The Walking Dead: The Fall of the Governor - Part One (The G(12)

Since the advent of the herd last year, walker activity has picked up, the population of living dead growing and spreading into the backwaters and desolate farmlands that once lay fallow and deserted. Rumors have circulated that ragtag groups of scientists in Washington and underground labs out West are developing behavioral models and population forecasts for the reanimated dead, and none of it is promising. Bad news hangs over the land, and it hangs right now in the dimly lit cargo hold of the transport truck, as Lilly tries to push dark thoughts from her mind.

“Hey, Barbara.” Lilly shoots a glance at the gray-haired woman sitting across from her. “Why don’t you tell us the famous story again?”

Austin gives a good-natured roll of the eyes. “Oh, God … not this again.”

Lilly gives him a look. “You be quiet. C’mon, Barbara, tell us the honeymoon story.”

Austin rubs his eyes. “Somebody shoot me.”

“Shush!” Lilly pokes Austin, then looks at the older woman and manages a smile. “Go ahead, Barbara.”

The gray-haired woman grins at her husband. “You want to tell it?”

David puts his arm around his wife. “Sure, this’ll be a first … me doing the talking.” He looks at the older woman with that glimmer in his eye, and something passes between the two of them that reaches out across the dim enclosure and squeezes Lilly’s heart. “Okay … first of all, it was back in the prehistoric days when I still had black hair and a prostate that worked.”

Barbara gives him an amused punch in the arm. “Can you just cut to the chase, please? These people can do without your entire urinary history.”

The truck rumbles over a railroad track, rattling the cargo hold. David holds on to his perch, then takes a deep breath and grins. “The thing is, we were just kids … but we were madly in love.”

“Still are, for some reason … God knows why,” Barbara adds with a smirk, giving him a loaded glance.

David sticks his tongue out at her. “So anyway … we found ourselves headed to the most beautiful place on earth—Iguazu, Argentina—with nothing but the clothes on our backs and about a hundred bucks in pesos.”

Again Barbara chimes in: “If memory serves, ‘Iguazu’ means ‘the Devil’s throat,’ and it’s basically a river that runs through Brazil and Argentina. We read about it in a guidebook, and we thought it would be the perfect adventure.”

David sighs. “So, anyway … we get there on a Sunday, and by Monday night we had hiked all the way upriver—maybe five miles—to this incredible waterfall.”

Barbara shakes her head. “Five miles?! Are you kidding me? It was more like twenty-five!”

David winks at Lilly. “She exaggerates. Trust me … it was only like twenty or thirty kilometers.”

Barbara playfully crosses her arms across her chest. “David? How many kilometers are in a mile?”

He sighs and shakes his head. “I don’t know, honey, but I’m sure you’re about to tell us.”

“Like one point six … so thirty kilometers would be about twenty miles.”

David gives her another look. “Can I tell the story? Is that all right with you?”

She looks away petulantly. “Who’s stopping you?”

“So we find this amazing waterfall, and I mean, this is the most beautiful waterfall on earth. From a single point, you’re practically surrounded, three hundred and sixty degrees, and the water’s roaring all around you.”

“And rainbows!” Barbara marvels. “Everywhere you look. It really was something.”

“So then,” David goes on. “Lover-girl here decides to get frisky.”

Barbara grins. “I just wanted to give him a little hug, that’s all.”

“And she’s feeling me up with the water rushing all around us—”

“I wasn’t feeling you up!”

“She was all over me. And all of a sudden, she goes, ‘David, where’s your wallet?’ And I feel the back of my jeans, and sure enough, the thing’s gone.”


Barbara shakes her head, reliving the moment for the millionth time. “My fanny pack was empty, too. Somebody had ripped us off somewhere along the line. Passports, ID, everything. We were stuck in the middle of Argentina and we were stupid Americans, and we had no effen clue what to do with ourselves.”

David smiles to himself, holding the moment in his memory like a precious heirloom he keeps in a drawer. Lilly gets the feeling that this is something essential for the Sterns, something unspoken but as powerful as the motion of the tides or the gravitational tug of the moon. “We get back to the closest village and make a few calls,” David continues, “but there’s no embassy for miles and the cops are about as helpful as a poke in the eye.”

“We’re told we have to wait for our ID issues to be sorted out in Buenos Aires.”

“Which is like eight hundred miles away.”

“Kilometers, Barbara. Eight hundred kilometers away.”

“David, don’t start.”

“Anyway, we have a few centavos left in our pockets—the equivalent of what, Barbara? A buck fifty? So we find a little village and talk a local guy into letting us sleep on the floor of his barn for fifty centavos.”