"Don't look back, Clem…" Lilly tells me, grasping onto my hand as a sob escapes my throat every once in a while. "Just stay with me, alright? We're gonna be fine."
"W-we should have gone back for him… Lee… my parents!" I wail loudly, causing Lilly to shush me even though she's trying her hardest not to cry as well. I didn't think that she and Lilly were ever that close.
Duck looks like his soul got sucked out of his system by a vacuum cleaner. I've never seen him so down before… He's not crying, though. No, Duck looks as though he's run out of tears at this point. Now all that's left is a tired, scared little boy who'd want nothing more than to just crawl into a hole and die.
"Shh, I know it's tough, Clem. But you need to pull through! There's no time to be upset!"
Lilly and I have never really interacted much up until this point, as she's probably used to yelling at Ben most of the time… wherever he is. She's a lot less comforting than Lee is (was), and I'd give anything for him to catch up to us.
But Lee… he's gone! My parents… they're gone, too! It… it's so horrible! How could this have happened?!
I'm pretty sure that Lilly's in way over her head, trying to look after two sad kids, but at least she's trying. I don't even know how I have the strength to stand anymore…
"There's nothing left for us here," Lilly concludes, slightly angry as she frowns. "Damn it! Where the hell do we even go?!"
Neither Duck nor I have the knowledge or will to provide her with an answer to that, so she grunts and starts escorting us out of this horrible city. She mutters something about getting to the countryside for now, but I tune her out. My thoughts are clouded with sadness and misery… How am I ever going to bounce back from this?
I never once thought that I'd ever be in the position that I'm in right now. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think that here, at the end of all things, would it just be Lee and I as the only ones left. How the hell did we manage to overcome all of these odds… all hundreds of those moments where we cheated death and prolonged our lives for another day? Is it fair that we get to live while so many others have died?
But people die every day, I keep telling myself. There's no prejudice – if it comes for you, then you just have to accept it and hope for something better than the hand you've been dealt. It's not selfish of me that I want to keep living now that Lee's back in my life. Perhaps there could be some beautiful afterlife thing that we're missing out on – some sort of paradise where you don't have to worry about the walkers or killing or watching your best friends get eaten alive.
I don't want to take that risk just yet, though. I'll stick with what's in front of me for now, and then worry about what comes after when the need arises.
So why am I spewing out all of this philosophical bullshit? Well, I've had some time to reflect on the past three years while sitting in this spooky, old grocery store. There isn't exactly a whole lot to do while Lee prepares us to leave, other than me placing the cans inside of the gym bag that we managed to snag in that freezer room. Nobody could live in a place like this… not when you know that there are dead bodies just sitting there right in the next room. Sure, dead people walk around all the time now, but this is different. Kenny always used to mutter something about not shitting where you sleep – I suppose this qualifies.
Having finished packing the cans a while ago, I sit near the fireless pit (although the coals are still glowing) and occasionally watch as Lee goes over a map of the surrounding area.
"If I'm reading this correctly," Lee muses, pointing to a certain point on the map, "Then we're close to the US-Canada border. Windsor's on the other side of it, or we could turn back to Detroit. What do you think we should do?"
"I don't think we should go to the city," I inform him, reminding the both of us about how bad Atlanta and Savannah were. "But… would it be safer in Canada?"
"Hard to tell… certainly won't find that much food up there at this time of year. You could make the argument that it'd be safer, at least. We've got plenty of lakes to choose from, so water shouldn't be a problem. Hmm… what about if we go right up to the border and – "
"What about Lilly? And Luke?" I ask nervously, still holding onto the small hope that somehow they may have made it out of there. "Maybe they got out of there! We shouldn't move too far away… doesn't that make sense?"
"Clem…"
"…if we just give up on them, then… we just can't, Lee! You said that you didn't see either of them at Wellington. Maybe Nate didn't get to them!"
