June 26, 2015: A Time For War
Glenn, Maggie and Sasha took their team of five up the south side of the island's shore. That side of the island was home to most of the livestock. Several pens held goats, chickens, ducks, pigs and cows. Gardens flourished in neat rows with two greenhouses nearby also.
"There's no people here," Sasha said.
"It looks like the other living quarters are over there on the east side of the island...just about another 75 yards," Maggie replied.
Glenn signaled the whole team. "Okay we're going over there then," he said as he pointed in the direction of three large houses.
Minutes later they stood behind a tree in front of the three large houses. The eight of them looked at the homes and tried to ascertain what was beyond the doors and inside.
"How should we do this?" Maggie asked the others.
"They're big houses," Glenn replied. "I gotta think that there's probably a lot of people inside each one. We have to clear each house one at a time. It would be suicide to split up."
"Look up there," Sasha exclaimed. "There's an empty guard tower right there. If you guys go into the houses one at a time, I can go in the guard tower and pick off anyone coming out of the other houses."
"That's good," Maggie replied. Sasha started to walk away towards the tower. "Sasha wait", Maggie said. Sasha turned around and eyed Maggie. "Why don't you let me go up there."
"Why?" Sasha asked, confused.
"Yeah why?" Glenn echoed. "Sasha's a better shot than you. A much better shot if we're being honest."
Maggie tilted her head and eyed Glenn,"Yeah I get it. It has nothing to do with who's the better shot. I just don't want her having to climb that tower six months pregnant, okay?"
Sasha rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Nuh, uh. We're not doing this. This is exactly why I didn't want Bob to say anything about the baby. I'll be just fine." Before Maggie could say anything else, Sasha turned and started to walk away again. Maggie watched her until she saw her start up the ladder to the guard tower.
"Sasha knows what she's doing," Glenn reassured his wife. "And we know what we're doing."
As soon as Sasha was at the top of the tower, Glenn lead the team into the first house. Maggie broke the glass in the front door and stuck her hand in the opening. She quickly unlocked it then swung the door open. It didn't take long for bullets to start flying down hallways in every direction. The two men and one woman were no match for the team of seven.
Glenn, Maggie and the others crept quietly up the stairs. They carefully cleared the rooms until they reached the end of the hall. Maggie slowly opened the door with her gun raised. A woman stood in the corner of the room with six children, all in their pajamas, cowering behind her. Her gun was raised to Maggie and the others but it shook in her quivering hand.
"Please," she cried, "don't hurt the babies. Do whatever you want to me but please don't hurt these kids, I'm beggin' you."
"Lower your gun," Maggie calmly commanded the woman. "There's seven of us in your house right now and just one of you. If you don't put your gun down, it's going to end badly for all of you."
Tears ran down the woman's eyes as she lowered her gun. "I don't want no trouble with you people. Just please...please don't hurt our babies."
Glenn walked up to the woman and removed the gun from her hand. Maggie kept her gun raised while Glenn and another man restrained the woman and all the children with zip ties. Two of the little girls, around the ages of four and five, whimpered softly. "Mommy, who are these people? Why are they tying us up and where's Daddy?"
"Don't cry Maggie," the mother said to her daughter gently. "Everything will be okay."
"You're name is Maggie?" Glenn asked the frightened girl. She nodded. "I like that name - it's really pretty." Glenn looked at each of them. "I know you're all scared. But if you do exactly what we say, there's nothing to be scared of. Just like your mom said, everything will be okay. Now follow me."
Glenn lead them through the hallway and down the stairs while Maggie carried up the back. When the woman and six children reached the bottom of the staircase, they could see the fallen members of their families.
"You bastards!" an older and bulky teenage boy shouted out as he slammed his head into the back of Glenn's head. "You killed my Pa!" Glenn turned around and tried to hold the young man back but he kept attacking, kicking Glenn's legs out from under him. A young man on their team tried to restrain the crazed teen, but he was immediately kicked to the floor.
"Stop it!" Maggie shouted. "Stop it or I'll shoot you!" But the ravenous teenager didn't retreat and instead kicked Glenn in the face. Maggie took her shot and the young man collapsed on the floor as blood oozed from his head.
The woman and five remaining children screamed and cried in horror as they looked around at the massacre. "Jimmy!" a 12 or 13 year old boy screamed. He turned towards the crying woman. "Miss Ellen, they killed Jimmy! And my daddy's on the floor over there too! Is my Daddy okay Miss Ellen? Did you see if he's okay?" But the woman just wept along with the children as they lead them to the front porch.
