Carl just killed someone.

No, Carl just murdered someone.

You can kill someone without meaning it. Like when Andrea almost accidentally killed me or when that man at the farm almost accidentally killed Carl. Or when someone gets in a car crash with someone else, and one of them dies.

There's also killing people for your own protection. Like when Rick had to kill Shane. Or killing people for the protection of people you love, like Momma killing that man she killed, or everyone shooting back at the Governor's people. You gotta kill to survive, now more than ever, and even though I hate that more than anything, I know it's true. I've come to terms with it. I know you have to kill to live.

But Carl's living to kill. He murdered that boy.

Murder is different from all the other kinds of killing. Murder is intentional. With murder, you have the control, and you know the gravity of what you're doing. You understand that what you're doing is an evil thing, and you do it anyway. You do it on purpose.

Carl raised his gun at that boy and shot him in the head. He did that on purpose. I watched him do it. He took a moment to think about it, and then he pulled that trigger. And now that boy is dead. His blood and brains are splattered over the orange leaves that have been falling from the trees.

I couldn't stop crying about it during the short drive back to the prison. Carl's mad at me for it. Hershel and Beth haven't really said much. It's just been this terrible silence, Carl's glare, and my crying.

Now, we're back at the prison and I rush out of the car as soon as it comes to a stop. I don't want to be around Carl when he's like this. It scares me. He does. Sometimes, at least.

So, I walk quickly to the door and step inside to see the others, all safe and sound, which is a very big relief. At least everyone has survived. No one is dead. No one except for the boy Carl shot.

Apparently, it's very easy to tell when I've been crying— my guess is on account of my red cheeks and puffy eyes— because the moment I lock eyes with my mom and my dad, they both get really worried looks on their faces and rush over to me. Momma pulls me against her side and Daddy crouches down in front of me with his eyebrows all pinched together, rubbing his thumb over my cheek.

"Hey. What happened, angel? You ain't hurt?" Dad asks me, scanning his eyes over me. Probably to make sure that I'm not bit or nothing like that.

I nod my head. "Not hurt," I tell him. Mom starts stroking my hair, which is a very Mom thing to do and I like it a lot, but it doesn't make that sick feeling in my stomach go away.

"What's wrong? Why're you cryin'?" Dad asks next, now that he knows he don't gotta fix me up with bandages or anything.

Before I can give him my answer, the door creeks open and the others come inside. Beth first, holding Judith of course, and behind her, Carl, and after him, Hershel. When Carl walks past me, he gives me that angry, empty look again and I avert my eyes to the ground.

Dad notices this very quickly and his worried look turns a little angry, looking between me and Carl. "He do somethin'? Say somethin'?" he asks me. His voice is less soft now and more accusatory. Like when he'd question me about why I didn't want to go to school on certain days. He always knew it had to do with other kids being jerks. I think he had his own bullies, growing up. That's beside the point, though, because right now I have to tell my mom and dad that I just watched Carl shoot a living boy in the brain. Dad gently tugs at a strand of my hair. "June. What'd he do?" he asks again, snapping me out of my head.

My throat gets a whole new lump in it and it makes my voice be all wobbly. "He..." I look around me, just to make Carl's not close enough to hear me snitching on him. He's preoccupied with talking to his own dad, now, so I think I'm in the clear. "He shot a boy. An alive one. A kid. And- and the kid was surrendering, Daddy. He had his hands up and he was giving Carl his gun. He was really scared and Carl shot him dead. 'Tween the eyes, Daddy. Like it was nothin'!"

Tears start slipping from my eyes again, without my control, and I try to stop them because I know I've already cried enough and crying is not gonna help that boy one bit, but I can't control it.

I turn to my mom. "Carl just murdered him for nothin'!" I whisper-shout at her.

Momma runs her hand over my hair, pulling me tighter against her. "Don't work yourself up, sweet girl," she says, leaning down to kiss my head. "I'm so sorry you had to see that."

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Dad looking up at Mom with talking-eyes and I'm sure that Mom is looking right back at him with the same ones. Still looking at Mom, Dad says, "I'll talk to Rick." His eyes shift back to me. "Carl's goin' through a hard time right now, right? We all are. You're just kids. Kids make mistakes."

He's right. Kids do make mistakes. Carl is going through a really hard time. I try to always understand those things about people. It helps me forgive them and it helps my insides feel a little less burny. But it's harder right now, for some reason. I just can't stop seeing the blood. The look on the boy's face. The look on Carl's.

"Look, we gotta go finish this in Woodbury. But I promise we'll be back quick. 'Til then, you can just hang out in your cell. Have some alone time. Maybe eat somethin' or-"

"You could keep writin' in that notebook," Mom adds.

"Whatever you want. We'll be back."

I nod, taking a deep, deep breath and rubbing at my eyes. "'Kay," I whisper, even though I hate this. Even though I don't want either of them to leave and I really want this all to be over. I know that it can't be over until they finish it, so I have to let them go.