"Even if that were true," he sighs, bearing the same saddened expression he uses whenever he's breaking the bad news to me, "it would take a miracle for them to find us out here. There's almost no way for them to even try to track us down, sweet pea. But… we'll find something close by. We'll find a place to hold up for a while, but if they're not coming, then we move on. Sound fair to you?"
Nodding quietly, I huff out a sigh and figure that that's the best we can do. Thinking it over some more, I conclude that Lee's right as usual. It's not as if we'd left a trail of breadcrumbs behind us.
But we could do something else…
"What if we made one of those signal fires when we get there?" I suggest, listening as the sounds of the walkers outside get more intense. They haven't let up all night.
Swinging the gym bag over his shoulder, Lee motions for me to come with him as our blockade on the door slowly starts to give way.
"Must have smelled us in here," he remarks, cursing under his breath. "We can sort that out later, Clem. We've gotta move now!"
Hearing the walkers even more so now, the two of us move through some of the darkened aisles hoping to find some sort of back exit in this place. They must have had a fire escape in the grocery store, right? I mean, what kind of place wouldn't have –
"BACK! GO BACK!" Lee yells, practically dragging me by the collar of my jacket. Three of the walkers are at the end of the cereal aisle; slowly trudging towards us hungrily.
"How'd they get in here already?!" I ask while breathing heavily; my heart pounding against my chest.
"No idea!" Lee replies, noticing that the front entrance is almost completely open now, and the walkers are starting to pour in. "Shit! Help me find a way out of here, alright? I'll keep them off of us; just get us out of this place!"
Slicing his way through two more of the monsters, I bite my lip in fear and anxiety as I desperately try to see if there are any openings. The checkout counters are over on the right side, then the aisles and the frozen food section… personal grooming products down further, along with some magazines… Laundromat… man, these guys had everything here!
"Clementine!" Lee shouts, killing another walker and dislodging the hook, "Did you find anything?!"
"Nothing!" I retort, snapping me back to the task at hand. "Oh, wait! Maybe… this way! This way!"
Hobbling over to the back corner, I shriek as a walker manages to get the jump on me – Lee still hasn't caught up to me yet. Fumbling with the gun in my pocket, I back up until I hit one of the shelves; sending boxes down to the floor and hitting the walker in the head. That's incredibly lucky for me, as it gives me enough time to pull the pistol out and shoot the walker directly in the head.
"Lee! Come on!" I yell for the man, watching as he sprints away in fear as the herd of walkers stumble behind him. Immediately realizing that we're at a huge disadvantage, I try my best to push open the emergency exit… but it doesn't budge.
Oh shit.
"Clem!" he pants, sliding over to me on the floor, "What's with the hold up? We've gotta move!"
"It's stuck!" I cry out, putting all of weight into the door in a vain attempt to get it open.
"Here," he says, quickly switching places with me as he latches the hook in the side of the door. "I'll work on this - just keep those walkers off of me!"
"Okay…" I say nervously, not because I can't kill a walker, but because I don't have enough bullets to take all of them down. I'll just have to make every shot count…
Bang! Bang!
There go two of them…
Bang!
Three…
"LEE!" I shriek, not meaning to yell at him but still in a state of panic. "IS IT OPEN YET?!"
"Just… about… got it!" he yells, kicking the door open as he unlocks it. The chilly wind blows against our faces as we step outside; not stopping for anything as we frantically try to escape our pursuers. They shouldn't be as fast out in the cold, but –
Damn it…
"We've got company!" I yell out, noticing that there were some more of these walkers out by the dumpsters – probably looking for a tasty meal in the garbage.
Looking in both directions, Lee quickly motions for us to bank a right and push our way through out to the road. All the walkers in the area are trying to eat us now, and we're on the run. This couldn't get any better.
….
"Oh… come on, man!" I wheeze, shaking my head in exhaustion as we notice that the walkers are still coming after us. We've been moving for a damn hour, and quite a few of them haven't stopped their pursuit. "Lee… how much further?"
