Chapter 48: What Happened
Andrea, Merle and Dylan had come over for breakfast, and after everyone was full and the dishes were cleared, the children went upstairs to play. The adults gathered in the living room, and before long, someone was knocking on the door.
Carol greeted Glenn, Aaron and Rosita with a smile and welcomed them inside, and everyone glanced around at one another curiously when they settled down into various seats around the coffee table. Daryl held Carol's hand, absently rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. Andrea sat next to Carol, while Merle sat on the arm of the couch, something Carol always scolded him for. But given the limited seats, she was letting it slide for now.
Aaron, Glenn and Rosita sat across the coffee table from them, and before Glenn even opened his mouth to speak, Aaron passed a folder to Daryl. Daryl opened it up to find a few grainy photographs of walls similar to the ones they had around the farm. Carol peered over in Daryl's lap to see a photo of what appeared to be Carl Grimes, only a couple feet taller with a little girl at his side. The first thing Carol noticed was that that little girl had Lori's eyes. And she looked very much like Andrea's little boy Dylan. The next photo was of what looked like an orchard and children playing around the trees.
"When the news stations first started reporting these deaths, I was on my way to work taking my boss the usual trendy coffee and listening to some classic rock station. There was a standstill on the highway, and the army was redirecting everybody back out of the city. I was so worried my boss was going to give me hell for his coffee being cold that I tried taking a shortcut. I ended up being pulled over by some army officials and redirected to Alexandria. It became my home, and this is the first time I've been away from my home for longer than a week. So I hope you'll consider what we're asking before you say no."
"What are you asking?" Daryl asked, narrowing his eyes at the man.
"We need help," Aaron said quietly.
"Rick needs help," Glenn explained.
"We all do," Rosita added, looking to Carol and Daryl.
"What's going on with Rick? What happened to everyone?" Carol asked, settling back against the couch. Glenn looked to Rosita, and she nodded at him to continue.
"When the farm was overrun, we were scattered. It was just me and Maggie, and we managed to make it back to the highway. When we got there, we saw Rick, Hershel and Carl. Soon, Lori, T-Dog and Beth came. It was late, and some of the herd caught up to us. We wanted to wait. But the walkers kept coming, and we didn't have a choice."
"By the time we go there, ya'll were gone. We stayed for a couple days."
"We kept going until we were all running on fumes," Glenn explained. "We slept in our cars that night, but not before Rick told us everything about what went down with Shane, how he'd killed Randall and then tried to kill Rick. He told us what Jenner said at the CDC about being infected." Carol and Daryl glanced at each other. "It's why people come back when they die, even if they aren't bit." Glenn rubbed his hands together anxiously. "Things were rough for a long while. A lot of tension with Rick and Lori. I think Lori was pissed because Carl was the one that put Shane down. After everything the kid went through, getting shot and losing his best friend, I think Lori thought this one would push him over the edge. But it didn't. Things got better with Lori and Rick, and Carl started taking on more responsibility. But then winter came. We hid out in storage shelters, and I thought we were going to starve to death. But we survived somehow."
"Then you ended up at a prison," Daryl said slowly.
"Yeah. Lori was about to have the baby, and Rick was going out of his mind trying to figure out how he was going to keep everybody alive with a newborn thrown in the mix. But we found the place and cleared it out, but the first day we got inside, Hershel got bit on the leg. T-Dog got bit on the shoulder. Rick took Hershel's leg and saved his life. There was nothing we could do for T." Daryl glanced at Carol, and her shoulders slumped.
"He was a good guy," Daryl said quietly. Glenn nodded.
"One of the best." Glenn glanced at Merle who had found the good sense to keep his mouth shut. "Uh, anyway, it wasn't long after all that Lori had the baby. Pretty little girl they let Carl name. He picked Judith after one of his teachers." Glenn grinned. "Though Carol and Andrea were both in the running. Judith just fit her better." He looked at Merle. "I guess Merle knows a little about what happened next."
