Rolo-chan Too short? Shit, I was getting worried my chapters were getting too long. Yeah, don't blame you for not liking her that. Oh, man, yeah... Rosa was like four/five months pregnant when she died, so Em's still in there...
BloodGutsandChocolatePudding Thank you so much
Mikey can't find his dad:—"It's just... weird. He doesn't stay out this long, ever. After Aiden, runners aren't supposed to leave, not this late."
I'm fiddling with Maggie's music box, snap it shut, and the soft song stops. It's hard to talk to Mikey after what happened, what his father did.
Mikey rubs his mouth. "Anyway... the meeting's starting in an hour and I was looking for him. I guess I thought... you might have an idea."
I don't.
"Do you think he's avoiding it?" Carl asks, and Mikey's face becomes a crack in a concrete road.
"I don't know..."
Then Abraham is standing at the front door with a cluster of flowers spilling over his hands. They're floppy and long and white. "Any of you know where I can get a vase for these?"
We don't.
Abraham sighs and looks at the flowers. "Probably something in the infirmary." He goes to the dining room table and does his best neatening the flowers into something of a bouquet. When he can't, he stares at them hopelessly; lower lip bunching up his thick orange moustache.
I walk over, neatens them for him. Abraham frowns gratefully and slaps me on the back hard enough I jostle. Then he leaves. I guess he's nervous. Eugene's been hanging out at the infirmary lately, and Abraham's been avoiding him ever since before Grady.
"I should go," Mikey says. "Good luck, tonight. I hope everything is neatened out."
I nod awkwardly.
"Thanks," Carl says, walking him to the door, and even after it is shut and Mikey is gone, Carl stands there, lost in his head. He's so worried he looks sick. Finally, he returns. He tells me he needs to sleep and I think that's a great idea, that I'll look after Judith, and that's what happens for a couple hours.
By the time it's dark and I've put Judith to bed, I find a ukulele in the closet and go downstairs with it. It's hard to play with one hand, but eventually, after playing it softly enough, I can get a decent enough tune using my bandage to strum. It feels good to play again, after so many years.
At some point, I realise Carl is watching me from the archway.
"You don't have to stop," he tells me.
Still, I set the ukulele down on the coffee table, feeling hot and embarrassed. "Didn't mean to wake you."
He shrugs. "You were good."
I smile.
"Mellifluous," he adds.
I frown.
"Means a nice, sweet sound," he explains. "Nell — she said at the welcome party, about Deanna's orchestra music. How many songs do you know?"
I shrug. "Not sure. Sometimes I just make them up."
"That one wasn't made up," he says. "I know it..."
"You Are My Sunshine," I say.
Carl nods.
"Few weeks ago," he tells me, "I saw you and Nell, dancing. It was nice."
I smile, embarrassed. Carl is looking at his hands, looking anxious, like he's running out of things to think and talk about. I have something, so I get up and take his hand, thinking we can dance, too, thinking that it might help.
He laughs, draping his arms around my shoulders and leaning into me, pressing our foreheads. We sway side to side, and then he starts to sing to me.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away..."
He gets embarrassed so I kiss him and whisper for him to keep going. He does.
"The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms
When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head, and cried
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away..."
We dance some more for a while.
"Do you still love me?"
"Yeah."
"Even without a hand?"
"Yeah."
"I understand, if you don't."
"I do. Come with me..."
"Are... you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Okay..."
Sometime later, Carl is curled up at my side, asleep. Feeling very calm, I run my fingers along his shoulder and down his side, his skin smooth and warm and a little damp.
A dog is barking non-stop in the distance. I can hear it, muffled through the closed window, and at some point it occurs to me that it's Bean. He goes on for a long time. Too long for normal. I get a bad feeling. I try to push it away. I try to sleep, but I can't.
Finally, I shuffle my arm out from under him. He mumbles something but I tell him to sleep, and he does, then I leave the house. I arrive at the pantry not long later. Bean is inside, barking through the side door, at me... and the corpse lying in the grass in front of me.
It's a walker, old, killed. It got in though. There could be more. I knock on the door desperately. Nobody answers. I think of the meeting, turn and run. The meeting is only a block away, so I get there quickly. I can hear talking, Rick mostly. A crowd of Alexandrians block the entrance to Deanna's front yard and I can't shout to get Rick's attention, so I crouch, see through legs that there's a dead walker by the fire.
"It got inside on its own," Rick says. "They always will — the dead, and the living. Because we're in here."
I push through people until I reach Penelope and Enid. I tug on their sleeves. By the look on their faces they already know about the walker outside their house.
"And the ones out there," Rick goes on, "they'll hunt us. They'll find us. They'll try to use us. They'll try to kill us. But we'll kill them. We'll survive, I'll show you how."
