Chapter 2.
What We Were.
Negan.
It was a nice day for everything to go to shit. Negan thought it must have been the best day there had ever been, all warm and sunny, with a gentle breeze, leaves all green, sky all blue. But there was an unmistakable difference in the air, something very wrong with the town. It was the screaming in the distance. He kept his eyes on the horizon, where the road curved and people were climbing through the shattered front of a store – it was just there, just beyond that.
Something was coming.
He rolled the tip of a baseball bat back and forth over the asphalt, eyes on the road.
Negan tapped on the office door, "Hey, baby, we gotta get moving. Get your shit together."
The looters down the road scattered.
One of the infected appeared around the corner, attracted to the glass breaking. It limped steadily after the fleeing people, jerking first toward the closest, and then toward a man who was shouting.
Negan stilled his bat, every muscle tense, "Baby?"
It turned unmistakably in his direction as the looter sprinted up the road.
He banged on the door this time, "Come on, before I drag you out."
Lucille emerged from the office, a duffel bag over her shoulder, her hand on her mouth as she beheld the scene unfolding in the street. He was closer now, and it was obvious the looter was a young kid, no more than fourteen or fifteen. "Negan…?" she whispered.
He groaned, "Get in the car."
"But-"
"I'm gonna help him, just get your ass in the car."
Dr. Todd came out, her eyes on the boy in the road, and the infected man pursuing him.
"Oh, wow, she does come outside. I thought your kind burned in the sun." Negan motioned down the road. "You can take it, if you want. I just cleaned this bat, and I know how much sucking the souls out of youths turns you on." She glared at him. He grinned. "No?"
She was already closing the door as she responded, "I wish you weren't such an asshole."
"Would an asshole save this poor kid?" he said, and then he sighed. "I always love our little talks. See you on the other side, you raging bitch."
Negan started toward them, banging his bat on the trunk to get their attention – the kid turned toward him, shouting and waving, "Help!" and the infected limped after him, groaning.
It was a slow chase, an insidious progression, but a chase nonetheless. Negan thought it was unnerving, creepier than something sprinting toward him. He had not seen one actually reach their target yet, but he knew what would happen when it did. It had blood trailing from its mouth and down its shirt, bits of meat dangling from its gnashing teeth.
When the kid reached him, he nearly fell in his haste to get behind Negan. His pockets were still bulging with the shit he had stolen.
"Bad karma, kid," he remarked.
Negan strode forward, gripping his bat with two hands. He could feel his pulse racing through his palms. He lunged, catching the infected man straight across the face. A shower of blood erupted and burst backward, spraying the pavement. The man crumpled, going as still as he should have been the first time he died. Negan staggered with the force of his swing.
When he turned, the kid was gone.
Lucille said nothing in the car. She shuffled her legs to accommodate his bloody baseball bat, and then gazed out the window at the body in the street. She looked a little green, a little paler than usual, and her hand slid up to touch her throat.
"Please, try not to yarf in the car."
She rolled her eyes, but her voice trembled, "How about we pump you full of chemicals and see if you yarf in the car. And that man… He was… He was…"
"He was already dead."
"But he was still a person. He was still someone."
"Yeah, someone who was gonna kill that kid."
She was quiet.
"Did she give you enough?" he asked.
She gripped the side of the duffel, "Enough until this blows over."
It was difficult to leave Chester – not from an emotional side, because there might not be any other town that Negan liked less, but physically difficult, because the roads were blocked. It usually only took him a few minutes to get onto the highway, but every route he tried was either jammed with stopped cars or surrounded by fields of shuffling infected. Lucille trembled when she saw one.
"Do you think…?" Lucille began, trailing off.
"What?"
"Do you think they'll find a way to help them?"
He snorted. "Baby, they're dead already."
"I know that. But they might be able to help them."
"Dead is dead, no coming back from that."
She was silent, looking away from him.
"Hey, you asked for my opinion, and I gave it. We needed a purge, anyway."
"Be serious," she chided.
"I am being serious – serious as cancer."
"You're such an asshole."
"If I was as big of an asshole as everyone says, I would have left you at the house. All you've done is complain and talk shit. I would have had a much nicer ride on my own – and I bet that mouth wouldn't be so big if you were out here alone."
She gave him that look that they both knew – the look that said they were both full of shit.
