Lilly grins. “You’re gonna drive me crazy with this Jewish mother routine.”
Austin ignores the comment. “Are you warm enough? You need another blanket?”
She sighs. “I’m fine, Austin … for God’s sake stop worrying about me.”
He hands her a cup of juice, and pulls a small baggie from his pocket.
“Okay, I’ll go first,” he says. Inside the Ziploc are half an ounce of marijuana, a little metal pipe, and some rolling papers. He looks wistfully at the paraphernalia and says, “Time to put away childish things.” He raises his cup. “Here’s to a lifelong love affair with weed.” He looks at the bag. “You got me through a lot of rough shit but it’s time to go.”
He tosses the pot in the hole.
Lilly raises her cup. “Here’s to sobriety … it’s a bitch but it’s for the best.”
They drink.
*
“I can’t believe she just left us like that,” the young man named Glenn says after climbing up the wall. His body armor creaks as he stands in the wind on the edge of the lift platform, helping Alice scale the wall. The nurse is having trouble—her upper body strength not what it could be—and she labors to pull herself onto the perch. Glenn grunts with effort as he pulls her over the precipice. “Should we help her? I’m not crazy about that guy either.”
Rick stands on the platform behind Glenn, watching Martinez reaching down to Stevens, hoisting the doctor up the side of the barricade. “Trust me, Glenn,” Rick says softly, “we’d probably just slow her down. Our safest bet is getting out now while we can.”
The doctor struggles up the wall and cobbles onto the platform to join the others.
Martinez makes sure everyone is okay. They all take deep breaths, turning and gazing out at the wasted landscape on the other side of the rampart. They can see the neighboring woods through a narrow gap between two derelict buildings. The night wind swirls litter across empty dirt roads, the crumbling ruins of train trestles in the distance like fallen giants. The moon has risen full and high—a lunatic’s moon—and the milky light puts an exclamation point on all the dark crevices, shadowy alcoves, and snaking ravines that could potentially contain biters.
Rick takes another breath and gives Glenn a reassuring pat on the back. “Michonne can take care of herself,” he says in a low voice. “Besides, I get the impression this is something she’d want to do alone.”
“Ladies first,” Martinez says to Alice, indicating the far edge of the platform.
Alice takes a tentative step toward the ledge, filling her lungs with breath.
Martinez helps her find a foothold, and then he lowers her down the outer wall. “There you go,” he says, his hands gripping her under the armpits. He accidentally brushes the sides of her breasts. “You’re okay. Almost there.”
“Just watch the hands,” Alice says, scuffing and grunting down the side of the wall, until she finally hops down to the dirt road, raising a small cloud of dust. She crouches instinctively, looking around the danger zone, her eyes wide and her hackles up.
Martinez lowers Glenn down next, and then the doctor. The two men land next to Alice in the dirt, raising more dust. The silence is broken by their heavy, tense breathing—and the drumming of their hearts in their ears—as each of them turn and survey the dark road ahead of them, which leads out of town and into the black oblivion of night.
They hear the scuffling sounds of Martinez coming down the wall. The tall man lands with a thump, the weapons slung over his back rattling, and then he gazes back up at the parapet. “Okay, Rick … let’s go.”
Up on the platform, Rick tucks his bandaged stump against his sternum. “This ain’t going to be easy,” he murmurs. “You guys got me?”
“We got you, brother.” Martinez reaches up for him. “Just ease on down.”
Rick starts awkwardly lowering himself down the outer wall with one hand.
“Jesus,” Alice says, watching. “Don’t drop him. Be careful!”
Martinez catches the hundred-and-eighty-pound man with a grunt, easing him to the ground. Rick exhales a pained breath and looks around.
Across the dirt clearing, Dr. Stevens stands in the shadows of an abandoned storefront, a weather-beaten sign hanging by a thread, with the words MCCALLUM FEED AND SEED. He lets out a sigh of relief and checks his satchel for any damage. The glass vials of antibiotics and painkillers remain intact, the instruments in good order. “I just can’t believe we made it out of there so easily,” he mumbles, checking the last of the bag’s contents. “I mean, the walls aren’t exactly meant to keep people in … but…”
Behind the doctor, a shadow moves in the depths of the ramshackle doorway of McCallum’s. Nobody notices it. Nor does anybody hear the clumsy, shuffling footsteps faintly crackling over detritus and packing straps, moving toward their voices.
“I’m just so damn relieved,” Stevens is saying, snapping the satchel shut.
The figure lurches out of the doorway—just a blur of teeth, ragged clothing, and mottled fish-belly skin in the darkness—and clamps its jaws down on the closest human flesh in its path.
*
Sometimes the victim doesn’t even see it coming until it’s too late, which is maybe, on some fundamental level, the most merciful way for things to go down.