"Carol?" comes a responding cry.
"Henry!" she shouts back. Carol falls gratefully to her knees before the open root cellar. "Yes. It's me!"
"I can't get up the ladder! I think my leg is broken."
Carol turns and puts one foot down the cellar and finds the first rung of the ladder.
"Careful!" Henry calls. "The fourth rung is broken."
Carol makes her cautoius way down. Henry has clicked on a flashlight and sits with his back against the cinderblock wall of the cellar. His lower leg is misshapen, the ankle bent out. It's clearly broken, but he's just as clearly alive.
Carol gathers the sobbing boy into her arms and sobs with him.
[*]
Ezekiel strolls into the library and quickly looks away when he sees Nabila is nursing. She scurries to grab the nursing blanket off the back of the rocking chair and covers herself. She clears her throat, alerting him that it's safe to come in. He takes another step inside. "Enid and I cleared the southeast field," he says.
Gracie is standing in the play pen, holding the rail, and bouncing at her knees while Judith hangs upside down on the couch. When Judith sees Ezekiel, she puts her palms flat on the floor and pushes herself into a backward roll. He lunges forward and catches her leg before it can smack the coffee table, and then he helps her to stand up.
"Where Unca D?" she asks.
"He'll be home in day or two. Or three," Ezekiel assures her and sits down in an arm chair. "Hershel Glenn's a hungry little bugger, isn't he?" he asks Nabila.
"No more than usual," she replies. "They eat frequently at this age."
"Well, if you desire a respite when you're done feeding him, I shall assume the child wrangling duties."
Nabila chuckles. "I could use a bath. I haven't had one yet. And we have water now."
Rosita's voice drifts through the open vent on the library ceiling, the same vent that is on the floor of her bedroom: Fuck yes!
Judith cranes her neck back and looks up at the ceiling.
The squeaking of box springs punctuates Rosita's words – Yes! Oh yes! Oh fuck yes!
Nabila's dark skin flushes a reddish-brown. "Would you mind shutting that vent, Your Highness?"
Ezekiel stands, rolls the ladder that's attached to the built-in bookcase until it's nearer the vent. As he climbs it, Javier's voice drifts through the vent, in a Spanish growl spewing dirty words Ezekiel cannot translate. He stretches his arm out to reach the vent, and just as Rosita cries Fuck yes! again, he flicks it shut.
The sounds die to a muffled murmur.
"F-F-Fuck!" Judith cries. "Fuck wes!"
"Oh, dear," Nabila says.
[*]
Between the two of them, Carol and Daryl get Henry out of the underground cellar and to the truck. They splint his leg using sticks and the medical supplies they picked up at the pharmacy aisle of the general store in Clifton. While he sits on the tail gate and eats a ding dong Carol has offered him, Henry tells them what happened.
The boy was divided from the others by fire and, to avoid the gun shots, he ran for the root cellar, lowered himself in, and closed the door over himself.
"That was clever thinking," Carol tells him.
But partway down the ladder, a rung snapped, and he plummeted to the earth, breaking his leg when he hit it. He passed out from the pain, and maybe from the smoke seeping down into the cracks around the door. He came to sometime the next day. "At least I think it was the next day. I was so hungry and thirsty. But there's those big blue water storage containers down there. And the vegetables." Henry smiles. "You used to ask what it would take to get me to eat my vegetables. Well…"
Carol chuckles.
Henry stayed down there for the next few days, while the fire burned above and the walkers feasted. He lived off of the vegetables and the water jugs. He dug a latrine in the far corner to bury his waste. If he had spent much longer down there, he probably would have become sick.
Carol feels guilty for not hastening back to the Hilltop. Two nights she made them spend winding their way to Dead End winery, and instead of pressing on last night, she asked Daryl to stay at that winery. Counting the night of the attack, and their night at Hillcrest Vineyard that means the poor boy has been surviving alone in that dark root cellar for five nights straight.
"I'm so sorry," she says. "I should have come looking for you sooner!"