"Still got a few miles ahead of us, but we'll make it, kiddo. Don't worry."
"That's what you always say!"
Glancing back behind him for a brief moment, a faint smirk appears on his lips as he shakes his head. It's nice to have some of the old Lee shining through every once in a while.
The good thing about the distance we've covered is that we no longer have to run – since the walkers are pretty much moving at a snail's pace. That doesn't mean that we can ever stop to catch our breaths, however, and my leg and shoulder are still sore as hell. I can see that Lee's still in pain as well, but he assures me that he took care of that nasty cut on his stomach. I swear, I've got half a mind to go back to Nate just so that I can kill him again. Lee hasn't told me anything about what happened to him, other than that he's dead, but I hope the asshole got what he deserved.
I'd write down a list of all of the casualties caused by that madman, but I'd probably run out of paper if I wrote them all down.
"Shit, there's a fork in the road up ahead," Lee swears, kicking one of the road signs in anger. "And of course, the map doesn't show which route to take."
Turning towards me, he gives me one of those stares where I have to make a decision of some kind.
"What do you think we should do?"
"Well…" I begin, slightly unsure of myself, "My dad always used to tell me to trust my gut whenever I'd get stuck on something, so… let's go right. That way has lots of open fields and things like that. It'll be easier to see any walkers that get the jump on us."
"Your dad taught you well," he compliments, patting my back as I'm reminded of him. It always leads me back to Savannah in my mind… "Right it is, boss lady. We'll find something in no time with you in charge."
"I'm the boss?" I question, catching up to him and quirking an eyebrow.
"Don't let it get to your head."
"Too late! You have to do what I say now, ha ha!"
"I think I've made a terrible mistake…"
…..
Perhaps I was wrong about going right… I didn't realize at the time that the wind would pick up so rapidly over the farm land. Lee chuckles and tells me that the faster we get through this, the faster we can find shelter.
I'm starting to question whether or not Lee just made the whole thing up… Maybe that's just the pessimism talking, but I don't know.
"Have you ever been to a farm?" I ask inquisitively, grunting in pain as the prosthetic starts to hurt my leg. Walking on this for long periods of time is always a pain in the ass.
Noticing this almost immediately, Lee scoops me up with one arm and throws me over his shoulder; despite my protests.
"Let me down, you big lug! I can walk by myself!"
"You keep telling yourself that, pumpkin," he calls back, whistling as if he's done nothing wrong. Oh that does it – I'm so pranking him when we find a place to stay! "You're the eyes at the back of my head, alright? Holler if you see any walkers coming towards us."
"Just for that," I comment sarcastically as I huff in annoyance, "I'm not going to."
"As for your first question," he continues, completely ignoring my snide remarks, "yeah, my brother and I used to spend a week every summer up at my grandparents' farm. It wasn't ever too exciting – no barn animals or any of that. But my grandpa always used to let us drive the tractor with him… at least until Bud and I were dicking around on it and crashed into the barn. After that, it kind of stopped."
"Did you two get into trouble all the time?" I ask, noticing that a lone walker was walking aimlessly among the frost-covered field . Perhaps he was one of the farmers, but I can't be sure. He's no threat to us from over here, so I don't say anything. "By the way, it's really uncomfortable back here. Can I walk now?"
In good old Lee fashion, he declines and practically forces me to sit on top of his shoulders while he tries to wrap his arm around my right leg so that I don't fall off. So much for looking behind him, but the both of us can see that there's no way any of them can sneak up on us out here – not when we can see miles in every direction.
"I was usually the troublemaker in the family – Bud was just an angel in my parents' eyes," he replies, not bitterly but with a slight shrug. "Whenever something went wrong, they'd just assume that I had somehow convinced him to do it. It was like he had a force field around him."
"So… your brother was behind all the trouble?"
"…not usually, no…"
The two of us share a long overdue laugh together – it's been a long time since I could just have a normal, friendly conversation with the big guy. Most of the time it was either about surviving, regrets about our actions, or just unloading a shit-ton of feels onto each other (them feels!).
