Carol stared at the chomping heads as she slowly raised her hands in the air where she sat astride Freckles. She wondered how they were killed; if they were decapitated in one fell swoop, shot in the chest and then decapitated, or tortured to death. She wondered if any of the women they had raped participated in the slaughter, and if it had brought them any relief at all.
"Daryl?" came a voice from the tree. "Carol? The branch shook and Zach shimmied down, landing with a clomp on the ground. Carol could see the camouflage blind now, like the ones they had built in Shirewilt. Daryl dismounted the horse and offered a hand to help her down.
The first words out of Carol's mouth to Zach were, "Have you seen Sophia?"
Zach solemnly shook his head. "No. Sorry. I heard what happened to Fun Kingdom."
"You live here now?" Daryl asked Zach. "The rest of Shirewilt? They all in there?"
"Hold on." Zach took a handheld radio off his hip and called someone to open the gate for them. "It can't be opened from the outside," he explained. "So if something goes down out here, the guard can't be forced to open it at gunpoint. As for Shirewilt...it had a major sewage problem."
"We saw," Daryl muttered.
"It happened the day after Tina and I came down from the Kingdom to trade, a few days after you left for Georgia. Mr. Mitchell, he's a plumber, he said there was no fixing it and no guarantee it wouldn't spew up again. So they decided to pack up and move out. Noah and his family and one other family went back with Tina to settle in the Kingdom. The rest are here. Me, I'm going to be going back and forth to the Kingdom, for trade and running letters."
Two men came to the gate, and one swung it open. He recognized Daryl and Carol, and said, "You're back."
"Just passin' through," Daryl told him. "Horse needs water and grass. Carol needs food."
Carol smiled. They both needed food. The fruit snacks and goldfish had not been the most filling breakfast, and they'd had little to eat the day before.
"Come on, I'll take you to the café," Zach said. "Harry, can you feed the horse?"
The second man nodded, took the horse by the reins, and led it off. As they walked toward the café, Carol asked, "Do you know if our Fun Kingdom people made it safely to Alexandria?"
Zach nodded. "I was up there when Fun Kingdom arrived. Alexandria radioed the Sanctuary, and the Sanctuary radioed the Kingdom...A few rounds of phone tag later, and the survivors were resettled among the coalition communities."
"So they got split up?" Carol asked anxiously.
"Well, it is a lot of people for one group to take in, but most of them are in Alexandria: Mika, Luke, Dixon, Beth, Glenn, Maggie, Tara, Michonne, Andre, Rick, and Judith. Eugene and Rosita are at the Sanctuary. Gavin put Eugene to work at his bullet and reloading factory or something. And Rosita he really wanted because he's short staffed when it comes to guards and supply runners. T-Dog and Andrea are at the Hilltop. Duane, too."
"So Duane's separated from the other kids?" Carol asked.
"The Hilltop has its own kids. And Duane wanted to go with T-Dog. He's been kind of the fun uncle to him, you know, even before Morgan died. Father Gabriel is at Mount Vernon. Apparently someone there thinks the Highwaymen 'need religion.' And the rest of the orphans who survived? Eliza, Louis, Savannah, Molly, and Owen…They're all at Oceanside. There are families there willing to adopt them. They'll have parents now. It's a good thing. The Kingdom didn't take anyone because they took six people from Shirewilt."
"Who got the puppies?" Daryl wanted to know.
"They're in Alexandria."
"And did Judith get a wet nurse?" Carol asked.
"Yeah, a woman at Alexandria who has a baby. And they have some formula there, too."
They were now climbing the stairs to the deck of the Garden Café. Zach opened the door for them. Kylie, the eighteen year old who had been abducted into the harem, greeted Zach with a smile. He smiled back. "Can you whip them up something?" he asked. "Kylie's our cook," he explained. "You can come here anytime from nine in the morning to six in the evening, and she'll whip you something up. She also does pickling and canning and jarring in here."
The Garden Café had solar power, but the lights were off and the blinds were open to let in the sun. So were the windows, to let out the heat, and a ceiling fan whirred above Daryl and Carol as they sat down at a table. Zach left to get Jonathan, who was apparently their community leader, and Kylie soon placed two plates before them with scrambled eggs, tomato slices, and fresh blackberries.
