He hears them piling up the stairs like a herd of elephants; still smirking as Clementine excitedly stays near his side. The kid was practically bouncing off the walls when he had awoken about a minute ago, and a part of him feels glad to see the relieved faces of people crowding in to see their patient restored.
But something feels… wrong, for Mark. It's not the fact that he can barely remember anything past getting shot out in the forest, and it's not that he feels that same excruciating pain (although he's definitely felt better before all of this).
No, it's something else entirely. Something deep within him; something that's making his very bones quake with need and want. There's a burning desire somewhere within that now-retired air force pilot, but he can't figure out what it is.
It's almost like a… a hunger or thirst. But for what, exactly?
Mark's got no clue – the only thing he can really see are people and some kind of tube attached to his arm; clearly empty of whatever liquid was put inside of it.
Meh, it was probably just some kind of drug. Mark's sure that there's nothing to worry about there.
Right?
"How're you doing, man?" Lee asks first, looking relieved that his friend has woken up. "You gave us quite the scare, you know that?"
Chuckling quietly, Mark reaches for his glasses on the side table so that everyone's not so blurry to him. "Heh… I'd say that I'm sorry but… you know," he chuckles quietly, looking down at his wounds with scorn. "Have… have I missed anything?"
Hesitating for a moment, Lee glances over at Kenny before shaking his head. Nope, nothing life-changing for anyone just yet, although Lee does have to admit that Lilly and Carley have been gone for quite some time now. If only cell phones could still work out here…
"The St. John's saved your life," Katjaa points out, earning some small smiles from the trio of farm labourers. "They helped patch you up after you got knocked out. You might feel a little woozy for a while, but that should only be temporary."
"Good to hear," Mark nods appreciatively, "and thank you. Sorry if I caused you any trouble there."
Putting a reassuring hand on Mark's shoulder, Brenda smiles sweetly before shaking her head. "Nonsense," she tells him, not wanting the man to worry about it. "Take all the rest you need, darlin'. It ain't no trouble at all, ya hear?"
Nodding tiredly, Mark struggles to keep his eyes open as the group, seeing that he's going to need the rest, start to exit the room one at a time. Brenda mentions for Mark just to holler if there's anything he needs, but the man insists that that won't be a problem. He's a pretty self-reliant guy, even with how incapacitated he is right now.
As Danny shuts the door closed behind him, Mark leans his head back on the pillow in comfort. As much as he loathes not being able to move around and do anything to show his appreciation, he can't say that he doesn't completely hate being able to relax for a little while. Ever since they found him at Warner Robbins, times have been pretty tough for the group. Walkers usually, but when that guy got caught in the bear trap, Mark really didn't think that Lee would have the stomach to cut that teacher out of it. He certainly wouldn't have been able to.
Deciding not to dwell on the past, Mark turns his head towards the window as he peers outside.
Looks like a storm's coming, he thinks to himself before blowing out the candle beside his bed.
…..
"You look like you could use some help," Lee comments, heading back over to the dinner table and picking up some of the dishes as Andy nods his head. Two pairs of hands are better than one, as they say.
Setting the plates into a pile, Lee watches as Andy collects the utensils and places them all into a cup before heading into the kitchen. Following behind, Lee cringes as he looks at the wooden table; several blood stains remaining on its surface.
"Jesus…" he croaks out, shuddering as he heads over to the sink. How they still have running water is completely beyond him. "Still can't imagine something like that happening to the guy, you know? Getting a shotgun blast to the chest… It's hard to believe that he's still even alive after that."
"Lee… I need to ask you somethin', man."
Glancing over as Andy wipes the plates with a towel, Lee nods as a means for him to go ahead. Sighing, the St. John boy opens one of the cupboards as he places some of the dishes back where he got them from.
"I didn't wanna be rude or nothin' and ask this when we was all eatin' dinner," he starts with a shrug, "but… how long were y'all planning on stickin' around for? Don't get me wrong, Lee – Mama, Danny and I have loved having you folks around… but there's only so much resources that we'd be willing to give away. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, ya know? And we've gotta look out for ourselves first."