"I would have gone with Dean," she said.
"Dean? You think Captain Limp-Dick and his crotch rocket will keep you safe? Maybe we can still find him. I'll drop you off, see how long he can handle your chemo-farts."
Lucille laughed.
"I'll keep you safe and make you laugh while I do it," Negan went on. "I would give you one day with Dean before you lost your damn mind. He's too serious."
"This is serious. People are dying – lots of people."
"Yeah but getting our panties all twisted ain't gonna bring 'em back, and it's certainly not gonna keep them off our ass. That's why I brought the bat."
She rolled her eyes, "I've seen you swing a bat. I was never impressed."
"Oh yeah? You sure? I knocked that thing into the next world back there, and I looked cool as shit doing it, too. I might get out and take out a few more, work on my swing."
She smiled, reaching over to take his free hand. "You're so full of shit."
"Yeah, you love it."
Chesterfield eluded him over and over. Negan started strangling the steering wheel as they circled back a fourth time. He took them down a route with the infected wandering around in the road and had to do a quick U-turn to avoid them – Lucille heaved out the window. He took them down the last possible route, a highway he never used, and slowed to a stop about two miles down it.
It ended abruptly in a traffic snarl, where an 18-wheeler had flipped on its side and blocked the whole road. A few cars were lined up behind it, sideways, noses touching. Negan kept his hands on the wheel, kept the car running. His gas gauge was falling steadily.
"We can walk," Lucille said halfheartedly.
He had nothing funny to say.
"How do you feel?"
"I can do it. I just need you to carry the bags."
Negan was reluctant to leave the car. A thousand options ran through his mind. They could go back home and try to wait it out in their neighborhood, but they had little food stockpiled and the stores they passed had already been looted – and some were overrun with infected people. It would be risky and time-consuming to get back into Chester, and they might wind their gas down completely and be left without a vehicle. They could turn around and retry some other routes, hope the infected had moved on, or that he could plow through them.
Or they could leave the car and go by foot, hoofing the last four miles into Chesterfield and hoping they had fared better than Chester.
He loaded the bags onto his shoulders, gripped the bat in his right hand, and they set off.
Lucille was unsteady. She walked behind him, meandering, sometimes stopping to catch her breath. She rejected his offer to take a break. As they got closer to the cars, his skin started crawling. It was impossible to see beyond the 18-wheeler.
"I'll climb up, you stay here, shout if you see anything."
Negan scrambled up the truck axel.
"Dean would have been much smoother," Lucille commented.
"If we run into him, make sure you tell him that," Negan said, hauling himself onto the side of the truck. The metal scalded his bare arms. "Jesus, it's like an oven up here."
"Do you see anything?"
He got to his feet, took a few steps, and froze.
Negan stood perfectly still, watching a dozen or more figures limp up and down the road beyond, utterly directionless for now. Some of them were close enough to identify – a young woman, a man in a gray suit, a guy with a cast on his arm. Some had blood splattered down from their mouths onto their shirts. Bodies lay in the road, covered in flies. His stomach churned.
He turned back to the road behind them and saw the same thing in the distance, not quite close enough to worry, but definitely headed in their direction. Even as he stood there, the bobbing heads the way they had come multiplied.
Negan climbed down, careful not to make a sound, and grabbed Lucille by the hand, whispering, "Stay quiet, follow me."
It was time to leave the road, and the car.
Lucille registered what he had seen a moment later than him, her hand shutting like a vice around his. He felt her begin to shake, felt her pulse quicken. She stumbled a few times and he tightened his grip, keeping her upright by sheer force of will. Negan focused wholly ahead, mapping his route, placing his feet on the quietest path, and Lucille's head swiveled as she beheld the infected before them, and the mob forming behind.
Negan stopped when they made it into the forest, when the underbrush was thick enough to conceal them. He watched the infected, watched the group coming up the road grow larger and stall at the overturned truck. Some of them found their way around, others milled about, going off in random directions. Some started on worrying paths toward the woods.
When he turned back, Lucille was on one knee, breathing heavily, her sides heaving.
"Hey, hey," he circled her, crouching nearby and pulling off her knit hat. "Let that dome breathe. I would offer to hold back your hair, but… you know."
She tried to smile, and threw up again, "I hate you."
