Walking Dead: Fall of The Governor: Book Two Part 20

A long time ago, Penny Blake sat on her father's lap and listened to bedtime stories and sucked her thumb and nuzzled a security blanket. Now she gazes out through eyes the color of a fish belly, insensate as a mole, catatonic with a black hunger that will never fade. She is the living embodiment of the plague's toll.

For an unbearable eternity, Lilly Caul slumps on her knees in front of the girl-thing, shaking her head, staring at the floor while Bob feeds the rest of the chum to the creature, saying nothing, softly whistling as though merely braiding a little girl's hair.

Lilly gropes for the right words. She knows what has to be done.

At last, after endless minutes, Lilly finally manages to look up at Bob. "You know what we have to do, right?" She holds Bob's droopy, red-rimmed, crestfallen gaze. "You know there's no other way to go."

Bob lets out a miserable sigh, levers himself to his feet, shuffles over to the sofa, and plops down as though the stone of Sisyphus rests on his shoulders. He slumps and wipes his eyes, his lips trembling as he says, "I know ... I know." He looks at Lilly through his tears. "You're gonna have to do it, Lilly-girl ... I ain't got the heart for it."

They find an ice pick in the kitchen drawer and a relatively clean sheet on the bed, and Lilly tells Bob to wait outside. But Bob Stookey-a man who has ministered to dying soldiers and taken in stray dogs all his life-refuses to dishonor the memory of a little girl. He tells Lilly that he will a.s.sist her.

They sneak up behind the girl-thing while she's feeding, and Lilly throws the sheet over her, covering her head and face, trying not to disturb the creature any more than necessary. The tiny monster writhes and struggles in the coc.o.o.n of fabric for a moment, as Lilly gently forces the wriggling body to the floor. Pressing her weight down on the shuddering form, Lilly grips the ice pick in her right hand.

The head squirms and flails under the sheet, and Lilly struggles for a moment to position it properly for a clean and decisive thrust. Bob crouches next to her, next to the shivering lump, and begins softly singing to it-an old Christian hymn-and Lilly pauses for a moment, just before plunging the ice pick into the head under the sheet, taken aback by the sound of Bob's voice.

"On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross," Bob croons softly to the thing that was once a child-his gravelly drawl suddenly transformed, turning soft and warm and as sweet as honey. "It's the emblem of suffering and shame, and I love that old cross where the dearest and best, for a world of lost sinners was slain."

Lilly freezes, feeling something extraordinary develop inside the damp sheet beneath her. The writhing and shuddering and growling subside, the creature suddenly and inexplicably growing calm, as though listening to the sound of Bob's voice. Lilly stares at the sheet. It doesn't seem possible, but the thing remains still.

Bob softly sings, "Then He'll call me someday to my home far away ... Where His glory forever I'll share."

Lilly thrusts the point deep into the cranium under the sheet.

And the thing named Penny goes to her home far away.

They decide to have a burial ceremony for the child. Lilly comes up with the idea, and Bob thinks it's a pretty good thing to do.

So Lilly sends Bob out to gather the others, find a wheelbarrow, some tarp, a suitable container, and a proper location for the gravesite.

After Bob leaves, Lilly lingers in the apartment, one piece of unfinished business left to address.

Twenty-Three.

Lilly finds a box of sh.e.l.ls in Philip's bedroom closet, which fit the 12-gauge pigeon gun leaning against the wall behind a stack of peach crates. She loads the gun and carries it into the side room.

All it took was a single glance through the doorway into that shadowy chamber where the ghastly aquariums are still lined along the wall, bubbling and thumping in the darkness, for the mystery of Philip Blake to forever be burned into Lilly's memory.

Now Lilly positions herself in front of the gla.s.s containers and pumps the shotgun. She levels the barrel on the first aquarium and fires. The blast nearly blows her eardrums out as the container explodes, sending gla.s.s shards through the air and a gush of fluid across the floor. The bloated head tumbles out.

She pumps another sh.e.l.l into the chamber and fires, and she does it again and again, hitting each aquarium dead center, spewing waves of water across the floor at her feet and sending the heads to oblivion. She goes through twenty-five sh.e.l.ls, until the room swims with cleansing water, broken gla.s.s, and the remains of the Governor's trophies.

She tosses the shotgun to the floor and wades out of the flooded room, her ears ringing and the last traces of Philip Blake's madness exorcised from the earth.

That evening, as the sun begins its descent behind the high treetops on the western horizon and the air turns cool and luminous in the lengthening shadows, the twenty-eight surviving inhabitants of Woodbury, Georgia, stand in a semicircle around a freshly turned mound of earth, finishing up their tribute to a lost child ... and closing a violent chapter in the town's post-plague history.

The spot Bob picked out for Penny's final resting place is outside the wall, shaded by ma.s.sive live oaks, dappled in wildflowers, and relatively free of the detritus of past skirmishes and attacks.

