The Walking Dead: only trying to do the right thing
Chapter 4: the way to Savannah
Alright, everyone, I bring you-drum roll please (drum roll) chapter 4! I hope you enjoy and thank you for the reviews so far. I hope you stick around because I will not be one of those author's who write two chapters and then stop.
Also, I have added up a voting pole to my page about The Walking Dead Game Season 2 prediction. Feel free to vote.
Enjoy the chapter.
The remaining survivors remand silent while the train they were riding on past multiple trees that all looked exactly the same. It would be a while until they reached Savannah, so to past the time, each of them were doing something.
Lee sat with his back against the boxcar wall with the Winchester Model 70 bolt action sniper beside him. Kenny was with Katjaa and Duck in the train cab when Duck was so enthusiastic about sitting in the drivers seat with his father. Carley and Clementine were talking little ways with each other on the other side of the boxcar, and as for Chuck, he sat by the boxcar door with his legs dangled out, playing a guitar to pass the time.
Lee did not have much to say really during this train ride. He would usually talk to Clementine for a while, but she was busy talking to Carley, and he did not want to disturb them both.
There was something on his mind that was going to be a huge problem: Clementine's parents. He remembered back to the day when they first met when he heard a message on the answering machine that Clementine's parents were there on vacation, and then he remembered hearing Clementine's mother speaking her final words before she was cut off.
How could Lee possibly tell Clementine that her parents were dead? If not, how would he avoid the subject if Clementine asked him if they were going to look for her parents while they were there?
Lee was soon dazed out from his thoughts when he saw Carley and Clementine walking over towards him before they both sat down beside him. He smiled, and decided to not think about Clementine's parents for now. "Hey, girls."
"Hey, Lee." Carley greeted, setting herself beside him on his left side. She smiled and continued on with the rest of the reason why she was here. "Clementine has something she would like to tell you."
"Oh." Lee looked towards Clementine, who was sitting on his right side, with a good yet nervous smile on her face. "What is, sweat pea?"
Clementine looked away from Lee for a couple of seconds, slightly shy to tell him what she wanted to tell him. She looked back at her guardian and without hesitation, she just came out with it. "My birthday was four days ago, Lee. I'm nine now."
"Really?" Lee inquired, wondering why Clementine did not tell him this due to the fact they had been together now for more than three months, and they were closer than anyone could imagine. Why would she not tell him this? "How come you didn't tell me, Clem? Not that I'm mad about it. Just curious."
"I didn't think it was a big deal." Clementine answered, rubbing her hair slightly with her right hand.
Lee could not help but smile at the young girl. He knew when kids normally had a birthday, they would be enthusiastic, but Clementine as not like other kids. She was smart for her age (as mentioned when she told Katjaa about first grade and how easy it was), and she was much more mature too.
Lee placed his hand onto Clementine's and held it carefully while he looked towards Carley, who gave him a wink in return. He looked down towards while he spoke. "Clem, of course it is a big deal! I know things are not normal anymore but we can still act like the world can be normal. Listen, I know it was a four days ago, but I wish you a happy birthday."
"Me, too." Carley joined in, smiling towards Lee when she saw how much of a father he could have been if he had children of his own. "Happy birthday, Clementine."
"Thanks." Clementine smiled, happy to have Lee as her guardian and friend she could have ever wanted.
Lee was about to say something further to his adoptive daughter before all of them suddenly heard shouting coming from the train cab. "OH, SHIT! HOLD ON EVERYBODY!"
It was Kenny who had shouted out a warning to the others. In a split second, Lee grabbed onto Clementine so she did not fall and hurt herself. The train came to a sudden stop, the brakes made a loud noise as it stopped to a complete stop.
Everyone exited the train to investigate what the problem was and why Kenny had brought the train to a sudden stop. They all walked towards the front of the train where they saw a bridge up a head, and saw a tanker truck up ahead with two tankers attached to the back, and one of them petroleum tankers hanging off the bridge that was blocking their way.
Kenny groaned in frustration as he observed the obstacle blocking their way. He could not believe yet another thing was stopping him from getting to Savannah. First the train, and now this tanker. "Fuck! Fuck! FUCK! FUUUUUUUCK!"
"Kenny, please no swearing in front of the kids." Katjaa requested, not wanting her son or Clementine to hear any swearing and end up inheriting themselves.
"Sorry, hon." Kenny apologized, sighing as Lee walked beside him, holding Clementine's hand while he carried his rifle in the other.
"Hmm. I dunno; I ain't got much experience with yall's fortitude but we could probably deal with that. We got a goddamn train." Chuck suggested, thinking that their train could easily blast through this tanker easily.
