The Walking Dead: Blood

Chapter 51: The Truth

Chapter 51: The Truth

"Da**it!" Vernon exclaimed. He brought his hand down on the camera in an attempt to break it, but I caught his fist before he reached it. "We almost had it!"

Tears were beginning to form in Christa's eyes. "What the hell kind of place was this?"

"Like Molly said." I answered her. "The worst kind."

"Lee," Vernon started, "maybe there's another tape. We have to keep looking."

"I think I recognize that doctor." I told them. "He was one of the walkers out in the alley by the auto shop."

"Maybe you should search it." Vernon suggested. "See what he's got on him."

I walked out the hallway door and stepped over the bodies of the walkers I had shot. I rounded the corner and something caught my eye. The blood trail from the safe had led all the way out here. It led to a handprint on one of the lockers. I took a look at it. The name tag on the top read, "Albert Logan." This was the doctor's locker. I attempted to open it, but failed. It was locked. Figures.

I walked to the exit door Molly had taken me to when we went to go get the battery. I walked down the fire escape and passed the auto shop sign. The walkers had piled up so high, they had torn down the barbed wire fence. That was convenient. They had seemed to have cleared out of the alley. All except one...

The walker of Dr. Logan had crawled aw far as it could in its condition. Molly had left it alive because that would be the worst insult to the man. That didn't stop her from breaking every bone in the man's body though.

I approached the incapacitated zombie and finished the job Molly had started. I took my foot and drove the walker's skull into the ground.

I knelt down to the dead man and searched through his pockets. I could feel the rotting skin under the cloth. This was one of the more gross things I had done. I pulled out another video tape and a small piece of paper. This might be just what we need. I looked at the piece of paper. It looked like some kind of code, but there were six digits and Vernon had told me the safe required four. Something told me this was the combination to Logan's locker.

A walker roamed by the entrance to the alley and I stood as still as I could. Time to go.

I ran back the way I had come. When I was back in the building, I stopped at Dr. Logan's locker. On a whim, I inputted the six digit combination I had found in the walker's pocket. It opened, and I found a bunch of clothes hung up inside of it. I found another tape. The safe combination had to be on one of these.

I entered the nurse's office. "I found two more tapes!" I announced to Christa and Vernon. They both approached. "One of them is dated October 10."

"That's the day after the first one we watched." Vernon told me.

"Put it in." Christa suggested.

I took the tape dated October 10 and inserted it into the camera. Christa, Vernon and I all crowded around to watch.

A very similar situation to the last one was shown on the screen. Anna Correa sitting once again on the hospital bed. "Have you made a decision?" Logan asked, from behind the camera. He walked into view and to the safe.

"I thought you said I didn't have a choice..." Anna told him.

"Well..." Logan ran his hand over his bald head. "Technically you do. You can terminate the pregnancy, or leave Crawford. Of course, that would be a death sentence for both you and your unborn child."

"Maybe that's best." Anna was speaking in monotone. I didn't like where this was headed. "I was up all night thinking about this. Why are we even trying to survive, to keep on living, if this is what it takes? If this is what it's turned us into..."

"I don't make the rules, Anna." Logan walked to her and set his hand on her shoulder.

She looked up at him, tears streaking down her face. "Please! Doctor, help me! I'm begging you!"

He sighed. "Maybe one day, when things are different, you can try again, but for now, we have to do this."

Logan turned around and started to input the code on the safe. I zoomed in to see what the number was. 6-7-4-1. Just as Dr. Logan pressed the last button, the head of Anna Correa passed by the camera in a blur. I zoomed back out. Anna was no where to be seen. Before the safe door was open, Anna had shoved a scalpel through Logan's side.

"No...no!" Logan gasped for air and clutching his side. Anna panicked and fled from the scene, but not before stealing his gun. Logan collapsed to the ground. After a few seconds, Logan's bloody hand appeared over the camera and knocked it off its pedestal.

"I think we know what happened to Crawford..." I said slowly.

Vernon was staring at the safe. "More importantly, we've got the combination."

Christa walked to the other side of the room, sobbing quietly into her fingers. I walked over and set my hand on her shoulder. "Christa, are you all right? What's wrong?"

She turned to me. She wiped the tears off of her face. "It's nothing. That was just...hard to watch. Don't worry about me. I'm fine." I didn't think she was fine. It was so clear to me now. Christa was pregnant.

"All right." I told them. "Let's get those meds and get the hell out of here."

Vernon approached the safe. He inputted the four digit combination we had found in the video into the safe key pad, and it opened just like we expected it to. "We're in business!" Vernon exclaimed. He turned back around and started grabbing bottles and boxes off the shelf. "Antibiotics... morphine...We'll take as much of this as we can carry."

Christa stopped crying a little bit and actually smiled for once. "Did you get the stuff for Omid?"

"Okay, I think we're good." He responded. This is enough for your people and mine. Now let's go!"

I felt around in my pocket for the last video tape. "You know, I found a third tape in the locker outside. Maybe there's something else on there."

Christa started walking towards the door. "We got the meds for Omid. That's all I care about."

Vernon started walking in that direction too. "We'll head back to the classroom. Don't take too long, Lee."

I approached the camera slowly after they left, not knowing what I was going to find on the third tape. This one was dated August 26. That was a little under two months before the last two tapes I watched. I slowly put the tape into the camera.

