She lunges at him and presses her lips on his, and he seems ready for it because he wraps his arms around her and presses his lips back on hers.
The kiss lasts for several seconds, and has a narrative to it, a series of stages, which begins when Lilly opens her mouth and hungrily thrusts her tongue into him, and he responds in kind, probing her with his own tongue, and their embrace tightens and progresses from desperate hugging to mad, intense groping and fondling and caressing and squeezing, and nothing is off-limits now. There is an engine driving both of them. He grabs her breasts and presses his palms against her hardening nipples, and she lets out a little muffled gasp as she presses against his crotch, which has already started to tent outward, and now they move into the second stage as she pins him against the wall, and he starts dry-humping her, and the condensation only adds to the mounting heat between them. The water drips in their hair and on their shoulders as they undulate against each other, their kiss deteriorating into a mad sort of wrestling hold. Their lips are pressing so hard on each other now that they draw blood. Lilly can taste it—coppery and salty on the back of her tongue, gushing warmly—and the flavor of it only fuels her frenzy. She releases his lips and bites his neck, tastes his flesh, and almost inadvertently, like two people who have fallen off a cliff, they careen into stage three. It begins with Calvin’s hands fumbling downward, pulling off his belt, ripping open his fly, prying open her thighs, yanking her waistband down, spinning her toward the wall and shoving into her, shoving, thrusting, shoving, while Lilly lets out little rhythmic cries and rides the lightning bolt that’s building between them. The water has inundated them now, and for one brief, wonderful moment of electric abandon, Lilly has completely lost herself in the liquid lightning, and she doesn’t know her own name or where she is or whom she is with, and there is no plague anymore, and no death, and no misery, no space or time, no physical laws of the universe, there is only the lightning … the blessed, sacred, cleansing lightning.
* * *
At first light the next morning, Lilly wakes up shivering on the floor of the corridor, a shipping blanket tossed haphazardly over her and Calvin, who lies asleep next to her, his brow furrowed and knitted with a nightmare. A thin beam of daylight filters through a boarded window. The small of Lilly’s back is stuck to the floor in the grit and moisture. For a moment, she feels like a piece of garbage—on many levels—as she peels herself off the floor and sits up, rubbing her sore eyes and stretching her neck. Calvin stirs. He blinks and clears his throat as he slowly awakens, suddenly sitting up as though startled.
“Oh, wow,” he says, rubbing a kink out of his neck and looking at his pants still bunched around his ankles. “Oh, my … I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Let’s not make a big deal out of it,” Lilly says as she pulls her clothes back on, swallowing the taste of dried blood and sleep in her mouth. “It happened. It is what it is. You’re still the same good person you were before last night. Case closed.”
He looks at her. He blinks some more, and he tries to latch onto her words. “Case closed? Does that mean—”
“It doesn’t mean anything … I don’t know what it means, I don’t know what I’m saying exactly, I’m not thinking straight.” She runs her fingers through her hair and swallows the bitter taste in her mouth. “Is Tommy still in there?”
Calvin struggles to his feet, lurches across the corridor, and peers through the narrow window embedded in the door. “Still sawing logs.” Calvin turns to her, wringing his hands nervously. “Dear Lord, I hope he didn’t hear anything last night.”
Lilly goes to him, puts a hand on his shoulder. “Look, I know you’ve been through a lot—”
He pulls away from her. “I shouldn’t have done this, I don’t know what I was thinking. Out in the middle of a hallway like this.” He looks into her eyes, his gaze feverish with regret, shame, even terror. “I have a family—a wife of seventeen years—I mean I had a wife.” His eyes get big and wet. “I can’t believe I did this.”
“Cal, listen to me.” She takes him by the shoulders, bracing him. She speaks in an even tone, locking gazes with him. “World we live in, it’s not business as usual. You can’t beat yourself up over something like this.” He starts to respond, but she grips his shoulders even tighter. “I’m not some lovelorn high school girl. I’m not gonna spread this around if you’re not comfortable.”