"Sit here," Glenn ordered them as he held a handkerchief to his bleeding head. "Don't move."
The woman sat on the porch weeping with the children sitting and hovering around her.
"Jamal, you stay here and watch them," Glenn said to one of the younger members of their team. "Don't hesitate to shoot if any of them try something." Jamal nodded as Glenn looked at Maggie and the rest of the team and let out a heavy sigh. "Two more houses to go."
...
A strong wind came up from the lake and blew Carl's hat off his head. He glanced over at it for a split second watching it disappear over a hill. He quickly debated whether he should retrieve the memento or not. I'll find it later, he thought to himself. There's more important business to take care of than chasing after a stupid hat. Carl tried his best to concentrate on the task at hand but his eyes kept moving in the direction of where the hat had blown, distracting him from his mission. Just go get it. You'll be sorry if it blows into the lake and you never see it again.
Carl recalled the day his dad gave him that hat. Lying in bed, at Hershel's farm - in pain but very doped up. He could almost feel the morphine running through his limbs as he pictured his dad placing the hat atop his head. He remembered the looks of relief on his father's face and the gratitude on his mother's after he made it through the surgery and awoke the next day. He shouldn't have survived. What were the odds that his dad would have brought him to the home of someone who could perform the surgery that his small and weak body needed. If it weren't for the collective efforts of his father, Hershel and Shane, Carl would have died that day.
Life really is fragile, Carl thought as he chuckled to himself, dismissing the hat completely. These bastards are about to find out just how fragile their shitty, pathetic lives are. He finally turned his complete attention to about ten men who were running from their homes towards the armory.
Carl looked over at Lee, Eugene and his other team members as they hid behind a shed,"As soon as they pass, we come up behind them and take them out."
The armed men hurried past them and when they did, Carl and his team came out from their cover and fired their weapons at them. The wind blew a spray of blood back onto Carl and the others. Carl closed his eyes but when he opened them he saw three of the men continuing to run.
"Use your knives and stab the dead ones in their heads," Carl said calmly to his team as he ran past the men lying in the blood-soaked grass."Lee, Mike, you come with me...we have to stop them!" Carl shouted givng chase to the three that got away. Carl, Lee and Mike followed the men as they approached the armory.
When they rounded the corner of a building, Carl and the others stopped dead in their tracks. They stood there frozen looking ahead at Rosita. The three men who had gotten away, stood with three other men. One held a knife to Rosita's throat while the other two had their guns raised to Carl, Lee and Mike.
"What are you doing here? What do you want?" one man shouted through furious tears. "You're killing all of us, why?"
Carl stared ahead and said nothing.
"Why won't you answer me?" he shouted frantically. "I watched men walk into my home and kill my wife and boys! What did we ever do to you? Who are you?"
Carl stammered with uncertainty, "We...we came here to live here. We wanted to make a home here."
"So you were just gonna come here and execute all of us and take what we have...what we've made for ourselves? You murdered my family and just..." but the man couldn't finish. He turned his head and wept uncontrollably. Carl looked away not knowing what to say.
Lee stepped forward, his gun still pointed at the six men as they held Rosita. "Listen to me: you let our friend go," Lee said. "You let her go. You'll be sorry if you don't."
"We're not letting her go. I'm gonna slit her throat and you're gonna watch. She killed Henry. She killed the man who gave us a life here...who made this island what it is."
"Besides, what more can you do to us?" another man asked despondantly. "You killed everyone we know? You say we'll be sorry but we already are. You're monsters for what you've done to us!"
"What kind of people come and attack innocent people and murder them?" the first man spoke again. "How could you do this to us...killing our families, our children?"
"You want sympathy from us for what we've done?" Lee asked as he stared them down. "You say you're innocent but we saw the barracks across the lake. We saw the people you had locked up there...the slaves. We know about the women you were raping and beating. You're the monsters here! We came here because we wanted to make a life for ourselves and our families. We were ready to live in peace with whoever was here. I wanted my little girl to have a chance at a real life...where she could be happy! I wanted her to grow up and live where she wouldn't have to fight the dead and certainly wouldn't have to fight the living! We wanted peace!" Lee shouted then shook his head fervently. "But you can't have peace with those who would look at other humans like they're animals...like they're half a person. We can't have peace with people like you! Besides, you don't deserve a life of peace!" Lee fired his gun into the head of the man with his knife at Rosita's throat. The knife dropped and Rosita grabbed it and stabbed it into the man next to her before she ran to safety.