Everybody stands in respectful silence, heads bowed, mouthing their final whispered prayers. Even the children present stop fidgeting for a moment and look down into the dirt and clasp their little hands together in prayer. Lilly closes the small, dog-eared Bible that Bob loaned her for the occasion, and she gazes at the ground for a beat, waiting for the moment to run its course. She has just finished reciting a brief eulogy for a child no one knew, a child who seems a fitting symbol for the loss of many others, as well as the sanct.i.ty of those lives still being lived, and now Lilly feels a profound sort of closure.

"Rest in peace, little Penny," she says at last, breaking the spell and bringing the moment to an end. "Thanks, everybody. Probably ought to be getting back now ... before darkness rolls in."

Bob stands next to Lilly with a wadded handkerchief in his huge hands, the cloth soaked with his tears. Lilly can tell by the sanguine look behind his rheumy, hound-dog eyes that this little impromptu ceremony has been good for him. It's been good for all of them.

One by one, they turn away from the grave and start making their way across the vacant lot outside the northeast corner of town. Lilly walks in the lead, Bob ambling along next to her, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. Behind Bob, Matthew and Speed carry rifles on their hips in case they encounter any stray walkers.

The others follow closely, chatting softly, talking idly about matters great and small, when the faint sound of an engine in the distance gets everybody's attention. Most of them stop and crane their necks to see what in G.o.d's name might be coming this way.

"If I didn't know better," Bob says to Lilly, reaching for the Smith & Wesson lodged behind his belt, "I'd say that was a car coming down 109."

"Okay, just take it easy-everybody-take it easy," Lilly says to the group, glancing over her shoulder at the column of people behind her and seeing some of them pulling weapons, some of the kids pushing in closer to the adults. "Let's just see what it is before we get all bent outta shape."

For a moment, other than the sputtering sound of a dying engine, all Lilly can make out in the distance is a wisp of black exhaust rising above the tree line and then diffusing in the wind. She keeps her eyes on the bend in the road a couple hundred yards away when a battered station wagon comes into view.

Lilly can tell instantly that the car poses no threat. It appears to be an old, battered, rust-flecked Ford LTD, a late 1990s model, burning oil, with half the wood panels shaved off in side-swipe mishaps, the wheels wobbling as though they might fall off at any moment. "Lower your weapons," Lilly says to Matthew and Speed. "C'mon ... it's okay."

As the vehicle rattles closer and closer, the people inside come into view-a tattered couple in the front, three small urchins in the back-apparently a family, their engine running on fumes. They pull up to within a safe distance-about twenty-five yards down the road-and cobble to a stop in a cloud of noxious haze.

Lilly raises her empty hands to show the people in the car she's not a threat.

The driver's-side door squeaks open and the father climbs out. Dressed in layers of Salvation Army rags, as malnourished as a prisoner of war, the man is skin and bones. He looks as though he might collapse at any moment. He responds to Lilly's gesture by raising his own hands to show that he, too, means no harm.

"Evening!" Lilly calls out to the man.

"h.e.l.lo." The man's voice sounds hollow, like that of a terminal cancer patient. "Mind if I ask if y'all got any spare drinking water ya might part with?"

Lilly recognizes the faint, urbanized drawl of a Southern city-Birmingham, Oxford, Jacksonville maybe-and she glances over her shoulder at the others. "You folks stay put for a second; I'll be right back." She turns again to the stranger. "I'm gonna stroll a little closer, sir, if that's all right?"

The man turns and looks worriedly at his family huddling nervously in the car. He turns back to Lilly. "Sure ... I guess so ... c'mon over."

Lilly walks calmly toward the station wagon, her hands still raised. The closer she gets, the more she can see how badly these people are hurting. The man and his wife look like they have one foot in the grave, their sallow, ashen faces so thin they look cadaverous. In the cluttered backseat, the children are caked with grit and scantily dressed. The wagon is filled with empty wrappers and moth-eaten blankets. It's a miracle these people are still upright. Lilly approaches and stands a few feet away from the father. "My name's Lilly, and yours is...?"

"Calvin ... and that's Meredith." He points at his wife, and then at his kids. "And that's Tommy, Bethany, and Lucas." He looks at Lilly. "Ma'am, I would be forever grateful if you could maybe part with some food, and maybe any weapons you might be able to spare?"

Lilly looks at the man and proffers a warm, guileless, genuine smile. "I've got a better idea, Calvin. How about I show you around?"

About the Authors.

Robert Kirkman is the creator of many popular comic books, including The Walking Dead, Invincible and Super Dinosaur for Image Comics. In addition to being a partner at Image, he is an executive producer and writer on The Walking Dead television show. In 2010, Kirkman opened Skybound, his own imprint at Image, which publishes his t.i.tles as well as other original work.

Jay Bonansinga is a New York Times bestselling novelist whose works include Perfect Victim, Shattered, Twisted, and Frozen. His debut novel, The Black Mariah, was a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award.

Also by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga.

The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor.

The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury.

The Walking Dead: Fall of the Governor, Part One.