"I understand," Lee confirms, seeing exactly where he'd be coming from. As nice as this place actually is… it can't be for the long haul. "That wouldn't be fair to you guys, after everything you've done for us. But… I'll have to talk about it with the rest of them, you know? We need to come up with a plan for what we're gonna do before we draw any real conclusions."
"Absolutely – do what you've gotta do. I don't mean to push you away or nothin', Lee…"
Chuckling, Lee shakes his head as he grabs another dish and rinses it off. There's really nothing for Andy to apologize for – it's their house, so they should be able to make the decisions.
I just hope Lilly, Kenny and Larry don't blow a gasket when they hear the news, Lee mentally sighs, knowing that the three of them will probably take this like re-opening an old wound – scathing and painful. Once you've had a taste of the good life, everything else seems crappy by comparison.
Suddenly, a shrill scream causes Lee to instantly widen his eyes and turn his head; dropping the plate carelessly as it shatters upon the floor.
"CLEMENTINE?!" Lee bellows, instantly rushing to the front of the house as Andy comes charging close behind. Panic courses through his veins as he sees what's going on – a walker busted its arm through one of the windows near the door and has Clementine by the wrist.
"Shit!" Lee swears as Clem tries her best to break away, not getting anywhere as the flesh eater brings her within striking distance. Lee grabs onto the wrist of the walker tightly and knocks the girl off of the being; twisting the dead man's arm until it snaps off completely and lands on the floor in a sickening fashion.
Stopping to catch their breath, Lee goes over to comfort the young girl in any way that he can, but she just hugs her knees to her chest and stares at the floor in a trance. Lee is reminded of when that happened at the pharmacy a while back, and how terrified Clem was of getting bitten and becoming one of those things. That must've been one scary situation for the child, but unfortunately that walker doesn't seem to be the last of them.
"Jesus, are y'all alright?!" Kenny hollers, coming down the stairs as Kat, Duck, Larry and the remaining St. Johns follow suit. "There's a couple dozen of those things outside! How the hell did they get through?!"
Glowering at his brother in a knowing fashion, Andy audibly groans in frustration as Danny looks to the floor uncomfortably. "Damn it all, Dan! I told you to replace the fuckin' belt in the generator! Now look at what you've done!"
"Hey, don't go blamin' all of this shit on me! There's no guarantee that those sons of bitches wouldn't have gotten here anyway!" Danny points out, revealing to the group that the fences might not exactly be foolproof as they once believed.
The fact that the safest place they'd found so far actually isn't as safe as they thought… well, that sure as hell unnerves the survivors to no end. If they can't find a safe haven here, then where can they?
With a bunch of the walkers banging on the door, mindlessly trying to break inside, Lee lifts Clementine up under her arms despite her trying to resist. Wanting to keep her safe, he ushers her to head up the stairs and wait in one of the bedrooms.
"I need you to keep Mark safe, alright?" he asks, opening the door as Mark's head bolts upwards. "Can you do that for me, sweet pea? We've all gotta pitch in now – that means you need to make sure he doesn't get into trouble."
Even though Lee can tell that she knows he's just making that story up, he smirks in relief as she nods her head. The last thing he needs is to have to worry about whether Clementine is gonna come out of this alive or not.
"FUCK! EVERYONE MOVE!" he hears Kenny yell downstairs, causing Lee to turn around and pull out his gun. The walker groans and noises have gotten a little bit louder, and the only thing separating the three of them from the dead ones is a closed door.
"Everyone keep quiet…" Lee whispers to Mark and Clem, with the former finally realizing what must be going on downstairs. Having his pistol out in front of him, Lee tiptoes towards the door and crouches down near the side of it; putting his ear to the wall.
Thump…thump…thump…
The fact that he doesn't hear any of his friends downstairs has got Lee nervous enough as it is, but hearing some of the walkers wandering around out in the hallway is just as frightening. He can literally hear his own heart since its pounding against his chest like a drum, and he releases a shaky breath as he continues to sit there.
