The sky. Today, it's a dingy shade of blue. The clouds within it are an even darker shade of grey. Above the tips of the pine trees, a small flock of squawking ravens fly high.
Sometimes I wish I could go up there with them, beyond the clouds. It's a place of wonder. A place of safety. A place where anxiety doesn't exist, and you don't fear for your life every second of the day.
It's a place where my parents are. Where Lee is.
As I stare into the dreary sky, I think of the people we've lost along the way. Doug and Carley. Mark. Larry and Lilly (God knows where she is). Katjaa, Duck, and Kenny. Chuck. Ben.
Lee.
Man, I miss him. He was my dad when I didn't have one. I always wanted my parents to meet Lee.
I fight tears and try to think of the good things. They would want me too. I think of my parents smiling faces, Lee teaching me to shoot.
"What do you think?" Omid says breaking me out of my reverie.
I look down from the sky and continue to wait like Omid and Christa had previously told me to.
"Omid, you can't be serious," Christa says, admonishingly to Omid who has his rifle pointed at a pit stop. Christa is crouched next to him, her large stomach scrunched between her chest and thighs. "I am," Omid replies, glancing at his wife.
The trashy brick building seems safe enough to use. Christa, probably thinking the same thing stands up from behind the log she and Omid were hiding behind.
"We are not doing that." Christa says firmly. She starts to walk toward the building we'd been scoping and Omid and I follow.
"Why not?" he asks.
"Because!"
"Come on, Christa," Omid starts when he catches up to her, "What's wrong with 'Omid'?"
"We are not calling our baby 'Omid'," she answers. "One of you is enough."
"Clementine," Christa summons me, "A little help here?"
While I'm thinking Omid starts dishing out more baby name suggestions like "Omid II" and "Omid, Jr.", each being strongly rejected by Christa.
I'm really happy that Omid and Christa are gonna have a baby. Before the walkers came, I had always wanted a sibling; a baby brother or sister. Mostly a sister, though.
This thought leads me to asking Omid, "What if it's a girl?" Omid responds quickly with a grin.
"Then we name her Christa."
Christa rolls her eyes."But I'm Christa," she reasons, aggravation seeping through her words. "I don't want to call her Christa. That's just confusing."
"So name her Genevive. I don't care!" Omid jokes.
I stop as we reach the building, giving another once over and making sure it's safe. It seems like a good spot to rest for a minute and get cleaned up. Man, I can feel the dirt building up on my face. There must be a lot of pimples on my face, considering I am a fourteen year-old girl and I haven't washed in days.
"How can you not care!?" Christa asks.
Omid should know better than to mess with a pregnant lady. Before all this, my mom told me that when women are pregnant they get cranky and are irritable.
When we finally reach the station Christa turns to face Omid, putting a hand on her hip.
"You're not taking this seriously," Christa scolds, frowning.
I glance at the side of the building and notice a can lying on the ground. I inwardly want it to be unopened because I am starving and I'm sure Omid and Christa are too, but I don't want to get my hopes up.
"I take everything seriously," Omid says, not sounding serious at all, "Especially little Omid's future," he finishes with a smile, pointing at Christa's extremely large stomach.
Christa starts to say something, but I'm not really listening anymore. I walk over to the side of the building to pick up inspect the can but, to my expectations it's been long empty.
I scrunch my nose in disappointment and drop it to the ground. When I've walk back over, Christa nods at Omid and heads to the men's room. Omid, remembering I'm around, awkwardly turns to face me.
"Why don't you, err, get cleaned up in the girls room, Clem?" I know what this means but I choose not to think about it.
"I hope the sink works in there," I think aloud.
"I wouldn't count on it," Omid shrugs, bringing my thoughts back to reality. "Just be careful and make sure to keep track of your things," he warns. "We'll be right next door."
"Okay," I nod and we part.
I open the girls' bathroom door and the stench of feces and walker immediately wafts into my nostrils, making me gag.
"Hello…?" I call, gun raised, making sure no one is in here.
The room is a mess, but it's better than many of the others we've visited. The tiles are covered in dirt and there are splatters of blood here and there, as are the stalls. There are papers, cans, and bottles strewn all over the floor, like the room was just one large recycle bin.
On the stalls, are many words scribbled in permanent marker. I notice one with a drawing of a shark. Must have been made before the walkers came.
The sinks and mirrors look fairly clean. I check each of the stalls in the restroom, the first two unfit for use. The last one was good enough, though it wasn't ideal.
"Good no one's here. Guess it's safe to get cleaned up."
I head to the sinks and check myself out in the mirror. Luckily, my acne count is low, but my face is still really dirty.
I toss my gun and purple backpack up on the counter, open it, and take out a rag and bottle of water I've saved up. Agreeing with Omid's words, I don't try the sink for water, and instead I wet the rage with the water and rid my face of the grime that I caked on it.
