"Come on OJ, go get it!" Clementine threw the ball across the room and waited for the boy to run after it, but he didn't. "Come on, don't you want your ball?"

Omid stood up, walked across the bed and stretched his arms up towards the back window. "Muh-duh."

"I know, you want to go out," sighed Clem. "Here, I can at least do this for you." Clem picked up Omid and held him up to the window. The boy placed his hands on the glass and looked out in amazement at the empty fields full of dead grass that were drifting past them. Searching for anything to distract her from the strain in her arms, Clem looked down at Sarah, who was lying on the bed with a book covering her face.

"Is that one of those medical textbooks?" asked Clem as she looked at the cover. "What are you reading about?"

"Sex," said Sarah without looking up.

"Really?"

"Well reproduction, and stuff like that," said Sarah.

"Why?"

"I was just curious," shrugged the older girl as she turned the page. "You're not?"

"No way. I hated just hearing you read about it in the encyclopedia that one time, it was so gross. Why do you want to know more about that?"

"It's just… interesting. I mean, this is where everyone in the world comes from," reasoned Sarah. "Aren't you curious about where Omid came from?"

"I saw where OJ came from," said Clem with a shudder. "I don't want to read about something gross like that if I don't need to know about it."

"Then why do you ask me what I need tampons for?" retorted Sarah.

"What do you need them for?" Even with a book covering most of her face, Clem could see Sarah was cringing in response to what she asked. "When I'm older?"

"Yeah, maybe around the same time you want to know more about sex."

"Well that'll be never," said Clem as she turned back to the window, noticing they were crossing a bridge now. "Do you think you could hold him for a second, my—"

"Oh shit!" Clem heard Patty yell before she felt the brakes being slammed on. She clutched Omid close to her chest as they came to a quick stop, then set the boy in his crib. The girl hurried to the front just in time to see Patty stepping out of the vehicle. She followed after the woman, bursting outside and walking forward on the bridge for a few steps before stopping when she saw what Patty had seen.

"What happened?" The road itself disappeared about twenty feet in front of where Clem was standing, leaving a massive gap between two ends of the bridge which were only connected by the metal framework running beside and over a highway that was no longer complete. Taking a few steps forward, Clem looked past the edge of the road and saw the river churning far below them.

"The hell is going on?" Clem looked over her shoulder and saw Anthony emerge from his camper. "Why'd we stop? This some kind of—whoa…" Anthony moved right to the edge of the remaining bridge and peered downward. "What happened to the road?"

"I don't know," spoke a shaken Patty. "I'm just glad I spotted it before I drove us off of it."

"Wow…" Clem looked over to see Sarah approaching the group. "What happened? Did part of the bridge fall down?"

"I don't think so, look at how the concrete and metal on the edges is blackened," said Patty as she motioned to the far side of the broken bridge.

"And there are cars on that side of the bridge, but not this one," noted Clem as she looked at where Patty was pointing. "Like, they wanted to keep people out."

"Who?" asked Sarah.

"The military, who else? You said they were killing people trying to get in Miami right?" Anthony asked Patty. "I guess the ones out here just found a more efficient solution."

"They did close off roads a lot in Miami," said Patty. "If the troops who were here wanted to control the traffic going in and out of New Orleans, this would be one way to do it."

"So what now?" asked Anthony. "We gotta get over the Mississippi to go west, and we're not doing that here."

"I'll guess we'll have to cross through Baton Rouge after all," concluded Patty.

"What?" asked Anthony. "Let's just head back to New Orleans and cross there; we know their bridge isn't out."

"We had to cross back to this side of the river because there are no major roads leading west south of New Orleans," reminded Patty. "And we had to go back through New Orleans itself because the first bridge we tried after leaving was completely blocked off with cars." Patty turned and looked out over the broken bridge. "I'm guessing that was by design; clearly the military didn't want people using bridges they didn't control."

"Then what the hell makes you think they didn't blow up or block the bridges in Baton Rouge?" asked Anthony.

"They were clearly there, we saw all the signs of it yesterday afternoon," argued Patty. "No way they wouldn't leave at least one bridge open for them to use if they had to leave."

"You just know that?" asked Anthony in a mocking tone.

"Would you blow up every bridge in town without leaving one standing for yourself?" asked Patty.

"If I was leaving and not coming back I might." Patty groaned at Anthony in response. "You say there's nothing south of New Orleans like it's a bad thing, like it's worse to crawl through the countryside instead of skirting through a city we only checked out from the overpasses the other day."

"It's not that it would be safer, it might be the only way to go west now," said Patty. "There's a bunch of smaller rivers and lakes south of New Orleans and they all have bridges too; you think the military didn't take them out too?"

"There's only one way to find out," said Anthony.

"It'd take us twice as long to get back to New Orleans than to Baton Rouge, then God only knows how long trying to find a way westward through swamplands whose bridges might all be out as well," said Patty. "We can be back in Baton Rouge in under an hour and find out if its bridges are still up or not in no time. If it looks bad, which it didn't yesterday, we can bail and head back through New Orleans then."

"I just don't see what the rush is?" said Anthony. "Why not try the safer route first?"

"Because there might not be time." Everyone turned to Sarah. "I mean… I don't know…"

"No, go ahead and tell us what you're thinking," encouraged Patty in a warm voice.

"It's just… it looks they're all leaving," said Sarah. "Patty, you said the Army left Miami when?"

"Um, around mid-October I think," recalled Patty. "I remember because it was almost Halloween when I found Valkaria, or at least that's what some of the people staying there told me."

"And there was no one left in Mobile, and the soldiers you saw the day before yesterday sounded like they expected to find people in New Orleans."

"At first they thought we were from New Orleans," added Clem. "And got really mad at each other when we told them we weren't."