"Is this because you're scared? Or are you just really out of shape?"
She panted, speaking between breaths, "I think it might be both."
Negan helped her back to her feet. She leaned heavily into him, resting her face against his neck. "Your boobs have the worst timing, honey, I swear. Six months ago, and you could be lying back, eating an ice pop. Do you think this is karma for that time you stole a pen at the bank?"
She laughed, "It was an accident."
"You sure? I remember it differently." He stroked her head, and murmured, "We gotta keep going. I know it sucks, but we gotta."
She nodded into his neck.
Negan started a path parallel to the road, calling back to her, "Stop looking at my ass."
Lucille laughed and followed.
It was a slow, unsteady walk. Lucille kept having to stop, to dry heave into the bushes, to rest on her knees with her palms on the ground. Negan watched her, sharing her misery. It was like someone was pinching his heart, watching her struggle like this. She rejected his offer to carry her three times, and then after struggling for another half hour, he offered again. She just sat down and cried, hugging her knees.
Negan sunk down beside her, against the trunk of a pine tree nearly choked in vines. He drew her into his side, and she quieted, staring at the forest with wet eyes.
"Our first date was something like this," he commented.
She said nothing.
"What, nothing? Come on, you love correcting me."
She gave the faintest smile, "Our first date was in a diner, you doof."
"There she is."
Lucille rolled her head against his shoulder, sighing, "You should go."
"Oh, don't start that."
"I'm serious, baby, you should just leave me here."
Negan felt a flash of fear, followed by anger, "You better cut that shit out."
She was unfazed by his tone, "It'll be dark soon."
He tipped her head up, noticing how awful she was starting to look. She was paler, her eyes red, her face drawn. Negan experienced a brief, powerful memory of who she used to be – curly brown hair, impossibly warm eyes, a smile that was so alive. Her face haunted him then, and it haunted him now. It floored him to see her this way, trembling, frightened, and begging him to leave her behind. It was not just wrong, not just cruel, but crushing.
Negan cupped her face delicately, afraid of adding the slightest hurt to her heavy burden, and said, "Baby, I talk a lot of shit, but you know damn well I'm not leavin' you here."
She let her head drop onto his shoulder and shut her eyes tightly, "I need you to carry me, then."
He carried her on his back. It was not such a feat now, because she was a shell of the woman she was. She weighed seventy pounds, max. But the task still wore him down, made him sweat, made the muscles in his arms and legs burn like fire. He showed little of that to Lucille, pressing on for as long as he could, and only breaking when he thought he might drop her.
It went on like that until dusk, until the woods opened up into a broader field dotted with a few houses, on long driveways back from the empty road. Negan set Lucille down and they ventured out of the trees together.
"Do you think they evacuated?" Lucille wondered.
Negan stared at the first home, looking for signs of movement. He wanted to stay out in the open, where there were no corners for the infected to come limping around, but there was no way they could keep going. Lucille was deathly tired, and he was rapidly running out of steam. He could force himself to go on if he had to, but it would suck.
"Maybe we could sleep here for the night," Lucille said. "I don't think they would mind, given the circumstances. I mean, I'm sure they would understand. We can leave it just like we found it."
It was quiet around here. Chesterfield was another mile or two down the road, at least. If they kept going, they would be stumbling around in the dark, or using flashlights and attracting unwanted attention. But the houses seemed so ominous to him.
"Negan?" Lucille touched his arm, frowning, "You're shaking."
"I'm tired," he responded, pulling away from her touch. "Let's check it out. Stay close to me."
He went to the back door, trying the knob. It was locked. He put his bat through one of the window panes and reached in. Lucille hovered behind him.
"Stay here. I'm gonna make sure it's empty."
Negan stepped inside, through a small kitchen. Someone had left breakfast out on the table – soggy cereal and rubbery bacon. They had not been gone for more than a day. Still, the house had that absent look about it – drawers open, closet doors cracked, beds unmade. Whoever had lived here had gone and packed a bag, probably heading to the refugee camp.
He was on edge the whole time he was inside, checking every closet, every dark corner, even peeking into the attic.
He was just heading back downstairs when he heard Lucille screaming.
Negan had never taken stairs so fast in his life – two or three at a time, vaulting down the railing. Lucille crashed into him at the bottom, with an infected man limping after her.
