She holds the spoon near his left eye and murmurs, “Don’t pass out on me—we’re not done yet.”
The edge of the spoon is cold as she begins to shovel out his eyeball. It reminds him of the time the dentist had to drill into a cavity way in the back of his mouth—it hurt so, so, so, so, sooooooooooo bad—and he got a lollipop afterward, which made him feel a little better, but this time there’s no lollipop, and it hurts worse than he thought possible. He even hears the yucky sounds—like when his mama pulls a chicken apart for dinner—the snotty, wet smacking noises. As the Lady from Borneo digs out his eyeball, the thing eventually uncorks from its socket.
He feels like clapping for this amazing dark lady who manages to leave the eyeball lying halfway down his face, hanging on strands of nerves and icky red stuff like wet party streamers.
His vision now goes completely haywire and it’s like he’s on a thrill ride—like when his daddy took him and his brother Brian to the Heart of Georgia State Fair and they rode the Zipper—and everything is spinning. He can still see—kind of—out of the hanging eyeball. And he can still see out of his other eye. And what he sees right then makes him feel bad for the Great Wild Warrior Woman from Borneo.
She’s crying.
Tears roll down her brown, shiny face as she crouches in front of Philip, and Philip feels sad himself all of a sudden for this poor lady. Why is she crying? She’s staring at him like a lost child, like a little girl who has just done something very bad.
Then something else happens that gets Philip Blake’s attention.
A loud knocking on the door brings him back to the here and now. He blinks his one good eye, and the lady blinks away her tears, and they both hear the deep, angry, male voice outside the door.
“GOVERNOR! YOU IN THERE?!”
All at once, the calliope music stops and little Philip Blake is no longer at the carnival.
*
Michonne grabs her sword, stands, and faces the doorway—paralyzed with indecision. She hasn’t completed her masterpiece, the most important piece of the puzzle about to be put in place, but now the whole thing may have to be—on many levels—cut short.
She turns to the grotesque remains on the floor—the man barely clinging to life—and starts to say something to him when the voice booms outside the door.
“YO!—PHIL! OPEN UP! THE CRAZY BITCH IS GONE, MAN! THE DOCTOR AND ALICE—AND THE OTHER TWO AS WELL!” The creak of wood, a snapping noise.
Michonne looks down at the Governor as an enormous thud reverberates. She extends the tip of the katana sword toward his groin.
Gabe’s voice—unmistakable in its gravelly, heavily accented bark—rises an octave outside the door: “WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOUR DOOR, MAN?! WHAT’S GOING ON?! SAY SOMETHING, SIR! WE’RE COMING IN!”
Another massive thud—perhaps both Gabe and Bruce putting their shoulders into it, or perhaps a makeshift battering ram out there—the hinges already cracking, raining down dust, threatening to burst where Michonne had hastily nailed them back up.
Michonne holds the sword centimeters from the Governor’s flaccid penis.
“Looks like what’s left of that thing could possibly heal if you survive this,” she says softly to him, her voice so low now she could be talking to a lover. She has no idea whether he can even hear her, or comprehend her. “And we wouldn’t want that.”
With a single flick of her wrist, she expertly severs the man’s penis at its base, the blood bubbling and percolating as the organ flops lifelessly to the wooden flooring next to the man.
Michonne turns and darts out of the room, and she has already traversed the length of the apartment, thrown open a window, climbed out, and made it halfway down the fire escape when the door finally gives way.
*
Bruce lurches into the apartment first. Bald head glistening, eyes wide and hot, he nearly stumbles to the floor. Gabe lunges in behind him, fists clenched, eyes quickly scanning.
“FUCK!” Bruce whirls when he hears the tiny snarling voice of the dead child. “FUCK!” He sees Penny chained up for safekeeping across the foyer. “FUCK!—FUCK!—FUCK!” He smells the heavy stench of bodily fluids and the blood of an abattoir in the air. He looks around. “FUCK!-FUCK!-FUCK!-FUCK!-FUCK!—FUCK!!”
“Look out!” Gabe shoves Bruce aside when the little dead girl reaches for them, stretching her chains, snapping her tiny black teeth at the air near Bruce’s torso. Gabe hollers, “Get away from her!”
“Oh fuck … fuck,” Bruce utters suddenly when he turns toward the archway into the living room. He sees the gruesome remains of Penny’s meal. “Governor! Oh—fuck!”
*
In the calm, pristine darkness of the clearing, under the vast rural sky, Austin Ballard finally breaks the silence. “You know what? I just realized … I can build a little nursery in that sun room in the back of my apartment.”
Lilly nods. “That would be nice.” She thinks about it. “I saw a cradle in the warehouse nobody’s using.” She thinks some more. “Call me crazy but I think this is going to work out.”
Austin reaches over to her, and pulls her into a soft embrace. They sit on the same stump now, holding each other. Lilly kisses his hair. He smiles and pulls her tighter. “Woodbury’s the safest place we could be right now,” he says softly.
She nods. “I know … I get the sense the Governor’s got things under control.”
Austin squeezes her tenderly. “And Stevens and Alice can deliver the baby.”
“Good point.” She smiles to herself. “I think we’re in good hands.”
“Yep.” Austin stares at the night. “The Governor’s gonna keep us safe.” He smiles. “This is the best situation in the world to start a new life.”
Lilly gives him another nod. Her smile could power an entire city. “I like the sound of that—a new life—it has a nice ring to it.”
For the first time in her life, she actually feels like everything’s going to be okay.