"Yeah, the, uh, the Governor had some beef with your old pal Rick," Merle said with a nod. "Rick had walls and fences, just like the Governor, and I don't know, I guess he felt he was the head honcho in those parts, and if he couldn't have the prison, nobody else could, either. He was a real piece of work."
"The day the Governor destroyed the prison, we barely got out. Beth was killed," Glenn said quietly. "Rick took us to Woodbury, and I'm sure Merle's filled you in on what happened there. We got out. We stuck together this time. We didn't scatter. We stayed on the train tracks. Walking around with Judith was like carrying a ticking time bomb, but at least on the tracks we had an advantage. We picked off walkers as we came up on them, and it wasn't long before we found Terminus. I'm sure you've heard all about that."
"Some of us have even lived through it."
"You were lucky to get out. So were we. We ended up finding this church out in the middle of nowhere. It was abandoned, but there were enough food supplies to last us a couple of weeks. So we stayed there, barricaded ourselves inside, and we tried to come up with a plan. Rick wanted to go west. Hershel suggested we keep going east and head for the ocean. About a week into our stay, we heard some commotion in the woods and came up on a guy, just barely older than Beth. Name was Noah, said he was heading to North Carolina. He claimed the last he knew, the neighborhood he grew up in was a safe zone. He was on his own, starving and out of weapons, and he needed help." He looked to Rosita and Aaron and then looked to Daryl. "It took some convincing to get Rick to agree to go. He didn't want to leave. He still had hope that he'd find you guys eventually. But he had a kid to think about, and we were running low on supplies and food. So, he agreed to go. Only, when we got there, the place was overrun. Nobody was left alive. Unfortunately, the dead hadn't been put down, and when Noah went to his home, his family was there. We didn't get to him in time."
"Jesus," Merle muttered. "Bad luck."
"We just started heading north. A few weeks later, we met Aaron."
"I was out scouting. To be honest, they didn't trust me right away. I mean, I get that. They'd nearly been killed by cannibals, and they were traveling with a baby. Trust isn't an easy thing to have in this world," Aaron explained. "They got caught in a storm, and they were low on food and water. I left it for them, and Rick dumped everything. I watched them for days, seeing these people just struggling out there. Our leader, a woman named Deanna, held auditions for places in our safe zone."
"Auditions?" Daryl asked. "Makes it sound like some kind of cult."
"It's really not," Glenn insisted. "It's just they've had some bad experiences. They wanted to make sure they found people…well, I'll let Aaron tell it."
"We wanted to make sure we found people who were going to bring new ideas into the place. Deanna had just lost her husband and both sons when they went out on a supply run. They were overrun by walkers, and she needed to take a step back from her leadership duties. She asked me to find new people to bring in. We had about a hundred people living behind our walls, and not many of them had experience with fending off walkers or people for that matter. We were safe behind walls, but that was about it. She wanted people that had experienced life outside of our walls who could help train our people to defend themselves and survive. And when I saw Rick's group, I knew they'd be perfect. Plus, they had a baby to protect, and Maggie…" He looked to Glenn. Glenn took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. Rosita put her hand on his arm and gave it a little supportive squeeze.
"Maggie was pregnant." Carol and Andrea looked at one another, and immediately, Carol felt her heart sink. "We were tired. We were hungry. Rick was trying to keep it together. He shut everyone out. Lori, too. Somehow, we talked him into going. We'd been on the road so long, and when we first rolled up to those gates, it was…" He looked to Rosita. "Well, it was like this place. We walked outside this morning, and we heard kids playing and laughing. That's what Alexandria was then. They had walls and houses that were practically mansions. They had a doctor and a supply team. They had electricity and fresh water and food."
"You gonna get to the point sometime today?" Merle asked, getting a swat on the leg from Andrea.