So, I watch from the gate as Mom, Dad, Rick, and Michonne head out to Woodbury. Glenn and Maggie decide to stay here with us, just in case anyone comes back. I really hope they don't. After my parents leave, I go to my cell. I keep writing in my notebook. More stuff for Merle, mostly. But I write one letter to the boy, too. Just to tell him I'm sorry.

♡

Mom and Dad don't come back home until the sun has both set and risen again. I couldn't sleep, even though I was really tired. I tried, but I couldn't get to sleep with all the thinking I've been doing. Worrying about Mom, Dad, Rick, and Michonne, trying to make out what is going on inside of Carl's head, remembering all the good and bad things about Uncle Merle, and seeing the look on the boy's face.

My eyes felt like lead by the time the sun came up, but I was grateful for it. Better than waiting around for it. It's still very early when I leave my room again, hearing the sound of the engine on the motorcycle I know my parents are riding coming closer. I can tell it's very early because the sun is still low in the sky and it's freezy out. The kind of freezy that makes you wish you had fuzzy socks on.

I don't have any fuzzy socks, unfortunately, so I just put on a thick hoodie and pull it down over my hands before I go outside. Glenn and Maggie are out by the gates already, pulling it open for the truck and the motorcycle. But behind the truck and the motorcycle is something I'm not expecting. It's a school bus.

That makes me really nervous because the school bus is one of my worst enemies. I hated the days I had to ride the school bus, even if they were few and far between.

So, as soon as my parents' hop off of the motorcycle, I go running over to them. Momma hugs me real hard, which is good except for the fact that she's super cold, having been out all night long.

"What's going on?" I ask Dad, raising my eyebrows at him.

"Governor's gone," he answers. That is a relief, a really good one, even though I don't like thinking about people dying. Sometimes, I know, it is necessary. The Governor is one of those times. "These people had nowhere to go. So they're comin' here now. Gonna live with us."

"Really?" I ask, a hint of excitement in my voice. I'm a little nervous about new people being around, but I'm mostly happy about it. It get lonely sometimes, and especially when I'm not 100% sure that Carl even likes me at all. Having other people around means more potential friends as well as more protection. "That's really good! There are kids? Like, my age?" I ask, bouncing on my toes even though I'm trying not to.

A small smile is on my dad's face and he's trying to hide it because he doesn't like smiling, but I can always see it when he's smiling. He nods his head and gestures over towards the bus. I watch a few people getting off. An older lady that's probably someone's grandma, then a man with balding hair, and behind him, three kids.

One of the kids, who I assume is the oldest because she is the tallest, has long blonde-ish hair. Behind her is who I think is the youngest because she's the shortest. She's got long, blonde hair, too, and a braid in it. Behind her is a boy with shaggy hair who is sort of dressed like a cowboy. I think he's about my age. I wave at the three kids, but I think they're too shy to wave back. I'd be, too, if it was my first time coming to a new place like this.

"I think I'm gonna have friends!" I say excitedly to my parents. Seems like a pretty normal thing to most people, but when you're living with a bunch of grown-ups in the end of the world, it's a lot harder to make friends. Not that it's ever been a really easy thing.

♡

Me, Mom, and Dad are all sitting outside and breathing in the cool, fall air. We're away from everyone else. Most people are inside, eating and setting up their new spaces, getting used to everything and what not. Me, Mom, and Dad, though, are out here thinking together.

Daddy took me outside the fence to pick some flowers earlier while my momma was making a little wooden cross for Uncle Merle. Most of the time, when you make a grave, it's for marking the place where someone is buried. But Mom says that that's not the only thing graves are for. She says they're mostly for remembering. Because your body, after millions and billions of years, decomposes into nothingness. A grave lasts a whole lot longer than your body does.

So, we made a grave. Momma let me use her pocket knife to carve Uncle Merle's name into the wood, even though Dad didn't want me to and was hovering over my shoulder all tense the whole time because he doesn't think I'm old enough or something. He just didn't want me to accidentally hurt myself. I know that. It was still annoying, though.

On the wood, I carved out Merle Dixon. And I even put a little heart on it, too, because I loved my uncle, even when he didn't fully deserve it. I can't help but love people, sometimes.

After we marked Merle's memory with his small, wooden grave, I put some flowers around it. I've seen people do that in movies and whenever we drove by graveyards, there was always flowers all over the place. And on the side of the road sometimes where people accidentally got hit, there were always little flowers and teddy bears and all sorts of lovely little things.

Now, me and my parents are just sitting in the grass together, thinking about Merle.

"What was Uncle Merle like before I was born?" I ask, tugging at my shoelaces. I've always wondered about that. About everyone, really. What were they like before I knew them?

Dad does a quiet sort-of-scoff-sort-of-laugh. "He was Merle," he says like it's obvious.

I huff, lightly jabbing my elbow against Dad's side. "Obviously. But he didn't change at all since he was young?"