"How are you?" Carol asked softly before she could leave.
Kylie shrugged. "I'm better than I was. And I feel safe now that we have more guns. And Zach is helping. He's a great shot. I'm glad he's decided he's going to live here. Most of the time anyway. He said he'd teach me to shoot, so I can help make sure that something like what happened to me never happens again. Although, I guess other bad things can happen. Things you can't fight off with a gun." She winced sympathetically. "I'm so sorry about your daughter. Zach told me about everyone Fun Kingdom lost. I'll get you some tea. " She returned to the counter.
Daryl shoveled half of his food onto Carol's plate.
"What are you doing?" she asked. "You haven't eaten any better than I have the past few days."
"I ain't pregnant. Need yer nourishment."
She smiled. "I can't eat this much." Carol returned half of what he'd given her—but only half, to show she appreciated his gesture.
As they ate and waited for Zach to return, Daryl said, "Soph wasn't at Shirewilt. No sign of her on the way up. Maybe she didn't come this way after all. When we get to Alexandria, gonna get you settled, get some of Fun Kingdom's share of the gas from that tanker, round up a search party, take the armored vehicle, and head back to Georgia. Keep lookin' for Soph. At least for another couple weeks."
"If you're going back to look, I'm coming with you."
"You're the one wanted to come up here," he reminded her.
"Because I hoped Sophia had gone to Shirewilt. And because you were going to kill yourself searching in those woods, the risks you were taking! Are you going to keep going out there alone?"
"Nah. Promise. Ain't gonna do that no more. I'll make sure Rick has m'back. Know he'll want to come look for Carl now that Judith's safe and getting fed. And I know she ain't in those woods. Would have found her if she still was. Gonna keep searching the roads around the forest, though. Schools. Houses. Churches. Maybe go back to Fun Kingdom. Dig through the rubble. Count the bodies now that the herd has moved on. See if two got out or three...or maybe more on foot. An you oughtta stay in Alexandria. For your health."
"Daryl, I'm pregnant. I'm not an invalid."
"And for Mika. And Luke. For if Sophia does come north. One of us oughtta be here."
Carol sighed. Maybe it was for the best she didn't join the search party. Every afternoon when she rode those roads and found nothing, every night in Dixon's cabin, when Daryl would come home from the search empty handed, she would feel the blow all over again—her heart would climb into her throat the way it had when they first beheld the wide-open gates of Fun Kingdom and the flames flickering inside. It was like being punched in the gut night after night after night. If she was in Alexandria, she'd only have to bear the blow once, at the end of the two weeks, if Daryl came back empty handed. "But you stick with Rick. I'm not losing you down some ravine."
Daryl nodded. "Gonna try to get at least four people to come. Split into groups of two. Cover more ground."
"I should come," Carol said.
Daryl reached across the table and put his hand over hers. "Ain't gotta. I seen your face every damn night I came home without her. Let me do this for you. For our little girl, but for you, too. And for me," he admitted. That must be his way of saying he couldn't bear to witness her disappointment each day. "Carol, please."
"Okay," she agreed quietly.
He let go of her hand when Kylie set down their tea. Jonathan and Zach came through the door, and Jonathan sat down with them. Zach followed Kylie back to the counter to talk with her. He wasn't flirting with her, Carol thought, the way he had with Beth and Tina, but he was friendly. Maybe he was genuinely sensitive to what she'd been through in that harem and didn't want to make her uncomfortable with male attention. But they seemed at ease with each other.
Jonathan agreed to give them gasoline for the motorcycle Daryl had left four miles outside Shirewilt and to give them a ride back to the bike, along with some fresh vegetables, in return for a temporary loaner of the horse for plowing. In a few weeks they would bring the mare to Alexandria to return it to Maggie and trade food and supplies.
Bellies full, the couple returned to Daryl's bike, which was still there, though a walker had crawled into the horse trailer, following the lingering scent of horse, perhaps. They killed it and dragged it out and gave the trailer to Jonathan, who hitched it to his pick-up truck. Jonathan shook both their hands, thanked them again for the liberation of Audubon Gardens, and returned to his camp.
They were greeted eagerly at the gates of Alexandria by Rick whose face fell when he saw they were alone. "We're gonna go back," Daryl told him. "After we round up a search party."
