"Well ain't that some shit!"

Negan stood outside the fence surrounding Alexandria with one hand propping his favorite weapon, Lucille, over his shoulder and the other hand on his hip. He shook his head, taking in the sight before him. It wasn't as if it were especially gruesome. Gruesome didn't bother Negan one bit. It wasn't as if it were a particularly devastating trap either. He should know. Negan was something of an expert on devastating traps. No that wasn't what impressed him about this message. What impressed him was the fact that someone would have taken the time to annoy him. The people who live here, or used to live here, put in some time and effort to give him this message. It seemed to be their way of saying "screw you" while they were on their way out the door.

When Fisher hadn't returned with his requested two Alexandrians, Negan had decided to enact Plan B. It was time to take the fight to Rick Grimes' doorstep. He had assembled his troops and made the journey to Rick's little town. Upon their approach Negan had taken note of the wooden staff still lodged in the middle of the road. But no head. That was curious. There was also quite a bit of blood on the asphalt. Curiouser.

They had approached the fenceline with caution, not wanting to be taken by surprise. He had sent his men to search the perimeter. They had reported back. There were no other ways in. There were no guards in the towers. Negan had stopped to listen. All was quiet. That's when he had decided no one was home.

He had brought his army to Rick's front door and that son of a bitch wasn't even here. Wouldn't it be hilarious, he had thought, if Rick had hauled off and planned some sort of attack on Salvation while the population of Salvation was on their way here. But no, he had dismissed that idea. Rick would have wanted the home field advantage in this fight. If he were putting up a fight he would have stayed here. He would have been waiting for the Saviors when they arrived.

But he wasn't putting up a fight. He had run. Rick Grimes and his band of Alexandrians had run off. It was a shame, really. Negan had big plans for this crew. Fun plans. Now if he wanted to have his fun, he'd have to track down Rick and his friends first. But to do that he would need some clues from within the walls of Alexandria. And to get inside the walls, he would have to get around Rick's little parting gift.

Four people. Rick had now cost Negan four of his people. Which meant he was owed four people in return. Fair is fair, after all. And here in front of him were two of the people Rick had killed. The truck was backed up to the only gate into Alexandria. It was his own truck, Negan noted. It was backed all the way up, touching the fence. They would have to move the truck to open the gate, there was no doubt about that. That had been the whole point of it, Rick's point. Negan would have to work to gain entry to this compound. And it would be tricky work too. Rick had made sure of it.

Propped up inside the cab of the truck were Fisher and his friend, dead. Negan peered at their bodies through the windshield. At least it looked like they had put up a fight. Still, they were dead, very dead. And they weren't alone. Crammed in among his two dead men were a couple of roamers, gesticulating like they're prone to do when they see a meal nearby. So to move the truck, Negan would first have to deal with the four corpses in the cab, two dead and two undead. But apparently that wasn't enough for Rick. Although Mr. Grimes had been kind enough to leave the keys to the truck, to get to those keys Negan would have to deal with the three additional rotters that had been lashed to the exterior of the vehicle. They were roped to one another and then tied around the truck in such a way that cutting one loose meant releasing the other two. One blocked each of the two cab doors and the third stood in front of the grill. Each one of them reaching for one of the tasty looking Saviors who now surrounded them.

Of course, this was nothing they couldn't handle. Negan had brought enough men to take down this entire town. They would have no trouble dealing with these five living carcasses. Five of them. Negan thought about that as he took a step closer to the one blocking the hood. He leaned in, just barely out of reach of the beast. He laughed out loud, startling some of his men. Five of them. Rick had left him five roamers just like five fingers on a hand. And this one here, this one was Rick's middle finger. Rick knew they'd be able to deal with this obstacle he had thrown in their way. But he also knew it would be something they'd have to deal with. He was making them work.

Negan laughed again. "Hot damn! I can't wait to meet this crazy asshole."

