Episode Two: Cry For Help

Chapter Five: Chaos

Previously on The Walking Dead: On their way to Savannah to rescue Molly and her friends who are trapped by walkers at The Marsh House, Tom confronts Johnny and Alex about the death of his daughter, whom the two accidentally poisoned. Tom throws Alex out of the RV and begins to beat him as the rest of the group watch. Meanwhile, Molly, Todd and Ryan make it to the roof of the hotel after barely escaping a swarm of walkers that killed their friend Paul. Now, their only hope of rescue is Clementine and her group.

Ryan was tired of waiting now. He watched Molly pace from one side of the rooftop to the other as she waited for a response from the girl on the radio. Resting against one of the pipes peeking out of the roof, Ryan wiped another wave of sweat from his brow. Sweating like this was unnatural, especially on a night as cold as this. Another tear of sweat dropped from his chin. When he looked up he saw that Todd was looking at him with concern. He must have mistakenly thought that Ryan was crying, though he couldn't have blamed him after what the three of them had been through. When he saw that Todd was approaching him. Ryan tried to stand. He forced himself onto his feet. Feeling light-headed, he tried to grab the nearby pipe for support. But Ryan missed it completely and instead fell to the ground. To Ryan, the fall lasted a few seconds. He felt a gust of air leave his lungs as the ground came up to meet him. Then, everything went dark, and Ryan left his friends for a short while.

Todd sat beside his friend, struggling to understand the reason behind his sudden fall. He grabbed Ryan's head with his hands and tried to pull him forward. He couldn't feel any blood, which reassured him after he feared that Ryan might have opened his skull. He pulled Ryan close to him, he could feel his breath on his neck. He was about to shout to Molly when she appeared opposite him. Her hands were immediately on his cheeks, trying to comfort him. She stroked his cheeks as she asked him what was wrong repeatedly under her breath. Todd's thoughts were then immediately on what would come after – the chaos that was ensured if Ryan didn't survive whatever this was. Todd knew it would have to be him who did what needed to be done if worse came to worse. He wondered how long it would take for Ryan to turn when the sound of coughing and choking made Todd jump onto his feet. After pulling away and getting back on his feet, he realised he had grabbed Hilda from Molly's backpack on his way up. He saw that Ryan had regained consciousness, and was coughing up blood and saliva. Molly held Ryan in her arms, stroking his cheek as she looked back at Todd. She looked so ashamed in him, he had been ready to bury the ice tool in Ryan's skull. He threw the ice tool down to the floor and out of his hands, disgusted by the thought. Todd then marched away from the two of them, unable to look at either of them.

Molly could see the bite now. Ryan's sleeves had been concealing it, but the wound in his left arm had obviously been gushing blood, and his blue sleeves were now soaked with red blood. Before, Molly had assumed the mess had come from a walker, but after Ryan's fall, she had checked for any broken bones. That was when she pulled back his sleeve to reveal the deep, purple, throbbing, gaping holes above Ryan's wrist. Ryan had tried to pull away, and spare Molly from seeing the wounds, but he could barely bring himself to move now. He had flailed and flapped weakly, but Molly had seen the bite now – and everything had changed. Her and Todd knew what was going to happen next, it was just a question of when.

Lilly stood in the RV's doorway watching as Tom laid another sequence of blows to Alex's bloody, broken face. She blocked the doorway, keeping Johnny from intervening. This is justice, she kept trying to tell herself. Alex had gotten Tom's entire family killed – he was getting exactly what he deserved. Beyond the lay of land beside the highway where Tom hammered fist after fist against Alex's soft face, lightning struck the hilltops, lighting the skies with bright flashes of white. Each of flash of lightening was followed by a roar of thunder, which could have been mistaken for the sound of Alex's bones crunching as Tom buried his bare knuckles into his face, breaking one bone at a time. For a brief moment, Lilly thought Tom might have finally killed him, but then she saw Alex's eyes flicker open, and Tom laid down yet another familiar sequence of raw, brutal punches. Each one was followed by a gasp or a scream, but Alex was silent. The cries were coming from behind Lilly – from Johnny. When Lilly saw another tooth fly loose from Alex's broken jaw, she decided enough was enough. Justice has been served, she though as she left the RV and cleared a path for Johnny, who immediately raced past her to save Alex. Lilly watched as the chaos that followed played out in front of her tired eyes.

