The Walking Dead: Three Knives (a fanfiction, based off of Season 3 & 4)

Chapter 14- Deceitful Truths

Happy Thanksgiving Day everybody! :D I hope this is a nice surprise for a lovely turkey day!

            The wooden chair beneath me creaks to the subtlest shifts I make, which aggravates me. The game last night had slightly worn me out and had made my sleep irritable. Though I had a queen sized bed and a sheltered room to sleep in, I was the most uncomfortable that I’ve been in months. I’d gladly take a tree to sleep in any day. In a room; in a bed, you’re secluded from freedom and it only makes you more vulnerable to any attackers. In a tree, I had the freedom to observe everything that was happening below. In a room so confined, you can’t possibly know the dangers lurking outside your door for they are unseen, because rooms are nothing like trees.

                Creak.

                An irritable sigh escapes my mouth. The fact that I am anxious waiting for the Governor doesn’t help, especially with the four other men inside this room. The tall book-smart man, Milton sits in front of me with straight posture and fixated arms folded across his chest, and Martinez, a tall poised man of Spanish decent stands four feet away from me. I don’t recall the rest of the names.

                The sound of a door flying open, announcing the Governor’s arrival, relaxes me, yet at the same time arouses my adrenaline and I can’t seem to keep my heart from thudding right out of my chest. I am relaxed at the fact that I no longer need to anticipate his arrival, but now I am facing his plans. I am hoping that this meeting he has assembled has something to do with the prison, because it has been three days. I told myself I needed about three days to figure out what is going on between Woodbury and the prison. Though I am still clueless, at least they have conceived my trust enough to let me in on whatever this meeting is about.

                “I have gathered you here today to discuss a blooming problem.”

                The prison. Please be about the prison.

                Phillip pulls a brown chair out away from the table and takes a seat in it, eerily creaking as he does so. He glances up at me, mirroring the same expression of seriousness I am. “Woodbury used to be a safe haven. Now with the threat of the prison, our people are afraid.”

                I cock my eyebrow inquisitively. The Governor sees this and stares at me coldly, “What?”

                Trying not to stir in my chair, I respond, “What happened between here and the prison that is causing this feud?”

                The men in the room all look at each other uneasily, and I know that there is something they don’t want to let me in on. The Governor gives me a hard stare, and starts to unfold his explanation before me.

                “A little over a week ago the prison set forth an attack on Woodbury. We weren’t aware of the prison at first, but one of our former Woodbury members encountered two of them on a supply run. He recognized them from a while back. Apparently it was the group him in his brother were in until they abandoned him. He asked if his brother was still alive, and they had said yes, but they refused to tell him his whereabouts. Earnest to find out, he brought them back here for interrogation. This man: he was worried sick about his brother. When we finally got the answer out of them on where his brother was, we were going to take them back to the prison and ask his brother if he wanted to join us. Before that could happen, a group from the prison planned an attack. There were many unfortunate losses in Woodbury that night, including my eye.” His tone falters at the end, making his eye seem more of a prominent loss than anything else.

                I can’t help but feel surprise, because the Governor in his own sick twisted way was telling the truth, but only enough of the truth to make him look like the good guy. He told the truth to an extent, but everything he stated was out of context. For example, I know for a fact that this so called “interrogation” had much physical force behind it. Men like Phillip didn’t deal with situations verbally, or at least that’s not how they ended.

                Curious, I ask, “What happened to your eye?”

                His cold eye pierces mine like dry ice and it frightens me, though I don’t show it. I underestimated him. Just when I thought he could look his coldest and most malevolent, I was wrong. In his eye, his one eye, I see the terrified screams of souls he’s anguished and killed. I see the chilled skeleton beneath his skin, and I know his bones are as black as the fire he will one day burn in. If there is a Hell, that is where he is going.

                Snapping me out of my epiphany, the Governor finally speaks, “Andrea, one of our Woodbury members, first came in with a companion. Andrea loved it here; still does, but her friend didn’t feel the same way about Woodbury, so she left. We let her leave, and the night the prison attacked, we found that she was one of them. She took me out. Stabbed me in the eye with some broken glass. Assaulted me here in this very apartment.”

                It’s strange; watching this man unfold his hidden truths before me, and watching his face as he does so. The same lament reticent mask that deceives, unfolding many ruses to everybody. Never in my life have I ever been so chilled to the bone by somebody. Never before have I felt this uncomfortable and unprotected. It takes a professional to mask lies in truth. Not even I can pull this off all the time; and the man before me has beaten me to a game I thought I could never lose. He has beaten me with his lies and improvisation.

                An uneasy silence sets over the room; Milton is probably the most tense out of all of us combined. Looking at him now, I know that he probably knows more about the Governor than anybody else in Woodbury.

                “So,” the Governor recollects himself on his original topic for this meeting, “I have decided that in order for Woodbury to stay a safe haven, we must find more supplies. I thought we had enough, but with the prison prowling about, enough isn’t enough. We need more than we can even deem enough.”

                “Where do you propose we start our search for supplies?” I ask.

                Phillip smiles, and it is his coldest yet.