Tonight the World Dies

My mind feels fuzzy and heavy, like someone has shoved cotton balls into my skull, and I’m vaguely aware of muddled voices around me. I move my tongue and attempt to speak, but it, too, feels heavy and mouth is like sandpaper. All I manage is a strangled whine, but it’s enough. The voices are closer and as my mind straightens itself out, I can make out words.

“Candace? Candace, can you hear me?” It’s Maggie. I struggle to open my eyes; why do I feel so goddamn heavy all over? My vision is blurry, but I can make out the shape of Maggie’s head, her short dark hair hanging in her face as she looks down at me. When my vision focuses and I blink, Maggie chokes a mixture of a laugh and a sob.

“Hi,” I groan. She returns the sentiment and turns to address someone I can’t see. My question is answered when two more heads appear above me. One of them is Rick, and relief is evident in his blue eyes. The other woman is blonde and wears a pair of glasses, which she shoves up her nose.

“Hi, Candace?” I nod. “My name’s Denise. How’re you feeling?”

“Heavy and…numb. What happened? Where am I?” I question. My tongue laps at my dry, chapped lips, and Maggie disappears for a moment. I hear the sound of a faucet—running water?!—and then she’s back, holding a glass of water to my mouth. I drink greedily, nearly choking. I cough, and when I recover, I take a moment to look around.

I’m in a house that has clearly been converted into an infirmary. The mattress beneath me is incredibly comfortable, and everything is so clean it damn near sparkles. An IV drip stand sits beside my bed, and a white cabinet is open, showing off the array of medical supplies. I look to Denise as she begins to run through what happened. Bear trap, infection, passing out in some building. My memory is fuzzy, but I distinctly remember teetering along the edge of death. My blood runs cold as I take in the sight of my ankle. It is bound heavily to the point that I can’t move it.

“I had to lance the infection. You had a bad case of blood poisoning, but I’ve kept you on antibiotics since you came in.”

“How long have I been out?” I ask, furrowing my eyebrows.

“Three days. Your infection was pretty severe.” Three days?

“Where the hell am I? Rick?” I look to our leader and he holds his hands out, laying one of them on my shoulder. It’s a small gesture but it does wonders for my anxiety, which is steadily skyrocketing.

“We’re in a community called Alexandria. We’re all here and safe. We’ve been given a couple houses from their leader, Deanna.”

“She’ll want to speak to you as soon as you’re able,” Denise cuts in. “Would you be up for it today?”

“I…I guess.”

“Great. I’ll be back shortly. There are some crackers in that drawer over there, Maggie, for her.”

Wordlessly I’m handed a small square of saltine crackers. My stomach growls loudly, and I have to force myself to not inhale them; it’s been quite a while since I’ve eaten, and forcing too much into my stomach would be counterproductive. I nibble on the crackers as Maggie sits on the bed beside me.

“We were all so worried about you…” she says. I swallow at the shininess of her eyes. “There was one moment, in the barn, when we thought we lost you. Your pulse was next to nothing. It was a good thing Aaron showed up when he did.” I don’t miss the pointed look she sends in Rick’s direction; our leader clenches his jaw and looks down at the floor, hands on his hips.

“Who’s Aaron?”

“He’s a recruiter for Alexandria. He showed up one morning and he had antibiotics in his pack, so we gave you one to keep you alive. Seemed to have worked. And then we got you here and Denise took care of you. She says you’ll make a full recovery.”

“When can I get out of here?” Maggie pauses and I start. “My ankle is bound to the point where I can’t move it. I’m sure these people have crutches. Please. I don’t do well on bedrest.”

“We’ll see what Denise and Pete say when they return,” Rick says with a note of finality. Before anything else can be said, a short, older woman with red hair steps into the room, smiling brightly. I bristle, and Rick’s hand on my shoulder squeezes.

“Well, look who’s awake! My name is Deanna. I need to ask you some questions,” the woman says. She glances at Rick and Denise, and the two of them step from the room, the former doing so reluctantly.

“Can Maggie stay?” I ask hurriedly before she can leave. Deanna seems to hesitate, pursing her lips before she nods and holds up a device in her hands.

“Do you mind if I film this?” It’s a video camera, and for a moment I’m so stunned that it still exists. I nod wordlessly, and Deanna sets up a tripod and takes a seat in front of me at the end of the bed. Not so politely, Deanna gestures to Maggie to step out of the frame. With narrowed eyes, she does, and Deanna leaps into her questions. “Let’s start with your name?”

“Candace Carr,” I reply with little hesitation.

“How long have you been out there?”

“Since the beginning, I suppose.”

“What did you do before all of this?”

