Forever and Always

Feelings and Hatred

As we approached the unthinkable sight, I saw tears form in Carl's eyes.

Lying on the ground was a dead Rick. Not only was he dead, but there was a herd of Walkers surrounding his body.

Carl pulled out his gun, but I pushed his hand down. It was kind of unsaid that the noise would just attract more Walkers. I pulled the knife out of my boot and handed it to Carl. Wiping the tears out of my eyes, I grabbed the other knife in my other boot.

What happened next was all a blur. The only thing that kept flashing in front of my eyes were the flashed of Rick's dead body. I could tell by the way that Carl was plunging his knife into each Walker's head, that he was thinking the same thing.

In the end, the only things that were left were the corpses of the Walkers and Rick and the living bodies of me and Carl.

The tears were now flowing freely down Carl's face. I extended my arms and he fell into them. The sobs came out in big rushes. His breath was unsteady and I could tell that he was grieving.

He broke away from me. His tears had caused my light hair to turn a dark brown and it was sticking to my neck.

He moved over to one of the Walkers. Staring at it intently, he wiped away his tears.

Then he lifted his foot and started stomping on it with the heel of his shoe. Continuously. At the same time he was screaming vile things about the creatures.

I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him away. He was extremely stronger than me, so my attempts did very little.

I could understand what he was feeling. The hurt and loss. I had experienced that when my mother had died. It was because of these same beings.

"You dirty pieces of shit." Carl screamed,"I hate you. I hate you."

He fell to the ground where his father lay.

Daryl raced up to us with a handful of dirt and a smile on his face. When he saw Carl and his fallen friend, the smile faded and then became nothing.

He walked over to the crying boy and persuaded him to let go of his father.

Carl moved away from Rick and Daryl picked up the boy's gun.

"When I shoot, I want y'all to run." Daryl said. There was a choke in his voice.

I grabbed Carl's hand as Daryl cocked the gun. He placed his finger on the trigger.

"No," Carl sighed,"Let me do it."

"No." I said,"Carl, you don't have to. Daryl will do it and you don't even have to watch. Trust me. You don't want to have to go through all of this. The feeling of having to kill your parent is unthinkable and you already did it once. Don't do it another."

Carl took the gun out of Daryl's hands.

"I don't want you to have to be seen as a monster too." Carl said.

Carl aimed the gun at Rick,"I'm sorry."

I turned away as his finger came back and the gunshot rang out. Carl and Daryl turned to run, but I stayed behind.

I leaned down to Rick,"I just want you to know that he does love you. No matter how hard he tried to hide it. Also, I just want to say that I thank you for letting me in when I needed help. I'm forever in your debt. I promise to keep him safe. Him and Judith."

I heard the sound of moaning and then sneakers.

Carl came up to me and looked me in the eye. His face was red and puffy.

"C'mon. They're coming."

I stole one more glance at Rick and then took off towards the prison where Glenn, Maggie, and Beth were, unknowing.

                                                                                                                                                                /   /   /

"He's dead?" Beth said.

I nodded and looked at the cereal that was still on the table.

Maggie was holding Beth, while she sobbed even though Maggie was crying herself. Carl was leaning in the corner and flipping the knife that I had given him. Daryl was sitting at the table and staring at the floor.

I had had enough of the sadness.

"You guys can't do this. He wouldn't have wanted this. Rick would have told us to think about our future, He wouldn't have wanted us to shut down. All the time that I knew him, he was always trying to make everyone get along and help for everyone to survive. We need to survive."

Carl walked over to me and kissed my temple,"She's right. My dad wouldn't want us to mourn him. He would have wanted is to keep fighting... Well, for you guys to keep fighting. He would have wanted me to stay behind."

Everyone laughed. I wrapped my arms around Carl's waist and squeezed.

For the rest of the night, everyone was very sociable. There was no doubt that they were still thinking about Rick, but they tried to keep it to themselves.

At the end of the night, I moved over to Carl who was lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling.

"You alright?"

He sighed,"Not really. I just had to kill my father. I don't know how okay you could be after that."

He turned off the light and patted the spot next to him,"Can you lay with me tonight?"

I gave a sheepish smile and moved in close to him so that we would both fit on the small cot.

He kissed my temple again and said,"I love you."

"I love you too."

I closed my eyes, but I couldn't sleep. My thoughts kept going back to Rick and his horrible death.

The other thing that kept me awake were the sounds of Carl's sobs behind me.