Dad, Rick, Glenn, Bob.
The Terminus people could have already killed them. Just killed them. But I don't know why they would do that, after going to the trouble of putting us all in here. They must want something from us, from them. But I can't think of what that might be. Information? Are they torturing them?
Glenn was tortured once. I breathe in deep.
What information would they want? Survival tips? How we've lasted this long? Where we came from, why we aren't there now?
I just have no answers. I'm grappling, but all the possibilities I consider crumble with just a little pressure, just a second thought. By now, I should be an expert at dealing with being ignorant of the wellbeing of people I care about. The past months have proven that time and time again. But I'm not an expert. I'm not that calloused yet. I wish I was. At least right now. Because LC is standing at a slit with her head bowed, most of the hair escaping her ponytail and shielding her pale face. Because Maggie just keeps sawing at wood, even though I think we're good on the weapons front. Because Sasha keeps stopping what she's doing every five or so minutes and just spends ten seconds frozen, staring at nothing, or sometimes at the door, and because Carl won't leave my side even though we both know we should be looking for something to do besides sitting here with our wooden spikes. I don't know if he's doing that for me or for him. Or if I'm doing that for me or for him.
People say things, starting with Sasha. I catch the words, the magic words – the cure.
She's asking Eugene about it. He says we wouldn't understand, it's beyond our comprehension. Sasha stands up, keeps asking, face tight. Michonne adds a thing or two. Abraham says nothing is going to happen to Eugene, the army girl agrees. But there's still tension, I try to push it away from me, just stay here with Carl and stay calm and prepared to fight when it's time and not worry about anything else, like a cure. They say he has a cure. That should make me feel something, but it doesn't.
Eugene is facing us all now, standing in front of the door he's been trying to trick open for the past twenty minutes. He has the kind of voice a person has when they're giving a speech.
"I was part of a ten-person team at the Human Genome Project that weaponized diseases to fight weaponized diseases. Pathogenic microorganisms with pathogenic microorganisms . . . Fire with fire."
He sounds too much like someone I knew once. I'm glad I'm with Carl, because he was here from the beginning, he's the only one in this boxcar who was here from the beginning, and we share a lot of memories, including that dark one with the clock and the computers and another explosion, much louder than the one a half-hour ago. I have trust issues with scientists, now, and I hope Carl does, too. Trust is such a luxury.
"Interdepartmental drinks were had," continues Eugene, "relationships made, information shared. I am keenly aware of all the details behind fail-safe delivery systems to kill every living person on this planet. I believe with a little tweakin' –" That's something strange about Eugene, he's apparently a genius but he has an accent like a redneck – "on the terminals in DC, we can flip the script. Take out every last dead one of 'em. Fire with fire."
Washington, DC. Where the president was, and the White House, a bunch of monuments, the Smithsonian. Abraham and the army girl were taking Eugene there. Because he has a cure, a cure, a cure, and DC can make it work.
But, really, sounds like it's not a cure he's talking about. Well, a cure for the world, I guess – a cure from the walkers. But not a cure for the walkers. They'll just fall down and not get up, no fixing them. Can't fix dead.
They're not dead. They're just different.
No, Lizzie. They're dead.
Nobody says anything for a while. Carl has my hand, sweat's building up between our palms, but I don't take mine away.
A so-called cure, a kill-all-the-walkers button, locked inside the brain of one man, a man with a bad haircut and a body meant for sitting and experimenting and researching, not running and killing and scavenging. And Abraham wants to get him all the way to DC.
"All things considered," says Eugene, "It does sound pretty badass."
Even as we sit inside a boxcar with gunshots still ringing like horrible wind-chimes just outside of these walls, these walls that are more like a prison than the prison I lived in for a year, Abraham wants to get Eugene the scientist to DC.
I know now, why it doesn't make me feel anything, the possibility that there's a cure. Because it won't ever happen. Almost definitely, it won't ever happen. Because even if – when – we get out of here, it's a long road from Georgia to DC. A road too long for one man and two guards to expect to make it through and live to tell the tale.
Unless . . .
Glenn, Maggie, Sasha, Bob, and that other girl. They were with the army people and Eugene, they told us that. So . . . do they want to go to DC with them? Was that their plan, for after they got to Terminus, if it had turned out to be a good place? No, they wouldn't leave us, me and Carl and our dads and Michonne, not again. So they'd have stayed, they'd have waited for us, tried to find us, even. And they'll stay with us once we get out of here.
Or we'll all go, comes a whisper from in me.
What? No. Why would we leave Georgia?
Why wouldn't we?