"You are now exiting Wellington County," Lee reads aloud as we pass the sign and he places me down again after another hour of walking. The snow has stopped (thankfully), but that wind chill is sinking in harshly. I've already complained three times about how damn cold it was up on his shoulders, thinking that somehow it would convince him to let me walk. But noooooo, Lee just kept saying how I needed to rest my foot. I appreciate how the way that he was letting me do things for myself earlier, such as shooting the walkers and picking which direction to go in, but sometimes… I feel as though he still sees me as that eight year old girl that he met so long ago.
Things have to change.
"Remember how you were saying about that signal flare earlier today?" he questions, continuing as I nod my head slowly. "Well, they might not exactly be flares, but… I figured we could maybe use these."
As he opens the gym bag, I peer inside and shake my head in amazement at how he could've possibly found these. Black Cat firecrackers… yes, that might do the trick.
"Where did you get these?" I ask, holding the box in my hands and reading the warning labels. NOT FOR USE BY PEOPLE UNDER SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE. What, did teenagers suddenly just magically become responsible after sixteen? As I recall, Ben was at least in his late teens or early twenties, and I was more responsible than him when I was eight years old.
"I found them tucked away in an aisle before you woke up," he explains as I hand it back to him, "There's only three of 'em though, so I figure that we should set one off here and then two more up ahead. We need to be extra careful with these though, okay?"
"Lee, I can handle it," I tell him, softening my tone when the old man gives me a stern look. "I'll be careful, I promise. I won't launch it at your face or anything."
"That's not what I was concerned about…" Lee sighs, shaking his head and opening up the cardboard box. I don't really know how these things work, so I wait for Lee's permission before trying anything. I'd rather not have my fingers burned off by not doing anything.
"Do we even have a lighter?" I ask, realizing that mine ran out long ago and is probably sitting among the rubble of Wellington right now.
To my surprise (and slight disappointment as he pulls out a package of cigarettes), Lee pulls out a red-coloured lighter and beckons for me to follow him into the field.
"Lee… when did you start smoking?" I ask, scolding him as if I'm his mother. "You know those things are bad for you, right?"
"Started after I lost Molly," he explains sadly, as if he kind of regrets doing it. "Hell, Clem. What did I have to lose at that point? I would take any amount of comfort that I could get, at least until I found you and Lilly at Wellington. I guess that I just never got rid of them – hey!"
Before he can do anything, I snatch the carton out of his hand and dump the contents out into the snow; kicking the powdery substance over top of them as he nods in acceptance. He'd quit for me, even if I was really up front about it and had to forcefully get rid of them.
"Let's light this thing and get a move on…" I comment, suddenly not quite as enthusiastic as I was a little while ago.
Silently getting to work, Lee lowers the firecracker to the ground; propping it up with a small stand that came included cheaply with the box. Honestly, the thing looks so flimsy that it'll probably topple over after we set the first one off, but it's our only chance of possibly letting Lilly know where we are (if she's even still alive).
Flicking the lighter, Lee lights the little rope at the end of the firecracker and steps back towards me. I close my ears as the loud thing fires off, shooting into the sky and creating a beautiful red glow that spreads up in the sky. I've got to admit – this is pretty special.
"Merry Christmas, Clementine," Lee suddenly says, wrapping an arm around me as we stay there until the smoke starts to float away on the wind.
"What?"
"Yeah, I'm not exactly sure if it's the right date or not, but I was looking at a calendar that they had in the grocery store," he explains, shrugging his shoulders. "Figured that we ought to at least celebrate when we settle down somewhere."
"Oh… does that means Santa's not gonna come?" I ask innocently, giggling and elbowing Lee in the ribs as he gets an 'I Don't Know What to Say' face. "You're pretty easy to mess around with, you know that?"
"I think you're the troublemaker here, not me."