"That things not full of milk, Charles." Kenny reminded, knowing this tanker was full or gas or diesel, but either way, it could explode. "That's gas or diesel; something that's going to explode."
"Hmmm," Lee hummed, trying to think of what to do next, and how to get past this tanker. "I guess we could-"
"Yo, you keep screaming like that and you're gonna get your face chewed off." a voice called out from the top of the bridge.
The group followed the sound of whoever called out to them, and looked up to to the bridge where they saw two people; one of them was a short guy, wearing a brown hoodie, dark blue jeans, and he looked to be Persian-American. And the other one was a much taller woman, wearing a white and purple jacket, light blue jeans, and she looked to be African-American.
The man must have heard Kenny shouting which may be the reason why he warned them not too yell so much.
"Are you guys going to be trouble?" the woman asked, not seeming to be so trustworthy of the group she could see below. "Because we could have just kept walking."
"No, we're friendly." Lee called out to them in return, before he looked towards Carley and gave her a little signal not to pull out her pistol.
"That's what everybody says." the woman replied, again, still thinking they could not be trusted.
"We know." Lee agreed, taking his memory back to when they first saw the Save-Lot bandits, and when they met the family.
"Let's give these guys a break." the man said to what Lee assumed was his girlfriend. He seemed to be more trustworthy than his girlfriend, and wanted to give these new people a chance.
"We'll see." the woman replied.
"You guys got a problem with your train?" the man asked, until he noticed the tanker that was blocking it's way and retracted his question. "Never mind. Why don't one you come up to check it out?"
Lee was the one who volunteered to go up there and check out these new people and to see if they could help with the tanker. He gave Carley the job of keeping watch while he would go up up there to talk to them.
Before he left, Kenny gave Lee a friendly warning that if they were to try anything, they would not let them get far.
Lee handed his rifle over to Kenny before he walked towards the ladders that would take him to the top of the bridge where the man and woman were waiting. As he was climbing up the ladders and almost reached the top, he heard the two what sounded like arguing between them both.
"A group is what we need."
"They're what you think we need. We're doing fine."
"For now. What about when?"
"Stop it." the woman snapped when she saw one of the group members had finally got up there to meet them.
The two stopped the argument for now, and the man was the first one to introduce himself to him. He smiled as he turned towards him. "Hey dude, I'm Omid."
"Lee." Lee introduced himself too.
"Christa. What's the deal with the train." Christ asked, wanting to know why the survivors they had just met were riding a train rather than stay in one stop for a camp.
"We're driving it." Lee answered like it was obvious to why they were riding a train.
"OH, MAN." Omid said like he was excited that the fact they had a train while his girlfriend rolled her eyeballs around.
"Look, you want to help us out?" Lee asked, crossing his arms together, wanting to get this tanker out of the way before they noise that the train made would attract any unwanted attention from Walkers of bandits. "We could use some able bodies and...yeah, we really need some help."
"What's in it-" the woman was about to ask what's in it for them before she gazed over to the ladders where she saw someone else climbing up the ladders.
"Oh, shit!" Omid enthusiastically said, not believing what he saw climb up the ladders that gave him a little excitement and maybe a little hope too. "Goddamn, you guys have a kid!"
Lee arched a curious eyebrow of how Omid knew that before he turned around where he saw Clementine had climbed up there too. "What are you doing up here?"
"Do you know how long it's been since I've seen a kid?" Omid asked, still shocked about Lee's group had a kid and that he thought those who could not look after themselves were easily killed. Nevertheless, he was still hopeful. "What's your name?"
"Clementine." the young girl answered, not really seemed bothered that Omid got to swear.
"Oh, so he gets to swear?" Lee said, crossing his arms together yet again, remembering when ever he swore in front of Clementine, she would usually mention it as her parents taught her that swearing was bad.
"Well, this is great." Omid said as he turned back towards his girlfriend, who seemed to be shocked as well that their group had a child with them. "See, things are looking up."
"You're not her dad." Christa said, knowing well fact that Lee was not her dad just be telling by his skin color. "He down there?"
"It's that obvious?" Lee said, knowing how she could tell he was not Clementine's dad just by looking at him.
"To me." Christa replied, placing a hand upon her hip as she looked down towards Clementine.
"And no, he's not down there." Lee replied, placing both his hands out while he looked down to Clementine. "I found her the first day all this happened. Her parents are in Savannah. I'm looking after her until then."
"Hmm. And what about everyone down there?" Christ asked, looking down towards the remaining the group, who all seemed to act like nothing was evening happening.
