{"id":58314,"date":"2016-04-11T11:30:25","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T16:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58314"},"modified":"2016-04-10T09:35:08","modified_gmt":"2016-04-10T14:35:08","slug":"fear-the-walking-dead-exit-288","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=58314","title":{"rendered":"Fear The Walking Dead: Exit 288"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE: The prairie. \u00a0It’s the dead of winter. \u00a0The sky sweeps above in 180 degrees of piercing blue, studded with\u00a0a few isolated scudding clouds, pale with the reflections of frozen ice crystals in the air, as the very humidity itself is frozen. \u00a0<\/em>The wind is light – 10 mph – as it sweeps across the plains. \u00a0 As far as the eye can see, there is snow. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A squad car rolls up a four lane freeway. \u00a0Behind the wheel, Officer Tom CHRISTIANSON, a Barnes\u00a0County sheriff’s deputy, sails briskly up the road, his whoopie lights turned off. \u00a0CHRISTIANSON, a trim, purposeful man in his late thirties, looks tired, even a little haggard, but his eyes are focused and fierce. \u00a0 \u00a0The camera briefly focuses on a green freeway sign: \u00a0“Fargo 72; Valley City 12”. \u00a0And then another: \u00a0“Exit 288 – No Services”.<\/em><\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON slows and pulls up behind a Ford F150 Club Cab, which is idling on the shoulder of the eastbound lane just east of the exit\u00a0 He climbs out of his squad car, dons his stetson, and walks up to the pickup, his breath steaming in the bitter cold as it blows away. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Jake and Donna STADEL, a thirty-something couple, are standing by the tailgate. \u00a0Jake is carrying a hunting rifle; Donna, a long-barreled hunting shotgun. \u00a0 CHRISTIANSON shakes Jake and then Donna’s\u00a0hands. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0Jake. \u00a0Donna.<\/p>\n

J STADEL: \u00a0 Deputy.<\/p>\n

D STADEL: \u00a0 Tom.<\/p>\n

J STADEL: \u00a0 So is it true what they’ve been saying?<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0(Shakes head in a way that says “just a little numb from fatigue and confusion”<\/em>). \u00a0No idea. \u00a0Last thing anyone knows is that all the TV and cable networks went off the air.<\/p>\n

J STADEL: \u00a0 Did you see that one live newscast where they…<\/p>\n

D STADEL: \u00a0…overran the news crew live on the air, on camera…<\/p>\n

J STADEL: \u00a0In the middle of that riot?<\/p>\n

(All three go silent, shaking their heads, wincing in horror at the horrid memory<\/em>).<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0 Yep. \u00a0I did.<\/p>\n

J STADEL: \u00a0 So they’re saying they (thumb points over shoulder, off-camera to the right<\/em>) are pretty much everywhere these days?<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0 The whole east coast. \u00a0All of California. \u00a0The whole deep south. \u00a0Even the desert southwest. \u00a0The last ham-radio transmissions say they’re pretty much the only thing left walking in those parts of the country. \u00a0 There’s a few survivors, I suppose, but they’re few and far between.<\/p>\n

J STADEL: \u00a0Jeez.<\/p>\n

D STADEL: \u00a0God.<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0Yep.<\/p>\n

J STADEL: \u00a0So we’re…<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0Us and South Dakota,\u00a0northern Minnesota, Montana, the U.P,.\u00a0Alaska, Manitoba and Saskatchewan and parts of Alberta, Russia, Finland…<\/p>\n

(All three shake their heads as the thought trails off<\/em>).<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0Well, thanks for calling this in. \u00a0Let’s get to it.<\/p>\n

(Camera pulls back and pans right, and we see a large herd of zombies trailing off to the east, perhaps two hundred of them – all of them frozen stiff; a few jerk fitfully about and hack and gack feebly; most are utterly frozen. \u00a0The three grab machetes and axes, and walk toward group\u00a0and start hacking<\/em>).<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0You still doing poker on Friday, Jake? \u00a0(Grunts has he hacks off a frozen head<\/em>)<\/p>\n

J STADEL: \u00a0Oh, ya. \u00a0You betcha. Won’t be there until after Shania’s basketball game. \u00a0(Plunges knife into zombie skull<\/em>)<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0How’s the team doing this year?<\/p>\n

D STADEL: \u00a0She’s finally getting enough playing time. \u00a0Now we just gotta get her chemistry grade up… \u00a0(Smashes a head with an axe<\/em>)<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANSON: \u00a0I had to take away Ashley’s X-box…<\/p>\n

(Fade to black over mundane small talk as the three matter-of-factly go about lopping\u00a0off frozen<\/em> zombies). \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

(And SCENE<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: The prairie. \u00a0It’s the dead of winter. \u00a0The sky sweeps above in 180 degrees of piercing blue, studded with\u00a0a few isolated scudding clouds, pale with the reflections of frozen ice crystals in the air, as the very humidity itself is frozen. \u00a0The wind is light – 10 mph – as it sweeps across the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-58314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-n-e","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58314"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58341,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58314\/revisions\/58341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}