He spun around to face Dwight. Dwight still looked sheepish. He had failed. He had let Carol and Tara get away. He had allowed himself to be beaten, almost killed, by a couple of unarmed women. In the process he had collected another scar. A dark purple line was etched into his neck. Negan's eyes shot to the new blemish. It would fade, but there would always be evidence of his failure. He would wear that shame like a dog collar for the rest of his life. Negan looked at Dwight's face, examining the wound he had inflicted with his iron. That was a much more impressive scar. As he admired his workmanship he thought to himself that Dwight really ought to stop collecting scars. It's a bad habit.

"Well?" Negan asked him. "Are you going to clean up this mess or what?"

Dwight didn't respond to Negan, but began organizing his men. He and two others, armed with spears, surrounded the truck. On Dwight's orders they each plunged their spears through the skulls of the rotten corpses outside the vehicle. They fell limp, pulling the ropes that bound them taut. Once that was taken care of some of the other men began untying the ropes and dragging the bodies out of the way.

Dwight grabbed the keys off the hood of the truck and approached the driver's side door. He rested his hand on the handle and one of the roamers inside pressed its face violently against the window. Dwight's lip curled up in disgust. He had no interest in tangling with this creature.

Negan noticed his hesitation. "Go on. What are you waiting for?"

Dwight finally made eye contact with Negan. "Can't I just shoot it through the window?"

"Do you happen to know a good automobile glass repairman?"

Dwight pursed his lips. He wasn't sure why he had even asked the question. He knew what the answer would be. He pulled on the handle, flung the truck door wide open, and jumped back a few paces. The rotter inside scrambled over Fisher's bloated remains and spilled out onto the ground. As it tried to find its footing Dwight stood over it and jammed his spear into its brain. No sooner had he retracted the weapon than the second walker was struggling out of the cab of the pickup. As with the first, this monster poured out of the cab like a wind up toy that was wound one too many times. He hated that. Dwight hated the way they moved, like some sort of energizer bunny. Couldn't they just stop? All he wanted was for them to stop. He pressed his eyes closed for a moment.

When he opened them this monster was crawling over Dwight's spearing victim and was reaching for his ankle. He raised his boot and brought it down hard on the thing's head. It didn't stop. He stomped it again. It slowed down, but kept coming. He spun his spear around so that the butt of it was pointed down. He slammed it down onto the skull of the beast two, three, four times before it finally stopped moving. But Dwight didn't stop. As the corpse lay prone on the ground he continued to pummel it with his spear handle. When that didn't make him feel any better he dropped to his knees and began pounding the thing with his fists. He flipped the creature over and punched it in the face a couple more times. It's lifeless eyes stared back at him no matter how many times he hit the thing. At least it had finally stopped moving. Then he screamed, a primal yell right in the thing's face. It echoed through the silence that surrounded him. Finally nothing moved. Everything had stopped.

"Feel better?" Negan asked with a condescending tone.

Dwight continued to stare into the obliterated face of the roamer. "Yeah." He stood and located the keys which he had dropped in his fit of rage. He yanked Fisher out of the driver's seat of the truck and climbed in. He started the engine and gave it more gas than was needed. The roar of the motor made him feel a little more manly. It allowed him to forget that he had just thrown a hissy fit in front of all his comrades. He put the truck in gear and pulled away from the gate, parking the vehicle on the side of the road. Returning to the gate, he retrieved his spear, all the while trying to avoid Negan's scrutinizing gaze. It was unavoidable. Dwight rolled the gate back and then the fence the way he had seen Rick do it when he had come to collect Carol and Tara. He nearly stormed into Alexandria all by himself but then thought better of it. He paused at the threshold of the small suburban town and turned to face Negan, waiting for an order.

"Please," Negan said with exaggerated courtesy. "After you."

The army of Saviors swarmed into Alexandria, searching for any clue as to where the inhabitants had gone. What they found was nothing. Virtually nothing had been left behind. No personal belongings, no scrap of food, no bottle of water, no weapons. It was a ghost town. Negan's men ransacked every house, looking for a straggler. Perhaps someone had been left behind and would know where everyone had gone. But no, there was nothing here.