“It’s not that, Lilly.” He steps back from her, but he holds one of her hands. His voice softens. “I don’t blame you one whit for what happened. God gave us all free will. I been flirting with you all along. But it’s a sin what I did, in front of God and all. Twenty feet away from where my child is sleeping?”
“Calvin, please—”
“No!” He burns his gaze into her. “Let me finish. Please. What I’m saying is, it does matter in these times, these End Days, a person’s choices, how a person behaves—”
“Wait … slow down … what do you mean, End Days?”
He looks at her as though she just slapped him in the face. “I know you ain’t a believer, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Armageddon is exactly what this is. Look around, open your eyes. These are the End Times, Lilly, and it matters more now than it did before what a person does—because God is watching. You understand? He’s watching us even more closely than he was before.”
Lilly lets out an anguished, frustrated breath. “I respect your beliefs, Cal. I really do. But here’s a news flash for you: I’m no heathen. I always believed in a higher power, ever since I was a kid. I believe there is a God. But not a God that punishes or keeps score or wreaks havoc on us for not being perfect. I believe in a loving God, and I believe that this loving God had nothing to do with all this.”
Calvin’s eyes flare with anger. “I hate to burst your bubble, Lilly, but the Lord has something to do with everything in the universe.”
“That’s fine. We can quibble over philosophy, but there’s no—”
“Lilly—”
“No, Cal! Now it’s my turn. You listen to me. First of all, we still don’t know how all this started. It could be fucking toxic waste, it could be the additives we put in our fucking coffee creamer. But I guarantee you, it’s no God-like intervention. It wasn’t prophesied in the Bible or by fucking Nostrodamus. It’s as man-made as global warming, endless war, and reality TV. Whatever caused it, Cal, I promise you: One day, when they figure it out—and we’ll probably both be long gone by then—it’ll be traced back to simple human greed. Shortcuts. Corners that were cut by some asshole in some midlevel cubicle in some fucking research lab.” She runs out of breath.
Calvin looks at the floor and softly murmurs, as though reciting, “The finest trick of the devil was to persuade mankind he doesn’t exist.”
“Okay. Fine. Have it your way, Calvin. This is punishment because we’re all sinners. It is written. The end is nigh. Consult your local listings. But give me this much.” She moves in closer, puts a hand on his arm. Her touch is tender and conciliatory, but her voice still has an edge to it. “We have to give each other a break. Whatever gets people through the day … as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, or put anybody in jeopardy … fine, whatever. Somebody drinks, so be it. Basket weaving, masturbation, medicate the hell outta yourself—doesn’t matter. Have another one on me. Just so we got each other’s back. Because that’s what this is really about, Cal. It’s not about how it all started or even whether God is responsible. It’s about survival. It’s about whether we can work together, build a community, and be human beings instead of animals. I respect your faith, Cal. I respect the fact that you have experienced incredible loss. But I ask that you respect my faith … in people.” By this point, she has his undivided attention. He has gotten very still. He looks into her eyes, and she returns his gaze as she jerks a thumb at the other side of the corridor where her tools and gun belt lie on the floor by the baseboard. “With a little faith left over for those two Ruger twenty-two-caliber pistols.”
> Calvin lets out a long, tortured sigh. His shoulders sag slightly, his muscles relaxing as though in surrender. He smiles sadly. “I’m sorry, Lilly. You’re right. I’m sorry. I guess I just don’t know how I’m supposed to feel right now.”
Lilly starts to respond when a high-pitched voice comes from behind them, startling both, and making Calvin jerk with a start.
“Feel about what?”
They both whirl around and see Tommy Dupree standing barefoot in the doorway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, his Spider-Man T-shirt damp with perspiration. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Nothing, buddy,” Calvin blurts. “Just talking about … pistols.”