Lilly was reduced to nothing but a blur as Johnny shot past her. He leaped out of the RV – his feet hitting the dirt with a loud THUMP – and raced towards Tom, who was still throwing punches left and right against the boy choking on his own blood below him. He sprinted at the large shape above Alex – he saw only a blur as the adrenaline began to kick in – his heart thumping in his chest loud enough for him to hear. Closing his eyes, he threw himself against Tom, wrapping himself around the giant and sending them both tumbling into the dirt beside Alex. When he opened his eyes again, Johnny was on top of Tom. Fuelled by rage, he grasped the monster's throat tight and started to choke him. Johnny clenched his teeth together hard enough to turn his face beat red as he wrapped his hands around Tom's neck tighter and tighter. As he saw Tom's eyes begin to fill with blood, a manic smile began to stretch across Johnny's face.

When she saw his dirty hands wringed firmly around Tom's neck, Lilly pulled out the gun stuffed in the back of her trousers and clicked it loud enough to get Johnny's attention. She had no intention of using the weapon on anybody, but she had hoped the sound of arming the weapon – ready to shoot- would be enough to keep Johnny from killing him. Sadly, Lilly was wrong. Even as he stared down the barrel of Lilly's gun, Johnny did not release his grip. Instead, his grip became tighter. Lilly began to question how long Johnny had been strangling Tom, and how long she had left to free him. By the look of Tom's face, now the colour of a ripe tomato, she did not have long. Her finger was now on the trigger, and just for a moment, she considered pulling it. Johnny and Alex had obviously both been responsible for Lisa and Donna's death, and now he was trying to kill Tom too! Had Johnny blown his only chance to make things right? Would things not get better until he and Alex were both out of the picture? Was Tom right after all? All of these thoughts were going through her head when she heard Alex cry a single word out from beside her.

Johnny turned from Tom's long, unshaven and now bright red face at the sound of the click of Lilly's gun. He saw Alex first, wiping blood from his broken, beaten face that was already showing cuts and bruises. He watched Alex spit a tooth, knocked loose from Tom's beating, out of his mouth. Johnny's manic smile had disappeared now. Instead, he was looking at Alex with pity. His hands still not showing any signs of leaving their place firmly around Tom's neck, he tried to tell Alex that he was doing the right thing through a long solemn stare that sent a shiver down Alex's spine. Alex had begun to wonder whether or not he still knew the person before him. The man who was slowly draining the life out of another human being – was that the Johnny he knew? The world now ruled by the walking dead had the unforgiving, unfailing ability to change the people living in it. Had it changed Johnny too? After beginning to fear the worst, Alex finally cried out to Johnny. "Stop!" he pleaded. "Just stop!" Alex cried again, tears now streaming down his cheeks, washing the blood and dirt from his face in small wet streaks. And Johnny did so. His hands left Tom's neck, letting Tom's head fall to the ground. As soon as Johnny had let go, Tom huffed and puffed and his hands went to his neck, rubbing the skin were Johnny had begun to dig his fingernails deep into his throat. Around his neck, which bore the occasional grey hair that showed the man's age, a silver chain had been tattooed many years ago, circling around Tom's throat. Tom could feel it now. The chain was shrinking - getting tighter and tighter as every day passed.

Back on his feet, Johnny leapt into Alex's arms, ignoring the chances of Alex having suffered from several broken ribs and maybe a dislocated shoulder. Alex cringed and squealed in pain, but still embraced Johnny. When Johnny pulled back, he kissed Alex on the lips. Blood, dirt and sweat was all his boyfriend tasted of, but it made no difference to Johnny. He held Alex tight again, and whispered apology after apology into his ear. Over Alex's shoulder, he saw Lilly approach Tom, her gun still in her left hand. For a moment, Johnny thought she might have been about to finish his work and put a bullet between his bulging eyes. Instead, Lilly tucked her pistol back into her pants and offered Tom a hand. Although his knuckles were still bleeding, covering his hands in crimson blood, Tom gave Lilly his hand. It was hard for Lilly to keep her hand in Tom's, her grip made slippy by the blood that was quite literally on his hands. But despite his unmet and extraordinary weight, she was able to pull the giant of a man back on his feet. When she looked back at the RV, she saw the entire group stood outside the door, including Clementine, who still held on to her treasured walkie-talkie with her dear life. Realising they had been watching the entire ordeal, Lilly heard Tom sigh. To her surprise, that was all Tom did. And nobody heard a wink from him for the rest of the day.

Molly was trying the walkie-talkie for the eight time that night when Ryan's condition began to worsen. He was coughing and wheezing regularly now, occasionally spewing blood from his mouth and repulsing Todd. But even when Ryan brought his last meal back up in a hot stew of vomit and blood, Todd still stuck by his best friend, cooling his brow with a wet flannel and keeping him hydrated with the group's last bottle of water. The fact that they were wasting their last bottle of pure, clean and fresh water on someone who was already destined to die never even crossed Todd's mind – he was too busy making sure that Ryan's final moments were as peaceful and comfortable as they could be.