"The walkers didn't give up until yesterday evening anyway," Henry replies. "I don't think you could have gotten to me. They were at the door, gnashing and clawing, dozens of them, I think. Day after day. Night after night. And then finally…they just moved on. I tried climbing out this morning when I didn't hear them anymore, but…I couldn't do it with the broken leg." He makes a fist and flexes his arm. "I need to build my arm strength."
"Kid's fine," Daryl assures Carol. "Like he said. Couldn't of gotten to 'em 'fore. Fire still 'round. Walkers, too. But we got 'em now."
"I knew you'd come back for me!" Henry says. He chokes. "I'm so glad you were out when it happened. I couldn't stand the thought of losing everyone."
"Oh, honey!" Carol puts her arm around him. "We're not alone. We have a new camp now. And Rick and Michonne are there. Judith and Gracie and H.G. Rosita and Jesus and Aaron. Ezekiel. Nabila and Enid, too."
Henry's mouth falls open and a breathy laugh escapes him. "And Maggie?"
Carol swallows and looks away. Henry's mouth closes. He looks across the Hilltop at all the fallen bodies. "We have to bury her."
"We don't even know which one is her," Carol says.
[*]
Javier snaps the tailgate closed. The pump and dead power pack are in his bed. He turns to face Rosita and leans back against the truck. "I'll be back in two days with the power pack recharged. See if Carol has those vitamins."
"Two days?" she asks with a raised eyebrow. "Think you can hold out that long?"
"I have a farm of my own to manage, you know."
She steps closer and toys with the second button on his red checkered shirt. "Just wasn't sure if you could last."
"I think maybe you're the one who's not sure."
She scoffs and lets go of the button. "I'm a sex camel. I can go for months."
He smirks. "Well, maybe you used to be a sex camel. But after just one ride on the Javier Express…" He wiggles his eyebrow.
"Don't flatter yourself."
Javier kisses her cheek. "I had a good time," he whispers in her ear. "I think maybe you did, too, hermosa."
Rosita steps back and crosses her arms over her chest. "I wasn't bored," she says.
He chuckles. "Hasta luego. Buena suerte with the fence and the farm." He walks around to the front door of the truck and hefts himself inside.
Rosita walks past the driver's side and throws a dismissive wave over her shoulder, but she's grinning when Javier backs out.
[*]
Daryl and Carol dig one deep grave and stack all the bodies they recognize within it. It's too much work for the two of them to dig a separate grave for each body, but Henry ties sticks together to make individual crosses for each person. Not all the forest around the Hilltop burned up. There are still some living limbs to mark the dead.
They erect a fresh cross for Glenn, too, because his has burned to ash. They recognize which grave is his, however, because Hershel's blackened watch rests atop it. Carol scoops it up and slides it into her pocket – for Maggie. She hasn't given up hope just yet. One of these bodies might be hers, but, then again, none of them might be. Counting the bodies doesn't help either, because some of the dead probably turned and wandered off before their brains could be burned up or eaten out.
Daryl can't find anymore tracks – they've been so walked over so many times. They discuss moving on to Oceanside. "We need to warn those women that there's a headquarters in Norfolk and that the men who attacked them were a part of a larger group," Carol reasons.
Daryl hems and haws about it. "Need to get the kid back. Don't owe them ladies nothin'."
"We took their guns for the War Against the Saviors. I think we owe them something."
"Ratted us out," Daryl mutters. "Sent them attackers our way."
"Because those attackers captured and tortured one of them."
"Ya wouldn't of given 'em up."
"Maybe not," Carol says. "Though I don't know what I might do in that situation. I can't judge."
"They ain't our problem."
"They might know something," Carol reasons. "And maybe…" She doesn't dare voice her hope, that maybe none of those bodies on the Hilltop is Maggie, that maybe Maggie made her way to Oceanside and was taken in. "I want to go. We're here. We're near. We should go. And they have a doctor. Maybe they can do more for Henry's leg than a cheap general store splint."
"Fine," Daryl agrees. He looks at Henry. "Wanna go on a beach vacation, kid?"