A/N: Hey everyone! Not dead! Hope you all like this chapter; kornerbrandon and I are really proud of this.
Carl finally woke up, groaning and clutching his head in pain. One hell of a headache throbbed through him as memories of the fall of Alexandria came flooding back. He tried to stand up, but found himself being pushed back to the ground, the hand small and firm on his side. He struggled harder, desperate to break from the person's grip.
"Carl, it's just me." he heard Enid say. He relaxed slightly before his hand fumbled for his Beretta. The cold metal of the pistol in the holster on his waist felt comforting in his hand. His lips pressed a kiss to Enid's cheek gently before lying back down.
"Where are we?" He asked.
"Heading to the Kingdom. I guess I underestimated how heavy you are; I had to drag you for miles before we were safe. I mean, after I knocked you out." She added sheepishly.
"I remember." The memory was painful. "I was being stubborn so you cold-cocked me with your rifle." He added, rubbing his head. The headache was still a dull throb. "Do we have any Tylenol?"
Enid smiled at him apologetically. "Sorry. We only have a couple of bandages and a tiny bit of antiseptic powder."
"Water?" He asked. She handed him a bottle of lukewarm water and he took a long drink, savoring the water trickling down his throat.
"So, what do we do now?" Enid asked. Carl realized that she was looking to him to keep them alive. Suddenly he felt like someone had dropped a huge weight on his shoulders; was Carl actually ready for something like that? He hoped so, he certainly wasn't going to be the one to let his girlfriend die. Racking his brain, Carl tried to think of something, anything, to get them to move. They couldn't be sitting ducks out in the open for the Saviors. Who knew where those assholes were?
"We head to the Kingdom. That's where my dad said for us to meet." Carl decided. His voice sounded more confident than he felt. "We can regroup with everyone there and figure out where to go from here." Enid nodded to the plan.
"So, what are we waiting for? We're wasting daylight." She said, packing her bag. Carl packed his stuff and they started moving. Both of them were cradling their assault rifles in their hands, pistols and knives strapped to their waists.
"Do we have any suppressors?" Carl asked. Enid shook her head.
"No. Like I said, we had to get out in a hurry. I don't particularly enjoy getting shot, tortured or eaten by walkers." She deadpanned. Carl laughed despite himself.
"Good thing I still have my baseball bat suppressor then."
"Yeah, that's good."
"We can't afford to waste ammo though. We use the knives as much as we can." Carl said. Enid nodded; that was understandable. They didn't have much ammo on them, and every bullet was precious.
After hours of walking, the two were finally coming up on the Kingdom. Perhaps they'd finally be able to get some rest before planning a counterattack. Maybe an actual meal instead of the dried stuff they'd been subsisting on.
Enid rushed ahead, picking up the pace. Carl likewise sped up to try and keep up with her. As he did so, he saw Enid standing shock still. Suddenly, she dropped her rifle and fell to her knees. Soon, Carl saw why.
It was the Kingdom.
And it was burning.
The buildings, the foliage surrounding, all lit up with the angry flames. The wall must've been hit fiercely; maybe the Saviors had set explosives around the edge. Pieces had begun to crumble to the ground, the once fortified safe zone a place of war. And it seems the Saviors have won this battle. Bodies of Kingdom warriors littered the ground. Many had bullet holes in their forehead. Some were shot multiple times until they had fallen; others were covered in blood, pieces of skin and limbs tattered from what Carl can only assume were explosions and blasts.
Carl was at a loss for words. He couldn't think, couldn't speak. The only thought in his mind, "My family. Where's my family?"
Enid broke him out of his thoughts by tugging on his arm. When she spoke to him, he could hear the anger and sadness battling through her, mixed from the sight before her. "We need to go inside! We need to find them."
"Who's them?" Carl questioned. She kept pulling, but Carl stood his ground. If they go inside, they might be walking into a trap.
"Our people. The King, Rick, Maggie. Anyone alive!" Enid pleaded. "Please, if there is ANYONE alive in there, we're their only hope. Carl, please."
With a thought, Carl nodded and pulled his arm out of her grip. Then he swung his rifle to his front and set the safety off. "We need to be careful about this. We see someone, we help them. They're too far off…" He held up his rifle a little higher, not saying the words, but ensuring Enid gets the idea. With a furrow of her brows she nods.
"We see any Saviors, we shoot on-sight. No ifs, ands, or buts about it." With each word, he gains confidence. Maybe he can lead. The trait might just run in the family. "Then we get the hell outta here with whoever's alive. We go to the Hilltop next."
"Got it." Enid responds, pulling her own rifle forward. The two sprint to the front gate, pulling the dented metal open and gazing around.
