The Walking Dead Collection (94 page)

“Daddy’s gotta go to work,” he says cheerfully to the tiny corpse as he heads for the door. He grabs his gun and the walkie-talkie charging by the door. “I love you, honey. Stay outta trouble while I’m gone.”

On his way out of the building, he gets Bruce on the two-way. “Meet me at the track,” he says into the mouthpiece, “at the top of the service entrance.” He thumbs the walkie off without waiting for an answer.

Ten minutes later, the Governor stands at the apex of a greasy staircase, which leads down into the cavernous, dark, underground maze. The sky over the racetrack looks threatening, the day turning dark and blustery.

“Hey, boss,” the big bald man says as he lopes up from the parking lot.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“I came right over, I’m sorry.”

The Governor glances over his shoulder, a few passersby catching his eye. He lowers his voice. “What’s the situation with the woman?”

“Still talking to herself. Bitch is bug-fuck crazy, you ask me.”

“Is she cleaned up?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Albert paid her a visit, looked her over, gave her some food … which she didn’t touch. I guess she had some water, that’s about it.”

“She still awake?”

“Yep. Far as I can tell. I looked in on her about an hour ago.”

“What was her … demeanor?”

“Her what?”

The Governor sighs. “Demeanor, Bruce. Her mood. What the fuck was she doing?”

Bruce shrugs. “I don’t know, just staring at the floor, talking to the voices in her head.” He licks his lips. “Can I ask you a question?”

“What?”

“Is she telling you anything? Giving you any information?”

The Governor runs his fingers through his long hair. “I’m not asking her anything … so there’s nothing for her to tell me, is there?”

Bruce furrows his brow, looks at him. “You’re not asking her anything?”

“That’s right.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

The Governor glances off into the distance at the plumes of exhaust puffing out of a bulldozer moving earth against the barricade, the workmen securing the last sections, the buzz of engines and hammers filling the air. “That’s coming,” he says, thinking about it. “Speaking of that … I want you to do something for me. Where’s the young one being kept?”

“The Asian kid? He’s on B-level, in the warehouse room next to the infirmary.”

“I want you to move him to the stall right next to the woman’s.”

Bruce’s brow furrows deeper, the folds and creases spreading up across his bald head. “Okay, but … you want him to hear what’s going on in that room?”

The Governor gives him a cold smile. “You ain’t so dumb, Brucey. I want that kid to hear everything I do to that bitch tonight. Then one of them’ll talk. Trust me.”

Bruce starts to say something else when the Governor turns and walks away without another word.

*   *   *

In the dusty stillness of her apartment, Lilly and Austin each manage to grab a few hours of restless sleep that morning, and when they finally awaken around one o’clock, the convivial atmosphere of the previous night has transformed into a series of awkward negotiations.

“Oh … sorry,” Austin says when he pushes the door to the bathroom open and finds Lilly on the toilet in her Georgia Tech T-shirt with her panties around her ankles. Austin turns away immediately.

“No problem,” she says. “Can you just give me a minute or two? Then it’s all yours.”

“Absolutely,” he says, thrusting his hands in his pockets and pacing the hallway. Earlier that morning, he had dozed off on the floor of the living room, covered in a packing blanket from the truck, while Lilly slept in the bedroom on her broken-down futon. From the hallway, Austin calls to her, “You got time to give me another lesson today?”

“You’re really a glutton for punishment,” she says inside the bathroom, flushing the toilet and getting herself together at the mirror. She comes out and gives him a good-natured punch in the arm. “Whaddaya say we give that side a chance to heal up first?”

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“I could make you dinner,” he says, his eyes bright and guileless.

“Oh … um … wow.” Lilly wants so badly to say the right thing. She doesn’t want to lose Austin as a friend. Contrary emotions roil through her as she searches for the right words. She feels at once closer to him and strangely alienated from him. The fact is she can’t ignore her feelings for the scruffy young man. He is good-hearted, ballsy, loyal, and—she might as well admit it to herself—an amazing lover. But what does she really know about him? What does
anybody
really know about
anybody
in this fucked-up new society? Is Austin one of those old-school men who think sex seals the deal? And for that matter, why can’t Lilly just surrender to her tender feelings for him? What’s wrong with her? The answer is elusive—fear, self-preservation, guilt, self-loathing—she can’t quite put her finger on it. But she knows one thing for sure: She’s not ready for a relationship. Not yet. And she can tell by the look in the young man’s eyes right now, he’s already halfway there. Lilly finally says, “Let me … think about it.”