"Wherever these planes were going, they might not be there long; they might be leaving right now to go somewhere safer," said Sarah. "If we don't hurry, they might be gone by the time we get there."

"Assuming it's there, and they have somewhere safe to go, and that they'd take us with them," retorted Anthony. "What if we find whoever these people with planes are and they just tell us we can't come with them?"

"What if they say we can?" asked Clem. "Then we'd miss our chance to be somewhere safe if we didn't go."

"I just don't see anyone these days bothering to help us out, let alone the military," said Anthony. "And I don't know why any of you would either."

"There's gotta be something out there," reasoned Patty. "We already know there are groups of people doing okay without the military, we just need to find one not staffed by assholes."

"Yeah, well, I think that's a bigger challenge then you people want to admit," said Anthony. "Not sure why you're all so against being nomadic."

"No madic?" asked a confused Clem.

"He means like nomads," said Sarah. "People without homes who just moved around a lot."

"It's not so bad. I didn't mind it before really except for the fucking cops always looking for a reason to bust me, and they're gone now," said Anthony. "Really don't see the appeal in trying to find the closest things to them left in the world, especially when the dead aren't a problem now; staying mobile makes it easier for us to stay ahead of trouble."

"I agree," said Clem. "It's probably good to keep moving, it's just that…" Clem looked over her shoulder at the Brave.

"It's just that damn baby you three are taking care of," realized Anthony.

"Pretty much," said Clem. "He's getting kind of big for an RV."

"Well… nomads had babies," said Anthony. "They managed somehow, and they didn't even have RV's."

"What did they have?" asked Clem.

"Umm… well…"

"Whatever it is, we don't know, do we?" Patty asked Anthony.

Anthony scratched his head then sighed. "Man, things would be a lot simpler if we didn't have a baby on board."

"Well we do, so things aren't simple," stated Patty. "And I say we head back to Baton Rouge, see if we can get across the Mississippi there and keep going west. Clem, Sarah; what do—"

"Don't bother, it's obvious you three have already made up your minds," grumbled Anthony as he headed back to his truck. "But if we all end up dead, then I told you so."

The young man climbed back into his vehicle while Patty and Sarah returned to the Brave. Clem however moved up to the end of the broken bridge and peered over the edge again. Scanning the area below, Clem noticed something between the supports holding up the other side of the bridge; it was a single car just sitting between them, broken and mangled probably in its fall, now trapped between a couple of metal pillars forever.

"Clem?" Clem looked back to see Sarah standing in front of the door to the Brave. Turning her eyes to the RV itself, the image of it rolling off the edge and into the river briefly flashed into the girl's mind.

"I'm coming." The girl hurried back into the Brave, eager to leave this bridge behind. She was nervous as Patty turned the RV around, finding herself unable to look away from the end of the bridge until they were driving away from it. Finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, Clem sat down in the passenger seat.

"So, what was Baton Rouge like?" asked Clem as she watched the bridge disappear and the empty fields return. "I wanted to come with you, but—"

"I felt a lot better knowing you and the RV were a safe distance from another damn city," said Patty with a sigh. "You didn't miss much. We stuck to the overpass and just saw more of the same like we did in New Orleans and Mobile; a whole lot of nothing."

"I thought you said you saw lurkers too?" asked Sarah as she slowly headed for the front, holding Omid's hand as she walked with him.

"Some, but not many," said Patty. "We checked a few gas stations and a store, just in case people had left any food behind, but they were all picked clean; guess people managed to clear them out around the walkers."

"Or maybe the walkers came to Baton Rouge after everyone else left," suggested Clem.

"What?" asked Patty with a chuckle. "Why the hell would they do that?"

"They never stop, and they follow any loud noise," informed Clem. "A bunch of them might have followed something to Baton Rouge, like a thunderstorm… or a train."

"Or a plane," realized Sarah. "Maybe the walkers heard the planes and that's why they were there."

"The man did say he heard them before he saw them," realized Clem. "So they must have been loud."

"And four days—or five now—should be enough time for walkers to make it to a city, even if they heard it from over a hundred miles away," added Sarah.

"Wow, I didn't even think about all that," admitted Patty. "We might actually be on the right track."

"You said you checked the airport right?" asked Sarah.

"Yeah, we had to go up the road for a while to get to it, but we eventually found it," said Patty. "It was really small, like just a couple of runways and a few hangars. I spent a lot of time eyeing it with the telescope and I didn't see any planes, and there weren't any walkers either; if planes had landed there I imagine the noise would have brought the dead."

"Still, that means we should look for walkers once we get across the river," realized Sarah. "If they followed the noise of planes passing over, it'd be like they'd be leading us to where they were going."

"Here's just hoping we don't run into a herd along the way," said Clem.

"Herd?"

"Sometimes, when a lot of walkers get together, and they hear something loud enough, they all start moving together, like a big herd."

"Of walkers?" asked Patty.

"Yeah."

"You guys have seen this before?"

"We have…" said Sarah in a sad voice.

"Well shit, here's hoping you two don't have to see it again."

Silence fell over the RV for a few moments before Omid said something.

"Kem-men," said the boy as he walked up to the passenger seat.

"Come here OJ, why don't you look out the window for a while with me?" Clem helped Omid up onto the dashboard and the pair watched things pass them by. There were plenty more dead trees and fields for miles; nothing Clem hadn't seen plenty of. Eventually things like supermarkets, gas stations, and fast food places started cropping up on the side of the road, followed by simple apartment housing.

The lead up to Baton Rouge was considerably less impressive than then one to New Orleans; neighborhoods were few and far apart and there were big patches of empty road between signs of civilization. Clementine found it all entirely routine, but Omid kept watching with great interest. He wasn't as awestruck as he had been on previous trips but was still practically glued to the windshield, clearly afraid he might miss something if he looked away. Clem couldn't help wondering if this is what she looked like back when she watched TV.

