Two new people had accepted Terminus' terms and conditions. A pair of cousins, one named Hayley and the other Allison. This time, they had stayed for two days before the cold, hard, iron-scented facts of Terminus were delivered to them. They reacted with horror at first, but the sight of dinner being prepared and eaten among a group of people who had walls, fences and a community erased all desires to accept death out of principle.

At the same time, the Occupier who Cynthia had requested be kept alive had died of an unknown illness and turned in the train car where he had been moved to starve in solitary. Albert suggested they chain up his walker and keep it as a token of victory and another reminder of days gone by. Gareth and the others readily accepted his proposal.

Taunting the Occupier's walker had become a popular pastime at Terminus. The butchers had taken fresh cuts of human meat and dangled them in front of it, snickering when the shackles prevented it from reaching its desired flesh.

Using the man's reanimated corpse as a source for amusement felt like an ironic divine justice to every resident.


Mary had become regretful that she still sought out comfort from her children when she had nightmares after dark. She wanted to be like Gareth, stoic and seemingly unflappable.

Gareth assured her that she was already much more like him than she thought and no one would lose respect for her by admitting she was still human. However, he decided he didn't cry anymore.

Mary had knocked on Gareth's door just as he was nodding off and he'd groggily accepted her in his arms as she soaked his white cotton shirt with tears. Gareth had always been the ideal rock to lean on.

After Mary's sobs had finally faded, Gareth thought they would both fall asleep in each other's arms on his bed until he felt the sudden onset of sharp hunger pangs in his gut. He couldn't sleep when he was hungry, not even a little bit. He used to drive his parents up the wall when he was a baby and would cry late at night to be fed whenever he became even the slightest bit peckish. Mary or Michael would stagger into his nursery and feed him several mouthfuls from the bottle before he'd fall back asleep. He would often repeat the cycle several times throughout the night.

"Hey, mom? I'm really hungry, will you be okay by yourself for a few minutes? I won't be too long," Gareth whispered.

"You don't have to whisper, and yes, I'll be fine," Mary reassured.

Mary lifted her head and Gareth carefully departed from his place, muscles aching from having been idle in the same position for so long. He slipped out the door and through the dimly light corridors and courtyard where the night's previous heavy downpour of rain had slowed to a light drizzle. It was a warm, balmy spring-like shower. Gareth dreaded spring and summer, and the heat and humidity that accompanied it, being that the heat made the stench walkers carry that much worse.

His goal was set on Terminus' dead-at-any-minute mini-fridge where the leftover meat from the day's butchery had been stored.

As he arrived at the kitchen and stepped inside, not to his surprise, he saw Martin kneeling in front of the appliance with his right arm buried in it. Once, Martin had stuffed four musty Bud Lights he found on a run inside of it while removing someone's sandwiches and eating one of them. His claim was that someone had taken the sandwiches out just before he'd gotten there and he happened to walk by with four beers where there also happened to be a space available in the fridge the size of four cans. That was when official usage rules had to be drawn-up.

Gareth also spotted Alex sitting at the table, writing something on a piece of paper.

Perfect. Gareth decided he would ask Alex to go to Mary while he ate his fill.

"Hey Martin, you delivering a baby?" Gareth said of Martin's arm in the fridge.

"Oh, heh, yeah." Martin smiled awkwardly as he turned his vision to Gareth who made his way to Alex at the table.

Alex turned to greet his brother as Gareth approached him and leaned down to whisper into his ear. Gareth didn't want Martin in on this, but he knew he'd probably hear anyway.

"Would you go sit with mom for a little bit? She's in my room, she had a rough dream. I was hungry, so I had to get something to eat."

"Sure, okay yeah." Alex set his pen down beside the paper and stood up.

Gareth glanced down at the piece of paper Alex had been writing on. "Hey, what's this?"

Alex's face tensed, worried Gareth would disapprove. "Uh, it's a family tree. I was just bored."

"Huh." Gareth simply stared at it as if it were a grocery list.

Alex waited for a further reaction before he strolled out of the room. Gareth then turned his gaze to Martin, who was staring at him, a hand still inside the refrigerator.

Gareth had realized Martin had been nursing a crush on him. He'd known for longer than he wanted to admit because he'd been wishing it weren't true. Whether Martin just had a desire to get in his pants or something more, Gareth didn't know and didn't care as he wasn't interested in reciprocating. Gareth presumed that Martin thought he wasn't interested in men, which he occasionally was, or Martin would have made a pass at him a long time ago. He intended to keep Martin's lack of knowledge on that subject just that.

