Tell Her the Truth

All the anger and the frustration and the hatred I had towards Lori couldn’t be held in any longer. My hands were clenched so tightly that my fingernails had dug divots into my palms.

“Lin…?” her calming voice was like pulling the wrong Jenga piece and having the tower fall over.

I flew out of my seat and screamed, “You wanna know what happened? I’ll tell you what happened! Shane was going to kill Rick! He had his gun pointed at Rick’s head and was going to pull the trigger! But luckily Rick thought faster and stabbed him! He stabbed him in the heart, Lori! SHANE WAS KILLED BY RICK! And it’s YOU’RE ENTIRE FAULT!!!!” I exploded, my shouts vibrating off of the dense walls.

“Wha—how—how is that my fault?!” Lori’s eyes were wide and defensive as she looked up at me.

“You… you… manipulated him! Don’t act like I didn’t know. Oh God Lori don’t even…” My voice cracked as she shook her head.

“Shane was… he was messed up and—”

“He was messed up because you made him messed up! He was fine before you had that little talk with him!”

“How do you kn—”

“I saw you. I saw you talking to him this morning. You told him something… something that made him make a final decision.” Tears were now beginning to well up in my eyes.

“I—you—why—why do you care?!” she finally spit out words.

“Believe it or not, Lori, but you weren’t the only one who loved him.” My voice became cold.

She suddenly stood up and faced me, “I… I didn’t love him.”

My head almost exploded with rage. I couldn’t take it. I marched right up to her and slapped her across the face as hard as I could.

“Don’t lie to me!” I shouted. “You don’t think I didn’t notice? All the looks he gave you, oh it was obvious he loved you. But the looks you gave him… when you thought nobody was looking, I saw them. You loved him, don’t deny it!”

Lori had her hand up to the cheek I had smacked. She had seemed to lose her words, but it didn’t matter. The group had just heard the first gunshot from upstairs. The entire room tensed. Nobody moved; we just stared at the ceiling as if we could see through it; as if we were watching the ones we knew and loved fight the undead. The lightbulb started to swing again, casting distorted shadows across the walls and floor. Dust came down as we heard some of the heavier thumps.

It took me a minute to realize that there were other people in the room that could hear me yelling. The group upstairs might’ve even heard me, but I didn’t care. Yelling at Lori… it felt good. I felt as if I had gotten a huge weight off my chest.

I flopped onto my chair, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. I leaned forward and placed my forehead in my hands. I rubbed my temples, trying to get rid of the newly formed headache Lori had so generously given to me.

I glanced over at the stairs, but Lori was now sitting back on her chair with Carl. Her cheek was bright red and tears were rolling down it. I didn’t know whether she was crying because of what I said and did or because of what was going on upstairs. Either way, I didn’t feel bad about it.

The only thing that I was really upset with was the choice I had made. If I were up there, I’d be helping out, I’d be defending our new home. I could’ve even saved someone’s life. Instead, I was stuck down here, forced to listen to it all. Forced to watch these women cry and feel hopeless. And if I died down here, not doing anything, that would be a disgrace to all the victims of the virus who had died fighting and it would be a disgrace to Shane if he knew I wasn’t trying my hardest to survive.

A thought crossed my mind and I asked anyone who wasn’t Lori, “Do we have weapons down here? In case… ya know, something gets down here?”

All the girls looked at me, now with a different type of fear upon their faces.

“Ummm, I—I’m not sure. My dad might’ve kept some weapons down here…” Maggie quickly stood up and went to examine the crowded shelves.

I saw Lori glance at me, but as soon as I caught her eye she quickly looked away. I saw her reach for something in her back pocket.

“Whataya got there?”

She didn’t answer me. She just pulled out a small snub-nose revolver and showed me. I raised my eyebrows, noticing Carl wasn’t with her and then turned my attention back to Maggie.

“All I found was a sledgehammer and a hatchet.” Maggie held up the two melee weapons and I took them both.

“I’ll put them here in case we need them.” I said leaning the sledgehammer against the couch and the hatchet against my chair.

“Hey sweetie, you want something to drink, you must be thirsty…” I heard Lori practically whisper. “Baby? Baby boy, did you hear me?”

She stood up and looked around the small room.

“C-Carl? Carl! You come out right this minute!” her voice wavered. She peered over the chair and behind the couch in a frenzy.

I almost snickered, thinking about how many times he’d run off and she hadn’t noticed until the last second. I stood near my chair with my arms crossed, watching her freak out. She turned towards the stairs and had to muffle a scream.

“OH MY GOD, HE LEFT!” she yelled and tried to run up the stairs, but Carol held her back.

“No, you can’t go up there, let someone else!” she sounded like she was about to cry.

“What are you talking about, let someone else? He’s my son!”

“I know but if anything happened to both Carl and you, Rick couldn’t live with himself.”

“Oh, so you’re saying that if one of us dies trying to get him then Rick won’t give a shit because he’s got Lori?” I laughed in disbelief, “Wow.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Carol snapped at me.

“Someone go get him, NOW!” Lori had stopped fighting off Carol and looked around the room at us. That’s when Lori turned to me with a new attitude.

“Lin… I know you have experience with guns... I heard you mention it to Daryl once. Can you please take this and find him?” she was in tears as she offered me her gun.

I sighed, trying to make a quick decision...

Let Someone Else Get Him

Go Get Carl