"This is as far as we going." Calais tried to turn the engine several times, but they'd driven enough for the fuel to run out. They didn't make it to the road, they were still on the dirt woods in the woods.

"Think we got far enough?" Asked Amanda, as they began to grab the things they managed to grab from the farm from the truck.

"We should keep moving, anyways." replied Bonnie.

"And go fucking where?! We can't catch a damn break, these fuckers are everywhere!" Lashed out Kenny, who was highly unstable after the farm.

"Hey, keep it down!" Mika waved with her arms to keep a low level. "We aren't exactly in a safe zone, so keep your voice down!" she said in a soft tone.

"And is keeping my mouth shut gonna save us?"

"It ain't helping, that's for sure. Chill out, we'll figure something out." said Brendon.

"Let's spread out. I remember there was a few houses around the area, but I don't recall." said Claire. She remembered she used to walk along these trails with her friends when she was younger, but that's now a distant memory.

"I'll take Lee and Mikaela, we got this side. Someone else can scope out the other area," said Dalvin, as he reloaded his rifle.

"We got it. Want to come along so you can guide us?" Amanda asked Claire as both of them and Calais prepped for the hunt.

"I guess. I'm not really good with a gun, if that's why you want me to tag along."

"Here." Amanda handed her a knife.

"Goes in and out." The rest of the group stayed back to hold position. Kenny was growing highly unstable, and there was no way to control him. He was putting the group in jeopardy.

Clem wanted to go with Lee, but she knew that something wasn't right with Kenny, and that they had to do something about it. She stayed in the truck, learning how to read stars with Lake. It wasn't really a class, but she did what she could.

"I'm guessing you brought us out here for a reason?" Asked Lee, as he went over some branches and leaves.

"That fucker is a timed bomb, just waiting to explode."

"And we're all in the radius of it." added Mikaela, who knew Kenny since they all met in Savannah, but he changed over the course of time and events for bad.

"I've known the man since it started, a few days later. His kid got bit, then his wife took her life a few hours later. He had it all and lost it." said Lee.

"Still, we've all lost close ones, lost everything, yet here we are trying to survive day by day, doing what we can. He's got some serious issues." said Dalvin. He stood up to him back at the truck, and he'd do it again in a heartbeat.

They went around some bushes and trees, revealing a large, 2 story house. The front door was open, but there wasn't anything or anyone around it. They found several walkers inside, but it wasn't much of a problem for them. They went back to the truck to tell the rest of their discovery.

"Both houses have been cleared, and they're out of sight from the road. Which one?" Asked Claire. She'd seen a elderly couple in the house Lee found, but they never interacted. It was safe to assume they were dead.

"We can all fit in one. We shouldn't separate." added Clem. The fear of being separated from the group was always there.

They agreed on heading to the closest one, which was about 2 miles from where the truck broke Down. They managed to fortify windows and doors, as they settled in the living room.

"We found some canned food. At least it's something." Kate handed a can of fruits to Clem, and gave the other one to Cass, who sticked with Carter most of the time.

"This seems like a defendable area. We can set up a fence around the trees. I'm sure wildlife passes through here. That can be our food source." said Carter. He was quite good at planning for things, most of the time.

"What about the idiots that were firing at us? We just gonna forget about them?" Asked Kenny.

"You saw them go down with the farm. That was the last of them." replied Mike. "We got them. I'm sure of it."

Keny took a deep breath and got up from the couch.

"I'm gonna go catch some fresh air."Lee nodded, as he opened the door and leaned against the shed that was next to the house. It was really similar to the house they stayed at in Savannah.

"Do you know of any stores or anything nearby? We can go scavenging later or tomorrow." Dalvin asked Claire.

"Out by the road we were going to go. There's a couple pit stops there. Pretty big ones."

"How far is it?"

"Hard to tell, honestly. From the farm on a norma day it's usually a 45 minute cruise."

"We might set up a team to go check those out. We need all the supplies we can." said Lee.

"And Ammo." said Mika. Her rifle had a extended magazine, which was fully loaded. She liked to preserve ammo and not just randomly shoot.

