A Different Kind Of Howe's
Hey guys, it's me again. This is another co-written story with Assassin's Creed Master; this story was actually his idea, not mine, and he allowed me to post it onto my profile this time. This will probably be two or three chapters long. We hope you enjoy this first story of ours for 2015.
Disclaimer: The Walking Dead Game belongs to Telltale Games and Skybound Entertainment.
Clementine was too weak to move as she clutched her injured arm. Her saviors: two men in their fifties and dispatched of the walkers and the one in the orange shirt quickly picked up Clementine and they ran through the woods.
After running for a few minutes and outrunning the walkers, they were safe, and the man with the green jacket turned towards Clementine. "Hey, you okay?"
"I'm...fine," Clementine responded, rubbing her arm which had been bitten by a dog, Sam, after he'd taken hold of her food. She'd had to kill him out of mercy once he was injured.
"What were you doing out here all on your own?" Pete inquired as they stopped running and decided to walk causally.
"I got separated from my friend Christa, we were cooking a weasel, and she got caught by bandits," Clementine explained, lowering her head. She decided to introduce herself. "My name's Clementine."
"Nice to meet you, Clementine, I'm Pete," the man with the green jacket interested himself. He gestured his hand to the man carrying her. "And this here's Luke."
"Hey," Luke nodded down at Clem. "We're going to get you back to our place, okay? We've got a doctor, and you look like you could use some - oh, SHIT!" He had a panicked expression on his face, and immediately dropped her.
"Luke, what the hell!" Pete scolded, unaware of the reason why he dropped her.
"Pete, she's bit!" Luke cried. He placed his hands to his head. "Fuck, man, what are we going to do?!"
"Oh, Jesus." Pete sighed when he noticed her bite mark.
"I'm not bitten!" Clementine cried. "It was a dog!"
Luke looked as though he didn't believe her.
"I didn't see no dog, Clementine." Pete told her whilst Luke paced around the area nervously. He knelt down to her and lifted up her sleeve, examining her arm closely. "Damn, that looked like it hurt. Hmm."
"So, a dog comes up, bites you, and just...disappears? Just some magical asshole dog in the forest?" Luke inquired suspiciously. "If it was really a dog, then where is it?"
"I...I had to kill it," Clementine admitted with a sigh.
"What? Really?" Luke asked, almost incredulously. "That's just...you don't do that. You don't kill dogs."
"What would you have done if a dog attacked you?" Pete asked him whilst he continued to examine Clementine's arm.
"I don't know!" Luke cried, pacing around briefly. He eventually stopped, and looked over. "So...was it a dog?"
"I'm not sure, could be." Pete admitted as he finished looking at her arm and stood back up. "Well, I'm not willing to leave a little girl here in the woods when we got doctors back at Howe's. Come on, we'll let Carlos have a look."
"Well, fine, fine. But I ain't carrying her anymore with that bite on her arm," Luke placed his hands on his hips.
Pete helped Clementine stand up, and the three of them began walking. But the eleven-year-old was walking at a much slower pace, and she was beginning to feel drowsy.
"You okay, Clementine?" Pete inquired as he and Luke stopped to check up on her.
"Yeah, I'm fine...just...tired..." Clementine trailed off, before falling to the ground.
"Aw, shit!" was the last thing she heard from Luke as her world blackened.
When she woke up, she felt something moving. Pete was standing over her, and backed away slightly when she opened her eyes. Looking around, Clementine realized that she was in the back of a vehicle.
"Clementine." Pete greeted. "Jesus, we thought you were dead."
Clementine leaned up and looked around her surroundings. She was in the back of looked like a delivery truck, and inside was Luke, Pete, and another man who looked Asian.
"She okay?" the Asian man inquired.
"She's okay, Vince. I think." Pete replied.
Clementine sat up, slowly but surely. "Where...where am I? Where are we going?"
"We're takin' you back to our camp, our doctor is going to fix your arm," Luke responded, although he still had a somewhat doubtful look on his face.
"Shouldn't be too long." Vince informed her. "Around twenty minutes."
