Entombed

The night grew darker as we waited for Shane and Otis to return. Hershel was beginning to insist that he proceed with the surgery on the young boy. After that, headlights flashed our way. I grinned as I rushed out of the house and towards the approaching car. They were okay.

I stopped when I noticed that Shane was the only person getting out of the truck. My lips parted and my breath shortened. “Where’s my uncle?” I asked. “Where’s Otis?”

Shane’s eyes constantly met the ground and eventually, he just shook his head.

The denial hit me like a bullet train at full speed. I shook my head as tears fell from my eyes. Then suddenly, I clenched my fists and rushed towards Shane with a hard shove. “What did you do to him?!” I shouted angrily.

Two strong arms came around my waist and I was soon dragged several feet away. The man named Rick blocked my view of Shane and met me at eye level. “You need to calm down, okay?” he said. “I know it must be hard to deal with this, but right now, you can’t go pointing fingers like that. He hasn’t even told us what happened yet.”

My head fell into my hands and I began to sob. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare and have all these people gone. If they had never been here, I wouldn’t have just lost my uncle. I wanted to scream at Rick and tell him to fuck off, but he was right--I needed to calm down.

His arms came around me and my tears soaked into his shirt. He reeked of blood and sweat, but it eased my mind somehow and let me know that I wasn’t the only one struggling in this world. I cried like I’d never been able to in a very long time. Despite the fact that Rick was a stranger, he still held me. That was when my mind was suddenly changed about him and his people. They weren’t animals like the other people I’d encountered. They were still human inside.

Hershel requested that we keep Otis’ death from Patricia until after the procedure. I wasn’t sure if I agreed with that, but I realized that Patricia was the only one who could assist Hershel in such a stressful situation.

After I’d stopped crying, I remained on the front porch while Hershel worked on Carl. I was in a state of shock and blocked out all of my surroundings. I didn’t want to believe that Otis was dead and that horrible things happened to good people like him. He didn’t deserve to die the way he did. He deserved to reach a very old age and die in peace.

But, then again, dying like that wasn’t possible these days.

“Are you okay?”

I jumped out of my negative state of mind and turned my head. Glenn was standing a few feet away, looking down at me with a sympathetic expression. I nodded my head and rose from the floorboards. “Did you need something?” I asked.

He rose his eyebrows and shook his head. “No, no, I was just checking to see if you were okay. I’m sorry about Otis. Maggie just told me that he was your uncle.”

“Thank you.” I walked up to the wooden railing and rested my elbows on it, eyeing Shane like a snake. He was still leaning against the truck, staring down at his feet. I briefly heard him mumble what happened earlier, but I didn’t want to believe it.

“He looks pretty traumatized, doesn’t he?” Glenn asked.

He was standing beside me and had followed the trail of my eyes.

“Yeah,” I said nonchalantly. “What do you think happened?”

“Didn’t he say that the walkers caught up to him?”

I looked up at Glenn. “Would it be wrong if I said I don’t believe that?”

“Uh... no, I guess,” he replied. “But Shane is usually the kind of guy that doesn’t leave people behind. I don’t think he would do that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to imply anything about him. I shouldn’t be saying anything--I don’t know you guys well enough to do that.”

“It’s okay,” Glenn said. I could feel his eyes on me and it made me uncomfortable until I realized that it was only out of concern.

Our heads turned when the front door opened and Hershel emerged. Rick was the first person to reach him. “He’s going to hold up,” Hershel said.

Despite the happiness that the news brought, we all had one more issue to deal with--breaking the news to Patricia about Otis’ death. When Rick volunteered to go in with him, I did the same.

Patricia was washing her hands at the kitchen sink when the three of us walked in. She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of our footsteps. “Patricia,” Hershel said.

The confused look on her face pained me and I forced myself not to start crying. She stared at me and then at the two men at either side of her. “What is it?” she asked, trembling.

