Episode One: Choices We Make

Chapter Five: It Happened Fast

Clementine. After all this time, Lilly still hadn't forgotten the little girl's name. The girl made her think of Lee. He and Lilly had lived with each other for over three months. They had been through a lot together, and didn't always see eye-to-eye, but she remembered they were friends. Lilly sighed when she thought back to how her travels with Lee and the group had come to an end. She raised her head, and tried to force herself to look Clementine in the eye. But she couldn't, instead her eyes were on the camp's other settlers. That was when Lilly realised: Lee was nowhere to be found.

"If you're serious about your offer," Tom finally returned, "then I guess there's no harm in letting you stay, for now at least." Donna gave her husband a look of approval, but he must have thought she was being patronising, and he turned to return to his tent. Donald, Alice and Lilly had offered to share supplies like gas and ammunition with Tom and the group in return for a place on the camp, but they weren't sure whether it had been their generous offer that had convinced Tom, or if he had just finally grown tired of arguing. Judging by the way Tom slouched back to his tent, Lilly went for the latter.

The new camp dwellers, as well as Johnny and Alex, got settled back into camp once Tom returned to his tent. Lilly was the first one Christa became acquainted. She came to Christa, still looking around expecting a walker to appear out of thin air, whilst Clementine clutched to Omid beside her.

"I want to thank you. I know you did your best to convince your friend there to let us stay here - I appreciate that." Lilly shook Christa's hand, a notion that left Clementine confused, especially after the way Lilly had acted the last time they had been around each other. She hid further behind Omid, and continued to bite her lip until she tasted blood.

"He's not my friend, but you're welcome. Despite Tom's trust issues, the rest of us are always looking for other survivors, especially ones who can add something to the group like gas or ammunition." Christa warmed to Lilly quickly, until she noticed Clementine's concern.

"And food! I'm so hungry, I'll eat anything as long as it doesn't come in a tin!" Omid joked, but his attempts to break the ice were shot-lived when Clementine and Lilly caught each other's eyes. For a moment, Lilly looked sad, as though seeing Clementine had reminded her of something she'd tried to long forget – or someone.

"Look, Alice," Donald's eyes were fixated on a large vehicle parked in the corner of the camp, most likely to reinforce a weaker section of the fence protecting the camp. The fence surrounded the entire camp, minus the gap made for the front entrance that was around four meters wide, and the RV Donald was looking at was clearly keeping the camp's desperate safety measure strong, but he couldn't help but think it could do so much more. "It's an RV, just like the one we used to have. Remember how much good it did us before it broke down?" Donald had an idea but, just in case it was too good to be true, he didn't spell it out to his wife, who was almost without hope since they left Macon. "We have gas left, Alice."

"I know what you're trying to say, Donald. But what good is moving again? We might be able to make something good for ourselves here. And these are nice people, mostly anyway. We can't just abandon them, is what I'm trying to say." Alice hated to put a damper on her husband's hopes, but he hadn't given this camp a chance yet, and Alice was pretty sure they were safe here.

"Donald's right," Lilly said from behind both of them. She had obviously been listening for a good while. "Most of these people seem nice enough, but we have to do this on our own." Lilly thought back to the last time she travelled with a group, and how well that worked out for her – and her father. "We survived for a good few weeks out there on the road – just the three of us. Being in a group with other people – it just never works."

"Clementine, do you know that woman?" Christa asked Clementine softly after noticing her clam up so when Lilly first arrived at the camp.

Clementine was looking at her feet, searching for an answer. "No. I've never seen her before," she lied to Christa and Omid. All three of them were outside their tent. Omid was pacing up and down, killing time until Alex and Johnny were done preparing the food. He was worried, the two weren't exactly known for getting things right. Right now, Omid's mind wasn't in the right place. He was so fixated on worrying about whether the two boys would overcook or undercook their dinner and if what they were cooking was even safe to eat that he didn't notice that something had seriously scared Clementine.

"Then what's wrong?" Christa asked when she finally got sick of Omid's fidgeting. "Omid! Please, just sit down!"

Omid scurried back inside the tent, like a Fox caught in the headlights of a car. Christa sighed and then waited for an answer from Clementine.

"I just… I don't want things to go wrong again…" Clementine was avoiding making eye contact with Christa, worried she would ask her what she meant. Clementine was tired of telling her story to people, it just reminded her that, once upon a time, things weren't like the way they are now. And remembering the way things were, only made this nightmare all the more difficult to bear.

Night had come quickly. Lisa was already starting to fall asleep. Tom told Donna and his daughter that if they wanted to sleep, he would wake them when their dinner was ready. But Donna only stroked Lisa's hair as she slowly drifted away into sleep. Tom often envied Lisa's ability to still be able to sleep at night. He wondered if she could sleep so easily because she was only eight years old, and didn't truly understand what was going on out there, or if she had just gotten used to the idea of corpses walking around. Somehow, Tom doubted the latter, but he also knew that Lisa was old enough to understand the enormity and threat of the situation they had found themselves in. Sometimes, Tom feared that he had lost his daughter the day the outbreak started, and he had just been left with the shell of his little girl. When he stared into her once bright blue and glistening eyes that Tom used to be able to see his own reflection in, he was now met with nothing more than a bottomless pit of emptiness that showed no emotion, and no sign of life.