"Is there something you want to say, Martin?" Martin's continued eyeing irked Gareth.

Martin shut the fridge door empty-handed and stood up. "Huh? What, no, it's just I didn't know Mary was still having nightmares. I mean, I didn't think she wouldn't be, but I didn't know either way so…"

"Well, thanks for your concern. So, was Alex talking to you about that family tree he was making?"

"Yeah, actually he was. I told him to shred it before you or Mary saw it, but you don't seem too bothered, huh?"

Gareth thought about it, did it bother him? No, not really. His mother was in a fragile state and he had to keep this place running and his people fed, why would he devote time to being upset about a list of his dead relatives?

"It's not important."

"Well, have a good night Gareth." Martin waved and sauntered off.

Yeah, sure. This night is going to be just great.

Gareth moved over to the mini-fridge Martin had left his paw prints all over and found it still contained thigh meat from a man pulled and butchered from A earlier that afternoon.

The previous sounds of labored whimpering, skulls being cracked, electric saws being run and the wet slapping of meat and organs being thrown in the FEED container had all been replaced by the cranky, low whir of the refrigerator that now housed the fare those sounds had produced. The butchers had often complained they couldn't get the smell of fresh blood out of their noses so they would trek to the courtyard and bury their faces in the sunflowers. They said sometimes they'd even get the taste of blood in their mouths and joked that they'd rather not be vampires, just cannibals.

"Vampires are cannibals, Gavin," Gareth had said.

The middle-aged, balding man who had arrived two days prior and whose cooked and sliced meat was now being chilled, had been named Gary. It had made for an interesting conversation between him and Gareth over the trough.

"Gary, huh? That's not short for Gareth or Garrett is it?"

"Nno."

"Aw, that's a shame, I thought we could be name buddies. Not too many people have my name, that's why my father chose it. Did you know it first appeared in the fifteenth century in a compilation of Arthurian legends? Apparently, my namesake sat at the round table, who knew. I also heard it might've originated from the Welsh word for 'gentleness.' I don't know if that's ironic or not. People have always tried to call me Gary, god how I've always hated it. 'Gare' is okay. Ever had the misfortune of someone calling you Gare-bear over the age of ten?"

Gary hadn't replied.

"Come on man, I'm talking to you. I know this sucks, but you made your choice. And honestly, I respect that, I really do. Now answer my question?"

"Mmmy aunt used to call me Gare-bear until she died."

"See, that wasn't so hard. I'll make sure to remember that, Gary."

Gareth sat hunched over at the table eating the slices with his hands, too tired and too eager to have the night over and done with to care. He noticed that Gary didn't taste much like pork and his meat was tough and dry. He wondered what the man's body fat percentage had been.

Gareth looked over Alex's family tree that had been written in Alex's typical all-capital spelling. He recognized that his brother's font matched that of the declarations he had painted on church walls. Alex had printed in capitals most of his life because he found it easier to write quickly and with more accuracy. Alex had multiple qualities that no one else in his family did, like dyslexia and dark, wavy hair. Two of several things he had inherited from his biological father, much to his distaste.

Gareth washed the grease from his hands in the sink before making his way back across the wet and humid courtyard and to the corridors that led him to his quarters.

As he opened the door to his room, he found Alex cradling Mary on the bench by his window in the same manner he had been before he left. Alex was saying something that actually had Mary smiling. Eager to hear what had cheered her up so much, Gareth moved over to the space on her other side.

"…John and Patricia with that old ugly as sin dog," Alex continued. "Remember when Pat tried to dry the dog with a hair dryer and it scared him so bad he pissed all over her? I didn't think I'd ever stop laughin'." He chuckled.

Hearing the names John and Patricia triggered Gareth's memory of his recent dream of the Thanksgiving dinner. The following day, Gareth had briefly tried to find some part of himself that was horrified by his nonchalant and comical reactions to some of the worst agonies he'd ever endured. Instead, he found that he didn't care enough to care that he didn't care. It was only a dream after all, and made no sense to dwell on something that for the most part was pleasant.

Gareth settled beside his mother. "Remember when John took us to the coast and made a very pregnant Pat sit in the car while he went looking for sand dollars?"

