ROOTS | MICHAEL LANGDON | AHS: APOCALYPSE

SEVEN: OUTPOST THREE

"You're Dinah Stevens." Timothy realized, "My mother used to watch your show. She said you beat the pants off Oprah any day."

"Bless her heart," Dinah spoke, "a million of her and I wouldn't have been replaced by that telenovela."

"Um, what's happening out there?" Gallant asked, approaching the newcomers.

"It's all gone." Timothy said plainly. "Everything." Emily confirmed.

Venable then entered the room. She rang her bell and spoke once, "Dinner is served."

It was an unspoken rule that Dinah and Eve were to sit next to each other for every meal. The two had found respect in each other – Eve because Dinah had helped her lover, and Dinah partly out of the loyalty she herself held to the Antichrist and partly out of the fear of the power the halfling possessed.

"It's all we get." Gallant said to Emily, noticing her expression. "Don't be too disappointed."

"Darling, you don't know what disappointment is until you've slept with Yul Brynner."

Dinah laughed at Evie's comment while Gallant responded with a comment about how he wanted to die.

"The cube on your plate contains every vitamin our body needs..." Dinah trailed off, "Or so they tell us."

"I am still hungry," Coco complained after shoving the entire cube in her mouth and swallowing it whole, "I am so tired of the hunger." She slammed her fist down on the table, "Fuck this bullshit!" The chair screeched along the floor as she got up and pushed it behind her. "With all the thought that went into this place, they don't have a single bag of Pirate's Booty in the pantry?!" She continued her tirade, failing to notice Venable and Mead's entrance. "For a million dollars a ticket, I expect goddamn Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen cooking us real food!"

Venable tapped her cane to announce her presence. Coco stopped and tensed in fear then turned around to face the two women behind her. Without hesitation, Wilhelmina Venable backhanded the heiress across the face.

Eve sat silently, ignoring the commotion. She cut her cube into thin slices, eating each one by one off of her fork. She preferred to savor it, though at night when she was alone in her quarters she would conjure up whatever she was craving (which was usually chocolate cake topped with chocolate ganache).

"I'm going to be very clear so there will be no misunderstanding." Venable spoke. "We have enough nutrition for the next eighteen months, and if our situation doesn't improve, you can count on less and less."

"Situation?" Gallant asked, after Coco sat down. "What is our situation?"

Mead looked to Venable. "We had a perimeter alert this morning," Venable admitted, "something penetrated the grounds.

"It was a carrier pigeon delivering a message from our benefactors."

"Wait, a pigeon?!" Coco exclaimed, "Can we eat it?!"

"It was contaminated by the fallout." Mead finally spoke up.

"There are no more governments," Venable announced, "only rotting mounds of corpses – too many to bury. Starving people kill for a piece of bread. Three outposts have been overrun. We are the last vestiges of civilized life on the planet. Be vigilant."