Lee took a deep breath as he began to explain to Omid and Christa about who everyone was and their story. He gestured his hand towards each member so they knew who everyone was. "Kenny, Katjaa, and Duck are one family. They were coming back from Kenny's sister-in-law's place until they saw everything that happened and decided to take shelter at a farm."
"Duck?" Omid said, turning his head to the side, wondering what kind of parent would name their kid that.
"It's just a nickname. He is actually named Kenny Junior." Lee explained, before continuing the rest of his story. "Carley use to be a new reporter, and we found her near the beginning when he were looking for help. We just met Chuck though, but he seems like an all right guy."
"Alright." Christ said, looking back towards the tanker that was blocking their trains way. "That tanker is your real problem. We'll help you with it, but if we see anything we don't like, we're moving on the road. Alone."
"We would appreciate the help." Lee said smiling, happy that he managed to convince them to help him.
"You can't just blast through it, I guess." Omid said, knowing that tanker's could explode at any moment if they tried to blast their way through it.
"If you could get it down, the rest would probably be pretty easy." Christa suggested an idea that could help them move the tanker.
"We'll start there." Lee agreed, as they all decided it was time to go.
Carley, Kenny, Katjaa, Duck, and Chuck turned their attention towards the bridge when they saw Lee and Clementine had returned, along with the man and the woman they met not too long ago.
Lee walked towards the group first and introduced these two new people they just met. "Guys, this is Omid and Christa."
"Wow, you guys got two kids!" Omid said, noticing Duck who was standing next to his mother, yapping her ear off. "Damn!"
"Y'all never seen a kid before?" Kenny inquired, adjusting his baseball cap across his head while he looked towards the shorter man.
"Not since doomsday." Omid answered, rubbing the back of his head nervously with his right hand.
"Ya'll want some candy?" Chuck offered,
"You wanna get started on that talker?" Omid asked Lee, wanting to help Lee ASAP in a chance to ride on the train with him, or better yet, get to drive it himself.
"I'll get to know the girl for a minute, if you don't mind." Christa inquired, wanting to get to know Clementine a little more due to her being a kid and all, and that she was able to survivor for a quarter of a year since the dead risen.
"And why don't I show you how this thing works, in case something happens." Kenny offered to Omid just in case something WERE to go wrong, they had to be prepared.
Omid soon got excited and did not hesitate to decline his offer. "Seriously? ALRIGHT!"
"Come on then." Kenny said, climbing up the ladders towards the train cab with Omid following him behind. "Also, someone might wanna have a look inside that station back there, too."
Now that there plan was set, everyone decided to do different things to pass the time for a while until the tanker was gone and out the way. Kenny was busy showing Omid how the train works, Katjaa and Duck sat in the boxcar together, Carley stood on the boxcar roof with her Glock 17 in her hand, keeping watch for any walkers, and to top it off, Clementine was getting along with Christa.
Lee had to find a way to get this tanker out of the day before it was too late, but how? Trying to shoot the hitch that held the tanker's together would surely not work, and unhooking it would not work either due to the hook being stuck. The only option left was to cut through it with something.
For now, Lee walked back over to Clementine and Christa, who were both sitting together nearby. He leaned down to Clementine to her height and decided to join on what they were talking about. "You interrogating this woman for us?"
"Yep." Clementine nodded.
"She set off any alarm bells?" Lee asked, trying to make sure Christa was not a thief like the Save-Lot Bandits or cannibals like the .
"Not yet." Clementine skeptically replied.
"She's very thorough." Christa complemented on Clementine.
"That's what I like to here." Lee said smiling, before standing back up.
"That's a pretty useful radio for her to be holding onto, no?" Christa asked, noticing the walkie-talkie Clementine was holding onto in her hands.
"It's busted, but...It means something to her." Lee explained, making sure Christa understood why she held a walkie-talkie to her.
"Ah, I understand." Christa said, now knowing why Clementine held onto that radio because she likes to pretend to talk to her parents on it to make her feel better.
Lee then decided to ask where Christa and Omid were from. If they were going to be around for a while, it would be good to know. "Where you from?"
"San Francisco." Christ answered, placing both of her hands upon her knees. "Me and Omid were on a road trip together because he wanted to go on "The great American road trip". Who the hell is into Civil War history anyway? Other than old white guys?"
Lee smirked in response as he slowly raised his right hand up. He too liked Civil War his story due to him use to being a history teacher before all this began.
"Wonderful." Christa grinned. To her, it was bad enough Omid was a geek, and now he had someone else to talk about this history to. "You two will be thick as thieves."
And chapter 4 is completed. Omid and Christa have joined the group. And Lee now knows Clementine is nine-years-old. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and feel free to review. Also, like I mentioned above, I have a new voting poll on my profile. Be sure to vote.