Chapter 42
Kate sat on the small couch in the RV, sticky with sweat, smashed between Eugene and Tara, and tried to ignore the whining noise the engine had started to make and the smell coming off Eugene. She watched Daryl pace anxiously in front of her like a trapped animal, chewing his nails down to the quick. The days spent on the road, crowded into such a small space with so many others was wearing on him. She was glad the fight had gone out of Abraham or she imagined the two of them would be at each other's throats. Instead Abe spent most of his days driving, Rick's only solution to keep him from drinking himself into a stupor, and Daryl paced.
They were in Virginia now, and Kate knew she should be relieved. DC was so close and she desperately needed to be somewhere for more than a night. She needed a home. Instead she was filled with trepidation - she was scared there would be nothing for them when they arrived, and then what? She battled a growing feeling of impending doom that left her exhausted even on these days where they spent most their time getting more rest than they needed, stuck on the RV for hours at a time.
She watched Daryl duck down and grab at the metal blinds that blocked the hot sun, they screeched in protest as he carelessly bent them in his hand and looked out the window. She didn't know what he hoped to see, but he stood back up with a frustrated sigh, mumbling something under his breath.
"Daryl." She called to him quietly, hoping to get his attention without disturbing anyone else. Impossible to do in such close quarters.
He stopped pacing, and looked at her hopefully.
"Why don't you come sit down." She offered, not realizing until she saw his face fall that he was hoping she was going to give him something to do, something to free him from the monotony of this drive.
"Nah." He said, and went to stand restlessly between the driver and passenger seats where Abe and Rick were staring ahead at the open road.
Hershel sat across the RV at the small dinette and rubbed at his leg.
"Daryl?" He called. "Can I get your help with something?"
He bent forward, struggling to pick up the prosthetic leg that laid uselessly on the ground in front of him. Daryl was there in an instant, scooping it up and handing it to Hershel. Hershel took it in both hands and held it up for Daryl to inspect.
"I was hoping you could do something about my leg. It needs some adjusting, just a quarter of an inch or so maybe...and this part, right here…" Kate watched Hershel pull away at some of the cotton batting at the top of the leg and point. "It bothers me some, digs into my skin and I thought you could maybe see if you could tweak it for me."
'I'll try." Daryl said, squinting down at the leg Hershel had put back in his hands. He pulled a pocket knife out and sat down across from Hershel at the small table and began working quietly.
Hershel caught Kate's eye and he winked.
Hershel died later that same day. He was killed by a bullet that was meant for a walker. It hit him in the head instead, rocking him backwards violently as he crumpled to the ground. His final moments were spent selflessly - shielding Beth and Judith from the hungry jaws of a walker that had emerged silently from the trees, surprising the group as they were taking a break from the monotony of the RV. The fact that he had been bitten and therefore doomed either way was little comfort to Tara, who'd only been trying to save him when she fired the fatal shot. Rick, Glenn and Daryl worked at digging his grave in the middle of the woods before they lowered his body, wrapped in a sheet from the RV and covered him forever. His grave was marked with a large stone that Carl found and Beth scrawled an epitaph in a thick black marker Sasha had in her pack. She bemoaned the fact she couldn't include the date of her father's death since they'd long ago lost track of what day it was. The group had formed a semi-circle around the grave and stood in an awkward silence. Hershel was always the one who took charge at these frequent burials, offering comforting words and a prayer, but this time they stood, shell shocked and silent, until, finally, Father Gabriel cleared his throat and offered to say a prayer. Rick shook his head and finally got the job done himself.
They camped there that night, it felt wrong to move on so quickly. Beth, Maggie and Glenn slept near his grave, several feet from the rest of the group. Some chose to sleep in the relative safety of the RV, while others who'd grown tired of its cramped quarters slept on the floor of the forest, relying on the crude alarm system strung up around the trees, a strange collection of wind chimes and hubcaps.
Kate lay awake, staring into the dark treetops that stretched into the night sky and ignored her tears. She was so tired of this life, tired of losing people she loved, and she loved Hershel very much. She tried to imagine what moving on without him would be like, how Beth and Maggie would continue after losing him. After Eugene's confession had been shared with the group, it had been Rick's suggestion that they continue on to DC and no one had argued. They'd come so far and if there was any semblance of civilization left it seemed likely DC would have it. Kate wondered now how Beth or Maggie felt about that decision, if they regretted agreeing, if they regretted leaving Georgia at all or maybe even letting them into the farmhouse that day so long ago.
From the top of the RV Kate heard Abraham clear his throat. He had volunteered to take first watch and she didn't have to see him to know that he was up there, standing at attention, straining his eyes peering into the dark woods for any sign of trouble.
Reluctant to remain alone with her thoughts and completely abandoning the chance of sleep, she got to her feet and made her way to the back of the RV, hoping Abraham would provide the distraction she needed. She climbed the rungs of the ladder and loudly whispered his name. The last thing she needed was to startle him and get herself shot. Abraham's face appeared, looming over her, a cigar gnashed between his teeth.
"Problem?" He asked, offering her no assistance as he watched her scramble to the top and wipe her hands on her pants.
"Sleep."
Abraham nodded and looked into the trees. His hammy fist was wrapped around the neck of a tequila bottle he'd found the day before in a broken down car on the side of the road. It didn't surprise her to find him drunk.
When the group had found out about Eugene's lie, no one was as upset about it as Kate thought they would be. It was like deep down they all knew it was too good to be true, everyone but Abraham. He had been a different man ever since. Gone was the swaggering bravado. Gone was the man with a plan. Instead he was withdrawn and brooding, unlikely to say much to anyone and certainly not to Eugene who he refused to speak to.