The silence that follows afterwards causes him to halt his breathing entirely.
"…are they gone?" Clem asks nervously, to which Lee shrugs his shoulders. He's got no idea what's going on out there, but he's determined to find out for himself.
Quietly walking back over to Clementine, he puts a hand on his shoulder as he relays what his plan's gonna be.
"I need to go look and make sure it's safe out there," he explains, patting her lightly. "You need to stay here, alright? Block the door with some chairs, and don't let anything inside until you hear my voice, okay? I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Please be lucky…" she tells him as he heads to the front door; watching as he quietly grips the door handle.
Something tells the eight year old that things are about to go horribly wrong.
….
Slipping his head out through the doorway, Lee steps out into the hall before closing the door behind him; slightly grinning to himself when he hears the scraping of chairs on the other side. Clem knows what she's doing – there's no problem on that front.
But as he stealthily makes his way forwards, Lee gets the eerie feeling that he isn't alone in the house. He creeps towards the staircase and curses under his breath with how squeaky some of the stairs are, but thankfully no walkers have come charging after him… yet. Lee's still got his pistol handy if things get really messy.
He hates the fact that Mark and Clem are basically unprotected if something manages to break down their barrier, but what choice does he have? It's not as if he'd be willing to give an eight year old a gun for Christ's sake, and Mark's in no shape to protect the both of them. Besides, the people that he's actually grown kind of fond of over the past little while (most of them, anyways) could be in trouble out there. They could be fighting overwhelming odds, desperately trying to kill off the walkers that Kenny had seen earlier.
The blood stains dragging across the wooden floor don't give him much hope.
"Gragggghh…" a walker moans incoherently; just standing there in the kitchen and looking at nothing in particular. He's the culprit for the bloody trail leading from the front hallway, it seems, so Lee quickly but quietly grabs a kitchen knife from the counter and sneaks up behind the creature.
Slamming the walker into the counter roughly, Lee jams the blade into the back of its head; causing black ooze that used to be blood to squirt onto his hand.
"Ugh…" Lee grimaces, yanking the knife out as the he lets the walker drop dead to the floor. Disgusting… those things could terrify even the hardiest of wills, and Lee personally can't wait for the day that they're all finally eradicated and they can go back to their normal lives.
Well, as normal as Lee's could be now – he's pretty much lost everything from his old life.
Deciding to keep the knife just in case, he wipes the gunk off on the walker's jeans (yeah, go figure) before heading out through the back door. Their property indeed stretches on acres of land, and as he steps out into the night air…
"Oh my god…" he breathes out, seeing all of those walkers that Kenny must've been talking about earlier. It's like a fucking army of the dead coming to meet him on the battlefield, and Lee can't say that he's seen anything like it before.
Seeing no other options right now, he puts his knife carefully in his pocket before holding his pistol with two hands. Hopefully his target practice from earlier hasn't gone to waste.
It's kind of hard to see out here, so Lee typically uses two bullets to take out the walkers instead of one. He manages to kill at least four before having to reload, and the man starts to panic as they inch closer towards him. If he keeps this up, then not only will he be completely surrounded by a flood of walkers, but that'll put Clementine in danger.
No way in hell is he gonna let that happen.
"LEE! GET OVER HERE, DAMN IT!"
"Kenny?!" Lee yells out, wondering why he's out here shooting the walkers off like he was just doing. Rushing over towards the fisherman, Lee shoots another of those fuckers down before high-tailing it back. "What are you doing out here?!"
"I should be asking you the same thing!" he retorts, growling as the walkers get closer to them. "Shit! We need to get to the barn – everyone else is back in there. Wait a minute, where's – "
"Locked in a room in the house," Lee interrupts, knowing that Kenny wouldn't like that. "Don't start, man. I wasn't bringing Clem out in all of this, and Mark isn't fit to move."
