Stillness has taken over my body. Trapped me. I've tried to fight it, but it found me, finally, on this chilly morning, even as the prison moves all around my cell, folding in on itself. My group is packing up. Cleaning out. My cell, it's already lonely, except for me and my bag and my bow. But that's not much company, really. My feet are on the floor and my elbows are on my knees and my hands press against my lips. And stillness holds me tight and makes me watch things.
. . . . .
Merle's hand takes my arm. "Hm-hmm," he sort of laughs, his face right in front of mine, over the shiny little weapon I just tried to attack him with. He sort-of laughs, yeah, but his eyes don't have a trace of happiness in them. Merle's eyes are . . . in pain. "What were you gonna do with that tiny thing, scratch my back for me?" He squeezes my wrist, squeezes until I have to drop the shard.
"I wasn't tryin' to kill you."
"Oh, I know that, darlin'. You just wanna protect your friends, right?" His voice deepens. "Forget about your family. Your blood."
. . . . .
Stillness releases my right hand. Lets me use it to rub my other wrist, clutch that wrist, but my hand's too small and weak to compare to my uncle's.
. . . . .
"I don't wanna talk to you."
"Hey, now. C'mon darlin', I'm just tryin' to work out our little problems."
"Ain't none of our problems little. And most of 'em probably can't be worked out."
. . . . .
I should go. I should go, load my bag in some vehicle, get out of here. Oh, but stillness has me, doesn't it? Stillness is being cruel. It lets me clamp my eyes shut but that hurts more than it helps and then I'm stuck like that and watching, watching, watching. Hearing. Listening. I listen to the inside voices now, always, even if I don't want to.
. . . . .
"I don't gotta love you no more. I don't. I ain't gonna. I ain't got no more in me. Not for you."
"Listen here . . ." I can see his hand reaching out, feel it brushing my arm.
I twist away. "Don't touch me!" And I run from him, right out of my cell, but then I stop and face him one last time, and my throat lets my voice be steady long enough for me to say one more thing, and I look right into his blue eyes – my blue eyes – to do it. "You shoulda died in Atlanta, Uncle Merle."
. . . . .
"You ain't got no idea what I've done to protect your dad! What I've done to protect you!You ain't got no idea!"
"Go to hell, Merle," I whisper.
. . . . .
And what did you do to protect us, Merle? What was it? I didn't believe it when you said that, no, no, not my selfish uncle Merle. What would he do to protect us? What would he ever sacrifice?
. . . . .
"You shoulda died in Atlanta, Uncle Merle."
. . . . . .
"You shoulda died in Atlanta, Uncle Merle."
. . . . .
"You shoulda died."
. . . . .
"You shoulda died."
. . . . .
"You shoulda died."
. . . . .
"What happened to you, Merle?"
"Same thing that happened to you, darlin'. You're lookin' at me like I'm the devil himself . . . But the little girl I knew would never, no matter what, try to spill her uncle's guts all over the floor. So maybe you should take a good long look in the mirror before you go tellin' me just how far from grace I've fallen."
. . . . .
Maybe I should look in the mirror. Maybe I should. But I don't want to. I'm so scared to.
. . . . .
"You shoulda died in Atlanta, Uncle Merle."
. . . . .
I grit my teeth and swing my neck around and it cracks and pops and stillness is broken away, for now, and freedom should feel better than this. I slam my hand onto my bag and find a grip. Then there's my bow and arrows. My beautiful bow and arrows. The weight of my quiver on my back, the weight of my bow in my hand, keeps stillness at bay. Saving me, probably. And I walk. I don't bother looking back at my cell. I know what empty looks like, and not just because the entire cell block already is.
The cold's moving in. It dives into my skin as I step outside and I welcome it, I welcome the cold. Cold's good for me. We match. I duck my head and shrug to make my jacket fall in closer around me, hiding me, teasing cold. Come find me, cold, come find me. I move forward, towards Silver. I don't look to my left because I know the motorcycle's there and I'm already spending enough time with my memories. To Silver, to Silver. The back's open. Beth's there. I nod at her. She tries a smile. I don't. I put my bag on top of the pile and walk away. There's Glenn, Maggie, Hershel, standing around our cars. And Rick, working at the hood of one of the open ones. My uncle was good with cars. Carl, Carl's over there, at the other end of that car, sitting with his hat tipped low so he doesn't have to look at the world. He's mad at it right now. Barely talking, even to me. Because life's so unfair. I watch him age for a second and then I walk the other way, to the other end of the courtyard. Look, bleachers. What fun we've had, me and these bleachers. The time I fought with Carl and ran out here to hide? Then asked Dad if I could go on a run, a simple run, where nothing could go wrong? Good times, good times. I don't feel like sitting, so I step up onto them, these fun bleachers, walk across, jump down. On I walk, because stillness is the enemy. Over to the edge of the fence, farther than I should go. I have gloves on, but they're fingerless and so my fingers are icy and nice and numb. Look out at the field, look at all the walkers. I remember when walkers were the worst thing in the world. The monsters. I watch as one trips over something and I think I have the urge to smile somewhere deep down in me but it doesn't come up, doesn't show. A smile right now . . . Does my face remember what a smile is?