He's doing it, what Carl said. He's telling them in a way that they'll hear him.
"You know, I was thinking: How many of you do I have to kill, to save your lives? But I'm not gonna do that. You're gonna change. I'm not sorry for what I said last night. I'm sorry for not saying it sooner. You're not ready. But you have to be. Right now. You have to be... Luck runs out."
Then Mr. Anderson rounds the gateway on the other side of the yard, leaving the shadows and stepping into the glow of the firelight. His shoulders are hunched, teeth bared, eyes red, and Michonne's katana in hand.
"You're not one of us!"
Jessie shakes her head.
Again he shouts, "You're not one of us!"
Reg rushes up and takes his shoulders. "Pete, you don't wanna do this." He's shoved away. "Just stop..."
"Get the hell away from me. Rick." He's drunk.
Everyone is uneasy on their feet. I can see their breath, puffing fast.
"Reg," Deanna warns. "Reg."
Rick steps forward.
"Not now," Carol warns him.
"Stop," Reg begs.
"Get out of my way!" The katana comes up. "Get away!" And suddenly Reg is hit by lightning, or that's what it looks like. The way he jerks back. Except electricity doesn't split your throat in two. Electricity doesn't send red siphoning out between your fingers so fast you can't hold onto it all.
Deanna's screaming.
I've seen someone die before. I know what it's like. I can stare Death in the face and Death is always the one to blink first, but I never win the contest. Nobody does.
Abraham rushes past me in a gust of wind and then he's knocking Pete to the ground. Jessie is screaming, too. Death is blinking and blinking and blinking only it's Reg and he's dying and dying and dead in his wife's arms.
"Oh god!" she wails. "No, my love! No! No! No, my love!"
"This is him!" Pete screams, his face in the ground.
"Shut up!" Abraham shouts.
"This is him! It's him! This is him!"
Penelope looks away, hugging Enid. Enid just watches, tears falling but her face blank.
"Rick," Deanna, whispers, her face all wet and bloody and scrunched up like paper. "Do it..." and he does, just like that, shooting Pete through the skull and his brains spread across the brick.
I shiver. Penelope is crying. Enid shudders. Jessie collapses. People are screaming and Rick glares down the barrel of his gun, blood dripping and his face.
"Rick?"
Three figures are stood in the place Pete came in. Daryl and Aaron and a third man; a stranger. Only he can't have been. He was who said Rick's name. Buzzcut black hair, bearded, dark brown skin, wearing a trench coat and black gloves and a backpack. He's holding a long, sturdy stick.
Rick glares at him. "Morgan..."
Soon after, I get back to the house. Carl is awake, after hearing the gunshot, and Judith is crying. I explain everything. We all sit at the dinner table in silence afterward, waiting for the others. Maggie arrives first, and makes soup for us, and then, as we're finishing, Noah comes by and tells us we need to come to the clinic.
Glenn is injured, something like a flesh wound or a deep gash on his shoulder, which Denise is tending to, but it isn't only that Noah brought us here for.
Tara is awake, sitting up in bed. Rosita is here. Sasha and Eugene, too.
"Noah," Tara says, "why'd you bring so many people. It's not like I just woke up from a coma or anything."
He laughs and holds her hand.
She looks at me, at my hand, and her eyes become wet.
"Oh... shit."
"Yeah," I say, eyes wet, too.
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright," I say, meaning it. "It's alright."
On our way back, we see Enid sitting up on the gazebo roof, messing with a lighter. I tell him he should ask her about going into the woods, so he kisses my forehead and tells me he'll be home soon.
"It's alright," I whisper, meaning it this time, too. "See you later, man."
I wait for him, sitting on my porch steps reading Philosopiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton. Carol gave it to me, didn't say why. Whatever, I like math. I look up when I hear footsteps.
The street is dark, lit by nothing but the dim glow of the porch lights. I stand up. Ron leaves the darkness and walks up onto his steps. His father just died. He stops at his front door and I see that he's crying very hard. I've never seen Ron cry. His father just died. It's odd how someone can be feared and hated and loved and lost all at the same time. It probably doesn't scratch the surface.
Suddenly, Ron turns to me. He steps over to the edge of his porch, directly opposite me, then he pulls off his beanie and throws it across to me. I catch it. It's one of mine that he borrowed a few weeks ago. I throw it back. He catches it, wanting him to hold on to it, and without a word he turns around and is gone.
I can't tell if it's going to be alright this time.
Notes
There you have it, The Easy Part. Thank you for sticking around. Sequel's in my profile...
Super thanks to DarthGranola and Ana-DaughterofHades (DG mentioned you a while back) for the suggestion with the ukulele and song part. It was so great, thanks.
As always,
Happy reading.