“I worked as an accountant for a marketing firm.” Deanna’s mouth sets in a thin line as she mulls my answer over.

“And how did you come to join Rick’s group?”

I shrug. “They stumbled upon the church I was holding up in with Gabriel. They stuck around for a while, and when they left, they let me tag along.”

“Well, that was nice of them. Were they your only group?”

I still and it does not go unnoticed by neither Maggie nor Deanna. “No.”

“What happened to them?”

“What happens to every group eventually. They died.” I quickly grow irritated with her questioning, and Deanna seems to sense my unwillingness to continue. I don’t like this line of questioning, and fortunately, she shuts off the camera. She bids me a quick recovery and promises me she’ll have a job for me when I’m fully recovered, and she leaves. Maggie takes her seat on the bed beside me.

“What was the point of all that?”

“I’m not sure,” Maggie replies honestly. “She did it to all of us. I thought Daryl was going to blow a gasket when he stormed out of her house after she questioned him. Can only imagine what she asked him.”

I huff a short agreement and my mind wanders momentarily to the hunter. I’m reminded of his blatant worry for me; I remember his giving me his share of his squirrel before we found the barn, and I recall hearing his voice in my subconscious. My eyes wander the room and settle on the crutches that are leaning against the counter on the other side of the room. Denise must have dropped them off.

“Get me those crutches. You’re breaking me out of this joint.”

“But Rick said…”

“Rick’s not me. I feel fine. Come on, Mags.” She looks reluctant, but at my insistence she does what I ask. She adjusts the crutches for me and helps me balance on them.

It takes me a few moments to get the hang of hobbling on them, but soon, Maggie is leading me out of the house and onto the streets of Alexandria. I am awestruck by the sight before me. The streets are just that. Streets, hidden behind massive metal walls. People walk the streets with baby carriages and pets and other people. The streets are clean, and the neighborhood is dotted with similar-looking houses in what is clearly a cookie-cutter housing development. Everything is clean, including the clothing the residents wear, like it hasn’t even been touched by the end of the world.

“How…?” I murmur to myself.

“Deanna says she and her husband started the community right after the Turn. This place has been standing ever since,” Maggie explains for me. I hobble out into the sunlight, and the stairs of the house present a small struggle for me. I hop on one foot down them, my hand on the railing and the crutches tucked into the crook of my elbow.

I resume my hobbling as Maggie leads me down the street. The Alexandrians pause in their activities to watch me like I’m some animal at the zoo. It unnerves me and I speed up my hopping. Maggie brings me to two nearly identical houses side-by-side.

“These are the two houses Deanna gave us. She says we’ll each get our own once we settle in. Rick thought it would be a good idea to all hunker down in one for a little while.” Maggie helps me up the stairs and the front door swings open. Rick’s frame takes up the doorway.

“I thought you were on bedrest.” His tone is annoyingly fatherly, and I roll my eyes.

“Going stir-crazy in there.”

“You were only awake twenty minutes,” he points out. Traces of a smirk cross his features, and I give him my own crooked smile. “Come on. Everyone will be happy to see you up and walking.”

And they are. I’m swarmed with hugs from all ends, except for Carol, who stands against the wall in the living room with her arms crossed. An unreadable expression is on her face; she looks neither thrilled nor upset that I am up and walking, much less alive. The one person notably absent is the one I find myself missing the most, and Maggie picks up on it as she watches my eyes bounce across the room. I’m not sure why it takes me so long, but amidst my evaluation of the group, I notice that they’re clean too—skin free of dirt and fresh, clean clothes adorning their bodies.

“They have showers?” I ask, taking in Rick’s ironed button-up. They all smile widely at me, nodding. I exhale heavily, and the sudden sound of boots thumping down the stairs draws my attention the staircase to the right of the front door.

Daryl’s mostly clean form appears before my eyes, and he’s startled to see me at the bottom of the stairs. His hair is wet and in his face, and his skin is clear of dirt and grime, but he still wears his filthy shirt and pants. It’s odd to see him clean and to not smell him at four feet away. A wave is all I can muster.

“Yer up,” is all he says. He chews the inside of his cheek for a moment before giving me a single nod. It’s the best I’m going to get with our current audience. Silence settles over the room as the group watches our interaction, and then all of a sudden Maggie is ushering me to hop up the stairs.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she says. I can feel the room’s eyes on me as I hop pathetically on one foot until I’m out of breath at the top of the landing. I crutch to the bathroom and Maggie closes the bathroom door behind us.