"Syd."
I sigh. I don't want him here. I've avoided looking into his eyes ever since I saw them all red. But I turn and set my gaze on Dad's mouth, and that's close to his eyes, at least, maybe it'll fool him. He's five steps away. Four, three. "You ready?"
"Yeah."
Two steps, one. He puts his hand on my back and steers me away from the fence, over to the cars. He rubs my neck and he shouldn't. "Don't be worryin', alright?"
"Alright."
"Hey. I love you."
"You too." And then I move away from him, to where Hershel and Beth and sulky, sulky Carl wait by Silver. And guess what? I managed not to look in Dad's eyes once.
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
They've blown up our towers. Blown them out, at least. They're still standing, our nice strong towers, but most of them are on fire at the top. Or just smoking. Going to need repairs after this is over. Which could be soon, I don't know. Maggie and Glenn just started shooting. We can hear them even over the blaring alarms that remind me of cutting open Lori. And the Woodbury soldiers, they're shooting back, because that's what you do in war, you try and kill each other, boom boom boom.
They drove into our prison, those huge cars, and then our towers starting going up, blowing up. There were gunshots, heavy and rapid, Woodbury taking care of our walker problem. Our plan was to lure them into the tombs, the people of Woodbury. And I guess they took the bait, since the alarms are going off now. They'll have met smoke bombs and walkers, walkers, plenty of walkers. Their numbers will be thinned now, as they race back out, right in the view of Maggie's and Glenn's lookouts, ideally. Maybe the Governor's already dead. Maybe he's been bitten. Maybe he's turned.
But no. I don't want him to turn. I want him to be able to recognize me when I kill him. Oh, if we win this, they better not kill the Governor right away. They better hold him. Rick might want that, right? He'll want to kill the Governor himself. But me, I can sneak in. Just one quick second, just long enough for the Governor to see me and know me and then I can kill him, kill him, kill him. Spill his blood, take his eye, stomp him into the ground.
"I should be there," says Carl, eyeing the prison. First thing I've heard him say all day.
He's looking for me to agree. Me, too, I should say, that sounds like me. But I'm not up for it. So I let him brood. Him, me, Hershel, Beth, and a brush-covered Silver, we're hiding out here, out in the woods. Out of sight, hopefully. Waiting for the bullets to stop flying and the fires to stop burning so we can go take in the damage of our prison and maybe execute the Governor.
No, he doesn't deserve to be executed. He'll be murdered. Butchered. Slaughtered like an animal.
Boom, boom, boom. Bambambambambambambambambambambambam. And lots of yelling. Finally the alarms stop, and then there're more gunshots after that, but then those stop, too. And now vehicles drive out. Theirs. We see them, hear them. They fly away. And we've done it, then. We've chased out Woodbury. But the Governor? Is the Governor dead? Is he here, do we have him? That's what matters now. The Governor. But I have to be patient. Or pretend to be. So I stand quietly and occupy myself and fight off stillness by trying to remember what comes after John at the bar is a friend of mine . . . He gives me my drinks for free, and I wait for Hershel to tell us okay, we should drive in, it's probably safe, let's go, or something, but then we hear footsteps. Coming closer. None of us speak, we know what to do. Down behind Silver we go, ducking, crouching. The footsteps near and near and near and then they're right on us and Carl and me jump out, my arrow and his gun aimed. The man in front of us stops. The boy. He's not much older than Carl, only a few years ahead of him, probably. He has a gun, though. Still, he skids to a stop and his eyes go wide and he doesn't point it at us, he doesn't point the gun at us, but we keep on aiming at him. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" he says, breathless. "Don't shoot!"
Hershel, too, he's stood up from behind the car, his pistol up. "Drop the weapon, son."
"Sure." The boy's eyes go from Hershel to Carl, who's closest to him, and he leans forward, his arm edging forward inch by inch, stretching the gun out to Carl. "Here. Take it."
I wait for Carl to reach out a hand but he doesn't. The boy sees this and instead starts to lower down, starts to put the gun at his feet, I think. And then Carl shoots him. Right in the head.
I keep my arrow trained on the boy as he falls, because he can't really be dead. He's a human who was handing over his gun and Carl wouldn't have killed a human handing over his gun. That makes no sense, that makes no sense, so why is there so much blood? Why does it look like a walker just got put down? What's this pink-red stuff on my boot?
Carl. Carl. My arm snaps down, my head snaps to him. Stillness is no threat anymore. Carl's staring at the body. His mouth is a little open and he's breathing hard. He's staring. He looks surprised.
He doesn't look sorry.
