Gus nods.
Bob looks at her for a moment, a strange expression crossing his deeply wrinkled features—a mixture of fascination, concern, and something unreadable—as though he knows something is different about her. Gasoline has become the lifeblood of Woodbury, not only an energy source but also a sort of morbid gauge of their odds of survival. Nobody fucks around with the rationing of fuel.
Lilly looks at Bob. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find some more tomorrow.”
Bob gives her a tepid nod, as though he knows she doesn’t really believe anything she’s saying.
* * *
Over the course of the next three days, they do find more fuel. Lilly sends a small contingent of guards—Gus, Curtis, Rudy, Matthew, and Ray Hilliard—out in one of the military cargo trucks. Their mission: to scour the auto centers at the ransacked Walmart and the two Piggly Wigglys on this side of the county line. They hope to find one of the underground holding tanks still containing a few gallons of residue. Plan B is to siphon as much as possible from any stray wreck or abandoned car that hasn’t been stripped to the bone by looters or two years of hard Georgia weather.
By the time the men return on Wednesday evening, they are exhausted but successful, having stumbled upon an abandoned KOA campground in Forsyth, forty miles to the east. The garage out behind the clubhouse, padlocked since the advent of the Turn, held a couple of rusted-out golf carts and a huge holding tank half-full of the sweet unleaded nectar of the gods—nearly a hundred and fifty gallons of the stuff—and Lilly is delighted with the windfall. If folks are frugal with it and ration it wisely, the fuel will provide Woodbury with another month or so of power.
For the rest of that week, Lilly keeps a lid on things as best she can, oblivious to the fact that events are about to spiral out of control.
FIVE
On Friday night—a night Lilly and her inner circle will later mark as a significant turning point—a warm front rolls in from the south, turning the air as muggy as a greenhouse. By midnight, the town has settled down and fallen silent, most of its inhabitants slumbering on sweat-damp sheets, a regiment of guards quietly keeping watch on the walls. Even Bob Stookey has taken a break from his round-the-clock vigil with the Governor and now sleeps soundly on a cot in one of the adjacent service bays under the racetrack. Only the infirmary—still blazing with the harsh halogen light of an operating room—buzzes with the muffled clamor of angry voices.
“I’m sick of it,” Bruce Cooper complains, pacing in front of the broken-down monitors and gurneys shoved up against the back wall of the medical bay. “Who made her Queen Bitch? Bossing people around like fucking Cleopatra.”
“Settle down, Brucey,” Gabe mutters from his chair angled next to the Governor’s bed, the wounded man lying as still and pale as a mannequin under the sheets. It’s been a week since the Governor tangled with the girl in the dreadlocks, and over the course of those seven days, Philip Blake has remained mostly unconscious. Nobody is comfortable with calling it a coma—although Bob has labeled it as such—but whatever grips the man seems to have its hooks deep within him. Only on two occasions has Philip stirred ever so slightly—his head lolling suddenly and a few garbled syllables coughing out of him—but each time he sank back into his twilight world just as abruptly as he came out of it. Nevertheless, Bob thinks this is a good sign. The Governor’s color continues to improve with each passing day, and his breathing continues to clear and strengthen. Bob has started increasing the amount of glucose and electrolytes in the IV, and keeping closer track of the man’s temperature. The Governor has been at 98.6 for over two days now. “What’s your problem with her, anyway?” Gabe asks the black man. “She never did anything to you. What’s your beef with her?”
Bruce pauses, thrusting his big hands into the pockets of his camo pants, letting out an angry breath. “All I’m saying is, nobody made it official that she should be the one in charge right now.”
Gabe shakes his head. “Who gives a shit? She wants to be temporary honcho, let her be temporary honcho.”
“Some stupid bitch from some fucking gated community?!” Bruce snaps at him. “She’s a lightweight!”
Gabe levers himself out of his chair, his back still a little stiff from the debacle in the alley a few days ago. He balls his fists as he comes around the Governor’s gurney and stands toe-to-toe with Bruce. “Okay, let’s get something straight. That lightweight bitch you’re talking about, she saved my fucking ass the other night. That lightweight bitch has more cojones than ninety percent of the men we got living in this place.”