"…Jesus, Lee…"
Managing to get to the barn, Lee hurriedly starts sliding the door open as he and Kenny widen their eyes at the approaching dead mob coming towards them.
"FUCK! INSIDE, NOW!" Kenny shouts, practically shoving Lee into the room as he slams the door shut behind him. Just in time, too, as literally one second later the walkers start clawing at the door. Kenny's holding it shut with everything he's got, but even he isn't strong enough to fend off an entire horde of dead people. "God… damn it…"
"Kenny, you've gotta let it go!" Lee tells him, instantly getting an angry look. "They won't stop, you know that! We've got our guns – let's just take 'em from here!"
"YOU DON'T HAVE A LITTLE BOY IN HERE, ASSHOLE!" Kenny snaps, pissed that he'd even suggest such a stupid idea.
Lee, having more than enough, puts a hand on Kenny's arm that's immediately swatted away. "YOU'RE FUCKING CRAZY, KENNY! YOUR STUBBORNNESS IS GONNA GET YOU KILLED!"
"IT'S WHAT'S KEEPING ME ALIVE!" he angrily spits, cursing Lee's name as he's finally pulled off the door. "Urghh… You fucking idiot! Now look what you've done!"
Crawling backwards, Kenny reaches for his pistol that's on the floor; ducking just in time as Lee shoots two of the walkers that were clambering inside. A couple other gunshots swish by from Andy and Danny, bringing their defense up to four people at least. Picking Kenny up, Lee rushes him back deeper into the stables… completely forgetting that Maybelle is still sitting in the corner.
"Oh fuck…" Lee cringes, listening as the frightened shrieks of the cow grow more intense as the walkers attack it relentlessly. The bovine puts up a good fight for a little while; actually managing to kick a few of the flesh-eating monsters onto their asses. But unfortunately, Maybelle is no match for the sheer numbers they have as her throat is slowly ripped out. There's a whole lot of meat on a cow, so they'll be going to town for a while, but obviously they're still dangerous.
As the walkers pull out the cow's intestines, Andy and Danny angrily fir off more rounds at their pursuers. The worst part of this is that Maybelle was actually pregnant at this time, too… but Lee doesn't want to think about that.
"Kenny, what's happening?!" Katjaa shouts from the meat locker; trying to keep her son safe as Ben and Brenda look onwards.
"Just… keep Duck safe, Kat! We're gonna be fine!" Kenny replies, unfortunately realizing that he's not gonna have enough ammunition for all of them. "Damn it… how many rounds have you got?!"
"Four," Lee replies solemnly.
"Three," Danny chimes in.
"Four," Andy finishes, shooting another walker in the face. "Make that three."
Grunting, Kenny tries to think of some possible way that they can drive these assholes away from this place. If it hadn't been for Lee, then they wouldn't have been in this fucking mess! Why can't he just use his head, seriously?! Now they're all trapped in here, with no hope of escaping and –
"Move it, assholes!' Larry yells, shoving Kenny and Lee out of the way as he comes out with… a wheelbarrow.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Kenny snaps, not in the mood for whatever stupid plan he's gonna come up with.
Glaring angrily at him, Larry simply grabs a bunch of salt licks and places them all inside the wheelbarrow. "We'll make a battering ram!" he explains, getting ready to charge as the rest of them widen their eyes. "You dumbasses need to keep these fuckers off of me, understand?! I know your skulls might be too thick to grasp that, but – "
"Just go, old man!" Kenny berates, getting ready to charge forward behind the crazy old fuck.
On the count of three, Larry (seeing that nobody here's gonna be capable of getting rid of these walkers) rushes forward and knocks a whole bunch of the dead ones over like bowling pins; scrunching them underneath the wheels with the combined weight of the salt licks. Lee kills one that gets a little too close for comfort while the brothers take out the ones feasting on their cow.
Seeing that one has gotten caught underneath his battering ram, Larry angrily picks up a salt lick, raises it high above his head and slams it down right on the walker's face; completely crushing the thing underneath the solid block.