The cure. The cure, if it could make it to DC, safe and sound in Eugene's brain the whole way there . . . well. Eugene seems to know what he's talking about. But he would need more guards.
DC. Washington, DC. A long, long road.
But we've done harder things than long-distance travel.
"So let's get back to work," says Maggie, who's been standing and politely listening with Glenn's pocket-watch in hand. I wonder what she thinks about it, DC, if she really did want them to go with Eugene. If she wants all of us to go now.
This isn't important right now –
Get back to work, get back to work. But what work is there to be done? New, better weapons have spread throughout the car. Michonne's managed a makeshift sort of double-bladed sword, with short ends, but sharp and deadly. Owen, with a chain and Abraham's help, pulled an entire loose board off from beside one of the slits, and he started to sharpen it with that chain, but then said screw it, he'd just use it as a club. I watch him practice his swing. He used to play baseball at his junior high. I think his team won all-state, or something. Carl decided to make a second spike, something better. As for me, I still have the same weapon, my wooden knife with the Carl's-jacket hilt. I made sure it was good enough the first time around. Dad checked it and everything.
Dad. My throat closes up, I inhale sharply enough to force it open. Gonna get him back. Gonna get him back. They always get out of things like this, that's what Carl said, and he's right. The CDC, Woodbury, the prison attack. They're masters at escape, we all are. So why is my throat closing? Why are my palms sweating?
The army girl tells Carl and me we should try tying our knives to our wrists. We do, and yes, it's a good plan. Now I really could use a second knife. Tie it to my wrist, still have use of my fingers. Stupid Owen –
The outside crashes into us.
There's a loud, metal-banging sound, and Carl gasps, and then comes that heavy rolling of one of these boxcar doors. Light pours in, hard, and I don't close my eyes, but they have to adjust to see the figure with the rifle clearly. My ears know him immediately, though.
"Come on!" he yells as he comes into focus, Rick, blood on his face, teeth like a wolf's. "We fight to the fence!"
We all charge out, just that fast. But not so fast that I forget to take in what I can. Buildings are burning behind Rick, smoke fills the air, takes over the sky, a sick mimic of storm clouds. Walkers are all over the place. There are screams, there are shots and shouts, and now my boots hit asphalt, the vibration shoots up my legs and through my arms and out to shake the world even more.
"You do not leave his side!" someone shouts. I don't know who he is or who he means, I need to run and start to, but a hand grabs me and holds and then yanks and pushes.
"Go, go, go!"
Dad, guarding me, not leaving my side. I hope. I know, have to know, because I've forgiven him and I love him, and I let myself reach out and touch his stomach, just long enough to make sure that he's warm, before I have to be a grownup again and go, go, go. Because like I said, walkers are everywhere, ghosts stumbling out from the smoke.
Fight to the fence, Rick said, to the fence. I know where it is, yeah, but – Carl? Carl? There, there, in between Michonne and Rick. And nearby is Owen, he's next to Abraham, he's bashing a walker's head in – LC is on my other side –
I almost run into a walker and jump up and stab it in the eye with my wrist-knife. Dad pulls me away from the body and takes down two more walkers close by, he has some long, heavy metal thing in his hand – what happened to them, what happened to them, did they do this, Dad and the others? Are they why Terminus is burning?
I see Glenn. I see Bob. Fighting like the rest of us, okay and here. Carl was right. They got out of it, they always do.
Until they don't, echoes Bob's voice in my head, but my own voice snaps back that I don't give a shit about until, Bob, not now, with the fence so close. Yes, the fence is close, just around this group of boxcars, I remember it well, earlier today rifle barrels poked through them like thorns. Getting to the fence means getting through the walkers, but that's nothing new. And Dad keeps me away from all the walkers after that first one, smashing in their heads when we can't avoid them, but mostly just weaving through, LC trailing along with us, her wooden stake bloodier than mine. No, between the two of them, I don't do any more fighting at all. And when we get to the fence and Dad gives me a leg up and over, even among all of my bewilderment and relief there's a stroke of something bitter, and I untie and drop that wooden knife that I was so proud of just before I roll into Glenn's arms. The knife falls on the other side of the fence. It can burn with the rest of this place.
Burn, I realize, with my bow.
. . . . . . . . . .
A.N.: One of my readers, logicaltribbles, has put together a beautiful playlist that I think captures the atmosphere of Sydney's life perfectly. Here's the link: : / / 8 tracks com/logicaltribbles/when-it-s-quiet
(take out the spaces and add in the "." before the com . . . this document wasn't very happy with the link in its original form).
Check it out! You won't be sorry you did.