“So what?—So fucking what?!” Bruce stands his ground, glaring at Gabe with eyes blazing. “She can aim a gun, pull a trigger. Big fucking deal.”
Gabe shakes his head. “What the fuck is your deal, man? You get up on the wrong side of bed today?”
“I’m outta here!”
Bruce storms toward the door, shaking his head, disgusted, mumbling obscenities under his breath. He makes his exit in a huff, slamming the metal door with a bang that reverberates through the tiled chamber.
Staring at the door, Gabe stands there for a moment, nonplussed by it all, when he hears a sound coming from across the room that stiffens his spine.
It sounds like a voice coming from the man lying on the gurney.
* * *
At first, Gabe thinks he’s hearing things. Looking back on it, he will come to the conclusion that he did indeed hear the Governor’s voice at that moment—right after that door had slammed—the words enunciated so clearly and spoken with such clarity that Gabe initially figured he was imagining the sound of the voice saying something like, “How long?”
Gabe whirls toward the gurney. The man on the bed hasn’t moved, his bandaged face still elevated slightly on its pillow, the head of the gurney at a forty-five-degree angle. Gabe slowly approaches. “Governor?”
The man on the bed remains still, but suddenly, almost in answer to Gabe’s voice, the single eye, which is still visible on that face—peering through a hatch-work of thick, white, gauze bandages—begins to blink open.
It happens in stages, feebly at first, but fluttering more and more vigorously until that single eye is wide open and staring at the ceiling. Another few blinks and the eye begins to focus on things in the room. The pupil dilates slightly as Gabe approaches.
Pulling the folding chair next to the bed, sitting down and putting a hand on the Governor’s cold, pale arm, Gabe fixes his gaze on that single searching eye. His heart races. He stares into that eye with such feverish intensity that he can almost see his own face reflected in the teary orb of the eyeball. “Governor? Can you hear me?”
The man on the gurney manages to loll his head slightly toward Gabe, and then fixes his one good eye on the stocky, crew-cut head looming over the bed. Over dry, caked, chapped lips, the man utters again, “How long—?”
At first Gabe is thunderstruck and can’t even form a response. He just stares at that haggard, bandaged face for one endless, excruciating moment. Then he shakes off his daze and says very softly, “—were you out?”
A very slow, very weak nod.
Gabe licks his lips, not even aware that he’s grinning with giddy excitement. “Almost a week.” He swallows back his urge to cry out with glee and hug the man. He wonders if he should get Bob in here. Even though this man is probably a few years his junior, this is his boss, his mentor, his compass, his father figure. “You were awake a bit here and there,” Gabe says as calmly as he can manage, “but I don’t think you’ll remember anything.”
The Governor turns his head slowly from side to side as if testing the limits of his condition. At last he manages another hoarse sentence: “Did you find Doc Stevens?” He takes in a shallow breath as though the very act of posing the question exhausts him. “Force him to patch me up?”
Gabe swallows hard. “Nope.” He licks his lips nervously. “Doc’s dead.” He takes a deep breath. “They found him right on the other side of our fence. He went with
that bitch and her friends … but he didn’t last long.”
The Governor breathes through his nose for a moment. He swallows thickly and takes in another series of agonizing breaths. He blinks and stares at the ceiling, looking like a man waiting for the residue of a nightmare to pass, waiting for the cold light of reality to return and chase the shadows away. At last he manages to speak again: “Serves that fucker right.” The anger glittering in his eye slowly brings him back, gradually allows him to get his bearings and bite down on the situation. He looks at Gabe. “So if the doc’s gone, how the fuck am I not dead?”
Gabe looks at the man. “Bob.”
The Governor takes this in, his one visible eye dilating and widening with shock. “Bob?!” Another pained breath. “That’s … fucking ridiculous … that old drunk? He couldn’t draw a straight line—let alone patch me up.” He swallows with great effort. His voice sticks in his throat like a record skipping. “He refused to be Doc’s assistant—made that fucking girl do it.”
