Malevolent. The Walking Dead

[ 038 ] a cruel truth or comfortable delusion

038: a cruel truth or comfortable delusion

"Keep an eye out for patrols—there were a few trying to smoke me out around here." Carl warned, keeping his voice down and close to Joey. They were meddling through the half-bombed and muddy courtyard of the apartment building they rendezvoused at, and it was oddly silent to the point where Joey was growing slightly suspicious.

"How many?" Joey asked, grunted slightly and pushed herself over the wall that surrounded the pool. It looked as though part of it had been destroyed when the military was attempting to bomb all the cities. Joey suddenly remembered when they were planning on bombing Los Angeles and how Bill got them out in time. How Joey had to watch his daughter Ellie die and him mourn over her body for weeks. Joey remembered how much Bill hated her within those weeks—resented her.

"I saw two...but I'm sure there's more." Carl groaned, following after her. Joey looked around to make sure there weren't any more patrols. It was too quiet for her liking. "Once they find out we're out of the school, and killed their fuckin' friends..." she trailed off, looking up at the buildings surrounding them. "They'll be out in force looking for us." Carl finished her sentence, and she nodded. "Yup."

Carl kept walking while Joey stayed stagnant in her spot. "Hey." she called out, and he turned around to face her, still looking pale and slightly shocked from before. Joey noticed how he seemed off after killing those people while she felt indifferent. "Yeah?"

She licked her lips. "Those weren't like...the first people you killed, right?" His face dimmed a bit and he avoided eye contact with her and shook his head slowly. "Uh—not really. But it doesn't get any easier." He said it as a fact, but Joey wasn't sure if she agreed. It didn't get easier, sure. But Joey for some reason felt the urge to kill more—she wanted to kill more. She remembered Bill telling her that a lot of soldiers that go off to war sometimes want to kill after doing it for the first time. She wasn't sure if that was true or if it was the way Bill felt, and he was just trying to come up with some excuse. Either way, Joey couldn't help but feel the same way.

Most of the roads were blocked off by shrubbery or abandoned, crashed cars, and there weren't many ways around other than climbing through half closed off buildings. Joey and Carl had to push a dumpster up against a building wall in order to climb up into it to avoid walking down the main street where they would be easily seen.

Joey told Carl in a gruff voice to look around for anything they could scavenge. She ruffled through some drawers and retracted her hands swiftly when she saw a packet of sunflower seeds resting underneath a few other gardening tools. Her heart started beating rapidly and she had to hold a hand to her heart to steady her breathing. Joey wasn't sure why she associated sunflowers with Bill, but she did. She lost the guitar pick he had given her when he found it on a run. It had a sunflower on the back. Tears started to spring in her eyes and she ran her hands over her face. "Toughen up. Fuck. Stop fucking crying." She whispered to herself, lightly hitting herself in the face.

She breathed shakily in and out and writhed her hands in and out of a fist. "Jo...you OK?" Carl placed a hand on her shoulder and Joey shrugged it away. "Yeah—yeah I'm fine." She closed the drawer. "Let's get moving."

They moved out of the room they were in and heard items falling over across the hall. Both of them crouched down at the noise and hid behind the kitchen island. There was distant moaning. "Walkers." Carl whispered, and Joey held a finger up to her lips. They were hardly moving across the hallway, as Joey didn't hear their delayed footsteps and could see them through the open door. They were staggering in place, and Joey waved Carl to follow her. There were only a few that they could take. At this point, rotters were the least of their worries. They also had to worry about the Saviors that were on their trail.