He looks crestfallen. “Lilly, it’s just dinner … I’m not asking you to pick out furniture.”

“I know … I just … I need to think about it.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No. Not at all. It’s just…” She pauses. “It’s just that…”

He gives her a grin. “Please don’t say ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’”

She laughs. “Okay, I’m sorry. All I’m saying is … just give me some time.”

He gives her a little bow. “You got it, m’lady … I will give you time and space.” He goes out into the living room and gathers his gun, his coat, and his knapsack, and she follows him to the front door.

They go outside.

“Looks like a storm brewing,” Austin says, glancing up at the dark cloud cover.

“That it does,” she says, squinting up at the gray light, her headache returning.

He starts to descend the steps when Lilly reaches out and gently tugs on his arm. “Austin, wait.” She searches for the proper words. “I’m sorry … I’m being ridiculous. I just want to take it slow. What happened last night…”

He takes her by the arms, looks deep into her eyes, and says, “What happened last night was beautiful. And I don’t want to fuck it up.” His face softens. He touches her hair, and plants a platonic little smack on the side of her face. He does this without guile, without premeditation. He simply kisses her temple with great tenderness. “You want to know the truth of the matter?” He looks into her eyes. “You’re totally worth the wait.”

And with that, he shuffles down the steps and plods off into the gathering storm.

*   *   *

The rain comes in waves that afternoon. Martinez has to suspend the last of the construction on the northeast corner of the rampart, and he and his crew relocate under the awnings along the derelict train station, where they stand around, smoking, watching the weather, and keeping an eye on the woods to the north.

Walker sightings have increased over the last few weeks out there in the thickets and swamps behind the palisades of white pines. Now the curtains of rain unfurl from the heavens, strafing the forest and washing out the meadows. The sky unleashes volleys of thunder, while veins of lightning crackle off the horizon. It’s an angry storm, biblical in its volume and fury, and it makes Martinez nervous. He smokes his filterless cigarette with a vengeance—he rolls his own—sucking it down to the nub as he gazes at the storm. The last thing he needs right now is drama.

But that very moment it comes around the corner in the form of Lilly Caul. She hurries across the adjacent lot with her jean jacket held high over her head to ward off the rain. She approaches with an anxious expression on her face, hustling under the temporary shelter, out of breath, shaking the moisture from her jacket. “Jesus Christ, that came on quick,” she pants at Martinez.

“Afternoon, Lilly,” he says, stubbing out his cigarette on the pavement.

She catches her breath, looking around. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going.”

“What’s happening with the interlopers?”

“The who?”

“The strangers,” she says, wiping her face. “The ones … came in the other night?”

“What about them?” Martinez gives her a shrug, glancing nervously over his shoulder at his men. “I don’t have anything to do with that.”

“Aren’t they being questioned?” She looks at him. “What’s wrong?”

He gives her a strange look. “You weren’t even supposed to know about that.”

“About what?”

Martinez grabs her, leads her away from the men, over to the far edge of the awning. The rain has settled into a steady downpour, and now the jet-engine hum of the storm masks their conversation. “Look,” Martinez says to her, measuring his words, “this has nothing to do with us, and I would advise you to stay out of it.”

“What the hell’s the matter? I just asked a simple question.”

“The Governor wants to keep it on the down-low, he doesn’t want people to worry about it.”

She sighs. “I’m not worried about it, I was just curious if he found anything out.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”

“What the hell is the matter with you?”

Anger flares in Martinez’s gut, traveling up his spine and drying his mouth. He wants to strangle this busybody. He grabs her by the shoulders. “Listen to me. I got enough problems, I have to deal with this shit, too!? Stay out of it. Just leave it alone!”

Lilly pulls away. “Whoa, Kemosabe! Back off.” She rubs her shoulder. “I don’t know who pissed in your cereal this morning but you can take it out on somebody else.”

