COLLAPSED ᵀᵂᴰ¹ ✔

60. confessions

Gabriel pushed him away, his eyes darting around nervously as sweat fell down his forehead. He seemed almost too scared to bring himself to even say something but finally words left his trembling lips. 'I lock the doors at night. I always lock the doors at night,' he said and then he broke, tears appearing in his eyes. 'I always lock the doors at night.'

He sobbed as his gaze turned to the ground. 'They started coming, my congregation. Atlanta was bombed the night before, and they were scared. They were looking for a safe place, a place where they felt safe.' He took a deep breath but now that he had started talking he seemed unable to pull himself together again. 'And it was early,' hd continued, making Milo frown at him as he shifted in his seat. 'It was so early. And the doors were still locked. You see, it was my choice. But there were so may of them, and they were trying to pry the shutters and banging on the sidings, screaming at me. And so the dead came for them.'

Milo felt pity for the man as he stared at the tears that ran down his cheeks but at the same time disgust filled his stomach as he realised what direction the story was going in.

'Women,' Gabriel mumbled, 'children. Entire families calling my name as they were torn apart, begging me for mercy. Begging me for mercy.' His sobs grew louder and the sounds tugged at Milo's heart. 'Damning me to hell,' the man cried, 'I buried their bones. I buried it all.' Finally he lifted his gaze to look at Rick. 'The Lord sent you here to finally punish me.' The priest couldn't seem to take it anymore and he fell down on the ground, crying silently. 'I'm damned,' he whispered. 'I was damned before. I always lock the doors.' He shook his head as tears continued to stream down his face. 'I always lock the doors.'

Silence filled the room as the group stared at priest, unsure what to do for a moment. Milo watched as Sasha pulled her knife back and a shaky breath left his lips. Now they finally knew Gabriel's secret, the only problem was that it still didn't explain where their people were.

A sudden whistle came from outside, way too sharp to belong to a bird. Milo turned around sharply, looking at the windows, seeing Glenn was already looking outside. 'There is something there,' he said, frowning against the darkness. 'There's someone outside, lying in the grass.'

Upon hearing those words Sasha raced towards the door. Ignoring Rick's warning calls she pulled the door open, storming outside. Milo jumped up from his seat running after her while the others all seemed to finally wake up as well and rushed towards the door.

'Bob!' Sasha called out his name, sharp and filled with pain. Her boyfriend lay in the grass before the church, the light that came through the open door illuminating his features. 'Bob!'

At first Milo didn't understand why she seemed so distressed until he finally got a good look at the man. A wave of nausea hit him and he turned his head away, immediately feeling ashamed he wasn't able to look at his friend. Bob was missing his right leg...

The snarls of walkers cut through the darkness and Glenn rushed forwards to bash one of their heads in. 'Get Bob inside, we'll take care of 'em!' He called out.

Milo pulled his small axe free from its holster and ran forwards, raising his weapon and cutting the head of an approaching walker clean off. Turning around he kicked away another corpse that came too close but before he got a chance to kill it, a gunshot came out of the darkness and put the thing down.

'Someone's here!' He screamed, tightening his grip on his weapon.

'Get inside!' Rick shouted, firing his gun into the darkness. 'Go, go!'

Sasha and Tara managed to lift up Bob and hurried back inside followed by Glenn who held his gun tightly. Milo shared a worried glare with Rick who gestured for him to head to the door. He did as he was told, watching as Rick stared into the darkness before finally turning around and walking inside as well.