"We'll find some. You know, theres-" a bullet hit the window, piercing the glass, sending it everywhere.

"Get down!" exclaimed Bonnie, as she took a defensive perimeter under the window.

"Get under cover now!" Lee instructed Clem, as she went under a table, weapon in hand.

"I see a Lotta men, but I don't see Kenny. Fire back!" The rest of the group spread out through the house, firing back at the group. The odd thing was that they were all at a distance, and they weren't even trying to enter the house.

"Lee, we gotta go! There's a back door, I'll get the kids out!" insisted Carter, seeing that they were greatly outnumbered.

"Kenny's still out there!"

"He might be a asshole but he's not stupid. He probably got out." added Kate, who trusted Lee enough to follow his orders.

"We got your man! Best stop the firing!" yelled a voice. The group looked at each other as they lowered their guns.

"Good, good. Now, one of you, out through the door. We won't kill any of you, don't worry."

"I'll do it." said Lee.

"What?! They already have Kenny, they'll kill you!"exclaimed Clem.

"They won't. Stay on guard." He gave Kate his pistol from his holster as he stepped out the door, towards the group of men. They were all well armed, and the apparent leader was dressed all in black.

Lee was about 30 yards away when they pulled Kenny in from aside, his hands were tied up, and he was knocked to his knees.

"What do you guys want?"

"You got any weapons on you? Best thing is to tell the truth, we ain't playing."

Lee wanted to play it safe.

"Just a knife on me. That's all."

"Good. Cristy? Make sure our friend here is unarmed." He looked over towards a girl on his side. She was wielding a rifle, which she put on the ground as she patted him down. She threw the knife some feet away from him.

"You'll get that on your way back. Don't worry."

"Why do you have him tied up?!"

"You see, there's things we all gotta do to survive. With the walkers and all. My people do things a different way."

"Way I see it, you're just as dangerous as we are." Lee said out loud.

"He's gonna get himself killed!" said Lake, as the group observed from the windows.

The leader chuckled at his comment.

"You're right. You're not as dumb as I thought. If we were all violent, mindless animals, we would have killed all of you without warning. But we do things differently."

"What do you want?"

"We've been watching you. We saw your discussion with your friend here a few hours ago. If he's a liability, would this do you a good?" he pulled out a pistol and aimed at Kenny's head, pushing the barrel against his temple.

"We just lost our place, it was just the heat of the moment. Please, there's no need for this."

"You killed our people. Jager was our best scavenger, and he went down with the farm. Best thing I could do is kill all of you in revenge for him and my men, but I'm not doing it."

"You attacked the farm, attracting the herd."

The leader's radio began to ring.

"Go ahead."

"We cleared out that area you mentioned earlier. What do we do?"

"I'm doing some business right now. I'm bringing back a guest, so prep it. Lanius out."

"Gotta go, Lee. I'm gonna provide you with a map. Wanna negotiate something? Be there. Soon." he looked at the girl named Cristy, who threw him a rolled up map. They pulled Kenny to his feet and dragged him into the woods, as the men disappeared.

He reached down and unrolled it. It was a large map of the state of Georgia, with a note written at the bottom.

"We don't guarantee anything, but if you want your man back, be here." the note ended next to a red point, about 25 miles from their current location. At the top of the map, the name of Georgia was scratched out, and in its place was "The Wanderers".

The rest of the group came out, weapons in hand.

"Who where they? Did they tell you anything??" Asked Bonnie. She'd seen her fair share of heavily armed groups, but this one was the best armed of them all.

He handed them a map, they studied it for a while inside the house while planning their next move.

" I know this place. It was a clothing factory. Never been there, but it's pretty big. It'll take at least half a day, if we don't stop." said Claire. She'd noticed she was good with maps, something no one else was.

"No disrespect, but I saw what they had. We won't stand a chance." said Dalvin.

"That guy seemed pretty calm. Maybe we won't have to shoot or kill anyone. We can just negotiate something." Mika suggested.

"People like that end up being complete psychos. What's the plan, Lee?" Asked Mike.

"They gave me the map, with their location. So we can't get the jump on them, they'll be expecting us."