Martinez takes deep breaths, looking at her. “Okay, look. I’m sorry. But we’re on a need-to-know basis here. The Governor knows what he’s doing. If there’s something we need to know, he’ll tell us.”

Lilly waves him off, turns, and walks away in the rain, mumbling, “Whatever.”

Martinez watches her vanish in the mist. “He knows what he’s doing,” he says again, softly, under his breath, as though trying to convince himself.

ELEVEN

The rains continue, an unremitting deluge over south central Georgia for nearly three straight days. It’s not until midweek that the weather moves on, leaving flash floods and downed power lines in its wake all the way to the Eastern seaboard. The land around Woodbury is left drenched and bound up in mud holes and washouts, the fallow fields to the south so sodden and inundated that the men on the wall notice clusters of walkers driven out of the woods, wallowing in the flooded areas like giant glistening leeches climbing on top of each other. It’s like shooting fish in a fishbowl for the .50 caliber gunners on the northeast and southeast corners of the barricade. But other than these noisy, gruesome little displays of what the Governor has started calling “waste management,” the town of Woodbury remains almost eerily calm that week. In fact, it’s not until the
end
of that week that Lilly notices something amiss.

Up until then, she keeps a low profile, spending most of her days inside, honoring Martinez’s directive to keep any news of hostile strangers in their midst to herself. She passes the time reading, watching the rain, thinking, and lying awake at night agonizing over what to do about Austin. On Thursday, he shows up at her door with a bottle of wine that he nicked from the old storage room at the courthouse, along with a bouquet of Russian sage he picked down by the post office, and she is so touched by the gesture that she lets him in but insists that he avoid the subject of their relationship or any mention of that night they went over the line. He seems happy to just spend time with her. They polish off the entire bottle of wine playing Pictionary—at one point, Austin makes her laugh so hard she does a spit-take when he reveals that his drawing, which appears to be a fried egg, is his brain on drugs—and he doesn’t leave until the gray light of dawn is playing at the seams of the boarded windows. The next day, Lilly has to admit to herself that she likes this guy—regardless of the awkward circumstances—and maybe, just maybe, she would be open to the possibilities.

Then Sunday morning comes. Exactly one week after the fateful night, Lilly awakens with a start sometime before dawn. Something amorphous and unformed in the back of her mind has been bothering her, and for some reason—be it something she dreamed, or something that percolated down through her subconscious over the course of that week—it strikes her full force right then,
that morning,
like a ball peen hammer right between the eyes.

She jumps out of bed and hurries across the room, tearing open a three-ring binder lying on a makeshift desk of two cinder blocks and a plywood panel. Frantically she rifles through the pages.

“Oh no … no, no, no,” she utters under her breath as she searches through her calendar. For almost a year, she has been religiously keeping track of the date. For many different reasons. She wants to know when the holidays fall, she wants to know when the seasons turn, and most of all, she simply wants to keep in touch with the old order, with civilized life, with normalcy. She wants to stay connected with the passage of time—although there are many in this dark era who have given up, who don’t know their Arbor Day from their Yom Kippur.

She looks at the date and slams the calendar shut with a gasp.

“Oh shit … fuck … shit,” she mutters to herself, backing away from the desk and whirling around as though the floor is about to drop away from under her feet. She paces a nervous circle in the dark bedroom for a moment, her thoughts swimming and crashing into each other. It
can’t
be the twenty-third. It can’t be. She’s imagining this whole thing. She’s just paranoid. But how can she be sure? How can anybody be sure of
anything
in this fucked-up Plague World? There must be something she can do to set her mind at ease—to prove to herself she’s just being paranoid. All at once, she freezes and gets an idea.

“Okay!”

She snaps her fingers, and then rushes over to the old battered metal armoire in the corner where she keeps her coats and guns and ammo. She grabs her denim waistcoat, her twin Ruger .22s, the silencers, and a pair of twenty-five-round banana clips. She puts on her coat and then screws on the silencer attachments and shoves the guns behind her belt. She stows the clips in her pockets, takes a deep breath, raises her collar, and heads out the door.