Clementine was unsure of what to think. She had to find Christa, and these people were taking her somewhere that was probably far away. So, she decided to make conversation by asking about the camp. "So, where is this place? Is it safe?"
"Yeah, it's safe all right." Pete answered as he took a seat down and leaned against the wall of the truck. "It's not too far, still in Carolina."
"You think you can hold on until then?" Vince asked her. "I mean, even if it wasn't a lurker bite, I think all the blood loss could be deadly."
"I think so," Clementine responded, putting some pressure on her arm to (hopefully) stop the blood flow. She figured that she hadn't been out for all that long.
It took around twenty minutes like Vince said until they arrived at their destination. The back of the door opened and standing before her were three people. A woman with red hair, a man with camo clothes, and a man with a checkered shirt with black hair.
The four of them walked out, and the man with the checkered shirt narrowed his eyes towards Clementine. "Hmm, I take it this is the girl who got bit?"
"Yeah," Luke confirmed. He turned his attention towards Clementine. "This is Carlos. He's one of the main doctors here."
"Come with me." Carlos told Clementine as he placed his hand upon her shoulder and escorted her inside.
"I'll go and let Bill know." Vince informed them, marching away to another area of Howe's.
Clementine was escorted into some kind of medical area and was placed onto a bed with Carlos examining her arm. Luke and Pete were there too, watching with concern.
"It was a dog bite, honest," Clementine explained. She glanced up at Pete and Luke, before turning away.
"Well? What is it?" Luke inquired after a few minutes.
"It looks like it could have been a dog bite." Carlos admitted, but he was not one-hundred percent sure.
Before he could continue further, the door opened and a man with grayish hair and mustache walked inside. He looked somewhat scary, but Clementine couldn't judge him yet.
"I take it this is the girl you both found." he assumed with a scratchy voice.
Clementine nodded, and the man approached her with a smile. He was clearly the leader around here, since he seemed to have that attitude and appearance.
"Clementine right?" he greeted as he changed his expression to a somewhat serious one. "Now you swear that your injury was from a dog, right? Well here at Howe's, our one major rule is no tolerance for lying. So I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me the truth. Was it a dog bite?"
Clementine stared into his brown eyes and nodded once. "Yes, sir. I'm telling the truth."
Carver seemed to be satisfied with her answer and nodded. "Well then, I'm going to take your word for it. Carlos, fix her arm."
"Are you sure?" Carlos asked.
"I wouldn't ask you to if I wasn't sure." Carver explained as he turned around and proceeded to leave the room. "Once she's fixed up, escort her out to the yard."
Carlos nodded obediently, taking out one of the first-aid kits and gathering what he needed. Clementine couldn't help but wince, taking notice of the bottle of peroxide, which stung pretty badly when applied to a bleeding injury.
It took a few minutes until he was done sewing up her injury and then he proceeded to wrap bandages around her arm. "You were lucky Luke and Pete found you when they did."
"At least know we know she was telling the truth." Pete added as he turned over towards Luke, who massaged his temple.
"Thank you," Clementine told the doctor slowly.
She got up off of the bed and followed Carlos, Luke, and Pete out to the yard, where there were some other people. There was a fence all boarded up, a couple of fireplaces, and a lot of single-sized beds.
"I need to go back to work. Tell Sarah I'll be back soon." Carlos requested to Pete and Luke who each gave him a nod in agreement.
"Come on, Clem; let me introduce you to everybody." Pete replied as he escorted Clementine over towards a nearby table where a younger man and an older woman were talking. Surprisingly, he shared a resemblance with Kenny. "This is my sister Helen and my nephew Nick."
"Hello dear." Helen greeted. "Is she new?"
Luke nodded. "We found her in the woods, saved her from some walkers," he told her. "She almost died from a dog bite infection."
Nick raised his eyebrows. "Dog bite infection?"
"She got bit by a dog, and as you know, the infection is in the air." Pete pointed out the obvious. "Her wound was pretty bad."
"Oh," Nick nearly deadpanned.
"It's nice to meet you, sweetheart." Helen greeted with a kind smile. "What's your name?"
"I'm Clementine," the little girl introduced herself. Helen held out her hand, and Clementine shook it.
