Let Her Shoot It

A smile crept to my face and the anger I had let out before had now turned to pure hatred. My mind went cold and I felt my heart freeze over as I yelled,

“What are you waiting for, huh?! Isn’t this what you wanted; to protect yourself? Shane’s not here anymore, so now you have to work your own ass off to defend the group! So shoot it Lori! SHOOT IT!!!!” I screamed at her.

She fumbled with the gun before aiming it and shut her eyes before pulling the trigger. A loud BANG! echoed throughout the basement, deafening everyone. My ears rung and I couldn’t hear anything.

However, when I got my hearing back, all I heard was more screaming. My heart beat rose when I turned and looked at the walker. It was definitely dead; the bad news was that the bullet had gone through Maggie’s eye socket and out the back into the walker’s.

Lori dropped her gun and held her hands up to her mouth in shock. I couldn’t speak. I just watched Maggie’s body slide down the door with my jaw hanging open. I realized the door was still open so I mustered up what I could to run up the stairs. I tried not to step on her body, and shoved the walker out of the basement before shutting the door.

Beth and Patricia were crowding the steps hovering over Maggie’s body so that I couldn’t get past without tripping. So I sat on the top step and looked anywhere but at the girls in front of me. I heard Lori sobbing and whimpering, “I’m sorry… I didn’t… I wasn’t aiming for her… I… Oh God…”

I put my hands onto the step I was sitting on to force myself to take a deep breath, but pulled back when I felt something wet soak both palms. I looked at them in the light and saw they were coated in blood.

My heart started to beat even faster and my chest rose and fell irrationally as I struggled to breathe. I tried to cry but the hysteria from what happened had caused my body to go into shock. I was freaking the hell out. I followed the blood from my hands to the stair and saw that it was dripping down each stair in turn. I looked from the stairs to Maggie; her left eye was open, but her right eye was a giant bloody hole.

I quickly looked away as my stomach started to churn. I had to get away from her, or I was going to be sick. I stumbled passed Beth and Patricia who were still crowded around Maggie’s body. My footsteps squished in the blood with each stair I descended down. When I finally got to the bottom, I ran into the corner by the vent and puked.

That’s when I noticed there were no more moans or groans coming from the vent. I listened as hard as I could, holding my breath both to keep myself from puking again and to figure out what was happening up there.

“We have to move the bodies.” The voice was faint.

“How are we going to tell them?” another voice hissed.

“I dunno.”

The voices slipped away. Luckily I had gotten my stomach to settle back down but I didn’t know if it was going to stay like that for long.

I turned to Carl, Lori, and Carol. They were now huddled on the couch in each others arms.

“You… are an idiot.” I hissed at Lori.

“I—I’m sorry.”

“She didn’t mean to, okay? Stop being so mean to her!” Carl yelled at me.

“This wouldn’t’ve even happened if you had just stayed down here!!!” I yelled back.

Carl glared at me, but didn’t say anything more.

I took a deep breath before heading back up the stairs to open the door. It didn’t matter; because the door had already opened. The light from upstairs lit up the entire basement, illuminating three people at the top of the stairs. It also illuminated the scene on the stairs; the quarts of blood that trickled down the steps, Maggie’s dead body with her sister and friend hovering over it.

“Ma—MAGGIE?!” Glenn almost fell down as he scrambled down a couple of stairs and joined the two women.

“Oh God!” I heard Andrea exclaim.

“What happened?” Rick was the third person at the door.

I told him everything; about Carl leaving, about Maggie going after him, about the walker grabbing her and about Lori shooting her by accident.

It was impossible to describe without breaking down.

Click for The End