Gabe shrugs. “I guess he didn’t have to do much—thank God. Said your arm was sealed up good, sterilized enough by the fire, but he still cleaned you up real good, watched over you, gave you antibiotics or something. I’m not sure. The way I understand it is … when she cut off your … uh … when she nicked your thigh, Bob said it just missed a major artery, so there wasn’t as much blood loss as there could have been.” Gabe chews on his lower lip. He doesn’t want to throw too much at the man right now, not in his condition. “It would have killed you for sure if she’d hit it, though.” He pauses. “The eye almost got infected—but it didn’t.” Another pause. “Bob said she must have been real careful. He thinks she wanted to leave you alive—like she had more plans for you.”
The Governor’s right eye narrows with pure, unadulterated hate. “Plans for me?!” He lets out a phlegmy snort. “Wait until I hear back from Martinez. I could fill a book with the shit I’ve got planned for her.”
Gabe feels his stomach seize up. He contemplates not saying anything but then mutters in a low voice, “Uh … boss … Martinez went with them.”
The Governor cringes suddenly, either from the pain or a surge of white-hot rage flowing through him … or perhaps both. “I fucking know he went with them.” He draws a clogged breath and continues. “I didn’t know the doc and his slut would go with them—but this was my plan.” Thick breathing again, getting air into his leaden lungs. “Martinez helps them escape and then comes back and tells us where their fucking prison is.” Pause. “If I’ve been out for a week … he should be here any day now.”
Gabe nods as the Governor lets out a long, agonizing sigh and peers down at his heavily bandaged stump of a right arm. His eye registers the horror, the harsh reality. His phantom hand sends ghostly sensations up his shoulder to his brain, and he shudders. Then he presses his cracked lips together, and Gabe sees something glimmering way down in the dark iris of the Governor’s deep-set eye. Gabe sees it very clearly. The Governor is back. Whether it’s madness or strength or survival instinct or just plain meanness, the luminous pinprick of light in that one eye says everything about this man.
At last he turns his eye toward Gabe and adds in a voice husky with pain and fury, “And when that day comes … that bitch is mine.”
* * *
The rest of that week, the heat of late spring settles into the hollows and valleys of west central Georgia. The humidity presses in, and the brutal sun turns the days into steam baths. Since the air conditioners drain so much energy, most of the inhabitants of Woodbury sweat out the hot spell indoors or in the shade of live oaks, fanning themselves compulsively and shirking their daily labors. The Sterns figure out a way to make ice in the warehouse with an old Frigidaire without sucking too much power. Austin finds some prenatal vitamins in the ransacked drugstore and mothers Lilly incessantly, keeping track of her meals and insisting that she stay cool. People continue to ruminate about the escape, the absence of the Governor, and the future of the town.
Meanwhile, Gabe, Bruce, and Bob keep the Governor’s condition under wraps. Nobody wants the townsfolk to see the man moving around with crutches like a stroke victim as he convalesces. At night, they sneak him across town to his apartment, where he spends time with Penny and rests up. Gabe helps him clean his place up—removing as many remnants of the attack as possible, erasing the worst of the gouges and stains—and at one point Gabe mentions how Lilly stepped up during the aftermath of the escape. The Governor is impressed by what he hears, and at the end of the week he asks to see her.
“I know it goes without saying,” Gabe says to her that night, after dark, as he leads her through the littered foyer of the Governor’s apartment building. “But everything you’re about to see and hear stays right here. You understand? I don’t even want Austin knowing about this.”
“Understood,” she says uncertainly as she sidesteps a pile of wet cardboard, following the stocky, thick-necked man through the inner doorway. The first-floor stairwell smells of mildew and mouse droppings. Lilly follows Gabe up the shopworn, carpeted risers, the steps squeaking noisily as they ascend. “But what’s with all the secrecy? I mean … Austin already knows about the attack. So do the Sterns. And we’ve kept a lid on it for almost two weeks.”
“He’s got something in mind for you,” Gabe explains, leading her down the fetid second-floor hallway, “and he doesn’t want anybody to know about it.”
Lilly shrugs as they reach his door. “Whatever you say, Gabe.”
They knock, and the Governor’s voice—as strong and feisty as ever—orders them inside.
Lilly tries not to stare as she enters the living room and sees the man slumped on his ratty sofa with his crutches canted beside him.