The very first thing I saw was Dr. Logan zipping up his fly. I automatically didn't like where this one was going. As Logan left out of the picture frame, he revealed a woman with flowing blonde hair reaching down to her shoulders. It was Molly. I definitely didn't like where this one was going.

"Listen," Logan turned and said to her. "As fun as this was, I have to put a stop to our little arrangement. This is the last I can give you." He walked to the safe and opened it up.

"Why?" Molly complained.

"Oberson had someone down here yesterday taking inventory." Logan refused to look at her as he talked. "He's really cracking down. I just can't risk it."

"We had a deal!" Molly shouted at him, slapping him across the face.

Collecting himself back together, Logan put his jaw back in place. "Yes. We HAD a deal. We don't now."

"My sister needs this medicine." Molly pleaded. "Without it, she'll die, or she'll start showing symptoms and they'll take her away!" Logan started walking back to the camera, ignoring her. "I can't let that happen!"

"I'm sorry, Molly. I've done all I can." Something told me he wasn't sorry. But, I have to look out for myself here."

"Yeah." Molly walked from the room, taking great care to bump into the man as hard as she could on the way out. "That's the Crawford way, isn't it?!" She slammed the door behind her.

Logan walked toward the camera and turned it off. That was heavy. So Molly really did live at Crawford once. And she was a prostitute! She was doing it for medicine for her sister, so I suppose she had a good enough reason. But still...Molly could have found a better way than that... I remembered her scavenging the first time Kenny and I found her. She had found a better way. That's why she left Crawford, and that's why she hated that man so much.

I walked out the door to the hallway and back to the classroom, this still heavy on my mind. As I was passing by the glass doors, which the walkers had seemed to wander away from, I heard a thud behind me. I immediately drew my gun and turned around. It was Molly. "Da**it!" I yelled at her. "You scared the sh** out of me. Where have you been."

She walked up closer to me to answer. "Sightseeing." She told me.

I paused, not accepting her answer. "I'll take that battery now." I said.

"Oh...yeah." She scratched behind her head. "About that..."

My eyes widened. We were not, by any means, going out there to find another battery. "Where the f***..."

She smacked me on the shoulder. "I'm just kidding." She laughed. She set her backpack on the ground and unzipped it. She pulled out the battery we had found and handed it to me. "Here ya go."

As I looked down to grab the battery, I noticed a small picture hanging loosely in Molly's right hand. "What's that?" I asked her.

"It's nothing..." She answered, crossing her arms defensively.

I took a few moments before bringing up what I saw in the camera. "You're lying to me." I said plainly.

"What?" She was taken aback.

"You said you'd never been here before." I explained myself. "But that wasn't the truth, was it?"

"What?" Her expression grew grave. "Who told you that?"

"I saw you on a security tape." I told her. "You were having an affair with Dr. Logan."

Molly blushed and she turned away from my eyes. "Hey, from what I've heard, you're not real big on the truth yourself. Besides, I didn't lie."

I turned her back toward me. "I asked you what you knew about Crawford. You said you'd just heard stories."

She put her hand on her hip. "I said there were stories about Crawford. I never said that's how I knew about it. I never lied to you, and even if I did, so what? I don't owe you anything."

"You saved my life twice, but you can't tell me the truth?" I was confused on her stories. They didn't add up with each other.

She looked sadly at the ground. "Are we really gonna do this now?"

"I guess that's up to you."

Molly sighed and began to tell me the truth. "I used to live here with my sister. She was 14 years old. When the dead started walking and Crawford shut itself in, it seemed like a pretty good deal at first. We had everything we needed to survive. Then the rules started coming down. No one who couldn't justify their place, earn their keep. No one who required special care. My sister was a diabetic, and by Crawford's rules, that made her a liability. I kept it secret, kept her safe for as long as I could. But in the end, I couldn't protect her. That's when I got out. Crawford, they always talked about how their system worked, how anything was better than becoming 'one of them.' But I saw what they'd already become. I just wish I could have seen it before it was too late...before they came and took my sister away."

She wiped her eyes, and I embraced her. She seemed like she needed someone there for her right now. She drew away and held up the photograph of her sister. "This is all I have left of her. I didn't have time to take it before I got out of Crawford. I just wanted it, okay?"

"It's okay, Molly." I told her. "I understand. She's pretty."

Molly smiled at me. That smile vanished when we heard a bell ringing through the school building. This time it wasn't Molly ringing it. "What the hell..." Molly said.

"I think that's our cue to get the hell out of here." I told her.

I heard a door creak open. We both stopped in our tracks. I pulled out my gun and Molly pulled out "Hilda." We walked forward and something jumped out at us in a blur. "Sh**!" I yelled.

It turned out to he only Ben that jumped out at us from behind the corner. He had the hatchet raised in the air. "Sorry! Sorry!" He pleaded. "I just got spooked by those bells. And then I heard somebody coming..."

"What are you doing out here?" I asked him.

"Kenny and I still can't get the door to the armory open. He sent me out to look for something we can use to bust it open. I found this." He raised the hatchet from the tool shed to me.

My eyes widened and I backed up slowly. "Uh, Ben...where did you get that?"

He crossed his arms. "I just found it. It was stuck in a door handle at the end of the hallway."