[Rough Draft] Keres : The Walking Dead

Nothing But The Truth

Rick leads Carl out of the barn and I start heading towards Randall with a knife. Daryl steps in from of me and grabs my shoulders.

"Keres don't do this. You promised Rick you would follow his lead on this." He reminds me and I huff rolling my eyes and hand him the knife.

"Thank you. I bet he'll be back soon anyway to finish it. He just didn't want Carl to see it." Daryl tries to comfort me.

"Look I know this is personal for you but-." Daryl starts.

"What? No. This isn't personal for me. But this dirtbag needs to die before he gets anyone else killed." I growl.

"This isn't about him at all is it..." Daryl states.

"What do you mean?" I ask confused.

"This is about Sh-." Daryl starts but then we hear a blood curdling scream coming from the field.

We start running over there to see what the hell is going on and see a walker on top of Dale. His insides are being devoured right in front of us. I take my knife back and stab the walker in the head as the rest of the group come running over. Everyone just stares as Dale lays there helpless and exposed.

"Hershel there has to be something you-." Rick pleads but Hershel just gives him a somber look.

Some of the group starts crying and Rick grabs his gun out. It's shaking in his hands. I put my hand on his, lowering the gun. I can see tears falling down his face and I take my gun out and shoot Dale in the head for him.

After the gunshot everything goes silent for that moment. It's as if Dale took all the noise in that moment along with him. Which I thought was quite fitting, seeing that he was one of the most talkative and opinionated people I had ever met.

I walk away from the gruesome scene letting the others take care of the mess. After all it wasn't someone I actually cared about.

———

Later a funeral is held but I don't attend. I'd never been to a funeral and I didn't plan on going to one now. Especially for a man who was nothing but a pain in my ass since day one. I didn't feel sorry for his death. Hell, part of me wishes that I would have just done it myself sooner.

Hershel tells Rick and I that we aren't allowed to move into the farm house because of my reputation and Shane's current temperament. Which is completely fine with me.

I want nothing more than to go into the barn and finish off Randall but a deal is a deal. I promised Rick that I wouldn't touch him. And when I make a promise I keep it. Shane was obviously pissed off about Rick and Daryl's plan to let Randall free in a different town. To be honest I wasn't too thrilled about it myself.

Later that day Carl comes up to me and Shane with tears falling down his face.

"It's my fault Dale is dead." He confesses and Shane and I both look at each other confused.

"What do you mean?" Shane asks genuinely concerned for Carl's emotional state.

"Yesterday I took this from Daryl's bike." He says as he hands out a gun.

"And I went into the woods. I saw that walker that killed Dale. He was stuck in some mud and I was going to shoot it but it got it's foot loose and I got scared and ran. If I had just shot it Dale would still be alive." Carl weeps.

"Carl look at me. This isn't your fault. You can't put that on yourself. These types of things just happen. What's important is how we react to situations like these. How we learn from them and grow." Shane explains and Carl gives him a hug.

That's when I realize how close these two really are. It reminds me of how Shane and I used to be when we were younger.

Carl tries to give Shane the gun and Shane tries to tell him that he's gonna need it to protect himself. But Carl yells, saying that he wants nothing to do with another gun again. I take the gun from Shane and put it in my waistband.

"Look Shane we need to talk..." I say looking down.

"Actually, I have something I need to take care of first. I promise we'll talk after. Ok." He says as he gives me a hug and a kiss on the forehead.

I head over to Rick and he and Daryl are talking about Randall and the plan.

"Hey Rick I need to talk to you. It's about Carl." I say.

"Look it's gonna have to wait. We're on a tight schedule." Rick says.

"Ok fine I get it. You care more about what happens to Randall than how your son is blaming himself for Dale's death because he stole one of Daryl's guns." I say as I throw the gun on the ground at his feet and walk away and I can hear their conversation stop.

Beth comes up to me while I'm sitting on the flatbed of some old rusty truck.

"I'm sorry about my dad...he can be quite judgmental at times..." She apologizes and I just chuckle.

"No, he has every right not to trust me. Beth, I'm not exactly a good person if you haven't already noticed." I say in all seriousness.

"I don't believe that...I think that you are a person who knows what they want. And will do even the hardest things to protect the people you care about." She explains.

"Is that so?" I joke.

"Yeah. Do you wanna know what made me want to live?" She asks me looking me in the eyes and I shake my head.

"It was you." She says confidently and I give her a questioning look.

"After Maggie, Lori, and Andrea talked to me I knew what I wanted, and that was to die. But as I sliced my wrist, your words rang through my head loud and clear." She explains and I give her a puzzled look.

"What, you mean the words that I don't kill people unless they deserve it or are on the brink of death?" I question but she shakes her head.

"No...it was what you said right after your answer, 'if you could die right now would you' right after you answered that question you paused, and then you looked up at me with this look in your eyes, like you knew what I was feeling in that moment. Do you remember what you asked?" She asks me.

"Uh, no. Sorry." I shrug.

"You said and I quote, 'But this isn't about me is it?' When I heard that go through my head everything made sense." She says as if I'm supposed to understand what she means.

"No matter how much you act like you don't care about anyone, you still don't make things about yourself. You put everyone else's need before your own. Because you know that not everything is about you. You don't live because you can't die. You live because you know that you can still make a difference. And I don't care if you don't believe that, because I know it's true. Otherwise you would have left the group a long time ago." Beth explains.

I'm about to respond when I hear T-Dog shout from the barn that Randall escaped.