A/N: Richard Harmon from The 100 is how I imagine Carl but each to their own
Also the chapter is unedited but I wanted it to go up regardless
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Bugs Lair
Card didn't look too pleased to see us standing on his doorstep when he finally emerged out of his room. Nevertheless, with a weary expression pulling at his features, he indicated for us to follow him back into his bedroom. I trailed behind Jimmy through the Samuel's household – straight into the bug's lair.
The décor wasn't daunting. For one, mismatching quilted pillows didn't scream psychotic killer. Secondly, it smelt subtly like nutmeg spiced with cinnamon – that wasn't strong enough to mask the scent of decomposing bodies. I confirmed that I wasn't walking into a death-trap. If this hadn't been the home of bug-murderer Carl, this would have to be one of the most inviting places I've ever been to besides the comfort of my own bed.
Mrs Samuels flashed both of us bright smiles, more particularly at Jimmy, before returning back to her baking in kitchen.
It was a small apartment so it didn't take us long to arrive to Carl's room. He pushed the door closed, making sure that the lock clicked soundly into place. He swivelled around and rested his bodyweight on the oak wood. I wasn't sure if it was intentional but my mind couldn't shake the feeling that we were now trapped, undoubtedly caught in the spider's web.
Piles and piles of comic books were stacked in the corners of room alongside a variety of video games, films and other gaming devices. A heavy-duty electronic and computer system was balancing on a desk in the midst of all of the items he had collected. The blinds were shut, casting the room into the shadows however I was just able to make out that he walls were covered in paintings and drawings – I'm assuming all done by him. Some were off robots, fictional characters or graffiti-like prints; others were detailed portraits and animals.
This was not how I expected a bug-murderer's room to look like.
I imagined creepy jars filled with dead insects on rotting wooden shelves.
Carl looked at us impassively with a raised eyebrow. "Now can I ask why you of all people are invading my home?"
I watched Jimmy awkwardly sit on the edge of his bed, crossing his legs and arms.
Carl eyed him, suspicion and intrigue mounting. "I can take a guess at why she is here," he paused, "but I have no idea why you are in home as of present."
Jimmy shrugged his shoulders and decided to stop staring at the floorboards to face Carl with an equally cool, charming expression. "Moral support."
Confusion clouded Carl's hazel eyes for a brief second. "Since when were you two friends?"
It was my turn to immerse myself into their conversation, "That doesn't matter."
He faced me. "Does Zach – sorry, Zachary, as he likes to be called now – know you're here in my home with him?" His lips curved into a mischievous smirk as his eyes raked over Jimmy. My face must have said it all. He shook his head, his light brown hair swaying with each movement. "My, my, my, Alex," he scolded.
"Look, Carl, I need to know about Zach," I said as I played with the hem of my sleeves out of uneasiness. "Please, I know you know something."
Carl's hardened features softened ever so slightly though his eyes remained calculating. "Why don't you just ask him?" he suggested as if was the easiest thing in the world.
"If he would talk to me then sure, I would have asked him." When he didn't speak, I continued; "He's being acting weird lately. More cuts and bruises are appearing by the day. I just-" My voice faltered at its own accord, "-need to know what's going on."
"So that's where you come in, Leighton," Jimmy added, a dimpled smile appearing on his face. I noticed that he was rolling an unlit cigarette between his hands.
Subsequently, Carl scrunched up his nose. "If you could refrain from calling me that and smoking that in my bedroom, it would be greatly appreciated."
Jimmy reluctantly pocketed the cigarette.
"So will you help me?" I asked, close to pleading.
"This would have to be the weirdest trio in history," Carl went on to say. "Ugh. I have a heart, you know? Sit down, I'll tell you everything."
***
We had gotten more comfortable. Mrs Samuels didn't hesitate to make us cups of coffee or flavoured teas, checking in with us every half hour or so for food. I was sat on the desk chair, spinning on it aimlessly in circles whilst Carl finished downing his piping hot drink. Jimmy, on the other hand, had buried himself in the blankets as he had forgotten his jacket in the Cadillac. Carl had actually allowed him to flick through a comic book as long as he promised not to crease it whilst we waited.
