Free The Fall of the Governor, Part 2 by Robert Kirkman Page B

the shadows away. At last he manages to speak again: “Serves that fucker right.” The anger glittering in his eye slowly brings him back, gradually allows him to get his bearings and bite down on the situation. He looks at Gabe. “So if the doc’s gone, how the fuck am I not dead?”
    Gabe looks at the man. “Bob.”
    The Governor takes this in, his one visible eye dilating and widening with shock. “Bob?!” Another pained breath. “That’s … fucking ridiculous  … that old drunk? He couldn’t draw a straight line—let alone patch me up.” He swallows with great effort. His voice sticks in his throat like a record skipping. “He refused to be Doc’s assistant—made that fucking girl do it.”
    Gabe shrugs. “I guess he didn’t have to do much—thank God. Said your arm was sealed up good, sterilized enough by the fire, but he still cleaned you up real good, watched over you, gave you antibiotics or something. I’m not sure. The way I understand it is … when she cut off your … uh … when she nicked your thigh, Bob said it just missed a major artery, so there wasn’t as much blood loss as there could have been.” Gabe chews on his lower lip. He doesn’t want to throw too much at the man right now, not in his condition. “It would have killed you for sure if she’d hit it, though.” He pauses. “The eye almost got infected—but it didn’t.” Another pause. “Bob said she must have been real careful. He thinks she wanted to leave you alive—like she had more plans for you.”
    The Governor’s right eye narrows with pure, unadulterated hate. “Plans for me ?!” He lets out a phlegmy snort. “Wait until I hear back from Martinez. I could fill a book with the shit I’ve got planned for her.”
    Gabe feels his stomach seize up. He contemplates not saying anything but then mutters in a low voice, “Uh … boss … Martinez went with them.”
    The Governor cringes suddenly, either from the pain or a surge of white-hot rage flowing through him … or perhaps both. “I fucking know he went with them.” He draws a clogged breath and continues. “I didn’t know the doc and his slut would go with them—but this was my plan .” Thick breathing again, getting air into his leaden lungs. “Martinez helps them escape and then comes back and tells us where their fucking prison is.” Pause. “If I’ve been out for a week … he should be here any day now.”
    Gabe nods as the Governor lets out a long, agonizing sigh and peers down at his heavily bandaged stump of a right arm. His eye registers the horror, the harsh reality. His phantom hand sends ghostly sensations up his shoulder to his brain, and he shudders. Then he presses his cracked lips together, and Gabe sees something glimmering way down in the dark iris of the Governor’s deep-set eye. Gabe sees it very clearly. The Governor is back. Whether it’s madness or strength or survival instinct or just plain meanness, the luminous pinprick of light in that one eye says everything about this man.
    At last he turns his eye toward Gabe and adds in a voice husky with pain and fury, “And when that day comes … that bitch is mine.”
    *   *   *
    The rest of that week, the heat of late spring settles into the hollows and valleys of west central Georgia. The humidity presses in, and the brutal sun turns the days into steam baths. Since the air conditioners drain so much energy, most of the inhabitants of Woodbury sweat out the hot spell indoors or in the shade of live oaks, fanning themselves compulsively and shirking their daily labors. The Sterns figure out a way to make ice in the warehouse with an old Frigidaire without sucking too much power. Austin finds some prenatal vitamins in the