60. confessions
MILO
THE DOOR OF THE CHURCH OPENED, making him turn around sharply, his heart was beating in his throat. Sasha, Rick and Tyreese entered, their expressions answering every question swirling around in his head. He exhaled slowly, sitting down on one of the benches again, his head in his hands.
Quinn, Daryl, Bob and Carol were missing. After the feast they had last night he realised his sister was gone. And soon it became clear that she wasn't the only one. The group had broken up in search parties but so far no one had found them.
'Stop,' Sasha's voice broke through the eerie quietness of the church, making Milo look up. She was staring at the priest as if he had committed a crime. 'What are you doing?'
Gabriel frowned at her, looking around with a confused glare on his features but Sasha wasn't that easily fooled. 'What are you doing?' She pressed. 'This is all connected. You show up, we're being watched and now four of us are gone.'
'I...' the priest stammered. 'I don't...I don't have anything to do with this.'
Suddenly Sasha reached for her belt, pulling out a knife as she took a step forwards.
'Don't!' Rosita warned her.
'Sasha, put it away,' Tyreese spoke calmly, taking a step towards his sister but she didn't listen and instead took another step closer to the priest.
'Who's out there?' She questioned.
Gabriel raised his hands in defense, stumbling back nervously. 'I don't have anything to do with this,' he repeated.
'Where are our people?' Sasha growled at him, a dangerous gleam in her eyes.
'I don't have-' 'Where are our people!' She screamed, her voice echoing through the church, the sound made him wince.
Gabriel kept on repeating he had nothing to do with it until finally Rick stepped up, carefully pulling Sasha behind him while his eyes stared daggers at the priest.
'Please, I...' 'You working with someone?' Rick interrupted his pleas.
'I'm alone,' Gabriel quickly said, as if hoping that giving answers faster would somehow save him from their leader, 'I'm alone. I was always alone.'
'What about that woman in the food bank, Gabriel?' Rick asked, taking a step closer towards the man. 'Why did you do to her? "You'll burn for this." That was for you. Why? What are you gonna burn for Gabriel?' Suddenly he reached out, taking the priest by his collar, bringing his face dangerously close. 'What? What did you do?' Rick shook him, shouting now. 'What did you do!'
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.
They closed the doors firmly and Milo couldn't help but check if they truly were closed. His heart was beating like crazy and he could only think about one thing. Quinn...she was out there somewhere and he had no way of knowing if she was okay. He had hoped that he would never have to feel this way again. As if some piece of him was missing and he couldn't function without it. But now she was gone again and there was nothing he could do.
Slowly his surroundings came back to him and he remembered Bob. Turning around sharply he walked towards where they put him on the ground. Someone had gotten him a pillow to rest his head on.
Milo couldn't help but to look at his missing leg and a shiver ran down his spine by the very sight of it.
'I was in the graveyard,' Bob panted, answering their unspoken questions. 'Somebody knocked me out. I woke up outside this place, it looked like a school.' He was breathing heavily, staring at his missing limb while he held Sasha's hand tightly, as if it was his only lifeline. 'It was that guy, Gareth and five other ones. They were eating my leg right in front of me. Like it was nothing. All proud, like they had it all figured out.' His voice was bitter, angry and Milo felt rage coursing through his veins. The rage that had made him pull that trigger and kill a man to safe his sister, the rage that he would always feel, even welcomed, whenever someone dared to touch his family.
'Did they have Daryl, Quinn and Carol?' Rick questioned, his voice soft, as if not wanting to push him. It honestly surprised Milo how cold the man was to strangers and how warm to his family. Looking at him it was almost like he had two personalities battling within him.
'Gareth said they drove off,' Bob groaned.
His heart dropped out of his chest, a cold chill crawled down his spine as those words rang through his head. For a second the entire world seemed to stop and he sought support by one of the wooden benches to keep his balance.
Taking a deep breath he forced himself to remember that Gareth could not be trusted and he shouldn't believe a word that came out of his mouth, but a small part of Milo had believed the words as soon as they left Bob's lips and that part was impossible to ignore.
Bob tried to sit up, a groan of pain leaving his mouth, tearing Milo away from his thoughts.
'He's in pain,' Sasha said, turning to look at Rosita, 'do we have anything?'
'I think there are pill packets in the first-aid kit,' the woman replied.8
'Save 'em,' Bob panted, sweat dripping down his forehead.
'No,' Sasha said, sounding insulted at the very idea.
'Really,' Bob spoke and something in his voice stopped them all in their movements as he seemed to gather himself and finally pushed himself up to sit. Then he reached for the collar of his shirt and lifted it, revealing a red colored spot of ripped open flesh in his shoulder. Stench rose up from the ripped apart flesh, his skin dark red from the dried up blood. Bite marks were clearly visible on each side of the wound and no matter how hard Milo wished them away, they did not fade.
Silence fell as everyone seemed to hold their breath. Sasha was staring at the wound with wide eyes, tears already gathering. Milo felt his stomach tighten, his heart clenching together in pain and suddenly it was hard to breathe.
'It happened at the food bank,' Bob whispered.
Sasha's lip started trembling and yet she managed to offer him a reassuring smile. 'It's okay,' she muttered but they all knew that was a lie. Nothing was okay at all.
Bob swayed and slowly fell backwards. Tara caught him just in time and put him down gently. He didn't have much more time left.
'There's a sofa in my office,' Gabriel offered. 'I know it's not much, but...'
Sasha turned to look at him, swallowing her tears. 'Thank you,' she said.
'I got him,' Tyreese said, standing up and reaching down, picking Bob up in his arms and walking him towards the office with Sasha not far behind.
