The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,60
on the edge of the woods, and we try and keep the pounding down to a minimum.”
“That’s good to hear … got things figured out pretty good around here.”
“We try, Bob.”
“I told Doc Stevens, he’s welcome to any medical supplies I got in my stash.”
“You a doctor, too?”
Bob tells the man about Afghanistan, patching marines, getting an honorable discharge.
“You got kids, Bob?”
“No, sir … for the longest time it was just me and Brenda, my old lady. Had a little trailer outside of Smyrna, not a bad life.”
“You’re looking at my little bundle, aren’t ya, Bob?”
“No, sir … whatever it is, it’s none of my beeswax. Doesn’t concern me.”
“Where’s your wife?”
Bob slows down a bit, as though the mere subject of Brenda Stookey weighs him down. “Lost her to a walker attack shortly after the Turn.”
“Sorry to hear that.” They approach a gated section of the wall. The Governor pauses, knocks a few times, and the seam opens. Litter swirls as a workman pulls the gate back and nods at the Governor, letting the twosome pass. “My place is just up the road a piece,” the Governor says with a tilt of his head toward the east side of town. “Little two-story apartment building … come on over, I’ll fix you a drink.”
“The Governor’s mansion?” Bob jokes. He can’t help it. The nerves and the booze are working on him. “Ain’t you got laws to pass?”
The Governor pauses, turns and smiles at Bob. “I just figured out who you remind me of.”
* * *
In that brief instant, standing in that gray overcast daylight, the wiry man—who from this point on shall think of himself as “the Governor”—experiences a seismic shift within his brain. He stands there staring at a coarse, deeply lined, alcoholic good old boy from Smyrna who is the spitting image of Ed Blake, the Governor’s old man. Ed Blake had that same pug nose, prominent brow, and crow’s-feet around red-rimmed eyes. Ed Blake was a big drinker, too, like this guy, with the same sense of humor. Ed Blake would toss off sarcastic one-liners with the same drunken relish, cutting to the quick with his words when he wasn’t slapping his family around with the back of his big, callused hands.
All at once, another part of the Governor bubbles up to the surface—a deeply buried part of him—on a wave of sentimental longing, which almost makes him dizzy as he remembers big Ed Blake in happier times, a simple hillbilly laborer who tried to fight his demons long enough to be a loving father. “You remind me of somebody I used to know a long time ago,” the Governor says finally, his tone softening as he looks Bob Stookey in the eyes. “C’mon, let’s go get a drink.”
For the rest of their journey across the safe zone, the two men talk quietly, openly, like old friends.
At one point the Governor asks Bob what happened to his wife.
“Place we lived, this mobile home park…” Bob says slowly, heavily, as he hobbles along, remembering dark days. “We got overrun one day with walkers. I was out trying to scrounge up some supplies when it happened … by the time I got back they had gotten into our place.”
He pauses and the Governor says nothing, just walks in silence, waiting.
“They were tearing into her, and I fought ’em off best I could … and … I guess they only ate enough of her that she came back.”
Another agonizing pause. Bob licks his dry lips. The Governor can see that the man needs a drink badly, needs his medicine to stanch the memories.
“I couldn’t bring myself to finish her off.” This comes out of Bob on a choked wheeze. His rheumy eyes well up. “I ain’t proud of the fact that I left her. Pretty sure she got some folks after that. Her arm and her lower body was pretty mangled but she could still get around. Them people she got, their deaths are my fault.”
A pause.
“It’s hard to let go sometimes,” the Governor ventures at last, glancing down at his ghastly little bundle. The dripping has diminished somewhat, the blood thickening to the consistency of blackstrap molasses. Right then the Governor notices Bob pondering the blood droplets, his brow furrowed in thought. He looks almost sober.
Bob gestures at the gruesome bundle. “You got somebody turned on ya, don’t ya?”
“You’re not so dumb … are ya, Bob?”
Bob wipes his mouth pensively. “Never thought about feeding Brenda.”