Eventually, neighborhoods became more common and the empty spots in the road seemed to fade away as more houses, churches, and parking lots begin to fill the area; Clem even found herself eyeing a water park and quietly wishing it still worked. Even as they seemed to enter the heart of Baton Rouge, they city was never much more than a smaller New Orleans, with the only tall buildings being the occasional hotel.

Even after the interstate turned into an overpass, there was little to see. Baton Rouge felt more like a series of smaller towns they were passing through than a city itself. It wasn't until a big bridge came into sight did Clem begin to see parking garages and a few taller office buildings, and yet they looked like smaller and less important versions of the buildings she had seen in New Orleans and Mobile.

"Goddammit…" Looking ahead as Patty slowed the Brave down, Clem could see a semi-truck with a trailer attached to it that stretched across all six lanes of the overpass. "It can never just be easy."

Patty parked the Brave then armed herself along with Clem as they headed out to look at their newest obstacle. The truck and its trailer appeared to be in good shape, and was so precisely parked across the entire road that it couldn't have possibly been an accident. There was a small cushion of space between the ends of it and the edges of the overpass itself, but only just barely enough for a single person to squeeze past.

"I'm not going to say I told you so, but—"

"Shut up Anthony," said Patty as she hurried over to the truck. "They wouldn't bother blocking off this bridge if it wasn't still in one piece."

"Maybe they blocked it off, then later blew it up for good measure?" Patty ignored Anthony and climbed on top of the semi truck. While the woman surveyed things from up high, Clem grabbed the telescope from the Brave and decided to check the surrounding area.

Just moving to the edge of the road, Clementine saw they were at least thirty feet above the river and a good hundred feet away from the shore now. It occurred to her both this roadblock and the broken bridge before appeared carefully planned so that anyone crossing them would be forced turn back. Had these obstacles been placed closer to the land, someone might be able to tie a rope to the bridge and climb down to the ground if they left their vehicle behind.

Looking through the telescope, Clem got her first close look at the Baton Rouge area. As Patty had already said, there was little to see. The roads were mostly clear and most of the buildings had open doors or busted windows, like they had seen before in cities the military occupied. Following the shore to her left, she saw tall buildings, likely offices and a few hotels, maybe a hospital as well. They were so few in number they were more like minor landmarks than a proper skyline.

To her right were a few shorter buildings and a lot of trees surrounding a wooden dock. Just before that was a field that contained a massive crater that nearly stretched to the shoreline. Initially Clem had thought it had been filled with garbage bags, but focusing the telescope she could see they were actually bodies; probably a few hundred of them, all burnt to a crisp and stuck together with mud in what must have been an open grave at one point. The bodies were so badly burned that Clem had no idea if they had ever been walkers or not before they died.

Not wanting to linger on the possibilities of such a disturbing sight, Clem turned away and focused on the shoreline instead. She saw more boats anchored to a dock further down the river, but little else. Looking at the far side of the river she saw even more ships, but much like everything else, the boats lining the edges of the river were insignificant in number compared to how many they had seen New Orleans.

The entire city appeared desolate like all the others they had visited on the Gulf. She didn't even see any walkers like Patty had mentioned, although she couldn't see the streets very well from this position. The same eerie silence that hung over Mobile and New Orleans hung over this city as well, carried on the same cold wind that seemed to blow through all of them. The girl found herself tugging on her jacket as a shiver ran down her spine.

"It's clear." Clem spun around to see Patty climbing off the semi-truck. "Not a single car on either side of the road."

"Maybe because they blew up the end of it like that other bridge?" suggested Anthony. "And no cars were getting across."

"Would they have bothered blocking the road if they had done that?" argued the woman. "Look, they even got rid of the center divider." Patty pointed to the cement barrier running between each set of lanes. A sizable piece of it was missing, leaving enough room for the truck to drive across the middle and park on both lanes of traffic.

"Fine, this was the barricade, but how are we getting past it now?" asked Anthony. "They're obviously not here to move it for us."

Patty climbed into the cab of the truck and sat down in the driver's seat. Clem watched as she dug through the glove box and the rest of the cab before holding up something high above her head. "Keys," she boasted as she stuck them into the ignition. Clem watched in anticipation as Patty tried to start the vehicle. She turned the key but nothing happened, it didn't even make a sound.

"So for much that," said Anthony. "I guess—"

"The batteries are probably dead," said Patty as she hopped out of the truck. She immediately laid down on the road and looked under the steps that led into the cab. The woman reached under them and fiddled with something, then stood back up. Clem was surprised to see Patty then just pull the steps right off the truck with a quick tug, bringing them with her as a single part.

"What are you doing?" asked a confused Clem.

"Fixing this thing." Tossing the steps aside, Clem saw they had been concealing a large black plastic container hidden under the truck's cab. "The bolts aren't even on this thing, this isn't the first time it's been jumped." Patty removed the top of the container with a quick snatch and tossed it aside, revealing three large batteries sitting inside.

"What the hell are the batteries doing there?" asked a confused Anthony.

"So you can get to them, duh," said Patty as she headed over to the Brave. "All right, Sarah can turn the RV around and I can use the generator and a battery charger to get this thing moving."

"Battery charger?" asked Clem. "Where are we going to get that?"

"We already have one." Clem just looked at Patty in confusion. "We got it when we got the generator, remember? The little box with jumper cables sticking out of it?"

"I thought that was just part of the generator or something," said Clem.

"No, I got that for us in case the RV ever stalls and we have to jump it off ourselves." Clem wasn't sure what was worse; the thought of the Brave not working, or that they already had something that could fix it with them and she didn't even know it. "All right, Anthony, you keep watch while I get the truck moving, the generator might draw walkers up here."