The other men opened fire on Carl and the others. Bullets entered into Lee's chest and stomach, pushing him into Carl. Carl shot his gun at the men as he ran down a hill as fast as he could, pulling Lee along with him. Lee collapsed on the ground as Carl took shelter behind a tree and watched as the men came towards him. He fired a few more rounds, taking two of the men down, before his gun ran out of bullets.
Carl's slim body wasn't completely covered by the trunk of the small maple tree. He felt a rush of fear as bullets wizzed by and small bits of bark flew off the tree in front of him. One bullet went through the loose fabric in his shirt. When he looked down to make sure he hadn't been hit, he felt the sharp stab in his eye. He wasn't sure what happened but an explosion of pain spread throughout his entire head and blood poured down the right side of his face. He raised his hand to his eye, quickly examining the area to determine how bad it was. He felt the bony mess that was moments ago, his eye socket. He pulled a bandana out of his back pocket and pressed it against his wound. He could hear the men closing in on him but Carl knew he wouldn't be able to fight them off in the state he was in, with no ammo.
Gunfire echoed all around Carl as he heard the sound of familiar voices. Carol, Morgan and Eugene were near. Carl heard his father's voice next and relief washed over him. He felt weakness in his knees as his head began to spin. Carl finally collapsed to the ground next to Lee.
"Lee hold on!" Carl said reaching out to him as he tried hopelessly to put some pressure on the bullet holes in his chest. "My dad is coming and we'll get Bob...just hold on Lee!"
"Won't do any good, Carl," Lee said as blood sputtered out of his mouth. "Listen to me - I think I only have a few seconds left..."
"I'm listening!" Carl gasped, trying to remain concious himself.
"Clementine...Clem, tell her I'm sorry for leaving her. Tell her I've always loved her like..." he said then stopped, choking on his blood, "...like she was my own little girl. If I coulda had a girl of my own, I would've wanted her to be just like Clem...just like her. Tell her that."
"I'll tell her Lee."
"Take care of her for me, Carl...you and everyone else, take care of that girl for me. She don't think she needs anyone to take care of her, but she...we all need that."
"We'll take care of her. I promise," Carl replied softly as he held the rag to one eye and closed the other, unable to stay awake any longer.
Only seconds had passed before Carl felt his father lifting him up from the ground. Rick ran to one of the cottages wtih Carl in his arms and laid him in a bed. Carl looked up at Rick and saw the shell-shocked look on his face and the red in his eyes. Michonne was at Rick's side wiping the blood off of his face, as she reassured him. Bob hurried inside with his triage bag and ran to Carl. He immediately started to attend to what was left of his eye before Carl completely lost conciousness.
"Is he gonna be okay?" Rick asked Bob a few minutes later as he stared down at his boy blankly.
"I think so. I'm starting an IV to give him some meds to lower his blood pressure. His other vitals - oxygen, heart rate - they're pretty good," Bob said confidently. "Rick, Michonne, it's not all good news though," he said looking down, "Carl's gonna lose his eye. A lot of damage was done to his eye socket and the bone tore right through his eyeball. I can't do anything to save it."
"He's still here though...he's not gonna die," Rick closed his eyes and nodded in acceptance. Tears ran down Michonne's cheeks as she held onto Carl's hand.
"I wish I could have done more for Lee and some of the others but..." Bob's voice drifted off.
"You're only one person and you've done more for our family than anyone else, Bob," Rick said placing his arm on Bob's arm.
"No matter how much I do, no matter what I can fix, it's never enough."
"The same thing is true for all of us," Michonne replied. "It's always been true."
Bob opened his mouth to speak again when suddenly Maggie burst through the door frantically. She threw several items off of the other bed in the room. Bob looked at Maggie and immediately started getting ready for another patient,"Who's hurt? What happened?" Bob asked calmly.
Maggie stared into Bob's eyes trying to mimic his calmness. "Bob, it's Sasha. She was shot in the leg. The gunshot wound doesn't seem bad but she fell off a two-story platform."
"What?" Bob asked. "No not Sasha. She can't..." but Bob couldn't finish.
Glenn charged through the room carrying Sasha in his arms and laying her on the bed. Bob looked down in horror as he saw blood between her legs soaking through her jeans.