Forever Unfinished // Carl Grimes

Chapter 20

Declan had left the basement, which meant Valorie, Lauren and Carl were left to wallow in their silence. Carl wanted nothing more than to fix everything that had ever went wrong, he wanted to reminice about the good times they had together, he wanted her to remember what it was like, what it can be like again. If Lauren had no reason to hold on, she would let go.

"I think there's people outside," Declan said breathlessly, bursting through the basement door. "I saw something move in the trees, it was too fast to be an undead and it was almost definitely human."

"They couldn't have followed," Lauren said, snapping her head to Carl. "We didn't see any of them after the town."

Carl clenched his jaw and grabbed his gun. He stood up and readied his weapon.
"I'm finishing this now."

Lauren stood up but Carl held a hand out to stop her.

"You're not well enough," He said, shaking his head. "Please stay inside. If you die, I do too."

"That's not happening, Carl." Lauren said sternly and attempted to stand up, only to lose her balance and fall back onto the bed.

"Yes it is," He replied. "I'm going to get onto the roof and try and surprise them, Declan take the back. Bennett will want to make a stand, he won't just shoot us all."

Declan nodded and threw Carl some more magazines for the small handgun he had. Carl slipped them into the pocket of his trousers and nodded. Valorie and Declan spoke in hushed voices while Carl stared a look with Lauren.

"Please be careful," She whispered softly, her gaze focused on her lap. She couldn't look at him, she was afraid that it would be the last time. But as Carl walked up the basement steps, she couldn't help but watch and wonder, would they have enough time to mend their broken hearts?

"Don't put yourself in danger, Declan." Carl said as he stood infront of the back door into the small bungalo. "I'll try and draw the attention away from you."

"You've done so much for us," Declan said, while shaking his head. "We'll do this together."

"You have an unborn child to come back to," Carl said. "Right now, I have nothing."

Carl opened the door, holding his gun up high. The back of the house was deserted, he nodded to Declan who walked to the corner of the house and got ready to assault. Carl hopped onto an old coal bunker and onto the roof, he pulled himself higher until he could see over the house.

Bennett had four boys standing in between the trees. Bennett himself in the centre, talking about what likely was the plan of attack. Carl raised his eyesbrow when he saw the farmiliar sherriff's hat sat atop of his head. He shook his head and inched further up the roof tiles.

He aimed his pistol towards Bennett who was stood in the treeline, less than thirty meters from the house. He motioned to Declan to wait and he lined up his shot. With a squeeze of the trigger the bullet left it's chamber, imbedding itself in the chest of the boy standing closest to Bennett. Once the gunshot echoed they were frenzied, each of them got behind cover and they frantically tried to locate the source of the bullet.

Carl noticed the bandage wrapped around Bennett's arm. Shadow's bullet didn't miss, but it didn't do the damage she had hoped. Carl hoped that he could avenge her and Michael.