"Just me, with just a bat?" he asked as he held up the dented aluminum weapon.

"I've seen you handle plenty of walkers with just that before," said Patty.

"Yeah, but what about people?" he asked. "We don't know there isn't anyone down there. If there is, a generator is just the kind of thing that would bring them running."

"I'm not giving you another gun," stated Patty as she crossed her arms.

"Then maybe you should keep watch then," suggested Anthony.

"I have to fix the truck, how—"

"I'll do it," volunteered Clem. "I have a gun, and I can help with any walkers too."

"You?" scoffed Anthony.

"Why not me?" asked Clem.

"You expect me to believe you can hold someone off if they come this way?"

"I held you off." Clem could tell this comment irritated Anthony, but she couldn't bring herself to care and simply returned his look of irritation.

"All right, the two of you can keep watch, Sarah will stay in the Brave in case we need to leave in a hurry, I'll work on the truck." Anthony marched back to his camper without a word, leaving Clem and Patty to do likewise. They returned to Brave long enough to equip their raincoats and a few other essentials before briefing Sarah on the situation.

After turning the RV around so the trailer with the generator was closer to the truck, Patty got to work while Clem moved on top of the Brave. As she was setting up the telescope, Clem heard what she thought was the generator starting up, only to notice Anthony's truck slide in next to her. As the engine shut off, she watched the young man climb onto his own vehicle, baseball bat in hand as he took a seat on the roof.

"Um… hi." Anthony merely looked over at Clem in response, clearly still annoyed, then turned away. Clem decided to not bother with him and just took up her position as the look out. The generator started up not long after that and Clem could see the Patty hooking cables to the truck's batteries. Moving to the telescope, Clem tried to see more of Baton Rouge area, but found little of interest.

There were mostly trees and buildings back the way she came and water to her left and right. Turning all the way around, Clem looked past the bridge. She could some large barges anchored by the shore and giant silos connected by massive metal beams on the far side of the river. What any of those machines did the girl had no idea, but they didn't appear in use now.

Looking away from them, Clem saw a large warehouse with big letters on the side that read 'PORT OF GREATER BATON ROUGE'. There were more boats anchored near it than anywhere else on the river, and Clem couldn't help thinking it reminded her of the warehouse they checked in New Orleans. Part of her thought it might be worth investigating, while the rest of her dreaded even stepping foot in there.

Turning back to the road, Clem spotted movement near the horizon. "I think I see something," announced the girl as she tried to focus the telescope on the spot she was looking at.

"What?" asked Anthony as he sprung to his feet.

"It's…" Clem managed to find the movement in her sights and was relieved to see a couple of figures with a familiar uncoordinated shuffling slowly lurching forward. "They're walkers."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah," said Clem as it became obvious the figures were just shambling corpses.

"How the hell did their dumb asses get up on the highway?" grumbled Anthony. "They know to take the off-ramp to reach us?"

"I don't know," shrugged Clem.

"Well, I guess I'll go take care of them."

"Well they're pretty far, you could wait—"

"I think I could do with a walk." Anthony started moving down the bridge at a steady pace while Clem watched through the telescope. The young man approached the pair of walkers seemingly without a care in the world. It almost looked like he wasn't going to attack them until they had nearly stumbled into him, then out came the bat.

Anthony moved so fast Clem barely saw the first blow, smashing the walker's jaw apart and sending it spinning backwards with a single swift and forceful hit. He then immediately swung back the other way and hit the second walker hard enough to send chunks of its head flying across the road. Clem then watched the young man descend on the first walker and pulled the bat all the way over his head before driving it down, as if he was smashing a railroad spike into the ground.

Anthony seemingly idled there for a moment after killing the walkers, leaning on his bat as if it was a cane. Clem thought maybe he was looking for more of them, but he appeared to be looking downward. Clem wasn't sure what he was looking at, but he kept looking at it for several seconds before turning around and heading back towards the barricade.

The sound of the generator suddenly ceased, and Clementine looked over in time to see Patty removing the jumper cables she had attached to the truck's batteries. The girl watched anxiously as the woman climbed into the truck and turned the key. There truck made a churning noise along with a clicking sound, but did not start. Patty stopped, then tried the key again only to shut if off shortly after hearing the same thing.

"What's wrong?" asked Clem as she inched over to the back of the Brave.

"The gauge says it's out of diesel, or close enough where it can't tell the difference," reported Patty as she hopped out of the truck. "I'll gas it up and try again," she said as she approached the Brave.

"What's going on?" Clem moved back to the front of the Brave to find Anthony looking up at her.

"Patty fixed the battery," said Clem as Anthony climbed back onto his truck. "Now she's putting diesel in it."

"Great, maybe she can do the windows next," grumbled the young man as hopped from his truck onto to the Brave's roof, much to Clem's surprise. "Any chance we're getting out of here today?" called Anthony as he reached the back of the RV.

"We're getting out of here now," boasted Patty as she finished pouring diesel into the vehicle's tank. Clem inched closer for a better look and watched as Patty returned to the truck. It made a louder churning sound this time, loud enough where she couldn't hear the clicking anymore, but the engine wouldn't start. The woman tried to start the vehicle twice more, just to get the same result both times.

"I guess now means something different to you than it does to me," taunted Anthony.

"Shut up," barked the woman as she leapt out of the truck. "The fuel lines or the filters might be clogged up. I'll clean those out and try again," she announced as she walked over to the hood of the vehicle.

"How long will that take?" asked Anthony.

"Maybe like thirty minutes, less if you don't harass me?" said Patty as she tugged on the hood, causing the whole front of the vehicle to move upwards on a hinge, like a clam opening its shell to reveal it innards. Unlike a clam, the interior of the truck was a mess of black metal parts and tubes running between them. Patty headed back to the Brave just as Anthony leapt back over to his truck and took a position on the front of his vehicle.