Mary sat up. "Oh my god, I'd never seen her so pissed. She was always so mellow. Like you, Alex."

Mary and Alex's faces suddenly froze as Gareth realized their fond recollections of the two had been replaced by the fresher memories of their deaths.

Briefly after the turn, Michael, Mary, Gareth, and Alex had driven to John and Patricia's house. A very distraught Patricia ran across the yard with her eight-month-old baby girl, Mira, in her arms who wailed uncontrollably. She stammered on about John having been bitten by a walker that used to be the sixteen-year-old girl who lived next door.

They followed Patricia inside to find a dead walker whose head had been smashed to mush by a hammer that lay beside its body. And John, lying on the living room sofa, clothes torn where the undead had bitten his stomach. The wound bled profusely as he faded in and out of consciousness. It was long enough after the virus hit to where Michael, Mary, Gareth, and Alex knew John was beyond saving even if they stopped the bleeding.

The baby was still screaming its head off, from what they figured was due to the stress of the situation. Yet Michael tended to John while Gareth and Mary attempted explaining to Patricia that her husband couldn't be saved, Alex spotted the bite on the back of the baby's shoulder. Patricia had been so overcome with panic over her husband and the attack that she had failed to notice her baby had been bitten by the walker before she killed it.

The sight of the bite was one of the worst, most agonizing and hopeless feelings Alex had ever had in his life, even to his present date. It was the first time Alex truly saw the color red.

"P—Pat?" Alex's voice quaked.

She hadn't heard him at first, her focus being on Mary and Gareth trying to calm her down as the baby continued to wail. Alex then shook Patricia's shoulder and she turned her frantic face to his.

"There's a... there's a…" He gave a weak gesture toward the baby's back.

Patricia turned the baby around to see the wound and screamed bloody murder. Everything that followed seemed like a jet engine-loud, messy blur that ended with three loud bangs.

Patricia had asked to take the pistol Mary carried so she could be the one to put down her husband and baby which Mary reluctantly agreed to. The four of them stood out of the way as Alex and Mary turned around. Meanwhile, Gareth and Michael performed the horrific task of watching to make sure Patricia would go through with it.

John had already become unconscious when Patricia fired into his skull at point-blank range. The baby she still held had begun quieting to various whimpers and whines despite the loudness of the gun. Patricia raised the weapon to Mira's head and after a minute of hesitation and violent shaking pulled the trigger.

"It's done," Patricia declared in a small, sheepish voice. Just as Alex and Mary had turned back around, Patricia raised the gun to her temple and fired. Her dead baby still in her arms, she slumped to the ground.

Coming back to the present, silence filled the room until Alex began to weep. "You think if we'd gotten there sooner…then they'd be here right now... at Terminus."

"If they'd even have survived the Siege," Mary said, shutting her eyes.

Alex wiped his wet eyes with the long-sleeved of his shirt. "They could've. I mean, I don't know about little Mira, but the two of 'em could've."

Gareth once more recalled his dream, thinking of Patricia spraying blood and brain matter on Alex's shirt whose biggest concern was his ruined clothes.

Patricia and John at Terminus, he contemplated.

He could see Patricia being much like Alex in her approach and views on the new world, and John's role would likely be much as Michael's was. The baby, Mira, was another question though.

They had decided in Terminus' official meeting on the subject of children that they would be butchered and eaten like any other if they had to. Others, like Gavin and Martin, remarked that even if the children's guardians accepted Terminus' way of life, that children were a large burden, especially the young ones. Gareth said the children of accepting guardians would have to be assessed to see if they would be an acceptable fit for Terminus before deciding what to do with them. If they were a bad fit, then like all others who were, then they were to be butchered. And assuming their guardians disagreed, they would be butchered as well.

Gareth was ready to have his own mother or brother carved and grilled if they ever had to, and figured strange children should be a breeze. Meat was meat after all.

Although, two former parents of Terminus took Gareth and the other's words about children being a burden with great offense. For the first time since the Siege, Gareth was attacked by one of his own people. It was a mere shove, but it caused considerable tension. A soft bruise had formed on his chest from the assault. He had been without a bruise since the occupation.

"I'm so sorry I brought 'em up, mom," Alex apologized. "I was writin' up a family tree in the kitchen and got to thinkin' of all those good times and nearly forgot the bad ones, I..."

Mary rubbed Alex's shoulder back and forth. "It's okay baby, I know you were just trying to help."