"It's nice to meet you, Clementine." Helen replied. "We hope you can be happy here at Howe's."
Clementine looked around briefly and nodded. "This place does seem safe so far," she commented.
Helen nodded before Pete decided to introduce her to more of their people. In the middle of the area where lawn chairs were scattered in a circle around a fire. Sitting there was a girl reading a book and a guy who...Only had one arm?
"Clementine, this is Carlos' daughter Sarah and this is Reggie." Pete introduced them.
"Hi," Sarah waved, giving a small yet shy smile.
"Hey," Clem greeted.
"Hi there, I'm Reggie." Reggie introduced himself as she shook Clementine's hand with his one hand.
"I'm Clementine."
They let go, and Clementine sat in one of the lawn chairs for a moment. She tried not to stare at Reggie's one arm, but he noticed her curious glance anyway.
"It's okay, it's hard not to stare." Reggie assured with a small smile. He decided to explain his story to her. "I was working outside when a lurker snuck up on me and bit me. That guy over there, who's sleeping, saved my life."
Clementine nodded, but was left a little confused. Why didn't this work for Lee?
But there was nothing that could have been done to save him, it seemed like.
"Are you okay? You look sad," Sarah pointed out.
Clementine blinked. "Huh? Yeah, sorry."
Pete decided to join his family and allowed Reggie to take over.
"Those two over there are Alvin and Rebecca." Reggie informed her, gesturing his one arm over to a sleeping couple. "They're expecting their baby soon so they're being moved inside."
Clementine glanced at them before turning back to Reggie. "I guess I'll be meeting the others tomorrow?" she inquired.
"Yeah, Mike's sleeping right now and gets cranky if he wakes up." Reggie agreed, but it was still a little early until nighttime arrived. "So is there anything you would like to know about this place, Clementine?"
"What do you do around here? Do you have jobs?" Clementine asked.
"We're working together to help build this community into a better place." Reggie answered. "The work here is not all that difficult. Most people work to build barricades around the area, we have guards who patrol the rooftops day and night, people who are in charge of all of our food and drinks, and those who keep weapons in check."
Clementine decided to ask another question she had in mind. "Is there a woman named Christa anywhere around here?" It couldn't hurt to ask, besides, this was a large place and Christa could've been anywhere at this point.
"Christa?" Reggie repeated. "I don't think so; we have had any new comers recently until you. Is she your mother or something?"
"Umm, no. We got separated last night," Clementine explained. "She got caught by bandits while we were cooking a weasel, and I haven't seen her since."
"I'm sorry to hear that, Clementine." Reggie apologized, but he had nothing to be sorry for. "If you remember where she last was, maybe I can try and convince Bill to search for her next time they're around that area."
Clementine wasn't sure if she remembered, so right now she only gave Reggie a small smile. "Thank you, Reggie."
"Of course." Reggie nodded as he examined her bandaged arm. "So, what happened to you if you don't mind me asking?"
"A dog bit me. Luke and Pete found me and brought me here," Clementine explained. "Carlos fixed my arm."
"That looks like it hurts," Sarah told her.
Clementine shrugged. "It's not that bad...anymore."
"Better that losing it." Reggie chuckled and made a joke of his one arm. It was hard to believe he lost something special yet was still quite cheerful.
At that moment, the security shutters opened and in walked Carlos after he was done for the day. Sarah ran over to greet him.
She hugged him and led him over to the fire. Carlos seemed to glance at Clementine doubtfully, as if he were wondering what she was doing with his daughter.
"Sweetie, why don't you go and read your book for a while?" Carlos offered, and Sarah nodded as she ran over towards their bed area. After she was gone, he turned towards Clementine with a serious face. "Clementine, may I ask have you been talking to my daughter? If so, what about?"
"We...didn't really talk much," Clem replied honestly. "Reggie was telling me about the camp."
"Well, if you wish to befriend my daughter, there are a couple of things you need to know." Carlos stated as he shared a quick glance towards his daughter before resuming the subject. "She isn't like you. You may not get that at first, but once you're around her long enough, you'll understand."
He paused for a moment and closed his eyes. "If you knew what it was like out there, how bad it was...She would cease to function. She's my little daughter, and I would ask that you please not inform her of what it is really like out there."