Watching Patty carry a tool box in one hand and a can of diesel in the other, Clem decided to returned to her post at the telescope. She didn't see any more walkers on the overpass, but she did spot one moving across the shoreline just below, presumably chasing the sounds of the generator from a minute ago. With nothing else to look at, Clem watched the clueless corpse very gradually walk across the dirt before wading right into the river and disappearing from view, where it was presumably washed downstream.

With him gone, Clem turned back to overpass to make sure there weren't any more fortunate walkers who had found their way up; there wasn't. With little else to do, she turned to Anthony, who was just lying on his back and staring up at the sky.

"What are you doing?" asked Clem, trying to make conversation.

"Nothing, what's it look like I'm doing?" he grumbled.

"I was just asking," retorted Clem.

"Well, try not asking such a stupid question next time," shrugged Anthony without looking up.

"Why do you not want to follow the planes so bad?" snapped Clem.

"I told you why," mumbled Anthony.

"You told us why you don't think we'll find anywhere safe," argued Clem. "But you act like you don't even want to find somewhere safe."

"Well, maybe that's because I'm thinking that 'safety' won't be worth it," reasoned Anthony. "I mean, I think I've heard you and Patty talk about some places that were 'safe', but you didn't stay because of their bullshit. I mean, you picked up those scars on your back from somewhere 'safe' right?"

"How… how do you know about those?" asked a surprised Clem.

"Uh, well, you mentioned it yesterday right in front of me, remember?" said Anthony with a smirk. "Said something about those assholes looking at your back, and I figured you weren't showing them your tramp stamp, so unless they wanted to see more than your back—"

"No, it wasn't like that," assured Clem. "They wanted to know why we didn't want to go back to places that still had people, so I told them to look at the scars on my back."

"And I'm guessing the last group of people you met before me are the ones who gave you those scars," concluded Anthony.

"Yeah, it was a town in Florida called Valkaria," said Clem. "They had food, and walls to keep out walkers, and people to keep out other people, and the woman who ran it acted like she was nice, but she wasn't."

"That sounds familiar; Gulfport had enough to keep people comfortable, and the people were nice to your face, until they weren't," recalled Anthony.

"She told people to whip me, for something I didn't even do," spoke Clem in a bitter voice. "And they forced Sarah to watch."

"Well that's different from Gulfport; they'd probably just quietly kill you when no one was around."

"That's more like Shaffer's," said Clem. "It was a prison, and they acted like you could get out if you did what they told you, but you really couldn't, and people would have 'accidents' when they couldn't work."

"Gulf Port was too lazy to bother with a prison, the rest of that sounds pretty on par with them," said Anthony. "But still, I'd bet that place was 'safe' too, and you didn't want to stay there."

"No, but it wasn't safe, not really, not when you had to be afraid of the people living there," reasoned Clem.

"It's gonna be like that anywhere," said Anthony. "Maybe it's worse in some places than others, but 'safe' against things from the outside just means having to be afraid of what's on the inside."

"That's not true, not everywhere," said Clem. "Things were safe before the walkers came."

"Oh were they?" challenged Anthony as he sat up. "They weren't for me. Anytime cops figured out I was homeless, they made it their life goal to run me out of town, every time."

"Why? It wasn't against the law to not have a home… was it?"

"If it was, I'd probably be rotting away in a prison right now, literally seeing as I doubt convicts were at the top of the list of people to check up on once shit hits the fan," said Anthony. "But they always figured something out; charge me with loitering, or vagrancy, or whatever, then tell me they'd 'let me off' if I just left town. That's when they were feeling generous, one guy just drove me to the city limits and said he'd beat me within an inch of my life if I ever showed my face there again."

"Why?" asked a horrified Clem. "Why wouldn't they just let you stay?"

"Because, you don't want some homeless kid around your perfect little small town bliss, reminding its people that the rest of the world is fucked up and could spill over into their little rural paradise," spoke Anthony in a biting tone.

"Didn't anyone care that you didn't have a home?" asked Clem.

"Oh, sure, some people I'd make friends with would give me lip service, tell me they care, but they didn't, nobody gave a shit if I went cold and hungry."

"I care," objected Clem in a stern voice. "That's why I didn't want to leave you behind, because I didn't want you to be cold and hungry."

"Well good for you, but someone like you would never be in charge," said Anthony. "These other places you've been, they had someone in charge right? Leaders? Maybe even with guards or soldiers?"

"Yeah, they did," said Clem. "The people at Valkaria even wore the same blue jackets so you would know they're one of the guards."

Anthony laughed upon hearing that, sounding more angry than amused. "Assholes with uniforms, even in the fucking apocalypse!" he lamented. "They were assholes, weren't they?"

"Well, yeah…" admitted Clem. "Most of them were horrible."

"I bet it was one of them who gave you those scars."

"Yeah, it was," recalled Clem in an angry voice. "He was the one who whipped me."

"Some asshole whipped you, why am I not surprised?" said Anthony as he laid back down.

"He… he wasn't an asshole," said Clem, finding it hard for her to think back to that night. "But… he did what they said anyway, even though he knew they were wrong."

"Like I said, it's going to be that way anywhere; assholes in charge, the rest of us stuck being assholes to anyone who doesn't fall in line with other assholes," said Anthony. "Maybe it wasn't so bad for you and Sarah and Patty before, but before is over, and the end of the world just made everyone into bigger assholes, so—"

"That's not true," refuted Clem. "Not everyone became an asshole just because things are bad."

"Oh no?"

"No," said Clem without hesitation. "Sarah's like the nicest person I've ever met, and I didn't meet her until almost a year after things changed."

"Okay, there's one, but she's—"

"And I didn't meet Patty until a few months ago."