"Deanna let us in, gave us jobs. She made Rick the sheriff. He looked half-crazed when we got there, so don't ask me why, but she saw something in him. The same something that we saw when we started following him, I guess. After a good shower, some food and a couple days or rest, Rick was already making plans. Deanna handed leadership over to him pretty quickly. Co-leadership, I guess. He still had her to answer to. There was a council for important decisions. I got elected for supply runs. Maggie helped Deanna. Lori was shuffled off to help do inventory. Carl got to be a kid again, though he mostly took care of Judith. Things were going great for a while. And then Hirsh was born." He looked to Daryl. "We named him Hershel." Daryl glanced to Carol and gave her hand a squeeze. "Things were good. A year behind those walls, and everybody was starting to feel comfortable and safe, and everything that happened in here Georgia and out there on the road started feeling like another lifetime."
"It wasn't long after that when Abraham, Eugene and I showed up," Rosita explained. "I remember Rick wasn't too thrilled about us staying, but Aaron and Glenn talked him into it. And when we got to know people, we realized we'd heard the names before. Rick, Lori, Glenn, Maggie. We realized we had a mutual friend in common."
"I remember as soon as Abraham mentioned knowing you, Daryl," Glenn started. "Rick was all but ready to head out and come find you. But the trip here nearly killed us. We weren't ready. We had to make plans to come back. We had to have a reliable vehicle, enough gas to get us here and enough food to last us for the trip here and back. But things kept happening. We had a fire and lost half of our supplies. Then we had a breech. Walkers got in, and we thought we were going to have to run, but we handled it. It was just one thing after another, and we were getting beat down. Still, we were bringing people in." He looked to Rosita and then to Aaron. Aaron cleared his throat and sat forward a little.
"We were out on a supply run about two miles from Alexandria. Myself, Glenn and Abraham. We heard a woman screaming, and we went to see if we could help. We found a woman and a man running from what had to be fifty or sixty walkers. We fought them off, or we tried, but there were so many. Abraham got bit, and there was no saving him."
"He got between me and a walker that almost took a bite out of me. Saved my life, but they took him down," Rosita said quietly, glancing at Glenn. "But we got everybody away from the herd and back to Alexandria. That's where we learned that the man's name was Dante, and he was a doctor. The woman's name was Mary, and she was a school teacher. He was from Wisconsin, and she was from Iowa. Apparently they met on the way here. We brought them in, made them a part of our group. Dante worked with Alexandria's doctor, Siddiq. Mary started working with the children, helping them with their lessons. They were both very active in the community, always at council meetings, always talking to everyone. Everything was good for a while." Glenn looked to Aaron.
"I was up with my daughter Gracie. She was almost three at the time. She, uh, she had nightmares, and my husband Paul and I always took turns getting up with her," Aaron explained. "I was holding her and trying to get her back to sleep when I saw something out the window. Glenn and Maggie's place was right across from mine, and I saw some movement in the downstairs window. The house was dark, but it was a flutter of curtains or something, and something felt wrong. I remember putting Gracie back down in her bed, and I went back to the window. That's when I heard the screams and saw the light flip on." Carol's hand moved to her mouth, and she bit back a startled cry before looking to Glenn.
"I never heard her scream like that," Glenn choked out. "She was right down the hall, checking on Hershel. Dante blocked the stairs and cornered her between the nursery and the bathroom. I heard the scream, and before I was even out the bedroom door, he'd slit her throat. And then he was going for Hershel's room." He took a shaking breath, and Rosita took his hand in hers, giving it a squeeze.
"It's ok," she whispered. He nodded then, and he blinked back tears. "There wasn't anything I could do. She was gone. And I remembered we kept a knife taped to the back of one of the hall paintings, out of Hershel's reach. I grabbed it, and the next thing I knew, I was standing over Dante's body in my son's bedroom."
"Oh my God," Carol sniffled. "Glenn, I'm so sorry. I don't know…"
"My son survived. I'm grateful for that. But seeing Maggie like that…I…" He cleared his throat. "But that wasn't the end of it."
