The Walking Dead Collection (109 page)

Lilly senses the muzzle of Austin’s Glock rising up in her peripheral vision. “No, wait!” She waves Austin back and stares at the walker. “God … no. Just wait. Wait. I need to—we can’t just—God
damn
it.”

Austin’s voice lowers an octave, goes cold and hoarse with revulsion. “They must have—”

“He must have turned back,” Lilly interrupts. “Maybe he had second thoughts, decided to come back.”

“Or maybe they killed him,” Austin ventures. “Fucking evil dicks.”

The creature in the lab coat hasn’t taken its shoe-button eyes off Lilly as it gnashes its teeth and works its blackened lips around snapping teeth, as though trying to bite the air or perhaps to speak. It cocks its head for a moment as though recognizing something through the fence, something important in its prey, something like muscle memory. Lilly meets its gaze for a moment.

The strange tableau—walker and human only inches away from each other, staring into each other’s eyes—doesn’t last more than a moment. But in that horrible instant, Lilly feels the weight of the whole plague, the enormity of it, the terrible emptiness of the world’s end pressing down on her. Here is a man who once ministered to the sick, advised all walks of life, cracked wise and slung witticisms—a man of integrity and humor and audacity and empathy for the weak. Here is the pinnacle of mankind—the highest-functioning member of the human race—stripped of everything that could be called human, diminished to a drooling, feral, neurological bundle of tics. The tears well up in Lilly’s eyes without her even being aware of them—the only sign of her anguish the blurring of that livid face in front of her.

At last, Austin’s strangled voice wrenches her out of this terrible reverie. “We gotta do it,” he says. He has his silencer out now, and he’s screwing it on the gun’s barrel. “We owe it to Stevens, right?”

Lilly bows her head. She can’t look at the thing anymore. “You’re right.”

“Stand back, Lilly.”

“Wait.”

Austin looks at her. “What is it?”

“Just … gimme a second, okay?”

“Sure.”

Lilly stares at the ground, taking deep breaths, clenching her fists. Austin waits. The thing on the other side of the fence sputters and snarls. With a sudden jerk, Lilly spins toward Austin and grabs the gun.

She sticks the muzzle through an opening in the fence and shoots the walker point-blank in the head—the dry clap of the slide echoing off the sky—the single blast slamming through the top of Dr. Stevens’s skull, taking off the back of his head.

The monster folds unceremoniously to the ground in a fountain of blood. Lilly lowers the gun and stares at the remains. A pool of black cerebrospinal fluid gathers under the body.

A moment of stillness passes, the thumping of Lilly’s pulse the only sound in her ears now. Austin stands beside her, waiting.

At last she turns to him and says, “You think you could find a shovel?”

*   *   *

They bury the body inside the barricade, in the hard earth of a vacant lot along the fence. By the time they get the hole dug, which isn’t easy, full darkness has set in, the stars coming out in profusion, a full moon rising. The air turns cold and clammy, the sweat on the back of Austin’s neck chilling him to the bone. He climbs out of the trench and helps Lilly lower the doctor’s remains into the grave.

Then Austin backs away and lets Lilly have her moment standing over the gravesite, gazing down at the body, before he fills in the crater.

“Dr. Stevens,” she says so softly that Austin has to cock his head to hear her, “you were … a true character. In some ways you were the voice of reason. I didn’t always agree with you, but I always respected you. This town will miss you desperately—not just because of the service you provided but because it won’t be the same around here without you.”

A pause follows, and Austin glances up, wondering if she’s done.

“I would have been proud to have you deliver my baby,” she says then, her voice breaking. She sniffs back the tears. “As it is … we have a lot of challenges ahead of us. I hope you’re in a better place now. I hope we all will be someday. I hope this craziness ends soon. I’m sorry you didn’t make it long enough to see that day. God bless you, Dr. Stevens … and may your soul rest in peace.”

She lowers her head then, and Austin waits for Lilly’s tears to pass before he starts filling in the hole.

*   *   *

The next morning, Lilly awakens early, her mind going in many directions all at once.