"She might not be an asshole to you, but—"

"And these two people named Walter and Matthew, who gave us food and a place to stay."

"Yeah, but—"

"And Nick, and his uncle Pete."

"You're rattling off a lot of names, but how many of these people would you really depend on?"

"All of them," retorted Clem. "And not just them, OJ's parents took care of me for months, and taught me all kinds of important things."

"Fine, but—"

"And before that were a lot of people who took care of me and helped me, and before that I had… Lee."

"Who the hell is Lee?"

Anthony's question was answered by the sound of an engine coming to life. Both he and Clementine spun around and rushed towards the source of the noise, finding Patty back in the driver's side trying to start the truck. The engine churned very loudly, sounding reading to take off, then sputtered out and suddenly became silent.

"Goddammit!" Patty banged her fists against the steering wheel.

"Maybe we didn't get the filters clean enough?"

"Sarah?" asked Clem as she suddenly noticed the older girl standing near the generator. "What are you doing out here?"

"I asked her to give me a hand," grumbled Patty as she jumped out of the vehicle.

"Don't worry, I've got the baby monitor," assured Sarah.

"Time to be heading back to New Orleans?" suggested Anthony.

"My ass it is," retorted Patty.

"As compelling an argument as your ass could make, I think—"

"Just keep watch goddammit!" ordered Patty.

"Yes ma'am," said Anthony with a mock salute before hopping back onto his vehicle and heading back to the front to keep a lookout.

"Are you okay?" Clem asked the woman.

"Yeah, we just need to try a few other things. I got this, I promise." Patty took a deep breath, then looked up to Clem. "You okay? That prick giving you any trouble?"

"No, we were just talking."

"About what?"

Clem couldn't help thinking Patty sounded suspicious when she said that. "Just about where we had been and what things were like before for him."

"Well if he ever says anything that doesn't sound right, you just tell me," insisted Patty. "You too Sarah."

"What would he say?" asked the older girl.

"Just… anything that you don't understand or sounds weird to you, you just tell me."

"I'll be okay Patty," reassured Clem, sensing the woman's distress. "Just worry about the truck."

"Right, come on Sarah," said Patty. "We'll charge the batteries again and I'll check all the connections."

Clem heard the generator crank up again as she returned to her spot on the front of the Brave. She went back to her telescope and started surveying the landscape again.

"I think there are more walkers coming," reported Clem.

"How many?" asked Anthony as he sat up.

"Two more are… wait, three, coming up the road."

"Got it, I'll go deal with them," said Anthony as he moved over to the edge of the truck.

"I'll come with you," offered Clem.

"You?"

"Yeah, I've killed plenty of walkers."

"I guess I just have a hard time seeing that."

"Well, now you will." Anthony shrugged in response to Clementine's boast and slid off the edge of his truck. Clem was about to head for the ladder, but then decided to sit down on the edge of the Brave instead. It was a bit of a drop to the ground, but the girl forced herself off.

Clem felt her stomach drop as she free fell for a second, then landed on her feet before awkwardly falling forward. The girl instinctively threw out her hands and managed to plant them on the cement before hitting it face first. It took Clem a second to collect her wits, then she managed to force herself back into a stand. Looking aside, she noticed Anthony staring at her with a dubious look on his face.

"Like I said, I just have a hard time seeing it."

"Just you wait," insisted Clem as she removed her tomahawk from her shoulder, then removed its sheath from its head. The pair hurried down the road and towards the trio of incoming walkers. As they drew closer, Clem noticed Anthony was moving faster, which prompted her to move faster. Before long they were both running and Clem honed in on the walker coming up on her right.

She stopped mid-step and swung her tomahawk at the walker's ankle all in one quick motion. The blade nearly cut clean through the corpse's shin and before it could even finish tumbling onto the ground, Clem had already flipped her tomahawk over. She drove its blade into the walker's skull, then immediately pulled it out and swung it right at the head of the walker just ahead of her. The blade nailed the beast right in its cold dead eye right before a baseball bat smacked it in the forehead, sending rotten chunks of what was its head flying backwards as its body crumpled onto the pavement.

Pulling back her tomahawk, Clem saw Anthony had already killed the third walker, and had a look of satisfaction on his face that seemed infectious as Clem begin to feel a small tinge of pride herself.

"It really makes you feel alive?" asked Anthony between breaths. "Doesn't it?"

"I… I guess it kind of does," realized Clementine as she felt a strange energy coursing through her veins.

"Well, you were right," said Anthony as he turned around and headed back up the road. "I saw it."

As Clem wiped her tomahawk on one of the walker's shirts, she noticed all three of them were wearing suits. They had been worn and torn by the elements, but it's clear they were once very fine clothing. Her small swell of adrenaline fading as she placed the sheath on her tomahawk's head, Clem found herself left with only a morbid question: who were these people when they were still people?

"Hey, you coming?"

Clem looked over at Anthony. "Yeah, I'm coming." Clem glanced at the well-dressed bodies one last time, then ran after Anthony.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Ten," answered Clem as she threw her tomahawk over her shoulder.

"How does a ten-year-old girl learn to kill people like that?"

"They're not people, not—"

"Not anymore, yeah, I know that part," said Anthony. "It's just, I had only started deer hunting with one of my mom's friends when I was your age. You already got a gun on your hip like it's no big deal and swing that axe of yours like you were born with it in your hands. I gotta wonder where someone your age learns something like that. Your dad wasn't some kind of survivalist whack job was he?"

"My dad was an engineer," said Clem. "I never touched a gun before the walkers showed up."

"So when then?" asked Anthony. "You just pick one up yourself and figure it out?"

"Some stuff I've had to figure out on my own," said Clem. "Most of it people taught me though. I learned a lot of stuff about walkers and more stuff about guns at where Sarah used to live."

