Past and Present

Kids and Now

We walked for days. We still hadn't found the rest of the group and we all refused to stop until we did. Our small group only stopped once a day so that we could sleep.

After the whole incident with the men in the tent, Carl didn't let me out of his sight.

I used it to my advantage though. I was really worried about him. When I slept, he insisted the Beth sleep also that he could take watch and vice versa.

Beth started to pick up on what we were doing, but she didn't care. She thought that it was sweet that we were watching out for each other.

Today, Carl decided that we should all go and find some supplies.

"We should all split up," Beth said.

"No," Carl said,"Something bad could happen and I don't want you guys to be alone."

Beth shook her head, "That wasn't what I was inferring. You and Jocelyn can go together and I'll go alone. We'll meet back here."

Carl shook his head, "C'mon Beth. I don't want anything to happen to you. We should just stay together."

She was already walking into the trees.

Carl groaned and she laughed.

By the time she disappeared, Carl and I had turned back to go the other direction.

He grabbed hold of my hands and pulled me closer to him.

"Are you alright?" I asked him, turning to look at his face.

It was scrunched into a look of anger and pain,"Yeah. I'm fine."

Without letting his hand go, I turned to face him, "No you're not. You've been acting weird since the incident."

He sighed, "It's just that a lot of good people die in this world. I know that. I just thing that it's complete and utter bullshit that assholes like them get to survive. All those good people that had normal lives... gone. It's not fair."

I pulled him into a hug, "We learned a long time ago that life wasn't fair."

He nodded as we separated, "What about you, Joce? How've you been holding up?"

I shrugged, "Okay, I guess. I'm alive right?"

Carl scoffed, "Sometimes I think that even being alive isn't the best. Sometimes being alive doesn't make you alright."

We continued to walk until we reached the next neighborhood. Carl and I split up and said to meet back here in about ten minutes.

I walked into a mostly white house with red shutters and held up my gun to prepare for walkers coming out of nowhere.

I heard the sound of rustling coming from upstairs so I ran into the kitchen so I wouldn't have to waste my ammo on things that I can avoid.

It took me a while to find a bag, but once I did, I loaded it with food and was out of the house before you could say "Jocelyn Matthews"

Ten minutes hadn't even passed yet, but Carl was already standing in the spot that I had left him in. The only difference was that he was holding a bag which I could only assume was filled with food and supplies.

As I approached Carl, he held out his hand. I didn't know what he wanted until he slid his hand on my shoulder ad lifted the bag. I let him take it.

We walked around the town for a little while. At one point, we walked to a house to find the owners had had an extremely nice backyard.

The grass was cut to a nice length and the apocalypse hadn't taken it's dreary toll on it. The bright grass was a nice sight for sore eyes. It was complete with a swing set and seesaw.

Carl and I glanced at each other and smirked. He dropped the bags and we ran to the swing set.

"It seems like forever since we did something like this,"Carl said into the wind once we were both high off of the ground.

I stopped pumping my legs and closed my eyes. He was right. We hadn't done something like this for a long time and it might be another long while before we got to do it again. I just wanted to savor the time that we had now to be kid.

Eventually, I stopped and hopped off. Carl jumped off while he was in the air and landed, with grace, beside me.

He sat on one side of the seesaw and me on the other. We played on it for a while before Carl's smile disappeared.

"What happened?" I asked.

He placed his legs on the ground to stop the play thing and looked me in the eyes.

"We try to escape the inevitable, but in the end it all has to end."

I nodded and stood got off. We went back into the house and grabbed the abandoned bags that sat in the spot that we had left them.

As we stepped through the front door of the house and into the world that both of us would willingly give back, we held hands and walked away from the life that we had once known.