She lies in bed—the room just beginning to lighten in the predawn glow—Austin slumbering next to her. The two of them have been sleeping together since Lilly broke the news to Austin two days ago that she’s carrying his baby. So far, in the wake of the revelation, they have been inseparable, and their rapport is easy and natural. For now, they’re keeping the news to themselves, but Lilly is dying to tell others about it—maybe the Sterns, maybe Bob, perhaps even the Governor. She’s riding a wave of euphoria and feels for the first time since she arrived in Woodbury that she has a fighting chance to be happy, to survive this insanity. Austin has a lot to do with that, but so does the Governor.

And therein lies the problem. She hasn’t seen a trace of the missing leader for forty-eight hours, and she doesn’t buy the rumors that the Governor went out on a scouting party to find the escapees. If Woodbury is under the threat of attack—which, Lilly worries, is a real possibility—then it seems to her that the Governor would be needed right here, fortifying the town, preparing to defend it. Where the hell is he? There are other rumors flying around, but she’s not buying any of them. She needs to find out what the deal is herself; she needs to see the Governor with her own eyes.

She gently untangles herself from the blankets and climbs out of bed, careful not to waken Austin. He’s been a sweetheart to her these last couple of days, and the sound of his low, deep breathing gives her a good feeling. He deserves a good night’s rest—especially in the wake of recent events. But Lilly is as restless as a caged animal and has to find out what’s going on with the Governor. She walks across the room feeling dizzy and nauseous.

She’s had morning sickness from the get-go, but not just in the morning. That high, queasy feeling in the upper GI area has been coming in waves throughout the day—every day—sometimes taking her to the verge of throwing up, sometimes less so, but always churning in her gut like a fist. She has yet to vomit and wonders if that might bring her some relief. She’s been belching regularly, and that eases the nausea somewhat but not much. Maybe anxiety plays a part in it—her fear for the future, for the town’s safety in the wake of these escapes, for the mounting number of walkers in the area—but part of it, she is convinced, is the normal trials and travails of the first trimester. Like a lot of expecting women riding the roller coaster of hormones, a part of her is grateful for the queasiness—it means on some fundamental level that all systems are go.

Getting dressed as quietly as possible, she practices the deep breathing exercises she once saw on some TV girlie gabfest, a factoid buried in her far-flung media memory banks. In through the nose, out through the mouth, slow and deep and even. She pulls on her jeans, steps into her boots, and grabs her Ruger semiautomatic, which is loaded with a ten-round clip, and nestles it into the back of her belt.

For some reason, a fleeting memory of her father crosses her mind as she pulls on a cable-knit sweater and checks herself in a broken mirror sitting on top of boxes, canted against the plaster wall, reflecting a fractured slice of her narrow, freckled face. Had Everett Caul survived the initial surge of undead that swept across Metro Atlanta last year, the old man would be bursting at the seams with excitement right now. Had he not been brutally torn from the outer door of that rogue bus by a horde of biters, he would be pampering Lilly and saying things like, “A little gal in your condition shouldn’t be shootin’ firearms, missy.” Everett Caul raised Lilly well after the death of his wife from breast cancer back when Lilly was only seven years old. The old man raised his daughter with a tender touch, and had always been proud of Lilly, but the prospects of Everett Caul becoming a grandfather—spoiling her child, teaching the kid how to make fishing lures and soap out of beef tallow—stops Lilly cold at that broken mirror in the predawn light of her bedroom.

She lowers her head and begins to softly weep at the loss of her dad, her lungs hitching with emotion, making strangled hissing noises in the silent room, her tears tracking down the front of her sweater. She can’t remember crying like this—even when Josh got killed—and she gasps for air, holding her hand to the bridge of her nose. Her skull throbs. Maybe it’s just the “condition” she’s in, but she feels the sadness roiling within her like the waves of a storm-tossed sea.

“Enough of this shit,” she scolds herself under her breath, biting off the sorrow and the grief.

She draws her gun. Racks the slide. Checks the safety and tucks it back in her belt.

Then she walks out.