"That man. He knew your name. How?" Asked Clem.

"He must've knocked it out of Kenny, my guess."

"That doesn't make sense. When they were firing, he asked for one of us, he didn't specify. It doesn't add up." answered Kate, putting together the pieces.

"I guess we'll see when we get there. We should get some rest. I don't know if we'll move out tomorrow."

"Whatever choice it is man, we got your back." said Calais, as he patted his shoulder.

"We're getting neck deep into trouble with these people Lee. Think this through. Think about the girl you're taking care of." suggested Carter.

"I am. Who knows, they might come back and take another one of us? I can't take that risk, you know that."

Clementine sat next to Cass, who was shaking.

"You okay?"

"The gunshots were pretty loud. You didn't even flinch, you just did what he told you to. I know it's something I should get used to but it's hard."

"You'll manage. If I did, you can." she said positively.

"I'll watch for the night. Can't risk another one." Bonnie pulled a stool towards the window and sat on it, watching out through the window, which had a bullet hole.

"Did you see anything similar when you were with Clay?" Asked Mika, who was leaning against the wall, after making sure the doors were sealed downstairs.

"What do you mean?"

"I know that he had heavy weapons, just wondering if the weapons these guys had can compare."

"All I can say is that what these guys have is pretty big. They must be a big group, these guys were just a search team I'd say."

"I'll leave you to your thoughts. You've done more then enough to redeem yourself since Ridgedale and the camp. You'll be alright," Mika smiled at her. She set up a makeshift bed next to the wall, which is something she'd preferred.

Next day at dawn...

"If we go out now, we'd be there by sundown." said Kate as she put on her boots.

"We gotta make sure that is this what we want to do. I know getting Kenny back is the priority, but is this really the time?" Asked Brendon.

"You know what they say. Now or never." Lee had his issues with Kenny, but he wasn't willing to lose one of the group.

"I still think it's not a good idea to go after him." said Bonnie.

"What?"

"Look, I don't know what is going in that factory that we're heading to, but it might as well be our graveyard at this point."

"He said we can work something out. I hate to say it, but he was right. He could have killed us all, but he didn't." replied Lee.

"Are we just going to ignore the fact that we're on foot? Maybe only some of us should go." suggested Lake.

"Who and who?"

"Look Lee. This is a dangerous mission you're getting yourself into. The whole group into. I agree with her, some of us should stay here and make sure this place is still standing later today." said Carter, he gave Lee a stern look.

"Alright, we'll split up. Who's doing what?"

Claire reassured Cass that everything will be alright as she grabbed her weapon and approached Lee.

"I'll go along. I know the way, plus, I can tell you about the factory along the way, see if it helps us anyway."

"I'll go. Just remember we ain't getting ourselves killed. Just doing some recon in the area." Dalvin reached for a pair of binoculars. He seemed to have a item for any given situation.

"I'm coming."

"Huh?"

"You told me back in Savannah that we are a team. Teams work together. Ill do as you say. I promise." Clementine wanted to tag along on the recon mission.

Lee hesitated a bit.

"Okay."

Several others joined in on the mission to check out the factory. For all they know it could be abandoned, or full of walkers. The mystery and dread was killing them.

"I remember I got lost snowboarding when I was kid. It was only a few hours, but I almost froze to death that time." Brendon commented. He wore a blue shirt representing a snowboarding team, but nobody really payed attention to it.

"How much further? Feels like we've walked ages," exclaimed Cal, who wasn't used to walking long distances."

"Hmm..." Claire observed the map and their surroundings at the same time.

"I'm sure we still have a good 15 miles left, until we reach the vantage point."

"Vantage?" Asked Clem. She'd heard the word before, but didn't really knew the meaning.

"About a few hundred yards from the factory there's a bunch of buildings. We can set up shop there, so that we don't blindly go into a war zone."

"Who's to say we haven't already. These bastards mean business." replied Cal.

"So do we. They aren't the only ones." added Dalvin. He didn't liked being messed around with, and as much as he disliked Kenny's attitude sometimes, he was part of their group.

Back at the house..

