The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,85
butcher’s neck floods the ground with its lifeblood.
Bob looks away. He falls to his knees, one hand still clutching the chain link. His stomach lurches and he vomits on the cement floor of the mezzanine. The bottle falls but does not break. Bob pukes out the entire contents of his stomach in heaving gasps—the noise of the crowd going all watery, everything getting blurry and indistinct in his watery vision. He vomits and vomits until there is nothing left but thin strands of bile hanging off his lips. He falls back against the first row of empty bleachers. He retrieves the bottle and sucks down the rest of its contents.
The amplified voice echoes: “AND THAT, FOLKS, IS WHAT WE CALL JUSTICE!”
* * *
Outside the arena, at that moment, the streets of Woodbury could be confused with any other deserted ghost ship of a village in the Georgia countryside—abandoned and scoured clean in the advent of the plague.
At first glance, every last inhabitant appears to be missing in action—the entire population still gathered in the stadium, riveted to the final moments of the battle royale. Even the sidewalk in front of the food center has been cleared, any lingering evidence of murder mopped away by Stevens and his men, Josh’s body carted off to the morgue.
Now, in the darkness, as the muffled echoes of the crowd swirl on the wind, Lilly Caul wanders the sidewalk in her fleece, torn jeans, and tattered high-tops. She cannot sleep, cannot think, cannot stop crying. The noise from the arena feels like insects crawling on her. The Xanax Bob gave her has done nothing but dull the pain, like a layer of gauze over her racing thoughts. She shivers in the cold and pauses in a dark vestibule in front of a boarded drugstore.
“It’s none of my business,” a voice says from the shadows. “But a young lady like yourself shouldn’t be out alone on these streets.”
Lilly turns and sees the glint of metal-rimmed glasses on a dark face. She sighs, wipes her eyes, and looks down. “What difference does it make?”
Dr. Stevens steps into the flickering light of torches. He stands with his hands in his pockets, his lab coat buttoned to the collar, a scarf around his neck. “How are you holding up, Lilly?”
She looks at him through her tears. “Holding up? I’m just grand.” She tries to breathe but her lungs feel as though they’re full of sand. “Next stupid question.”
“You might think about resting.” He comes over to her and inspects her bruises. “You’re still in shock, Lilly. You need sleep.”
She manages a pallid smile. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” She cringes and looks down, the tears burning her eyes. “Funny thing is, I hardly knew him.”
“He seemed like a good man.”
She looks up, focusing on the doctor. “Is that even possible anymore?”
“Is what possible?”
“Being a good person.”
The doctor lets out a sigh. “Probably not.”
Lilly swallows and looks down. “I have to get out of this place.” She winces at another sob building in her. “I can’t deal with it anymore.”
Stevens looks at her. “Join the club.”
A moment of awkward silence passes.
Lilly rubs her eyes. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Stay here … put up with this shit. You seem like a semisane person to me.”
The doctor shrugs. “Looks can be deceiving. Anyway … I stay for the same reason they all stay.”
“And that is…?”
“Fear.”
Lilly looks at the paving stones. She doesn’t say anything. What is there to say? The torchlight across the street dwindles, the wicks burning down, the shadows deepening in the nooks and crannies between the buildings. Lilly fights the dizziness washing over her. She doesn’t want to sleep ever again.
“They’re going to be coming out of there pretty soon,” the doctor says with a nod toward the racetrack in the distance. “Once they’ve had their fill of the little horror show Blake has concocted for them.”
Lilly shakes her head. “Place is a fucking madhouse, and that dude is the craziest one of all.”
“Tell you what.” The doctor gestures toward the opposite end of town. “Why don’t we take a little walk, Lilly … avoid the crowds.”
She exhales a pained breath, then shrugs and mutters, “Whatever…”
* * *
That night, Dr. Stevens and Lilly walk for over an hour in the cold, bracing air, meandering back and forth along the far fence on the east side of town, and then down along the abandoned railroad tracks inside the security fence. While they walk and talk, the crowd slowly files