Carver used the key taken from the Governor to unlock the tightly shut warehouse door.
A foul stench poured out, making the people at the front gag.
Calista did not go inside. She simply stepped aside and let the light from the doorway fall in.
"See for yourselves," she said to the residents gathered at the entrance, their faces caught between fear and curiosity. "Take a look at your 'merciful' leader's private collection."
A few of the boldest men raised their flashlights with trembling hands and peered inside.
The next second, shrill screams and the sounds of people retching in terror erupted almost at the same time.
The beams of light swept over familiar faces drifting slowly in pale blue liquid, pale and swollen, their mouths opening and closing without a sound.
Some had openly challenged the Governor. Some had questioned the need for the arena. Others had suddenly said they were leaving to join distant relatives, then disappeared without a trace.
One face after another, people they had believed long gone or dead in the wilderness, were now displayed in glass tanks in the most horrifying way imaginable, reduced to souvenirs for the Governor's sick obsession.
"No! No, it can't be!" An old woman collapsed to the ground. Her son's head was among them.
When her son had vanished without saying goodbye, the Governor had comforted her. He had often checked on her arthritis too.
She had even made pickled vegetables for him as thanks.
Now that she knew the truth, grief tore through the old woman, and she completely broke down.
Amid the crowd's horrified cries, the Governor's face turned as pale and gray as the things he had collected. His body trembled uncontrollably, and his last excuse caught in his throat, turning into meaningless rasping sounds.
"There's more, everyone," Calista said, pointing deeper inside. "His most precious family member. Haven't any of you ever wondered about her?"
The Governor suddenly began struggling with all his strength, veins bulging in his neck.
"Don't go in there! Penny is just sick! Please!"
When Carver kept walking, the Governor fell to his knees, tears and snot streaming down his face.
"Please! She's just a little girl. She's only sick..."
Carver ignored him completely and opened the hidden door deeper inside the warehouse with a click.
When everyone saw the little girl in clean pajamas, a hood over her head, restrained to a specially made frame and still struggling, a wave of censored profanity filled the air.
Rowan stared at the Governor in disbelief. The image of her dear Philip shattered into pieces inside her heart.
Calista looked at their expressions in surprise, then suddenly realized they had misunderstood.
A child predator would be hated anywhere in the U.S., but this really was not that.
Rowan rushed over, wrapped her arms around Penny's struggling body, and pulled off the hood.
"Sweetheart, don't be afraid!"
The next second, a high pitched scream sharp enough to pierce eardrums made everyone jolt.
The face beneath the hood scared Rowan so badly that she fell to the ground and scrambled backward on her hands and feet.
Penny was fully exposed before everyone.
The daughter the Governor had always hidden away under the excuse that she was in poor health and needed rest, the girl he occasionally mentioned with the sorrowful face of a loving father, had long since turned into a walker.
And all this time, he had been carefully looking after her and feeding her raw meat.
The chilling sight stunned everyone. The noble, righteous image the Governor had so carefully built in Woodbury, along with every lie behind it, collapsed completely in the face of the truth.
Shock, disgust, fear, and overwhelming rage at being deceived swept through every resident of Woodbury.
"He wasn't protecting us! He's a monster! A psychotic killer!" someone shouted hoarsely.
"My son! My Ben!" the old woman wailed, beating her chest.
"He lied to all of us! He used us!" The crowd was furious, almost ready to surge forward and tear the Governor apart.
Calista watched as the walker Penny staggered toward them, only for the restraints to yank her back into place. She sighed.
She drew her dagger, stepped forward, held Penny's head still, and ended her struggle with one clean thrust.
At that, the Governor fell into complete despair.
Carver and Mike kept firm control of the situation and dragged the utterly limp Governor back to the center of the square.
The dust had settled. The Governor's crimes were laid bare.
Calista gave the residents of Woodbury two choices. First, join the prison. Second, go their own way, but surrender most of their weapons, and neither Rock Fortress nor the prison would protect them from outside threats, including other raiders and walkers.
Most of Woodbury's townspeople had been kept like lambs by the Governor. Almost all of them chose the first option. Only a few planned to leave and look for distant relatives.
Next came screening everyone and deciding what to do with them.
Calista specifically asked about Dr. Milton.
This was the scientist who, in the original plot, had been obsessed with walker research, still had a conscience in the end, and was killed by the Governor for it. After his death, he bit Andrea, which led to her exit from the story.
He was quickly pushed out from the crowd.
His hair was messy, and the eyes behind his glasses looked timid.
"You're interested in the transformation mechanism of walkers and their remaining instincts?" Calista asked directly.
Milton nodded nervously. "Y-yes. I believe they aren't completely unconscious. There may be residual neural circuits or fragments of social memory..."
"Dr. Jenner will be interested in your research," Calista interrupted. "Pack up your essential files and equipment and come back to Rock Fortress with us.
"There, you'll have better conditions and can study questions that actually matter, instead of serving some pervert's 'entertainment.'"
Milton froze for a moment. Then intense surprise lit up his eyes, and he eagerly agreed.
The value of his research was the only reason Calista had decided to take him with her.
The other Woodbury residents stayed behind to wait for Maggie, Glenn, and the others to come take over.
Finally, there was the matter of what to do with the Governor himself.
A public execution might satisfy the people's anger, but Calista did not want to turn this into too much of a ceremony. She also did not want the prison group taking over Woodbury to be left with such a bloody and direct memory.
She had a cleaner, more "natural" plan.
As the Governor and Martinez were being escorted to the helicopter, Calista casually glanced back. Her eyes met Carver's for a brief moment, then flicked toward the Governor's bound hands and a nearby gap leading outside Woodbury's walls.
Carver understood immediately. With the slightest touch of his finger, he brushed the restraint around the Governor's wrists.
The Governor felt the restraints on his wrists... loosen a little.
Was it his imagination?
No. This was a chance.
His survival instinct overwhelmed everything else. He suddenly let out a howl and strained with every bit of strength he had.
"Snap!"
The restraint broke.
The Governor threw himself toward the gap in a desperate rush.
Get out. Survive. As long as he lived, there would always be a chance to rise again.
"Stop!" Carver roared in "shock and anger," raising his gun to aim.
"Bang!"
A crisp gunshot rang out. The Governor's lunging body jerked to a halt as the back of his head burst open in a spray of blood.
The last thing he saw was the ground rushing closer and the world beyond the wall, a place he would never reach again.
The cold blooded psychopath who, in the original plot, slaughtered innocents and destroyed the prison lay facedown on the ground. He twitched twice, then went completely still.
Calista put her gun away, walked over to the body, and looked down at it, her expression unreadable.
Then she turned toward the Woodbury residents who had hurried over, her tone relaxed again.
"The Governor tried to escape, so I shot him dead. You don't need to worry about him coming back for revenge anymore."
No one questioned it.
Martinez, held under guard by Mike, looked at the Governor's body with a complicated expression. In the end, it turned into a long sigh, and he lowered his head.
Calista turned to Carver and Mike.
"We should head back to the prison. There's still a lot waiting for us over there."
The Black Hawk rose into the air once more, carrying Calista's core team, Martinez, and Dr. Milton away from Woodbury and toward the prison.
...
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