Jesus… can you even imagine if that was a real person?! Yikes…
"Fucking… shitballs…" Larry heaves out, clearly not used to sprinting as he places his hands tiredly over his knees. He may have a lot of strength within him, but Larry Caul was definitely not built for running.
The guy's so preoccupied, unfortunately, that he doesn't notice a crawling walker moving over to grasp on his leg – by then it is far too late.
Taking a big bite, the walker rips a bunch of skin and flesh away from Larry's leg as he groans in pain; looking frightened as Lee rushes over to shoot the thing.
"Oh my god…" Lee breathes out, bending down to examine the damage. Everyone knows what this means – a bite wound is practically a death sentence, and underneath that glare Larry knows it as well. "Larry, I…"
"TO HELL WITH WHAT YOU THINK, EVERETT! I'M FUCKED! I'M FUCKING FUCKED!" he roars, startling the professor as he shakes his head in disbelief. As much as he hated the man, Lee didn't want this to happen to him…
Which is about the same time that he gets a very dangerous, very painful and very risky idea.
"We need to get him back to the house, now!" Lee shouts as the rest of the gang wanders back out of the barn. "Andy, grab a hatchet or something! Hurry!"
As Andy does what he's told, Lee lifts the big guy onto his shoulder as he starts to carry him back to the front door. Larry instantly goes to protest, but Lee tunes the man out. There's no other way that he can think of – maybe this way he'll be able to survive the infection.
They've never actually had a bite victim in the group before… but a person can live without a leg. Amputees do it all the time!
"Lee, you can't be serious…" Kenny argues, catching up to them as he forces Larry to wrap his other arm around his shoulders. "This… you know it's just gonna – "
"Save his life."
"You don't know that!"
"Well what other choice do we have, Kenny?! Tell me, because I'd really love to hear it!" Lee yells, kicking the front door open as they move the fridge onto the kitchen table. Andy, along with everyone else, come trailing in behind them. "Brenda, please tell me you've got some leftover morphine laying around somewhere…"
"We used the last of it on Mark," Brenda shakes her head sadly; grabbing a towel and beginning to wrap it tightly around Larry's leg. Katjaa hurriedly takes her son up the stairs to stay with Clem and Mark so that Duck doesn't have to witness this.
It's about to get bloody.
Grabbing the hatchet from Andy, Lee curse under his breath at the news. Of course there's no morphine – maybe it wouldn't have kicked in as quickly as they'd like, but it would make this a hell of a lot less painful than it's going to be. Of all the days that Carley and Lilly had to go to his parent's pharmacy…
Brushing those thoughts aside, Lee whispers a short apology to Larry as he gets set to cut yet another person's leg off.
"Quit being soft! Just fucking do it!" Larry snaps, even though on the inside he's extremely nervous. Who wouldn't be in this kind of situation? Getting your leg taken off isn't your average, everyday experience! "And… where's that little pipsqueak you've got with you?"
"She's upstairs, Larry," Lee explains, noticing how much calmer he's been over the last day or so. It probably has everything to do with that little girl – she's got some sort of mystical power to make everything seem better than it actually is. "Clementine's safe…"
"…you need to take better care of her," he finishes, not saying anything else on the matter as he gets prepared for the worst. "Now come on! What are you waiting for, Everett?! DO IT! FUCKING DO IT!"
Cringing, Lee raises the hatchet into the air and pulls it downwards straight onto Larry's leg; resulting in a sickening crack that causes the old man to jolt upwards. He's screaming, as he ought to be, but something about his face looks wrong. As Lee brings it down on top of his partly-severed leg once again, he manages to fully cut through as the hatchet gets stuck in the wooden table underneath; the leg falling to the floor with a disgusting splatter.
This house is completely trashed and gruesome-looking. There's blood from the walkers, blood from Larry and Mark, dead bodies littering the floor, and everyone's up in arms over how fucked up everything seems to be. The rancid smell of death litters the air, and it takes everything he's got for Lee not to pass out as he sees Larry sitting there; with a bloody, mangled stump where his leg used to be.
