For me, the saddest part of the story is that Glenn and Abe are still alive :'(
I wrote this in April 2016.
Here it is:
“You can breathe. You can blink. You can cry. Hell—you’ll
all be doing that.”
And just like that, the bat came
crashing down, making impact on Carl’s skull even through his sheriff’s hat.
Carl lurched forward, his hat falling off his head and landing in front of him.
He could hear his father screaming bloody murder as blood began to seep from
the gaping wound in his head and down his face. Carl was completely blind now
but could feel something dangling against his cheek.
“Oh, now that’s fucking disgusting.” He
barely heard Negan speak through the now muffled sounds of screaming and
crying. “I just hit you so hard your fucking eye popped out!” He chuckled.
“You’re probably blind now, kid. Too bad. Wish you could see your father right
now. He’s crying like a fucking pussy!”
Carl felt another crack against the side
of his head and everything went numb. One more hit and the boy was dead.
Rick had already lost his voice by now.
Negan was now mutilating an already dead body. Again and again the bat came
down until his son’s head was pureed pulp. He let his head drop in defeat when
he realized his life was completely worthless now.
“Now, wasn’t that fun?” Negan stretched
and shook off Carl’s head from Lucille.
He walked up to Rick who was barely
conscious, being held up by two saviors. Negan took Rick by his hair and lifted
his head up, sticking the bloodied bat in his face.
“You did this to your son you sick
motherfucking motherfucker.” Negan spat in his face and turned back to the RV.
“So, I think I got my point across very
nicely, don’t you?” he turned back around to face the traumatized group. “I
guess ‘nicely’ isn’t the best adverb here.” A deep laugh left Negan’s lungs.
“I’m gonna need half of your shit in one week. No sooner. No later. Or I’ll
come back and fuck up another one of you fucking cunts.”
Negan swung Lucille over his head in a
sweeping motion, gathering all of his saviors into the trucks. “Until then… ta-ta.”
All the trucks started practically at
once and everyone drove off leaving the remaining ten still on their knees in a
line.
Rick was now in a heap on the ground.
Curled into the fetal position, Rick screamed and cursed. He slammed his fist
into the dirt over and over and over until his fingers broke.
Everyone watched Rick as they cried into
each other’s arms. Maggie and Glenn buried themselves into each other. Rosita
was lying in Daryl’s lap. Sasha and Aaron were hugging and Eugene was now lying
on his side, crying. Abraham was the first to approach Rick who had now gone
still. His eyes were still open, but he looked dead, eyes unmoving, staring at
nothing. Abe carefully checked his pulse; he was still alive, but he couldn’t
tell for how long.
Michonne had laid a blanket from
Maggie’s makeshift bed onto Carl’s body and was draped over it, crying and
whispering to herself. Nobody else moved. The cold air cooled down everyone’s
fevers, but nobody felt a thing.
It took a while, but Abraham started to
get everyone who could walk up on their feet and into the RV. Eventually, only
Michonne, Rick, and Eugene remained.
Abe walked over to Eugene who was still
lying in the dirt, tears dampening the ground and turning it into a small
puddle of mud.
“Let’s
get into the RV so we can get to the docs. You took a right nasty beating
there.” Abraham said as gently as he could.
Eugene barely looked up at him in
acknowledgement before getting help from Abe to stand.
“I coulda…we…shoulda…I shouldn’ta gone.
We…” Eugene stuttered as he was helped into the van.
“Hey.” Abe knelt down next to Michonne.
“We should get his body back to—” Abraham was interrupted by a punch in the
face that knocked him over.
Michonne hovered over him as he held his
broken nose in his left hand, propping himself back up with his right. She
glared at him for what seemed like hours before she turned back to Carl’s body
and carefully lifted it off the ground and onto Maggie’s bed. Blood soaked the
sheets and pillow and Abraham
finally got up and helped carry Carl’s body into the RV. Everyone was still
silent; crying, huddled, shaking, empty.
“One more and then we can move.” Abraham
said and pulled Glenn to the side. “Help me with Rick.” He ordered and Glenn
nodded.
They both walked back outside to the
freezing cold and Abe headed to where he remembered checking on Rick. Only,
Rick wasn’t there. They checked around the area, back a ways to where they’d
come from, calling out his name as quietly as possible. No answer.
Rick was gone.
Glenn shook his head,
“He’s gone. We have to go now. Maggie is still sick, Eugene got beat to shit,
Daryl is shot, and your nose is broken. We gotta go.”
Abraham was still,
trying to listen for something, anything to help find Rick. But he knew Glenn
was right. They had to go.
“Come on.” Abe
practically whispered and they made their way back to the RV.
Luckily everyone was
still there, and Glenn and Abraham got back into the van.
“Rick?” Maggie
muttered.
“He’s gone. Couldn’t
find him and we have to go.” Glenn answered.
Abe got back into the
driver’s seat and started up the engine with the one destination in mind;
The Hilltop.
No comments:
Post a Comment