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stats : 4 months later CARL GRIMES
the airstrike on alpha's herd left us with a bloody, putrid clean up that i can still smell through my nostrils if i think about it long enough. we burned the bodies and disposed of them elsewhere. the slaughter stained a muddy red streak on the grass that runs for miles—the build-up of those bodies lying there for days, it could be a landmark now, seen from high up in the sky. in time, the weather will erase it.
too bad it's been a drought these past few weeks.
the wheels under the truck conquer the unpaved road as carol and jerry sit up front, driving us out to the coast for our weekly event of fishing. i keep a smile on my face so no one questions a thing, but their voices travel through my ears, not staying long enough for a word to even settle in my brain. it's just background noise to my thoughts.
my heart is a heavy thud in my chest, my throat tight, and the taste of hate is on my tongue. a taste that's been in my mouth for so long, i'm surprised i haven't choked it out, attached a string to it and pulled it out from deep in my stomach—i'm convinced that's where it lies and i guess that's where it will stay, too.
the mid-may heat warms my skin as i sit on a driftwood log watching lydia and enid run on the sand by the ocean as if it's the first time they've seen the water—as if we haven't been coming here once every week for the past two months.
in the week following the airstrike, a group—my dad, rosita, daryl, and dwight, headed out to kill the rest of the whisperers, knowing a few most likely snuck out of the herd seeing the bullets spraying miles ahead. they didn't say much when they returned back home with bloody noses, sweat-drenched clothes, and dirty hair. lydia came as a shadow behind them and now she's one of us for good.
my dad says it's over, the fight with the whisperers, that we won't see alpha or beta ever again.
water splashes as enid runs through the shallow waves, her brown hair long and flowing down her back. lydia sits close by, brushing sand off shells inches below the clay-like floor of the sea. for a second, i feel i could be as happy as them, like i could enjoy the small, good things left in this world. i want to, but it's always lingering in the back of my mind, nagging, and gnawing in my stomach—what i did, who we lost because of me, who iam.
i tried to be better, tried to be good and save people instead of kill, but i still caused the death of somebody even by doing that—somebody special to me.
henry appears over my shoulder and silently steps over the log. he sits on the other end of it. i don't look at him and he doesn't look at me.
"i won't tell anybody," my body stiffens at his words. "i haven't. but i'm worried about you, man."