Rick cleared his throat and sighed. “Otis didn’t make it... I’m sorry.”

Patricia lost her balance and they caught her, lowering her into the chair in front of her. Her crying triggered mine and I kneeled beside her, wrapping my arms around her. Her sobbing echoed throughout the kitchen and the only thing I could do was hold her tight.

Footsteps coming from the front door caused me to look up. Shane was standing there, staring at Patricia in guilt. A few seconds later, he hurried away from us and further into the house.

I continued to stare at the empty space where he had been standing. I was never going to stop suspecting him.

Not until I got the truth.

--

The next morning, we all built a cairn from different stones and rocks collected around the farm. We all gathered around the cairn as Hershel read a passage from the Bible. I had my arm around Patricia during the entire reading. Last night, she hadn’t stopped crying. She could barely shut her eyes without waking up from a nightmare about Otis.

Hershel asked Shane to say a few words about Otis’ death, but Shane quietly refused, which raised my suspicions even more. Patricia pleaded that he speak, so that she could know that Otis’ death had meaning.

Shane began to explain everything. They’d been down to nothing and his ankle was swelling up from his fall. Otis had said that Shane should go ahead and that he would cover him. And when Shane looked back, Otis was already gone.

“If not for Otis,” he said. “I would’ve never made it out alive. That goes for Carl, too. It was Otis. He saved us both... If any death ever had meaning, it was his.”

Shane stepped forward and picked up a stone from the wheelbarrow and placed it on the cairn. After that, we all took turns to place down final stones. Everyone began to clear out, but I remained in place.

I suddenly wished that I could turn back time and go with Shane and Otis to the high school--to make sure we would all make it back.

I watched Shane limp back to the RV that his group had brought along. I still couldn’t believe him. There was just that look in his eye that wasn’t right. It was impossible for me to be the only one who saw it.

I recalled where I’d seen that look before.


--

I ran into town and beheld the sight of atrocious behavior. It had only been a week since the outbreak.The town was still being torn apart and several people were raiding each and every building for whatever they wanted.

I snuck by the people that posed a threat to my life and entered the grocery store with a list in my hand that Maggie had written. I slinked through the aisles, watching each step I took, and dropped the scarce items into my duffel bag.

A hand came over my mouth and successfully muffled my shriek. The person behind me shoved me forward and I hit the ground, the cans of food noisily spilling out of my bag. I turned and saw a man hovering above me. He had dark rings around his eyes and cracked lips. He wore a white t-shirt underneath a blue button-up that looked like a work uniform for a car repair shop. His jeans were torn and covered in dirt.

“Put all that food back into that bag and give it to me,” he demanded. He moved his arm and revealed the axe that he’d been hiding behind his back. “Now.”

I stared up at him in shock and felt like pissing myself. I clenched my jaw and shook my head. “No.”

“Now!” he screamed.

I looked down at the patch on the left breast of his button-up shirt. “Dave,” it read. He must have been at work when the outbreak happened and hadn’t changed his clothes ever since.

“Fuck off!” I screamed back at him. I started to shove the items back into my bag and rise to my feet when he kicked me in the stomach.

I grunted as my body fell to the floor once again. I shut my eyes from the excruciating pain from my head hitting the tile. When I opened them again, he was on his knees, above me, and held his axe above his head.

“Change your mind yet?” he asked with a grin on his face. Despite his smile, there was a glimmer in his eye that gave me chills. The moonlight shining through the windows of the storefront reflected in his eyes and suddenly, I saw...

There was nothing human left inside of him.

Adrenaline rushed throughout my blood and I reached behind me and grabbed a can. I swung my arm and the can collided with his forehead. He shouted and fell over, the axe clattering on the tile.

I rushed to my feet and hauled the duffel bag over my shoulder. I grabbed his axe and sprinted out of the store, leaving him in pain.

--

Thinking about that traumatizing memory caused everything to click in my head. I certainly had no doubt about it.

Shane murdered Otis.