Many were already dead. Others, dying. For some, the quick bullet or knife in the head was more humane than trying to help them get out alive. Enid was the first to put a survivor (if they could be called that,) to rest. Carl watched her hands shake the knife slightly as she did so. She understood that she had to; doesn't mean she liked it.
The two trekked further into the Kingdom's shambles, horrified by the sight. Some Saviors littered the group of the dead, but not enough for Carl and Enid to be happy.
"Carl…" Enid started softly, her eyes not wanting to believe the sight in front of her. The two had made it to a corner of the fence around the Kingdom, where a seemingly harsh firefight had broken out. Two bodies rested among empty guns and rubble.
Ezekiel. Shiva.
Carl was speechless at the sight. The two were side by side on the ground, covered in blood and bullet holes. Ezekiel lifeless form wore a smile, forever stuck bearing his teeth to the world. Eyes, while glassy and dim, were opened wide. Shiva, lying beside him, had a large paw outstretched to her master. The two died fighting together. It's clear and plain in front of Carl and Enid. They protected those they loved, and the land they ruled. And they lost, in the two's eyes.
Carl looked away from the carnage in front of him. The Saviors hit them worse than he originally thought. Shit. No tiger, no king. No Kingdom.
"The head." He muttered out to his girlfriend. There weren't any bullet holes in their heads. "We need to get his… he can't turn." It would be an insult to their memory.
"Yeah." She nodded fervently, a quiet sob escaping her mouth as she took her knife out from its sheath. Carl's heart broke for her, for Ezekiel, Shiva, for the Kingdom. And quickly, he thought of his father. While he and Enid haven't seen him since the fall of Alexandria, Carl still held out hope that Rick was still out there. He had to be. The words flew by in his brain, "What would dad do?"
His father was strong, was a leader to all. Leaders would put other leaders to rest. Carl's stomach churned in knots at the thought, but he couldn't let it be Enid. It had to be him.
"I'll do it." Carl said softly, his hand reaching out to hers and pushing it down. His fingers curled around the hilt of it as her eyes looked up to his one, as if silently asking if he was sure he wanted to do it. With a slight nod from him, Enid let him take the knife.
Carl quietly gulped at the sight before him; two of the fiercest fighters he had known dead and gone. He could only wonder where Carol could be. He believed that Carol might have gotten away, maybe hurt but not dying, still fighting as she always did. She couldn't be gone. He couldn't believe it; he wouldn't.
Slowly, Carl made hesitant steps beside Ezekiel's empty form and knelt by his head. Carl's hand curled around the top of Ezekiel's head, pushing it a bit more to the left so it was looking straight at Shiva. And, in between two heartbeats, he slid the knife into the base of Ezekiel's skull.
It took a minute before Carl could stand again, but he did. He wiped the blood off of Enid's knife and handed it back to her with a grim frown. When he spoke again, he sounded about as good as he felt. "We need to check the houses. The armory. See what's left and who's left."
"The auditorium, too." Enid agreed.
He nodded to her. "Yeah, let's go."
Turns out the Saviors did a better picking than the two teens thought. With Ezekiel and Shiva down- along with most of the general Kingdom population- they were free to take whatever they wanted. The armory was completely empty; not a single bullet stayed behind. The houses were the exact same. No can of food or bottled water was left. Carl and Enid barely even had scraps with them. Only a couple of decent guns, not many bullets. Knives. They were screwed to say the least.
"Anything?" Enid asked as Carl's hands roamed on top of a cabinet level.
Carl shook his head, aggravated. "Nada."
Enid whispered a, "Dammit," under her breath as he shut the cabinet door with more force than necessary. "What do we do now?"
"We stick to the plan." Carl reasoned, more with himself than her. His anxiety was skyrocketing, along with his desperation to have some good news. This whole situation was worse than he thought. "Go through the auditorium. We take this one step at a time." One damn step is all he can think of at the moment.
Enid could hear the restlessness in his voice, and she didn't want to rattle him more than was needed. So she nodded to him, shouldering her gun as he turned back to the front door of the house they currently occupied.
It doesn't take long for the two to reach the auditorium's swinging doors. Both of them grabbed on to a door, looking at each other before Carl began to silently count.
One. He mouthed to her. He pretended his heart wasn't thumping as quickly as it was. Two. Three.
Carl and Enid swung the doors open with force, pointing their rifles out in front of them as they twisted back to back and surveyed their surroundings.
Nothing. No one.
Quietly, the two broke apart from each other and took a half of the auditorium, searching up and down the rows of seats for anything and anyone. Enid was about halfway through with her row when she noticed a small blob of blue popping out from behind the bend of a seat.
