and Dick to themselves.
"Are you guys okay?" she asked again.
"I'm fine," replied Jacob, "Tony is the real victim here."
"Alright, then..." said Amber. "How are you, Tony?"
Everyone looked to see what answer he'd give. He looked terrible.
He was sitting on a chair, and the fire illuminated the upper half of his face or rather, a disgusting deformed canvas. Both of his eyes were swollen and yellow. His mouth was split open a bit on the left side, two of his upper teeth were missing, and he had cauliflower ears. Jacob knew that no one could see it, but Tony cried as he spoke.
"I've never been beat up so bad before. Only by momma has my face bled. I s'pose she's dead now or something. Goddamn, I miss her. She told me something that I'll never forget. She said, 'Son, there are two types of people in this world. Thems people are heroes, or idiots. God made heroes so that they could give the idiots false hope. And God made idiots so that they could believe that there are such things as heroes.'"
He swallowed hard and wiped his tears.
"Dick is a fuckin' hero. And I'm the fucking idiot that believed in him. I don't feel good. Everythang hurts. Everything..."
Tony fell asleep sitting on the chair.
Amber and Drake stayed quiet, staring at the fire.
Jacob lay down, staring up at the giant hole in the ceiling that revealed the miraculous night sky. Never before had he seen so many stars. It gave him hope for some reason. Hope that even if the world has indeed gone to hell, life always finds a way.
At that moment, Jacob wondered who he was. A hero, or an idiot.

                    END OF EPISODE 2