forgotten how to use them.
“I never should have…” she starts to explain and then chokes back the words. Her nose runs and she wipes it. Her eyes close. “What have I done … Bob … what the fuck is wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he says softly and puts his arm around her. “I’m with you now, honey. I’ll take care of you.”
She settles down in his arms. Soon she is leaning her head on his shoulder and breathing more regularly. Soon her breaths are coming in low, thick wheezes, as though she might be falling asleep. Bob recognizes the symptoms of shock. Her flesh feels ice-cold in his arms. He wraps the blanket tighter. She nuzzles his neck.
Bob takes deep breaths, waves of emotion slamming through him.
Holding the woman tightly, he gropes for words. His mind races with contrary feelings. He is repulsed by Megan’s story of severed heads and Scott Moon’s dismembered corpse, as well as the fact that she paid the Governor such a questionable visit in the first place. But Bob is also overcome with unrequited desire. The nearness of her lips, the soft whisper of her breath on his collarbone, and the luster of her wild-strawberry roan curls brushing his chin—all of it intoxicates Bob faster and more profusely than a case of twelve-year-old bourbon. He fights the urge to kiss the top of her head.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he murmurs softly in her ear. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Oh, Bob…” Her voice sounds fuzzy, maybe still slightly high. “Bob…”
“Gonna be okay,” he says in her ear, stroking her hair with his greasy, gnarled hand.
She cranes her head up and plants a kiss on his grizzled jawline.
Bob closes his eyes and lets the wave pour over him.
* * *
They sleep together that night, and at first Bob panics at the prospect of being in such close and intimate proximity with Megan for such a long period of time. Bob has not had sex with a woman in eleven years, not since he and his late wife, Brenda, stopped having relations. Decades of drink have put the kibosh on Bob’s virility. But desire still glows within him like a smoldering ember—and he wants Megan so badly tonight he can taste it like Everclear in the back of his throat, like a finger prodding the base of his spine.
The two of them sleep restlessly in each other’s arms, tangled in sweaty blankets on the double bed in the back room. Much to Bob’s relief, they do not even remotely come close to having sex.
Throughout the night, Bob’s feverish thoughts vacillate between half-formed dreams of making love to Megan Lafferty on a desert island, surrounded by zombie-infested waters, and sudden moments of bleary wakefulness in the shadows of that second-floor bedroom. Bob marvels at the miracle of hearing Megan’s arrhythmic breathing next to him, the warmth of her hip nested against his belly, the wonder of her hair in his face, her musky-sweet scent filling his senses. In a strange way he feels whole for the first time since the plague broke out. He feels an oddly invigorating sense of hope. The troubling undercurrents of suspicion and mixed emotions about the Governor melt away in the dark limbo of that bedroom, and the momentary peace that washes over Bob Stookey eventually lulls him into a deep sleep.
Just after dawn he comes awake with a start to a piercing shriek.
At first he thinks he’s still dreaming. The scream comes from somewhere outside, and it registers in Bob’s ears as a ghostly echo, as if the tail end of a nightmare has just brushed across his waking state. In his half- conscious daze he reaches over for Megan and finds her side of the bed empty. The blankets are bunched at his feet. Megan is gone. He sits up with a jolt.
“Megan, honey?”
He gets out of bed and starts toward the door, the floor like ice on his bare feet, when another shriek pierces the winter winds outside his apartment. He does not notice the overturned chair in the kitchen, the drawers open, the cabinet doors agape, the signs of someone rifling through his belongings.
“Megan?”
He races toward the side door, which is partially ajar and banging in the wind.
“Megan!”
He pushes through the doorway and stumbles out onto the second-floor landing, blinking at the harsh, overcast light and the cold wind in his face.
“MEGAN!!”
At first he cannot take in all the movement and commotion around the building. He sees people gathered down below the stairs, across the street, and along the edge of the post office parking lot—maybe a dozen or so— and they’re all pointing at Bob or perhaps at something on the roof. It’s hard to tell. Heart hammering, Bob starts down the stairs. He does not notice the coil of towrope wound around the pilasters of the landing until he reaches the bottom of the stairs.
Bob turns and goes as cold and still as granite. “Oh, Lord, no,” he utters, gazing up at the body dangling from the landing, swaying in the wind, turning lazily. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…”
Megan hangs by a makeshift noose around her neck, her face as discolored and livid as antique porcelain.
* * *
Lilly Caul hears the commotion outside her window above the dry cleaner, and drags herself out of bed. She throws open the shade and sees townspeople gathered outside their doorways, some of them pointing off toward the post office with anxious expressions, speaking under their breaths. Lilly senses that something terrible has happened, and when she sees the Governor striding quickly along the sidewalk in his long coat with his goons, Gabe and Bruce, at his side, snapping ammo magazines into assault weapons, she dresses quickly.
It takes her less than three minutes to throw on her clothes, hustle down the back stairs, make her way down an alley between two buildings, and cross the two and a half blocks to the post office.
The sky churns with menacing clouds, the wind spitting sleet, and by the time Lilly sees the crowd milling about the base of Bob’s stairs, she knows she’s seeing the aftermath of something awful. She can tell by the expressions on the faces of the onlookers, and she can tell by the way the Governor is talking to Bob off to the side, each man gazing at the ground as they talk softly to each other, their faces screwed up with anxiety and grim resolve.
Within the circle of onlookers, Gabe and Bruce kneel on the pavement next to a sheet-covered lump, and the sight of that shrouded heap stops Lilly cold. She stands on the periphery, staring, a trickle of icy dread running down her spine. The sight of another pall-covered body on a street corner strums a terrible chord deep within her.
“Lilly?”
She turns and sees Martinez standing next to her, his leather jacket crisscrossed with a bandolier of bullets. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “She was a friend of yours, wasn’t she?”
“Who is it?”
“Nobody told you?”
“Is it Megan?” Lilly pushes her way past Martinez, shoving aside several onlookers. “What happened?”
Bob Stookey steps into her path, blocking her progress, gently taking her by the shoulders. “Lil, wait, there’s nothing you can do.”
“What happened, Bob?” Lilly blinks at the sting in her eyes, the heavy fist in her chest. “Did a walker get her? Let me go!”
Bob holds fast on her shoulders. “No, ma’am. That’s not what happened.” Lilly notices Bob’s eyes, raw and red rimmed, cratered out with grief. His face trembles with anguish. “These fellas will take care of her.”
“Is she—”
“She’s gone, Lil.” Bob looks down and softly shakes his head. “Took her own life.”
“What— What happened?”
Still looking down, Bob mumbles something about not being sure.
“Let me go, Bob!” Lilly pushes her way through the row of onlookers.
“Whoa! Whoa—
“Let me see her!” Lilly yanks her arm free but Gabe grabs her from behind and puts her in a firm shoulder lock. Lilly wriggles furiously. “LET GO OF ME, GODDAMMIT!”
Ten feet away, on the seared brown grass of the parkway, Bruce, the tall black man with the shaved head,