Lilly and Calvin exchange a glance, and Lilly can’t help grinning. Her cockeyed grin is contagious and makes Calvin smile, and then he lets out a spontaneous little chuckle—half laugh, half coughing release of tension—and Lilly starts to laugh at the mere fact that Calvin is laughing. The boy comes over and stands before them, a quizzical look on his face. By this point, the two adults have begun to chortle as though losing touch with what made them laugh in the first place, and soon they’re simply guffawing at the fact that they’ve begun to guffaw.
Tommy watches them with a puzzled furrow to his brow, but soon he’s begun to giggle himself, and the fact that Tommy is giggling at them—which makes no sense whatsoever—makes the two adults laugh all the harder. Now the three of them have begun to cackle in hysterics over nothing at all—perhaps the mere fact that the laughter has risen to such a volume—and it seems so hilarious that they would chortle with merriment in this day and age, that they hoot and snort even louder. The tears on their faces feel alien to them—tears of release, of delight—and the process of wiping them away finally makes the laughter fade.
At last, they calm down, and both Calvin and Tommy find themselves waiting for Lilly to say something to break the spell.
“Anyway…” she murmurs, looking at them, her smile lingering. She has never noticed how much this boy looks like his father—the same jut of the chin, the same sandy hair, the same cowlick—and it sends a bolt of emotion down her midsection. Her smile goes away. The phantom pain in her gut from the miscarriage she suffered only weeks ago now twinges as her mind casts back to those old fantasies of home and hearth and family. In a single instant she sees a parallel life passing before her mind’s eye. She sees herself becoming the adoptive mother of Calvin’s children, and she sees herself moving in with them, and she sees herself braiding little Bethany’s hair, and telling Luke bedtime stories, and taking Tommy fishing, and cooking for them, and caring for them, and sleeping in a huge feather bed with Calvin each night while the skylight overhead blazes with twinkling stars. She sees herself living a normal life.
“C’mon, you two,” she finally says. “Let’s go see if we can find something other than cold cereal and powdered milk for breakfast.”
They gather their belongings, and Lilly leads them down the corridor, out the exit, and into the sultry air of a hot Georgia morning—all the while, the seed of an idea taking root in the back of her mind. It’s a concept that will soon occupy her every waking thought, accompanied by the certainty that things are about to change in Woodbury … whether the residents like it or not.
* * *
In the days before Lilly has her heart-to-heart with Bob, Reverend Jeremiah’s people prove over and over again their willingness to pitch in.
Lilly is exceedingly worried about Woodbury’s dwindling supplies of fuel—they are down to their last tank of propane, and only a few gallons of gasoline remain in the train shed—so she calls an emergency meeting in the town square to enlist every able body. The preacher shows up for the meeting with each and every member of his congregation poised for action. The men of the church group volunteer to go on supply runs with Speed and Matthew, and several of the women volunteer to help Gloria forage for edibles in the neighboring fields. Some of the church women have backgrounds in child care, and Barbara happily integrates them into the daily chores with the children. A congregant named Wade Pilcher, a former cop with military training, offers to join the nightly walker patrols on the wall. Lilly is delighted to have the help, and she sees the results almost immediately. With the extra sets of eyes and strong backs, Speed and Matthew’s search party unearths an untapped fuel storage tank beneath the ruins of a motorcycle dealership about twenty miles south of Woodbury on Highway 85. Meanwhile, some of the women, while out foraging for nuts and berries, discover a previously unknown corn field, the shoulder-high stalks already bearing mature ears of corn. The bounty promises countless bushels of nutritious complex carbohydrates and sugar for the town.