'Does he have a fever?' Rick asked, turning to Maggie.
'He's just warm,' she replied softly.
'Jim lasted almost two days before we left him,' Glenn sighed.
Milo had no idea who Jim was but knew for sure he did not want that fate for Bob. The thought of him dying from a two day long during fever was too much for Milo to handle. He refused to see his friend suffer like that.
'Time for a reality check,' Abraham's loud voice suddenly echoed through the room. 'We all need to leave for D.C. right now.'
The group turned to look at him and for a second Milo felt like punching the man. How could he say that and not even give them a few hours to grief. How could he say that when three people, including his sister were missing. But when his eyes landed on Eugene he realised it actually made a lot of sense for the soldier to be in such a hurry. The guy who could safe the world was very close to possible danger and they simply could not risk that.
'Daryl, Quinn and Carol are gonna be back,' Rick replied. 'We're not going anywhere without them.'
'I respect that,' Abraham said, 'but there's a clear threat here to Eugene. I need to extract his ass before things get any uglier. So if ya'll won't come, good luck to you. We'll go our seperate ways.' He turned around and headed towards the door, Rosita and Eugene on his heels, though a little more hesitant.
'You're leaving on foot?' Rick called after him.
For a second silence lingered, as the meaning behind Rick's words settled. 'We fixed that damn bus ourselves,' Abraham spoke sharply, turning back to look at the man.
'There are a lot more of us,' Rick said, walking towards the man.
'You want to keep it that way?' Abraham snapped, disbelief and anger dancing in his eyes. 'You should come.'
'Carol saved your life,' Rick spoke, his voice low from trying to contain his anger. 'We saved your life.'
'Well, I'm trying to safe yours!' The soldier shouted loudly. 'Save everyone's!'
'We're not going anywhere without our people,' Rick groaned.
'Your people took off!'
'They're coming back.'
'To what, picked-over bones?' Abraham shouted once again.
'You're not taking the bus,' Rick screamed, reaching out for him but Abraham pushed him away.
'Do not lay hands!' He spoke sharply.
'Abraham!' Rosita called out his name, trying to get him to snap out of it.
Glenn rushed forwards, jumping in between the men and pushing them away from each other. 'Hey, hey! Stop! Now!' He looked at both men, making sure they were calm before fully turning to face Abraham. 'Do you really think that you're gonna be any safer leaving right now in the middle of the night?' He questioned.
'Yeah,' the ginger nodded.
'What about tomorrow?' Glenn asked him. 'We need each other for this. We need each other to get to D.C. We can get through all of it together.'
Abraham stared at the Asian, the words slowly seeming to reach his stubborn brain.
'I have an idea,' Milo spoke up, looking at Abraham. 'If you stay just one more day and help, I'll go with you to D.C. I promised I would and I intend to keep that promise. Okay?'
'Me too,' Tara spoke up, walking up to stand by Milo's side. 'No matter what.'
Abraham stared at the two of them, nodding slowly before turn to look at Glenn, who still stood by his side. 'Glenn and Maggie too,' he said.
'No,' Rick immediately spoke.
'Good luck then,' Abraham replied. 'I'm not interested in breaking up what you have here. Rosita grab your gear.'
She whispered his name, shaking her head but he refused to listen. 'Now,' he said sharply. 'Eugene, let's go.' He turned to look at the scientist, who was seated on one of the benches, staring ahead of him, as if lost in thought. 'Eugene,' Abraham repeated. 'Move it.'
'I don't want to,' Eugene muttered.
'Now,' Abraham spoke impatiently.
'Okay,' the scientist sighed, standing up from his seat and walking towards the door, slowly followed by the others.
But Milo stayed right where he was. If Abraham refused to stay just one night to help, then he refused to go with him and help them. He had to know his sister was okay first, only then he would go to Washington. Abraham wasn't the only one he had made a promise to. He made the promise to protect his sister was made the day she was born and nothing would ever be more important.
'You're not taking the bus,' Rick suddenly said, making the three freeze in their movements.
'Try to stop me,' Abraham replied, his back still turned to them.
A moment passed in which Rick seemed to consider his options before he suddenly marched forwards, only for Glenn to race after him, once again jumping in between the men. 'Hey, hey, hey. Stop!' He looked between the soldier and the cop, his gaze filled with sadness as he finally turned to look at Abraham. 'You stay. You stay and help us, and we will go with you.'
'No,' Rick said once again.
'It's not your call,' Glenn told the man, even though pain was clearly visible in his eyes. 'You stay, help us,' he said once again, turning his gaze to meet Abraham his eyes.
Now it was up to the soldier to consider his options but Milo knew what the smart play was and knew Abraham would choose to accept his offer. 'Half a day,' he finally said. 'Come high noon, we're taillights. I'm not waiting for the other damn shoe to drop.'
'And we will leave with you,' Maggie confirmed, making Abraham nod.
'Twelve hours,' the soldier spoke. 'Then we go.'
A U T H O R 'S N O T E
Hi, I'm back! I'm really sorry for the lack of updates this week but I was on vacation and, sadly, there was no wifi. Which was actually great because I read like four books in a week. It's truly amazing what you can achieve if you have no internet. But anyway I'm back now and ready to update again!
Also, I have some really fun news! Since you guys all loved my trailers so much I thought I would create some for you guys! So, I opened a trailer shop especially for walking dead fanfics. You can find it in the graphic book on So, if you're writing a walking dead fanfic and looking for an awesome trailer, go request! What are you waiting for?!
Much love,
xXx
UYM