When I'm done I look at reflection in the mirror one more time. "Better," I approve with a small smile.
I reach for my bottle so I can put it back in my bag but accidentally, knock it over, startling myself in the process. I watch as it rolls under the stalls. "Oh, shoot." Well, at least I had the cap on.
I check the stall with the good toilet and find it there. I examine the dirt that got on the bottle when it was rolling. "Ew," I comment, when I hear the bathroom door open.
Not knowing who it is, I carefully shut the stall door and stand on the toilet seat.
Through the crack of the stall I see the person. A black girl not much older than me.
I also notice that I left all of my things on the counter as well as my gun! Shit! Shit! Shit!
The girl starts looking through my things, probably searching for resources that I don't have. She picks up my gun weighing it in her hand.
As I try not to freak out, the toilet seat beneath me starts to waver as my weight shifts from side to side due to my trembling. I gasp as the toilet seat betrays me and makes a loud noise. Please don't' see me. Please don't' see me. Please don't' see me.
Unfortunately, the teen spots me through the crack and raises the gun towards me, taking the safety off.
"I see you," she says, nonchalantly. I try to stay quiet, to see if she'll go away, but no such luck.
"Get out of there. You're not foolin' me."
"That's my gun," I let her know, still not exiting the stall.
"'S mine now," she responds.
"Give it back," I command, like a small child who just got her favorite toy taken away from her older sibling.
"Why should I?"
She opens the stall door, never pointing the barrel gun anywhere but my direction.
"Get out here," I am ordered.
Wishing Lee was here, I reluctantly hop off the toilet. I try my best not to cry, not to show weakness, but a tear escapes from the corner of my eye.
She starts rummaging through my bag. "You got anything on you?" In my bag are my pictures, a few writing utensils, and my lighter. "Come on, let's see," she says prodding me to give up the nonexistent food located in my pack.
"No, that's all I have." She looks up at me, surprised.
"That's it? How'd you make it this far?" Hey, I may be small but I'm a lot tougher than you'd think. But apparently she doesn't believe the truth.
"I'm serious what else you got?!" she says, loudly.
"That's it…"
"Don' lie to me. I'll pop you," she threatens. "Give me what you got." I told her I don't have anything! Why won't she just leave me alone?
"Please, stop…" I beg. She seems to have a brief change of heart but quickly shakes it off. Her eyes flick to my Danville Braves baseball cap.
"Give me that hat," she barks, imperatively.
Okay, this bitch just crossed the line. I'd rather die than give someone my hat.
"No." I retort.
"Where'd you get?"
Why do you care? "My dad gave it to me." She pauses before responding.
"Just give it to me."
I'm not going to give it to her so I don't even respond.
She seems to get the message and lets go. She pokes around through my stuff once more.
"Junk. Junk. Junk," she complains, "Look at all this junk."
As she continues to complain about my lack of supplies, Omid appears from behind the stalls. As soon as we make eye contact, he starts to move toward the girl slowly, so he can that her down inconspicuously.
"You ain't got nothin' good," she says, insultingly. "You're just a little fish."
She's not lying. I am small for my age. At fourteen I stand at 5'3. I look back at Omid who is carefully tiptoeing towards us. He is almost to her when I hear some even more insulting words from her.
"This your daddy?" she says, referring to the picture of Lee. "What a bozo."
Just before Omid can touch the girl's shoulder, the bathroom door, which had been slowly closing, loudly slams shut, causing both Omid and my oppressor to whip their heads.
*BANG!*
When Omid turns back to face us, he is coughing lightly and the expression on his face is blank when he looks at the young girl. Everyone looks down at Omid's chest as a big circle of blood emerges from the center.
Oh my, God… Tears start falling as Omid clutches his chest, taking his last breaths. I cringe as his eyelids close and he collapses onto the floor.
As I sob, I look at the girl who shot him. She looks horrified at what she's done.
Just then, Christa, poor Christa, pushes the door open forcefully, armed with a rifle and ready to fight, but when she sees Omid's dead body, her face falls and you can tell her world just came crashing down.
"I didn't mean to!" his killer says over and over. But Christa is ignoring her pleading and still looking down at Omid with tears rolling down her cheeks. She drops my gun from her hands to the tiled floor.
"I didn't mean t—"
*BANG!*
The girl, now shot in the stomach by Christa, slumps against the wall with a gasp and slowly starts to bleed to death, just like her victim.
Christa gets on the floor and cradles Omid in her lap, crying and hiccupping, trying to bring him back to life. As if he's just asleep like we was after we came back from scavenging Crawford.
But this time he doesn't wake up. No more jokes. No more witty remarks. Omid's gone. For real this time.
And when Christa looks from the recently shot pistol on the floor and up to look me in the eyes, I know what she is thinking and I agree with her. I start to whimper even more.
This is all my fault.