He was terrible, half his face missing, a big hole leaking in his chest. And he was groaning, hungering, reaching out for them – reaching out for her.
Negan swung his bat, putting more force into it than he should have. When it made contact, the thing's whole skull exploded from the pressure, splattering the walls with filth. It hit the ground with a solid thunk at his feet, oozing blackish blood onto the carpet.
Lucille held him from behind, hiding her face in his back. "It just walked into the yard."
"It's okay. It ain't walking anywhere now. You still wanna talk shit about my swing?"
She stared at the body, shaking.
"Come on, the water is still working. I'll get the doors closed, and you go up and take a bath, try to calm down. I'll find us something to eat."
She cleared her throat, "I think I'll just stay with you."
"Rest of the house is empty," he said, but she made no move to leave. "Okay. Okay."
He dragged the body outside, tossing it down the steps and relocking the door. He taped over the pane he had broken. While he worked, Lucille dug around in the cabinets, pulling down some peanut butter, bread, and utensils and making them sandwiches.
She came to him with two plates full of food, frowning, "I can leave a note, explain-"
"Sweet pea, they don't give a shit. They up and left. Let's eat upstairs."
Negan stripped and shimmied under the covers of a king-sized bed, lying still and resting for a few minutes before he touched his food. Lucille picked at hers, taking it into the bathroom with her. She lay in the water with just her face sticking out, her eyes shut, for hours. Negan kept going in to check on her, sure she would fall asleep and drown.
She came into the bedroom when it had been dark for several hours, poking around in the drawers until she settled on an overlarge shirt to sleep in. "Must have been a big guy living here," she commented, slipping it on and holding it out to show him the size.
Negan stirred from a sort of trance. He had been staring at the blank TV for half an hour, hoping it would just spontaneously turn on. "Jesus, you could fit us both in that," he responded. "Did you see any pictures around? I gotta get a look at this land whale."
"You should be grateful for him. We needed a break."
"I'd be grateful if he had a few oranges in the place, maybe a banana. I got scurvy just walking in the door – not a fresh food to be found."
"Oh, please, you had three hotdogs for breakfast this morning." Lucille crawled in beside him, snuggling into his side like she always did.
Negan put an arm around her. "I'm trim, if anything. You, on the other hand, could stand to gain a few pounds. Your thigh just touched mine and I thought Skeletor was in bed with us."
"You tend to lose weight when you feel like death every day." She smirked, and then laughed when he pretended to be stabbed by her elbow. "This is why I stopped inviting you to chemo."
"You didn't stop inviting me, I stopped offering to take you. All those other husbands and wives have sticks up their asses."
"No, you're just mean."
"I'm not mean. When have I ever been mean?"
"You just compared me to Skeletor."
"In jest."
She smiled, "Not everybody gets your sense of humor."
"You're the only one who matters."
"Mm. Maybe. But some people see it differently than me, and then I never hear the end of it."
"Oh, yeah, like your doctor. She had the audacity to call me an asshole. Me – the light of your life."
"She called you much worse than that before you rushed me out of there."
"Yeah? Well, I probably deserved it."
Lucille smiled, and leaned her head on his shoulder. Her skin was warm against his, and she was not nearly as bony as he pretended she was. She had gained a lot of weight back from her last relapse months ago and had only just started losing it again.
Her voice was quieter, like she was falling asleep.
"We were talking about just going ahead with the mastectomy, both sides."
She tipped her head up to look at his face, as if waiting for him to say something shitty about getting rid of her breasts. He had tried in the past to make her understand that her body was just a bonus in their relationship – his love for her was the purest thing about him. He had no words to explain it, though, no way to express something so abstract. Sometimes she got it, but when she was really down and exhausted, it slipped her mind.
Negan kissed her forehead, "Whatever it takes. But you might have to put it on hold for now."
Lucille was quiet for a while, so long that he was sure she was asleep, but then she finally whispered something that broke his heart. "I hate you seeing me like this. You married a badass and now you have to deal with – well, this."
"Baby, you're still a badass. You know that. I admire you."
"From a safe distance."
"I'm not afraid I'm gonna catch the cancer, honey." When she said nothing, he went on, "Hey, you lose all the hair you want, all the weight you want, all the boob you want – you're still hot as shit."
She laughed, and drifted off.