Negan was starting to get disappointed. He had been looking forward to knocking down Rick's door and making him realize who was really in charge. The fact that Rick had turned tail and run off showed that he knew who was in charge. But that didn't come with the same sense of satisfaction. No, he wanted to see the look on Rick's face when he realized he was beaten. He was starting to get especially grumpy about the whole situation when Dwight tracked him down.

"We might have found something. There's a map. I think you're going to want to see it."

Negan stood in Deanna's office. He had never met Deanna. He had know idea that he had driven past her remains in the grass on the side of the road as they had approached Alexandria. But he could recognize someone's headquarters when he saw it. Yes, this was where Rick had made his plans. And all that seemed to be left of those plans was a map with a bunch of red and white push pins in it. It reminded Negan of little kids who put dots on a map for all the places they've visited. But he was willing to bet Rick hadn't visited any of these places. These looked like destinations. And two of them were marked. Some place in New Mexico was marked with a pin and then it had a "X" right on top of it. There was no way Rick was heading to New Mexico. He seemed like a crazy bastard, but even he couldn't be that crazy.

Negan stepped closer to the pin that had three small letters scrawled next to. "J.S.S." What could that stand for? He had no idea, but it didn't matter much. If this was all they had to go on then he knew where they had to go.

"Why would they run off to some little podunk town in North Carolina?" Negan wondered aloud. "Of all places, why there?"

Dwight shrugged. "Maybe one of them is from there?"

Negan leaned in so his nose nearly touched the pin. "I don't think anybody is from there."

"So do you want to go after them?" Dwight sounded indifferent, as if his tantrum earlier had taken all the fight out of him.

"Oh we're going after them alright." Negan looked excited. "You have to follow through on your goals, Dwight." He clapped his disgraced soldier on the back a little harder than would be considered friendly.. "Aim for the sky because, you never know, you might miss."

She watched from the trees as the men filed out of Alexandria. They look like school boys, she thought to herself. A bunch of rowdy boys off to rough someone up for their lunch money. She thought she heard one of them say something about going after them. She would have to be smart about this. She'd have to be stealthy and careful. First she'd have to find out what they knew. She waited for them to pile into their cars and trucks and head out the way they had come. She waited until the engines died off in the distance. Let them go, she thought. She'd catch up with them again. She always had so far. She waited until she was sure she was very much alone and then she climbed down from her treetop perch.

As Enid set foot on Alexandria's soil she felt like an intruder. She had never intended to return to this place. This was not her home. But try as she might she couldn't ignore the people she had left behind. They were in danger. She had caught onto that long ago. Probably before any of them even knew who the Saviors were. She tried to tell herself that it wasn't her problem, that these people could fend for themselves. But she couldn't ignore it. Being alone all the time gave her ample room to get lost in thought. And her thoughts always drifted back to these people.

So she had tracked the Saviors, tried to gather information on them. And now they had some information on where her friends had gone. She needed to find out what their destination was. She silently crept through the streets of Alexandria. It was the only time she had ever seen it completely deserted. One door stood open: Deanna's door. Enid let herself in and quickly searched the place. Her attention soon fell on the same thing that had intrigued Negan. A map. Push pins. Three letters written in Carl's scrawling handwriting.

She whispered, "Just survive somehow."

This was for her. This was Carl's parting message to her and now it was the Savior's only clue as to where her friends had gone. She hoped that wasn't really where they went, that Carl had sent Negan and his men on a wild goose chase. But she had a feeling she couldn't be that lucky. Dammit, Carl! She had to go find out for herself.

She reached up and pulled the pin out of Roxobel, North Carolina. She worked her fingers under the edge of the map and pulled. She tore off about a third of the lower half of the United States. No sense in leaving this here for someone else to find.

Besides, if it really was Carl's last message to her, she might as well keep it to remember him by.