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» FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF «

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder, So They Say

It was still dark when I was woken by the sounds of panic around me. I rubbed my eyes, and in my confused state I asked what was going on. The look on Carl's face was reluctant and sad as he explained that Daryl, Carol and Bob weren't here. Whether they were taken or they left, we weren't sure, but I still worried. There goes my crap timing again. Just last night I thought to myself, maybe it's time to suck it up and heal the relationship between me and Daryl. Even now, as I realised he had broken his promise that he would always tell me where he was going, I wasn't mad.

The doors swung open and Sasha walked in, returning from her search for her missing boyfriend. I startled when she suddenly shoved Gabriel against the wall, holding her knife by her side, begging for him to tell us where they were. I knew he was a suspicious guy, but in his defence he had been here the whole time.

"Why'd you bring us here? You working with someone?" Rick calmly interrogated Gabriel. He held his hands up in surrender, insisting he was alone. "What about the woman in the food bank, Gabriel? What did you do to her?"

I didn't know what Rick was referring to, but I assumed it was connected the 'You'll Burn For This' scratched into the wall outside.

"What are you gonna burn for, Gabriel?"

Rick started yelling, holding him by the front of his suit as he got in his face. Gabriel buckled immediately.

"I lock the doors at night. I always lock the doors at night, I always lock the doors-" His face crumpled in fear, sweat forming on his brow. He seemed nervous. "They started coming, my congregation. Atlanta was bombed the night before and they were scared. They were- they were looking for a safe place, a place where they felt safe. And it was so early, it was so early. And the doors were still locked." He was falling over his words, the memory was obviously a bad one.

"You see...it was my choice. There were so many of them and they were trying to pry the shutters and banging on the sidings, screaming at me. And so the dead came for them."

"Women...children. Entire families calling my name as they were torn apart, begging me for mercy. Damning me to hell." He sobbed, but I felt nothing except disgust for this man. He wasn't evil, he was a coward. In some ways, that's worse. Listening to his story seemed to drain me. I felt the wave of emotions as I thought about the people, the children, who had put all their trust in him only for him to betray them. It cost them their lives.

Our attention was brought away from the man on the floor, instead going to windows as a whistling sounded out. Glenn reached it first, peering into the darkness.

"There's something- there's someone outside lying in the grass." It could've been one of our people. Sasha raced to the doors, swinging them open and retrieving the figure, Glenn and Maggie taking care of the nearby walkers.

I stood once they came in, seeing Bob unconscious in their arms. What really concerned me was the fact his leg was cut from the knee, wrapped in a bandage. Whoever did this didn't want him to die, they wanted him for something else.

Once he was placed on the ground, I knelt beside him, checking his leg. There was nothing I could do for it, it would have to heal on its own. I stood back, allowing Sasha some room as he started waking up.

"I woke up outside this place. It looked like a school. It was that guy, Gareth. And five other ones." Bob explained, breathing sharp puffs of air as he spoke. I couldn't imagine the pain he was in.

Maybe Rick was right, we should've gone back and picked them off as they escaped Terminus. If we had, maybe Bob would have his leg still.

"They were eating my leg right in front of me." I felt sick. For someone to resort to that kind of thing, they had to have something wrong with them.