Lilly continues to be impressed by Reverend Jeremiah’s willingness to roll up his sleeves and help with the cause. The preacher goes on several supply runs, happily doing the heavy lifting when necessary, cheerfully taking orders from Matthew or Ben, and entertaining everybody along the way with colorful commentary and wily anecdotes. Later, when a walker slips through the cordon of the southeast gate and threatens to go on a rampage through town, the preacher is the first to intercede, dashing out the door of his temporary housing and using his weaponized crucifix on the thing, silently stoving in the creature’s head before it has a chance to cause any further mischief. On another occasion, one of the town’s children injures himself in the arena working with a trowel, and the reverend single-handedly carries the boy across the gardens and down to the infirmary while simultaneously singing five verses of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
One night, Jeremiah asks to see Lilly in the community room of the courthouse, where he presents her with a roster of his people and how they can better be utilized by the existing work crews. Looking over the document, Lilly is amazed at his initiative:
“My compliments,” Lilly says after studying the document. The preacher’s chart is drawn on stationery with a single gold embossed cross at the top, and the letters P.P.G. under it, which Lilly assumes stands for Pentecostal People of God. She is still unclear whether this was once an actual bricks-and-mortar church or simply a traveling ministry or a cult or whatever.
“Just want to pull our weight around here,” the reverend assures her from across the table. He cradles a Styrofoam cup of instant coffee in his big manicured hands, his gaze level and fixed on Lilly. He wears his trademark dress shirt and clip-on tie, the cloth shopworn, blood-stippled, and soiled from the rigors of plague life.
“Very well thought-out,” she says.
“You inspire us, Lilly. What you have here is real, it’s a statement on the enduring strength of the human spirit, and we want to be part of it.”
“You are part of it. You’re just as much a part of it as anybody here.”
The preacher looks down at his coffee. “I thank you for saying so, Lilly, but we don’t take anything for granted—not in this day and age.”
“Our people love you guys. It’s as simple as that. We want you to stay here indefinitely.”
The preacher smiles. Lilly can see that one of his incisors has been capped in gold. “That’s very kind of you.” He levels his gaze at her. “We feel God has chosen this place for us to live out our days.”
Lilly returns the smile. “Let’s hope that doesn’t come for a long time.”
His expression changes, his convivial smile transforming into an inscrutable mask. “Man plans and God laughs, as they say.”
“I guess that’s never been truer than it is today.” Lilly looks at him. “Is everything okay?”
The preacher finds his smile again. “Absolutely. Reckon I’m just a little tired.”
“You deserve a rest, you’ve been hauling ass over the last week.”
He shrugs. “Haven’t worked any harder than any of the other good people in this town.”
“They do love you, you know. I think you won over half the people in town that second night when you put that walker down inside the gate.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen you do yours
elf on occasion, Lilly.”
“And you won over the rest of them yesterday when you chopped up that stubborn stump by the post office into firewood.”
“Half the men in this town are capable of what I did, I just pitched in, that’s all.”
“Your modesty is the frosting on the cake,” Lilly tells him with a smile. “These people would take a bullet for you, and that’s important these days.”
He shrugs. “If you say so, Lilly.” He looks at her. “You sure everybody feels that way?”
“What do you mean? Yes, absolutely. Did somebody say something?”
The man rolls the coffee cup thoughtfully between his huge pianist’s hands. “Lilly, you don’t have to be a mind reader to see that the older gentleman—Bob is his name?—he’s none too keen on me being here.”
Lilly shrugs off the assertion. “Bob’s fine, he lives in his own little world.” The fact is, nobody has seen Bob in days. He’s been brooding in the tunnels, working on the ventilation system and trying to get power down there. He claims it’s in case they need the passageways on a more long-term basis someday. But Lilly can tell that Bob is disgruntled and paranoid about the newcomers. “You let me worry about Bob,” she adds. “You just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s a huge help, and nobody appreciates it more than I do.”
“All right, Lilly, but I have to ask you something else.” Another pause. “Is there maybe a point to all these kind words? Something else you’re getting at here?”
She looks at him, her expression changing. She takes a deep breath and clears her throat nervously. “You got me. Yes. There is something I want to ask you.” She chooses her words carefully. “I sort of inherited the leadership role here.” Pause. “I won’t go into the details.”
The Walking Dead: Descent Page 20