"More stuff about guns," repeated Anthony. "So who taught you about guns before that?"

"A man named Lee did."

"You said that name before."

"Yeah, he was the first person I met after a walker killed my babysitter," recalled Clem. "And then he took care of me for a long time."

"And taught you to use a gun?"

"Eventually, when he said I needed to know how to protect myself," shrugged Clem. "He also figured out if you smell like walkers, they won't attack you."

"How the hell did he do that?"

"I think it was an accident," said Clem. "He was just covered in gross stuff and told me he had to go through a bunch of walkers to get to me. Then the next walker we found didn't even notice him and we figured it out."

"He just stumbled upon it after killing a shitload of them? That's insane," said Anthony with a devilish smirk. "You know, I wondered once what would happen if I hollowed one of the fat ones out and turned it into a dead person suit or something. They never attack each other, so if I looked like one of them, would they notice me? But I never actually tried it. This Lee guy must have been a maniac to just go through a bunch of them anyway."

"I guess," shrugged Clem as she approached the Brave.

"You guess?"

"I just remember him as someone who there for me when no one else was… until he couldn't be." Clem left Anthony and headed for the Brave's ladder. Climbing up it, she noticed Patty and Sarah still working on the truck and figured they still had a while to go. Heading back to her telescope, Clem checked the area for walkers again and found nothing this time.

"You seem pretty smart for your age." Clem looked over to see Anthony had already climbed back onto his truck and was staring at her now.

"Thanks," said Clem, sensing the young man had more to say.

"Surely you can't think this search for a better tomorrow is really a good idea?" prodded Anthony. "I mean be honest, what do you think we're more likely to find? Somewhere full of people totally chill about feeding and looking after four strangers who wandered in out of the wastes, or another group of pricks seeing a pack of easy targets?"

"Well, honestly… I guess we probably won't find many places that would just help us for no reason," admitted Clementine.

"Exactly."

"But that doesn't mean we shouldn't look for them."

"Why not?" asked Anthony. "I mean before, when I didn't know we could just walk past dead people by using their brand of cologne, sure, a big group was appealing, but now? We don't need anyone else, let alone needing to risk running into a bunch of weirdos or the fucking military."

"It's not just about us, there's—"

"That baby, yeah, I know, but how bad are things for him right now?" asked Anthony. "We can get food for him for probably years without any help, and Patty probably can keep the vehicles running just as long. Hell, she probably will get that truck moving before long."

"If you think that, then why do you want to go the long way back through New Orleans?"

"Because we're rushing head first into danger, and I'd like to avoid that," said Anthony. "Come on, you're gonna tell me you're not at least a little afraid we're gonna follow those planes and run right into a literal army happy to gun us all down where we stand?"

Anthony's words stirred thoughts of the gruesome sight of mass murder Clem and Patty had unearthed in Mobile. The young girl felt herself tensing up as she was forced to consider the possibility that something like that awaited them in the west.

"You and Patty kept telling me how those guys holding you at gunpoint weren't all that bad, and maybe they weren't, but what if the next couple—or dozen—or hundred—of soldiers feel differently and don't wait to pull the trigger? What then?"

"We'll be careful," assured Clem.

"Like in New Orleans?"

"We'll be more careful."

"Like right now?" Anthony gestured to the wide open space surrounding them as a loud generator sounded behind them.

"We're keeping watch," reasoned the girl.

"Here's hoping no one is watching us right now," said Anthony.

"What else can we do?" asked Clem. "Just shoot anyone we see?"

"Well that would make things simpler." Clementine scowled at Anthony. "Lighten up, I'm kidding. I'm just saying it's better for us to keep to the off-roads and avoid trouble. You said yourself that it was smart to keep moving."

"We did that for a long time before we met Patty," said Clem. "Most of it was boring, and sometimes it was terrible."

"But that's then, now you've met Patty, and me, and what we did in Hattiesburg worked fine, so let's not try to fix it. We can just find somewhere full of the dead we can get food from, find somewhere else a safe distance from that to chill for a while, then move on to the next place when the food runs out, and so on; could keep it up for years."

"Or we could run into that army you're afraid of, or a group of bad people who want to hurt us, or all kinds of horrible stuff," said Clem. "Or they could run into us, and there'd be no one to help us."

"There's less chance of that happening if we don't go looking for them."

"We won't find anyone to help us if we don't look either," argued Clem. "If we didn't meet Patty, our RV might not even work anymore. And if we didn't meet you, we wouldn't know how to get fish. And if you didn't meet us, you wouldn't even know about using the smell to get past walkers."

"Okay, sure, we all need some help sometimes, but how many people do we really need? There's four of us now and—"

"I was with more people than that when I first had to leave home," said Clem. "We stayed in a hotel on the edge of town, and we just minded our own business, and people still attacked us, and forced us to leave, a lot of people died because of it."

"So you want to go looking for people like that?"

"I want to look for people who could protect us from people like that."

"Why? Why take that risk? Why not just play it safe? At least for a little while longer?" asked Anthony. "I mean try to see this from my side. I've spent the last year and a half bouncing back from having to avoid dead people to having to avoid living people. Then you come along and show me we don't have to worry about the dead ones anymore, and I'm thinking there goes half my problems, only for you three to insist we go find the other half we haven't figured out yet. I mean you told me a vacation won't last, but I'd like to try that for myself."

"Why are you telling me all this?" asked Clem as she realized this was by far the most Anthony had ever said to her since meeting him.

"Because Patty listens to you." Clem was surprised to hear Anthony say that, and he seemed a little surprised himself. "It ain't no secret she don't listen to me, but if you told her we'd be better off staying on the move, she'd listen."

"So you don't want to go after the planes because you're afraid," realized Clem.

