Cover image fanart by andytweed, better resolution found on Tumblr.

In the main house, on a normal, lazy, spring morning, I curl up in the living-room armchair and write into Carol's flip-book:

Oliver Fabiano De Luca
Date of birth: September 30th 1996
Age: 15
Fact #1. I had a brother, Patrick.
Fact #2. I got bit, and I lost my right hand.

"PT?" Carl asks, crossing the room with two bowls in hand. He sets them on the table and I go sit in front of my bowl, nodding thanks as we start eating. He cranes his neck to read the flip-book, open. "Cool — you could pass for a total left-hander now."

Mouth full of dry cereal, I shape-shift into a human shrug.

Swapping my spoon for my pen, I write:

Fact #3. My left handwriting is better.
Fact #4. I play ukulele, guitar, and I want to learn piano.
Fact #5. My favourite book is Butterfly Lion — I don't know why.

Carl grins like I've just created a new colour.

I keep writing:

Fact #6. I have gravity defying hair.
Fact #7. I'm an orphan.
Fact #8. I've killed people, and watched people die.

Very quietly, Carl says, "You don't need to write that."

Keeping my eyes on the book, I say, "I do."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah — so I don't forget."

I think about what to write. 'My mom was Italian but she didn't like pizza.' 'My dad was Jewish but I never got my bar mitzvah.' I could write a list of everything that I'm afraid of, or why zebras are great, but instead I just write:

Fact #9. I'm a beanie kind of guy.
Fact #10. I'm in love with my best friend.

Carl huffs and shakes his head. "Dork."

I shut the flip-book, go on with eating breakfast. Outside, through the window, I see Carol crossing the street. She stops at the foot of the porch, looking at something.

"Sam..."

I sit up and see him sitting on the step.

"Your dad used to hit you and then he got himself killed," she tells him. "It happened. Now it's done. You live with it or it eats you up. Go home."

She walks inside, carrying a green bag full of pantry ingredients. She peers out the window and watches Sam outside. He must leave, because she heads into the kitchen.

"Mrs. Neudermyer broke her pasta maker," she says.

"She found one?" Carl asks.

"Where do you think me and Oliver have been getting all our fresh pasta from?" She asks, unpacking noodle and celery soup cans. She sighs. "She only had it for a couple weeks..."

She looks at me like she's expecting me to talk about it, too, but I don't want to talk about pasta-makers. I want to talk about things that matter, like why she won't invite Sam inside anymore, but possum Carol's still playing dead so I don't say anything.

Carol moves on, occupying herself with a baking dish and a nut cracker, shooing Bean away when he sniffs at her ankles — we're dog-sitting, since Nell is out on a dry run.

Done with breakfast, Carl and I go upstairs into his room. On his stereo, we listen to some moody, slow album; one of Aiden's old mixes. I read Tokyo Ghoul. At some point, Carl says something to me.

"Did you hear me?"

I look at him, guilty.

"I said Michonne never put her katana back, after that night," he says. "It's like she never even put it up there in the first place."

It's on your back... even when it's off your back.
Even when it's stolen and used to kill someone.

They didn't bury Pete in the community. We don't bury killers — or at least we don't kill the killers who aren't on our side.

"You're not talking to me again."

"I'm talking."

"You're not."

"I am. Sorry."

He sighs. "Are you worried?"

I nod. "I think so. It's a big herd. Bigger than I've ever heard of."

They were burying Pete when they found it, the herd, trapped at the bottom of the quarry out west. Thousands of them. That's why Alexandria's still standing. The walkers were busy growling down there instead of eating over here. Like our own booby trap, only... it won't hold them forever.

"They're sorting it," Carl says. "Finishing the diversion wall, out there at Marshal and Redding."

"I know," I say, wanting to change subject.

He thinks of something first: "Gabriel wants me to start teaching him to defend himself now; asked today while I was walking Judith."

"Will you?"

"Yeah," he says, "later."

"Can I... join?"

Carl looks at me, my arm, then me again. He nods. "Of course, man."

We're quiet for a minute. Carl leans back on the bed, into my knees, and I go back to reading my comic...

I'm not the protagonist of a novel or anything...
But...
If, for argument's sake, you were to write a story with me in the lead role...
It would certainly be...
A tragedy.

Then someone screams outside.

Notes

Welcome back. Enjoy!

As always,
Happy reading.