The Girl He Forgot (Book 2)

Chapter 18 - Torture

I waited a moment. Then I heard several muffled shots and two thuds as the walkers outside went down.

I walked slowly into the living room, avoiding the pile of corpses on the floor. Carl slipped silently back in through the patio doors and shut them behind him. He hesitated before he spoke, as if he were suddenly shy around me.

"C'mon," he began, slinging the rifle back over his shoulder, his voice echoing slightly against the emptiness of the house. He walked over to where he'd left his hat, plucked it off the floor and placed it back atop his head. "let's finish up here and get back" he declared.

I'm sure his dad's plan wasn't to stop at just one house, but I wasn't going to argue.

I nodded and, hesitantly, we began to search the bodies on the floor. It wasn't easy; they were heavy to move; turning them over was a struggle. Their clothes on the underside of them were soaked in their own blood. Rifling through their pockets was messy and uncomfortable but Carl and I were no strangers to this sort of thing...

The both of us remained silent as we searched, with the exception of the odd grunt as we shifted a limb here and there. I'd been right, too; there was plenty of decent loot on these men and in this house – at least, all this had been worth something.

Carl and I emerged afterwards with full bags of weapons and ammo picked from the corpses, a first aid kit, toothpaste and toiletries from the bathroom and several cans from the kitchen.

In the car, there had also been a fair amount of supplies and it's trunk several more weapons - a few shot guns, some more machettes and an odd looking archery bow. When I thought of a bow and arrow I thought of movies like Robin Hood or Lord of the Rings and how they portrayed them; wooden bodies with intricate detailing and a matching leather quiver. 

This bow was most certainly nothing like that. It appeared to be made out of metal with a rubber grip. At the end of each arm was a wheel that, I assumed, would have operated a pulley-like system had the string not been missing. There weren't even any arrows... 

Carl remarked that it looked like Darryl's cross bow but said I should leave it behind - it was so battered it wasn't really worth keeping. I almost did but there was something I liked about it... perhaps I could fix it? Carl thought I was being far too optimistic but supported my decision none-the-less. 

We hurried back to the truck with armfuls of loot, avoiding several zombies along the way. When we reached the truck, we chucked everything in the back along with my new broken bow and hopped inside.

On the drive back we were silent, I was thinking about those five men who'd died today... which was odd, I didn't really think about that sort of stuff... I glanced over at Carl whose eye was fixated on the road ahead. He hadn't displayed any sort of guilt or remorse for murdering them and I wondered if he felt it at all... I wondered if, what he'd seen that night with Negan and the Saviours had changed him a little... toughened him... scarred him...

I wanted so badly to ask him about it, for two reasons; I wanted to check in with him – I wanted to make sure he was ok after seeing whatever he'd seen. Aaron, Michonne, even Rick, certainly had not been ok after what Negan and his Saviours had done... so why did it seem to only toughen Carl? Not that he and I had really done much confiding in each other since then but surely, he was grieving... over Abraham and Glenn, members of his original group, people he'd known long before he met me. I wanted to make sure he was ok and, well, if I'm to be honest I wanted someone to talk to... I know I had Aaron and even Eric, but I didn't want to bring up that night around them after the way Aaron had been.

Right now, though, it wasn't the right time to bring it up with Carl... he'd only just let me past that wall he'd put up around himself and I didn't want him to push me away again – I don't think I was strong enough just yet to cope with any sort of rejection... so I remained quiet and just tried to enjoy the fact that Carl was next to me and there was barely an ounce of hatred between us.