"I just want you people to listen to common sense, and common sense would say you'd have to be crazy to think we're just going to find the answer to all our problems chasing the military. I mean look at this place," said Anthony as he gestured out towards the empty city. "They clearly didn't keep it going, or New Orleans, or wherever those two guys you talked to said they were from."

"It looks better than Savannah, or Titusville, or other places they didn't stay," reasoned Clem. "And since they didn't stay in these places, that means they must be somewhere else."

"So what? What could they possibly have that would make it worth it?" asked Anthony.

"They could have other people."

"So?"

"So OJ wouldn't have to grow up alone, or without any other kids to play with or to be his friends," said Clem. "And he wouldn't have to be afraid all the time that we'll run out of food, or walkers will come, or someone will hurt him because we wouldn't be the only ones taking care of him. He… he deserves better than that, better than just living in an RV his whole life."

"It wouldn't have to only be an RV," reminded Anthony.

"Better than living alone in other people's houses or some old motel, afraid all the time we'd have to leave because something happens, or that people will break in and kill him."

"At least he might get to grow up at all," argued Anthony.

"To do what?" asked Clem. "Eat old food out of cans and play with toys he got bored with a long time ago?"

"You're thinking too small," insisted Anthony. "I mean Patty said you guys went to Disney World, I bet—"

"It was just a bunch of empty buildings and dead bodies now," stated Clementine. "And the space center was just a bunch of buildings and things that don't work anymore. They were fun for a little while, but then we just had to go back to being afraid all the time."

"Those things you're afraid of are out there!" declared Anthony as he pointed towards the bridge.

"They're everywhere, but there might be somewhere out there where we won't have to be afraid so much," said Clem as she pointed to the same bridge.

"You act so afraid for that baby, but you're telling me you're willing to gamble with his life chasing probably what's left of the assholes who just two days ago had you on your knees begging for your life? How do you think they would have treated your baby if they had found him?"

Clem looked over at the bridge. It was so long she couldn't see where it stopped, and just thinking about everything she had seen; bandits, killers, cannibals, slavers, torturers; Clem did feel herself hesitating as thoughts of Omid crept into her head. She found that horrible memory of watching one of those thieves pulling his hair and pointing a gun at his head floating to the top of her mind, and made it her sick, and then she thought about what all those other horrible people would do to a helpless baby.

"You're starting to see what I'm saying," realized Anthony as he watched Clementine carefully. "You keep holding on to this idea that out there somewhere is a place where everything is just the way it used to be, but there's not. The world is different now, and you should be glad for what you have, not chasing after what's left of the military on some dream that's never going to happen."

Clem sighed to herself as she carefully considered Anthony's words. "Why don't you go down there and tell them how you feel? Save them the hassle of fixing that damn truck?"

Clem looked down at Patty and Sarah, who were frantically fiddling with something under the truck's hood, then shook her head. "I'm sorry Anthony. Even if things can't be like before, I think they can still be better than this." Anthony groaned in annoyance. "I know what you're saying, and I'm afraid too, but that's why I think we should keep looking for someplace safe. There has to be somewhere in the world where they still care about babies and don't hurt kids and treat people right, and I want to find it."

"But why now? Why not next year? Or in a few months?"

"Sarah told you why, because it might not be there later if we wait," said Clem. "We met someone when we first started living in the Brave, and she said we could come with her to her town if we wanted. I didn't want to then, I just wanted to stay on our own because I… because I thought it'd be safer. If we had just gone with her, we could be safe right now, and wouldn't have had to spend months in an RV being afraid all the time of it breaking down, or us running out of food, or someone hurting us."

"Or that place could have been a hellhole run by assholes, like the ones you told me about, and you could be stuck there instead," said Anthony.

"Maybe, but bad things can always find us; we'll never find some place safe if we don't look for it, and if we wait we might never find it," said Clem. "That person we met is gone. I have no idea how to find her or where she went, all because I wanted to wait then; I don't want to wait now."

"So you wanted to stay on your own, but changed your mind?" asked Anthony. "What if you changed your mind again? Would you tell Patty you didn't want to keep looking for something better when what we got isn't so bad?"

"Well… I guess—"

An engine suddenly roared to life and Clementine watched as the truck began to move. It turned inward very slowly, eventually pulling enough of the trailer with it to create a gap on their side of the road the Brave could fit through.

"You think they had taken better care of their damn gate," mumbled Patty after she shut off the truck. "The build up in those fuel filters was years old, not just months."

"I guess they're not as smart as you," smiled Clem.

"Let me just make sure they didn't leave us any other surprises," said Patty as she walked past the edge of the trailer. "The last thing we need now is to pop our tires because…"

Patty suddenly became very still and very quiet after walking past the edge of the trailer.

"Patty?" the woman didn't answer Clem, prompting the girl to hurry down the Brave's ladder. "What is it? What do you…" Walking past the edge of the trailer, Clem could see the other side of it had words spray-painted across it. 'TURN OFF YOUR ENGINE! DON'T MOVE UNTIL ORDERED TO!' they said in huge, red, crudely done letters. The warning however wasn't what worried Clem, it was the dozens and dozens of bullet holes decorating the same trailer that really bothered her.

"Looks like someone got fed up with the military's bullshit," commented Anthony as he studied the trailer. "Tried fighting back."

"Or maybe they were keeping out someone worse than them," suggested Patty in a quiet voice.

"Whoever they were, they're not here now," said Sarah as she looked up the trailer. "Maybe… maybe they're following the planes too?"

"You sure you people still want to keep going this way?" Anthony looked at Clementine as he asked that question, clearly more interested in her answer than Sarah's or Patty's.

The girl eyed the ominous sight of a massive barricade riddled with bullets before her, then looked over her shoulder at the dead and empty city behind her.

"Yeah," said Clem as she turned towards the open road in front of her. "I want to keep going."