Her full name was Christina Meredith Haben, and she grew up in Kirkwood, Georgia, and she went away to college in the 1980s to study telecommunications at Oberlin. She had a child out of wedlock that she carried to term and then gave up for adoption on the day after 9/11. She had suffered through a series of romantic misadventures in her life, never found Mr. Right, never married, and always considered herself wed to her job as the senior segment producer at one of the biggest stations in the South. She had won three Emmys, a Clio, and a couple of Cable Ace awards—all of which made her justifiably proud—and she never felt her superiors respected her or provided her with the remuneration that she deserved.
But at the present moment—on this filthy tile floor, in the glare of fluorescent lights—all of Christina Haben’s regrets, fears, frustrations, hopes, and desires are long gone, vanquished by death, her remains lying scattered across the gore-spattered parquet, while seventeen captive walkers tear into her organs and tissues.
The watery, orgiastic eating noises bounce around the cinder-block walls, as the dead feast on mostly unidentifiable body parts that used to comprise Christina Haben. Blood and spinal fluid and bile mingle in the corners of the room like multicolored cordials, sluicing through the seams in the tile, splashing the walls in blooms of deep scarlet, and drenching the frenzied biters. Selected for their physical integrity, earmarked for the gladiatorial arena, most of these creatures appear to be former adult males, some of them now crouching apelike in the bright light, gnawing on gristly nodules that used to belong to Christina Haben’s lower skeleton.
Across the room, a pair of rectangular portal windows are embedded in a garage door that encloses the room. Within the frame of the window on the left, a gaunt, weathered, mustachioed face peers in at the action.
Standing in the silent corridor outside the enclosure, gazing intently through the window glass, the Governor registers little emotion on his face other than stern satisfaction with what he is seeing. His left ear is bandaged from a recent encounter with the newcomers, and the pain braces him. It makes him clench his fists. It courses down his marrow like electricity, girding him, crystallizing his mission. All his doubt, all his second-guessing—in fact, all his remaining humanity—are being pushed aside by the rage and the vengeance and the voice deep within him that serves as a compass. He knows now the only way to keep this tinderbox from going up in flames. He knows what he must do now in order to—
The shuffling of footsteps from the opposite end of the corridor interrupts his thoughts.
*
Lilly has her arm around Austin as she reaches the bottom of the stairs, turns a corner, and hurries down the main corridor that cuts through the foul-smelling, cinder-block catacombs of garages and service bays beneath the arena.
At first she doesn’t see the dark figure standing alone at the far end of the corridor, gazing through the portal window. She’s too preoccupied with Austin’s injury, and the effort required just to keep pressure on the wound with her right hand as she shuffles along toward the infirmary.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” the figure says as Lilly and Austin approach.
“Oh … hey,” Lilly says awkwardly as she shuffles up with Austin dripping a few blood droplets on the floor, nothing life-threatening, but enough to be worrisome. “Gotta get this one to the doctor.”
“Hope the other guy looks worse,” the Governor jokes as Lilly and Austin pause outside the battered garage door.
Austin manages a smirk, his long, damp curls hanging in his face. “It’s nothing … just a flesh wound … fell on my knife like an idiot.” He holds his side. “Bleeding’s basically stopped, totally okay now.”
Very faintly the muffled noises of the feeding frenzy can be heard through the sealed glass. It sounds like an immense stomach growling. Lilly gets a glimpse through the nearest window of the gruesome orgy going on in the pen, and she glances at Austin, who sees it too. They say nothing. The sight of it barely registers to Lilly. Once upon a time she would have been repulsed. She glances back at the Governor. “They’re getting their vitamins and minerals, I see.”
“Nothing is wasted around here,” the Governor says with a shrug, nodding toward the window. “Poor gal from the helicopter up and died on us … internal injuries from the crash, I guess … poor thing.” He turns toward the glass and looks in. “She and the pilot are serving a larger purpose now.”
Lilly sees the bandaged ear. She shoots another glance at Austin, who also stares at the Governor’s blood-spotted bandage and the mangled ear underneath.
“It’s none of my business,” Austin says finally, pointing at the ear. “But are you okay? Looks like you got a nasty wound yourself.”
“Them new people, came in tonight,” the Governor murmurs, not taking his gaze off the window. “Turned out to be more of a liability than I first thought.”
“Yeah, I saw you with them earlier.” Austin perks up. “You were kinda taking them on a tour of the place, right? What happened?”
The Governor turns and looks directly at Lilly as though she asked the question. “I try to extend every courtesy to people, show them hospitality. We’re all in the same boat these days, am I right?”
Lilly gives him a nod. “Absolutely, yeah. So what was their problem?”
“Turns out they were a scouting party from another settlement somewhere nearby, and their intentions were not exactly neighborly.”
“What did they do?”
The Governor stares at her. “My guess is, they were going to try and raid us.”
“Raid us?”
“It’s happening all over the place now. Scouts slip in, secure a place, they take everything. Food. Water. The shirt off your back.”
“So what happened?”
“Got into a major tussle with them. I wasn’t gonna let them fuck with us. Not in a million years. One of them—the colored girl—tried to chew my ear off.”
Lilly shares another tense glance with Austin. She looks at the Governor. “Jesus … what is going on? These people are fucking savages.”
“We’re all savages, Lilly-girl. We just gotta be the biggest savages on the block.” He takes a deep breath. “Got into it pretty bad with the main guy. Fella fought back hard. Ended up cutting his hand off.”