"That's what I always hated about walkers the most," Gareth spoke-up. "You can't make them pay for what they've done. They probably don't even feel pain. You can't really do anything about being pissed about the turn and walkers. It's just an act of nature, like a storm or an earthquake."

He knew once nature decides to take you out other, all you can do is everything you can to dodge its assault. Gareth always thought those of them who had made it that far and long have the same instincts the virus does. The virus cared nothing of who or what it caused pain, it was just doing what its intended purpose was: to live, evolve, and persevere. That's exactly what Gareth knew Terminus was doing as well.

"Well, the one chained-up makes a good punchin' bag," Alex said.

Earlier that day, Gareth had found Alex waving a slab of meat in front of the Occupier's walker. There was less of an amused smile on his face as the butchers had donned, and more of what Gareth could only describe as a power play. In the end, Alex took the meat and left. Mary had shuffled around it for a long while, watching it hiss and lumber around before she finally departed.

Alex shifted in his seat, meeting Gareth's eyes. "Now's probably a bad time to ask, but Gareth, what do you think about addin' more lists of names to the church? Of people we've lost to the turn before Terminus? Like, you could write down Chelsea's name."

He scratched his head. "I don't know, it's… I don't know if there's room. We'd have to find a place, a smaller place, and scribble them down. That seems in bad taste, honestly. And we'd have to go around asking everything to give the names of their dead relatives. It was hard enough making a list the first time."

Alex said nothing, but nodded

"It doesn't have to be in the church," Mary suggested. "What about the reception hall?"

Gareth squinted. "Yeah, that might work, actually. We could call a meeting on it tomorrow."

"Just ask whoever you see if they want to contribute to it. And if they don't, then fine. You don't need to call a meeting for every single thing, Gareth."

Gareth nodded, detecting a hint of a 'mom voice' in Mary's tone. "Yeah, I guess you're right. So is that why you were making the family tree, Alex?"

"That and I was bored." Alex's tears had stopped and he had begun to retain his composure.

"Why? Where's Theresa?" Mary asked.

"We're not joined at the hip," he answered.

Gareth smirked. "Could've fooled me."

Alex shook his head. "She's on night watch with Maddie, man."

Mary turned to Gareth. "You should give Martin a chance."

"What?" His ears rang. He assumed the subject of Theresa made Mary think of the romantic overtures of her sons, but he hadn't expected her to say that.

"Yeah, come on Gare," Alex teased. "Take him out huntin' quails, it'll be romantic."

"How do you even know about that?" Gareth worried it had become public knowledge.

"Because he didn't smile like that when I felt him up at the gates."

"Yeah, not gonna happen. I don't want that right now or maybe ever again."

Alex laughed. "Come on, just imagine Theresa and Martin havin' to be in-laws. I could see him at Thanksgivin' dinner at our old house pluckin' the turkey he shot and askin' Theresa to help. And he'd laugh his ass off when she says 'fuck no.'"

"Yeah well, Martin would just parade me around in front of his homophobic father trying to piss him off."

"And tell you to make sure you said everything was 'fabulous,'" Mary said just before all three of them cracked-up. "I wish it could be like this all the time."

"It's like this right now. Just focus on that," Gareth urged.

Gareth hadn't bonded with his family in a long time. He thought it had to have been before the Siege since they had laughed together. Even when he and Alex had habitually stayed in their mother's room when she had nightmares, they never conversed much. The task went more along the lines of 'get each other through another night' rather than 'make each other feel happy again.'

He had come close to forgetting that he inherited his wit and sarcasm from his mother. Sentences that came from nowhere that she knew would floor him such as 'you should give Martin a chance' did, were what Mary used to put him in his place—especially when he had one-upped Alex.

Gareth grew somewhat somber after Mary and Alex eventually left his room after having talked for a while longer. He thought of the way Alex looked at him like he used to, without apprehension or pause. It made him wonder if Alex was afraid of him. Mary, he knew, wasn't. She had stood by and watched him kill without showing one shred of fear at seeing what her son was capable of. He wondered if his father would be afraid of him had he have lived. Or if Chelsea, Patricia, or John would fear him.

He fell asleep wondering these things, but his dreams were untouched by them.


In the map room the following morning, Gareth stood along with Theresa, Gavin, David, Albert, and Martin who had agreed to Alex's project. Gareth held a new daily planner book they retrieved on a run to jot down the names he received.

