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PRIMROSE ROY CAN still smell the aftermath of the bomb. Her heightened sense of smell allow her. The burning of buildings and homes, the wood, the flesh...it's still there. The ghost of Atlanta.
Do you know how hard that it is? To smell death? Primrose can't escape it. It's at every turn and corner. It's there and it won't leave. It might be a sign, perhaps. Maybe things won't get better. Maybe this campsite will be all they have left. Primrose will give birth here and raise her child with these strangers. She will grow old, single, and live in a tent. Walkers will be her enemy and slowly, the people she loves will drop like flies. That is the way her life seems to be going.
She wonders—is it better to die?
She sits in one of the lawn chairs underneath the small shade of Dale's RV. Peeling a clementine Glenn gave her in secret, she watches the people around her. Sam is cutting up firewood with Shane in silence. Dale is beside her, quiet, as he plays with his watch. Andrea and Amy are on duty on top of the RV. The Grimes family are huddled together, eating and talking, catching up in the middle of what is the end on earth. Glenn—he's with T-Dog, playing with the new car he's found. And Primrose—the peels of the fruit sit on her stout, firm belly. Her coral shirt has ridden up stomach. The juice of the clementine traces alongside her protruding belly. She goes to clean it up and just as her finger brushes against her dry skin, she feels something.
A kick.
A small kick.
Primrose smiles. Death—it's not better than living.
