Carl muffled his screams through his sleeve, biting down hard into the flesh of his arm. He could taste the year's worth of blood and sweat but now saliva and hot tears mixed into the disgusting brew of body fluids. He was ripped from his sweet moment of relief. The horrifying slab of cracked wood and almost pristine metal had swung away from his face in a blinding flash.
"Are you worried?" His mom once asked him. It was the first moment since his father's resurrection that he had been plunged back into the harsh reality of the new, fucked up world.
"He's survived, Mom. He's lived through everything."
The flash of headlights against silver brought the boy back to his senses. His face curled in anguish at the sudden realization that his relief was only superficial. His stomach sank. That bat may as well have hung over his own head. It was the guillotine that would punish them for them once and for all and maybe they deserved to be punished. He couldn't help but put himself rather, his father, in this man's worn leather boots.
A sole blue eye floating in a sea of irritated red veins stuck to the bat unable to look down at the person it hung above. If he screamed he doomed his father but if he didn't do a thing he silently vowed to have 'coward' solely etched across his gravestone. That was, if he would be lucky enough to even have a grave. For once in his life there wasn't an escape, no one was coming to save them.
"If he screams cut out the boy's other eye and feed it to his father." If he had screamed maybe he would have been spared from having to witness yet another gruesome display of human cruelty. Blindness could have at least spared him of that. In that moment they all seemed to run together, every death that he had ever watched through those watery blue eyes came rushing from the bleakest corners of his skull. Dale, Shane, Mom, Hershel, Beth, Sam, Jessie… Ron. The blue eyes that his father had given him, deep blue pools as blue as the sky itself. He remembered reading once that neither the sky or blue eyes were actually blue, it was just how we made sense of the light reflections and he remembered that blue was the harshest colour for the eye to see and caught their attention the best.
It was the eyes after all that caught his attention first. He followed Lucille as she made her descent, his gaze landing directly in pools of blue. They were a mirror of his own and they had already been locked on look that locked onto his gaze was so wild and desperate Carl could no longer hold onto whatever he had eaten that morning. Was that cereal or toast? The boy doubled over, purging himself of whatever still lay in his twisted stomach.
"Dad!" The sound of his own voice sent his arm flying to his mouth. The sound was just as wild and desperate as his father's stare. There was an empty chuckle from above him before the bat flashed once again.
A sickening crack of wood on bone. He felt the vibration of his own vocal chords against his arm, the heat of his breath and muffled cries filling his senses. The man would stop: it was just a warning. The second crack and the crumpled body of his father fell limp in the dirt. The man fell facing his son. His dark hair that had already been matted with dripping sweat now mixed with gushing blood and brown dirt. The third and his father's left eye was seeping down his face, smashed from his skull. Hair, skin, teeth, eye, and bone mashed together until it was almost impossible to distinguish the differences among the puddle of viscera that was once his father's proud leathery face.
"Now I think we have an understanding. Let's get you folks home, shall we?" The bat swung back over the man's shoulder. His father's blood ran down through the labyrinth of barbed wire that grasped hungrily onto tufts of hair and scalp. "I hope we all learned something here today."
Carl could feel the rotting emptiness of his stomach, thinking that maybe he had something more to purge from his body. His bright eye was fixated on his father's form, searching for the mirror of blue that had always been there to reassure him. Especially at a time like this. But now there was no trace of reassurance, no eyes. He lowered his trembling arm and opened his mouth to start screaming, to yell, to gnash his teeth and rip the man in front of him a part but began dry heaving instead. He gripped the grass under his hands as he began shaking violently.
"Dad!" Crying eyes of all colours were on the boy. Carl's screech turned every head in the field, catching Negan's attention right away.
"Now come on kid. What did I just say?" Heavy footsteps crunched along the dirt until they stopped in front of the boy. "I get it, I don't blame you kid, but one more noise out of you and we'll have to go another round." A thick, calloused hand reached down around his lanky upper arm, pulling him to his feet. Carl stood stock still, watching the blood drip down the neck of the bat and onto Negan's fingers. "Now you're gonna work for me. Probably for whatever's left of your life, so you're going to do a good job, right?" He kept a firm hand on the boy, feeling the muscles tremble. He mustn't have been any older than sixteen, another few years and he'd be a valuable asset like his father if the man had some god damn luck. "Right. Now everyone in the back of that van. You're going home to spread the news." Lucille swung a final time pointing toward the dark van. It took a moment for the others to begin rising to their feet.
Michonne. He'd forgotten about Michonne. Guilt stabbed into his guts and ripped him from side to side. It was Michonne that pushed herself up first, the headlights illuminating the two glossy lines that streaked down her face. For a moment it was funny, the lighting almost made him think of his mother as she sobbed over his father's corpse. She reminded him of those weeks in the hospital when he realized that fear wasn't boogeymen or the neighbor's big dog but the threat of losing everyone you love to death. Carl's feet stumbled, one in front of the other, dragging limply through the dirt. He imagined the man grasping his arm would try and hold him back. With a slight tug the man's hand went limp and leathery fingertips grazed down and away from his skin. The boy managed to move his body just enough until his legs collapsed, crouching over his father's corpse.
"We're dead. We're dead, Dad." His voice was hushed and choked, a knot growing in his airway until he thought that maybe it might suffocate him. He may have even welcomed it. Flashes of his mother's final moments ran through his mind like a bullet. He was supposed to be strong, he was supposed to have grown up. Lori had wanted him to grow up. No matter how strong he had become he was forced once again to watch helplessly as another parent was butchered, the images playing over and over in his head, melding together in flashes of viscera and blood. "We're all dead."
Slender, much shakier hands hooked under his arms, pulling him back up to his feet. "Carl, we have to go." Michonne gripped the boy tight, pulling him back from the disfigured corpse. She could feel her will to keep surviving crumpling inside her chest. Michonne had been given a small gift when she lost her family. She had the gift of solitude, free to focus on survival and free of the doom that came with loving another person but she had thrown it all away for this. Another body lay at her feet and all she wanted was to lay down and rot along with it. In her mind she began developing a plan. She would pack her things and leave Alexandria, cover her tracks, stay away from the roads, find supplies, but as Michonne looked down at the boy she was clutching she knew that he was her responsibility now. Guilt washed away her heartache for a brief moment as she pictured Carl all alone in the world, taking care of his baby sister. Sure, the others would step up to help but he was her's now.
"No, Dad! No!" Carl screamed and kicked and cried until the woman dragged him on his heels back to the van. The group piled in like rats, chased and funneled, into their trap. They sat silently, unable to look at each other out of grief or maybe shame that they allowed this to happen. Michonne's arm wrapped tightly around Carl's small chest, holding him close to her as Saviors closed the doors behind them. "We can't! Michonne we can't, please. We can't leave him." Carl whimpered, trying desperately to see out the window. Either the window was too heavily tinted or Carl had finally sobbed himself completely blind because he couldn't make out a single thing outside of the van other than the sharp flicker of fire. The rumbling of the engine had the final word on the matter, silencing him instantly. Michonne cooed and consoled him gently, stroking his hair with her free arm. The rest of the group remained completely silent on the long, gut wrenching drive back home."Michonne, how do I tell Judith?"