*   *   *

The day dawns clear, the sky bright and high, as Lilly strides down Main Street, her hands in her pockets, making note of the general mood of the few Woodburians who cross her path. She sees Gus with an armful of fuel cans, awkwardly negotiating the loading dock steps behind the warehouse on Pecan Street. She sees the Sizemore girls playing tic-tac-throw on the pavement of an alley under the watchful gaze of their mother, Elizabeth, who cradles a shotgun. The vibe on Woodbury’s streets is strangely calm and sanguine—apparently the rumor mill has quieted down for the time being—although Lilly detects an odd undertow of jitters threading through the people. She can sense its presence in furtive glances and the speed with which folks are crossing streets and carrying supplies through doors and passageways. It makes Lilly think of those old Westerns that used to play on Sunday afternoons on the Fox station in Atlanta. Invariably, at some point, some old grizzled cowboy would say, “It’s quiet … maybe a little too quiet.” With a shrug, Lilly shakes off the feeling and turns south at the corner of Main and Durand.

Her plan is to try the Governor’s apartment first—the previous day she got nowhere with Earl, the tattooed biker guarding the entrance—and if that doesn’t yield any information, then she’ll try the infirmary. She’s heard murmurings among the town gossipmongers that the Governor sustained injuries during a struggle to prevent the strangers from escaping. But at this point, Lilly doesn’t know what or whom to believe. All she knows is that the longer the town goes without a plan, without consensus, without information, the more vulnerable they’ll become.

She sees the Governor’s building in the distance—as well as the guard pacing across the entrance—and she starts to rehearse what she’s going to say, when she notices a figure trundling down the street. The man lugs two enormous thirty-gallon containers of filtered water, and moves with the intense haste of somebody rushing to put out a fire. Squat, broad-shouldered, and bullish, he wears a tattered turtleneck, which is dark under the arms with sweat, and army fatigue pants tucked into his hobnail boots. His big crew-cut head has an awkward forward lean to it like the prow of a storm-rocked ship as he hauls the jugs toward the center of town—toward the racetrack.

“GABE!”

Lilly tries to keep her voice even as she calls out, tries not to appear too alarmed, but the shout comes out tinged with hysteria. She hasn’t seen Gabe in forty-eight hours, not since the strangers escaped in such a shroud of mystery two days ago, and she has a feeling Gabe knows exactly what’s going on. The big, burly man remains one of the Governor’s closest lieutenants and confidantes—an attack dog that has completely sublimated its own personality in favor of serving the iron-fisted town tyrant.

“Huh?” Gabe looks up with a startled, vexed expression. He can hear footsteps but can’t see who’s approaching. He whirls around with the heavy weight dragging on his arms. “Ww-wha—?”

“Gabe, what’s going on?” Lilly says breathlessly as she clamors up to him. She swallows back the jitters and stanches her racing pulse. Then she lowers her voice. “Where the hell is the Governor?”

“I can’t talk right now,” Gabe says, and pushes past her, hauling the water containers down the sidewalk.

“Wait!—Gabe!—Hold on a second.” She chases after him, and clutches at his beefy arm. “Just tell me what’s going on!”

Gabe pauses, glances over his shoulder to see if anybody else is within earshot. The street is deserted. Gabe keeps his voice low. “Nothing’s going on, Lilly. Just mind your own fucking business.”

“Gabe, c’mon.” She shoots a glance over her shoulder, then looks back at him. “All I’m asking is … is he here? Is he in Woodbury?”

Gabe sets the containers down with a grunt. He runs fingers through his short-cropped, sandy hair, his scalp moist with perspiration. Right then Lilly notices something disconcerting about this barrel-chested bull of a man, something she has never seen before. His hands are shaking. He spits on the street. “Okay … look. Tell everybody … tell them…” He pauses, swallowing hard, looking down, shaking his head. “I don’t know … tell them everything’s okay, the Governor’s okay, and there’s nothing to worry about.”

“If there’s nothing to worry about, where the fuck
is
he, Gabe?”

He looks at her. “He’s … here. He’s … dealing with some shit right now.”

“What shit?”

“Goddamnit—I told you to mind your fucking business!” Gabe catches himself, the gravelly boom of his voice echoing across the far warrens of stone alleyways and brick storefronts. He takes a deep breath and calms down. “Look, I gotta go. The Governor needs this water.”

“Gabe, listen to me.” Lilly steps in closer and gets in his face. “If you know what’s going on, tell me … because the town is starting to come apart at the seams not knowing anything. People are making shit up. The guys at the wall are starting to not show up for their shifts.” Something inside Lilly hardens then, like a block of ice. All her fear and doubt drains out of her, leaving behind a cold, calculating, ticking intellect. She holds Gabe’s wide, shifting gray eyes in her gaze. “Look at me.”