Tom left the tent when his daughter finally drifted to sleep. As he made his way to the RV to dig out some new blankets, he found a small group of camp dwellers huddled around the RV, almost whispering, suggesting they didn't want to be heard. "What is this?" he asked the three of them, he counted them as he tried to remember their names.

"Tom, could you get this RV up and running again?" Lilly asked, trying her best not to rub Tom the wrong way.

"With a full tank of gas I could probably get her back on the road, but I don't know why I'd want to…" Tom was confused by the question, but when he noticed Donald and Alice were carrying a tank of gas each, he realised where Lilly was going with this.

Omid was woken by shouts coming from across the camp. He knew who's they were right away, what confused him was the fact that he couldn't even remember falling asleep. He wondered if he had missed dinner, and rushed out of the tent. He noticed the majority of the camp had gathered outside Toms tent to find the source of the commotion, but no one was surprised to discover that Tom was arguing with someone once again. Omid looked around, and noticed Johnny and Alex stood between Coach and Christa. Donna was also there, so who was Tom shouting at?

"We're safe here! We spent days turning this hilltop into Fort Knox, and those things out there haven't given us any trouble since!" Tom declared, although not everyone watching the spat play out would entirely agree, and he knew it.

"But what happens when they do? What happens when someone gets bitten? We're much safer on the road, where we can keep moving! Staying hidden up here is not a long-term solution." Lilly explained. She was making her plan up as she went along, but she knew staying here wouldn't serve any of them well.

"And you think hitting the road is? What happens when we run out of gas? What then? Do you think everyone here wants to pile into an RV every night to sleep? We stay here, and they'll find us eventually…"

"And who exactly are 'they'?" Lilly asked.

"The Government are working on cleaning this mess up as we speak. They've probably cleared out half of Georgia by now! They'll be here soon…" Tom explained bluntly. His reasoning, however, had left the rest of the group silent.

Lilly was stunned. He still thinks rescue is coming. It had been a long time since Lilly had even considered the possibility of any kind of Government still existing. She even remembered the exact moment she had lost any hope of ever being rescued. This was a nightmare that none of them were going to soon wake up from, but Tom obviously hadn't been able to get that through his thick skull.

Lilly looked around her. Everyone was silent, avoiding eye contact with Lilly or Tom. It suddenly hit her. These people were afraid of Tom. She looked back at Tom, this time with hateful eyes. As she looked at him with daggers, Lilly finally said "No one is coming for us…"

This shook Tom to his core. He looked as though he was ready to backhand Lilly, she certainly wouldn't put it past him, but a loud gunshot stopped him in his tracks.

Clementine screamed. The intensity of the situation between Lilly and Tom had put her heart in her throat, and she thought the worst when she heard that gunshot. She was relieved, however, when she saw Coach wave at her, presenting a pistol in his right hand. She could see the dead walker from here. A hatchet had been buried in its skull, but apparently that hadn't stopped it from crossing the outskirts of Savannah.

"Coach!" Johnny screamed at the large silhouette by the gate to the camp. "What did I tell you? No guns!" Johnny snatched the gun from Coach, angry that he had forgotten what he told him so quickly. It took some effort, but Johnny eventually pulled the hatched from the walker's skull, although he ended up with blood sprayed across his shirt. He handed the hatchet to Coach, and left as quickly as he had appeared. He was on his way back to the campfire where he had left Alex to cook dinner, but when he saw the rest of the group huddled together by the RV, he could tell something was wrong. When he heard Donna's screams, he knew right away what was happening.

It had happened so fast. When Clementine looked back from the walker to Tom, he was on the floor, breathing heavily, his teeth clenched and his face the colour of a plum. He was sweating now, and his hand was in Donna's, his fingernails were digging into her hand so deep they were starting to draw blood. Clementine couldn't see past all of the people huddled around Tom, but she could see enough to know what was wrong with him. She turned to see Lilly, who had dropped her gun and left in a hurry, her head in her hands.

"He's having another heart attack," Johnny told so directly to Alex instead of beating around the bush. It didn't take long for him to recount the events that had transpired that night. He told Alex about the gunshots that had brought him there, and how Tom had then dropped to the floor, struggling to breath properly. "He's out of control. He looked like he was ready to kick Lilly and her group out of the camp." Johnny was still catching his breath from running from the camp entrance back to the campfire, where Alex was still preparing the Stag for cooking. Fat ran between Alex's fingers, making Johnny cringe as he reached the conclusion of his story. "It won't be long before he decides that we are the weak link in this group, and he decides to kick us out."

Alex shivered, but it wasn't the night's cold that had sent shivers down his spine, it was the words coming from his friend. He knew he and Johnny would not last long as members of the group, especially with food running so short, and much more capable survivors beginning to show up, who would have so much more to offer to the camp. But his friend's words were so final and definite, Alex wanted to put his head in his hands and cry, because he knew what it meant Johnny would have to do.