"I'm joining it," Rick insisted.
"Assumed you would." Daryl motioned to the little gold star above his pocket. "Hell's that?"
"Deanna interviewed us all, and the council gave us jobs. I'm a constable now."
"Constable?" Daryl asked. "Pfft."
Rick took them to Aaron's house and led them inside. "You get the second upstairs bedroom, the one on the left."
"There's room for us?" Carol asked doubtfully.
"The house is all ours now. They're calling it the refugee house. Aaron cleaned out the study and we turned it into a bedroom. Deanna gave us her son's old bunk beds, and someone else leant us a twin with a trundle. Andre, Luke, and Mika are all in there. I figured the fourth bed would be for Sophia if you found her, and Carl could have the living room couch." Rick's jaw twitched. He swallowed and continued. "We put the crib in the master bedroom, and Judith and Michonne and I are in there. Glenn and Maggie have one of the upstairs bedrooms. Beth and Dixon took the attic apartment together. That didn't go over too well with Maggie, them shacking up, but...nothing much she could do. We were holding the second upstairs bedroom for you."
"What about Tara?" Daryl asked.
"She's staying in a house with Denise and Siddiq. You know, the doctors? They had a spare room."
"What about Aaron?" Carol wanted to know. "Tobin? Enid? This was their house!"
"They moved in with Jessie Anderson. That house was big to begin with, and now I guess her husband and one of her sons is gone."
Carol supposed Rick wouldn't know. They hadn't relayed their adventures at the botanical gardens when they got back to find Fun Kingdom on fire. There had been too much grief over their own losses to talk much about what had transpired in Virginia.
"Where is everyone?" Daryl asked.
"The kids are at school. And Beth is an assistant teacher for the under-sixes. Dixon's hunting. Maggie's organizing plowing some field for crops. They just have gardens here, but they're looking to plant oats. Glenn's fixing up a truck. And Tara and Michonne are out on a supply run."
After the couple settled their things in their new bedroom, Daryl went to begin his recruiting efforts for the search party, while Carol sought out Aaron. She found him teaching Enid to fish from the dock that lined Alexandria's pond. "Could I talk with you a moment?" she asked.
"Sure." He left his pole in the stand on the dock and told Enid to reel it in if it seemed to get a nibble, and then he walked with Carol.
"Thank you for your hospitality," she told him, "but you didn't have to give us your entire house. We can sleep on floors if need be."
"It was nothing," Aaron said. "Honestly, I had to get out of there. It's haunted by Eric. Everywhere I turn…I just see him. It's good for me, to move on. And Jessie…she doesn't like living in that big house alone with just Sam."
"They killed them. Pete and Ron. We stopped at the gardens on the way up here. They killed them."
"I assumed they would."
"How does Jessie feel about you leaving her son there?" It had to be awkward sharing a house with that woman, Carol thought, after leaving Ron with his executioners. Pete she might have been willing to see die, but her son?
"She doesn't know," Aaron told her. "And she's not going to know. When I came back, I told her we found Pete and Ron dead. I told her the Redeemers had killed them. She doesn't know her son was a rapist. And I would appreciate it if you and Daryl didn't say anything about it. I've already talked to Dixon."
"You don't think she'll find out sooner or later?"
"She's got no reason to go down there."
"Good. Because if she'd did, she'd find out pretty quickly. Their heads are on pikes outside the front gate."
"Jesus," Aaron muttered. "That I didn't assume they would do."
"They're hoping it's a deterrent to raiders." She shrugged. "And maybe it keeps walkers from sniffing them out, too. Did you ever consider that maybe Jessie should know?"
"Carol. Come on. Would you want to know that?"
"I'd want to make sure my other son grew up better."
"He will. Sam won't have Pete's influence. He'll have mine and Tobin's. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if one day Tobin became his stepfather. Tobin's a good guy. And Jessie's a good woman. She's just...weak."
Weak. Carol feels suddenly guilty. She's certainly in no position to judge. She'd been raising Sophia to be a victim, after all. But then Ed died, Carol changed, and Sophia became strong. So amazingly strong. And now…she was missing. Maybe that strength would preserve her, wherever she was. Carol prayed that it did.