Clementine didn't really know how to react, but she decided to reply anyway. "I won't tell her anything. You can trust me."
"Thank you, I appreciate it." Carlos expressed his gratitude. He got up and proceeded to join his daughter near their beds.
"Don't mind Carlos, he's a little overprotective of his daughter." Reggie explained.
I can see that, Clementine thought. But she understood, Carlos only wanted to protect Sarah and keep her safe.
Before long had passed, one of the guards arrived with a tray with bowls of food on the table. "Dinner's served." he announced.
"What are we having tonight?" Pete inquired.
"Spaghetti and meatballs." he answered, waiting until everyone grabbed a bowl, and luckily, he put in an extra bowl for Clementine.
Clementine took a bowl gratefully. Spaghetti had been one of her favorite meals before the apocalypse, and she never thought that she would get to eat it again. She took a bite, savoring it. She had nearly forgotten how delicious it was.
"Feels good to have normal food again, huh?" Pete chuckled as everyone took a seat around the fire and enjoyed their dinner.
Alvin and Rebecca were also present and ate together in silence (Rebecca eating yet a little faster due to her pregnancy). Clementine had yet to meet them properly.
"This is Alvin and Rebecca," Luke introduced.
"Hey there." Alvin greeted with a smile and nod.
"Nice to meet you." Rebecca replied, but at the moment, she looked more interested in her food than meeting new faces due to her craving so much.
"Hi," Clementine returned the greeting. For a few minutes, everyone ate in silence until Nick spoke up.
"So, do we need to barricade anything tomorrow?"
"I think a couple of us need to work on those couple of stores outside." Reggie answered after taking a bite out of his dinner. "And aside from that, Tavia needs a couple of people to pick some berries in the greenhouse."
"And Bill mentioned that need some more gas for their generator." Alvin added.
Clementine thought about the generator at the St. John's family dairy farm, how it kept the electric fence turned on, preventing walkers from coming in. "The generator produces the electricity, right?"
"Yep." Pete confirmed. "And a good thing too. When we get some heaters installed, we can keep this place warm for the winter. And keep the place lit up too."
"Too bad we still can't watch TV." Helen added. She made a good point though.
"There would probably be no channels anyway," Luke pointed out with a light snicker.
"Exactly." Helen nodded before resuming back into her dinner.
Since they had a new guest in their community now, Carlos decided to introduce Clementine properly to their group if she was staying. "So Clementine, if you don't mind, may we ask where you are from?"
Clementine placed her fork back into her bowl. After a moment's hesitation, she decided to share her information with these new people. "I lived in Georgia, near Atlanta," she responded. "My parents went on vacation and left me with a baby-sitter. A man found me and took care of me. We were with a big group, and tried to survive, but...it didn't work."
"We're sorry to hear that, Clementine." Carlos replied, giving his condolences.
"Atlanta, huh?" Pete repeated, followed with a whistle. "You've come a hell of a long way, Clem."
Clementine nodded in agreement. "My friend Christa and I were heading north," she explained.
"North, huh?" Reggie said. "Why would you want to go there? No offense or anything, but I heard it's really cold."
"We found a map to a place called Wellington, it's supposed to be a big camp in Ohio."
For a moment, it sounded like Nick muttered about this so-called camp being bullshit.
But now that Clementine was here, was there any reason to continue on to Wellington other than Christa?
She didn't know, and decided not to think about it at the moment. Perhaps Christa would somehow show up here, and they would be safe here. The whole perimeter seemed secure enough, and there was food, water, and shelter for everybody.
After finishing their dinner and staying up for a little while longer, everyone tucked in for the night. Clementine got into the bottom of one of bunk beds that had a small mattress with a blanket and pillow. It felt strange sleeping in a bed again.
"Lights out!" a guard called out, a second later the power was off.
Clementine closed her eyes and was ready for sleep, exhausted from today's events. Tomorrow was going to be a new day.
There's the first chapter. Be on the lookout for Chapter 2 which will be here tomorrow, and please be sure to tell us what you think. And also, happy new year to everyone reading.