Carl adjusted his position on the bed, careful not to disturb Jimmy's fortress of pillows and duvets. "All right, so why you're here," he began, setting the mug down on top of an open DVD case.
I stopped spinning, anticipation and eagerness taking over every inch of my body.
"I used to know Zach, a couple of years ago before he transferred here. We went to the same school."
I digested this information. This already was off to an interesting start. "How did you recognise him?" I enquired slowly.
"How could I not recognise him?" Carl said, shuffling his feet uncomfortably. He didn't give me a straight answer.
"Were you friends or something?"
He grabbed his blue beanie from across Jimmy and positioned it so that it held back his fringe. "You could call it that." I waited for him to expand. "I knew him way before his dark phase, when he wore legit plain jeans and graphic t-shirts. Innocent Zach, should we call it?"
That was a strange thing to imagine: a normal Zach. No leather jackets or beige knit-sweaters.
"We weren't exactly friends, we stayed with each other for company and protection. Safety in numbers, you see? I was the obese kid and Zach was the skinny, strange one. We were the easiest targets for bullies."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
He held a hand up. "No need to apologise," he mumbled. "Innocent Zach grew a little older and was beginning to idolize his idiot of a brother. Zach really hated himself and so he changed. That was where I believe it started. He had gotten fitter and took up boxing and karate for extracurricular activities."
"Hot damn," inputted Jimmy, remaining in his cocoon of blankets.
"It was like he was a completely different person after the summer. He stood up to the bullies. He gave them a real beating – much, much worse then they deserved. He would skip school just like he is now and stay out until stupid times. He hung out more and more with the sort of people his brother was with." He paused to breathe. "Everyone was afraid of Zach."
"That's why he became Zachary, so he would have a clean slate," I added, verbalizing my thoughts.
"At that time, he was becoming worse than Daniel."
"Daniel?"
"His brother."
I didn't even know the name of Zach's brother.
"At the peak of his rebellious attitude," Carl carried on with a business-like attitude. "He dealt things – drugs – and hacked into the school computers and deleted or messed up files of people he hated."
Jimmy pulled back the blankets; entranced by every word Carl seemed to say. "How in the world did he do that?"
"How'd you think?"
"I don't know. Type, type, type, click, click, click, delete, delete, delete?"
Carl blinked evenly at him. "Is that your representation of hacking a computer?"
Jimmy's cheeks tinged red as his gaze fell to his fingernails. "Maybe."
"Well, I taught him how to do it when we were friends. We spent literally all of our break times in the computer lab," he said. "He knows everything I know about computers. Everything. If he wanted to, he could do a lot of damage to a person. Bank files, police reports, etcetera."
I pressed my face into my palms. "Do you think he's gone back to Daniel's friends and that's why he's acting like this?"
"It's Zach, there is no way to tell. He might be doing it because he missed his old life or out of pure boredom."
Jimmy seemed to be thinking something over. "How come he doesn't recognise you?"
The corners of Carl's lips upturned. "A load of weight loss? Name changes? I went by Leighton back then. Puberty also did miracles," he listed things off, not entirely sure himself. "I have no idea if I'm going to be really honest."
"Hot damn," Jimmy said yet again, scratching his chin.
"There's something else you should know," Carl said, his voice losing its sardonic tone. "He could be really, really dangerous, Alex, you need to be careful."
I couldn't picture Zach how Carl was making him out to be. He wasn't a senseless monster.
I offered him a reproachful smile. "Don't worry about me, I can handle myself."
"He shot someone, Alex."
That sentence alone made me stop dead in my tracks. Gears started to work in my brain, attempting to put pieces together. How could Zach shoot someone?
"What do you mean he shot someone?" I exclaimed, bewildered.
I was bordering on hysterical at that point. This was becoming ridiculous.
