Ch 6: Bad Man
"Are you the good guy or bad guy?" Jacob asks Shane innocently. He's tucked in his bed, ready for slumber after being read a bed time story, watching Shane as the man sits wide-legged in his chair, placing Thumbelina on the shelf where it belonged.
"I'm whatever the world wants me to be. Sometimes you have to be the good guy, but most of the time, you have to be the bad guy. In this world, there's no room for good men. Good men get killed, and that leaves behind the bad ones." He rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Jacob's eyes light up, insisting on an explanation. Shane continues.
"I know that I will never be a good man. I will always be a bad man. I've done too many things, killed too many good people." He laughs a bitter laugh.
"You know what I think?" Jacob pipes up.
"I think bad men can become good ones if they try hard enough." Jacob then turns on his side.
Shane watches him sleep, thinking about what he's said.
Can bad men…really change if they tried?
Shane has tried. Tried to do right by Lori and raise her son while Rick was away. He's tried to be Rick's friend and be there by his side when he got shot. Tried to do right by Carol by beating the shit out of Ed for laying a finger on her and any woman in the future. Tried to do right by Carl by being the father he needed…
His trying wasn't enough. It cost him a family, a good friend. The horrors of innocent children's faces as he's killed them all in an attempt of mercy.
Could he really be a good man? Are his sins going to wash away if he's tried hard enough to redeem them?
"Ain't enough trying in the world to right all my wrongs, kid." He muses to the slumbering boy. The window's draft makes Jacob shiver. Instinctively, Shane covers the boy with the blanket and adds another. His hands stop at Jacob's unruly curls and swallows the lump in his throat. He's sleeping soundly, oblivious and trustful.
He'd always wanted a son.
"You think I'm a good man?" Shane asks the boy, his throat catching. "You think…could I…could I become a good man?"
His thumb tucks a curl behind the boy's ear. It took him a second to notice his tears dotted his cheeks.
"Dammit." He curses, hastily wiping them away.
"I need someone…to tell me…that I'm good. Tell me I'm good. Tell me I'm good enough." The tears fall faster than he can stop them. before he knew it, he's quietly sobbing, at the mercy of a sleeping child who's oblivious to his suffering.
"Tell me I'm good, Lori. Tell me I'm good."
"Shane."
He jolts. Wiping his tears away, he steels himself when he turns around. Michonne stands at the doorway, confusion wrought on her face. Her grip on her katana loosens as they lock eyes.
"What the hell is going on?"
"Am I a bad man, Michonne?" He asks. Michonne relaxes. She eyes him, jaw tightening.
"Get out of Jacob's room. I'll keep watch tonight." She gestures him out, and with his tail tucked between his legs, leaves.
They haven't talked since that night.
There have been many times in Shane's life where he has to decide whether he's the good guy or the bad guy. Which lie will he tell himself whenever he does something his fellow man will frown upon.
They don't see this world is means of survival. It's kill or be killed, be prey or predator. There's no room for gray areas. Everything Shane does, he does for survival. He's made for this world; trained for this world back when he was a mere soldier fighting overseas to keep this ungrateful country safe. Back when he tortured infidels for information, gunned down suicide bombers and jumped out of airplanes, praying that he'll die a hero.
He flashes back to his days in the barracks, watching his comrades clutch onto photographs of their loved ones, their reasons for living, and having no emotion other than envy. They have people waiting for them, people that care, while Shane has no one but an alcoholic father, a cocaine-addicted mother who weaves in and out of his life like smoke, and a best friend that seems to have the life he's always wanted but takes it for granted. And an ex-high school sweetheart that's moved on to date his best friend, to add salt in the wounds. He has no one, nothing, no reason to keep living.
He watches as those meaningful people die around him while he survives, God's punishment for being so worthless. He comes home, relays fabricated stories of glory to anyone that'll listen while ignoring that his comrades will be coming home to their families in dog tags and broken hearts while he keeps living. He survives, watches the good men die off while he remains.
When the world went to shit, he's still here, surviving, thriving, making a name for himself as a hero, a fucking hero, saving his group and fighting while Rick wastes away in a hospital, probably dead. Just when he has a reason to live…Rick comes and takes it away.
"Come out, Shane. I know you're out here. You're outnumbered, you ain't got defenses, and night sure as hell ain't on your side since the biters come out to play. If you come out and give up the others, we won't have to kill you."
Eat shit, Shane muses. Ain't no way in hell he'd sell Michonne and Jacob down the river, even if he knew where they were.
They escaped three days ago, in the dead of night. If they hadn't been ambushed, they wouldn't have to scatter and Shane wouldn't be praying for their safety. They'd be together, roughing it in a caravan of their ammo, as planned. But someone tipped them off; if he finds out who did it they'll taste his fist personally.
They'll be fine: Michonne has her sword, she'll protect Jacob with her life. He knows this. He'll keep telling himself this until it comes true and his brain will beg him to quit thinking it.
They're safe. That's all that matters.
They're safe.
They're safe.
They're safe.
He has to keep moving.
He makes a break for it, cutting through the woods and zipping past bullets by the skin of his teeth, his expertise in the military working their benefits.
There's an abandoned cabin not too far from here, if he could just—
BANG.
His left leg buckles and he topples over. Fuck.
"I got him, I got him!" a voice calls out excitedly. It sounds like a boy, no younger than 14. Footsteps crunch closer and he crawls into the underbrush, shielded by leaves. Grabbing a sharp stick, he lies on his stomach and waits.
The teen boy twirling his gun walks where his body used to lie, his blood leaving a trail to the underbrush. Before the boy could shout his location, Shane grabs the boy's ankle and yanks him to the grass, dragging him into the underbrush. Clamping a hand over his mouth, he peeks out of his hiding space. Lanterns are coming closer. Shit.
"If you wanna live, you'd shut the fuck up right now, kid." He hisses. The boy doesn't listen, flailing and making noise with the leaves.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" he finds his hand clutching his throat, thumb pressing against the trachea. The boy struggles for breath, clawing at Shane's hand but no avail. His eyes roll in the back of his head and it's clear he's losing consciousness. Shane adds more weight until he feels his trachea break. The boy stops struggling, his hands falling limply at his sides. Shane looks at the boy and nearly breaks down.
The boy's face is forever frozen in horror, staring right through him.
He looks like Jacob.
"I'm sorry." He whispers to the child corpse. His fingers slowly lower his eyelids. After sliding a knife through his skull, he lays the boy to rest in the underbrush.
He sits by the corpse, observing it, fighting the lump in his throat.
"Are you the good guy or bad guy?"
"I'm the bad guy." Shane answers, before breaking down into soft sobs.
"I'm the bad guy."