“There she is,” the man says with a grin, waving her over. He wears a black eye patch—Lilly finds out later that Bob fashioned it out of the straps of a motorcycle saddlebag—and his right arm is missing, the bandaged stump barely poking through the armhole of his hunting vest. His once wiry form now swims in his camo pants and clodhopper boots, his sinewy muscles reduced to cables under his flesh. His coloring is as pale as alabaster—making his dark eye and hair look almost inky black—giving off the impression of a scarecrow. Despite the emaciated limbs, however, he looks as mean and capable as ever. “Please excuse my manners if I don’t get up,” he adds with a smirk. “I’m still a little shaky on my feet.”
“You look good,” Lilly lies, taking a seat on an armchair across from him.
Gabe remains standing in the archway. “It’s gonna take more than some crazy bitch to take this man out—ain’t that right, Governor.”
“Okay, you can both ease off on the bullshit,” Philip says. “I don’t need stroking right now. Okay? It is what it is. I’m gonna be fine.”
“That’s good to hear,” Lilly comments, and now she means what she says.
The Governor gives Lilly a look. “Been hearing some good things about you, how you stepped up when I was on my back all week.”
Lilly shrugs. “Everybody pitched in. You know. It was a group effort.”
For a brief moment, Lilly hears a strange, muffled noise from the other room—a rustling, a hissing of air, and the jangle of a chain. She has no idea what the hell she’s hearing, but she puts it out of her mind.
“The lady’s modest, too.” The Governor gives her a smile. “You see, Gabe? This is what I’m talking about. You walk softly and carry a big fucking stick around here. I could use about a dozen more like you, Lilly.”
Lilly looks down at her hands. “I’d be lying if I said this town didn’t mean a lot to me.” She looks up at him. “I want this place to survive. I want it to work.”
“You and me both, Lilly.” He lifts himself painfully off the couch. Gabe goes to help him, but he waves the man off. Breathing through his nose, Philip hobbles over to the boarded window—sans crutches—and gazes out through a narrow gap in the slats. “You and me both,” he murmurs, staring at the darkness and thinking.
Lilly watches him. She sees his expression change slightly, illuminated by a trickle of silver light leaking into the room from a distant arc lamp. The narrow band of light shimmers off the man’s one good eye as his face darkens and his gaze curdles with hate. “We got a situation needs dealing with,” he mutters. “If we want to keep this place safe, we’re gonna have to be … what’s the word? Preemptive.”
“Preemptive?” Lilly studies the man. He looks like a wounded pit bull in a cage, his limp amputation dangling off one side of him, the rest of his body as coiled as a spring. Lilly tries not to stare. His Betadine-stained bandages and scarred flesh call out to her. He is a living embodiment of the dangers facing them. It begs the question: Who could do this to a man as indestructible as this? Lilly takes a deep, girding breath. “Whatever it is you have in mind, I’m there for you. Nobody around here wants to live in fear. Whatever you need … I’m totally on board.”
He turns and peers at her from under the strap of his eye patch, his good eye blazing with emotion. “There’s something you should know.” He glances at Gabe and then back at her. “I let those fuckers escape.”
Lilly’s heart thumps a little faster. “Excuse me?”
“I sent Martinez with them. He was supposed to play spy, get a lock on their position—find this fucking prison they’re hiding out in—and then report back.”
Lilly nods, letting this sink in. Her mind swims with instant anxieties, variables, and implications. “I understand,” she says finally.
The Governor looks at her. “He should have been back by now.”
“Yeah … you got a point.”
“You’re a natural-born leader, girlfriend. I want you to organize a search party—you choose your team—and go find out what the fuck happened. See what you can turn up. Can you do that for me?”
Lilly gives another nod, but in the back of her mind she’s wondering if this is a good idea for someone in her condition to be doing something so … labor intensive. Labor is the key. Is she truly prepared for all the sacrifices that go along with being an expectant mother? Walking around with a medicine ball sticking out of her gut? Right now she’s in that tender transitional stage—not showing yet, not really handicapped physically, not fully prepared for the slog ahead—but what happens when she starts to slow down? She knows enough about the early stages of pregnancy to know that physical activity and regular exercise are totally safe—even recommended—but what about something as hazardous as going on a mission into plague-ridden backwaters? Over the space of a split instant she thinks it over and finally looks at the Governor and says, “I can absolutely do that for you. We’ll leave at first light.”
The Walking Dead Collection Page 89