"He wasn't always around, Junebug. He was in the army," Dad tells me.

"Well, then what was he like when you were littler?" I ask. I've always wondered about that, too. There are barely even any pictures of Dad and Merle when they were little. Grandpa Will wasn't much of a photographer, but anyone could guess that just by looking at him.

For a moment, nobody says anything, so I assume Dad is probably thinking or something. But when it takes him too long to say anything, Mom fills the silence. "Well, I only knew him when he was grown and me and your daddy were in high school. But he was nice to me. Whenever he was around, that is."

"Nice?" Dad murmurs like it ain't true.

Momma chuckles at that. "Merle nice. Not all sunshine and rainbows, but nice in his own way. Nice without being nice. Know what I mean?"

I nod my head, laughing a little, too. "Like when he'd do nice things and be mean about doin' them?"

"Exactly," Mom says, rolling her head but smiling fondly at the same time.

"One time he took me trick-or-treatin' 'cause Daddy had to work late. He kept telling me to hurry my butt up— 'cept he didn't say butt— because he was cold and he wasn't staying out there with me all night. But he stayed out there with me 'til people started turning their lights off and stopped answering the door," I tell Mom and Dad, laughing as I say it. "I got so much candy it almost filled up my whole bucket!"

Momma snickers at that. "Sounds like Merle. Always complaining about something." I nod my head in agreement, leaning against her side. Mom looks over at Daddy, who's lying back now with his arms behind his head, staring up at the clouds. "You remember that diner I used to work at, Daryl?"

"Mhm," Dad hums.

"One time Merle and a couple of his friends came in pretty late. 'Bout an hour or so before close. And there was this guy at the counter who just wouldn't leave me alone. He was there for two hours before Merle even got there, just yappin' my ear off. Acting like we were gonna go out after my shift was done or something. And I didn't even know the guy."

Mom is a real good storyteller. She knows just how to make me hate the guys in the story I'm supposed to hate, even though I hate hating anyone.

"When closing time finally came around, the cook— some older guy, probably sixty or something— finally came out of the kitchen to kick this guy out. He got all pissed off, acting like I was leading him on. And he didn't tip me shit. After, like, four hours of sitting in this diner, never shutting the fuck up, this guy doesn't even tip me a dollar. And Merle and one of his friends followed the guy outside, kicked the shit out of the guy until he coughed up a hundred-fifty bucks. Gave me a ride home, too, so I didn't have to take the bus."

"What'd he say after?" I ask, raising my eyebrows.

Letting out a laugh, Mom answers with, "He asked for a twenty-dollar tip for the ride home."

Of course he did.

"Did you give it to him?" I ask, giggling along with her.

"Hell no," Momma says, which makes me laugh even harder. "I never asked for the ride home. He offered it. So I kept my a hundred-fifty bucks and booked it inside. Spent it on my homecoming dress."

"You went to homecoming?" I can't even imagine my mom going to homecoming, but if she went to homecoming, then that means my daddy probably went with her, and that's even less believable. I turn over to look at Dad, and he's smiling with his arm over his face. "Did you go? There's no way Daddy went to homecoming."

"Damn right," Dad says.

"We were gonna go, but the day came and it didn't end up happening," Mom tells me. Both her and Dad are snickering like they know something I don't, so I narrow my eyes at them. "Know why?" Mom asks.

"'Cause Dad said no?"

"'Cause Dad went into the city to get me a new album that had just come out, and he got lost on the way back. Showed up at my house an hour late!"

"Really?!"

"Really."

I turn to Dad and smack him lightly on the arm. "You made Momma miss homecoming! In her new dress, too!"

"Don't worry, baby. He made up for it," Momma tells me, rubbing my back. "We got ourselves some tacos and went to the roof of some old building, and we had ourselves a nice little date. Remember that, Daryl?"

"Best tacos I ever had," Dad says.

"Can't believe you guys used to have so much fun without me," I sigh, crossing my arms. It really sucks that people still existed before I was born. Everything sounds so much more fun back then. "I wish I could have been there, too."

Daddy gently elbows my arm, rolling his eyes. "You don't even like tacos."

"But I like pretty dresses and nice little dates."

Momma tucks my hair behind my ears and I untuck it. She smiles at me, but she also looks a little sad. That's how funerals should always go, I think. Because it's happy that Uncle Merle existed, but it's sad that he's gone now. But it's good to remember all the good times we had with him and all the times he was lovely, even if he would hate talking about this. He would call it all sappy or something. But I think, secretly, if he's in Heaven or if ghosts are real, then he's watching us, smiling, too.

"You wanna read your letters now, JJ?"

🪲🪲🪲🪲

Next chapter is not going to be like most chapters and is really just a split between s3 and s4. After that we are finally onto season 4 !!!

I know this book is a lot more slow moving than Future Ghosts was, but please keep in mind that I am a lot busier now. Be patient with me. And remember that there are ways to ask for updates politely !!!