Forever and Always

Goodbye and Hello

Jocelyn's POV

I took Jacob out of my mother's dead arms. His cries filled the empty clearing. The dead walkers all around me were lifeless. As the tears fell from my eyes, I thought about the second of hesitation that I had and how it had ended my mother's life.

One second earlier and my mother would be here right now to help me with my crying, five month old brother.

I knew I would have to kill her. I knew that I would have to be the one who pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger. The one thing that I didn't know was how I was going to pull myself together enough to actually be able to do it.

My mind took me to all of the times that we had spent together. My birthday parties. Our family vacations. All of it. What really broke my heart was that Jacob would not be able to enjoy what I called my saviour.

We would argue a lot but none of that mattered because whenever we needed each other, we were always there. Especially when Jacob was born. Even though it was super gross, I stood there. Never leaving her side.

I looked at the empty corpse lying on the ground and it finally hit me.

She wasn't my mother anymore. The mother that I would stay up all night with was gone. Her body was being possessed with the demon that I had heard some groups calling Walkers. She had told me, so long ago that if this were to ever happen, she wanted me to know that she loved me and that she wanted me to shoot her. It had only been a few weeks ago and I hadn't thought that it would actually present itself.

I lifted the gun that was resting in my belt. I aimed it at the thing that was once my mother.

Bang!

I didn't even think twice before turning around and walking away. My baby brother must have sensed my despair, because he stopped crying and I finally heard the silence.

It was overbearing. I leaned my back against a nearby tree and gave into my sorrows. The tears flowed from my eyes so badly that I soaked my poor baby brother's clothes. I felt the heaviness of my eyelids become heavier and gave in. There I fell asleep with Jacob in my arms and wouldn't wake up until the morning where I would find a handsome Asian man and short haired brunette standing over me.

My first reaction was to go for my gun, but I fumbled with the urgency because of the baby in my arms.

"Don't worry, little one. We don't want to hurt you."

I looked them up and down and noticed that they couldn't be Walkers. They looked as if they were better off then me considering that they're clothes were less dirty and had fewer holes than mine did.

"Where's your family?"

I focused on the girl's face to show that I was't scared even though I was terrified,"My mother... died and I never met my father.

The man raised an eyebrow at the sleeping baby and I said,"And his father left when the first Walker showed up at our house."

They looked at each other and then back at me.

The man said,"My name is Glenn and this is Maggie. What's yours?"

"Jocelyn."

"Well Jocelyn, would you like to come to our shelter and clean up a bit. We can even help you with the baby. We actually have people there that are both of your ages. If you like it there, you can stay."

I thought about it. "Okay."

We walked and walked until we came up to a prison surrounded by barbed fencing. A man came out of the prison and Glenn said,"This is Rick. He is one of the people that we look up to around here."

The man came over to me and said a jumble of words. All I knew was that in less than a minute later, Maggie had taken Jacob and Glenn was leading me to a prison cell.

He told me that I would be sharing with Rick's son. When I asked where he was, they said that he had been out looking for supplies.

Glenn left me in the room so I decided to look around. In the cell, there were video games and movies stacked up to as high as my head was.

I suddenly got a flash of playing with games and watching movies with my friends and family. It had all been taken form me too quickly and even quicker for Jacob.

When I turned around, I saw a boy a little taller than me standing in the doorway. There was a huge scowl on his face.

"You must be Jocelyn. My dad said that you would be staying with us for a while. If that's true, we need to set some ground rules. For one, don't touch my stuff and I won't touch yours."

I started to protest and say that I didn't have anything for him to touch, but he cut me off.

He pointed to the empty side of the room that only held a small cot and a shelf,"That's your side and this is mine. Don't cross the line and I won't either."

This kid was getting on my nerves so I decided to be a smart ass about it,"Alright, well I didn't catch your name jack ass."

He rolled his eyes and looked at the small picture frame that sat on my side of the room,"My name is Carl."

I looked at the frame and back at Carl. he seemed to want the picture. It was of a woman with long, curly brown hugging a young Carl and Rick.

"Who's this?" I asked.

"That's my mother. She died while giving birth to my sister." he said with a touch of sadness.

I thought about picking it up and waving it in front of his to make up for the way he had treated me. I mean, it was on my side of the room.

Then a flash of my own mother came into my head and I felt sympathy for him.

I walked over to the picture and picked it up. I then walked to the boundary line and handed it to Carl.

"Take it. But let's hear my own rules. Don't be a jack ass."

He took it out of my hand, and mumbled a thank you.

I turned back to my cot and sat down. The only thing left for me to do was to watch as Jack Ass took off his hat and lay on his own cot.