….
The second firecracker that we had set off… didn't go without incident. It was almost comical in a way, as that stupid stand for it broke like I said it would, and Lee and I had to take cover as it zoomed past our heads and up into the sky. I swear that thing had a mind of its own.
But none of that matters now.
Here Lee and I stand; face to face with either our salvation, or certain death. A whole bunch of walkers line the street directly blocking our way through to our destination: the little apartment complex. When I say little, I mean it. The thing's only three stories high, with no boarded up windows and a small parking garage that probably could only fit like five cars at the time.
Lee seems to think that this little village (it doesn't even have a name since it's so small) would be perfect for us to stay in, as many of its occupants left when the news about the outbreak first started. It's along the waterfront again, and as far as we can tell there aren't any bandits this time around. The place would be a ghost town if not for these damn walkers.
But we have a choice to make.
"The way I see it, we've got three options," Lee whispers, shuddering as he gazes down at the monstrosities. "One: we try to sneak around them and shimmy up the fire escape ladder, which is right over there."
He points to a black, rickety-looking ladder that reminds me of the ones in Savannah. Man, I hated that city!
"Two," he grimaces, clutching Molly's grappling hook in his hand, "We go in there and try to fight our way through. We can't use bullets, but you've still got that screwdriver that I gave you, right?"
"Yeah…" I tell him, twirling the thing around slowly in my hands.
Nodding heavily, Lee bites his lip and pauses while closing his eyes.
"What's option three?" I question, looking up into his brown orbs.
"Three is that we cover ourselves in their guts, and try our luck at walking through there undetected."
"So what's the problem? It seems pretty obvious to me!" I remark, with Lee telling me to keep my voice down as a walker looks over towards our hiding spot. All that stands between us and them right now is an exposed transformer that used to power this place.
"We're… not going to be able to bring the food with us," Lee explains, shaking his head sadly. "They'll notice us in an instant, with the jingling of crap we've got in here. We need to fit in. Plus, they might be able to smell the food on us anyways."
"Shoot…" I murmur, looking down at the ground. "Is there any way for us to turn back?"
"No, we'll freeze to death if we turn back now. This was our last shot at… living, really."
"Then we're caught between a rock and a hard place."
"You can say that again," Lee acknowledges, sighing and looking back out onto the street for just a few moments. He then turns towards me with a more confident look on his face. "Whatever you want to do, I'm with you, Clementine. You've got a good head on your shoulders, and I'll follow whatever you decide."
"We're a team," I smirk, nodding as we do a little fist pump like the couple of bad asses that we are. "Teams stick together."
But now comes the hard part; the moment where we either come out of this completely unscathed, or the moment that our journey ends.
Which choice should I pick?
AN: Okay so the epilogue's next – cut into three parts for your enjoyment. Obviously they'll have to do with the choices Clem makes, but don't worry – the outcomes and endings will be different from one another. I wouldn't just screw with you guys… intentionally, ha ha!
I just wanted to take the time to thank my reviewers. You guys have sincerely been my lifeline throughout this entire adventure, and I'm so glad that you guys enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed to write it. I've become more confident in my abilities over the past three stories, and you guys have been the reason why. Your constant encouragement and feedback has done wonders for me, and for that I'm so thankful.
So a big thanks to all of you! Rebloxic, Opticz, Spiderclone, Apathy, NeoTyson, Kesarkuch, Micidonalboss, BoomBoomBoomer, JayChammy, Bubbles2K100, Aqua Destiny's Embrace, 087-B, Oreo Anarchy, MizukiKitty123, Flare Hedgehog, A Writer with Mixed Interests, Full Power, all of the guests, everyone who faved/followed… Boy, I need a chance to breathe! 151 reviews after nineteen chapters! Holy shit!
I'll be sure to try and write some more stuff in the future, but for now just keep on rocking! The last three chapters will be up in the next few days, so thank you all again for the amazing feedback!
Leafs Nation