The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,105

she locks up her apartment and heads outside.

* * *

The town lies deserted in the late-night chill, the air acrid with the odors of sulfur and frozen salt. Lilly has to step gingerly over the iced sidewalks, her boot steps crunching loudly. She glances over her shoulder. The streets are empty. She makes her way around the post office building to Bob’s condo.

The wooden staircase from which Megan hung herself, ice-bound since the storm has passed, cracks and snaps as Lilly carefully climbs the risers.

She knocks on Bob’s door. No answer. She knocks again. Nothing. She whispers Bob’s name but gets no reply, no sound issuing from within. She tries the door and finds it unlocked. She lets herself in.

The dark kitchen sits in silence, the floor littered with broken dishes and crockery, puddles of spilled liquids. For a moment Lilly wonders if she should have brought a firearm. She scans the living room to her right, sees the overturned furniture and mounds of dirty laundry.

She finds a battery-operated lantern on a counter, grabs it, and flips it on. She walks deeper into the apartment and calls out, “Bob?”

The lantern light glistens off broken glass on the hallway floor. One of Bob’s medical satchels lies on the carpet, overturned, its contents spilled across the floor. The wall shimmers with something sticky. Lilly gulps down the fear and moves on.

“Anybody home?”

She peers into the bedroom at the end of the hall and finds Bob on the floor, in a sitting position, leaning against the unmade bed, his head lolled forward. Clad in a stained wifebeater and boxer shorts, his skinny legs as white as alabaster, he sits stone-still and for the briefest instant Lilly mistakes him for dead.

But then she sees his chest slowly rising and falling, and she notices the half-empty bottle of Jim Beam loosely clutched in his limp right hand.

“Bob!”

She rushes over to him and gently raises his head, leaning it against the bed. His greasy, thinning hair askew, his heavy-lidded eyes bloodshot and glassy, he mumbles something like, “Too many of ’em … they’re gonna—”

“Bob, it’s Lilly. Can you hear me? Bob? It’s me, it’s Lilly.”

His head lolls. “They’re gonna die … we don’t triage the worst of ’em…”

“Bob, wake up. You’re having a nightmare. It’s okay, I’m here.”

“Crawlin’ with maggots … too many … horrible…”

She rises to her feet, turns, and hurries out of the room. Across the hall, in the filthy bathroom, she runs some water in a dirty cup, and returns with the water. She gently takes the booze from Bob’s hand and throws it across the room, the bottle shattering against the wall, splattering the cabbage-rose wallpaper. Bob jerks at the noise.

“Here, drink this,” she says, and gives him a little. He coughs it down. His hands flail impotently as he coughs. He tries to focus on her but his eyes won’t cooperate. She strokes his feverish brow. “I know you’re hurting, Bob. It’s going to be okay. I’m here now. C’mon.”

She lifts him by the armpits, heaving the deadweight of his body up and onto the bed. She lays his head on the pillow. She positions his legs under the covers, then pulls the blanket up to his chin, speaking softly to him. “I know how hard it was on you, losing Megan and all, but you just have to hang in there.”

His brow furrows, a look of agony contorting his pale, deeply lined, drawn face. His eyes search the ceiling. He looks like a person who has been buried alive and is trying to breathe. He slurs his words. “I never wanted to … never … it wasn’t my idea to—”

“It’s okay, Bob. You don’t have to say anything.” She strokes his brow and speaks in a low, soft tone. “You did the right thing. It’s all gonna be okay. Things are gonna change around here, things are gonna get better.” She strokes his cheek, the grizzled flesh cold beneath her fingertips. She begins to softly sing. She sings Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game” to him, just like old times.

Bob’s head settles back into the sweat-damp pillow, his breathing beginning to calm. His eyelids droop. Just like old times. He begins to snore. Lilly keeps singing long after he has drifted off.

“We’re taking him down,” Lilly says very softly to the sleeping man.

She knows he cannot hear a thing she is saying anymore, if he ever could. Lilly is speaking to herself now. Speaking to some deeply buried part of her