Again, I am stunned by the pristine state of the bathroom. Slate-blue tiled floors, a walk-in shower, marble countertops and numerous unopened packages of toothbrushes. I lean heavily against the counter, drinking it all in, as Maggie turns on the shower. I whimper before I can think better of it. I’ve been so deprived of general hygiene that I almost can’t take it. Maggie sets the crutches aside and I balance on one foot as she helps me out of my clothing. Modesty is the least of my worries in my current state, and I’m just thankful for the help. Once I’m fully stripped, I bounce as quickly as I can into the shower, making sure to keep my bound ankle outside the spray of the shower.

Maggie leaves me to shower and I promise to call her when I’m finished. When she’s gone, I let out a long, content moan at the feeling of the hot water on my skin. I turn up the temperature and the bathroom is quickly filled with steam. The water swirling at my feet is quickly tinged with brown and red. I squeeze a sizeable amount of shampoo into my hands and desperately work it through my tangled, greasy hair, noticing that the suds, too, are brown. I cringe as I dig my nails into my scalp, relishing in the feel of my hair finally being clean. I nearly laugh when I see the bottle of conditioner, and again, I dump a huge amount into my hands and run it through my hair and let it sit.

My hands grasp for the can of shaving cream and the razor. I smear the cream on my legs, underarms, and my bikini line and make quick work of ridding my body of the unwanted overgrown hair. The razor and the shaving cream come away dirty as well, and then I’m scrubbing my body with a loofah loaded with lilac-scented body wash. My skin is pink by the time I rinse, and I run my hands through my hair to rinse the conditioner out. Just for the hell of it, I stay in the shower for a few minutes longer, just relishing in the feel of being goddamn clean.

Eventually, I shut the water off, and I call for Maggie, who’s sitting right outside the door. She hurries in and helps me towel off. There’s a bottle of lotion under the sink and, sitting down on the closed toilet lid, I smear it over my legs, arms, stomach, and anywhere else I can reach. Then, for the hell of it, I rub my newly-bare legs together. Maggie giggles.

“I did that too. It’s amazing, isn’t it? How shaved legs seems to make everything better?” she says. I nod emphatically and she hands me a stick of deodorant. I stare at it as if it’s alive and talking to me. “I know.”

“This is gonna take some getting used to…” I say as Maggie helps me dress in a new pair of undergarments—thank god—a pair of bootcut jeans, which are difficult to pull on due to my lathered bare legs, and a navy-blue tank top. I shove my good foot into a new sock, and I make sure my ankle’s dressings are dry.

I towel dry my hair in front of the mirror and desperately avoid looking over my gaunt frame. I quickly French-braid my hair into a plait down my back and before I know it, I’m back on my crutches and hopping down the stairs. The others are still in the living room, Daryl included, and I’m quickly filled in on the situation with Deanna, who was both looking for me and stopped by to assign jobs to the others. The only ones without them are Daryl and myself. I purse my lips.

As the others discuss dinner plans, I find myself wanting to explore the community. When I voice this, Maggie quickly volunteers. I don’t stop her, and with a murmured ‘be careful’ from Rick, we’re out the door.

“So,” Maggie says as we’re halfway down the street. We’re heading in the direction of the infirmary, and Maggie is pointing out all of the various buildings—the pantry, infirmary, a library, a school… It’s all here, intact, and it sends my mind reeling. “You gonna tell me what that look between you and Mr. Dixon was?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. I know what she’s getting at, but since I haven’t even figured out an answer to it, I decide to play dumb.

“Come on, Candace. You can’t lie to your best friend.” I stop my hobbling, and Maggie stops a few steps ahead when she realizes I’m not beside her. Another heavy weight sits in my chest at the realization; Maggie really is my best friend. After so long without people, without civilization, and without the normalcies that Before brought, I had never thought I’d have another best friend ever again. The thought that I have one now nearly brings tears to my eyes.

I sigh when she stares at me expectantly. “I don’t have an answer to that.”

“Well, there’s obviously something there.” I chew on my bottom lip, picking at the chapped skin. “And I don’t think I’m the only one who’s noticed either.”

I cut my eyes to her. “Who else thinks that?”

Maggie gives me an incredulous look. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m not really sure what her problem is. It started that day…the day Tyreese passed away, when we buried Beth,” I whisper, watching Maggie’s face. It crumples, but she holds it together. “Abraham told me to keep an eye on him, so that’s what I did. To be honest, nothing worth noting happened out there, and I’m not really sure what’s happening now.”

“Well, do you want something to happen?” Maggie presses.

I sigh again. “I don’t know. I think, right now, I’m a little shell-shocked from all of this. I don’t really have room for anything else. What’s the deal with this place anyways? Everyone looks so…”

“Stepford Wives? Yeah, I got that too. I’m not really sure, but Deanna’s taken me under her wing, so I’m going to find out. There’s no way this place goes through all this and comes out unscathed.”