"My sister Jasmine Lincoln, my dad, Gene, and mom, Karen," Theresa listed. "Cousin Andrew Mendez and his kids Andy and Bryan."

"Marion O'Connell," Martin said.

"Was that your sister?" Gareth asked. Martin nodded. "What about your other family?"

"Just put her on it."

"Oh, come on, man. You told me you had other family."

"My parents were assholes."

"So were mine and I put 'em on the list," Gavin interjected.

Martin sighed and crossed his arms. "Trisha and Don."

"Anyone else?" Gareth questioned, tapping the pen on the notebook.

"My best bro was named Larry Morrissey. He was an asshole too."

"O'Connell, how'd you end up Baptists?" David asked.

"Northern Ireland," Martin replied.

Gareth noted Martin's Irish surname as he had considered his heritage being that Martin's eyes looked unique to him. He wondered if Martin had a fleck of Asian blood in his lineage or if they just happened to look that way.

"Put Jaime Coleman, J-A-I-M-E," Theresa added. "He was my fiancée. We broke up before everything went down, so I assume he's dead." She shrugged.

"Albert?" Gareth inquired.

"My grandparents," Albert began, "Carolyn and Jacob Messner. And my aunt Isabelle West. And my uncles Brian Messner and Chase Metaxas."

"'Metaxas?' How do you spell that?"

"M-E-T-A-X-A-S."

"Greek, right?" Gareth asked. Albert nodded.

"Yeah, I can see that." He expected some sort of emotional response from Albert at listing the names, but he appeared very calm and smiled at his remark.

"So is that it?" he asked. The five of them nodded.

"Okay then. Go on your merry ways and clock back in." Gareth waved them off and continued to scribble away on his notepad.

Martin approached the leader as he continued writing. "So Albert seems less likely to try and break my nose today."

Martin had commented to Albert about him needing to get over his family, just as he had. In turn, Albert balled up his fist and clocked Martin in the face who shoved him back enough to make him stumble before the fight was broken up.

Gareth glanced up at him. "He'll be less and less likely to do it again if you don't say that kind of crap again."

"Eh, yeah, I guess I deserved it."

"I don't condone violence between any of my people, but yes, you did deserve it."

Martin laughed in return.

The thought of the man being assaulted made Gareth think about his previous group and the shiner he had arrived with. Gareth and Martin had wondered if that group would one day show up at Terminus. His mind wandered to the woman Martin made a pass at. What did he mean by "make a pass at?" Did he mean kissing, groping, or something he said? Was she into it and would she have slept with him if her brother hadn't found out?

"Gare?" Martin asked.

"What?"

"I said, you know it's poker night tonight?"

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. "Well, I set it up so yeah. But I have something else to do, sorry."

Martin's face fell somewhat. "Oh, okay."

Irritated that he was still thinking about Martin's eyes, Gareth decided he would pay a visit to the walker in chains.


It wasn't the first time he'd seen this walker, yet the sight of it filled him with a jolt of adrenaline.

That face, Gareth exclaimed to himself.

The face of the one who had cackled, beaten, burned, raped, killed, and starved, now reduced to a rotting, snarling corpse.

Gareth held out his hand to just an inch away from the growling walker's as it reached out to take a swipe at him.

"Where were you?" he thought of his dream and how only the leader of the Occupiers had shown up.

"So, do you like your new room?" he teased as the walker began snarling louder.

"Shhh, no talking in the library." Gareth backed up a step and brought his arm back down to his side. He glanced to each entrance to ensure no one was coming before speaking again, "I see why Albert found this so therapeutic, I could talk to you all day. I don't feel like I can really talk to anyone anymore. Not even my own mother or brother. Especially not my brother. Last night though, we did all talk and it was nice, like we were in the eye of a hurricane. Cynical, maybe, but no one's disproved my theory yet."

If only he could ask a walker questions and get actual answers, he wished. As in, if they ever became truly satisfied after eating a living person, even when they had had so much their bellies distended and burst. And if they felt hunger like he and his people did. Or if perhaps that's what they felt all the time and that's why they could be decomposed, dismembered, melted to the ground and still snap at their feet. Every part other than the primal need for nourishment had died and hunger drove their every action. Gareth felt he almost understood walkers.

"God, how pathetic is this, huh? I'm talking to a corpse."

The walker began snapping its teeth and jerking itself forward.

"Yeah, I'm hungry too."