"Siddiq was watching our daughter that night," Rosita explained. "She was just a few months old, and it was her first night away from me. Siddiq was a good dad, and he loved Coco. And one of his best friends was Dante. They worked together all the time, so naturally, when Dante decided to stop by before going to Glenn and Maggie's, Siddiq let him right in. There was a struggle. It, uh, it looked like Dante went for Coco first. Siddiq fought him, and Dante killed him. I'm guessing Coco started crying, and he didn't take her. He figured he still had some damage to do, and he couldn't do that with a crying baby." She took a shaking breath and wiped at her eyes. "I'm guessing he decided that instead of killing her himself, he'd let Siddiq turn and do it for him."
"Oh God," Andrea grimaced, putting her hand to her stomach. "Rosita, I'm so sorry."
"Coco survived. Siddiq didn't turn right away. He was found before it was too late. I'm just glad Coco was young enough she won't remember it."
"There's more. You said Maggie wasn't the last of it," Merle said quietly from where he sat on the arm of the couch. Aaron nodded.
"Rick and Lori live a few houses down from me," Aaron said quietly. "And it wasn't until all of Alexandria woke up to the commotion at Glenn and Maggie's that another scream came from Rick's place. It was Lori. She went upstairs and found Carl in a pool of blood in Judith's room. He was alive, but barely, and the last thing he said before he bled out was that Mary had gotten in the house. Apparently, she was about to kill her or take her. We're still not clear on that. Carl stopped her, and they struggled. She escaped out the window and went over the wall. Judith slept through the whole thing."
Carol stood up then, and she felt a wave of nausea hit her.
"Hey." Daryl got up, taking her hand and placing a hand on her shoulder. He looked at her until she met his gaze. "It's ok. You good?" She nodded then and took a deep breath.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, turning to Glenn.
"It's awful," Andrea choked out. "What kind of people would do something like that?"
"In this world?" Merle asked. "You're either the good guy or the bad guy. They spies or somethin'?"
"We didn't know," Aaron pointed out. "Not at first. Things were quiet after that. For nearly a month after the funeral, everybody was on high alert, but nothing happened. Rick barely slept. And when he was awake, he was not talking. Barely eating. Lori and Judith came to stay at our place, because Rick was just shutting down. It was almost a year before they came."
"They?" Daryl asked. "Who's they?"
"The group Dante and Mary were part of," Glenn revealed. "When Mary escaped, she took all the information back to her group. They called themselves Whisperers. They wore walker masks and the clothes they pulled off of the dead. They traveled with walkers undetected, I guess because of the smell. They didn't have any kind of agenda. They just thought this was the way the world was supposed to be. The world had died and the world wasn't meant for people to live like they were supposed to, I guess. It's what they thought. They followed a woman who called herself Alpha. She was insane. She ordered them to come to the gates and kill everybody inside. The plan was for Mary and Dante to infiltrate and learn as much as they could. And they lived with us for so long. We didn't know."
"They were outside our walls for almost a week, and we made plans inside the walls. We were running low on food, and we realized that was the plan. They wanted to make us weak and draw us out," Aaron explained. "So we decided if we were going to live and save Alexandria, we had to fight, and that's what we did."
"We lost a lot of good people," Rosita admitted. "But we fought, and we won. And Rick took their leader prisoner. Alpha was expecting an execution. I think we all were. But Rick had other plans. The basement of his house had been converted into a jail. He locked her in there. He decided if he was going to be the sheriff in Alexandria, then he needed to start acting like it. And he was making an example of her for anybody else that might think twice about messing with us. The thing was, nobody would've known she was there. She got three small meals a day, very little human interaction. And I think she liked it that way."
"Alpha," Carol said quietly. "He's keeping her prisoner? Seems like a waste of resources."
"It is," Glenn bit out. "She deserves to die. But I think Rick knows that's what she wanted. She had no purpose but to take out as many of us as she could, because she thought the way we were living was wrong. She just wanted us gone, and with all of her people gone, she had no reason to keep going. I guess it's Rick's way of getting the last say."
"Honestly, we keep expecting her to do herself in, but she hasn't yet," Aaron said quietly.
"She's still alive then?" Daryl asked.
"Last we knew. She was before we left home," Rosita said quietly.