Cautiously, she let out a low whistle to gain Carl's attention. Immediately he turned to her and gave a quick couple of steps to meet her from across the room. As he reached her side she pointed to the blob underneath the seat, her eyes widening with the soft wiggle the blob made.
Carl walked over to it, his rifle pointed to beneath the seat. He rapidly made some calculations in his mind, and every bone in his body told him that no matter what, whoever is beneath the seat couldn't be more than ten years old.
"Out." Carl commanded to the blob. "Now."
The whimper that came from the person confirmed Carl's suspicions.
A small boy, with messy blonde wisps of hair and gray eyes shook as he slowly scooted out from underneath his hiding spot. The blue, Carl noted, was the child's shirt. "Please." The boy sobbed openly to the two. "Please don't kill me. Please."
Carl automatically set the rifle down and to the side as Enid ran to the child and threw her arms around him soothingly. "No, no." She whispered to him. "We wouldn't hurt you, I promise. We're from Alexandria. We're the good guys."
As soon as the word, "good guys," left her mouth, the boy threw his arms around Enid, hugging her tightly as he sobbed into her shoulder. She whispered, "You're safe now," into his hair so many times Carl couldn't count.
Carl gently placed a hand on the boy's shoulder as he knelt beside the two. "It's okay." Carl said. "You're okay." The kid nodded to him, and Carl gently asked, "Do you know if there's anyone else here? Anyone who hid like you from the bad guys?"
A small, pale finger pointed to the stage, past the King's, "throne," and to a big wooden circle, a prop from when the auditorium held plays. He stepped away from Carl and Enid and ran down to it, the teens quickly following behind him.
His small hand knocked on the edge of the circle five times, and to Carl and Enid's surprise, the wood lifted on their end.
Three children came out. Two girls, maybe seven or eight, with dark ebony skin and identical brown messy curls in pigtails. Carl could bet that they were twins, considering they were holding hands tightly and huddled up against each other. They also wore matching flower barrettes in their hair; one was green, the other red. The other child was a small, olive skinned girl of maybe five years old with brown tresses reaching a little passed her shoulders.
"They say they're the good guys." The blonde boy said slowly. The three looked to him, to the teens, and back again in slight fear.
Maybe a kid with a fucked up eye and a gun doesn't exactly bring a stellar image to them. Carl winced at the thought, but as soon they deemed Carl and Enid worthy, they ran back to the blonde boy in a group hug.
"Are you all okay?" Carl asked the group. The fear still evident in their eyes told him: No, no they weren't.
"They… They killed my daddy." The girl with brown hair let out a small sob. "He was all I had left."
"I'm sorry." Enid knelt to the little girl, her hands resting on the girl's shoulders as she gave a sad smile. "I know what that's like. Trust me."
"I miss him already." The girl's bottom lip trembled with every word. Carl's heart broke for the child. Who knows what these four have seen today? Did the girl only see her dad murdered, or has she seen the whole downfall of the Kingdom? Carl remembered having nightmares, almost every day at the beginning of the end of the world. He still has them now. Maybe not as frequently, but they happen.
And now, if these kids weren't subject to them yet, they sure as hell were now.
"What are your names?" Enid said, still knelt in front of the little girl. "I'm Enid. This is Carl."
"I'm Anna." The little girl said, her sniffling slowly going away. She palmed at the tears from her eyes and cleaned her vision.
"I'm Jack." The blonde boy spoke up.
The two dark skinned girls shied away from the rest of the group, still uncertain of Carl and Enid. However, the one with the green barrette spoke up from the two of them. "I'm Sasha. This is Tanya."
"Okay, well Anna, Jack, Sasha, and Tanya, Carl and I are gonna keep you safe now, okay?" Enid spoke up from her spot on the ground. Her eyes gleamed at Carl before she raised an eyebrow. "What are we gonna do to keep them safe, Carl?" She asked. "I say we go to Hilltop. Try to regroup with everyone. Anyone left will be there. Maybe Carol made it over there." Carl shook his head.
"This was planned, Enid. They wouldn't hit Alexandria and the Kingdom and leave Hilltop untouched."
"How can you say that?!" She snapped. "We have to at least find out what happened there."
"Like I said, this was planned." Carl reasoned with Enid. "The longer we stay in this area, the shorter our life expectancy gets. First rule of war; build momentum. They hit all three places one after the other. They waited for survivors from Alexandria to get here, they wiped as many of the Kingdom out as they could in one go. I don't want us to take our chances again . . . And I can't risk losing anyone else I care about." He said, dropping his voice at the last part.
Enid drew in a breath to shout at him again. To tell him he was being stupid, that he wasn't considering anyone but them, that he was . . .
Then she stopped.
Everything he said had made sense. Instead of shouting, she let out one sentence that spoke volumes.
"Alright, lead the way then, Carl."