Jimmy put his two index fingers together and pointed them at Carl. "Pew, pew."
Carl's features casted down into a disapproval expression however, after a few moments, his serious demeanour weakened as he couldn't help but grin at Jimmy's actions. Someone had been shot and they were joking about it.
"Insensitive, much?" I said, still completely in shock. "He shot some– Who? When? Where? How?"
"Can I have a sip?" Carl ignored me and asked Jimmy just as he was about to take a mouthful of his coffee. Wordlessly, Jimmy passed him the mug. After Carl had soothed his throat, he finally paid attention to me.
"How do you know that he shot someone?" I demanded, running hands through my hair.
Did that mean Carl wasn't a psychotic murderer and that Zach was instead?
"I was there."
***
After allowing both Jimmy and I to absorb the new information that he had provided, Carl finally expanded on the subject.
"One night I saw Zach pass by outside of my house with Daniel, he hadn't been in school for two weeks so I wanted to know, well, what he had been up to. Let's just say curiosity got the better of me. This is where I began to regret this idea." He straightened his hooded jacket. From the distant expression on his face, you could tell that he was reliving the memory. "I followed them to this abandoned parking lot downtown where they met up with three shady-ass looking guys."
Something sounded really familiar about this story. "Please, please don't be what I'm thinking this."
"It was insanely dark and I couldn't see jack-shit, I was hiding behind a dumpster – it wasn't an amazing vantage point, mind you. From what I got, Daniel was dealing them stuff and he must have brought Zach on a field trip with him. Something must have gone wrong because a few minutes later Daniel's been knocked out cold on the floor. Afterwards, I heard gunshots and running. I was distraught because I thought it would be Zach lying in a pool of his own blood. When everything went silent, I decided to take a look.
One of the other guys was lying on the floor with a bullet wound in his upper thigh. The other two had disappeared. Somebody must have gone at Zach with a knife because his clothes were torn and his forearm was bleeding or that's what I'm telling myself." Carl closed his eyes. "Zach was just standing in the middle of it, staring down at the man with the gun at his feet."
"Hot damn," Jimmy repeated for the third time.
"Hot damn," I echoed him.
How does one respond to that?
It was self-defence. It had to be self-defence. His brother was unconscious and they pulled a knife on him. It was self-defence.
"Leighton, aren't you proving to be a beacon of knowledge today?" Jimmy said, resting his hand on his shoulder.
"I told you not to call me Leighton," Carl grumbled. Jimmy continued to smirk at him, moving his hand lower down his back.
"Okay, fine, call me whatever pleases you then."
Jimmy's smirk widened, as he was victorious.
"Did the guy..." I trailed off, ignoring their little bonding session.
"Die? No, I called an ambulance for him," Carl stated matter-of-factly. "I couldn't leave them all there, he would have probably bled to death if I hadn't. The police ended up arriving and got involved."
"Daniel took the blame for Zach, right?" I shut my eyes as a sense of dread crept up on me.
"Daniel 'confessed' there and then. He was a drug dealer. The police didn't feel the need to validate that statement. Drug deal gone wrong, that's what they called it. His story seemed to make perfect sense. He was let off easy with five years for aggravated assault and illegal substance trafficking."
"Oh my God," was all I could muster. This was a mess. Zach's life was a literal mess.
"Zach can never know I was the one who called the authorities. I got his brother put in prison, Alex, please." Desperation was settling in. Panic was apparent on his face as he gnawed at his bottom lip.
Jimmy was quick to soothe Carl, offering him to share the blankets with him.
"Of course she won't tell him, right?" Jimmy asked pointedly, his face was pleading.
Still disconnected from the situation, I managed to utter the words "of course" as my thoughts descended into a state of pandemonium.
***
Short but hope you enjoyed it :)
WHO ELSE IS WATCHING FEAR THE WALKING DEAD, I REALLY LIKED THE FIRST EPISODE BUT IT HAS MIXED REVIEWS
Song is Ready For You by Years and Years (Acoustic)