EXTINCTION EVENT | CARL GRIMES

t h i r t y - o n e ↣ camcorder

We both say again, causing the both of us to loosely laugh at ourselves. After my laughter, I sigh. "Go ahead."

"I'm sorry that I had to go and do that to you and Carl." Glenn says, his lips folding inward and his eyebrows nervously raising. "I just—I can't keep a secret to save my life." He sheepishly starts. "I heard that I uh—I kinda caused world war three between you guys."

"Yeah." I laugh. "Yeah, you kinda did. But that's all over now." I sigh, collecting myself and finally making sincere eye contact with him." Consider it forg—"

"Glenn, Megan! Come on the food's getting cold." Maggie shouts, from the dining room. The front door abruptly slams after she and Enid walk back into the house.

Without the use of words, Glenn and I quickly put the awkward conversation—as well as its past—to rest.

The four of us soon settle into the dinner. A pretty casual sharing of food takes place as we silently fill our plates. It doesn't take me long to notice the three of them exchanging obvious eye contact with each other, trying to avoid my notice.

"What?"

"Aren't you going to tell her?" Enid finally pipes up, motioning across the table toward Maggie and Glenn.

"Tell me what?"

My eyes flick from Enid, towards a guilty Maggie. Then, finally, they land on a sheepish Glenn.

"I guess I'll ask her." He pretends to sigh in defeat.

"Ask me what?" I begin to get annoyed.

Maggie can barely contain the mischievous smile on her face, as she flips her hair over her shoulder her hand reaches out, grabbing Glenn's over the surface of the wooden table.

Her comforting touch gives the man the go-ahead. Glenn then places a gentle hand over his wife's lower stomach.

The couple looks down at his hand, and then to each other, before finally turning towards me.

"How equipped are you to deal with prenatal care?"

☆

I haven't felt much of anything since what happened a few nights ago, let alone shed any tears.

And, even that next morning—as I stared down at the gravel, watching as Glenn and Abraham slowly became a part of the soil—I was all out of tears. I'm still all dried out.

The only thing that kept me from sinking into the gravel with them—what helped me to finally peel myself off of that ground—was that it wasn't Carl.

It wasn't him.

And that was all I had to cling onto.

And the few times that I had allowed myself to explore the possibility that it could've been Carl, I also would have liked to think about how I probably never would've peeled myself from the ground, on that day.

I would've never lived to see the reign of terror that this man now has over Alexandria.

I'd heard the sound of the heavy trucks clunking their way up to the front gate. The Saviors' trucks that made that same, sputtering noise as they drove away from the gravel lot, leaving us to our own devices after they'd taken away a part of everyone there.