Chapter 6 – Interrogation
"Hey. Hey, kid, you okay?"
"I think she's unconscious."
"No, look, she's movin.'"
"Scout?"
Passing in and out of consciousness isn't a fun game. I awoke blearily. The sky was no darker; not much time had passed. The air was musky and cold, smelled of impending rain. The pine trees shifted above me and I turned my gaze sideways, meeting the eyes of a stranger. Other side – Clementine, looking just as worse for wear, in the arms of another stranger.
"Are you okay?" her savior, a middle-aged guy in a ripped brown sweater and sporting a machete across his back, asked my friend.
"I... I can walk," she muttered.
"Oh, yeah? Because you were barely able to crawl away from that lurker back there," he chided breathlessly.
"How about you?" That was someone else.
I looked up lazily, following the sound. Oh, that was for me. I swallowed back the dryness in my throat, nodding. My captor shook his head, and the men pressed on, still carrying us like sacks of flour, helpless little lambs.
"What are you two doing out here?" Green Jacket asked, adjusting me in his arms, making me flinch at the reignited pain in my shoulder.
"Where are the people you were with?" Brown Sweater. "There's no chance you made it this long on your own."
"I don't want them thinkin' we're doin' anything but tryin' to help you." Green Jacket. "Not sure how the group is gonna feel about another mouth to feed."
"We got attacked by some bandits," Clementine spoke. I felt clearer in the head, somehow. Her voice was like a light drawing me in, giving me something to focus on besides the blackness.
"These folks mention what they were after?" Green Jacket.
"They might've just wanted food. We were cooking some...sort of animal."
"Weasel," I muttered, grinning slightly. Clementine's minimal knowledge of hunting and tracking was always a point of fun for me, in good spirits of course. I was the one who'd skinned the weasel. I was proud of that. Wished now I was eating it.
"It speaks," Brown Sweater seemed happy. "They attacked you for a weasel? Damn. That is low." He paused. "Uh, they didn't mention any names, right? They weren't... searching for anybody?"
Green Jacket grunted. Clementine looked at me. I shook my head.
"Well," Brown Sweater brightened, "I'm Luke. This is Pete."
"Hey there," Pete enjoined.
"I'm Clementine." Always the first to warm up to people.
"Scout," I offered, discontented.
"Nice to meet you both. For now, we're gonna take you back to our group, okay?" Luke smiled."We got a doctor with us, and you look like you could use someOH, SHIT!" Luke yelled suddenly, dropping Clementine from his arms like she was a white-hot coal.
"Hey!" I shouted, gathering my good elbow and shoving it into the soft part of Pete's gut. He dropped me, too and I hurried to her side as she cried out.
"What the hell, Luke?" Pete shouted, clutching his gut. I glared at him, crouching over my friend.
"She's... they're... they're both bitten! Fuck, fuck, FUCK! What are we going to do here?" I looked at my shoulder, the stain of blood now evident on Pete's shirt, previously masked by the black fabric of mine. Luke pressed his hands to his face, pacing back and forth.
"No!" Clem shouted "It was a dog!"
"I didn't see any dog, Clementine," Pete looked sideways at Luke, disbelieving.
"Come on, kid," Luke, once amiable, now pointed fingers at us. "Look, we just saw you with those lurkers back there."
"I can't remember the last time I saw a dog," Pete fueled the fire.
"So what do we do now," Luke muttered matter-of-factly.
"Just look at them!" Clem encouraged, which was more than I was doing. "Please."
"Yeah, and have you sink your teeth into Pete's neck? No way."
"My neck? Why am I the one?"
"'Cause I don't know a dog bite from a mosquito bite from a lurker bite, man!"
"It's not!" Clem promised.
A few seconds passed in tense silence. I watched the men like a hawk, my muscles raring to bolt.
"Hmmm," Pete folded his arms. "All right, let's see 'em." He advanced, squatting down to our level. I tensed.
"Woah, woah, woah. Hey, watch yourself," Luke warned. I liked him less and less every second. I glared at him. "Hey, don't look at me like that! You two are the ones bit here."
Pete took Clem's arm and pulled back her sleeve. She cringed, and again I saw the wound. The skin was mangled, and covered in so much blood I understood how it could be mistaken for a walker bite, or any kind of bite, really. But I still hated the for not believing us. Pete less for giving it more consideration than Luke. Luke had his back to us like a child refusing to obey his mother and ending up in the corner for it. I put him on my mental shit list.
"See?" Clem whispered through gritted teeth.
"Your turn," Pete gestured to me, his countenance betraying none of his thoughts. Reluctantly I pivoted, sitting down with my back to him. He lifted the edge of my t-shirt. I hissed as the fabric came unstuck from the wound.
"Is it, uh... is it like they say?" Luke looked over his shoulder at us.
"Well, could be a dog. Hard to say." He put my shirt down, and I struggled to turn and face him, holding my wounded arm to my chest. "So where did this 'dog' go? The one that did this?"
"Now what... what does that matter, Pete? Seriously." Luke interrupted, clearly frustrated.
"Because I wanna know how believable this story is," he chided.
Clem looked at me. I hung my head, trying to shut out Sam's desperate crying. "We killed it." I heard my voice but it didn't feel like mine. Like the words were already there and I just breathed air and made them audible, visible.
"What? Really?" Luke raised his hands. "A dog shows up and bites you and you just killed it?"
"What would you have done?" Pete challenged.
"I don't know!"
"It attacked us!" I defended.
"Still! You don't..." he faltered. "You don't kill dogs."
Pete shook his head, turning back to us. "Clementine. Scout?"
"Yes?" Clem answered for the both of us.
"You tellin' us the truth? You look me in the eyes when you answer."
We exchanged pensive looks. Clem set her brow and turned back to Pete. "Yes."
"Well, alright. That's good enough for me."
Luke scoffed. "Well, what else was she gonna say?"
"I've got a good bullshit detector, Luke," Pete scolded, helping Clem to her feet, then me. "That's why you can never beat me at poker."
"You don't always beat me at poker."
Pete raised an eyebrow.
"Fine," Luke conceded. "But how can you be sure?"
"Well I'm sure I ain't willing to leave two little girls in the woods to die when we got a doctor with us that can make a call. We can have Carlos take a look at them, first."
"Nick ain't gonna like this. Not with what happened to-"
"You don't have to remind me of that, boy." Pete hardened. The air seemed to still, thicken. It was darker now. How long had we stood here, wasting daylight arguing and losing blood? I nudged Clementine. She nodded to show she was okay.
"Right," Luke deflated some. "Sorry, sir."
Pete softened, patting the younger man's shoulder. "Come on."
We hobbled after, and in the distance a cabin became visible against the fading sunlight. As much as I disliked the situation, I was relieved. The men turned to us. Pete's brow furrowed. "Clementine? Are you alright?"
By the time I turned to look at her, Clementine was on the ground.