"And that's why you're here?" Carol asked, narrowing her eyes at the three. "I don't understand."
"Rick's not Rick anymore," Glenn said quietly. "He's losing his mind. He hasn't recovered since Carl died, but he's gotten worse. Lori refuses to bring Judith home with Alpha in the basement, and while she's trying to help him, he shuts her out more every day. He'll sit for hours by Carl's grave. He won't let anyone new into the community. He barely trusts us. Getting out to get the supplies we need is difficult."
"So take Alexandria from him," Merle said with a shrug. "In the state he's in, it shouldn't be too hard to push Officer Friendly outta the way."
"You all know Rick." Glenn looked right at Daryl. "He's a good man. He's never been perfect. But he's losing it. And he'd never admit that."
"But you're here," Andrea said slowly. "You have a son, Glenn. And Rosita, you have a daughter. I assume they're back in Alexandria."
"They're safe. We were in contact via radio up until about a week ago."
"R-radio? You have radios?" Andrea asked.
"Yeah. Charging back at Merle's," Aaron said with a nod. "We haven't picked up anything for days."
"Look," Rosita explained, "Lori came to us. She asked us to do something. Rick had been planning to come looking for you guys for a while, but after everything with the Whisperers, he didn't even want people going out for supplies except once a month."
"It's not good," Glenn said quietly. "Right now? Alexandria's standing. But a year from now? We're going to get weaker. During the battle with the Whisperers, we lost half of our crops. We saved enough to get by, but it's going fast. We have a lot of structure damage. People got sick. Whisperers contaminated our water supply, so we're relying on rain water. It's a mess." He looked around the room. "I never would've left my son if I didn't think it was that important to come here."
"Coco and Hirsh are with Lori and Judith," Rosita explained. "Jesus is keeping an eye on things." At the blank stares, Aaron cleared his throat.
"Everyone calls Paul Jesus. Well, you'd understand if you saw him." He looked back to Glenn.
"Look, Lori's beside herself trying to figure out how to help Rick. We had to sneak out under cover of darkness just to get here to you."
"Look, I'm sorry you're friend's ridin' the crazy train and all, but that ain't no reason to pull up roots for a suicide mission," Merle reasoned.
"It's not a suicide mission. We've got enough gas and food to get us back home. We'll pick up more on the way if we have to. We just need some help getting back on track. What you have here is more than we ever had in Alexandria," Glenn explained. "I'm not asking anybody to abandon this place. I'm asking for help for Rick. I'm asking for some help getting Alexandria back up on its feet. A month. Two months tops. I never would have left my son back home if I didn't think this trip was that important." He looked from Daryl to Carol. "We need help. It's been over a year, and I'm afraid if Rick doesn't pull out of this soon, he may not. We can run things on our own, but what we really need is somebody to help us get things back to what they were. I have a family to take care of. Daryl, I know you understand."
"I understand," Daryl said quietly. "I got a family that needs me here. We got a few supplies we can send back with you, but…"
"But you're gonna need manpower," Merle interrupted, standing up. Daryl and Carol looked to him, and he nodded. "What my baby brother's trying to say is he's got a whole group of people depending on him here. He leaves, this place is gonna fall apart. I ain't sayin' my sister-in-law would run the place into the ground, 'cause she's a better leader than any of us combined. But she's about to have a baby, and he's a part of that."
"I understand," Glenn said quietly.
"Well, your timing is shit," Merle snorted. He rubbed his jaw with his hand.
"We want to help," Carol assured Glenn. "Any way we can."
"I'll go," Merle offered after a moment. Everyone looked to him, but before anyone had a chance to say anything, he continued. "Look, I know Officer Friendly don't care much for me, but I'll do what I can. Least I can do considerin' I was there when the prison went down. I was part of the reason ya'll had to scatter and look for a place to live in the first place."
"You mean that?" Glenn asked.
"Wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. 'Sides, I been itchin' for a roadtrip. Stay in one place too long, my feet go to sleep. I'll help."
"Thank you," Glenn offered with an appreciative nod. "Really. It means a lot."