"I just can't stop thinking about Maggie and Beth." She said with a heavy sigh, settling cross-legged on the edge of the RV facing out towards their sleeping camp. Daryl lay below her in the dirt, silent and still and she was grateful at least one of them could sleep. "I don't know how they are going to move on."
Abraham settled down next to her, dangling his long legs off the edge and took a swig from the bottle before offering it to her.
"Oh no thanks." She said.
"You're gonna let me drink alone?"
"Looks like you've been doing a pretty good job of it so far. Besides, we don't have enough water as it is, I don't need to go making that worse."
"You sound like Rosita." He said with a derisive snort.
"Where is Rosita?" Kate asked, suddenly concerned and scanning the trees for Rosita's small figure. She knew Rosita was supposed to be on watch too, they rarely let one person go it alone, and especially not someone who was on the fast track to passing out.
"She thinks I'm an asshole when I drink. Guess she has more in common with my wife than I thought."
"Wife?" Kate asked. She suddenly regretted that she'd never bothered to find anything out about his past. She'd never actually imagined him as anyone but Eugene's protector or Rosita's man, although it didn't surprise her that he had a different life before this. They all did.
"Yep. Had me a wife and two kids. Boy and a girl." He said looking deep into the woods and blowing a puff of cigar smoke into the air.
"What were their names?"
"My wife was Ellen. My girl was Becca and my boy was Abraham, Jr. We called him AJ for short." He said with a smirk, like he was picturing their faces from a happier time.
"How old were they?"
"Nine and seven." His smile dissolved and he shook his head sadly. "Can you imagine that? Children having to deal with this world."
He took another swig from the bottle and cleared his throat, reaching out to offer the bottle to her again. She took a small sip. It burned her throat and she coughed.
Abraham laughed and she handed the bottle back to him.
"We were holed up in a grocery store in Houston. Seemed like a good place to be - lots of food. One day I left them there to see if I could find some weapons. I wasn't gone long, an hour maybe, maybe less. When I came back…"
He stopped talking, his face contorting painfully and he looked away from her again. They sat there silently for a minute before he was able to continue.
"When I came back, there were men there in the store. My wife, she was bleeding, her eye was swollen and purple, her clothing was torn. My children were crying in the corner." He took a deep, shaky breath and gritted his teeth. "So I killed each one of those pieces of shit. To this day, I don't know how I was able to take them all on myself, but I didn't stop until they were all dead." He looked her straight in the eyes. "I still don't think it was wrong."
Kate shook her head in agreement. "Of course it wasn't! They deserved it." She remembered Joe and his men, they deserved it too.
He chuckled bitterly and brought the tequila back to his lips and took a big swig.
"Well, my wife didn't agree. As the last asshole lay dying on the ground, twitching and bleeding all over the floor I turned to my family and I will never forget the way they looked at me. They were afraid. Of me. My wife was just staring at me like she didn't know who I was and my kids were cowering behind her. I tried to comfort them, to explain, but they just kept looking at me like that. In the morning, when I woke up, they were gone. All their stuff gone with them. I went searching for them, and it didn't take me long to find what was left. They were just across the street, devoured. They were dead because they would rather face the monsters outside than stay with me."
"God Abraham. I'm so sorry."
"That's life." He said, her pity snapping him out of his reflection. "And if they were still here, what kind of life would it be anyway. We're all just waitin' around to die anyway. Just don't know how or when."
"You don't mean that. There is still life worth living."
He snorted.
"There is." She insisted. "We'll get to DC…"
"There isn't gonna be anything different in DC." He stood and sent the empty bottle sailing into the trees. She heard it shatter and hoped it wouldn't draw walkers. "Just the same shit."
Kate felt panic well up in her. She needed to believe that they'd find some stability in DC, that they were headed towards something.
"Don't say that, don't think that way. We will build a home there. We can be happy, even in this world. You and Rosita can be happy too."
He shook his head and laughed. "You can't possibly believe that."
"I do! We were happy at the prison."
"You and Daryl, you got together after all of this started, right?"
"So?"
"So...if the world didn't fuck its sister and go all to shit, you wouldn't be with him, you wouldn't give that fucking hillbilly a second glance, probably cross the street if you saw him coming in your direction. You'd've ended up with some 9-5er, raising snot-nosed brats that you'd probably have in some private school."
"I don't know." She said, confused.
"My point is, we're all just passing time until we die. Some of us have found someone to bump uglies with, so it makes passing time a little more enjoyable, but I ain't fooling myself, I know it isn't that forever kind of thing. We don't got forever, this isn't a happily ever after situation and the sooner you, and everyone else, realizes that the easier it'll be."
"The easier what will be?" She demanded, angry that she'd gotten pulled into this conversation with a drunk man, angrier that she knew it would nag at her long after the night was over.
"Easier when someone like Hershel dies. Easier when Daryl gets killed. Any of these people you've let yourself get attached too. Shit, I know how Maggie and Beth are feeling. When my family died, I stuck a gun in my mouth and nearly pulled the trigger. I won't let myself care that much ever again."
She swallowed hard at the lump that sat in her throat.
"What stopped you? From pulling the trigger?"
He snorted bitterly. "Eugene stopped me. I was standing over the dead bodies of my family, with the taste of metal on my tongue and Eugene came running, with two dead ones chasing him. He said he had a cure and I believed him."