But the most disconcerting thing about this? Larry's not breathing.
"Oh shit," Lee mutters, lifting the guy's head up as he tries to resuscitate him. "Fuck… fuck, man, he's not breathing! We've gotta get him up!"
"Lee…" Kenny reprimands, but his voice goes unheard as Lee tries to push down on his chest.
It doesn't help that Lilly also wasn't here to give her father his heart medication today.
"Come on, man… Come on, man…" Lee repeats over and over, pressing down on his chest in order to somehow try and revive him. It was him that cut off the man's leg, so it's gotta be him that keeps him alive. Katjaa hasn't come down the stairs yet, and Brenda's gone upstairs to see how Mark's faring through all of this, so it rests to Lee alone to get this shit done.
Pressing hard again and again, Lee gets a short sigh of relief as he thinks that Larry takes a short breath…
BANG!
Everything stops as the bullet goes right through his brain; leaving a big hole in Larry's head as Kenny puts the gun back into his pocket.
"…you son of a bitch…"
"I had to, and you know it!" Kenny yells, shoving Lee to the side as the man tries to come after him. "He was dead the second you chopped off his leg! We both knew that this wouldn't work! I was doing what had to be done, like always! If we want to survive this shit, then we have to have the balls to do the hard thing! Or at least one of us has got to…"
"Fuck you, Kenny," Lee snaps, breaking off from his grip as his fist tightens in anger. "You talk a big game, but could you do the hard thing if it was Katjaa or Duck?!"
"It won't…" Kenny starts, but gets cut off as he sees some more walkers coming from the fields out back. "Shit! Do these fuckers ever quit?! Grr… Andy, Danny – come with me! Lee, stay here and… fuck, you know what? Do whatever you want! It's not as if you give a rat's ass anyways…"
Deciding not to aggravate the fisherman any further, Lee simply closes his eyes and breathes heavily out of his nose; leaning against the counter and listening as the three of them head out to the back. He can't believe how far they've fallen – he and Kenny from the beginning got along great. They helped each other out, had each other's backs and were there for each other when they needed each other.
But now? This will undoubtedly divide the two leading men, and this time it might not even be repairable. Lee could see a hint of distrust and doubt in Kenny's eyes; as if he's lost any respect that Kenny may have had for him. Lee would give anything for that not to be the case, as just earlier today, Kenny was actually giving the man some friendly advice.
That's not the worst part of this whole thing, though. No, the bigger question has to be this:
How the actual fuck are they going to explain this to Lilly?
Rubbing his hands through his short hair, Lee shakes his head as he gazes upon the corpse now sitting upon the table. Larry was a dick, through and through… but he cared, Lee could tell. It appears as though he never blabbed about that whole murderer secret to everyone else in the camp, which really surprises him considering their usual animosity towards each other.
But he wasn't exactly a bad guy, Lee can see that now. Kenny isn't either – he's just trying to do the right thing, but just makes a whole lot of rushed, non-thinking decisions a lot of the time.
He can only hope that Lilly will be able to forgive them – they owe her the truth, no matter how badly it's gonna hurt.
"AAAAGGGHHHH!" come a couple of screams from the hallway, as Lee sprints into action once again. Forgetting about Larry for the moment, he rushes in to find that Katjaa and Ben are both struggling to break away from (what else?) more walkers. Ben must've forgotten to close the door behind him, and Katjaa must've let her guard down as the walkers took their chance.
One walker has tackled Katjaa to the ground, and within a few seconds she'll become nothing more than another statistic.
Ben's getting caught in the corner; surrounded by two walkers as he desperately tries to hold them off. "Lee… please!" he begs, as Katjaa looks over to Lee with just as much pleading.
Realizing that he can't save them both, Lee has to make yet another gut-wrenching decision.
Who should he save? Katjaa or Ben? Please vote in the reviews! :D