"How is he?" Molly finally turned and asked, giving up on the walkie-talkie that was still silent.

"How do you think?" Todd replied firmly, though Molly was in no mood to argue right now. "Still no answer?" Todd asked, nodding at the walkie-talkie Molly still held tight in her hands.

"No. Nothing," she said. She tried to think of some way of being optimistic about their current situation. Some detail that they may have overlooked that might have meant there was hope still. But there was nothing. No detail overlooked. No hope. "Nothing," she repeated to herself.

The first hour of their journey to Savannah was near silent, the silence only being broken occasionally by Donald who was murmuring incomprehensibly as he drifted into and out of sleep. Clementine watched as Alice, who hadn't left her husband's side yet (even during the commotion between Tom, Alex and Johnny), kept her husband cool and hydrated with a wet towel and bottled water, and calmed him whenever he woke. Every time he opened his eyes again, Donald would look down at his right leg and discover for the first time that it was missing, as he would forget almost every time he drifted to sleep. Alice had had to calm her husband down and explain that he had been bitten almost six times now, and it hadn't gotten any easier. Donald's eyes flickered open femininely now as Clementine watched. He was waking up again. Alice squeezed her husband's hand as she reminded him that she was by his side, like she did every time he woke. He looked down again, about to discover that his right leg was missing. Clementine and Alice dreaded what was to come, but to their surprise, Donald simply looked down, saw his stump and reacted with nothing but a plain and simple sigh. He closed his eyes again, and drifted back to sleep. Alice, who looked ready to cry, met Clementine's eyes then. She tried to smile, but it didn't do much to convince Clem. All the same, she smiled back. Alice almost looked as though she was about to say something when Omid broke the silence that was now crippling the group in the RV.

"Ow! OH OW! Oh, that hurts!" Omid cried in a goofy high-pitched voice that made him sound child-like. Clementine saw that Omid was finally back on both his feet after having been laid on his back for almost the entire journey. It looked like his leg had mostly healed, though he still walked with a very obvious limp. "Hey, this is good. It's getting better!" He said, sounding sheepish again.

"Good?" Christa said back to Omid, hope and happiness could both be heard in her voice. "This is great, Omid. At this rate, you'll be back on your feet in a couple of days!"

Clementine wanted to jump up and cheer. For almost the entire time she'd known Omid, he had been suffering from the same leg wound that at many points seemed like it may be fatal. But he was finally pulling through. Smiling, she turned back to Alice, whose eyes were back to her husband. Unfortunately, for Donald, it wasn't as simple as pulling through. Donald was never going to walk on two feet again.

That was when Clementine's walkie-talkie crackled back to life, the noise muffled by Clementine's backpack where she had hidden and almost forgotten about it. Just hearing the radio crackle followed by a familiar voice, Clementine pulled the radio from her backpack, thumbed the red button and spoke to Molly.

"Molly? Is that you? We're on our way!"

"Clementine? Oh, thank God! We were staring to worry," Molly said, overjoyed by the sound of the girl's voice. She couldn't be more grateful that the girl was on her way. "We really need your help, Clementine. Things are only getting worse…" She said with remorse. There was something else bothering Molly, but Clementine couldn't put her little finger on what it was. Right now, all she cared about was getting back to The Marsh House and finding her friends, which was what made what followed all the more difficult to bear.

"Oh shit," Clementine heard Johnny say from the driver's cabin. He sat in the driver's seat with Alex asleep beside him, but Johnny was now shaking Alex's shoulder furiously to wake him up. "Houston, we have a problem."

Clementine darted to the front of the RV, walkie-talkie still in hand. She was the first to see what Johnny was talking about, and when she did, her heart sank. She saw the familiar landscape; the buildings shooting over the cobbled streets, though now they were mostly hidden in the perilous darkness of the night that engulfed most of the city's landmarks and other distinguishing features. But it was something else that had grabbed Clementine's attention, and alarmed Johnny so. The endless wave of feral walkers that flooded the streets, now reaching out and pulling themselves towards the RV and its inhabitants, was what sent a shiver through Clementine, and made her take a deep breath.

Next time on The Walking Dead: When the group are faced with a herd of walkers that blocks their way to The Marsh House, they must work together to find a way past them. However, after Tom's meltdown, the group begins to lose their trust in each other. Meanwhile, Molly and Todd struggle to decide how to deal with Ryan. The clock is ticking, and they are running out of time. Will Clementine and her friends come to the rescue before it's too late?

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-George