Bonnie and Amanda were setting up a security measure around the house, in case anything or anyone approached them. It wasn't 100% effective, but it was better then nothing.

"Being completely honest, getting Kenny back is far fetched. If they do release him, they won't leave us alone, I can almost guarantee that." said Amanda. She didn't want to be negative, but she was just stating facts, in her opinion.

"These are dangerous people, that's obvious. Lee knows what's best. They'll be fine, sure." reassured Bonnie.

"Shit." A couple of walkers were tangled on the wires they used as a fence, which caused it to go down on that side.

"Damnit.." They took care of the walkers rather quickly, but there was something else. Amanda could see two figures walking between the trees. They didn't have their weapons drawn at them, but they had to be careful.

"That's close enough. We have you in our sights. What do you want?" Asked Bonnie. Carter noticed something was up, as he approached the fence with the pair with a weapon in hand.

"We're just looking for our friends, we ain't hurting no one." One of the voices came from a man, in his late 30's, with black gloves and a purple shirt.

"Well they aren't here. Best is you step back and go back where you came from." growled Bonnie.

"Please. We got separated by a horde about a day ago, we need to find them." another man said. His face had the look that they hadn't slept in days. His Grey jacket had several blood marks on them.

"How can we know you're not one of them? And you're trying to kidnap someone else?"

"Now excuse me? Do we look like kidnappers? All we are looking for is-" Several walkers came through the fence. The argument unknowningly attracted them. One of them pinned Amanda to the ground, as the rest of the group came out to defend.

"Shit I got you!" The man pulled the walker off with ease as he put a bullet through its head.

"Who the hell are these people?!" exclaimed Mikaela as the walkers kept coming.

Rosie, who'd tried to fight off the walkers, eventually got overwhelmed as she was mauled by dozens of them, as the group could only watch in disappointment.

"We can introduce ourselves later after we kill them, now's not the time!" Cass stayed close to Carter, though he wasn't much good with a gun due to their isolation at the farm. After some time, they managed to take them out.

"My friends call me Coach. If we end up sticking around, guess y'all could call me that." he said, as he helped Carter and Lake pull the walkers into the woods.

"Mine's Emile. We're not expecting Roll Call, but I believe it's good to know what to call each other, just in case."

"You came this way looking for your friends? How many of them?" Lake wanted to make sure they weren't part of the group that took Kenny. Even if they said they weren't, they could lying.

"3 of us. 2 guys and a girl. There was a herd going east, so we came down here. We got separated in the moment, we thought they could be in this house. But I see you guys have it occupied." said Coach, a hint of sadness and disappointment in his voice.

"I'm guessing you're alright. We lost one of ours too, he got taken." Said Mike.

"What're you doing?!" whispered Kate.

"If they wanted to kill us, they would have done it already. They might help us with the wanderers if necessary."

"I know this world went to hell, but kidnapping? Shit." Coach said, shocked.

"Do you know where they are? If they took your friend, you should get him back." added Emile, who had a knife strap on his shoulder. It made him look more agile.

"We're on it. We sent a group to go check out the area. They left a few hours ago, they'll be back soon." declared Lake. As much as friendly the new people were, she didn't really trust them.

"What do you see?" The group had set up a small camp inside one of the buildings just a few hundred yards from the factory. Dalvin was perched on one of the windows with the binoculars, while Brendon and Cal guarded the area.

"There's several guards on the towers. I'm gonna say.. At least 6 of them. They're watching in every direction, but the trees don't give them a good view of here." he took a deep breath and jumped off the window.

"I'm guessing they have the area scoped out then. We need to plan this out." Lee tried to think of ideas, but he was boggled. All the ideas he had, involved blasting their way in, risking them killing someone.

"We have this whole area blocked off by the trees. We can set up our camp here to move in on them, that's my idea." commented Claire.

"What about walkers. They've been all over the place. they'll get here soon." They had killed walkers in the building in order to clear it out for the moment. But they weren't temporary.

"We have what we needed. Let's head back, it's getting dark. Watch your step." Lee told the rest of the group as they started their trek back to the house with the rest of the group.